Management

Well, not really.  I am sorting through all the jewelry I have accumulated over the years, set aside those that need repair (does any store still do this for chains?) and adding chains to all the worthwhile pendants, polishing the silver things (and what a difference it makes) and figuring out what gold is real and what is gold filled.  I'm still not done, I have run out of 30 inch chains, and I am never going to wear necklaces any shorter because I want all my necklaces to fit over my head without having to open/close the chain when I wear them.  My hands shake too much to fasten things around my neck.  And I swear the manufacturers are making the clasps tinier and tinier; probably the same designers that invented transparent steel to enclose all sorts of things.  I notice there are some items where the ads say "frustration-free packaging" and here is a cheer for them.  We all need a little less frustration in our lives...

I have damaged my "good" knee and can scarcely climb the stairs; once I am upstairs (kitchen, living room, etc.) there I stay until I go back downstairs (bedroom) for the night.  My knee feels like there has been a blowtorch on it, yet I have no idea what I did to damage it.  I have to use my cane just to go to the bathroom, and I haven't mastered taking a shower with it.  I just go very slowly when I wash my feet, standing on one leg at a time, and I would greatly appreciate grab bars in the shower, but we tried to install one and couldn't find the studs behind the shower to fasten one to.  Not for the lack of trying.

We have a couple of beautiful mountain ash trees that I don't think will make it until the spring.  The local woodpeckers are chopping huge chunks of bark off the trees in pursuit of a borer insect that has arrived in WV from the north.  All due to global warming that extends the moderate zone southward, bringing the pests along with it.  Did I say, global warming?  I mean temporary weather fluctuations.  Riiight...

The End of Illness

It is 6 am here and I feel better, without taking phenergan or whatever.  Here's hoping it lasts.

We had 4 inches of snow, but today it is supposed to have a high of 60.  I want to go to the drug store -big excursion! - so I guess I will need to get cleaned up.  Meanwhile it ts back to bed.

I wrote the above mini post and then forgot about it.  Now it has been a week with no posts, sorry!  I know you all have been bereft.  This will be short as well, but more than 3 sentences, I would hope.  We will see.

I think spring is right around the corner here, mild weather forecast for the next week or 10 days.  I will try to get out for more than 30 minutes while it lasts, it is still Feb. so nothing is for certain in the local weather.  Last year we had a sizable snow this time of year, so it doesn't pay to get too complacent and do some foolish thing, like putting the snow blower away, or using the last of the ice melt and then not getting any more.  That is only tempting fate.

I am losing steam on my Kitty Trio cross stitch, so I will put it aside for a while until I am ready to go again, just a few days.  Meanwhile I will try machine knitting again and see how my shoulder does.  It feels pretty good now.  I'll start with something small, like dishcloths or a scarf, no loss if I have to frog it.  Probably do the dishcloths, I have a ton of cotton yarn to use up over the next, oh I don't know, the next thousand years.  When I was 12 or so years old, my aunt tried to teach me and my sister how to crochet.  My problem was maintaining even tension, row after row, so the piece wouldn't start out 12 inches across, and then diminish the next row to 10 inches, and so on, until I had a triangular piece at the bottom.  I never did get the knack, although I tried multiple times.  My sister, however took to it like a duck to water and crocheted all the time until she passed.  This delighted my aunt and pi**ed me off.  I gave all the afghans, etc. that she made for me to Goodwill after she died, but that is another story.  It makes sense if you knew the full story.

This damned desk has a slot at the back, all the way across, for wires and cables, a gap of 4 inches or so.  I am getting really tired of fishing back behind the desk for stuff that has slipped down behind the desk, grrr.  I keep trying to clear the surface of the desk, but as soon as I get it done, more stuff amazingly appears in that space.  Then it gradually crawls to the back and oops, there it goes behind again.  Stuff expands and fills the space available to it, I think.

Onward to the kitchen for now, the offspring went shopping this morning and my daughter was hungry when they went and they came home with an amazing array of snacking stuff.  I've got to find space (again) to put it all away where it will get used before the "use by" date.  Such a burden %> )

Today's cartoon:

Sick

I guess that the weather is mild for now, but I wouldn't know first hand as I have been in bed for the last 4 days.  I went to the Med Express on Sunday and the nasal swab said "guilty!" I have the flu.  I haven't eaten much since Saturday, but I don't miss it.  I saw the dentist yesterday to be prepped for a crown ($$), but today I am worse so I canceled the eye doctor appointment.  I think med visits are my only activities that get me out of the house.  Bleh...

We did have one hellacious clap of thunder last night, I swear it was directly overhead.  I didn't see my chicken hearted cat until hours later, I think she was behind the furnace.  The other three don't like it either, but they hide under the couch, etc., and only briefly if the thunder passes by.   When I was a kid in Florida, where thunderstorms are everywhere, we had a cat who would run OUTside, get soaked, then flee back inside, and if the storm continued, do it all over again.  Maybe she thought the house was  the cause of all the commotion, I don't know.  Maybe she just dared to show the storm who was the boss.  I wanted to give her a shot of cat shampoo the first trip out, so she would at least get clean, but Mom said that was a bad idea.  Guess so.  I would never go back to FL, even in the winter when we are immobilized by ice here.  It is too damn hot there in the summer, and the bugs alone would keep me out.  When I went to see my friend in FL, who was slowly dying of lung cancer, the first visit I stayed in an old motel, and slept with the lights on so I knew were to stomp.  The other visits I slept at her mother's house, which had routine visits from the exterminators, and had a rental car so I could come and go as needed.  Now that she is gone, there is no reason to return to FL.  I would do it now, though, if my friend was still there.

I tried to do some cross stitch while I am in bed, but it makes me sea sick, and it is at a clumsy position anyway.  I still have more patterns to come, I probably already have the right colors of floss, but I will need more fabric for them.  But first I will finish the "Kitty Trio" (see down there ) pattern.    Feeling bad again, I'll quit while I am ahead.

Hoping for a mild February

We had another 3 inch snowfall a few days ago, but not much of it stuck.  It was kinda pretty, big fluffy flakes, as long as I don't have to be in a car on a steep guard rail-less road.  Northern WV is a nice place to live, it has scenery, and is close to a major metro city (Pittsburgh) for shopping.  I personally haven't been to Pitt for years, after all, there is the internet which has the advantage of no crowds, parking, and traffic back to WV.

The preventative maintenance on the furnace was done today, and there are no problems except for too much dust in the immediate area (e.g. the cat litter box right next to the intake duct), but I think I can correct that without moving the box.  I mean, how would we like it if we had to use the bathroom and couldn't find it? We will give it a trial and see if the furnace filter has less dust on it.  A simple furnace filter replaced more frequently won't be a burden either.

I found some neat cross stitch patterns over the last few days, just the pattern and not an entire kit, which runs the cost up a lot.  Here is one of them

It is a fractal cat image, and if the monitors of all you readers can render a reasonable copy, you can see the pattern should be easy, unless it is stitched on black fabric, which is the pits.  I haven't received this pattern yet, I am keeping my fingers crossed about the black fabric.  I did one cross stitch a long time ago on navy blue and swore I would never do a dark background again.  But we know how that goes?  It has to be worked on in the daytime, you have to have a white something on your lap so the holes show up, and you don't want to take some of it out to do over.  But there are lovely patterns with the dark background that are very striking.  Sigh.  Update:  it is stitched on white fabric!


Ugh.  I just was dive-bombed by a stink bug, I'm out of here until it is found.  Hope all of you are having a good down time on your days off, and I am hoping you have no close encounters with bugs.