Week 11 - Finally Some Crafting

 

It was not an auspicious start to the week but it definitely got better as it went along and ended on a fun, crafty note. Yay!

I slept like crap on Sunday night because, get this, I had taken my thin homemade quilt off the bed to wash it, leaving just my 3” thick comforter so I woke up over and over because my covers didn’t weigh enough. Add the time change, which made it hard to fall asleep, and I was exhausted when I woke up. And what did I have to face? Eight inches of heavy, wet snow. I went outside to shovel at 6:07, which felt like 5:07 (I’ll stop that now) and it took an hour. I was drenched in sweat so took a shower, ate breakfast and was on the road at 8:00. The roads were HORRIBLE! It was the worst driving in years but I was at my desk at 9:00. It could only get better, right? Nora was out all week and had left a huge to do list so I dug in on the first big project and the day flew. By 5:00, the roads were completely clear and I had time for dinner before knitting.

I was taking Tuesday off for an all day tree care workshop in Omaha for Master Gardener continuing ed credits. I didn’t have to leave the house until after 8:00 so felt like I had a ton of extra time but I still ended up scrambling. Four of us from Wahoo went and it was a pleasant day with interesting speakers. I’d been prepared for boring. I also managed to knit most of an entire sock – a monster sock from scraps. I was home early enough to make asparagus goat cheese pasta and I cracked a bottle of wine and enjoyed the evening.

Wednesday was a complete 180. Mary was working on some numbers for the chancellor and we all slammed all day. ALL DAY. I had to cancel my lunch with Darla and work through. It was a stressful day but we got it done. I then went home to prep for the cleaning lady an entire day early because she wasn’t coming until Friday and I managed to finish by 7:00 so I could settle down for Survivor and a couple of episodes of Mad Men on dvd. It was a nice end to a busy day.

I had extra time on Thursday morning too because I had a 9:15 dentist appointment to get the permanent filling in my root canal. I made an egg mcmuffin and enjoy some leisure time. Because of the root canal, they could drill without numbing me so I was only there for 20 minutes, getting to work earlier than I’d thought. It was good to get that done and I’m hopeful that that tooth will no longer be worthy of its nickname – the hell tooth.  The day went quickly and I swam for the first time all week. It felt good to go home and already have all the cleaning lady prep done.

Friday was the last day before spring break and it crawled. It didn’t help that it was in the 60’s outside. By mid-afternoon, everyone with any vacation time to burn had left. Randy and I toughed it out all day and I made a beeline home because I had some pressure sewing to do. I’d taken a woven piece from Dee at spinning with a promise that I’d make it into a tote bag. Of course I’d left it until the last possible minute. Well, Saturday morning would be the last but I was afraid I wouldn’t sleep so I got busy as soon as I got home. I actually had fun. I lined the bag with a pair of old jeans, improvising handles from the double stitched outer seam. Between the denim and the interfacing, it was too thick to top stitch but I was pleased with the end product. I went to bed with a clear mind and slept like a rock. Until 3:30 that is. I woke up from a bizarre dream and had to turn the light on and read for an hour to shut my mind off. Sheesh!

I was tired on Saturday and it was a full day. I met Lori and her sisters for lunch at Chips, which was yummy and fun. I left at 1:00 to pick Andrea up to head to Fremont for spinning. I was returning Gina’s wheel and telling the group I was done with spinning for now. No one batted an eyelash. Dee loved the bag, which I thought I was giving her, but she’d made some of her own and brought a bunch of other woven pieces, asking people to donate to a children’s shelter if they took any. She also had a bunch of handspun yarn so I took 2 skeins of that and 2 more woven pieces, happily writing a check for it all and knitting until Andrea and I left at 3:30. We headed to the quilt store so Andrea could buy batting and backing for 2 quilts. While she was doing math at the cutting table, I found a wash bucket full of scraps that you could buy for $3 for a quart sized zippie. This was totally up my alley! I dug through it all and scored some fun fabric. I demonstrated self control and only bought one sale fat quarter, spending less than $5 over all. Then we hit the bread store, the market and Goodwill before going to Andy’s, the best Italian restaurant I’ve found in Nebraska and it’s in Fremont of all places, for Andrea’s birthday dinner. I had cannelloni and she had chicken with artichokes then we shared a free piece of Italian cream cake for her birthday. It was a nice end to the day.

Since all I had to do on Sunday was laundry, I decided to keep up the crafting. I had found some fun scraps in the washtub so wanted to work on a quilted wall hanging. Just as I was starting, the phone rang and it was Sharyn. Since I couldn’t work on the quilt and talk, I pulled a placemat that I’d bought for 29 cents at The Christmas Tree Shop with plans to make a project bag. I undid the hems and 3 sides while we talked and finished the bag shortly thereafter with a scrap of grosgrain ribbon and some seam binding for the cord. It was totally cute! Since that was so quick, I got out the scrap fabric and whipped up the main section of the wall hanging, which has fun pictures of junk food and fruit. I pulled out all my orange and pink fabric looking for border fabric but will need more than a fat quarter so struck out. Since there’s no swimming this week, I’ll just stop at Cosmic Cow after work one night and buy something. Then it’ll just be a matter of embellishing it with some orange rick rack and quilting it with buttons. I haven’t quilted in a long time and this was totally fun.

So, my week didn’t end as I’d planned. I didn’t get to cook at all but I was pleased with my crafting fun. I’ll just have to eat out of the freezer this week or maybe even make dinner after work since I won’t be swimming. That’ll feel so normal. I’m not sure how I’ll cope.

 

 

Week 10 - My Hell Tooth

What a week! It had way too much pain but hopefully it’s looking up now.

Randy, the super data guy, started on Monday. We all went out for Mexican at lunch and while I was eating my tamales, I noticed that my hell tooth, which has a crown, was beginning to hurt. Well, it was a good thing I’d had a big lunch because by the time I left work, I couldn’t bite down at all. I stopped at Tuesday Morning for yarn (a great haul of gorgeous stuff) and so didn’t have time for dinner before knitting, which wasn’t a problem because I couldn’t have eaten it anyway. Crap! There was definitely something going on.

I called my dentist first thing Tuesday and went right in at 8:00. He took an x-ray and said I had an abscess and needed a root canal. Damn! But at least this gave me hope that there’d be nothing left to do on this tooth that’s been bothering me for decades. He gave me a prescription for an antibiotic and offered me one for pain killers, which I didn’t take. BIG mistake. I filled the antibiotic and went to work. I grabbed soft food (soup and mac & cheese) for lunch but was in lots of pain by the end of the day. I had the root canal scheduled for the next morning (the endodontist had a cancellation) but I wasn’t going to sleep a wink without those pills. I had planned to swim but instead had to rush back to Wahoo for my second trip of the day to the pharmacy. Sheesh! I took 2 pills and went to bed early.

I had planned to feed the cats and meet Nora (she’d made me tomato soup) before my root canal but they called just as I was leaving the house and asked me to come early. The root canal wasn’t that bad. I was only in the chair ~45 minutes and after 4 shots, I didn’t feel a thing. After picking up the soup, I was home by noon. Not bad. I took the only 2 Tylenol I had in the house when the novocaine started wearing off and sat in the sun knitting all afternoon. Then the mail came and I got my swap package, which included a beautiful shawl (notice the droop in the pic from the novocaine), and a box from Amazon. It was a nice afternoon, until the Tylenol wore off. I was in some pain and so popped a hydrocodone with dinner. It made me a bit tired but I stayed up until 10:00. I did wake up at midnight and took another pill but all in all was doing OK. I still had to go to the dentist for a permanent filling in my crown but could this be the final act of my hell tooth pain? I live in hope.

I stopped for more Tylenol on the way to work Thursday but was in very little pain and was actually able to eat a steak salad at lunch with Dodie. I was supposed to be not eating on that side and the injection site was sore enough to be a reminder not too. The tooth itself felt fine. It was time to get back to normal. I swam and then rushed home for a quick dinner (nuked tortilla bake) before heading to the library for book club. Only 3 of us showed up and there were no questions so we just chatted – total waste of time! And after the book was such a chore to get through. The final straw was the new book wasn’t there and Denise hadn’t even requested one yet. On the way out, Lori and I decided to stage a coup and take over book club. Since her sister works at the Library Commission, we had a connection to get the book packs and it was close enough so I could pick them up from work. Decision made.

Friday was Nora’s last day before being off for a week so we had some planning to do. Between that and lunch with Layton and a staff meeting, the day went by pretty quickly. Darla and I met at our thrift shop but I didn’t get a thing. I went home, took a shower and settled in for the weekend. It was my only weekend without plans all month but of course I had a to do list.

I started Saturday knitting but then got busy. I clipped my coupons and headed downtown. I had to drop the books at the library (Jennifer had picked them up for me on Friday), recycle and hit Dollar General, where I had a $5 off $25 coupon and a big list. When I got home, I got busy with chores. I was hoping to get most of them done so I’d have Sunday free for the crafting side of my list. I got most of the chores done and felt good about things when I went to bed. Since I was losing an hour of sleep, that was a good thing.

It was snowing on Sunday and it was time to craft. I only had Gina’s spinning wheel for 1 more week and hadn’t touched it so that was on the list, as well as making a bag with the woven thingie from the woman at spinning, which I needed to deliver next weekend. I wasn’t excited about either of those things but was about dyeing some wool. Guess what I did? I had dyeing fun in the afternoon and then sat down to spin.

After only 5 minutes, I came to the realization that I don’t want to spin. I’d rather be knitting and I already have more yarn than I can knit in my lifetime. Why would I need to make my own? Spinning is one of those things I like the idea of but not so much the actual doing. Another decision made! I was crossing spinning off my list. Maybe I’ll explore it again when I retire and have the time to do it but not now. Done! And I felt good about the decision. Maybe it’s time to evaluate a few other things in my life. Hmmm…..

I wish I felt as good about the rest of the day. I managed to get a few more things on my list done but I was antsy all day. I couldn’t settle on anything and didn’t even feel like cooking. I tried to make Rice Krispie Treats but the marshmallows were stale so they ended up in the trash. At the end of the day, all I had to show for my Sunday was some pretty yarn and 3 loads of laundry. And the snow they predicted as 1-3” was blowing all day and was more like 8-10” by dark. I would be facing an hour of shoveling first thing before work and on the first work morning of daylight savings time. Not an auspicious way to start the week. Oh well. Spring is coming soon.

Week 9 - Seeking Less Fun

Yet another busy week. Nothing new there. But this one seemed a bit more frantic than others, which made it fly by at least. I think it may have been all the late nights, both doing things and then not sleeping well.

I should have known it would be a busy week when I started it by hitting Wal Mart before work on Monday morning. I knitted that night and Anne Marie came over to wind yarn afterwards. I had lots of pots and pans in the sink and the cleaning lady was coming Wednesday so I worked on those while she wound and kept going until bedtime. No down time there. Then I swam on Tuesday and finished prepping for the cleaning lady before sitting down to veg. I worked through lunch on Wednesday so I could leave work early to meet my friend Nancy for an early dinner. Then, at last, I was home for a night of TV and relaxing. I needed it because Thursday was swimming, dropping recycling and grabbing chicken tenders from the market to eat in the car on the way to Jeanie’s daughter’s house where she was helping restring my spinning wheel. I got home ~8:30. By this point in the week I wasn’t sleeping well, probably because I wasn’t getting any down time. You think?

Friday was the first so when my cat woke me up at 5:20, instead of rolling over for another half hour of sleep, I got up to run my data builds and cast on my March socks. It was a nice way to start the day – the socks, not the reports. The day flew by, as deans’ reports days do and I bolted home eager for the weekend.

I had another busy day on Saturday. I had a Friends of the Library meeting so I did the treasurer’s report, which required calling the bank to confirm some things, and was at the library at 10:00. From there I went to the bank then hit the thrift store for the bag sale. I brought a bag of clothes to Andrea’s store, where Lori was hanging out so she and Andrea split them up. I was picking Andrea up at 1:00 to head to Cosmic Cow (the cool quilt store in Lincoln) but customers came in at noon so Lori and I went out for a latte and scone. I ran home to pick up some yarn, picked Andrea up and headed south. We had fun finding fabric. I was thrilled to find Jenn Ski’s fabric (the mid-century modern blog in my list – check it out on the left) so bought a few fat quarters. After a quick stop at the market, we went to Yarn Charm so I could use their knitting machine to make sock blanks with my lilac cones from Brown Sheep. Well, that didn’t work out like I’d planned. Between the machine having issues and me not knowing what I was doing, it was a total waste of time. After an hour and a half, we ripped out what I’d knitted (badly) and headed home. It was another long day.

Sunday was a wonderful day at home. At last! I had a lovely day intermingling chores with knitting and listening to the audio book for book club – Shadow of the Wind. I even managed to do all kinds of things that have been hanging around too long, like putting away some Christmas dishes that have been living on the counter and my stocking stuffers, which have been sitting on the hutch since Christmas. I know. Ridiculous. I also went through every piece of paper on the desk.  I ended the night with a yummy layered tortilla thingie I threw together for dinner. The house is picked up, I have a big bag for Goodwill and another to take to work to divvy out and I can see the top of the desk and the bar. Best part though was just being home. Since I’m a sucker for saying yes to all kinds of things that keep me from home, maybe it’s time to schedule 2 weekends a month to do that and not allow other things to supersede that. Do you think there’s a chance that could work? Hmm….

 

 

 

 

Week 8 - Wonderful Snow Day

The week had a frantic feel to start and then slowed WAY down. I could use a few more days at the slow pace.

Work was busy and sometimes frustrating. Nuf said about that.

Monday was Presidents’ Day (we don’t get it off in exchange for a day between Christmas and New Year’s) and the library was closed so we couldn’t knit there. Lori invited us to her house but I opted out, instead enjoying a nice night at home. I had lunch with Darla on Tuesday and then swam after work. Wednesday lunch was UAAD, where Dodie won the Donaldson Award for excellence in management, which she deserved. Then it was all about the storm.

It was supposed to start snowing Thursday morning and they were predicting a foot of snow. I had already told Nora I wasn’t going to come in so was looking forward to a lovely vacation day at home when I left Wednesday. I tried to swim but was late and then couldn’t get a parking spot so just headed home. I’d food shopped on Tuesday so was ready to hunker down. Yay!

It was gray on Thursday and I was enjoying myself immensely, still in my nightie, when I called Andrea about booking our tickets to Ireland. She told me UNL was closed! I had had no idea, having completely ignored the crawl on the TV, which I’d had on all morning. Yee ha! That made the day even better. Then we bought our tickets and got a great deal, adding to the wonderful. It did start snowing around noon and kept up all day. It was wonderful to be warm inside knitting while to snow fell. I made comfort food for dinner – hamburger stroganoff over egg noodles with broccoli. I’d also made rice pudding and a pie so had dessert to chose from. I started a wonderful baby sweater for Cheryl’s grandbaby too and was enjoying that. Snow days rock!

We got seven inches. They had plowed at some point overnight but only one pass on the other side of the street. Since they didn’t plow after the last storm until after noon, I shoveled my entire driveway and 6 feet of the street so I could get out to the plowed side. I was dripping with sweat by the time I was done so hopped in the shower and got to work ~10:00. Not bad. LPS was out for a second day so lots of people were still out. Layton and I had a quick lunch at The Red Fox and the afternoon flew by. Nora, who was working from home, called me on and off all afternoon.

When I left work at 5:00, I met Darla at the thrift store and scored big. I got all kinds of fun things at our store and then went next door to Goodwill, where they were having a 99 cent clothing sale. $3 later (2 sweaters for felting and a nice shirt I’ll take to Ireland), I headed home. But I couldn’t resist detouring to the 27^th Street Goodwill and scored again – clothes and lots of craft supplies. Then it was home for the whole weekend. I drove into the garage with no intention of going anywhere before leaving for work on Monday morning.

I had a lovely weekend with lots of knitting, cooking, some crafting and the inevitable chores. The sun was blazing all weekend and by Sunday night I had finished the baby sweater, had a frig full of food for the week and had organized all my knitting stuff – yarn, needles, etc. I didn’t manage to get the house picked up so will have to do that before the cleaning lady comes but that’s OK. It was a wonderful weekend and a nice week too. Who doesn’t love a week with a snow day?

Week 7 - Self-imposed Knitting Pressure

This week was nuts! Every day flew by and it contained all the usual stuff plus a few noteworthy items so I’ll focus on them.

I had some knitting fun, as usual. It was warm enough to sit outside and knit on Wednesday, which was pleasant. On Thursday Anne popped into my cubie when she was in the building for a meeting and I convinced her to come with me over lunch for a Yarn Charm run. I bought myself a valentine – a beautiful skein of hand-dyed sock yarn – and a few things for my swap. Anne, who had never been to YC, bought some needles. It was a nice Valentine’s Day treat.

I was a bit overwhelmed by some self-imposed knitting deadlines. I had spinning on Saturday and wanted to bring 2 pairs of felted slippers with me – one as rent for borrowing a spinning wheel from Gina and one as a long overdue thank you for Jeanie’s help with combing my wool. Well, if I’d made duffers for both, there wouldn’t have been an issue but I decided to do a new pattern for Jeanie’s and they took twice as long. I had the duffers done in a few hours but the others weren’t off the needles until Friday night after 9:00, at which point I still had to felt them. Then the 2^nd pair, which had some vintage wool along with cone wool, wasn’t felting well. After 1.25 hours in the machine, I gave up and went to bed. Gina’s duffers were perfect and gorgeous. Jeanie’s needed an explanation and hopefully she’ll do some hand felting until they’re right. My hands were aching from so much knitting on big needles but I’d made my deadline and they both seemed happy with them so it was all worth it. Note to self: start earlier next time and stick with tried and true (patterns and yarn) next time I’m under the gun.

Friday was one of those maniacal work days with 3 problems presenting themselves first thing in the morning and then lasting all day. I finished up at 4:00 and was feeling good about my day when the boss asked for a new report that she needed ASAP, which had me cranking right until 5:00. Then it was home to knit and felt. Such pressure!

I had to finish the felting on Friday night because Darla was due at my house at 8:00 a.m. Saturday for breakfast. I picked up the house between felting agitation cycles so was in good shape when I went to bed Friday night. Everything was taking longer than it should have on Saturday morning so the pancakes weren’t even on the griddle when she arrived. She was early though so we were eating by 8:15 and then headed for Fremont.

Our first stop was Goodwill, where we both scored all kinds of good stuff. We were there for much longer than we’d thought (it was really on the list as a filler until the downtown shops opened at 10:00) and even bumped into Denise from the library, who found me a gorgeous LLBean sweater to harvest the yarn from. We headed to Main Street where I used my birthday coupon at the quilt shop to buy swap goodies (nothing for myself but that’s OK), TVP from the health food store and then we stopped for coffee. I walked out with a painting. Then we hit Buck’s Shoes, which was having a great sale and I got a pair of army green slip on Keen’s and even got them free because I filled my Buck’s Dozen card that I started in 1998! Darla dropped me at the library for spinning and headed home.

Spinning was fun and we were the last ones out the door. Andrea was driving me home and I had my rented wheel in hand. How exciting! We stopped at Buck’s to see if Andrea could find anything (she didn’t) and then hit Yankee Peddler Antiques across the street. Guess what I found? Yarn. Go figure. We got home ~5:30 and I collapsed into a chair exhausted. It felt good to be back knitting socks again and after a bit of TV, I went to bed early.

Sunday was chore and cooking day and I got busy early so all the laundry was done and hanging on the line before I stopped for lunch. I had grand plans to cook but got distracted by yarn, ripping out the sleeves of the LLBean sweater, hanking and washing it to hand on the line and then dyeing another skein. I fit the chores between and once they were done, Andrea came over to watch the last 2 episodes of Call the Midwife that I had from Netflix. It was a lovely afternoon of tea, knitting and British TV. The only cooking I got done was a pot of chicken soup but I’ll live. I ended the week knitting socks and watching the season finale of Downton Abbey. It was a nice end to a busy week.

Week 6 - Another Good Week

As usual, it was another busy week and the weekend was pretty full too. But like I say, better busy than bored. 

Having cooked nothing on the weekend, I couldn’t even cobble together lunch on Monday but Darla was up for lunch so we headed to Virginia’s (the local greasy spoon) and on the way back I met Anne to transfer the last load of yarn to her car. She’ll be all set for her charity mittens for awhile. At Monday Night Knitting, we went through the better quality yarn and I took one grocery bag of miscellaneous skeins and another of natural for dyeing. I know, I didn’t need any of it but hey, it was free! 

I had suggested Anne, Kate and I do a pizza yarn sorting thing on Tuesday after work and that was the plan but Kate was under the weather so we cancelled. I swam and went to the market, where I picked up my first ever rotisserie chicken (I can see why these sell) and some cole slaw because between cancelling pizza at Anne’s and the end of the day, Andrea was now coming over to pick up my I-cord maker and have dinner.  

The rest of the week was a blurr. I was working with a useless travel agent from AAA to find good flights to Ireland (still nothing – see? USELESS!), was at training all day on Thursday (the make up session from last week’s Engineering training when it snowed and half the class couldn’t get it) and it was Friday before I knew it. On the way to work, the car in front of me on 77 kicked up a 1” rock and so I started the day with a circular crack smack in the middle of my windshield. Add replacing that to my to do list. Damn! 

Saturday was my cousin fun day with Helen for my birthday. I was torn between doing an Omaha run and staying home for pizza and chatting but was leaning towards the latter when the phone rang. Helen wanted to come Sunday instead so I sat down to knit, getting inspired on a felted project for my swap. I called Andrea to see if she wanted to do a quick Omaha run. She did so I would be picking her up at 1:00. I had said I’d bring her lunch but then knitted until the last possible minute so figured we could grab something in Omaha, my treat, instead. 

I headed to her shop at 1:00, where Andrea asked if her nephew could come with us because he needed some ammunition. Here’s the choice – having a nice afternoon of lunch and shopping with a friend or doing the same with a 14 year old boy in the back seat, watching my language, choosing conversation topics carefully and going to the gun shop. What would I choose? Well, she’d already told him he could come so I had no choice. The most pleasant part of the afternoon was the 20 minutes sitting in the sunny car at Guns & Ammo getting a blizzard update from Carolyn while they shopped. We got a donut and called it lunch then Trader Joe’s was a mob scene (was this normal for a non-football Saturday?) It was so full I couldn’t do some of aisles so I only bought 1 bag of stuff so I suppose it saved me some oney. Then we hit Aldi and were home at 4:15 so I could decompress with a cup of tea. It was not the afternoon I’d planned but at least I had stocked up.  

Sunday was fun. Helen came over mid morning and we sat and chatted all day, picking up pizza for lunch. She brought banana bars with cream cheese frosting for my birthday. Yum! She left just before 5:00 and I jumped in the shower before heading to the country club for the library’s Wine & Dine dinner. I forgot the Friends’ checkbook to pay the caterer so had to go home for it and missed the social hour but had a delicious prime rib dinner and was home in time for Downton Abbey. Half the people there were going home for it and one of the speakers even closed with a Downton Abbey time check. Too funny. 

So another busy week with a fullyl scheduled weekend following. I got some fun knitting done, spent time with friends and swam twice. That rates as a good week in my world. How was yours?

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!