Week 5 - Yarn and Birthday

It was a busy week loaded with training and stress dreams. At least it flew by and there was yarn fun too. I know there usually is but this was more than normal. And did I mention that it was my birthday? That was fun too. 

I had my regular monthly trainings scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and the long anticipated 6 hour long HR training was scheduled for Wednesday. I was helping Nicki prep the training materials for the new training so I worked late a couple of nights but not as late as Nicki. I managed to leave early enough Tuesday to swim, which felt great, and I lasted the entire class.  

We woke up Wednesday to 3” of snow in Wahoo but Lincoln had gotten 6” and the schools were cancelled. Not UNL though so I got my butt in gear to clear the driveway (it was so light that I swept the snow) and got to campus at 8:15. I fed the cats and went right over to Engineering, where Nicki was already set up. Since a bunch of the people who were signed up were from Omaha, they didn’t come and I’m sure there were some people missing who had kids in LPS. But there were a dozen people to train so we did it anyway. It went really well and killed the entire day. I had hoped to just read my email and swim but I got sucked into something with Nora and Mary so 5:00 came and went . Oh well. 

It all ended up working out because just after I got home, Andrea called. The realtor who had sold her her house had just cleared the house of an old lady who went into a nursing home and she had collected yarn. The realtor dropped a bunch at Andrea’s and she had a carload of yarn that needed sorting. I told her to come over for dinner (leftover pork roast and cauliflower cheese) and then we brought in the yarn and sorted for an hour. We ended up with a big bag of good stuff, a Fit load of rug yarn and macramé cord (that went right into my car to drop at Goodwill) and bunches of acrylic. I called my neighbor over and she took ALL of the acrylic, which will keep her crocheting for years. I kept almost nothing and was happy with that. It had been a fun evening but a long day. It was almost 9:00 by the time I got back from schlepping yarn next door with Judith. 

Fast forward to Thursday evening. I was able to swim and then headed right to Goodwill to get rid of the yarn in my car because I’d given Andrea a key to my house and she was dropping another load of acrylic for Anne for her mitten knitting (she and her mom knit hundreds of mittens every year for kids in low income Lincoln schools.) I dropped all the yarn (it was piled so high that I couldn’t see out the back window) at the donation door then decided to go in and see what they had. Well, I scored 6 skeins of good quality yarn for 99 cents each. But by the time I got to the register, the woman who’d unloaded my car was ringing. She looked at me puzzled and I had to explain that I was buying much nicer yarn than I’d dropped off. It was bitter cold on Thursday (20 below wind chills) so Andrea hadn’t dropped more yarn, which was nice so I didn’t have to deal when I got home.

Friday was a banner day. It was the 1^st of the month so I happily cast on a new pair of socks in the morning using my very best yarn and a pattern I loved. I always look forward to new socks. Then it was monthly reports day so I had a full day but Nora, Cheryl, Josh, Nicki, Layton and I went to lunch for my birthday at Green Gateau. I had my fave salad with the paresan crispies and a big piece of chocolate cake then it was back to work, where the afternoon flew. So many people asked if I was going out but I was headed home to sit and knit, which was exactly what I wanted after the super busy week. I enjoyed every minute of it. 

I was meeting Lori at the thrift store on Saturday morning after I did my library deposits. It was the bag sale and she had never been. She was running late so we met at noon. Usually it would be picked over by then but the bins were brimming. I got 2 bags and Lori got SEVEN! It was fun to watch how thrilled she was and we both got lots of good stuff. Then we met Andrea and went to lunch at Chips. I ordered a small order of nachos for the table and a bowl of oxtail soup. Well, the nachos were so big that I ate them for my lunch and took the soup home. We sat and talked for hours and then I got the yarn from Andrea’s car and headed home. It was 4:00 by the time I settled down and I had a cup of tea and knitted for hours. It was a nice day. 

Sunday was chores and knitting. It was warm enough to hang the sheets outside and I had a lovely day. By the end of the day, I’d finished my first sock (I think 3 days is a record for me) and the house was all picked up. I hadn’t done any cooking so would be eating out of the freezer but I could live with that. It had been a great week. And I should add that by the end of it, I was finally feeling 100% with no congestion. Yay!