Week 7 - Wool Eating Kitty

If I had to pick one word for the week, it would be cranky. I don’t know if it was the incessant winter weather, not sleeping well on several nights, my new early morning workouts or what but my go to feeling was cranky, which meant things I normally would brush off just seemed to pile on and make me even crankier. At least there were a few bright spots in the week though.

I started the week by meeting Darla at 6:30 at Wahoo’s Stockyard Café for a birthday breakfast. I had not been in this café in more than 20 years but it was the only place to get an early breakfast so that’s where we went. Nothing has changed in the 20+ years I hadn’t been there and the food was yummy, plentiful and cheap. It was also great to get some face time with Darla. It also made for 3 days of disturbed morning routine so maybe that impacted my mood. But it was fun and so worth it.

I baked a decadent chocolate cake for Valentine’s Day and it was worth every calorie. It was a make up cake for my birthday, when I made blueberry muffins instead of a cake to take to work. It was delish and I ate it both Wednesday and Thursday. Like I said, worth every calorie.

I was also proud of myself for being so ahead of the game that I was ready for the cleaning lady before I left for work on Tuesday, which meant I didn’t have to slam Tuesday night. Nice but then the cleaning lady messaged me that she not only wasn’t coming Wednesday but would be completely skipping a clean. It was the death of a friend that meant she had to take her mom out of town so I can’t begrudge her the time off but I’d have to do some cleaning myself on the weekend now. Oh well.

By Wednesday night, the cranky had settled in. When I went to bed that night, I found one of my very favorite socks, which I’d worn on Tuesday and thrown in the hamper, on my bed with holes chewed in the cuff. There was no salvaging the sock so I’d have to reknit it and vowed to do so because they are favorites. I was sure it was Gansey, who had done similar damage to an almost finished cowl a couple of weeks ago. That I had foolishly left on the back of the chair she sleeps on (stupid, I know) so I assumed I had missed the hamper when I threw the socks in Tuesday night. Then I sorted laundry on the weekend and found a beautiful merino sweater I’d bought at Goodwill that was even more trashed. The little shit not only was chewing things but had jumped into the hamper to do it! Check out the pic of all her damage. I had to pull out my old wicker hamper with a lid on the weekend to keep her out of my knitting. Sheesh!

So the cranky persisted so much that after lunch on Friday, I decided to take the stray hours of vacation time in my bank (I like to have even days of vacation so I don’t fritter time away) so left work at 2:26, which used up my extra hours to the minute . I was home by 3:00 drinking tea and settled in to enjoy my weekend, putting the cranky behind me. After a relaxing night, I went to bed and slept like a rock until 8:30! That’s a rarity but I clearly needed the sleep.

The weather had broken too so it was going to be warm on Saturday – warm enough to hang out laundry. Andrea and I were heading to Fremont for spinning so I started on the laundry early, washing all my bed linens so I could hang them all out. When the phone rang, I assumed it was Andrea so picked it up without checking caller ID. It was my oldest friend, Deanne, who I'd been playing phone tag with for weeks. We chatted away while we ate our lunches (me in my favorite chair, Deanne on a bench in Alabama) and finally got caught up. This put my laundry behind though so Andrea patiently waited while my last load spun out then helped me hang the sheets before we headed to Fremont.

We were late to spinning but they were just watching a video (a boring one at that!) so we didn't miss anything important. There was someone there who had all the craft supplies from a relative who had gone into assisted living. We could take what we wanted in exchange for a donation to 4H so since I only had a $20, I took a bit more than the 2 lots of sock yarn I had my eye on. Some of it will go right into the prize kitty for our WIP contest. From there we went to Goodwill and HyVee before deciding to go to Todd's for burgers, tots and beer, which is our usual dinner spot after spinning. It was a nice day and I got home early enough that it was just dark and my linens on the line hadn't gotten night damp yet. Perfect! I made up my bed with fresh sheets (a rarity this winter) and put on my fresh nightie (also dried outside) and went to be content and happy.

Sunday was my typical chore day but since the cleaning lady hadn't come, I had floors to deal with. I swept and washed the back floor and since I got the vacuum out to do area rugs, I also vacuumed the stairs, which hadn't been done in years. All this was done by mid afternoon so I spent the evening cooking and prepping produce for the upcoming 600/900 calorie week. I haven't been doing so well on my diet so had high hopes to get back on track.

So a week that started off cranky ended well with a fun and productive weekend. Nice.