Long Month

So many people have been feeling like this month lasted forever. I'm pretty much right there with that. How can 31 days feel like 300? But we've made it. I got the January weather knitted up, I'll add in a photo after I get one taken.

I spent a lot of time this week gathering up the books that have been scattered all over the house and now the shelves look nice and neat....but there are "too many" books. *sigh* Our next task is to purge as many of them as we can bear to part with. I would build more shelves but there is literally no space in here to do that. I've been meaning to purge some of the shorter chapter books for a long time so this job is overdue.

Next up, for the last several years we've counted down to Valentine's Day by putting Valentines on the girls' bedroom doors every night from January 31st to February 13th. This year I've decided to crochet things. Heart shaped things in rainbow colors. Very exciting. I'll be sharing those for the next couple of weeks.

A Week Later

I'm just going to pick right up and act like I didn't lose a week of my life running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. Because I literally just spent the last week running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. Except for the days that I intentionally sat around and did nothing. Or we could call it resting and recharging. Either way.

I skipped Zone 4 last week but I'm going to just jump back in. As soon as I'm done typing this I'm going to look around Zone 5 and pick something to do. There are lots of options, it's probably the worst zone in here.

I did manage to finish up all 3 of the squares I was working on this week.

They all three have a lot of texture, although I didn't necessarily photograph them to the best advantage. 

This is September Star designed by Aurora Suominen of DragonFlyMomof2 Designs. I'm not sure if her tension is just different than mine, or if it's my yarn and hook combination but I was just not getting the bumps in the middle section. I redid it a couple times before I finally dug around enough to find some posts on ravelry where people were using this pattern in a CAL (I think) and discussing how they got the texture to work for themselves. So I used a technique from that discussion and it worked pretty well. I would link to that, but you have to have a ravelry account to see it.

This lovely square is Oh, Starry Night by Margaret MacInnis. I wish I had spent more time adjusting the middle before taking the picture, I've missed out on quite a bit of the texture. I wish I had done the last row a little differently, but by the time I get around to joining these squares I'll probably give them a border anyway so that will help it have a cleaner a look.

So that's a little piece of this past project done, now I'm going to go do another wildlife square and I'll get back to this project somewhere down the line. I look lots of notes in my Google Drive folder with the patterns for this project so next time I get to it, I'll remember what I decided. You're welcome, Future Cheri.

More Memories

On This Day, 2010:

this morning the first thing Caelie said to me was "Zah! peas!" Translation: Pizza! Please!

As I recall she often shouted her "polite words" with a lot of conviction.

December 2011

On This Day, 2012:

Taryn is sitting at Tim's computer playing "I'm Elmo and I Know It" over and over again and singing along with it

Sounds annoying but I thought it was hilarious and awesome.

On This Day, 2015:

"Daddy, what color is Caelie's and my skin? Caelie says it's blond!"

I can't help it, these are great memories. There are currently twice the usual number of children in my home, being loud and silly and generally having a great time. Which I both love and hate, for real, they're so loud.

Firecracker

On This Day, 2013:

Taryn ~ remember when that earthquake happened when I was in kindergarten?
Caelie ~ it was probably giant robots

not this day, just cute, December 2012

On This Day, 2011:

"Your Fancy Nancy is in the van and Daddy took the van to work today"
"Daddy took my Fancy Mancy?!? WHY!?!?!" ~ Caelie

also not the exact day but a summary of my photos from January 2011

Insomnia and Busyness

This week has been sponsored by insomnia and busyness. I haven't had much time for crafting...well...that's not super true. I've mostly kept up the 2020 temperature project and I've finished 1 of 3 squares for a past project.

It's called Ad Astra by Chris Simon. It was relatively simple, but I had to redo it a couple times because I changed my mind about making it entirely white, decided to add a stripe of blue and then had to play around with how that looked. Then I was trying to work on one called September Star by Aurora Suominen. I've had to do it over a couple times because I'm not understanding some of the instructions. I think I've done other patterns from this designer and there is just something about her designs that I always struggle with. I'm on my third attempt now but I had finally found some online discussion with a photo for each round and some tips from others who had a hard time getting the desired results. So maybe this time it will work.

On Monday I had been fighting the perfectionism pretty hard. The whole FLYLady system is about finding ways to keep going when the perfectionism is strangling you. That's part of what the zones are all about. I'm supposed to work on one zone for a few days and then walk away from it to work on the next zone, knowing that next month I'll get back to whatever is left. My Zone 2 over laps with Zone 5 because this is a tiny place. So I wasted a lot of time deciding if it was better to keep the momentum of the first two weeks by continuing around Zone 5 and just doing Zone 3 next week. Like I don't have to be a perfectionist about the order of how I do these zones. Or just move on to Zone 3 because there is value in walking away from where I feel like I have to keep working...

I can even be a perfectionist about how to not be perfect. It's like magic.

So about 11:40pm I hurried up and reorganized the shelves over the toilet. Zone 3 is the main bathroom and one bonus room. Then on Tuesday I didn't have time to do anything productive at home and I think that was the day we got the notification of impending inspection.

By agreeing to live in this housing, we have to submit to inspections. So I ended up putting my insomnia to work cleaning various things wherever I could and preparing for inspection....then no one came. Today I went ahead and cleaned the bathroom sink better than it was. That's Zone 3 work. So I'm going to call it a win and move on next week. Hopefully it will be less busy and more crafty.

Wild

Last May, I came across a very cool looking crochet square pattern that was released by a blogger named Kinga as part of a crochet along she called Wildlife Graphghan.

Unlike other CALs, the squares were released as she finished designing and testing them so there wasn't a set schedule. I kept up with it pretty well for some of the squares and then got distracted with other things.

Some of the colors look better in person than what I've ever been able to get photographed.

That tiger drove me nuts, I accidentally did the wrong color on one of the eyebrows.

These squares use a technique called corner to corner or C2C. You start with a graph of squares and work diagonally.

I like to use Hobby Lobby's I Love This Yarn. It's softer than Red Heart and I've never had problems with dye lots....until this project. The Panda and Chimp used an older skein of yarn and when I went to replace it, I found that HL has replaced that color with two similar shades of green. One of them has the same name as the yarn I had, but it is not the same color. So I had to choose a different color for this giraffe and now that the full set has been released, I have all these problems to work out.

Anyway. I finished that Giraffe in mid-July. And then following the Temp Wrap, I started the next square, which I've finished today....

While I was making it, I was wishing I had different grey yarns...but the more I look at it, the more I like it. I didn't try to make the color changes as crisp as possible because it seemed appropriate to leave them a little muddled.

My big plan is to do the next step on a past project and then make the next square from this blanket. It's like using one yarn project to take a break from another yarn project.

Zone 2 Complete

It took me all day to get started...but....I did the thing.

The difference is probably a bit subtle, but it's good to have it more functional. Now the test is to see how long it will take before it gets torn up again.

Finally!

I guess one way of looking at it is that my project is only 9ish days "late" and another way of looking at it, is that it's done and I'm the only one who thought there was a deadline.

So this is 2019, the high and low temperatures recorded in Manhattan, Kansas. January is on the bottom right of the last picture and then December is on the bottom left. 

I had thought I would go ahead and knit 2020 in blanket squares. In fact, I cast on and started knitting January last night. But I messed up so I was going to have to undo it back to the first row to fix my mistake. By the time I picked it up again today, I had decided blanket squares are a bad idea since I would have to weave in a million yarn ends. And by then I was also well pleased with my finished wrap so I decided to make another one. There were so many problems, I had to redo it 3 more times. But it's on it's way now.

I also managed to take another bite of my FLYLady Zone 2....I cleaned out two cupboards. One had several expired food items and a dried pool of syrup we'd all been pretending we couldn't see. So that's all taken care of. Adulting win. 

One Step at a Time

Here's my before and after. It's small thing, but I did it. It's been waiting for a while and now it's done. I also got the December part of my temperature project done. I'll take pictures tomorrow. 

Sleep Fast

I don't think I have much to write today. I gave a lesson at Celebrate Recovery tonight. It wasn't my best one ever. But I could have done a LOT worse.

My church is starting the year with a 21 day prayer and fasting activity. I don't tend to do the not-eating at all kind of fasting, usually I'll pick something non-food related. But apparently my body decided that I should have a sleep fast. Or it's just the same old insomnia with slightly more humorous timing.

While I was not-sleeping and also not writing my lesson last night, I was working on my temperature project. Until the point that I ran out of a color of yarn. Then I had no time to run to the store today so it has to wait.

Oliver 2011. I don't know why but it just feels like the right picture for this post.

I really accomplished a lot of stuff today and talked to a lot of people, but I don't have anything to write about it. I skipped my self-imposed FLYLady task of the day. That was another thing I didn't do while I was skipping a night's sleep. I'm not going to kick myself too hard though for not being super productive while I should have been sleeping.

I was on the verge of typing that perhaps I would do two FLYLady tasks tomorrow and then stopped myself. Part of fighting perfectionism is letting today go and just doing a good task tomorrow. If I have time and energy and the desire, I could do another task, but I don't have to. I just have to do the best I can tomorrow and then again the next day.

A Very Perfect Day

January 2010

On This Day 2010:

Taryn: Frosty the snowman was a very perfect day! he was made of snow but the children know in a happy new year day!

January 2014

On This Day 2014:

Mommy, Taryn has a headache from her goose egg. She needs an ice pack....or a cat! (to the protesting cat) I need to help Taryn, Milo!

Put the cat down, you're going to hurt her *with* the cat!

For my FLYLady task today I'm trying to sort and organize the overflowing collection of plastic containers that used to have food in them. I tend to use a lot of glass jars that used to have food in them for storing leftovers and stuff like that, but sometimes only a plastic one will do the job.

Should have taken a before picture...trust me..it was untidy

Resolutions

Today I was asked what my resolutions are for the new year. I don't really do that. I prefer more measurable, short-term goals. I've already decided to try to keep going with the FLYLady Zones and see how long I can keep up at least an attempt at some cleaning routines. One day at a time. It would be nice if I could keep up with it for the whole year, but I'm not going to think about that right now. And that's not even a resolution I made on purpose, it sort of found me by accident.

I also have some health stuff I need to get taken care of. If I can get some of that done, it could open a whole realm of possibilities for better habits. But that's not something I can fall into on accident, I have to take a lot of purposeful action.

I don't know if it counts as a resolution, but I definitely have big crafting plans. If I was really cool, I'd take a picture of all the projects, but I'm not. I'll just have to settle for taking pictures as I go. There are only about 16 ongoing yarn projects. Plus 4 more that I really want to do. And one new crochet along that starts in March that looks really exciting.....

I may or may not have a yarn problem.

November ribbed stitch

Keeping On

October seed stitch

The seed stitch is not my favorite way to knit. It's not as bad as last April when I was doing the purl stitches wrong, but it's tedious and I'm not convinced the finished texture is worth the tedium.

Today my sleep was totally messed up but I still managed to make the front entry closet look a little more presentable. So now my Zone 1 is way nicer than it was before. Maybe I'll just keep FLYLady-ing around without telling the others that that's what we're doing. If they think that I don't have a plan, they're much more cooperative.

I'm rewatching Anne With an E seasons one and two so I'll be in the right frame of mind for the new season. Taryn was commenting on the books I have on the shelf. I have two copies of the Anne of Green Gables series. A bit later the following conversation took place:

I don't think that happened in the book, but it's been a while, I might have forgotten. 

T: can I read it? 

Of course. 

T: I might wait until spring so I can read it outside.

I can't think of a better way to experience that particular series of books.

Catching Up

Apparently I forgot to post here when I got the August portion of my temperature project completed. And then towards the end of September, I ran out of one of my colors of yarn and I couldn't replace it right away. So I kind of forgot about the project for a while.

August Stockinette Stitch

Yesterday I finally got September finished and I'm about halfway through October. I have all these ideas for finishing this project and then alternating between the various past projects again to make some progress. And I'm entertaining whether or not to start a 2020 temperature project...

September Basketweave

I also managed to accidentally work on Zone 1 in the FLYLady plan. It's been a long time since I've tried to use FLYLady routines. It's a system for cleaning your house. I'm the only one in this family that is willing to be cooperative with the FLYLady process. Your home is divided into "zones" and each week of the month you focus on a different one. So Zone 1 is the entrance, front porch and dining room. We don't have a separate dining room, but we did clean the front porch and van yesterday. We even worked on the shoe storage situation in the entry way. See? Zone 1. Winning!

First Day Hike

So I ended the year with a bright bit of crochet called Twixmas Mandala 2019 by Agrarian Artisan Designs. This picture doesn't convey how much texture it has. And I have no idea what to do with it now that it's made.

I had been planning to attend a hike this morning, but I wasn't able to make it. So instead, I went on a much shorter hike with some friends in the afternoon. We went to Pillsbury Crossing, but I didn't bring the right boots for walking in it. I always regret it when I do that.

Ah well, fresh air and friendship always hits the spot.