TNT: Unpacked

 

I said I would get that sentiment finished in March and I came pretty close. I have the name of the author still to do but it should be done in the next day or so. 

It didn't get it finished because I didn't take it with me. I took this instead because it's smaller. I've been meaning to get started on the dreaded border and knew I would get bored enough over the long weekend to want to pick it up. As you can see, I didn't want to pick it up very much. 

I also took my little camel project along but only got a few more rows on it finished. It was a rather gloomy few days so that dark blue that I was working on was hard to see.

I couldn't take my big quilting project but I did take the hexie runner. I think this got the most attention. For some reason I was in the mood for a bit of finger stabbing. 

Today's main event will be to get all the projects that I left back at home put back where they belong. I had to give up my dining/work table to The Mister who was hanging out with Pup on my level while I was gone. He was working on his latest PbN along with a puzzle so there was no room to spare for my things. I'm not sure why he bought this one tbh. When I told him it was Alice in Wonderland themed he said "Alice who?". 

Homeward Bound

 

I'm packing up this morning and heading home this afternoon. My little staycation has been fun but yesterday I was bored out of my mind. Even with all these projects I brought, I couldn't find the energy or the interest to care. I napped and binge watched Scarpetta on Prime. I've never read the Patricia Cornwell books and after spending many hours with her main characters yesterday, I have more questions than answers. 

Daughter and family are on their way home from Connecticut with quite the haul in awards. This is her little one showing off the prizes. He was as tickled to win them as the skaters. Her team came in 3rd overall out of 23 national high school teams. One maneuver team got first, another got second and the entire team got the competition's spirit award. 

Her skaters surprised her by having a temporary tattoo made of a funny photo of her that they all wore to compete in. 

Now I've got my long drive home to look forward to but before I leave, I'm making sure this little Miss is where I can see her. No more kitty hide and seek for me. 

Working Out

 

When I first got to Daughter's house I thought they either had moved and didn't tell anyone or that they had been robbed. The usual explosion of toddler life was gone. The place seemed eerily bare. Then I realized that the robot cleaner had been at work making the place spic and span for the kitty sitter (me) who has kitty allergies.

Daughter's house is big and in its uncluttered state it was perfect for........

...knit walking. I've been trying to keep myself active by doing 30 minutes twice a day.

Once after breakfast and once after dinner. 

At home I always knit walk around the house to the 40's Junction on Sirius Radio. I don't have that here but YouTube has some good swing stations also. I love WWII era music. I love hearing Bing et al singing about kicking Nazi butt. 

Then there's the stairs. If I want a really good workout I climb these a couple of times a day mostly to take care of kitty business which is up in the laundry room.

Speaking of kitties, this one had quite the adventure. I spent my first 24 hours frantically searching for her after she didn't show up for dinner. I was heartsick thinking I was going to have to tell Daughter that one of her kitties might have gotten out while they were packing to leave. They are all indoor only cats. On Friday morning I did another search and found the little lady locked in SIL's golf simulator room. I had checked there once before but she was probably too scared to let me know she was in there. She was spooked and hungry and drank a lot of water but seemed healthy enough. I told Daughter of the misadventure and she thinks the poor thing must have been in there since Wednesday because that was the last time anyone went in that room. They were so busy getting ready to leave they never noticed her absence. Miss Kitty's paid me back for her rescue by keeping me up all night. She and her sister run up and down those stairs from sundown to sunset and they are not light on their feet. It's hard enough to sleep in a strange place without the sound of a herd of elephants going up and down the stairs all night.

In Someone Else's Kitchen With Betty

 

I left my Big Bettys at home but I ended up bringing a little hybrid Betty with me. I know, it's a sickness at this point but it would feel too weird not to have one with me. I took 10 grams of Brown Betty and 10 grams of Betty White and mixed them together. She's been very happy here as you can see. 

I don't tend to cook meals when I'm on my own. I go completely feral and just snack all day. I had a terrible craving for sweets last night so melted some dark chocolate chips on top of some plain discard crackers. I ate them all and felt bad about it but they were awfully good. 

I've already put my Ikea purchases to work. I'm collecting the discard in my new jar in case I run out of crackers and need to make more while I'm here.

I've also put my new scoops to use. I'm glad I brought Little Betty along. It's a long day when you're all alone without something to do.

Pit Stop

 

It takes about 2 hours to get to Daughter's house and halfway there is....... an Ikea. When we have Pup with us, The Mister and I stop at the park down the street from here but since I was alone, it was time to shop.

My house is nothing but Ikea stuff but it never looks like this...sigh. 

I haven't been inside an Ikea since they started delivering to my area so I was surprised to see how much it's changed. It was filled with pretend shops like this bridal salon. It was very authentic right down to the smallest detail. Along with several racks of gowns, there was jewelry, shoes and even sparkly purses all beautifully displayed on Ikea's finest wardrobes and shelving units. Being a former Mother of the Bride, I was impressed.

I didn't come out with anything very interesting. Some jars and flour scoops. I wasn't even tempted by the food section. I usually come out with cookies but I couldn't trust myself with them since I'll be all alone and bored for the next four days. I'm just getting my glucose under control. I don't want to ruin it now especially since I was notified by my insurance company yesterday that I qualify for their diabetes program complete with an on call counselor, free scale and daily weigh in. No thanks. I'll keep my weight to myself, thank you very much. I can handle this. I've done it many times before. 

 

And Away I Go....

 

Daughter's ice skating team has a competition this weekend in Connecticut and her whole family is going so I'm doing the kitty sitting until Monday starting today. All week long I've been filling the freezer with soups to take with me. 

Yesterday was a marathon of cooking making food to fill up The Mister and Pup while I'm gone. 

I made a lot of crackers to take with me and will be packing a bag of frozen sourdough bagels, waffles and bread. I knew I was saving all that for something.

I had to make a hard a decision about the Bettys. I decided to leave them home. I've never put the original in the fridge for a time out but I really didn't want to drag all that stuff with me. I'm going to give them a good feeding and then tuck them in for a long nap. I did have success bringing Betty White back to life from some sleeping discard so I have hopes that this will work out. 

Right in the middle of getting all the things on my list accomplished, I realized I'd been forgetting about Easter. The Big Grands are in China for their spring break. The Middle Grands will be up in Michigan celebrating so Daughter decided she wanted to come here for Sunday dinner. Yikes. I haven't done Easter in years. I had to go on a hunt to find what little I have of it left. It looks like I'll be doing some shopping when I get back home. 

I did take the time to knock out a few cards yesterday afternoon to send off when I get back on Monday. Easter really snuck up on me this year. 

Wednesday WIPs: Off to the Frog Pond

 

Farewell Glennis, I hardly knew ye. I hated everything about this. The yarn. The colors. The mosaic knitting. When I discovered I had misread the directions and would have to rip back to the garter stitch border I was done. Life is too short to spend on something I hated working on and would never wear. 

What I have been fixated on is the Hue Shift Afghan. I love working on it but it's been a regular visitor to the frog pond also. I can't get those blocks lined up right to save my life. 

And....I was asked about the origins of my stitching project yesterday, so here it is. This was one of my first purchases ever from 123 Stitch. That's a site I have to stay away from. It's too easy to lose a whole day planning things there that you'll never live long enough to finish.

TNT: Music Among the Trees

 

I think it's hilarious that after a morning of dragging heavy hoses and wheelbarrows full of mulch around the yard (which I should mention is not flat but very hilly), I come in to catch my breath by working on....a project about trees and gardens. Argh. I said I was going to get the sentiment done in March and I'm close even though I can barely manage a couple of words a day.

If there is a new Dateline podcast I work on the Patchwork quilt. I should be calling it the murder quilt because I did the hand piecing while bingeing Stephen King and now I'm doing the quilting to Dateline. I did finish another whole block last week so I'm not sure what that says about me. 

Dear Jane is getting assembled. It was a pretty easy block-so far. Now I have to figure out how to applique the little squares in the corners. As usual, Jane never makes anything simple. 

All Work and No Play

 

All the digging and mucking about in the mud has finally taken its toll. The Mister and I spent the morning sniping at each other so after the daily tree chores were done I retreated to my sewing room for a quiet putter. I didn't sew but I did punch since I was feeling rather stabby. 

It was rather funny that what I spent the morning punching was dirt. I can't escape it.

While The Mister took his tree angst out on some wood with an ax, I played with Betty in the kitchen. Brown Betty made some blueberry waffles and since Betty White passed the float test, I baked another loaf-this time remembering the salt. So much better.

Some Sewing on Sunday

 

We've still got six more trees to buy and then plant but we're taking a break today. We've run out of room. I have no idea where the city "Tree Board" thinks I'm putting six more trees but I'll have to fight that out with them later. Yesterday before all the digging took place I took a few minutes to work on my Colorwash Quilt blocks. I've figured out that I need 300 of them in order to make a crib sized quilt. It's not meant for a crib but I like the size of the crib sized batts. I've got 166 already so it seems doable. Hopefully today I can get back in there and make more.

Some good news is that Betty White is back. I worked on bringing a bit of refrigerated discard back to life all week. After getting it going again I had to transition it into a white flour starter which went a lot easier than the first time I tried it. Brown Betty can be pretty stubborn. She knows what she likes. 

On Friday night I got the bug to give the new Betty White a try even though the float test indicated she was not ready. I'm not kidding when I say I was up tending the dough at 4 am. It's what I get for starting something so late. 

In spite of my misgivings, Betty White came through. It would have been a terrific success if I had only remembered to add the salt. She's pretty but she's bland. I'll have to get creative with what we put on her. I'm thinking some salty tapenade might be the thing. I haven't made it in ages. 

Tree Hunting

 

Our taxes were a bit more complicated this year since we both cashed in our retirement funds so The Mister went across town to have his looked at by H&R Block the other day. On the way home he stopped at Walmart and noticed they had trees. We went back over yesterday and loaded up the car. I got two more dogwoods and another red Maple. They were all bigger and healthier than the ones I ordered online and were a third of the price. That makes 18 new trees so far. Six more to go. I thought this would be a terrible thing but I'm actually having fun with it. Ask me again when it's 90 degrees with 90% humidity though. 

Trees weren't the only things that caught my attention. I've been meaning to buy another rose to go with the pink one that I planted last year. 

It was a tough decision but I settled on this one.

What was really hard was walking away from all the annuals. I told myself that I've got enough to deal with this year what with keeping all these newly planted trees alive. The pretty stuff will have to wait until next year. 

Cornered

 

I couldn't wait until Tiny Needle Tuesday to show off that the scary ends did indeed meet. It was hair raising. I was actually nervous. I had to put on some calming music and take deep breaths. At about an inch away, I was convinced that there was no way that it was going to meet and even looked at the pattern to see where I went wrong. Nothing jumped out, so I went ahead and like magic it all fell into place. Whew....

Fit to be Tied

 

Remember this? It's the project that took me months to get to this place. Everything from warping to threading went wrong.

Now it looks like this. This is me trying real hard not to stomp all over it. Silly me thought I could adjust the heddle count after it had all been tied on in order to even out the tension and......it didn't go well. It all slipped off in a tangle of metal and yarn. I pulled it all out and cut it off.  Sometimes things are just not meant to be. I should have gotten the message sooner. 

I had a momentary fit of pique and then went and pulled out some scraps and started over. 

This time I'm going back to familiar territory using materials and techniques I like and have had success with. I never liked anything about that last project. It felt good to stuff it into the trash.

I do confess that it wasn't all that project's fault. I should have done a better job at counting off these things instead of just leaving the ones I had from the last project on the loom. I will next time.