Hi, howaya?

Fair to middlin

Goodgood, wife’n’kids?

They’re good, too. You?

Oh, I’m fine. Just doing some chores. Little cleaning here, little painting there. Maintenance mostly. Place is fallin’ down around my ears, but at least the water pumps are workin’. And that’s good, we use a lot of water around here, what with the laundry, that dishwasher, the toilets, the showers and so forth.

Yep, ya guessed it, I got not much to say here, because I haven’t actually crafted lately. It’s school time, ya’ll.

It’s late Ju,y in the south. No, I haven’t been knitting. The good news is, I also haven’t been checking out medicare supplement plans, because I am not quite that decrepit yet. What I have been doing is reading (inside where it’s cool) and fishing (outside where it’s hot, but also while reading so I don’t notice) and petting My Awesome Boyfriend (inside and outside, but not while reading. He is such a dream. Hazel eyes, hairy body, and four, count them, FOUR legs. He gave me kisses and a present on the first date! See, Awesome Boyfriend!

Haha! I could put all my craft supplies in one of these metal buildings, and add a window unit for heat and air conditioning. And a table, extra large, for laying out my work. And good lighting. And a coffee pot, and I could go live in it. Ok, just kidding on the live in it part, but it would definitely make a cost-effective studio space, with a few upgrades, don’t you think?

Sweet indeed.

I’m not as think as I dumb I am. I didn’t do a thing to the blog this morning, and behold! there they are, looking like they ought to. I guess my problem lies in not understanding how to do a hard refresh. Though I really thought I understood how that’s done. Oh well. There it is at any rate.

And also, there goes my furnace firing off. I’m glad because it’s cold in here. I may not need 5th wheel insurance, but I do need heat. Although, laying under a blanket snuggling with a book was kinda nice, too. Reckon I’ll have to get up and pretend to do something useful now. Or maybe not. 😉

So, Sunday, I decided I was going to finish the little BSJ and then cast on a Clapotis. I made *knitting plans*, people. And then, like a good little knitter, I proceeded to execute them. Everything was chugging along nicely until I got up to get the buttons for my little sweater and discovered that I didn’t have any that were suitable.

I kinda had a wee knitting meltdown at that point!

Call me crazy, but it took me 20 minutes and a phone call to convince myself that it was OKAY to go ahead and wind the yarn and start the Clapotis even though the BSJ wasn’t finished if I had taken it as far as I could with what I had here at home. Because I was absolutely NOT getting dressed and driving 20 minutes one way and then agonizing over buttons and then driving back home and sewing them on on Sunday. Not. Sometimes, I think I get a little too rigid with my plans. Just sayin’

My best friend once looked at me and said, “Cass, you are a little anal.” Well, Joan, it hasn’t gotten any better, apparently. But at least now I can laugh about it. Later.

Anyway, here is the BSJ, finished except for buttons:

And here is the caston Clapotis, in shades of pink:

Now then, now that the knitting is out of the way, let’s talk about a shiny thing. That One and I always say that when we abruptly change subjects in the middle of something we really ought to be finishing a discussion on. It’s apt, because we are both easily distracted, each having a great love for the sound of our own voice. Specifically, I want to talk about how one gets ready to buy gold bullion. If you’ve done it, were you more interested in the beauty or the investment value? Did you buy coins or ingots? And did you sell it later or do you still have it? If you sold it, were you pleased with the earnings growth, or do you wish you had held it a little longer? If you haven’t sold, why not–is it because of the market, or are you holding out because you have certain plans for that money and the time is not yet right? I mean, I know it’s gorgeous, and it’s sparkly and useful for decorating one’s self with, but what else do I need to know? What’s your personal 411 regarding it?

So, I am home tomorrow afternoon, and I think after I do a little tidying, and I do mean *little*, since I am currently in the middle of a plumbing disaster that has left me without running water, I am going to sit in my office on my nice comfy mattress and do some planning.

I’m going to be taking Thursdays off this summer, which will give me more time to focus on my kids and my writing and hopefully some dye work. I’ve been doing some thinking about how I want to go about it, in order to keep prices reasonable and also avoid huge cash outlays on my part, which I really can’t do anyway. And after all that, it should be around 2:30 and time for bonbons and soaps. But if I can’t find my bonbons, I might knit. We’ll see.

As some of you may know, I work two days a week in the pharmacy. I really enjoy it; the counting and attention to detail really appeal to my innate desire to be regimentally organized (yes, you may certainly read that as an anal retentive tendency, it won’t offend me at all). I have to say, though, that in 10 months time, I have never filled a prescription for Viagra for a woman. Not ever. I have, however, filled a goodly number of antidepressants, and have even considered them for myself. (I decided against it for reasons of my own, but I did consider it.) Which brings me to the subject line of “Now, that’s interesting.”

According to this Web MD study,

”Seventy-two percent of the women on Viagra vs. 27% of the women on placebo got to ‘much improved’ or ‘very much improved’ on a scale [of sexual functioning],” says Harry A. Croft, MD, medical director of the San Antonio Psychiatric Research Center in Texas and a co-author on the study.

Now, I had no idea antidepressants did that, especially since I know that depression also lowers libido. OTOH, since I’m ….um….not exactly married anymore, perhaps antidepressants might be an option for me after all. But without the side order of Viagra!

In crafty news, I finished a hat for Diva, since she asked for one. I gave it to her before I took a picture, and well, who knows where it is now. Basic black cotton-ease, go ahead and visualize it for youself.

In non-crafty news, I have a lot of blogging to do, good stuff on books and products and such and such and such. I’ll try not to flood your feed reader too much, but I do have about a six month backlog of stuff to talk about. Which, amazingly enough, roughly corresponds to my extended period of silence. Welcome back into my world, dear friends.