Feeling Pleased So That's Never a Good Sign

Yes, I am feeling pleased with myself, which always ends with my getting my butt kicked by karma, the universe, Mother Nature, whoever is available at the time.  But for now I'll take it.

The thing that pleases me most right now is that I was paying bills earlier, and was actually able to have a tiny bit left to make a [tiny] contribution to the local food bank, that is struggling with extra people being out of work.  Yes, it was a good feeling, but the best part was knowing that it was made possible by the Orange One and Mnuchin, and that neither would likely find it a good use of the funds.  😋

I'm also pleased to join Kat and everyone for Unraveled Wednesday, which is always fun! I'm moving along pretty well on my knitting projects, though I am saving them to share another day.  But I haven't had to rip out anything for a while, in the case of one of them in particular, that's a good thing - I ripped out so many times when I was starting it, I nearly gave up.  But I've won that round, at least.

Reading-wise, last weekend I finished this book, which was such a fun read!

It's the first book in the Lord Peter Wimsey series, and I've never read any of them, though I've known about them forever it seems. This is the book that brought back my reading mojo.  I enjoyed this so much, I told The Tim that it was my turn for a read-aloud book, and we started it yesterday.

I just started this book a couple of days ago.

Right now, I'm not sure if I'll continue.  I love the references and descriptions of the neighborhoods in D.C., including the one where we used to live, and the story could be interesting, but right now, it seems like it might be too predictable even for me.  But I'm giving it another chapter or two, since I haven't gotten that far yet.

I hope you are getting along with your making and your reading.  Right now, it's more important than ever!

Lately Around Here

Hello all!  Its starting to get very gloomy here, and is supposed to start pouring rain (what a surprise), so I played it smart for once and have already taken Hamlet out for his morning walk, where he found someone who would pet him, so his day started out well ... and The Tim just returned from a trip to the grocery store, so we are set for a while.  Now we can just stay inside for the time being.

Our weekend was fine, if somewhat uninteresting.  The highlight was Saturday evening, when we did a Zoom happy hour with my niece Amanda and her husband Patrick.  Even their cat Clancy joined in!  We had so much fun, catching up, laughing, and just generally being silly.  It felt good.  Also, I don't know if any of you watch the TV show "Ozark," but I freaked out Pat with my impersonations of two of the characters (Ruth Langmore and Darlene, for those familiar with the series).  The two of them are doing well, and we traded suggestions for things to watch on TV while we're all home, so it was beneficial as well as just plain fun.

Also on Saturday morning, The Tim cut my hair for me!  I had told him that if he was willing to try, I would appreciate it - and that if it looked awful, no problem, since I'm not going anywhere in public anytime soon.  He was bothered because we didn't have hair trimming tools, but took out his beard trimmer and used that.  It was a huge success!  I told him that he'd better be careful, or he'd have a permanent job.  When we were talking to Amanda and Pat, they were complimenting him.  I said I assumed the back looked fine, but also wasn't too worried, since I don't see the back of my head, and then he said, "I figured that, so I just carved in the message 'F*** you.'"  We all got a good laugh out of that!

Towards the end of last week, I managed a HO:

This is the first Easter Egg Scrappy Shortie Sock, and I'm really happy with the way it turned out!  I've got the second sock going, and am ready to pick up for the gusset and then knit the foot, so it's well on its way.  I was seeing lots of scrappy sock projects on Instagram and on podcasts, and they looked so nice, I decided to give them a try.  This is just a plain vanilla sock pattern, and I chose some scraps and minis that I figured would have enough for a pair, and got started.  It's fun, because it's one of those "just let me do one more color" projects. 😊

(See that smiley face?  I've been using Blogger forever, and just realized they had emojis.  Sigh.)

I've decided that Friday will probably be the day that I post the answers to the questions you asked me here.  So for anyone who still wants to ask me anything, there's still time!  Just remember the questions have to be posted as comments on that post.

That's about it for today.  We are still fortunate, in that we and all of our loved ones are still well and able to stay safe; I hope that is the case for you too. 

A Sunday in April

"It takes great courage

to see the world

in all its tainted glory

and still to love it."

 -- Oscar Wilde

Let's Do This Again

I did this once before (here's the questions along with the answers), and had fun answering the questions, so I thought, let's do this again!  Face it, there's not a lot else going on right now, so maybe we can have some fun with it. 

Just as a reminder, the questions can be  anything at all - crafty, personal, silly, serious ... 

Leave your question in the comments of this post, and rather than responding individually (as I try to do when I have your e-mail address), I'll collect the questions and answer them in a post next week on a day to be determined.  Maybe Monday, maybe Friday, maybe not - who knows?

Also, as a disclaimer, I reserve the right to *not* answer questions that are just plain rude (though I can't imagine that any of you would ask those), or that just seem creepy (not that I expect any like that, I'm just saying those would be non-starters).  

So ask away, and I'll do the best I can to respond.

In the meantime, have a good weekend.  Hopefully you'll be able to spend some time doing something that you enjoy, even if you can't really go out running around.  :-)

Sometimes You Gotta Do Some Digging

... but if you dig long and deep enough, you can find some good things, even during this time when you might be thinking otherwise.

Pip takes a nap

So I decided to share Three Good Things for this week's Three on Thursday.

Thing #1:  As I mentioned earlier this week, we had a virtual staff meeting on Tuesday, where we were going to learn more about how things are going to be in the short term, moving forward.  We learned that except for administration and scientific staff, everyone else will be getting a 25% reduction in salary going forward.  As of right now, no one is laid off or let go.  So although I am not pleased to be getting a salary reduction - it happened before right before I started working where I am now, and was never "made up," so to speak - I am glad that for the moment I will still be getting a paycheck at all.  (I'm also not surprised at who is not getting a salary reduction, once the CEO started talking at all, I felt like we all knew that would be the case, as those people have contracts.) 

Also - I'm counting two things as one, since they are related - The Tim qualified for unemployment benefits, and was notified this morning that they will do a direct deposit in the next couple of days.  Even before any of this started, we were operating on fumes, so at least we won't have to use up all of our savings right off the bat.  That was for sure good news!

Thing #2:  I am enjoying being able to listen to/watch the podcasts that I enjoy, and a lot of them are more regularly available now since a lot of people doing them are also at home with the time to record.  A lot of the time, I kinda pick and choose since I don't have the luxury of the extra time to pay attention to them, but currently I'm liking the chance to not have to be as picky.

Thing #3:  My reading mojo is definitely back!  For the past few weeks, I've been in the mood to read, but had a hard time settling on what I wanted to read, and therefore just stopped for a while.  It was really bugging me, so I decided to try reading some things that were not intended to be deep, meaningful, or edifying, but rather were meant to be interesting and entertaining.  That seems to have been the perfect solution.  So now I'm not just reading, but enjoying what I'm reading and actually finishing the book.  Win-win!

Today I could technically add Thing #4, as right now The Tim is downstairs putting homemade chocolate chip cookies in the oven to bake.  Those are good, no matter what else is or is not happening, right???