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. 

 

Sigh, Letting Go.

 I am not even sure where to start. As you know I have been struggling for the last couple of years. Heck all of us have been struggling. Turns out a worldwide pandemic is a huge stress. Add to that how many people it brought out the worst in and oh boy, what a shitty world we live in.

OK I feel better for saying it but it is a hard thing to admit. We are horrible to one another. Kindness is something that is demanded as a right and not reciprocated. I am done, just done with people acting like petulant children. Demanding this and that without giving anything back. Mine, mine, mine is all I see.

Sigh, maybe I should just write this all in a journal somewhere, but nope it is here on this page. Seems I am having a moment...

Sigh, I made a decision a couple of weeks ago to help me. I quit my job. I stayed on to train my replacement but I made the decision to walk away from a very bad situation. Honestly I feel better. I worked my way through some things. I felt like a failure but then I slapped myself with the kindness stick and let myself off the hook. It is not a failure to admit things are not right, and you have done everything you can to make them better, but things are still not right. 

Sigh, I am worth it. I am better than this and I will always be worth it. 

As I was cleaning out my desk I found a piece of paper. Remember a couple of years ago when someone anonymously sent me a letter telling me I was not living up to their standards? You know buy a blouse, wash my hair and put on makeup. (Side note I'm really not doing that now in a pandemic.) No I did not keep that piece of paper. Hubby collected all the nice things people had said to me after that and typed it up and sent it to me anonymously. Yes I know he is a good hubby even if he scared the pants off of me that day. That is the piece of paper I found to help me get through a very tough day of leaving. 

Sigh, I am worth it. I am better than this and I will always be worth it. 

For my Father in Law

My father in law is a good man, who has had a rough few years. I know last year was rough on all of us but I kid you not when I say he had a really rough time of it. So when he tells me I need to move on from windowsill gardening to the outside world, you bet your sweet bippy I had to send proof of just that. 

I did indeed get a late start to planting outside because I was slightly obsessed with my seed starting project. Hubby would say more than obsessed but hey a girl needs a hobby. Shh don't tell him knitting is my hobby. Ok fine a girl needs an experiment sometimes too. I was so busy watching things grow inside and so worried about the last freeze date that I missed my sow seeds outside date. 

I know! I even have a month by month garden book to refer to. I blame pandemic brain!

I did get myself a nice little tent greenhouse. I had a thermometer that kept the daily highs and lows in it. I can tell you it got pretty near freezing and if I did not open it up whew, it was sweltering in the day in that tent. It was not uncommon to get a face full of steam if I did not get out in the morning. 

Anyways back to the pictures. I swapped the bed the tomatoes were planted in this year, it is the far bed in the above pic. It has been interesting to see how much less light it gets. The house and back porch shade it pretty well till midday. Plus I mixed up how I planted the tomatoes this year since I had so many. The ones that get the most sunlight are also the ones I planted sideways. They are much stronger and fuller plants than their shady not as deeply planted cousins. So yay more data for my experiment. Now I will always plant tomatoes sideways to give them better root development. 

Lettuce plants from the nursery seem to have taken off. We got one cucumber from the greenhouse cucumber plant too. Now if this weekend's heat does not scorch everything to death I will be happy-ish. Yesterday was a record breaker at 107 I think and today and Monday are both expected to be over 110. Climate change is real!

We have dusted off the cards and Cribbage board. That is Hubby winning yet another round. He one that set and is on his way to winning the next set. BUT I WON last night so I am feeling feisty!!

 Speaking of feisty Mellie says a fur bikini is not all that much cooler. She feels save tucking herself behind my chair and letting it all hang out. A cat has to do what a cat has to do!

Try to stay cool and safe my friends. Hope you enjoyed this one H!!

Still in love with windowsill gardening.

I am going to claim success in my seed starting experiment. I have been able to get things to grow and it has brought me immense joy to see plants in windows. 

I took wee seeds and turned them into wee plants.

Which turned into not so wee blooms that make me smile every time I check in on them. I don't know if my blooming cucumber will produce anything besides a sense of happiness in me but that is really the point most days now. 

My tomatoes and basil are growing up too. One of these trays spent the night out in the tent greenhouse to prep it for planting. I think it is time to get some things in the ground. 

My tomatillo is blooming too. Not sure if I am going to keep the blooming one inside or not. 

My pea experiment has one wee pod and a few blooms. Time to plant some outside. 

Burt makes sure to plant himself in my lap and keep me knitting too.

It is tough work but he is the cat to do it. 

After all he is the resident knitwear model cat. Yes Momma you can knit socks, we know...

Happy knitting and planting to all!