KALs & Other Challenges aka Torments

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Ever feel like you’re going round and round and it’s all your own fault?

Just this morning I joined yet another knitting KAL as if the 2018 Temperature Blanket wasn’t enough. Then, I have to remember the 2018 Vogue Knitting challenges that I joined on Ravelry.

Did I explain the VK challenges yet? There’s the #18 in 2018 which is any project from any year that is #18 in the issue. I’m working on that one right now. I’m knitting #18 from 1988 which also covers the Any project from a year ending in 8. Then, there is the Then and Now. My Then was a cardigan from 1959 and I also finished another Then from 1988 and another from 1986, I think. I’ve got pretty much the entire challenge completed except the Now. I need to go through all four issues from this year and pick one. I’m thinking it better be an easy one at this point. To meet the requirements all I have to do is cast on and it doesn’t have to be finished by the end of December.

Then, there’s that Temperature Blanket. Yes, that’s a photo of my blanket up there. I was playing with photos for my Secrets of Better Photography course that I’m finishing. Lesson 12 was about editing photos and the assignment was to get creative if you wanted to. So, I did. Right now my blanket is on 7/18/18. I’m over halfway there. Many knitters are behind but, we don’t care. I do need to order more yellow which is for the days in the 70s, orange for the days in the 80s and some pink for the 90s. Who would have thought Michigan would have been consistently that warm. They did say on the news the other day that scientists are showing that we are averaging higher temps every year since 2013. I’m planning on a 2019 blanket to keep using this yarn so I’m thinking those higher-temp colors will be used again next year. Stay tuned for photos.

My latest KAL is from Ambah O’Brien and it’s the ADVENTurer Cowl or any of the Adventurer series patterns. I’m choosing the cowl since it’s a lot smaller than the wrap. I found a yarn to use in a short amount of time which was so surprising. I thought I’d be lost in my stash for days.

Requirement #1 is to cast on today on December 1st and stay tuned for updates from Ambah. Will do.  Final photo posting can be any time before a date in February.

It’s Beginning to Look Like Christmas

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Everywhere I go.

This is one of the photos that I took while we were walking through Downtown Rochester’s annual light show. There would have been more awesome photo opportunities if there was snow. One year we were there during a snow storm. There were several inches of fresh snow that fell that afternoon and it was still falling. The show is not ending yet so I still have time.

Did I mention that I tend to start blogs then wander off and abandon the entire idea of the whole concept? It’s been days since I’ve been here and each absence seems to be a little longer than the previous. This time there are actually some legitimate reasons for being away. We had Thanksgiving, Black Friday, my downtown Rochester trip and dinner at Rochester Mills Brewery, then a tooth extraction.

Tooth extraction? Ah. Yes. That was the result of some venison chili that I made back in September. No, I didn’t wait until now to eat it. This is how long it took for the crack in the tooth to actually show itself. I ate the chili on September 27th and right after finding the big chunk of bone the hard way all of my teeth on the right side of my mouth felt like they were rearranged. Nothing visible. The dentist couldn’t find anything, either. The day after Thanksgiving the tooth felt even more different so when I looked at it using a magnification mirror there was a slight different appearance to it. By Monday, there was even a more noticeable change but it still didn’t look like a crack – just looked like some discoloration in the valley – it was tooth #5 from the center front. You know, the one that’s not sure if it wants to be a molar or not. I called and made an appointment on Saturday which was a good move on my part because on Tuesday morning it was pretty obvious that the tooth was cracked in half laterally.

Wonderful, eh?

 

Thanksgiving Day, 2018

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IMG_4587It’s Really Cold Out There

On my first trip outside with the dog this morning it was rather crisp. As she walked her 23 pound little spotted self out there to find the perfect potty location everything was making crunching sounds. They say it’s going to be our coldest Thanksgiving Day since they started keeping track of such things.

That should make for an interesting color shift for my 2018 Temperature Blanket, eh? Yesterday’s Real Feel temp was 21 degrees. I’m hoping that I don’t get back into the 70s anymore this year as I’m running low on the yellow that goes along with that temperature range. For some reason, I only ordered two balls of yellow which I think isn’t right and there must be a hiding place here somewhere with more of the yarn stashed. I’ll search.

Turkey isn’t one of my favorite foods but, I’ll have some anyway. If I had my choice, I’d have just the vegetables and desert but, my mom might get mad at me. No, kidding. She called me Old Lady the other day after my birthday. Yup, I reminded her that she is older than I am. Ahahahaha.

Have a great Thanksgiving whatever you’re doing today. I’ve never been one to be all profound about being thankful for this or that because everyone else does it and we all seem to want or feel pretty much the same way. I am thankful, though, that I am here on earth and so are those who matter to me and we’re safe and sound.

If you are able to help others, do your best. Yesterday I donated to the California fire victims fundraiser that an online yarn shop was conducting. That was simple and painless. Buy yarn and 100% of the proceeds go to the fire victims. So, I bought yarn. The same shop, Little Knits, had done that before for other victims. I couldn’t resist.

 

Where Have I Been?

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IMG_4445.JPGI Was Here

Where is that? Up North at an awesome place called Canada Creek Ranch. My husband and I are members here. Since I no longer work my time up there is more frequent than his. On this day we had snow, obviously, and it was also my knitting group day. One of the ladies took a photo of me wearing my Antler sweater, my new gloves and my matching hat. Maybe I’ll share it here after she shares it with our group.

I’m home now. I could have written while up there but it seemed that being there for two full days and just a few hours on the other two just didn’t get me in the mood to spend much time on my laptop or the internet in general. Pretty much all I did was delete e-mails so that all those Black Friday messages weren’t piling up into the millions. It seems that we just celebrated Labor Day and now all this snow makes us feel like it’s Christmas time and we’re hopping and skipping right past Thanksgiving.

My 2018 Temperature Blanket is on my lap right now and once I finish the row I’m knitting May will be completed. So, it appears that I am just a few months behind, right?  Some simple math would tell me how many rows to knit each day or week to catch up. Right.

There’s a pair of socks on my needles and another sweater. The sweater is #18 from Vogue Knitting Spring/Summer 1988. This one is to meet the #18 in 2018 for the Ravelry challenge. After this one I need to pick a design – any pattern – from 2018 to meet the VK 2018 in 2018. I’ve completed a Then, an any design from a year ending in 8, am working on the #18 then just the current. The current project can spill on over to early next year as long as I have it started.

There’s barking going on behind me. The joys of being owned by a Rat Terrier.

 

It’s Thursday

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What’s so exciting about a Thursday? If I was still working that would mean that tomorrow was Friday and then the weekend would be upon me. At one time the weekend wasn’t any better than the rest of the week since I was on a six or seven day work schedule. The joys of working in the auto industry in the maintenance department. The work never ends. If you want job security maintenance is the place to be. It’s also a lot like working retail during the Christmas holiday season. There’s no rest.

This morning I finished my gloves and posted a photo on Ravelry.  Gloves

Not ten minutes after finishing the gloves I started a hat using another free pattern from Drops.  Hat Mine is going to be in black and white to match the gloves. So far, I’ve got 4 rows of the ribbing done. I’ve been winding yarn, doing laundry and dog walking today so not a whole lot of knitting was going on.

The auto industry you ask? Yes, I was a contract supervisor in the auto industry for just about 15 years between GM and Ford. My time was spent at GM’s Warren Transmission for about a total of 3 years and at the GM Tech Center for about eight years and was responsible for just about every building at one time or another. After my GM years I moved on over to another contract company and spent five years at Sterling Axle. When they wanted to move me onto afternoon shift I decided it was time to go. It was just about on schedule anyway. Our goal was for me to work until I turned 59 so I was about 4 months ahead of schedule. My boss thought I was his age and still had 4 years to go since I had already told him of my plan. He was surprised.

I don’t miss it. The paycheck but not the rest of it.

 

 

November 7, 2018

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Gone Hunting

This is what happens when we go for a walk in our woods behind our house. CarLotta Spots follows her nose and always seems to find a tree with a mouse inside. We’ve got so many old hollow trees and the mice are either in them, have been in them, or are thinking about moving into them. We checked out a whole lot of trees with hollow spots this afternoon.

What else did I do? I forgot to visit here yesterday and was going to try writing from my cell phone but couldn’t remember my password and was too comfy in my chair to get up to get it out of my password book. This morning I attempted to log in from my phone while I was at the dealership just so I could see how it worked and entertain myself while listening to Fox News and waiting for my oil change and all the other things they do for my truck when I take it in for a physical. The air filter was awful and looked like it was full of insulation or something but the technician said it was probably just fuzz from cottonwoods. I don’t remember driving around anywhere during cottonwood fuzz season. I don’t have to go anywhere if I don’t want to. Most of the miles that I put on my truck are from my trips up north and back. Otherwise, we just stay home. Once I get up to the cabin I really don’t go anywhere other than on dog walks and to my knitting group. Maybe I go to the grocery store if I didn’t bring enough up with me. Most of the time, my friendly Schwan’s delivery man brings me my food. Here too.

One could comfortably stay home all the time with all this free delivery options. Yarn, food, dog food, clothes. Why go anywhere?

 

Photography

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Secrets to Better Photography

That’s the name of the online course that I’m enrolled in at the moment. I’m taking them all out of order and am now finding out that this one should have been in second place, the one I’m signed up for next should have been first and the previous course that I finished should have been last. That’s pretty much how I got through college, too. The academic advisors caught up with me when I was trying to declare my major thinking I could squeak by without taking all of the prerequisites.

Did you have a course or college requirement that you wanted to avoid? I did. You see, all the people in my circle of college friends were warning me that the English Proficiency Exam would set me back and I’d end up having to take an additional English or writing course. They all had to. Now, to set the scene I must say that all of my circle of friends were guys who were more into the spring break vacations and getting to their weekend parties than writing courses.

The day came when I had to spend two hours in the auditorium with a whole bunch of other students who were looking way more nervous that I was feeling. The instructions were that we had to take the sample paragraph that the instructors had cut from newspapers and expound on what is in front of us. I looked around the room and saw a whole lot of students doing nothing, no writing, just stressing. My topic was about the FBI proposing the use of spying on cell phones in the solving of crimes. This was back in 1995 that I took this exam. It was easy. So easy that I received a 100% on my score when my results arrived in the mail. How did I do that? The first thought that came into my head was that they didn’t want us to explore the subject, research the topic, or debate. They wanted to know if we could write 400 words using grammar and show the ability to express our thoughts coherently.

I wrote a short story about two FBI agents. Yes, it’s all about applying one’s imagination in a tight spot such as the English Proficiency Exam.

The assignment that Yoda ended up appearing in was to take our DSLR outside in natural light and focus on a subject as clearly as we can using all auto settings. I see now that Yoda needs his face washed.

 

Sunday + 1 Hour

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When I woke up this morning and looked at the clock it was one of those “what the heck?” moments until it hit me that we gained an hour during the night so I really didn’t sleep in or get an extra hour of sleep. I stayed up an hour later than usual last night working my way through my recorded episodes of this season’s Grey’s Anatomy. I think I skipped one from three weeks ago.

Today’s knitting adventure is the pair of gloves that I started on Friday night. I’m currently working on the ring finger of the first glove. It sure is a good thing that humans only have two hands and two feet or we’d really be suffering of those single sock/glove issues in a big way. Only once did I knit only one sock and never knit the second one. That was because the yarn ran out. There is a pair of small kid-size gloves that only had one finished. There was a serious issue with the fingers so that was the end of that project. When I was up at the cabin a couple weeks ago and found the glove it found its way into the trash.

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Antler was finished, washed and dried yesterday. My photo isn’t so awesome so, when I wear it, I’ll get a better photo to share. Since it’s mostly a white sweater I’ll be very paranoid about wearing it since accidents seem to happen to me quite often.

Since we went for a late afternoon dog walk I missed the last 4 minutes of the Lions vs. Vikings game and am thinking that the Lions didn’t pull through for a win. We Lions fans just keep hanging on. Someday.

 

November 3, 2018

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Saturday Morning

Do you ever open your blog with intentions of writing then you pick up your knitting and all thoughts of verbiage just runs away somewhere?

My first thought was to share with all of you the joy of actually finishing two projects in one day. That’s right. IN ONE DAY! One sweater only needed buttons. The other needed the second sleeve to be finished and the ends to be woven in. I want to share photos but don’t have any good ones yet. Give me time. I will get a couple.

Speaking of photos. I’m taking my 2nd online photography course and am stuck on the assignment for Lesson 5 which requires us to go outside in the sun and take some photos of a non-moving object from different angles. Does anyone have any sun I can borrow? We had some for about 10 minutes yesterday then it ran away and the rain came back.

Since I’m just getting started here with WordPress I’m not sure yet how many photos I can share before they get mad at me and tell me that I need to upgrade. Most likely, upgrading to at least the minimum subscription will have to happen but I’ll have to give up something else. Yarn buying? New clothing? Food? Maybe the clothing purchases will slow down. Hey, that brings me to another topic.

Weight Loss 2018

Yes, I have experienced weight loss in 2018. In September of 2017 I broke down and rejoined WW using their online app instead of going to meetings. Back in the 1980s I became Lifetime the first time but after two life-altering events the pounds came looking for me and stuck around. This weight problem has been haunting me since infancy and there are photos to prove that. There’s one around here somewhere that will probably be scanned onto this laptop for my Birthday Month. Back to the present time. When I quit working in July 2016 I was in the process of working my weight back down and had about 20 pounds left to go of the 40 that gathered around me. You would think that the rest would have been kicked to the curb easily. Not for me. Any schedule change, location change, or anything that can cause any type of mental changes causes me to gain weight. When my daughter Karen was getting married 4 years ago and I tried to lose the weight I ended up gaining instead and it wasn’t even my wedding and she was doing all the planning on her own. She wanted it simple so keeping it to herself worked for her. Now, here we are getting ready to turn 61 and I have successfully gotten back down to the Under 115 Pounds Zone which is where I like to be. Once I was down to 106 as an adult but didn’t like it there. My comfort zone at 5’1″ is around 112. That has been teasing me and I have spent the last three months at 113 with a dip down to 112.8 every now and then. This will work.

I feel so much better.

Gloves in Progress

This is my current project that I just started last night and am using the leftover yarn from Antler. This is going to be my new method so that the piles of leftover odd balls of yarn will not bury me alive.