It’s downright icky out there – howling wind, blowing snow, the works. So, I’m taking advantage of being able to work from home today. Now I’m all cuddled up under a blankie, with my toasty laptop on my lap, and a mug of coffee on the table next to me.
Hopefully, the snoring puppies won’t make me too sleepy!
I’ve just been consumed with non-blogging activities lately…
Such as trying to figure out if it’s a) me, b) my camera in particular, or c) all canon digital rebels that take such horridly underexposed flash pictures. All I did to that one was re-size it for the web, although I can manage to edit it to something decent-looking. Just for clarification, that picture was taking during the day, in a room with plenty of windows, and with a big honkin’ flash (technical term) on top of the camera…and it’s not the only one I’ve taken that looks like that. I’d like to think I know what I’m doing with an SLR (I’ve had a film SLR for almost 10 years), and what I’m doing with a digital camera (I’ve had one of those for 3 years). And working for the big yellow box had perks like photography courses and darkrooms, of which I took full advantage…so, I’d like to think it’s not user error… Of course this would become a crisis just a couple of days before the end of the return period… I don’t know what exactly I’m going to do yet.
Then, there’s the fact that I spent a good portion of the week in waiting rooms at the hospital, leaving absolutely no time to clean up my house, so the disaster area turned into…well…at this point, if I torched the place it might be easier to deal with. :) So, that’s what I’m spending the weekend working on. (No, not torching the place – cleaning it.) Really. No knitting for this blogger until the craft room has a floor again. And the living room looks like a living room again. And the tree is out, the decorations are down, and the bathrooms sparkle. (How many hours are in a weekend, anyway?) Of course, I have great motivation to stay indoors, since it never even reached 6°F today.
Anyway. So, if I don’t blog too much over the next couple of days, that’s why. I’ll be cleaning. Or knitting…no, no, no….cleaning…mostly…with a little knitting, maybe? Please?
I really have been knitting lately, although not as much. I hit a little knitting slump right after Christmas…I probably should have expected that, since I knit almost non-stop for several weeks straight! I have my first finished object of 2004: my multi-directional diagonal scarf! And I finished it just in time for the balmy spring-like weather to turn into something actually resembling winter.
I can also reveal another of the mystery projects, since it’s been given: I present to you “Henry’s Dragon (Dinosaur) Cardie”. (See, it started out being called a dinosaur sweater, because that’s what the pattern was called, but I really think it looks more like a dragon. So there.)
Of course, since almost all of my works-in-progress are finished, I had to start something new. But it’s just a pair of socks, and I’ve only gotten the toe done on the first sock, so it’s not all that exciting at the moment. Oh, actually, I just thought of something else I also started, but that’s a secret project…
Grandpa came through the surgery fine, and was awake and talking when I left the hospital. Supposedly, they’re going to have him up and walking sometime tomorrow, which is amazing to me. He’s going to have a good bit of recovering to do, but all the doctors and nurses were very happy with his progress.
It was a very surreal day. A lot of my family was there (obviously), and we spent the day talking, laughing, crying, knitting (and crocheting), learning Italian (ok, I was the only one doing that) – it almost felt like a holiday at Grandma’s, except we were in the waiting room of a hospital. Yeah, surreal is a good word for it. When all was said and done, there were about 18 family members in and out all day – in fact, for dinner, we had a sheet pizza and a bucket of wings delivered right to the waiting room! (I didn’t know they could do that!)
Thank you all for your good wishes. They really meant a lot to me!
Sorry I haven’t blogged much so far this year – it’s been a busy few days. I don’t generally post about my family (well, at least not too much) because, well, it’s personal (plus they all know my url). But right now I need some positive thought vibes… My grandfather is having open heart surgery Monday morning to do a triple bypass and fix a leaky aortic valve. Also, my 15-year-old cousin is having an MRI Wednesday to check up on a brain tumor that’s been surgically removed twice but is being very stubborn and won’t go away completely.
Life is scary sometimes. Give your loved ones extra hugs today, ok?
I can’t believe it’s already 2004! This year, I have resolved to make no resolutions. I’m going to just do things, instead.
Like clean my craft room, which really could called be a different word…that starts with “cra” and ends in “p”. It’s bad. I had it all organized, then something happened and now it’s not. And it’s not just that it isn’t organized. I mean, there’s not that much floor space in there to begin with, between the large table, the bookcase, and the bed (it doubles as a guest room), but at the moment, there are only a few square inches of carpet showing. The rest is covered with bags of yarn, baskets of yarn, piles of yarn (ah, a pattern emerges), books, fabric scraps, pins (I hope they’re all pointy-side down), scraps of fusible webbing (can sunlight fuse that stuff to carpet? I hope not!) and all manner of other bits of crafty things that were pulled out and not put away in the explosion of gift-making.
And now, it’s overwhelming how much needs to be done to make it even marginally useful as a craft room…like being able to even get to the sewing machine.
But I’m not resolving to clean it. I’ll just do it. Tomorrow, maybe…or the next day…
