To Whom It May Concern

 

You know what I haven't done for a long time? Friday letters.  So what the heck, let's give it a try.

Dear Milo the Koodle,

I know you have only lived with us now for TEN YEARS, but do you think you might be able to learn to keep your claws in?  I realize that your mother was a feral cat, and so she probably kept her claws out, and nice and sharp, because she actually needed to do that. But seriously, there is no reason you have to always have your claws ready for attack. I cannot remember a single incident during your life with us that required such defenses.  Signed, Most of My Sweaters, All of My Arms, and Some of My Face

***

Dear Phillies,

Today is Opening Day for baseball. I hope you have a winning season for a change. But if at all possible, could you not have another season where you are seemingly on fire, winning most games, and then all of a sudden, seem to forget how to play baseball altogether and tank for the rest of the season. That's just rude.

Signed, Most Baseball Fans in Philadelphia

***

Dear Basketball-Playing Kid in Front of Our House,

Good for you for having something you'd rather do than beating others up and/or shooting them. And I'm glad the next-door neighbors have no problems with you using their hoop to shoot baskets now that their kids have all moved out. But I would like to request that you stop at 11:00 p.m. or sooner on nights that the weather is nice, because particularly on nights when I have to get up early for work the next day, it's hard to fall asleep with the sound of bouncing basketballs right outside.  

Having said that, if you feel your only other option is crime, bounce away!

Signed, Your Neighbor Who Is Really Trying To Be Nice About It

***

Dear the 53 Senators Who Voted to Confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson,

Thank you.

Signed, A Citizen

***

Dear the 47 Senators Who Voted Against Her Confirmation,

Words cannot express what I hope happens to you someday. Telling you to go to h**l would be too kind.

Signed, A Citizen

***

Dear Whiny People Who Actually Have Nothing Whine About,

STFU.

Signed, Myself and Mostly Everyone I Know

***

And that's it.  I hope you have a lovely weekend, full of what you want it to be.

Last Week's Tiny Needle Tuesday

Last Tuesday, I was so darn proud of myself, because I had progress on a cross-stitch project to share. So of course, I couldn't get the image to load. After six tries, I just gave up because I'd reached the stage of just hoping my computer would die. That's never good.

So, here I am, posting my progress for last week's Tiny Needle Tuesday, this week:

I finally finished all of the words on the project I'm stitching. I was determined to get them done before the first day of Spring, but I missed that. However, I did finish them the next weekend, so not bad. Now the project is tucked away until next fall, because I'm itching to work on something more spring-y.  I'm not sure yet exactly what I'll choose - there may end up being more than one, but since Winter is officially over, and the above project is not on any deadline, it will have a rest. 😊

I'm also hoping that since the remainder of the project is a bit more border, but mostly a sheep, that it will all go much more quickly.

Or ... not.  We'll see.

Remember When You Didn't Get Sick?

Ugh. I have a cold. A really awful, coughing, tired, blow-my-nose-all-the-time cold. Not Covid (at least according to the test), but a real cold.  The Tim had one last week, and I think I caught it from him, because actually the only place I regularly do not wear a mask is at home. I suspect he caught it from a co-worker, as he told me that a couple of weeks ago, one of his co-workers had a cold and he had to sit near them at lunchtime. Sigh.

I have the red nose and the box of tissues, but this woman looks a whole lot better than I do right now!

Anyway, I felt truly miserable starting on Friday, and then just awful over the weekend.  I still feel crummy today, but not any worse than before, so in theory perhaps that means things are moving towards feeling some better.  The Tim is feeling better, but still has a cough.  Both of us mega-masked up and went to work today, him because he is feeling better and missed most of last week, and me because I don't really see anyone else at work in any way that could be considered close (I mean, we might be on the same floor of the building, but most of the time I'm on my own for the entire day). If I had still felt really awful, I would have stayed home (and likely been lectured about it by the annoying supervisor), but since I only feel tired and have to blow my nose a lot at this point, I figured I might as well show up.

Over the weekend, I kept trying to figure out why I was suddenly sick, when I haven't been sick for a bit more than two years. And then it struck me - of course! For the past two and a bit more years, people have stayed home, stayed apart when they had to be in the same area, most of them (at least around me) wore masks, and as a result, I felt fine.

So although I think Covid has and still does suck big-time, there were advantages to certain aspects of life when everyone was being so careful.

Now please excuse me while I open a new box of tissues.

Here We Are

I've been confused all week about what both the day and the date are.  I'm not sure why, but now I realize that it is Wednesday, March 30 so I'm at least straightened out for today.  

Today I'm joining Kat and the others for Unraveled Wednesday, to show you what I'm knitting and reading. I feel like it's been a while since I contributed, and the stars aligned for me, so here you go.

This is the cardigan I started at the beginning of the year.  It still has a long way to go, but I have reached the stockinette part of the pattern, with no increases or decreases, so that's progress, because the beginning felt interminable.  I'm hoping to get a lot more knit on this, though I'm not sure if I'll even come close to finishing it before warm/hot weather hits.  But if not, I'll just pick it up again next fall.  

The color is not really even close to how it looks in the photo - it's more of a deep teal, but when you take a photo inside on a cloudy day, you're lucky if anything even shows up, you know?

My other current project is the very beginning of a pair of socks in yarn with Easter-y colors:

So far, one cuff on one sock.  Hey, it's a start ...

I just started this book on Monday:

I'm not that far into it yet, but so far it's really really interesting, and I think I'm going to enjoy it.  Though I have to admit that every time I pick it up to start reading, I hear Bert Parks singing the Miss America song in my head. 😊

And that's it for today.  Have a good one, and go over and wish Kym a Happy Birthday today!

The Week That Was

Hello again and Happy Spring!  I didn't really plan to be AWOL, so to speak, but I was. I have to tell you, last week was absolutely magnificent!  I enjoyed every single moment of my time off, and it was so nice to sleep well, not stress-eat all of the time, and be able to enjoy getting some exercise.  We all had a good week, as the kitties enjoyed having someone to serve their needs 24/7, and The Tim enjoyed the fact that I wasn't bitching and moaning about work every single freaking day. 😊 (Who can blame him??)

The only annoying thing that happened was that on Saturday, I decided to finally get my act together and respond to the comments on my last couple of posts.  Well, both my e-mail and Blogger worked together to make sure that nothing like that happened!  When I responded via e-mail, I got "Message undeliverable" for every single thing, and when I thought I would actually decide to respond on Blogger, each time I was told "Comment cannot be processed."  So rather than become a raving maniac before I had to go back to work (because I wanted to enjoy those last couple of days), I just decided not to get worked up over it.  To any who commented, thank you for your comments and good wishes, I promise I wasn't ignoring you!  

So let's do a quick recap of the birthdays.

Milo the Koodle enjoyed his birthday celebration very much.  Even though they don't get any cake to eat, Milo and Pip both enjoy the lit birthday candles and the singing.  Though they don't want to get too close to the candles thankfully!  But Milo loved the special attention, and was quite pleased with some catnip and some treats.  Then he made sure to get a TON of attention for the rest of that day and all weekend.  Thanks for the kind wishes you sent his way.  I read them to him and he purred quite loud.

My birthday was really lovely.  It was a beautiful day, and though I had to stick close to home for most of it, because the tree trimmers were there, I was a) home, b) completely left to my own devices, and c) knew I had the rest of the week if I wanted to go anywhere.  The guys from the tree trimming place were really nice and efficient, and by the time they were finished on Tuesday afternoon, not only were the trees trimmed and pruned and the ivy gone from the side of the house, the garden was cleaned up much better than any of my efforts, ever!  Now I just hope I can do a decent job of maintenance.

I got a couple of real-life, lovely cards from friends which was such a treat.  One of my online friends (who shall not be named here because I'm not sure if she would want to be named, also you might be jealous if she never sent you anything!) sent me a lovely card and note with this needleminder tucked into the package:

It's like the people who made this have met me, right?  It was so exciting to see a little treat in the card, and then when I pulled it out, it just cracked me up, it's so perfect! (The Tim: "Wow, she nailed that one.")

After I sent a link for this, The Tim bought this for the kitties to give to me:

When you undo the zipper, and open it up, there are dpns from size US0 to US6!  (Also - HOW is there already cat hair all over the case??? This was set up on a shelf away from them!  Sigh.)

These are Knitters' Pride Zing needles, and though I haven't used the dpns before, I love the circular ones.  I sent The Tim a link from Webs, but he told me he bought these from Amazon because they were a lot cheaper there.  Which is somewhat sad since we both try not to use Amazon if we don't have to, but then again, he said they were more than $10 less there, so I don't blame him.  

Anyway, we had a yummy dinner, and homemade marble cake with chocolate frosting, so it was all good.

That's it for now.  I'm finishing this at work since I arrived half an hour early, but I'd better sign off now before my time runs out.  Thanks again for all of the well-wishes, both for me and for the Koodle!  I'll fill you in on the rest of the week in a later post.  

Have the best week possible. 😀