Post-Covid Catching Up

Oh, we have quite a bit to catch up on! I finally tested negative on Day 14, which was just in time for me to go to a conference for work last week. The next three weeks are pretty busy for me work-wise, but I'm giving myself a five day break over Thanksgiving to just read books and play with Coleslaw and knit, and it is the perfect light at the end of the tunnel for me. 

As I mentioned way back on Day 13, I managed to finish two knitting projects while I was sick! Up first is a (Ravelry Link) My Little Secret Crop Top out of leftover Cotton Fleece from my Rhys sample. This is my second My Little Secret, and it was just as enjoyable the second time. 

I started this way back in summer of 2022 and it languished over the course of moving and getting settled in Illinois, but I really wanted to get it off the needles and having lots of time to sit in front of Star Wars cartoons gave me the chance to do so.   

The second project (Ravelry link) Stormborn, which I started back in November because I thought it would be a quick knit. I was right, but again, this got set aside almost immediately as I started packing up my old apartment. I also don't usually use needles this big for large projects, so it took a while for me to find my rhythm with them. I fell in love with this sweater back in 2018 when it was first published, and the finished thing is just as cozy as I hoped. 

After taking several years off from NaNoWriMo and NaKniSweMo, because of grad school and moving, I've decided to try jumping back into both this year. Over the past few weeks I've been really craving a henley for my wardrobe, and I remembered some Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Tweed in Dove Heather in my stash that I think would look great knit up as a (Ravelry link) Dziadzi, which has been in my library for a while.    

I had to order new needles for it—Coleslaw is obsessed with yarn and needles, and she's eaten four sets of circular needles so far. I'm getting better at keeping things out of reach, but she is very smart and very crafty, and I've only managed to find a few spots that remain puppy-proof for longer than a couple of days. The needle I need should be here Wednesday, which is just in time to cast on for the month, so I'm crossing my fingers to avoid any shipping delays. 

Day 13

Yes, it's Day 13 since I tested positive, and yes, I'm still positive. My symptoms haven't been terrible, but I do have a sore throat and a cough still, although the fatigue seems to have passed. I've been hoping I'd be negative by now, but ALAS that wasn't in the cards for me. 

I have been reading a lot, and watching lots of tv. I've been on a Star Wars kick for several months now, and am watching through The Clone Wars and reading a bunch of Star Wars Novels. I also finally watched Cunk on Earth, after seeing clips of it shared on Instagram for ages. 

I've also finally gotten back into knitting regularly, and finished two projects that had been on the needles for a while. No photos yet, because my tripod is broken and I need to figure out how to fix it.

Coleslaw is loving having me home full-time—it's going to be a rough adjustment for us both when I'm (finally) recovered and can go back to the office! 

Covid

Well friends, it finally got me.

I felt like I was getting a cold on Thursday, and on Friday afternoon I thought, "I should test before going to my retail job this weekend, just to be sure," and sure enough, it wasn't a cold.

Fortunately my symptoms have been mild—a sore throat, a cough, some additional fatigue. I spent the weekend sleeping and reading, and this week I'll work partial days remotely. I've been drinking lots of hot water with lemon and honey and eating lots of breakfast sandwiches (this is the greatest thing I have ever bought for my kitchen).

Coleslaw is having trouble conceptualizing "being sick," and she is Very Begrudgingly giving up some playtime so I can get enough rest (read: she is finding New and Exciting Ways to Get in Trouble in the hopes that it'll make me play "run around the apartment" with her). Fortunately, between bouts of energy, she is still very cuddly, although we are both disappointed that play time is strictly limited to "fetch," "tug," and "tappy paws." 

I have been feeling better since Saturday, so hopefully I'm well on my way to being recovered and will test negative after my five-day quarantine, though I do have Sarah's fourteen-day saga haunting the back of my mind—fingers crossed that I don't have such a stubborn strain! 

Teething and Mending

It has been a busy couple of weeks! Coleslaw is settling in great, but I perhaps underestimated just a little bit how much time puppies take up. Right now we're in a routine of three walks per day, plus indoor playtime (and lots of cuddles!). She is definitely feeling comfortable and at home, and she has taught herself how to climb on almost every surface in my apartment. My floor is absolutely littered with her toys, and it's incredible how much life she brings to my home.

(Teething is going about as well as can be expected.)

Over the past couple weeks I've managed to blow out the inner thighs of three pairs of jeans that I wear to my retail job, so this week I started tackling the mending pile. I have the first thigh of the first pair done, and I'm hoping that now that I've figured out my plan of attack the rest will go smoothly. I cut out a large patch from a dollar store fat quarter of quilting cotton and pinned it to the inside of the thigh. I then went in with dark blue sashiko thread (so it would blend in with the denim on the outside) and did a very quick and messy running stitch along the grain and both biases (I didn't go along the cross grain because I didn't want to compromise the stretch in that direction more than necessary). 

It's a thick patch, but quite comfortable, and hopefully it will hold up for a while before it needs reinforcement again. Coleslaw kept trying to get a hold of the thread while I was working on these (she is obsessed with string, and she's constantly tracking down yarn that isn't quite out of her reach) but hopefully I can tire her out enough that she'll just lie down and let me get the other thigh done before I work on Saturday!

Meeting Coleslaw

I got a puppy!

Meet Coleslaw! She's a two and a half month old terrier mix, and currently about four pounds. So far her favorite things appear to be climbing and chewing, although "jumping in the grass" seems to be moving up the ranks. She is so small—her entire head is smaller than my fist—and endlessly curious.

I sent an application in to the shelter last week, and on Friday her foster mom contacted me to set up a meeting, so yesterday I took a personal day to drive out, and she wriggled into my heart pretty quickly. (She actually wriggles a lot. It's the puppy energy.) (Yes, she picked out her own stuffed toy, and yes, she chose the octopus that's as big as she is.)

I wasn't really planning on a puppy—my mum had brought it up as a possibility, and I was initially hesitant about taking on all the work of training and socializing a puppy, but Coleslaw seemed like such a good fit. It's been so fun watching her explore so far, and I can't wait to see how she grows up. I'm already planning on enrolling us in puppy classes once she's gotten all her shots, and in the meantime we're working on name recognition (the shelter named her, so her foster mom has already been working on that with her) and getting used to the leash right now, as well as "come here." 

Coleslaw is such a tiny joy, and I'm so excited that we found each other. We got Mystic as a puppy when I was a teenager, and I'm really looking forward to sharing that lifelong relationship with Coleslaw as well.

A Sweater and Organization

I hinted at this sweater last week, and here's proof of life. I love these colors, and I'm really hoping I did the stripe math correctly—I have five skeins of the gold, two of the orange, and just one of the darker mustard-ish color. My plan is a very basic drop-shoulder crew neck. It's not going super quickly, but I am enjoying the process. I've been doing a few rows in the evenings while watching tv—I'm on a Star Wars kick right now—and it's been a nice routine to get back into.

I've also been working on some organization in my apartment. My front closet has been a disaster since I moved in, with things just thrown in there. I got some storage bins to hold old knitting samples, so those are put away nicely, and I got my Christmas and Hanukkah decorations put away in there as well. The closet shelf was missing, so I had Lowe's cut down some six inch planks for me to replace it, which makes the closet so much more functional. There's still plenty of room for other things that I'll need to store in there, so I'm taking my time to make sure I'm making the most effective use of the space. So far I've freed up some space in my bedroom closet, which was very cramped, and I'm glad my clothes have some breathing room now! 

Lake Time

Well, it has been a few weeks, hasn't it? I spent most of last week at a lake cottage with my family—I read five books, did a puzzle, and watched lots of waterfowl! 

It was a great getaway, and I was able to unplug and leave my phone in the other room a lot of the time, which was really nice. The cottage was perfect, and the lake was beautiful. It was a no-wake lake, so it stayed nice and quiet, and I saw lots of geese and ducks and even a few blue herons. 

I also started a new sweater with some vintage wool I picked up at a church bazaar (maybe last year??). I'm really loving it so far, but I don't have any proper pictures of it yet. I was hoping that starting something brand new and low-key would help me get my knitting mojo back, and I think it's helping. I'm certainly not knitting as much as I did three and four years ago, and I don't know if I'll get back to that level, but I'd like to knit a few times a week, at least. 

Hope August is treating you all well!

12 july 2023

So. It's been a rough week. I don't do well without something to take care of, and the truth is, my fish doesn't actually need very much. I keep expecting to see Lee Lee underfoot, and I know it's going to take some time to get used to her being gone. 

Lee Lee required a lot of attention and energy the last several months, and it's weird to turn all that back towards taking care of myself. I've been making burrito bowls and focusing on deep cleaning my apartment, which help some. 

I'm also trying to make myself pick up my knitting more—I started this My Little Secret Crop from Jessie Maed Designs (ravelry link) a year ago, and it just needs straps now (the worst part). I'm using the leftovers from my Rhys sample (ravelry link), although it looks like I'm still going to have a chunk of leftovers still. 

This week I'm planning to start a new sourdough starter—the one I started a couple weeks ago hadn't quite fully established and didn't survive the stress of the last couple weeks. In its early days, it was looking great, so hopefully as long as I can stay on top of feedings I'll have a solid new starter soon! 

Lee Lee

I first saw Lee Lee on the humane society website about two months after Mystic died. I wasn't quite ready for another dog, but I was so drawn to her. Her description said she liked sleeping on the couch and long walks to her food bowl. I was smitten. I kept an eye on her listing—something in me said I needed to meet her, that she was the one. A month after I first saw her online, I finally went in to meet her in person. I brough her home that day. 

Just a couple days after she came home, she climbed on top of a table and jumped off it, giving me a mild heart attack. Within her first couple months, she climbed on another table to eat a bowl of chocolates. She was fine, and chocolate remained her favorite food (I would sneak her tiny crumbs of it for her birthday and xmas). 

Lee Lee loved being outside. She was all nose, and would happily spend hours sniffing around the garden at our old apartment. She was a huge cuddlebug, too, frequently burying herself in piles of pillows and stuffed animals. She loved having her ears scratched, especially her left one. 

She hated baths. Once she jumped out of the sink while I was bathing her. Whenever I took a bath, she'd anxiously check on me, making sure I was okay. It was extremely concerning to her that I would willingly sit in the tub. I don't know how many baths I took while we were together, but it was a lot, and she never came around to the concept. 

She tolerated her sweatshirts and pajamas, but her winter coat was beyond the pale. As soon as I put it on her she'd lie on her side with her legs straightened out stiffly. Unfortunately for her, I remained unmoved by her protests, especially when it got down to twenty and thirty below zero. 

I often say that Mystic taught me how to love, but Lee Lee taught me that I could love again. I was constantly amazed at how deeply she embedded herself in my heart, and I feel so blessed that I was able to exist in the same spacetime as her for the past few years.

Last week her back legs started bothering her a lot. I thought it was her arthritis flaring up. On Thursday, she'd been pretty much stuck on the ground, unable to stand, and on Friday I took her to the emergency vet for some pain relief. The emergency vet said there was something wrong with her spine, that it could be something like a herniated disc or cancer pressing on her spinal cord. I declined imaging and surgery, taking home meds to keep her comfortable, hoping that whatever was pressing on her spine would resolve itself with rest and time. 

She declined very quickly over the weekend, and the last time I saw any hint of her personality was on Saturday morning. On Monday morning I called our regular vet, and they got us in just a couple hours later to say goodbye. We both knew it was time.

I'm so glad I got to hold her as she died. 

She was such a good dog.

I miss her. 

Catching Up

It has been a crazy couple of weeks, but hopefully (fingers crossed) we're on an upswing now. The flooding is now resolved (hopefully permanently—knock on wood!) after several visits from maintenance and some work in the pipes behind my dishwasher. It's been about a week and a half since "the big fix" and I haven't had any more problems yet.

At the beginning of last week I came down with some kind of bug—thankfully I caught it quickly enough that I was only down for a day and a half, and Nurse Lee Lee stepped up to offer cuddle therapy.

As soon as I was feeling better, the coolant leak in my car reached the point where I really oughtn't drive it anywhere but the mechanic, so the past week has been an adventure of learning the bus system and nervously waiting for my car's appointment at the shop this coming Friday. Hopefully it's a quick (and relatively inexpensive!) fix and I'll have my car back for the weekend. 

Obviously this has all been a little stressful, so I decided to unpack a few more boxes and get myself feeling a bit more settled in my apartment. I have a collection of large ceramic and plaster cats that hadn't been unpacked, and it's nice to have them out in my living room now.

 

I've also done some baking the past couple days, and finally started a new sourdough starter—I had decided to throw away my old one when I packed up my old apartment because I didn't want to worry about moving it and fitting it in my car with everything else that couldn't go in the moving containers, and I just hadn't gotten around to starting a new one yet. The new one is just a couple days old and nowhere near mature yet, but it is starting to smell yeasty!

Return of the Water

Good news: I am enjoying my weekend retail job and I am very excited to be having some extra money come in.

Bad news: My apartment has flooded twice in the past week.

 

It's the kitchen main again—still? I've got dirty water coming up into the sink and dishwasher and leaking out all over the apartment. I am so tired of this, and maintenance is so tired of it, and I don't know when it'll be fully fixed. All of the maintenance workers have been great, but this is still very stressful, and my apartment has been a disaster since last Wednesday night because I had to pick up everything from the floor and pile it on my furniture.

Did I mention that this has been very stressful?

I am, understandably, very tired of dealing with this. I'm hoping that I'll hear something definitive about a long-term solution this week, but until then I'm coping with romance novels, potatoes, and Lee Lee cuddles. 

A Numbers Week

1. Numbers today bc it has been a very busy week for me.

2. I picked up a weekend retail job to help pay off some medical and moving bills and build my savings back up, and this past weekend was my first weekend working. It went well, and I think I'm going to enjoy it. One thing I did learn during my first day on the floor—I definitely need more food when I'm working on my feet all day than I do when I'm working at my computer!

3. Since I don't have weekends off anymore, I've been trying to work out my routines so that I'm still getting enough rest and taking proper care of myself. Fortunately, I've had some time knowing this was coming, so I've been able to work out exactly what I need to stay healthy, and I think I'm in a good place. Right now I'm just focusing on listening to myself and taking things slowly, and being patient as I adjust.

4. There has not been much knitting this week, but I'm really hoping to get back to it this week, because...

5. Yu Ra is hosting the Quiet Queers Craft-Along again this year on Instagram, and I'm really looking forward to it! I'm a participating designer, and I've been looking through all the other participating designers' portfolios to pick out my project. 

6. Reading-wise, I have FINALLY gotten into the Murderbot Diaries, and yes, they are as good as everyone says, if you still haven't picked them up yet. I'm currently on the third, and I just got the fourth one delivered via Libby yesterday. 

Shasta

Shasta is a pair of lightweight, cabled leg warmers. Knit in the round from the bottom up, the narrow cables and ribbing are reminiscent of tall grasses and flower stems.

Ravelry Link    Payhip Link

I've also transitioned my Ravelry and Payhip shops to tiered pricing. This is something I've been thinking about for a while, especially as we're dealing with runaway inflation and descending into a recession. My new base prices are $9 for accessories and $12 for garments, with discounted tiers at 20% off, 35% off, and 50% off. The discount codes are listed on each pattern page.

Spring Cleaning

 

 

This week I've been on a little bit of a tidying spree—turns out that organizing the buffet really kicked me into cleaning and organization mode! Over the weekend I cleaned my bedroom and vacuumed and mopped all my floors, which felt amazing, and Monday after work I tidied my desk. It had gotten a bit overrun with knitting projects and trash, and I had never 100% set up the cubbies, so it feels good to have everything set up and cleaned off.

My current knitting project is a shawl sample, and almost 100 grams into it I decided that I wanted a slightly different shape and ripped it out to start over. I'm now almost halfway through the yarn that I ripped out, and I'm feeling much better about the finished project. 

Hope you're all having a great week!

Buffet Display and Library Books

This past weekend was pretty lazy overall, but I finally motivated myself enough to clear off the top of my buffet so that my vintage pyrex and crystal punch bowl can be displayed nicely! I'm very pleased with how this looks now. The buffet had kind of turned into a doom pile, so it's nice to actually see my things displayed. The dining table is still a mess, but someday I'll work on clearing that pile!

I've also been making regular trips to the public library. I actually read nine comics that I had checked out on Sunday, and immediately brought more books home to make up for it. This trunk is actually meant to be a combination coffee table/ottoman for the couch, but I don't have a better place to keep my mountain of library books right now. Someday! 

 This week I'm hoping to get a new pattern off to my tech editor and finish a couple books I have on Libby before they get slurped back to the digital library. I also need to (finally) get my bike chain back on its gears and fill the tires now that we're firmly out of winter.

Week by Numbers

1. Nothing much has happened since last week. Getting the couch completely wiped me out and so I spent lots of last week and almost the entire weekend napping on said couch. 10/10, I love having a couch.

2. Thanks for the Scrounger Cap love! I know I technically released Bulky A (Ravelry) (Payhip) just in December, but I was kind of in a fugue state from job hunting and moving stress, so I'm really just starting to feel like I'm coming back from my little grad school hiatus. 

3. I have a couple more projects on the needles that I can't wait to show you—some design samples, some other people's patterns. I'm still not knitting quite as much as I did before grad school, but I'm definitely getting back into the swing of it.

4. I did manage to leave my apartment on Saturday just long enough to go to the library, and I maybe went a little crazy. I checked out a bunch of cookbooks to read through, as well as an assortment of other books. My Libby app is also currently full, so I need to get reading!

5. I hope you all have a wonderful week! Drink a fancy beverage! Pet an animal!

Scrounger Cap

I knew when I finished Scrounger that I wasn’t quite done with this little lace pattern. After I moved and was unpacking my stash, I came across this mushroom-colored skein, and immediately thought that the lace pattern from Scrounger would be perfect on a cap.

The Scrounger Cap is perfect for early spring and autumn foraging, for forest trail adventures as the world wakes up from winter and as autumn creeps in after the summer months. Wear it around your neighborhood while you spot the first dandelions creeping up through the cracks in the sidewalk.

The Scrounger Cap is available in seven sizes and includes both charted and written instructions.

Use code FORAGE to get 25% off Scrounger Cap through Monday, May 1.

Ravelry

Payhip

LoveCrafts

Enter Couch

On Friday, while scrolling Facebook, I found a couch.

I've been keeping an eye out, despite not really having couch money, and knowing that getting a couch would require renting a van and lining up some lifting assistance. Finding my dresser a couple weeks ago reminded me that you have to keep your eyes open constantly so you don't miss the perfect opportunity when it arises, and when I saw this couch, I knew it was a perfect opportunity. 

I lined up a van and my new Work BFF and I drove down Sunday afternoon to pick it up, and I am so, so pleased with it. It fits in my space perfectly, it's the perfect length for me to lie curled up on, AND it's a sleeper and unfolds to a double bed. It looks incredible with my yellow blanket and elephant pillows, and it's a Lee Lee-approved napping spot. 

My living room is now so close to complete. I want another bookcase and a bar cart, and maybe an ottoman, and then it's just finishing setting up my tchotchkes. The couch fits in perfectly with my chairs and divides the sitting area from the dining nook really nicely. 

The couch was also the last really big piece of furniture I needed. I do need another tall bookcase for the craft room, and I'll need a cutting table in there eventually as well, but those won't require quite as much coordination as getting the couch in here did.

(I actually had to empty and move the bookcase closest to the door to make the entryway wide enough for the couch to fit in, which was inconvenient, to say the least, but ultimately worth it.)

I have been very much enjoying having a couch to sit and lie down on this week, and it's nice knowing that I have additional space for guests beyond my air mattress if I need it—also, it'll be nice to be able to open the sofa bed to block large shawls on the next time I make one! 

And There Was Water

I *was* planning to tell you all about my fun weekend running little errands around town and making chicken broth (I am becoming very evangelical about boiled broths vs. simmered broths), but then on Sunday evening I had some dirty water come up through my kitchen drain. This has happened with some regularity since I moved in—a combination of being in the basement and having old pipes is what it sounds like. I also noticed a puddle on the floor in front of the dishwasher, which was new. I took some pictures, threw a towel down on the puddle, and went to bed with the assumption that it'd either clear out overnight or I'd call maintenance in the morning.

Well, come Monday morning there were puddles all over my apartment. My entire kitchen, most of my living room, my dining nook, and the hallway back towards the bedrooms. Everything smelled like sitting water, and after an incredulous text to my coworker, I submitted a maintenance ticket. 

 

Fortunately, Monday is one of my wfh days, so I was able to close myself and Lee Lee in the craft room/home office/guest room so she wouldn't wander around getting all wet and gross. Maintenance came and cleaned up all the water and drained the dishwasher, which had a couple inches of dirty water sitting in it, and they helped me move some of the furniture that had gotten a bit damp and hang my rug over the shower curtain. Hopefully they'll put a bug in the landlord's ear about the pipes, because they've been coming out at least once a month to deal with my kitchen since I moved in.

As you can guess, Monday was a very long day. I had to run out and pick up a box fan to speed up drying and get the old water smell out of my apartment, and I had to bring a bucket of wet towels down to the complex laundromat. The box that held my antique doll collection got damp, so I had to unpack all of those girls, which meant I needed to put up the curtain rod in my bedroom so they could go on top of the clothes shelves (and not stay piled on my bed). My apartment is still pretty chaotic, but nothing got damaged, and this morning it looked like the rug was finally dry, so I'll be able to put the dining nook back together.

(Up until all this happened I had an absolutely lovely weekend. Saturday I went to a yard sale, poked around the craft store, picked up some new books at the library book sale, took a leisurely stroll through a couple different grocery stores, and finally moved my giant philodendron to a larger pot. On Sunday I made broth and roasted an entire bunch of asparagus for dinner, and I finished a hat sample and got the pattern over to my TE—a pretty perfect weekend!)