A Bitter Sweet Day

 Today was a bitter sweet kinda of day.  Eric’s lift was removed from his old room, now the knitting room. It is fitting that the room is now the dedicated knitting room, because I spent years by his bed knitting in my rocking chair when he was having a bad days. It was bitter because in the end I had no control over entropy, that is all in G’ds hands.  That timing was between Eric and G’d.

The lift was a daily reminder that I failed my only son.  I would manage to hit my head on the lift at least once a month.  So I am glad that I am no longer going to be hitting my head on the lift.  The holes in the ceiling are even patched. 

I will have some good reminders like his favorite stuffed animals and books.  Gone are all the medical supplies. Also long  gone, are all the sick room furniture, like the hospital bed and I.V. pole.

I am still having trouble finding someone who knows how to design a knitting room.   One designer treated it like a big closet at nearly triple the price of the designers who called it a classroom.  Why the heck would I want a classroom in my house when I have 2 perfectly good local yarn shops in driving distance? I really don’t think it should be that hard to design a room with shelves and drawers.  Maybe even a counter to put my drop spindles on display.  A fold down ironing board and a place to store both my sewing machines when not in use.  

I think the easiest part of this project will be to move the electrical outlets and new paint for  the room before the installation of the new cabinets.  Also rehoming 2 bookcases should be pretty easy.  The current plastic storage cases should also be easy to rehome. 

Since I have been busy destashing my yarn, it should be pretty easy to put into the clear boxes we saved and do a temporary storage of yarn until the construction is finished.  I still have odds and ends to go through. That won’t take much

Someone Laughed at My Plans for the Day

 I am a strong believer in I make plans and G’d laughs.  My plans for today included going to services, talking with family members over zoom and working in the sewing room. Well after last weeks very long and stressful week the woman upstairs had other plans.  

By the time I talked with family and had my oatmeal and banana for breakfast I had exactly zero spoons left. It has been quite a while since I had zero spoons left at the beginning of the day.  It took all my remaining energy just to crawl back into bed and sleep for most of the day.  I do admit that I feel better.  

So that leaves 3 UFO’s on the couch.  One shopping bag and dress to mend.  A sewing room to go through and declutter.  This will happen with projects get finished, sorting through things to leave the house and recycling what needs to be recycled.  There is always tomorrow.  

I did manage to walk .64 miles after dinner.  So at least the day ended on a strong note.  

The Attack on the Sewing Room Has Begun

 To day I decided to attack UFO’s and repair work in the sewing room.  First on the list was putting the final seam into 2 dog pillows.  

Next on the agenda was to make a personal scrap bag for my personal sewing, weaving and other fiber arts of my own creation.  The bag is no longer empty.  

Next on the agenda, to repair 3 bags that I bought at Follow Your Heart in California when I started living on my own.  I bought 1 new bag every paycheck for a total of 3 canvas shopping bags.  The first bag was easy. I just pulled out some scrap fabric and cut a small square out. I found matching thread. Then patched a small hole.  The second and third bags took me a few minutes to figure out.  Once I had figured out how to replace the handles without changing the structure of the bag the work went quickly. After I finished the second bag I ran into dinner time. So bag number three will be completed tomorrow.  

Below is a pile of most of what I completed today.  

A New Recipe

 I have come up with a solution to Sour Dough Bread* that is to dry for sandwiches. No it’s not French toast, I did not have any eggs in the house. They could be used for very large soup croutons.  Even better than that, turned into crackers. Yes, that’s right, crackers with a wonderfully tangy flavor. A texture that is perfect and not crumbly, they won’t get smashed when you take them out of the cracker jar.  Even better than that is that they are a one ingredient recipe.  

Sour Dough Crackers 

1 loaf of stale sour dough bread

1 bread knife

1 toaster  with a low setting or an oven that can be set to 250f degrees or 121c

1 Cracker jar

The Process 

With your bread knife cut the bread into 1/4 inch or 6.35 mm slices. Smaller pieces are better.  I cut the loaf into half and made smaller crackers.

  Place several slices in your toaster on the second to lowest setting. (Turn the toaster on for one cycle. When the cycle is done let the bread cool down in the toaster until the toaster is cold) *repeat for at least 3 cycles turning over once.  Repeat with you remaining bread slices.  When the crackers are the way you like your crackers, put them in a cracker jar. Leave uncovered for the first night and the cover the crackers. I used an Oxo storage container, you can use whatever you have around the house.  

I had 2 crackers with my cuppa tonight and they were a wonderful combination with my chocolate chai.  

*Please note that this recipe will work with other breads and toasting times will be different.  

A Hectic Life

 My life has been very hectic lately.  I feel like I am running in so many directions with many different goals competing for my time. 

 I am in the final planning stages for combining my sewing and knitting rooms together. Which means that I am getting busy doing all the mending. Finishing projects that have been started.  Going through everything in the sewing room to see what is leaving and what needs to be temporarily stored in the garage. Thank goodness I have spent months on the knitting room. The knitting room is ready to be packed up once I get our new designer updated with some minor changes.

We will then have to pack up the room. Remove the bookcases to be rehoused.  Move the metal rack into the garage. The plastic boxes will not be rehoused until after the new room is completed.  We need to do some electrical work. Remove Eric’s old lift. Then paint the room.  Hopefully that will coincide with the delivery and set up with the new room.  

Right now I am in the process of deciding what long term projects that I am giving up entirely, including but not limited to dog pillows. The dog pillow project started as a way to keep my yarn scraps out of the land fill. Then other people heard about the project and started giving me their scraps of yarn, fiber and batting.  Over the years it has morphed out of control.  Then I stopped the project cold during Covid. Friends started giving me their scraps again.  With in a few months I filled two 32 quart containers with scarps.  I made an entire dog pillow today.  It was just too much physical exertion for me.  So considering that as long as my husband and I have been together we have never owned anything but goldfish with our daughter.  I am humbly requesting that someone take over this project.  The pillows are very easy to put together.  It just takes time and energy that I no longer have.  I can even write a blog post with the directions.  I have to put myself and my health first.  

It is now time to call it a day.  TTFN. 

Travel Nightmares

 On a recent trip to visit our daughter not only did we get some fantastic family time. I also got to experience some travel nightmares.  

My first nightmare involved checking my bag into the airport check in in Tucson going to San Francisco International Airport. Then discovering the next morning that 25% of my lingerie was missing.  I usually pack each outfit down to the lingerie in one separate bundle.  This means whom ever decided to take the lingerie had to go through my suitcase and unwrap the bundle to get to the lingerie.  They even walked off with a brand new pair of compression socks which are quite expensive for the one made without polyester.  I mean who deliberately takes used lingerie from someone else’s suitcase.  I am pretty sure it has no resale value.  

A few days later after lunch in an upscale area of Silicon Valley my wallet was taken from my purse while we were walking around. This involved unzipping my purse and grabbing my wallet. Just maybe it might be time to put DPN’s back into my purse as a deterrent.  Yes, I will have to go back to Grandmas Spinning Wheel in Tucson to buy a new wallet.  This one event generated a lot of work that is not finished.  All the credit cards have been cancelled. We still need to file multiple police reports.  Put a fraud alert on my credit report. We are hoping beyond hope that they just took the money and threw away the rest of the wallet. 

Getting through the airport was a nightmare.  I kept repeating “ What part of my entire wallet was stolen don’t you understand?” After an hour of waiting, giving permission for TSA to go through all my emails, including a full pages of emails having to deal with a lost drivers license and credit cards. Filling out an on line form. Paying $45.00 for the privilege of having my wallet stolen. We were finally allowed to go into the terminal. I need a cuppa of Chai, they had the good recipe from India not the American junk.  That brought some calm to me that I had not had since my wallet was stolen.  

Well it’s time to call it. I have tons of paperwork to do tomorrow.  

My Friends Are Really Great

 I have a really great group of friends.  Some I have been friends with since my kids were in elementary school.  Some have recently joined our group.  But the thing is that they all get me.  I am so blessed to have such a great group of friends.  

One of my newer friends gave me this knitting bag this week.  I really think that this will be my new go to knitting bag.  The bag is called “Sheep” and was designed by Emma Ball.  If you like Emma’s work please follow this link,.  Emma Ball and other artists have some great artwork on all kinds of medium.  I really like the selection of animal greeting cards.  Below is a picture of the knitting bag that I received.  This is so me.