Mac says

My days of struggling with Vista are over.  And none too soon.  (See high velocity trajectory of PC through glass window.)

I love this little guy.  (Wouldn’t Mac be a male?)  He’s fast and efficient and knows exactly what I’m telling him to do.  

There will be no comment on the Macbook user who could not figure out how to right click on a Mac for nearly two weeks, however.  (Please note I did figure it out, eventually.)

And the software.  Yum.  I got this totally free software called FreeMind that is stunning in that it maps out your thoughts in outline/bubble form. So it seems as though I make sense…at least on paper.  

(If I had the skills to show you a screenshot, I would.)  Maybe this will do, instead.  

Note that I have all the skills necessary to show you this utterly useless wonder. 

 

The garden is OUT OF CONTROL.

I need to find some stakes today, and get those tomato plants standing up, before they rot.  

The herbs are going wild, too.  

I’ve been spinning my favorite color of green.

 

And knitting a new Clapotis in Noro Silk Garden Lite.  

Quite inadvertently, the stitch markers match the yarn.

I am now a Reiki II practitioner, which is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.  The class was held last weekend — Friday evening, all day Saturday, and all day Sunday.  Reiki is something I can use both at work, and at home.  

Work.  Yeah.  Still the same.  The agency, and more specifically, the hospice, is undergoing multiple management changes all at once, so it’s not an especially peaceful time.  But this too shall pass.

The boyfriend is all moved in.  Things are going well.  We generally get along quite well. Sometimes he reminds me of my grandfather, though.  My grandpa used to yell from the living room, “Helen?  Where are you?” like he was some sort of lost lamb without her sitting next to him. The boyfriend does this, too.  This generally drives me insane, until I remember my grandfather, and then it seems like this is the natural order of things.  So I go with the flow.

In terms of animals, things are much the same.  Harrison P. Cat, Little Man, and That Goddamned Cat (synonyms for the same creature) is fine.  He is involved in the same activities as always.  

We had a couple of visitors a few weeks ago.  Both times we are woken up by soft flapping of leathery wings and the muffled ‘thump’ of body hitting wall, presumably while their radar system failed them.

They were both escorted outside peacefully.  But not before at least one photograph was taken.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I miss you…

Dear Blog,

I know you feel neglected and unloved.  The fact that I have caused you this pain hurts me greatly, too.

I have no excuses, other than life has gotten away from me.

1. The boyfriend is all moved back in.  Sometimes it’s hard to take time away from playing house with him to make time to blog. 
2. There was a little issue of a cancer scare in the family that had my mind occupied for several weeks.  Join me in screeching from the rooftops, would you?  ”Benign!  Benign!  BENIGN!!!!”
3. My internal furnace (hormones and hot flashes, oh my!) coupled with the humidity of summer in western New York make the fondling of wool rather unappealing.  Hence, there has been limited activity in the knitting/spinning departments.

However.  

I miss you.  I do.  

I’ll be back.  I’ll be better.  I promise.

Lame

While I’d like to be the type of blogger who posts regularly, so as not to disappoint the readership; I’m afraid I am quite lame in that department.

Though it could also be argued that one has to actually have a readership in order for anyone to be disappointed that there are no new posts.

So it’s the chicken vs. the egg, isn’t it?

I don’t post because I have no readers.  I have no readers because I don’t post.  

Whatever.  I have bigger fish to fry beyond overthinking this one.

Knitting Projects:

 

• Noro Silk Garden Lite Clapotis in blues and greens.
• Socks That Rock in Tinklit (a Raven colorway) socks.  Soon to be frogged, because I’ve proven to myself that I can indeed knit lace socks, and they are too big.
• Schaefer Laurel Clapotis in reds and greens.  

In the past few weeks I’ve planted a garden.  The tomato plants have grown twice their original size already.  

Tomatoes.  Such a shocking word.

We used to be afraid of terrorists.  Now we have been instructed to fear tomatoes.

It just never ends, does it.

 

 

Liana’s green drink and why I like green

Green. The word says Life. Spring. New. Grass. Buds. Flowers. Trees.

And kale.

Big, leafy, cheap, and so-nutritious-it’s-almost-illegal, kale.

My daughter (the above mentioned Liana) has been extolling the virtues of kale for some weeks now. Evidently a college friend has turned her onto making smoothies out of vegetables.

I know. YUCK.

But get this. It’s not that bad. It’s actually good. And if you check out this nutritional calculation website, maybe you’d like to try it, too.

Liana’s Green Drink

Take one handful of kale leaves

Take another handful of spinach leaves

Wash them. Put them in the blender.

Add some water (I cheat. I add Arizona Diet Green tea. It’s really, really good.)

Whirl around.

Throw in 1/2 of an apple, skin and all. Seeds if you don’t mind them.

Ditto with 1/2 a pear, or whatever you’d like.

(I added 1/4 of an avocado here, too).

Throw in some flax seed. And some oat bran.

Toss in 3 ice cubes.

Blend. Blend. Blend. Until you get this thick green thing substance that smells like the stuff you wipe off the bottom of the lawn mower.

Then drink it. And feel good. Because there’s your vegetables/fruits for the day. That’s it. You’re done!

The drink and the girl –

Other reasons I like green

Gardening.

Yup. We even put up Tiki lights on the patio.

Cool, huh?

Knitting is socks. STR, Tlinkit, Waving lace pattern. Just ready to start the heel now.

Got to run. It’s Memorial Day, there’s a parade, and I’m told my son’s name is being put up on a veteran’s plaque of some kind at the town hall. He’s a veteran now. But he’s alive, and home. We’re so lucky. Many are not. Remember them today, okay?

Lace socks on two circulars

I have jumped on the Socks That Rock bandwagon, you see. So far, every year at Rhinebeck I have missed the booth that sells STR (The Fold). So I had no idea what I was missing.

But at the Flower City Knitting group last earlier this month, I saw some real, live, in the flesh, STR. Oh. My. Gorgeous. So I dashed off to the Blue Moon Fiber Arts website and grabbed me some Raven Clan medium weight sock yarn in Tlingit and then I ran to Village Yarn and bought me two sets of Addi circulars in Size 1’s, and then I ran home and started some socks.

I did a plain stockinette sock cuff nearly 6″ in length before I realized it was a waste of beautiful yarn. And it was boring as hell. So I frogged, and dug out my Favorite Socks book and settled on The Waving Lace socks. Never mind that I’ve never done socks on two circs before, and I’m not quite sure how to manage the gusset with this technique — I’ll figure it out. Right?

Right.

Today’s my 49th birthday. The weeks leading up to it have sucked, and in a big way. But the actual day…maybe not so bad. I took the day off from work, and I’m heading out to the yarn stores soon, and maybe Eastview for some shoes (The Walking Company!), then I have a facial scheduled for 4 PM, and dinner with the boyfriend at Dinosaur after that.

Two more days of work, then it’s a long holiday weekend for us folks in the US. My daughter’s helping me pick out flowers and tomato plants on Saturday, and (sweet girl) is buying me garden tools and gloves for my birthday, so we’ll be doing some serious planting this weekend.

It’s freezing here. Like 46 degrees. Saturday I went to the boyfriend’s graduation from SUNY Brockport and sat in the pouring, freezing rain for an hour and a half. Which I’d gladly do again to see him graduate; my point is simply the weather around here has SUCKED.

But it’s supposed to be a nice Memorial Day weekend, in the 70’s and sunny.

Oh…please remember to remember this Memorial Day.

Happy FO day

And Happy Mother’s Day, too, to all who participate.

I visited my mother this weekend, and gifted her with the Montego Bay scarf she wanted to knit for herself last year, but had to frog numerous times.

I beaded her a necklace to wear with it. The furnace glass bead in the center is the exact same color as the yarn (Handmaiden Sea Silk in periwinkle) and reminds me of a star fish or some other ocean creature, so there you have it.

My brother’s Noro striped scarf is finished. He was deeply into the Grey Goose by the time we arrived at his house, and he knew perfectly well that his picture would end up on my blog, so this is the reaction I got to my photography attempt.

And that’s all.

I’m on call AGAIN this week, so if there’s a post, it will most likely be filed under ‘bitching and moaning’.

***Edited to add.  For some reason I cannot fathom, my brother hated the idea of his actual face on my blog.  So I doctored him up.  But you saw him first…here.

I’m still here

Sort of.

Traditionally, for reasons unbeknown to me, May is a damned shitty month.  Starting sometime in mid-April, and culminating into a full-fledged funk by my birthday in May…this is my yearly pilgrimage to the dark side.

My mind.  Don’t go in there alone.

I am working, but not enjoying it in the least.  I feel myself going “terminal”, in spite of my reasonably good health status.  Like I’m waiting for the guillotine to drop.  The diagnosis to come.  The bus to hit me.  I mean, why not?  Everyday I watch people die.  Men and woman younger than I are now dead.  People who scaled ice capped mountains in Greenland a few months ago are dead, and you can bet your ass they didn’t expect that outcome when they were savoring the view up there with the musk ox.  Lesson learned.  Why plan for a future when there may not be one?

See.  I told you I am in a bad way.

If history repeats itself as expected, I can expect to feel much better towards the end of the month.  In the meantime I am trying very hard to ride the wave without going under.

There is knitting being done, and other things, but the upcoming Mother’s Day holiday prevents me from posting photographs.

That’s another thing.  Mother’s Day.

Oh, god.

All my ghosts come out in May.

coming up for air

Monday AM.  A time to grieve the loss of free time.  Usually.  In this case, this morning, it is a time to say ZOWEEE! thank gourds I am done with that crap.

Yeah.  On call again.  OVER!  Yes!

I took a small project with me each day last week.  Not that I got to work on any of it, but I felt better having it with me.

Mitt Envy.  (For the pattern, go here and click on the PDF file.)  Made in lovely Koigu KPPM, in a colorway supportive of my apparent new interest in all things related to ponds and algae (P52657).

As pleased as I am that my week of on call is over, it IS still, after all, Monday AM. 

And I need to get back to work.

(sigh)

 

 

 

 

 

My manias and tics, listed for you

I need to stay calm. I need to stay calm. I NEED TO STAY CALM.

But I got tagged!

Julie at My 45th Year tagged me to list, and I quote, “to tell 6 things about your life which look like manias or tics, and then pass it to 6 other persons”.

Translation (I think). List six things that drive me crazy, to the point that others may wonder about my sanity. Then ask six others to tell me what makes them crazy, too.

So, in no particular order, here are my manias and tics.

1. This one I’ll steal from Julie. Hummers. Hummers are environmentally, ethically, and fiscally irresponsible. Environmentally. Gas. Emissions. So obvious. Ethically. Yes. Let’s glorify a war vehicle, and by all means, let’s glorify our dependence on foreign oil and the very people we’re supposed to be at “war” with. And don’t get me started on the hot pink Barbie Hummers out there. Fiscally. See Ethically.
2. George Bush. If you want to watch me turn into a whirling dervish of frustration and demoralized anger, ask me about W. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again. We are the laughing stock of the world. Because last time we actually elected that damned fool. At least the first time we had an excuse.
3. The modern culture of work, which seems to include an awful lot of martyrdom. Yes. I’m a hospice nurse. That makes me a caregiver, and a nurturer. That does not make me, however, selfless. Expect me to deal with death and dying for 8-10 hours a day? Then give me my weekends off. And if you want me to work weekends, then give me a different two days off, because it’s not normal to talk about funerals, cremation, autopsies, heaven or the lack thereof, organ donation, morphine vs. dilaudid, bone pain, nerve pain, if your mother’s agitation is caused by medications or her brain mets, and whether angels are in the room or not, for 12 days straight, without a break. (Can you tell I am facing another week on call? Take a breath, Ann.)
4. People that hurt animals. Enough said.
5. Unpleasant (insert any position here). Little in life frosts my socks more than some bored, gum snapping, high schooler with an attitude checking me out at CVS. Or anywhere. (Nothing against CVS. It’s just an example.) But folks, listen. What if we all smacked our gum in boredom, and didn’t give a shit if we did a good job, or not? What if I, as your nurse, didn’t give a shit? You’d have a fit, wouldn’t you. So please. I’ve had a hard day. How hard would it be to smile, take my money without prompting, and thank me for my business? Trust me. Your boss will appreciate it. And so will I.
6. Iceberg lettuce. It’s a nutritional wasteland. Ask my kids. They know. (Because I’ve drilled it into their heads from birth.)

There you have it. Tag you’re it!

• Rima at Yarny Days
• Green Moon Knits
• Hannah at The Interlooper
• Mo at Rooster Hill Farm
• Kimberli at Whacky Auntie
• Kelly at Walking the Wall

My Schaefer cotton Clapotis is coming along.

I know. Boring.

I took that beaded bracelet class out at Let’s Bead last Monday night, and this is what I came home with. (It needs to be finished.) I’m kind of impressed with myself, if I do say so myself.

It’s called a Double Spine bracelet, and it’s made with wee, tiny, delica beads and somewhat larger seed beads, and a lot of patience.

And finally, a new project, taken on very spur of the moment. As many know, Knit n’ Purl is having a good sale, in preparation for moving or closing up for good, depending on which she decides on for sure. I got inspired by this, and had a vision of river rocks and moss and stones and sticks…

It’s going to be a scarf, but a short one. I think I want to accent it with glass and/or stone beads, or maybe wood or shells. Then wear it like jewelry.

I actually got myself over to the Flower City Knitters Ravelry knitting group this morning. And had a blast. I’ll definitely go back.

If you don’t hear from me, don’t despair. I’m just doing the hospice thing. I’ll be back. Don’t worry.

Birds like yarn?

We’ll find out.

I save my random clippings of yarn from weave-ins and fringes.  I save the weakened and slippery bits of roving that just won’t spin right (I have lots of those), too.

As I sat outside this morning to drink my coffee and munch on banana bread, I decided there was no time like the present to recycle my scraps.

In prior years I’ve just tossed the yarn randomly into shrubs, or laid it on the grass.  Who knows where it ended up.  This year, I want to give the birds easy access, so I loaded up an old suet feeder with wool scraps,

and hung it in the tree.

I’m hoping the birds help themselves and enjoy a warm bit of nest for their babies.