It’s the first brush with a hurricane this season. Are you ready? I’ve got my Clapotis pattern printed in case the power goes out. Though I am not sure how I will manage to knit a large shawl without airconditioning, LOL! The spa cover is in place. Oh wait. I don’t have a spa. But perhaps Earl will drop on in my yard for me.

I’m trying to finish up my computer work, too, but that’s going a little slow. And I am worrying already about the drive to work tomorrow. Since I missed yesterday for a mammogram and funeral, calling out isn’t really a feasible option. The good news is that it looks so far like the worst of it will miss us. I hate to wish a hurricane on anyone else, but I always breathe a little sigh of relief when we get a pass. Of course, there are also times when we are told it’s gonna be a pass and then we take the full force of it. Isabelle, anyone?

Anyway, I’ve about done what I can do, and now we wait. I have yarn and a wind-up lantern. What else could I possibly need?

Has me doing more than looking for the best eye cream. I’m finding I have a lot more time for knitting, too! Well, the early part and the staying off Facebook part. As I am sure you know, school has started and parents everywhere, me included, are up at the buttcrack of dawn to get the children on the bus. And then we do other stuff, like clean. And knit. I’ve finished 4 hats since the last one I posted. Go me!

This one went to Country, who was not it’s original intended recipient, but it was declared too girly for a man, and she liked it.

This one went to That One’s dad, for a “wear it in good health” type gift.

This one is going to That One’s sister, and now the whole fam will have hats.

And this one is That One’s.

Now I have moved on to finishing the pink Clapotis, and then…..who knows! I’ll admit that I am a wee bit tired of hats. At least for a bit.

Which, as you probably know, is considerably different than being ale to locate the pictures of said stuff I have made. Sigh. But I have them, somewhere. And I will find them, sometime. Perhaps after I take a few Online Classes in time and personal management, ya think?

Right now, I am working on a hat. It’s in the nature of a prayer shawl, this hat, but it’s for a man and men don’t wear shawls and I am fairly certain this man would look at me as if I had two heads if I were to present him with a scarf. Besides which, the hat will appear relatively mundane, since all the other members of his family have one already, and we won’t have to admit what it’s really for. Do you guys ever do that? Knit for people out of one motivation, but pretend it’s a different one or no real reason at all? And what is it that compels us to pick up the needles when stressed or upset? Are we trying to make happy out of unhappy or only to soothe our own scattered nerves?

Wow, ok. Not even going to try to answer that one today. But it bears thinking about, doesn’t it? Especially since I always call knitting under those circumstances “making love with my hands”. Hmmm.

So, recently I went to the doctor. Yeah, crazy I know. But I did. And while I was there talking to her about other things, I asked her to redraw for the lab work I had done about 24 months ago. I was not happy to find out that despite a 30 pound weight loss, my cholesterol levels were still elevated. How aggravating is that? Well, if you’re me, pretty darn aggravating!! She advised me to “continue working on my nutrition”. Sigh. Yeah, I will look into how to make my one meal a day more healthy.

Which brings me around to a site I spent some time exploring this evening. Now, it’s a bit of a pamper, really, but Healthy Chef Creations does have some awesome looking food. Food which they prepare from organic sources and then deliver to your door. Yes, I said deliver. As in a meal delivery service. That oughta bring a smile to your face.

Now, if you are used to cooking at home, from standard grocery store fare, you may find the menus a little spendy. Breakfast runs around 10 bucks, lunch will set you back 11 or so and dinner is about 17. That’s about comparable to a midrange restaurant, though, and you don’t have to go out 3 times a day to eat good, organic food. And you get options, lots of them. In fact, they even offer diet food delivery. Just for giggles, I selected a full week of food and calculated the price. I was expecting around $450 or so, for 3 meals a day, plus desserts, but the total for one adult was just $259.95. Not bad, considering the only time I’d have to enter the kitchen would be to heat up already cooked food and grab a soda from the frig. Oops, I maybe shouldn’t mention soda in the same breath as organic food, but you guys know me well enough to know that I’m not giving up coffee, tea or cola anytime soon. Especially since my sugars are fine, LOL!

I mentioned delivery, right? Well, they also use recyclable containers. Organic food delivery in packages that are good for the environment. Nicely done!

So, I haven’t been doing very much knitting lately. I’ve been reeeeeeeeading instead. I have once again immersed myself in the Scottish Highlands with Claire and Jamie. Ahhh. Old friends, I have sorely missed you.

I did finish the hat for That One’s mom last week and started the one for his sister. I’ll post them both together when I finish the second one. And I am looking for a fairly simple project to cast on, in smoothish yarn because I have a class to attend on Saturday. I think I will be needing something for my hands to do, but I can’t be using up concentration on funky novelty yarn or complicated stitch patterns. DaBaby has asked for a sweater and since I brought all my yarn in, I may let her pick and start that. She’s small still, so I won’t be needing scales to decide if I have enough yarn for her. There’s plenty left of the stuff I made her hat from this past winter. She’s excited about the prospect of a matching set. I’m excited that she’s excited.

I used to love mine. You know, back when I was getting lots of yarn-y packages, mail time was just about my favorite time of day. When we were looking at mailboxes to replace the one the neighborhood hooligans vandalized, I made sure to pick a BIG one, just to be sure it would hold my yarn orders, LOL! Of course, if I was expecting something really good, I made it a point to be home in case it didn’t fit and the mailman had to honk for me. I looked for him like a crack ho searches for her dealer. Just bein’ real, here.

Do you remember when the mailman actually put the mail in one of those wall mount mailboxes? I haven’t used one of those since I was in Colorado. You just don’t see them anymore. Of course, I wasn’t doing much mail order back then, either, so those smaller mail boxes were fine.

I’m thinking though, that it might be time for me to fall in love with the mailman again. You know that feeling when your significant other pulls up and your heart races a little bit, and your breath catches, cause you just know he’s bringing some good loving? Yeah, that one. It’s just that my loving now comes in the form of long strings that used to be attached to the skins of various domestic animals. Do you have a problem with that?

Ok, so the weirdest yarn ever has been worked up. Due to a spell check error on That One’s voice recognition software, it has been dubbed The Insatiable Hat. Which is indeed an interesting name for a hat made of little balls on a long string. Here it is:

The yarn is interesting to work up. Basically you knit 2 stitches, and then hold the next ball in place and then knit two more stitches and so on. It’s not difficult once you get the rhythm of the yarn. The ending is a little tricky on a hat, and heaven help you if you drop stitches, which I had when I was finishing, three of them, and didn’t realize it until I was smoothing it to decide which side was the inside and which the out.

Now you know what I did with my afternoon: knitting and a movie, specifically The Secret of Roan Inish. Did you think I was off writing lipozene reviews??

Okay, so I took myself on an artist date last Saturday. Book store, craft store, ice cream for dinner, yaddayadda. And I saw this:

I looked at that ball of “yarn” for a very long time. I picked it up. I put it down. I picked it up, dug my fingers into it and gasped at the soft fluffiness and put it down. I picked it up again. I put it down and told myself no one would wear anything made from such a yarn. And then I giggled and said to myself, “oh yeah, there is one such person.” And so I bought it. For $5.99. The label says it will make a scarf, so there better be enough to make a hat.

Just looking at it makes me laugh so hard that it must qualify as a natural belly fat burner, don’t you think? So now, I have three kinds of ridiculous yarn to make hats from. Tell me again why I’m not knitting!