Cleaning up and finding things.

Burt do you want to help Momma do some Swedish Death Cleaning? 

I don't know Momma would it increase my food allowance? No? Then I think I am pretty comfortable right here. I'll make sure I can cheer your on from here. Go Momma get rid of some stuff!

 

Burt look what I found! Looks like Momma was always destined to find you and bring you home. 

Yep Momma I was always headed your way. Keep up with that cleaning Momma. You can get rid of some of that cross stitch stuff. You're a knitter now, no need to hold on to old stuff. You can just enjoy all the stuff you finished. Keep going Momma!

Momma do you need me to cheer too? I'm valuable too even if I was not "predestined" to find you. Grumble grumble stupid cross stitch stuff forgot about grey kittens...grumble. I'm a pretty good girl!

 As part of my cleaning I have consolidated all my yarn and knitting supplies. My Rhinebeck room is collecting all the knitting things. Yes it is the worst room in the house now. But on the plus side I found a tub to put all my handspun yarn in. I am very surprised at how much I have spun. It is rather nice to be putting things in their places. But oh my Swedish Death Ceaning is so not fun. I am looking forward to having it all done. 

Burt and Mellie are being very helpful keeping me on task.

Keeping busy

Burt would like you to know that we are all about self care in this house. Well and we care for others too but we secure our air mask first. Here he is doing just that. In order to be supportive sometimes you need to be supported. Or something like that, it is hard to be a cat philosopher all of the time. It interferes with his napping schedule, secure your own mask first, blah blah.

A few weeks ago we took a drive out to the coast with a friend. This lighthouse is neat because it is shorter and you come down the trail seeing just the light portion below you. Most if not all lighthouses I've been to are quite tall and you have to look up. this one is short and built into a lower level so you walk up to a great view of the Fresnel lens. 

Plus looking at lighthouses always make you look contemplative. My guy happens to be highly contemplative but looks so much more here. 

Back up the hill we had to go see the Octopus tree. So named because there were eight huge limbs growing from one low trunk. We counted and debated if it were truly octopus now. Some of the limbs have been removed due to storm damage. There were smaller limbs but I don't remember if we got to eight again.

Burt reports that the star blanket is still progressing, but not terribly quickly. Momma has been busy baking and cleaning. Pumpkin bread and muffins are all right. Burt has been a little cranky because he has to use the food ball again instead of a dish. The vet said he is too smart to just sit in front of a dish and eat. Hopefully working to get food will reduce his waistline "smarts." Who knew they could be measured in pounds with a scale?

Both he and Mellie are telling me that she is smart too and should get a second Mellie food ball. She has figured out how to work it and was eating his food ball food he had left in protest of Momma's unfair new program. Don't worry Burt ended his protest just as soon as he heard someone eating his food.

Stay strong and defeat the food ball my friends!

Someone Else's Star

Shortly after I left my job, I had lunch with a former coworker, now just my friend. When her son said he was expecting we picked out a pattern for a baby blanket for her to make. We found a very interesting Ten Stitch Star pattern by Frankie Brown.

She bought the yarn and we started the pattern one day while on lunch. And we restarted the pattern the next week on lunch. And we restarted the pattern the week after that in a lighter color so we could see what we were doing. Alas it went home with her and sat in the bag from the yarn store. Cough for a year and a half cough. 

Yeah it seems like the projects you want to do the best on just sit there sometimes. 

Anyways I brought lunch to her the week after I left my job, and we had a lovely chat. We solved all of the world's problems and I knit on a sock. She sat there and finally got up the courage to ask...could she pay me to knit the baby blanket? 

No! You can not pay me to knit it, but I would consider knitting it for you but reserve the right to give up and return it to you. 

I took home a nice bag of yarn and pulled out some needles and started knitting. I had been looking to do something besides socks for a little while and could not land on anything. I could have knit on a sweater that has been on the needles for a while but nope. I really need to try the sweater on and see if it will work for me before I progress. But that is a story for another post.

I cast on the next day and soon had a star. It required a little bit of seaming but it was pretty interesting to knit. Time to move on to the next color.

I have found that rewriting patterns can sometimes help me make what I am doing, clear in my head. I do have to be extra careful I don't misunderstand something and keep on with an error. But that is always a risk you take. It is just as easy to think you understand reading something when in fact you misread it and have totally missed the point. But my star still looked like a star part of the way through. Keep on knitting.

I of course was heavily supervised. The kids were getting used to having a full desk to sprawl out on since my work computer went back to the office.

They kept me fortified with tea and supervision. They even allowed for bathroom breaks and snacks. What more could a working cat mom ask for?

As the star grew so did the time it took to knit a full star. Such is the joy of knitting?

Once the third star was done it was time to check and see. So the star is 14 inches (I think) from point to not a point. This thing is so hard to measure. Then I started really reading the pattern and thinking about what we have. Yikes how big is this thing going to be and am I really willing to knit it?

So the pattern picture shows 12 stars. Uhm each of my star stripes is about 2 inches. No I did not do the math at this point because ppppttthhh, I don't want to. It is going to get pretty big. We discussed a plan and I knit a stripe of ten stitches on smaller needles. That stripe was slightly smaller than 2 inches. The command was given to knit on as is. Next color is a maroon so we shall see. We may need to eliminate some of the rounds but now is not the time to make that decision. 

So yeah, I am knitting a baby blanket for a toddler. And Mellie keeps stealing the yarn. It only took three times for me to relocate the yarn bag for safekeeping from a stripy kitten star.
 

Recovering

We have been in recovery mode here for a while now and I think it is starting to become normal to feel less stress. I know Burt has been working extra hard at absorbing all my bad emotions and recycling them through Purr Therapy into happiness. He claims a trademark on Purr Therapy. Not only is he inventor, developer and practitioner; he is also a satisfied client.

Melissa is still punching in for work in the old home office. Turns out she did not quit her job just because Momma quit hers. She is even willing to work overtime!

They both have decided the desk is not inherently bad by association and we can work even more comfortably without that pesky computer, screens and phone. More space to sprawl! 

I have had the crockpot going for three days straight. Cooking up some tasty meals and getting some stuff used up. So nice to have the time to think about making things again. I do need to pull out the bread machine too but one day at a time, according to Burt. We wouldn't want to rush into anything.

I have been attending to my garden also. I love that I can grow things to eat too. I will need to start planting for some fall produce too. This is my second ever home grown zucchini.

I am being closely supervised in my knitting project for a friend. See how easy it is to convert a work desk into a hobby desk if you follow your cat's recommendations?

Started a puzzle but they are not as much help with that as they would like you to believe.

So yeah I have been keeping just the right amount of busy. Thanks kitties for making your momma feel more like her true self.