by Kat | May 10, 2021 | General, In This Moment
- arrives right on schedule despite a weekend of little sleep…courtesy of a returning bout of insomnia.
- comes with a longer than usual to do list…courtesy of me ignoring things to sit and spin instead for most of last week.
- shows up despite having done no blog post prep over the weekend (if only that single thing kept Monday’s from arriving, I’d make it a weekly thing! lol)
I’d like to say it was a great weekend but the weather was really horrid here in Pittsburgh. We had to have the heat on because it was so cold and damp in the house. And Mother’s Day had particularly miserable weather, but I did get some “sunny” phone calls.
If you are wondering how cold it was here this weekend, I took the iris photo on Saturday and it is still blooming this morning.
Things I did not do this weekend (or last week for that matter): laundry, kitchen floors, bathroom, thank you note writing, (or blog post writing…sigh.)
So here I am on a dreary, yet dry, Monday – list in one hand, an extra large coffee in the other…and maybe, just maybe, if I can get through that list a reward of an afternoon nap could be mine!
I hope your Monday is less full than mine and that your weekend was amazing!
See you all back here on Wednesday!
by Kat | Apr 12, 2021 | General, In This Moment
I have no idea who “Maxine” is, but boy this quote was my weekend! LOL (and who am I??)
I have been diligently working through the #cleaningarmy Spring Cleaning Challenge List (A huge thanks to Kym for sending me their way!) and I worked away on the kitchen over the weekend, ugh. But boy is it sparkly this morning! Today I have arrived at the dreaded bathroom/bedroom portion of the task list. I am wondering how I ever really did this without a list… I was a haphazard spring cleaner at best!
A weekend of cleaning was not what I really wanted to do, but I was on a roll.
I did manage a bit of spinning though! Saturday afternoon I virtually-spun with Jane, Sarah, Eileen, and Eileen’s sister and finished up some lingering singles on my wheel and I did some plying on Sunday! (If you’d like to join us, you are welcome! The more the merrier!) I need to give these beauties a bit of a soak to see how the twist evens out, but I am happy with my results on this!
My treat for finishing the bathroom/bedroom will be to ply up those reddish singles so I can get started on the fiber they complement!
Happy Monday All!
by Kat | Mar 22, 2021 | General, In This Moment
Each morning I begin my day the same way…before I can just sit with my thoughts I take Sherman out. He is a fine and quiet companion in the early morning… and he does not mind my silence while I listen to The Writer’s Almanac podcast and this morning’s edition was just spectacular. It’s Billy Collins’ 80th birthday today and if you want to listen to Garrison read a lovely Billy Collins poem you can do that here!
Listening to poetry really is a very good thing to start my day.
Another good thing I listened to this week was this episode of On Being. I think I knew some of these things, but boy did it help to hear someone talk about the stresses we’ve been living with… and how do we re-emerge when this is all over.
The On Being discussion on stress really helped in light of a conversation I had about gauge on Saturday with Sarah and Jane. You might have read about Kym’s gauge struggles so I felt a little déjà vu when I sat down to swatch for the Daytripper Cardigan… a MaryJane Mucklestone design… which, by the way, is the same gauge as 3 other MaryJane Mucklestone sweaters I had previously knit. I got gauge on each of them with absolutely no issues. This time? oh boy. I have a stack of swatches to show how I struggled with it! First I thought just do some knitty maths and go with my original swatch… good in theory, but the maths and the sizing did not work out for me. End result, while I have not measured my last swatch this morning, pre-washing it was on gauge. That swatch? Knit with a US 11 needle… on the bright side, my sweater will knit up even faster now! So even in struggles as you work your way out good things can be found!
Another good thing was this photo my daughter shared… and I just laughed right out loud!
Vivi, the chicken wrangler!
Finally, buds are appearing on my forsythia and lilac bush in my yard. It makes me smile to see them! Happy Monday everyone! See you all back here on Wednesday!
by Kat | Mar 15, 2021 | General, In This Moment
I haven’t done a “weekending” post in eons. Thank you, Pandemic Living for making weekends utterly unsharable! How many different ways can you say… ummm, we did the same thing as every other weekend.
Well, this weekend was the not like the previous weekends, so I thought it was “share-worthy”!
We started out on Friday heading off to IKEA… it was busy. So busy. Too busy. Pre-pandemic, I would not have even given a thought to all those people… but now? Being in a group of people is just not comfortable… so we rushed and did not get everything we came for…sigh. So we went back first thing on Saturday. However, we were smarter about our second trip. I looked up where the things were that we needed to get, made a list and we were in and out in less that 20 minutes and only saw 4 people. Why did we need to go to IKEA you ask? Well, we needed to replace our outdoor table and chairs. And we needed rubber backed rugs. The remainder of Saturday involved deconstructing the old patio furniture and building the new patio furniture. We also put the awning up on the pergola so we are ready to go on the next “moderately warm day” to eat outside. It was the perfect day to do all that work. It was sunny, but not at all warm. I wore a lopapeysa and was NOT too warm at all! We got a bigger table so I need to rethink the patio plants, but I am excited for the possibilities! Oh, and Sherman… well, as you can see he was took his supervisory role seriously, NOT! Ha…rather, he soaked up the sun and slept during the work. Thankfully, we completed the task with out his help! LOL
New table and benches!
I also picked up another Råskog cart from IKEA to give some semblance of order to my “spinning corner” in the living room. (versus having things just laying around on the various flat surfaces) I spent some time on Sunday putting it together and organizing it. I think this is going to be an excellent addition and I love that I can see things, but they are not laying around!
Everything in a place!
Finally, we purchased 8 rubber backed bathroom rugs. Yes…8. Why so many you ask? Well, recently Sherman has struggled to walk on the wood floors. He slips and falls all the time. So I had a conglomeration of rugs and/or towels down for him… but they slipped around almost as much as he did! So, now Sherman has a non-slip “path” to get from the dining room to the living room and he LOVES it! We probably won’t win any house decorating awards, but a happy pug makes me happy.
The Sherman Super Highway!
There was also a bit of Happy Houring, some corned beef cooking, and… perhaps best of all… I managed to get COVID vaccine appointments this afternoon for Steve’s dad, Steve, and myself! Shot one will soon be done and I am so incredibly happy about that! AND! We survived time-change (but back to zero-dark thirty to walk Sherman, sigh) Hahaha!
Happy Monday, everyone! I hope you all had a great weekend too!
by Kat | Feb 1, 2021 | General, In This Moment
“We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart.” ― Pema Chödrön
I stumbled upon this quote this weekend and have been pondering it ever since. It rings true for me as this new month starts… life is not “passing the test” or overcoming the problem. There is no point when it suddenly all becomes easier, no apex moment to achieve with a reward of “down hill” ease. No, new tests/challenges keep popping up and there is always a new problem…always. Yet despite all of that, Pema’s wisdom in the continuity of things coming together and falling apart is somehow comforting.
Good things to keep in mind as my household approaches one year of Safer at Home… yes, we started in early February 2020. A year of being distant, masking up, and thinking about “is this trip absolutely necessary.” A habit now it seems, yet this weekend our discussions included frustration, disappointment, and longing for life before COVID.
The science reports on wearing two masks seems to echo Pema… things don’t really get solved.
But!! I had an interesting discussion about the efficacy of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine this weekend, and while it might not score as high as the currently available vaccines, it does boast a very impressive stat… preventing hospitalizations and deaths! More Pema echo’s….they come together.
The reminder for me this morning is that there is no “magic button” but rather a determination to keep on going and hope there is more coming together and less falling apart. (Or if they do fall apart, may they be easily fixed!)
Finally, in these socially distant times there was some most excellent coming together… a small group of fiber enthusiasts got together Saturday afternoon via the wonder of the internet and we spent time spinning, and talking, and laughing, and sharing. We have plans to meet twice a month… and if you’d like to join us, you would absolutely be welcome!
Happy Monday, everyone! See you all back here for some unraveling on Wednesday!
