Blog By Number

1.  The number of units Madeleine's insulin dosage was increased after her latest glucose curve at the vet.

244.  The number of dollars that glucose curve cost.

0.  The number of Amazon Prime Day purchases I have made.  Last year, there was lots of early birthday and Christmas shopping taken care of, but this year I'm just not feeling it.

5.  The number of days (in a row) that my second morning stop --- after feeding the cats --- has been the medicine cabinet for Tylenol Sinus.

2.  The current number of containers here full of prizes for Knitters' Hunk and Knitters' Chick.

5.  The number of weeks before you can begin nominating KHs and KCs.

3.  The number of Knitters' Chick nominees I've decided on for myself.

8.  The number of potential Knitters' Hunk nominees that must be winnowed down to three.

3.  The number of black vultures hanging out in the backyard today.  (I won't put a photo of them here, as I know they skeeve some people out.  You can look one up yourself.)  They are absolutely enormous.  When they take off, their wings make a powerful baritone "FWOOSH" that I can hear even through the walls and windows.  Scary and impressive.

The Breakup

We gave it a go.  Really, we did.  It's no one's fault --- things just didn't work out.  This sort of thing happens all the time.  Let's set one another free without guilt or regret. 

Here's to better days for us both, PCO.

Two Paws Forward, Three Paws Back

That marvel of a sweater that I was making with the baby alpaca

was used as a bed the other night.  A bed that evidently needed lots of pawing and arranging and more pawing to become comfortable.  Why she (and it was certainly a cat) was interested in the farthest side of the couch, how she managed to get all those stitches off the needle and de-strand some of the yarn, we may never know.  But Birch has been put aside.

Beld has taken its place.

I'm making it in a nice green.  

And I'm using a provisional cast-on for the first time.  It's in the middle of the back neckband.  In every other pattern I've used that called for a provisional, I just cast on normally.  This isn't a lot of stitches, nor a very long piece, so if it doesn't work out, it can all be unraveled and begun again.

Semi-Luddite

Yesterday was an Internet- and television-free day.  Not by design, mind you.  I awoke to no service.  I had to go to the grocery store, and tapped into the Web there just to check the news (okay, I admit it, and to play a little "Pokemon Go".)  By 5 in the afternoon, I had been returned to the world.  Frankly, it wasn't terribly nerve-wracking.  My phone still worked, so I had a line to my children if they needed me, or vice versa.  Besides, there was knitting and a wonderful book:

We knitters do know how to entertain ourselves, and pass time productively.

No Worries

So many people are thinking and talking about Fireworks and Pets today.  That's never been an issue around here, thankfully.  Lots of people swear by Thundershirts, but my only experience with one was a mess.  I got one for Finn --- for what escapes me: thunderstorms maybe? --- and he was made much, much, much worse for the wearing.  The shirt freaked him out, and could not come off fast enough.  He was a piece of work, that one.

Personal Post

My son and I share a therapist.  She promises that she feels no divided loyalties.  If anything, she gets both sides of issues that involve the two of us.

A couple of weeks ago, both he and I were in the throes of Negativity.  My session was scheduled for that week;  he had a full week before he was to go in.  I got in touch with our therapist and told her to see him during "my" hour.  That was going to mean not seeing her for over a month for me, but he needed it more.  When I did get back in, she acknowledged that the extra session was good for him, but she worried that it was bad for me.  My reply was that he was more of an "emergency," and that my race is run.

My race is run.

He has a long, full life ahead of him.  As does my daughter.  Please, please take care of them, because my race is run.

That is most emphatically not an expression of suicidal thoughts.  I've been suicidal, and this is nothing like that.  It isn't resignation.  It isn't self-pity.  It's that my children need to be prepared for all that their lives are going to bring them, good and bad.  I want them to have tools, to have confidence, to have hope and faith as they move ahead.  My years are fewer.  I've been gloriously happy and so scared and lost that getting through another hour seemed impossible.  I've done lots of things, and I plan to do a lot more.  Things aren't over, but my race is run.

Destinations

The Twinster took my "What food do you miss?" bait, saying she misses Steak 'n' Shake french fries and Orange Freezes.

Athens has a Steak 'n' Shake, and I'd be glad to take you there for fries, Twinnie, but I'd have to take you a little farther up Broad Street to The Varsity and get you a Frosted Orange.

A slaw dog or two as well, if you're in the mood.

I finally got to the end of the sweater my cousin sent me.  "Got to the end" instead of "finished," because I ran out of yarn before the front was done.  I wasn't even through all the neck shaping.  There was that, and the second sleeve, and the neck ribbing, and the putting everything together to go.  It was an empty feeling, sending it back to her incomplete.  The yarn, though, has been discontinued, and I couldn't find any anywhere.  Dixie (my cousin) seemed very grateful for what I did get done, but I haven't heard what the reactions of the children were.

Back to my heathered grey baby alpaca batwing/dolman sweater, then.  Also experimenting with borromean rings

with Lion Brand Bonbons, and whipping up some dishwashing pads out of Red Heart Scrubby.  Quick, simple, no cabling to keep up with.  Knitters need to breathe every now and then, you know.