Another day

Holly Doyne Posted on by

more cross stitch, another football game.

Wash, rinse, repeat!

In actuality, I managed to do some of the other basic life chores, like shower, make a bed, fold some laundry (note, I did not say it was put away). Dealing with excess clothes is on my list of things to do Sunday. 

Different rabbit hole than the one that I had planned. Like many of us my age, I have more clothes than I realistically need. They all fit, so I don’t have that excuse – you know the one that is all wrapped around a plan to ditch a few kilos and be young, fit and ….. you know. But I actually wear most of them. I also could get by with a lot fewer. Stuff just accumulates. I don’t see a reason to get rid of the business clothes, there is actually the rare occasion where “California Business” isn’t enough. That being defined as what ever you want to wear that is clean and covers a reasonable amount of skin. My mother’s generation (those that wore stockings and pumps to go into the city) would be appalled at the idea of jeans at the Opera or Symphony. 

Well, I am attending either of the above. First is no interest; second is no interest in sitting in a crowd of strangers. So there you go – you can, I am not.  I have actually become a bit too comfortable at home, except for cruising. I need the ocean on occasion.

Where was I? Oh, yes, the need to go through my closet, a basket of stuff, several drawers, and my closet shelf. And the business clothes. I can hang on to a couple of outfits, just in case. Maybe as insurance so that I won’t ever have to do that again? Anyway – most of the rest is serviceable and gets worn if it cycles to the top.  

This is too many decisions – I need to stitch.

This week’s Cryptid – The Death Worm (Mongolian Death Worm) can be meters long and spews acid. Not someone you want to invite home.

And more progress on the Spangler Book

 

and it will be an attempt to finish another section of “Alice” while watching the 49ers survive the cold of Wisconsin.

Glad that is over

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today was ever so much better than yesterday. Not only did I know who I was, but I had more than a vague idea of where I was as well. My fever broke somewhere around mid morning, so I staggered around the house generally failing at anything I attempted to do. But hey, at least I was trying – or so I told myself.

It became obvious after the fourth attempt that this was not the day on which to start a new cross-stitch project. Especially as complicated as one of the Zodiac Girls from Nora Corbett. It is not the there are 15 (or is it 16 colors) and beads – I would love to forget about the beads. It is a matter of – no matter how hard I try – this pattern is just not going to work in Pattern Keeper. 

Which means back to the 80’s, 90’s, 2000’s or whatever. Paper and pencil. Ugh. Or Goodreader or good notes (and we will not talk about developers who don’t update apps. So I am attempting to use PDF Expert so that I can blow the pattern up a lot and mark off stitches as I go. 

But I don’t know that you really care about all of that. What is important is that I feel like I am back in the land of the living. Meanwhile, George still has his cold and sounds like he is trying to hack up a lung. I really doubt COVID – he simply hasn’t been anywhere or done anything too stupid. I am contemplating him checking in with his docs on Monday if this is still going on. Also, because I have been around him and failed to get sick (and his cold started a couple of days before my booster) lends credence to the ordinary cold belief.

Frankly, most of us have managed the last almost two years without getting even one cold. When you aren’t around a ton of people, physically you stay a lot healthier. I certainly have. So here we are, one more thing conquered and waiting for the next challenge!

 

A lost day

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Everyone around me knows that Thursday happened. Could have fooled me. Yes, I know that there is a Thursday every week, so obviously the day happened. 

It leaves me wondering why, when I get repeatedly tested for antibodies, that I never show up with any. If I was brave, I would go get a Zoster immunization and figure out whether it was the mRNA type of vaccine which knocks me flat, or Moderna in particular. 

I attempted to stitch on a very simply band sampler. After ripping out the area three times because I couldn’t get it right, I gave up. So, back to sleep after finding the ASA, ibuprofen, and acetaminophen.

Ouch

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And I thought yesterday was a disorganized disaster – today trumped that in spades then ran the table (ok, mixing metaphors here, but you get the idea). And, as attempt to write this for the third time, the fun has simply not ended. Safest if I take my shivering self to bed.

Let me explain: today was supposed to be a pair of quick check-ups at the VA. And this is the Med Center on the far end of San Francisco – yes Virginia, you can practically toss a stone in the Pacific from the back picnic tables – the only way I would be driving any further would involve a trip to Travis AFB or the Sacramento VA. Those 21 miles seem to take forever and involve city streets, stoplights, stop signs, interstate freeways, the Bay Bridge and a circuitous route through SF itself.

Anyway. First up – I failed to set an alarm so woke up 20 minutes late. The only positive thing I can say about starting late was that Peet’s had just opened so there might be coffee – at least if there wasn’t a line of 10 people. At 0530 in the morning?  It took 20 minutes to get my coffee and I was starting to get even more panicky. Obviously, I am not someone who takes being late well at all.

So there I go, Down Vine street, left on MLK, right on University heading toward the Interstate. But wait, something feels wrong when I start driving. A slub-dup that has just started. I pull over and check. Left rear tire is now flat. ARGH! A block further on the left, there is a filling station with parking spaces. Carefully crawling the car across two lanes and turning left, I ease the car into a side space. The absolutely wonderful man working in the station says it is fine to park the car for a couple of hours if someone is going to be coming to get it as he agrees that driving on a flat tire is stupid.

I call and wake George up and leave him with the challenge of calling AAA and getting the tire changed. I would do it if I had time, it wasn’t dark, and I wasn’t freezing cold. All of them together? Nuts – that is why we pay for AAA right?

I call a Lyft as there is no way I can make it on public transport in the time I have left. 10 minutes later, my driver pulls up. She quietly, efficiently, and without the use of GPS takes me to the VA by the same route I would use, Through screening and up to the waiting room.

I have my dental appointment, followed by my next appointment. I am fine, but since on the last checkup I had zero antibodies against COVID in-spite of 2 immunizations and an augmentation dose, my doc thinks a booster is in order, Otherwise, back in 3 months. Over to the immunization clinic. They inform me I am 8 days too early for a dose. Back to my doc. He puts the requirement for the early dose in my record. Back to the immunization clinic where they do the whole information and consent thing before sticking me.

Finally back home, I find that George came to the gas station (in Dani’s car) saw to the tire change. Drove it to the tire place. Walked back (3 km) and drove home. This was after getting Dani to work and Alex out to the new place to oversee the upgrade on the back yard fence.

It is now almost 2200. It is cold upstairs, at least that is what I am blaming for my chills and tremors. Couldn’t possibly be the vaccine now could it? The day has sucked. If the past is any indication, I may well spend tomorrow feeling sorry for myself.

Just glad I didn’t sign up to work any clinics for the rest of the week.

(not spell checked or edited – sorry about that…….

Glasses gone

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It was a while back that I mentioned that I probably had more pairs of glasses than I needed.

As it turned out, not so.

There were the four older pairs, plus the current prescription. Then I bought one more pair to make sure that I could always find a pair. This morning I was reduced to pulling out a really old, old pair.

How do I know that they are old, considering that they all come from the military/VA glasses source? This pair, which looks identical to a new pair, has a slight difference. It is old enough that it is a bifocal. Now, I have had progressive lenses for at least 10 years and probably longer. This might just give you an idea of how long I hang on to glasses.

Admittedly, I can pretty much stumble around the house without glasses. After all, there are walls and railings to keep me pointed in approximately the right direction. But walking to the mailbox or driving a car – not in this lifetime. Or, there will not be any future in my life. 

I think, as it has been suggested by at least a couple of people, that I need to invest in what I grew up calling a “librarian’s chain.”  You know what I mean. That chain, usually full of fake rhinestones that had an elastic loop on each end. Take that end, place it over the ear piece of your pair of glasses and tighten. You now can just drop your glasses off your face and be assured that an hour later they will still be hanging around your neck. I have to get overt the idea of age and/or dorkiness.

After all, being able to find my glasses, especially when I am the only one home ranks high on the critical list. Right up there with my husband being able to locate his wallet and phone. The phone? Not so hard, just call it from the land line. The wallet? It is a lovely, very dark brown.

Wild Card Playoffs

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First comes the whine, then the observation. Just saying….

A long time ago in my world, US football ended around New Years. There were two leagues and the top team from each played each other for the obnoxiously named “Super Bowl.”  Which, on reflection probably was an OK name considering that most other countries have more sense than to play American style football preferring the more sensible soccer. I like soccer, it takes brains, speed, agility, and stamina. The players have to run the game, not the coach directing everything from the sidelines. You don’t have to weigh 120+kg to be on the field. I am pretty sure that butting the ball with your head isn’t all that wise, but compared to slamming into the ground on each and every play?

So here we are on a Sunday – there are now Wild Card games. I am sure someone reading this cares about how the teams were chosen to be Wild Cards. I certainly don’t. Apparently there are a total of four games, which means eight teams.  -Should I go look up how many total teams there are? It seems that just about everyone was in the playoffs. Nah, I really don’t care. Anyway – there are three games today and one tomorrow night. I saw part of two games. The only thing wild about the whole day was the first quarter of the last game where there were enough mistakes to make it interesting.

The observations: The Dallas Cowboys commit the most offenses of any team in the leagues and essentially lost today’s game on penalties. Few of the fans were wearing masks. Yes, they are outdoors, but hello? 65-72k fans packed in and screaming? I would like to see the comparison stats over the next three weeks, allowing for immunization rates, of the major cities whose teams played today.,

The obvious reason that the playoffs – which now don’t end for at least another week or two – extend into February is money. The league, the owners, want to make money. Unlike US Baseball which has a 160 game schedule, there are only 8-10 regular season games. This may explain both the ticket prices if you want to go in person (astronomical) and the desire to extend the season to generate revenue. And then there are all the advertising to be had and made a profit from.  The main advertisements were beer, cars, insurance, and phones/internet. Additionally, there were home sales app, drug company pitches, job hunting apps, and a rare public service announcement. Oh yes, and Pfizer has joined the splash.

Otherwise, I spent the day stitching, put in my hour of organizing, and served the raw edges of a bunch of yard goods destined for backings. I like my life boring!

a normal Saturday

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Our vaccination site was moved for today, on rather short notice as it turns out. My best guess is that the church where we normally hold the clinic had a funeral and didn’t want to mix the mourners with those coming in for immunizations, much less the chaos created by parking. I attempted to look on time, but gave it up for a bad cause.

What I did learn was that FEMA (Federal Emergency Management ….) started providing financial assistance for funeral expenses related to COVID-19 deaths starting in Jan 2020. (link here). I have never seen a reference to this in the press or on any news programs. But then FEMA, under the previous US Administration, seemed to be much more about not providing services than making it easy for anyone to access their claims services.

Back to East Oakland Youth Center which is where we were. It is located only a few blocks from our regular site. Parking was insane (just saying). Since this was a new location, we had the challenge of a completely new set-up which started out with unloading the vans and ended, I am sure, at the end of the day with complete tear-down.

Because we are still seeing a lot of Omicron in our area, masking and distancing were strictly enforced. Lots of Pfizer and Moderna today – and not that many kids. Again, I had a couple of people who wanted Janssen so that they would be work eligible in 2 weeks. Also, a lot of those who originally received J&J are in for boosters. We are using Moderna because we have more of it.

By 1330, the line had dwindled to just about no one, so I got an early release (and skipped the teardown).

Spent the rest of the day in a little bit of clean up, a lot of stitching, and a Zoom call with a stitching group based in Australia.

ORTs

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Stands for Old Raggedy Thread(s). It is what cross-stitchers call the thread ends snipped off the ends of threads. Mostly when they are too short to be used. There are those who drop them in a small container (of which you can buy various fancy versions on Etsy) or drop them in a cup or a wastebasket. At the end of the year, or so the story goes, you will have an idea of all the stitching you did.

I thought about it for a while, when I started stitching again and decided it was a cross-stitch community/Facebook/Instagram/Flosstube thing. It is not like weaving where the thrums, those end left at the beginning and end of a warp which can’t be woven, might actually be long and bulky enough to stuff pillows or ornaments. In the case of stitching, we are talking small, thin and almost weightless even when smashed into a ball.

All of this led me, while tossing mine in a wastebasket, to think about the origin of the practice. Was it like the story many of us heard during med school rotations about the surgeon  on his first job, at a small town hospital. Being handed a suture for closure, he quickly and efficiently made the stitch and tied it off, Middle of the suture at that. The OR nurse looked at him. Quietly reloaded the needle holder with the remaining suture and handed it back. By the fourth time, he was attempting to close the wound with just a tiny bit of suture, almost too small even for an instrument tie. He turned around and asked “Why are you doing this?” The answer – don’t be wasteful. We are careful here and the patient pays for each and every suture pack opened.

Given when I graduated and started my internship – 1975-  this story probably has its origin in   frugalness and responsibility learned during the depression. Of the Waste not, Want not variety, My mother, as well as her mother were this kind of responsible when I was growing up. My grandmother first worked as a Public Health Nurse in southern, rural Minnesota and then as a bookkeeper for her brother-in-law. My mother grew up with homemade clothes, hand-me-downs and day old bakery bread. My father, on the other hand, grew up in the same era as a child of privilege and never was responsible. Not so, his sister, my aunt, who was one of the most lovely, hardworking, and generous women I have ever met.

Where am I going with all of this? I was evaluating my tendency not to waste thread. To stitch to the end of each length even if it was a bit ragged. It doesn’t make sense, I can afford more floss. DMC here in the US varies from $0.40-0.79/skein. I have a significant supply. Nor is it because I just don’t want to rethread the needle. I am doing that constantly on full-coverage pieces.  It might be because, if I run out of a color I am going to have to dig out more? No, actually, I think it stems from a generational knowledge that things may not always be bountiful and that being conservative with the use of one’s things is smart.

In defiance, I stopped off a moderately ok bit about 5 cm long and rethreaded my needle.

Empty Project Bags

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I could sew them, it is simply not that hard a task. But on the list of things that I want to do, it falls above cleaning and way below stitching and reading. So, I it seems I have been collecting them over the last couple of years.

In reality, I had absolutely no idea how many I had. Admittedly, I was haunting the Etsy shop of the 801 Stitcher, CrabShackStitchery, and maybe one or two others – (as well as getting a monthly set from Garon Stitchery (none of those names mean anything to you, but that is fine – you get the idea).

This morning I decided that it was time that I sorted out a few patterns. The decision wasn’t easy – there are a couple of bins that are a total mess. What I don’t want to do is buy the same pattern twice and I am now past the point where I really want paper patterns unless there is absolutely no choice. Keeping hardcopy patterns in project bags might have made sense at one time but I can’t see them….

where, once I start pulling them out….

it starts to look overwhelming. 

After sorting by designer, except for the cats and quakers, and Halloween –

I was able to tuck those see through zipper bags (sourced from amazon, not real people) I was able to uncover the floor again. 

And I found this –

which says it all

It keeps getting out of control

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Remember when I said that I had spent several hours trying to get the craft room organized? Two days and it seems that everything has exploded once again.

But I have a plan. It might just. be a cunning plan.

It starts like this – with a lot of moving pieces/parts- or works like a Tetris puzzle depending on your opinion. First, Dani & Alex will be moving to their own place sometime in the next month. This means they will also take their few remaining things out of the garage which have been there since they moved out from Chicago sometime a lifetime ago. Next, Noah will relocate downstairs which means that his furniture, which is also living in the garage, will go into the downstair apartment. That should clear out almost one bay. Then I can get at the back boxes which have been blocked almost since they were shipped from Germany in 2014. 

 Yes, it was that long ago. I know that there are still some boxes back there that belong to Miriam and also some that are Shana’s. What is likely is that neither one of them wants anything they have done without for close to 10 years, but I am not going to make that determination. Then there is the small matter of all the little kids stuff that has come along and accumulated. I need to resort and properly pack many of the things. They aren’t sorted by age/size. And then there are the Legos – the first of which Lev should be ready for within the next year. Eight months is too young for those blocks but I see the time coming.

From there, I can tackle the back shelved room. Right now, I think that the Pandemic might just be over before I finish…

 

and further challenges

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I think I am just about done rescheduling the trip Dani and I had planned.

We were all set to just move it to “same time next year” but the fine print on the airline tickets turned out to be the long pole. Yes they are flexible – meaning that they can be rebooked – once. And the rebooking has to be at least 24 hours prior to our original departure. Ok – that is next week, I can handle that. Next tho – the window for reuse t is not 12 months from planned flight – it is 12 months from purchase.

And no one in their right minds pays a premium for cruising in December without a very good reason. Not to mention the challenge of getting time off work. Or sacrificing the extra pay that goes along with pulling shifts on 25 Dec.

In stead, I dropped a note to my lovely travel agent, which I hope she finds first thing in the morning and looks at the new requested dates prior to dealign with NCL.  Since she is on Central time, this may work.

Meanwhile, I am spending about an hour each day working on organizing the craft room which leaves me stitching as a reward. 

Today was. a day for bright colors –

This is the first room in this year’s Folk Art House by Ship’s Manor. I will have to get a daylight picture as it is bright. The fabric is 16 ct and the floss is a combination of Ship’s Manor and DMC. I am going to be doing the frame as I go since the room segment is a reasonable number (~1200) but the frame is not (almost 8k)

And then there is the Spangler full coverage.

which is starting to look more like something and less like random stitches on gridded fabric.

And, if I get sunshine tomorrow, I will update the Flamingo gallery.

Braving Costco

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Most of the time, I do not need the large, economy size that will expire long before the contents have been used/consumed/whatever. Usually my local Safeway is more than adequate for everyday. But there are those times…

Example – where else can I find large. storage containers, coconut bars, laundry detergent, and two-pound bags of coffee at one stop? If my memory serves me correctly, since I try to forget the journey as soon as it happens there also might have been beef jerky and granola in the cart. No clothing items were touched, mauled, or purchased. Neither were there any pet items or dairy. Wait! I forgot. There was that large package of string cheese?

Anyway, I was more than glad to get home, away from the crowds (all social distancing pretty much and masks are ubiquitous) and back to my nest. I added another 1100+ stitches to various projects and headed to bed at a more than reasonable time.

How many of what??

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I am sitting at my desk, ½ of which I can actually find and looking at this lovely felt type bin that I picked up at CostCo a while back. It contains a neat row of project bags. Each one of those bags has within a stitching project. Each project has at minimum, pattern (or floss key), fabric, thread, and a needle. Some in addition might contain a seam ripper if there have been more than a few errors. Or a pair of scissors because I dropped them in, or who knows what else.

What I am finding disturbing is the number of project bags. Five contain stitch-a-longs from last year. Of those – two actually completed last year and then other three have portions still to be released. There is one bag containing a SAL from 2020 which I finished about ½ in 2020 and then ignored completely last year. There are four bags with singleton projects (two of which really don’t even count as started).

I then need to add in the LongDog Sampler and the Spangler full coverage piece.

Oh, and then there is the bin downstairs and one project all but the frame finished on scroll rods…

That isn’t all that many, right? At 1000 stitches distributed a day – why I can finish everything started and everything planned right around my 200th birthday….

Gecancelled

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One of those German/English smash togethers than drive my husband absolutely up the wall. Another one is “downgeloaded” which I find easier than the proper term for “downloading.”

But anyway – NCL has cancelled the cruise that Dani and I were going to take starting 22 January. This, by the way, is a rebook from April 2020 that we had planned on the NCL Jewel from Hawaii to Vancouver. Since we can’t manage something like that this time, it was going to be around 4 of the Hawaiian Islands. So now I have to deal with 1) rebooking 2) airfares & 3) hotel. At least this time I didn’t prepay the hotel and have flexible airfares.

I just really don’t want to deal right now…

Otherwise, it was another day in the needle trenches. The way my vaccine support person & I figure it – our station took care of about 1/3 of the total. Not too shabby for five total stations. Not being completely foolish – except for one, we avoided kids today. Adults are much quicker… They mostly don’t fight, cry, hit, or scream. 

And yes, Bill – there are lawn flamingos..

The wreckage of my desk

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I thought I had found it, my desk. But it was a lie. There are still piles of stray things that haven’t yet found a home made worse by coming home late last night from San Lorenzo High School (and another stint as a vaccinator). It wasn’t one I had signed up for. Rather, I was thinking that it would be smarter to limit the distance I had to drive, to not drive at night (insane drivers on the freeway seem to multiply after dark). and otherwise work in congenial surroundings.

But then I received a phone call about 2000 on Wednesday evening. I know the co-ordinator. He explained that they really needed to add a station and besides, two of the planned stations were going to be staffed by new people. Ok, I can do this. 

Shall we just say that the evening was accomplished with minimal stress overall? Which put me in recovery mode today. I didn’t feel like cleaning. I just settled for being frustrated. (and I am not willing to even guesstimate how many items are nesting on the desk. By category, I am thinking mid-double digits…)

But I managed to get Noah to Richmond so that he could get his booster, I planted three new solar lawn flamingos and embroidered (machine here) four name badges to take along on Saturday when the one clinic I had been planning on working this week will take place. 

It is late, I have to leave early, and am obviously not too terribly coherent!

One year later

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I am hoping, without actual hope, that 6 January doesn’t become another negative turning point in US history like 11 September.

What I can say is that there are still those who don’t believe we had a fair election in fall of 2020. There are those who like keeping the electoral college since it gives more weight to smaller states with fewer citizens. That there are those who just don’t like the idea that the face of the US is changing. 

And really, the land that is now US/Canada didn’t start out white. Both gained huge amounts of population from immigration. That immigration wave from Europe has long since passed (and at least in the US, Eastern Europe was also considered lesser – so that not all whites are considered equal either). Later waves of immigration come from those countries and areas of the world where the pain of moving and resettling brings more chance of a better life, economic growth, or personal safety than staying home.

Think about it – why would anyone emigrate from Scandinavia or Luxembourg? What would an individual gain? Less of a social support network? Equally high expenses and perhaps lesser pay? No guarantee of health care? Now – what if you are from Central America, what do you gain? The chance to maybe get an education, feed your family, sleep at night with less fear of guerrilla fighters coming in the middle of the night.

I may not be popular with the following: I don’t care how your ancestors arrived in the US, it is what you do with your own life. Yes, being female puts you at a disadvantage, or being “not white” puts you at a disadvantage. But, as one of the nurses with whom I work regularly said – I came here from Africa at the age of 23 unable to read or write. I worked hard, I went to night school, I learned, I went after grants, I now have a good job. Not every one is going to succeed, be they white, purple, or green. But we can all do our part to be welcoming and to give everyone a chance

Those improvements

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When I went to start this note – I found “another improvement” in my software. Well, actually in the software on my iPad. The great idea? A Split keyboard. Now, perhaps this innovation was greeted with cries of enthusiasm by some mobile device users. I did mention I was on my iPad, didn’t I. Hello? I don’t type with my thumbs, I actually type the way I was taught way back in typing class. Back in the 1960s on a typewriter which would put it long before any of the bright bulbs who came up with this idea were born.

In fact, for a long time there was a syndrome called “Blackberry Thumb” which was caused by gripping a Blackberry (the original smart communication device, preceding the touch screen smart phone by years and years) and using thumbs to press those tiny keys. I skipped the Blackberries, the cost and inconvenience was too great and most of the people with whom I worked didn’t have them anyway.  The  US Army certainly wasn’t going to shell out the money needed for them. (If you want the history which started in the late 1990s and more information about the Canadian parent company – go here on Wikipedia)

Meanwhile, it is late, I am irritated and finally figure out that it would be wise just to check the settings in my iPad. Sure enough, I can kill off the split keyboard. Done.

*If the above software improvement didn’t happen to you, then you aren’t using iOS.

 

But then I started thinking about winter of 1972 and driving with some friends while on school break out to Washington DC. It was cold and getting really snowy by the time we hit the Pennsylvania Turnpike. There were signs which said “Another Pennsylvania Turnpike improvement for your safety and convenience.

The punchline? The next set of signs said “No guard rails for the next 32 miles…..”

 

Masks work

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We have had a bit of insanity behind the scenes over the weekend.  Dani received a call from work on Saturday informing her that a work colleague had just reported a + COVID test. Further, this was someone with whom she had worked closely with all day Tues & Wed.

Note – this was Saturday. New Year’s Day. She and Alex had been up for dinner on Friday evening (so count that as four additional people at the table). Plus, she had spent Thursday and part of Friday a bit north of here at a dog show.

So there we go – quarantine time. And scramble to find testing. Work told her she is on “Covid Leave” till she has test results (this is good – she gets paid). There is no testing available on Sunday. In fact, hours spent attempting to book a test have the earliest opportunity being Thursday (this is 8 days later… on a variant that is likely 2-5 days incubation. Even if she caught it, testing + 8 days later would be a stretch.). Shana found her a walk-in location for Monday. Hours in line (seriously, more than 3 hours) before it was her turn.

Results today came back negative and she will be back at work tomorrow.

I can only truly believe that careful mask wearing, good hand hygiene and not sharing a lunch table paid off in both her safety. And prevented the risk to the rest of the family.

Otherwise, I did no cleaning or laundry today, but I did finish the last two sections of that Fairy Tale piece + finished up the Frame. Completed the last two houses in the Seasonal Skies Sal, leaving only ~85% of the frame to stitch. Worked a bit on the full coverage piece. And just because that wasn’t enough confusion, I have stitched  a whole lot of black in the frame for this year’s ShipsManor SAL. Total of 1283 stitches for the day.

I think I need to sleep…

Maybe just roll the dice?

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Not sure whether I have too many projects, or not enough. It could be too many since the total number exceeds the number of sides on an ordinary dice (yes, I know, singular vs plural, but this sounds better to my ear) but is fewer than the number on your D&D 20 sided die. I suppose I could make a list, and then roll?

This is in contrast to many others who are organizers, planners, schedulers. I mean yes, I stitch things that come out a segment at a time, and I know when the new parts will drop (into my email thank you very much). But I don’t plan what I am stitching each and every day. I don’t have a rotation of projects that I go down. I don’t really have, nor do I want, strict goals. The best I can do is attempt to keep all the materials for a particular project in a dedicated bag.

The bin of left over SALs from last year.

The bin with most, but not all of those underway for this year.

All of which leads me to

½ the Red Queen (Alice through the Looking Glass, Owlforest on probably 16 count off white bought in a tube)

and this year’s new full-coverage start. It will be another dragonling on a book.

Small decisions

Holly Doyne Posted on by  

It is probably safest if I limit myself to small choices – pick up this, or put away that. Go down the left side of the chart, or perhaps the right. Oh, wait, there is a center section!

You get the idea. Large decisions are not to be made lightly, for they can’t be changed. Small decisions? Well I have a seam ripper and know how to use it! Of course, I am making the distinction between organization and decisions. Being organized would eliminate many of the small decisions since I would have all the materials (els?) ready to hand. I would have a plan. 

First would come the over-arching plan which would include setting goals for sewing, quilting, knitting, cross-stitch, organizing the craft room, the garage, and our bedroom. Now I am exhausted just looking at the list and need to refill my coffee mug.  Or take a nap. Or read a book. 

Since all of that wound up being too challenging, and I don’t appreciate seeing thousands of unmasked American football fans packed together in stadiums I retreated back upstairs to continue to hunt down floss and place stitches. Or rip out stitches as the case may be while watching a number of the recorded sessions that I missed from a Nov conference. 

Decisions – I am thinking about making a list and finding that 20 sided die….