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!