Stupid February

Have I ever mentioned how much I dislike the month of February?  February has never been a good month for me and this year .... Well, this year, February simply sucks.  First, I had that stomach bug that lasted four or five days.  Then I got the cold/sinus thing which is still hanging around two weeks later.  And for the icing on the February cake, we've spent the last 36+ hours in the ER.  My husband had a bit of a health scare but after about 45 thousand tests/procedures and even more medicines, they hope to send him home shortly.  We're just waiting for the final approval from the doctor.

On a more positive note, the hubster will be fine, although we may end up divorced after all my future nagging about taking his health more seriously.  

And, I finished the Rambling Rows blanket.  That photo is the best I can do from ER.  I never got around to taking a photo of the finished blanket.  But yeah, I went with the icord border and am glad I did.  I don't know why I was dreading it so much.  The icord knitting went super fast - much, much faster than a garter border would have been.  After being on the To Knit list for four years, I'm pretty dang excited to be done with that blanket.  I even already got the loose ends woven in!

Maybe February doesn't suck so bad after all.

Cupcakes and Wine

I hope you had a nice Valentine's Day.  I got Mucinex and tissues.  I can't believe that less than a week after having that horrible stomach bug, I got the cold/sinus/flu bug.  Thankfully, the day before I got sick this time around, I'd accidentally bought myself cupcakes.

I didn't mean to buy so many.  I was at work and noticed the Key Lime cupcakes.  And the strawberry sounded good too but... Key Lime!  I grabbed a box and did a price check.  They were on a Buy One Get One type sale so... I went back and got the strawberry too.  But while I was grabbing the strawberry, I noticed the lemon.  I love lemon flavored deserts.  And if I was going to get key lime, strawberry and lemon, I had to get the fourth box so....  Now I have cupcakes!

What I don't have is wine bottles.

I saw this idea on Facebook.  I feel terrible that I'm not sharing the source but I guess the fever got to me and I didn't keep track of where it came from.  I just remember seeing it on Facebook.  Anyway.... I have a lot of those plants and am constantly rooting pieces of it and I absolutley love this idea!  The problem is, just a few weeks ago, I threw away over 20 empty wine bottles I'd been saving for a 'one of these days I'll make something with these'  type craft project.  Doh!  Oh well.  Guess I just need to drink more wine.  

Meanwhile, I've continued knitting on Rambling Rows.  I've made a little more progress since taking that photo.  I'm currently on block 52 out of 55.  I am so excited to get this baby finished.  It's only been four years in the making.  The problem is, once I'm 'finished,' I need to dig through the stash pile and find a skein or two to knit a border around it.  I'm torn between a garter border or an icord border.  I want the icord border but I'm having a hard time mentally facing that much icord. Not sure why - icord is pretty simple and would probably take less time than a garter border, but....

While I try to choose border styles, here's a picture of Hayden's Valentine's Day hair-do.

She had heart hair!  After the photo was taken, her mom even turned the heart red by rubbing red eyeshadow over it.  So stinking cute.

And now, I'm going to go finish my Mucinex, eat cupcakes and drink wine.

Happy knitting!

It's raining. Again.

Goodness! It's been a wet winter.  Sadly, we've had no real snow, but we have had 9+ inches of rain since the first of December.  And it's raining again today.  Good grief!  I really shouldn't complain because we are now 'water front' rather than 'swamp mud' fronted. The view is definitely nicer.

Anyway...

I've been knitting.

After finishing the brown striped socks, I pulled Rambling Rows out of the UFO pile.  According to Ravelry, I started this Cottage Creations blanket in April, 2020.  I've knit a few of these blankets before and really like the pattern. It's super simple but the color changes keep you from getting bored, and best of all, the blocks are large-ish so there are only 100's of ends to weave in at the end instead of 1,000's.  

The blanket is made up of multiple sizes of mitered squares and rectangles, it's super easy to knit and it's a great way to use up leftover yarns.  For this version, I'm using fingering weight and it's going to be more of an oversized baby/lap blanket size.  I'm thinking seriously of knitting another (or maybe 3 more) and sewing them together to form a blanket big enough for a large bed.  But considering it's taken me four years to get this far.... probably not.  But on a positive note, I'm on block 47 out of 55.  Here's hoping I can stick with it and actually get it finished.  

I'm really enjoying this 'finishing' thing.  I finished the summer/4th of July diamond painting.  I'm not really into the shiny/sparkley way the finished pieces look (although I LOVE my sparkley snowflake coasters) but I do enjoy attaching the diamond dots to the backing.  It's so mindless and meditative.  I went a little crazy last summer and ordered multiple coaster sets and three large seasonal designs.  There's this one for summer, an autumn one with pumpkins, and a winter one with a snowman.  They're all the same size and the idea is to buy one frame that I can move the diamond paintings in and out of seasonally.  The goal is to finish one each quarter.  We'll see how that goes.

And, I finished the shawl.

I haven't blocked it and honestly, I may just skip that process entirely because the yarn is so soft and drapey as is.  I used almost 5 full skeins of Obsidian City Tweed and most of a skein of Snowbank.  I didn't use a pattern, it's just a simple triangular, bottom up, garter stitch shawl.  Easy peasy and now I have another item checked off the list and 6 skeins of yarn out of the stash pile.  Win/win.

Happy knitting!

Three on Thursday

Welcome to today's brilliant Three on Thursday post about three random things going on in my life.

1.  I've been reading a lot of murder mystery/detective novels lately.  And oddly, more than one had bodies hidden and/or moved in oil drums.

2.  As I've mentioned before, we are the only house on our road.  We don't own all the property on the road, but we are the only people here.  We are also right on the edge of the swamp and with all the rain we've had this past year, the swamp has been more river than swamp.  The other day, I took a walk down our road for the first time in a long time and discovered someone had left six oil drums (actually five gallon buckets) on the side of the road.

In an effort to be environmentally conscious, (because what would happen if the water rose just a little more and those oil buckets turned over and dumped into the swamp??) I called the non-emergency number for the sheriff's office to report it.  And the deputy had the nerve to think I was insane for not opening the buckets to confirm it was oil because I was afraid they might contain body parts.  

Okay, actually, I just didn't want to get oil all over myself but I thought fear made a better story than vanity.  Apparently, I should have gone with vanity when talking to the sheriff's department.  I'm probably on some kind of watch list now.

3.  I can't decide what I want to knit next so I pulled out my old Rambling Rows afghan.  I'm currently on block 31 out of 55.  It's taken me almost a year to knit just slightly more than half a blanket.  Good grief!

On the needles

Not much knitting happening these days.  I've gotten a few rows completed on my Timeless sweater, I've made it to the second lace section of the Lagoon Reyna and I picked Rambling Rows back up to work on while I read my, cough, cough, week's worth of email.  Good grief!  How did I manage to not open my email for an entire week?

Anyway, not much knitting happening these days.  The pool gets in the way.  I need to figure out how to knit while I float.

I'm glad I wasn't floating yesterday because this happened.

Hayden's reaction to the rain was priceless.

Three on Thursday - Rambling Rows

First, there was a snafu.

Slight snafu on my Rambling Rows afghan

Argh!  That multi-colored square attached to the yellow rectangle and blue square was not supposed to be attached to the blue square.  It was supposed to just hang down under the yellow.

Snafu removed

Second, I tried to fix it the easy way.  Although it would make the mitered angles go in the wrong direction, my plan was to cut off the offending square, leave the white and brown blocks hanging and work backwards from there.  It was late at night when I made this decision and that's never a good time to make decisions.  I didn't notice that I was pulling on live stitches while I was yanking on the bits of multi-colored yarn trying to get them to separate from the brown and white squares.  By the time I realized what I was doing, I had messed up most of the stitches on multiple rows.

Starting over

Third, it was easier to just cut off the white square and start the whole section over.

I hope that you are having better luck than I with your knitting and that you'll join me for Three on Thursday.

Three on Thursday - OTN

For today's Three on Thursday, I wanted to show you the three things I'm currently knitting.  Or not knitting.  Instead of knitting, I'm just picking one up, putting it down, picking up the next and putting it down, picking up the third and putting it down....

But before I show you my knitting, I'd like to threaten someone.  Many someones actually.  I'm going on record as saying I would like to kick the butt of every single blogger and person I've seen on any form of social media since the lock-down began who has mentioned doing jigsaw puzzles.  Good Grief!

Although I don't do them often, I've always enjoyed doing jigsaw puzzles.  Ever since we moved in with my mother-in-law, I've had the urge to do one but that urge was never strong enough to go out and actually purchase one.  Until last week.

I knew there was something I was leaving out of the other day's Drama post.  I'd finally found a puzzle for under $20 and was so traumatized by it, I completely forgot to list it along with the other drama I've had going on.  It was that traumatic! 

That &%^$^%&%*&^$ Queen of Hearts puzzle was the last puzzle Target had on their shelf.  And it about kicked my arse.  All those frames!  And half the pieces fit perfectly with other pieces that they weren't meant to fit with.  It was Horrible. It didn't help that the available lighting I had was horrible.  I may never do another jigsaw puzzle as long as I live.  If any of you are local and would like this one, I would be most happy to pass it on, but I take no responsibility towards your mental state once you start working it.

Now for the knitting....

Rambling Rows Afghan

My Rambling Rows afghan is the project I want to be knitting on.  Besides loving the frequent color changes and the chance to use up some of my scrap yarns, I have this urgent sense of needing to get as much knit as possible before it gets too hot to hold it on my lap.  But this project has no deadline and is going to take forever.  It should be my back burner project.

Scottish Highlands Shawl

Of the two shawls I'm currently knitting, this Scottish Highlands shawl is the bigger of the two.  It also has no deadline.  But the  yarn is divine and I'm anxious to get through all the garter so that I can start the lace border.

Onete

Of course, the Onete shawl will be the quickest of the three projects to knit, I do have a deadline for it, and I love the yarn.  But it's got M1L's and M1R's (make one left and make one right) which are driving me insane.  Yes, eight rows in and I'm already insane.  It's not like the M1L's and M1R's are complicated.  It's just that my needle is rather blunt tipped and my memory is horrible so every time I take the shortest of breaks, I forget which is stitch is which and have to dig out the directions.  If I could just focus on this one  for an uninterrupted hour or two, I'd be able to memorize the difference between left and right leaning increases and it would be a much more enjoyable project.  But... that Rambling Rows keeps calling me back.

I'm caught in a vicious, vicious cycle.  A knitter's life is never easy.

I'm not 100% sure Carole will be hosting a Three on Thursday link up today.  If you follow her blog, you know her husband was hit by a car recently.  Thankfully he is home from the hospital and on the mend, but Carole may be too busy taking care of him to host today.  But if she is hosting, please join me over at her blog for today's Three on Thursday party.  Meanwhile, lets all wish Dale a speedy recovery.

Drama, drama, drama

What a week!  Actually, what a two weeks!  They have been drama filled!  Nothing drastic or life ending, just drama, drama, drama.  There's been so much drama, I don't even know where to start.  Let's see if I can try to put things together in timeline format...

First, as of last month, I now have an endocrinologist.  I've been having some thyroid issues for a while and the day before the hospitals got locked down and no one could enter except on a stretcher via the emergency room, I had an ultrasound.  The ultrasound showed that I have several nodules on my thyroid, one of which is bigger than my thyroid and it's pressing on my trachea.  Well, that explains why I can't breathe properly if I put my arms up over my head!

So, my GP sent me to the endocrinologist who I absolutely love.  She ordered a biopsy but because the hospitals are still closed....  No biopsy yet.  

There have been a few dementia developments that I won't go into detail about, but they have certainly added to the drama.

The washing machine broke.  The washing machine that's located on the second floor.  Thankfully Lowes is still delivering and brought us a new one and even installed it.  They even installed it on the second floor!  Unfortunately, in the process, an old pipe behind the wall broke in the process and the entire washing machine full of water dripped through the ceiling on the first load washed.

The pipe got fixed and the refrigerator went on the blink.  We noticed that the milk didn't seem that cold yet the just brought home from the store on a hot day ice cream was hard as a rock after only 10 or 15 minutes in the freezer.  You know how ice cream gets a little mushy on the trip home from the store?  Yeah, well, our ice cream was so hard we couldn't scoop it.  We couldn't even cut it with a knife.  We had to microwave the whole container in order to melt it enough to even stab it with a knife!  

The next day was my birthday and after waking up to find the refrigerator wasn't even sort of cool (although the freezer is still freezing things solid) I went off to another visit with the endocrinologist.  Maybe I don't like her so much after all.  That's a joke.  I really do just love her.  But she diagnosed me with Hashimoto's and pre-diabetes.  On my birthday! She also put in another 'emergency' request for the biopsy because I'm now feeling like I can't breath properly when I lay on my side or tuck my chin to my chest.  

 I have never felt so old in all my life and I'm now taking more pills than Grandma.  But hey - at least I have a partial excuse for all the weight gain.  

Daddy giving Hayden bunny ears.

The birthday wasn't all bad though.  Hayden came for a visit and I got to snuggle with her for a bit.  It was her two month birthday so we partied hard despite her fussiness.  Poor baby - she had an ear infection.  And, as it turns out, she's already teething!  At her two month check up the next day, the doctor confirmed it.  Holding her head up And teething at two months!  Those poor parents are in for a wild ride!

The next day, the heat soared and our air conditioning wasn't blowing cold.  My brother-in-law worked on it and got it working thankfully.

The next day, we woke up to the air conditioning fiercely blowing ICE cold air while the radiators pumped out hot air although the heat was set on 68 and the a/c was set on 72.  (They are two separate systems.)  If you weren't near a radiator, it was painfully cold.  We turned the a/c up to 74 and the heat down to 64 and sat outside on the deck where it was warmer.  Mid day, the house was still freezing and the radiators were still cranking and the a/c was still blowing... so I turned the a/c up to 78 and the heat down to 60 and went back outside where it was hot.  After dinner there was still no change in the house's temperature so we turned the a/c completely off.... And it kept on running!  The a/c continued to run for over an hour after we turned it off.  It was like something out of a Stephen King novel.

So now we don't have a/c. 

But once again, a visit from Hayden saved the day.  We still don't have a/c but I got to snuggle with Hayden a little more so all is right with the world.  

Check out Hayden's shirt.  It says "I still live with my parents."  My blogger friend, Carole, made it for me/Hayden.  Thanks Carole!

Rambling Rows afghan

Meanwhile, thankfully, very, very thankfully, my knitting has been drama free.

Scottish Highlands Shawl

Well, mostly drama free.  I want to knit all the things and I want to knit them all at once.  So of course, I'm not making much progress on any project because I keep putting one down to knit on the other.  Five minutes later, I put that one down and pick up the other... and the cycle continues. 

Drama, drama, drama!

Rambling

I hope everyone had the best possible Mother's Day that they could have this crazy year.  I know it was pretty disappointing for many.  Mine was disappointing but it could have been much, much worse.  We had big plans this year because for the past eight Mother's Days, I was at work and didn't have a celebration.  No work for me this year!  But, at the last moment, my husband ended up working.  And his coworker's wife was hospitalized with covid-19 symptoms (thankfully her test came back negative and she just has 'regular' illness.)  And the MIL was taken out gallivanting around the state a few days before. Between the chance of the MIL being infected while she was out and not knowing what the status of the co-worker's wife was, and having a preemie newborn (seems like Hayden has been with us for ages but she's still considered a newborn) my son couldn't attend.  And I certainly understand that decision.  Don't mean to sound like I'm guilting him here.  I'm really not.

So our party was shrinking.

And then for reasons unknown, I had an allergic reaction to my towel when I stepped out of the shower and dried my face off Sunday morning.  In less than 30 seconds my face began to burn and itch and sting and it turned all red and got all....  well, it looked like I had 100's of zits popping up.  Not fully up, but coming.  You know the type.  The type you'd get when you were 16 or 17 and had a hot date for prom and you'd wake up with a red spot on your chin or the end of your nose.  And it burned!  And felt like 1,000's of bees were stinging me.  It was horrible.

So I called off the Mother's Day celebration completely and hid in my room.  Alone, with just my knitting and Kindle for company.  Honestly, it wasn't a bad way to spend the day.  Instead of having the BBQ my brother-in-law was going to bring, I ate a bag of chips for lunch.  A giant bag.  No fear of starvation here!  And my husband brought fried chicken home for dinner.  And my daughter made a cheesecake.

The cheesecake was delicious and frankly, I'm okay with skipping the Mother's Day thing this year.  It meant more cheesecake for me!

Rambling Rows Afghan

And what did I knit while hiding in my room?  Rambling Rows.  I can't stop knitting on this thing!  Before casting on, I'd set a self-imposed schedule of knitting five blocks a month.  It's only been 14 days and I'm already on block 15.  I am way ahead of schedule.  I don't get to say that very often!

Off the needles

Do you see him?

Actually, I guess he's a her.  She's the first deer I've seen on our property since the social distancing started.  I guess even the deer are getting tired of staying home.

I finished my Hitchhiker finally.  I've knit a thousand of these over the years and I think this is the first one I've actually knit all 43 teeth.  I always either run out of yarn, get bored, or simply get too excited to start the next project.  This time around, the yarn was so glorious to work with, I didn't mind knitting all 43 teeth.  I even considered giving it extra teeth but....  It's long enough as is and now I have left over yarn to add to my Rambling Rows afghan.

The Rambling Rows may prove to be my downfall.  It was supposed to be my 'while I read' project and I had several other projects planned for this month but I just can't put it down.  I just can't!  The call of a new square and a new yarn is just too strong and I can't help myself.  I think I might need a meeting.

Three on Thursday - Triple Nothing

I got nothing for this week's Three on Thursday.  Absolutely nothing.  The home-life has been a little crazy this week and not much else has been going on.  Nothing fun and exciting to tell you about.  Nothing maddening or frustrating.  I haven't had three yummy desserts or loaves of bread, I haven't read three books and I haven't been considering three new knitting patterns.  Life pretty much just sort of flat lined this past week.   So...  

You get the world's most boring Three on Thursday post.  

1.  The idea I had to knit Kaffe Fassett's Coins cowl out of only two colors....  What was I thinking??  First, I didn't want a cowl, I wanted a scarf.  Second, only two colors??  The whole point of knitting a Coins scarf is to make it bright and multicolored.  And there was a third thing but I don't even remember what it was now.  I scrapped the whole idea.  Really, what I wanted was to use the yellow Madelinetosh.  So I am, but in a different project.

Rambling Rows Afghan

2.  Instead of the Coins cowl/scarf, I decided to knit a Rambling Rows afghan.  I'm not overly impressed with the examples on Ravelry but I have knit several of these in the past and have always liked the design.  This time around, I'm using scrap fingering weight (the pattern calls for worsted) and it will just hang over the edges of a twin sized bed.  In other words, it will be the perfect couch blanket.

The pattern is from Cottage Creations and is lots of fun to knit.  It's made up of two sizes of mitered squares and a rectangle.  The pattern gives directions for three different sizes.  I'm making the largest.  Of course I am.  I'm using fingering weight and a US2 needle.  Why wouldn't I choose the largest size?

My plan is to use all my machine washable scrap yarn once then as I knit other things, immediately knit a block with the leftover yarn.  The idea is that no two blocks will be the same.  We'll see how long that plan lasts.  I may get impatient and start using some of my full sized stashed skeins.  There are a few that have been calling to me.  We'll have to see how it goes.

3.  Zack finally sent me a photo of Hayden wearing the Clara dress.

She looks absolutely horrified.