Boredom Has Set In

 I have gone to the doctor about my hand.  I got 3 shots.   If my hand is not working in 2 weeks we might try something different.  Meanwhile, I am board to tears.  I can think more clearly now that the pain level is down.  

I finally figured out that I really crave sweets and coke made with sugar when the pain level is high enough. Oh, I did not go out and get a coke, the COVID19 numbers are rising in Pima County.  I also managed to keep surgery foods to a minimum too.  It was just to much work to wake up very early, find a mask, get in the car to drive to the store. When I get there are there too any cars in the lot.  What about other people wearing masks? To the massless I just want to scream that there is no ME in PUBLIC HEALTH.  It’s very exhausting, the snow birds are so judgmental.  I had one following me around the supermarket today,  I wonder if she thought that I had to many fruits and vegetables in my basket.  You know the type, dresses up to the 9’s to go to the grocery store.  Looks down on the rift raft who don’t meet their standards.  Oh well at least she did not say she was 50 something and shove her way ahead of me in line, because I was younger.  Many reasons to avoid the stores.

There is still no knitting, spinning or weaving going on.   I have been doing puzzles of all kinds on my pad  .  Thank goodness I found jigsaw puzzles at the App Store   I have been doing a couple a day, I can’t imagine what John would think of the mess of cardboard puzzles   I have also been play card and word games. Today I even managed a little cleaning until you hand stopped working.  I am still board. I would like to be board at a coffee shop so I could at least people watch.

 

Just Another Summer Day At Home.

 My hand is a little better, but still wonky. I did manage to knit a little on U.S. size 11 knitting needles.  There is a scarf that I am knitting out of hand spun for a holiday present.  The rest of the day was taken up by chores, napping, carding batts, finishing a book and starting another book. We did get to talk to our darling daughter and she and her husband are doing well. Work is keeping them busy. 

It was a record breaking month for the monsoon rains in Tucson for July.  At least it has not rained for a few days.  The roof seems to be drying out a little.  John is busy interviewing roofers.  

The COVID19 rate is up in the county.  So for the most part even though I am vaccinated I will wear a mask in public.  Because the virus is more active in the afternoon, I need to finish my errands by noon.   I think I am going back to parking lot pick up for most groceries.  I am trying to make the best of things and may finish deep cleaning the house.  I moved another tub of yarn off the stacks in the garage and onto the shelf’s.  Progress by inches.  

Just Puttering Around

 Today was spent doing errands and puttering around the house.  Nothing massive got done unless you count an overflowing basket of hand spun yarn sorted into bags by color to add to the scarfs I am weaving with 1 off and partial skeins of yarn.  The ideal is to make the scarfs as color cohesive as possible and still be one of a kind works of art.  The mini hand spun skeins add a pop of color between larger skeins of yarn.  These should make nice presents for the kids   The clothing bank usually skims off my hand woven scarfs for holiday gifts. Since I know it will be the only gift some kids receive I try to make them special   

I have started a new hat today and am almost finished with the brim   

I still can’t figure out this COVID19 mask thing.  There are so many different numbers floating around and cases are up in our state.  So when out in public, I will continue to mask up even though I am fully vaccinated.  In matters of health and people being sick in public, is that if I had a nickel for every time someone got sick at home from an allergy, I would be rich.  

So Much Yarn, So Little Time

 I spent most of the day knitting while trying to get my body back in sync.  I am currently working on 2 different blankets, a scarf and a hat.  I have promised myself that I will finish one blanket before I start the next blanket. No matter how good the pattern looks in my head.  

Also I think I seriously misjudged how much yarn I really needed to get me through a pandemic.  I think that is understandable because prior to COVID19, I have not been in a pandemic.  For future reference that would be enough yarn for 25 to 30  small to medium sized projects every quarter.  Also I have found out that lots of people and stores are still selling yarn.  My hands are not as young as they once were.  I am slowing down.  

I Scored

 Tonight I managed to get 2 of my favorite skirts in one size smaller.  They should arrive in a few days.  I find it so hard to shop for smaller sized clothing on line without having tried the clothing on.  So I have been relying on hope for my shopping. My hope is that I can find the same item in one size smaller when needed.  So therefore, I scored tonight.  

A Sad Anniversary

 Today March 10, is the one year anniversary of the last time we ate out.  I have not been in a grocery store for a few days longer.  My much anticipated craft room has turn into storage and a quarantine area.  It is not comfortable to sit in my favorite rocker and knit. I no longer spin in there either. 

All I seem to do is figure out where to order in our supplies from. Clean house. Do laundry. Cook. Knit hats and now blankets.  Yes, I did have a yarn stash built for the proverbial pandemic. I am making small dents in it. Every 2 hats is about 2 skeins gone, I have knit 20 hats so far this year. Now blankets use a lot more yarn between 5 and 10 skeins per blanket.  I am trying to use up bits and pieces so hopefully a bit more yarn is gone.  The shawl I made used about 15 skeins. So I have used about 45 skeins so far this year. It is all going to be delivered to charity sometime this year. My goal is lots of empty boxes and bags of yarn and more boxes and bags of finished knitted items.  

I still feel very useless. As if life said I am making you redundant.  The sense of isolation is getting worse. Even when fully vaccinated I fear we will still be quiet limited in what we can really do. This is not how I planned to spend my retirement. I have not felt this alone and isolated since Eric died.  

So I try to get dressed nicely every day. Although this to is getting harder since I have dropped about 3 dress sizes this year. I am really tired of wearing shifts and skirts that have ties so I can take them in without sewing. My Goodwill box is getting fuller again. I am also slowing down in the speed at which I get things done.  Chores seem to be done in spurts.  

To plan John’s special dinner tonight, it involved shopping at 3 different stores and planning out delivery times. I also had to pray that between the 3 stores I could get everything I needed.  2 stores were out of bananas and tomatoes. I play grocery roulette every week.  Some weeks I am lucky, some weeks not so much. 

I guess this is a very long winded way of saying that I am tired and stressed out by COVID19.  I am tired of seeing people acting dumb.  I need to be around more creative people. I need to chat with friends.  

I know a lot of this sounds positive, but I don’t feel positive about it.  I am not really doing anything worth while. I really need my old life back.  

A Needy House.

 Last year was my year of retooling. This year the house is being super needy. It’s only the middle of February.   We started out in January having the refrigerator dying on us.  That was replaced at the end of January, it took a long time to deliver due to COVID19.  

Then in quick secession the washing machine started leaking in two different areas.  The first repair took care of half of the leaking.  The second leak was from the back hoses, intake and out put.  After the third try the washing machine is finally fixed.  It wash just in time. Because I have been loosing weight and inches I don’t have a lot of outfits. I had just enough clothing to last through today.   So before breakfast the laundry was started.  By tomorrow morning everything will be dry.  

The the ceiling fan lights went out.  Thankfully John was able to fix it the same day.  Later that night the guest bathroom toilet decided to die.  The parts are on order.  Pre COVID19 it would have just been a quick trip to the hardware store, now it’s order the parts and wait.    

Honestly there are other things that need to be done around the house like repairing the chips caused by Eric’s wheelchair. Rooms that have not had a new coat of paint since 1994 and other paint touch ups.  It’s also time to replace the grouting in two bathrooms.  As I am feeling better or after we have our COVID19 vaccines and we can hire someone. It will get done in due time.  

Last Retooling of 2020

 I had what is hopefully my last retooling of 2020 eleven days ago.  The road to recovery is slow on this one. I can honestly say that I can not get through the day without a nap. I am only walking about 2 1/2 miles a day, but I am not worried about my step count right now.  I also found the most amazing thing with this retooling, with in days my arthritis pain levels dropped to a pain level that I have not seen since my 30’s.  So I am hoping for an onward and upward 2021. 

I will start 2021 with selfish knitting.  My current plan is to finish every work in progress without frogging for a smaller size. This means that if between the time I started the project and the time I finished it the finished object is to big I will just sell it on my Facebook page Handmade by Sheri. Then I will go through a backlog of projects that I have wanted to do for a long time and are just waiting for the time.  Well now is going to be the time.  I have sweaters, gloves and a whole lot more. 

With the COVID19 vaccines I am really hoping that I can knit in person with my friends soon.  I can’t wait to knit at Grandmas Spinning Wheel here in Tucson again.  I can truly say that I am more optimistic than I have been in a long time.  

I think it is breakfast time and I hear my oatmeal calling.  

Yarn Away

 Today was a relatively good day.  I was feeling good after the aspirin and nap.  I was preparing to yarn bomb a friend.  I started out with a mid sized carrier bag and filled it. Then went and got another And filled it too. So I grabbed a paper grocery bag and filled it too. By then I was half way finished and had 2 empty storage tub’s.  So I dumped the three bags in and continue my yarn de stashing .  By the time I was through I was sure my friend would be mad for giving her so much yarn at once. I had filled a 60 quart tub full of knitting and weaving yarn. Much to my surprise she and her niece were very happy. When they picked it up I wished them a very happy knitting and weaving time.  John is also very happy too.

With the progression of the arthritis in my hands and all the hand surgeries my burn through rate of yarn is way down. Long gone are the days that I could knit through 45 quarts of yarn in a month. Let alone 13 ponchos in a month.  With that in mind I am starting to curate my fiber stash and make sure I really want and love the yarn.  To day was a first cut. I still have 6 more weeks of no knitting.  I am pretty sure it will not be a hat a day speed when I restart my knitting. So to that end I will be working on gasp, some projects for me. I have some sweaters, shawls, tops, and socks in line.  I am not sure how much more weight I will lose, but since it has been a steady 10 pounds a year I think I will be able to wear the clothing for a while or at least be able to take it in,  

This will be a huge change from the last 20 years of knitting where 95% or more in any given year was for charity.  I will still do charity knitting and weaving, but it will not be my main focus for a while. This has been a year of many changes and my life has been turned upside down and inside out all at the same time. In a couple of days it will have been a whole year since we lost Eric. I feel blessed that we had him for so many years. It does not seem possible that a year has passed. The world is a little less gentle since he left.  Then just as we were feeling almost normal COVID19 hit.  That turned our world upside down again.  I am not sure what life has in store for me, but a little guilt free me time is in order even if we are stuck at home for the foreseeable future.  

Finding Calm

 I have finally found some calm in my life. This current political cycle has been brutal and combined with COVID19, it has been too much for me. Since I can’t knit until next year I have started weaving again . So far I have finished one scarf . Have one scarf drying and  awaiting finishing work and one scarf on the loom.  Once I fill up the bag that I started, I will drop them off at the Flowing Wells School District Clothing Bank.  I am sure that they can find homes for every scarf I weave.  

When my hands got tired, I organized my warp  bowl. I have a lot of odds and ends so I will be making some very colorful scarfs. I also filled up my weaving basket with more yarn.  I don’t know if this will make a dent in my stash the 102 knitting and weaving projects I have completed so far this year lead me to believe that I might make a dent by the end of 2021. Just don’t hold me to that. I don’t feel that 102 projects made much of a dent so far in 2020. I want to see more empty bins and everything in less space. 

Laundry

 Folding laundry is very difficult for some reason. Just one load can send me running for an ice pack.  Also forget about spinning or anything fun for the rest of the day.  Thank you for listening to the worlds worst patient. Only 2 months and 11 days until I can try to knit.  This probably is not helping, because knitting is how I have found most of my relaxing time for over 20 years. I might have to find a worry stone to see if that helps.  

I can’t decide which is worse, the stresses of not knitting or the recovery from the hand surgery.  Perhaps is is this COVID19 pandemic that has upturned our lives.  Maybe it is a perfect storm of everything.  Only time will tell.  

Ground Hog Day Perhaps

 The monotony of COVID19 has settled in.  Get up. Walk around the block.  Eat breakfast. Do chores. Knit a hat. Maybe spin some yarn. Eat lunch . Listen to a book and knit. Eat dinner. Go for a walk around the block. Also binge watching television shows, some from the last century. 3 months down about 18 months to go. Can I do this, that depends on the day. Really it does.  I am almost out of deep cleaning.  I am waiting for cooler temperatures to tackle the garage.  How is everyone one else doing?

A Political Post

I don’t know how so many people shop on line for clothing.  I have only shopped for clothing on line after I tried it on in the store and wanted a second one or a different color.  With my clothing growing bigger every week and COVID-19, I might not have a choice.   The thought just scares me. What if I pick the wrong size or I just don’t like the way it looks.  What then?  The thought of shopping on line is panic attack worthy.

So here is what I need everyone to do.  Get out you magic wands or lucky rocks, and pray that the scientists find a vaccine for this scourge.  We need more people like Bill and Melinda Gates to step up, because Washington has become so patrician that the public be dammed.  I find it very sad that companies have to advise people not to follow what comes out at the daily press briefings because it will kill them as it has here In Arizona.  Can someone have the courage to say we are handing this off to the CDC, NIH and have Bill Gates be the point man.  This may add some calmness to this chaotic situation. It might not get things fixed any faster but the anxiety levels would be lower. It would also eliminate the anxiety that the ignorant man is spewing just to hear himself talk and get his ratings.  

The above rant has nothing to do with a poorly written set of instructions that left me so frustrated that the words I was using would make a sailor blush.  Or that I have been so tense that my back has been in spasms for almost a week. Or that my clothing is falling down or going on a growth spurt all on its own.  You can’t tell me that you clothes never got longer between wearings.

By the way the recipe will be added tomorrow.  Life happened today.

That Feeling

I am having that feeling today that I am stick in school in the classroom waiting for recess.  Knowing that something bad  happened and waiting for the other proverbial shoe to drop and I will never be able to go out to recess ever again.

This is what the COVID19 virus is making me feel like today.  Each new outbreak makes the feeling worse. If the president would just keep his nose out of things and let the well trained Doctors and other specialists do their job we would be in much better shape.

G’d will really understand why you are not jamming into his places of worship.  Even G’d is smart enough not to interfere with Mother Nature.  I am hoping that in the long run this will help the environment and our grasp of what we need to do to end global warming.

I really want to go to recess again. So just do me a favor if you can. Just stay home until this is over.

My Production Line

If anyone would have told me in April 2019, that I would be sewing mass quantities of fabric face masks to protect us against a virus called COVID19, I would have asked them what Fantasy world that they were living  in. Mass quantities of sewing were for Eric’s bibs and a few bibs that I donated to charity. This was only a dozen at a time. This is what my sewing table look like today. Yes, they are sliding off the table into a laundry basket. I did chain sewing.  I ran out of pins and had to pin the second half when the first have were finished.

I did production line sewing where I could.  Tomorrow after ironing the seem flat it will be one mask at  a time.  I will see how many I can get done before I run out of ties.  The next batch of ties will be wider so that I have less cutting to do.

Busy at Home

For a couple who is staying home to avoid the COVID19 pandemic we have been extremely busy which has lead to exhaustion.  Let me explain further. I told everyone the my craft space has even turned into another dual purpose room, part pantry and part fiber room.

So Saturday we cleaned the room out. We scrubbed the walls, guess what we still were scrubbing formula off the walls.  I got down on my hands and knees to scrub the stubborn formula stains off the tiles.  Thank goodness for my bottle of Parsons.  Then we ran roomba and scuba.

Sunday we set up a 6 foot tall by 24 in wide shelving system.  Then we started to load it, don’t worry I saved the top shelf for fiber.  I might have also put a few small baskets on the bottom shelf.  I also did some deep cleaning and emptied 2 boxes.

Today we got our 5 cubic foot frostless freezer.  With not wanting to go into the stores even during the times set aside for older people, getting food has been interesting to say the least.   We make a fantasy wish list of everything we need and the stores send us what they have or have too much of.  On one order we ordered a variety of meat and they sent us the equivalent servings of ground turkey even though we did not order turkey at all.  On another order we ordered a variety of frozen vegetables, green beans, spinach and mixed vegetables. For the 2 packages of mixed vegetables we ordered we got the 1 pound bags for everything else we got huge family sized mixed vegetables.  This is one time I am glad to be older, the grocery stores here were trying to tell everybody to skip the stores for the first week of the month so the people who receive food stamps and seniors can shop. I am so glad I put my birth year on my loyalty cards.

Besides setting up the freezer we got Wednesday mornings delivery this morning and today’s delivery this afternoon. This involves unpacking everything in the garage. Wiping down the cans with alcohol and putting it on a shelf in the garage for a few days.  The meat in plastic wrap has to be sprayed down with alcohol and for it to evaporate, then it goes in the freezer.  For meat packed in paper we put it in a ziplock and then the freezer. Everything gets cleaned off. We even bought a fruit and vegetable wash.  The whole process takes at least 30 minutes if not more per order.  This leaves us both exhausted. Then there were a couple of boxes delivered too.

I have set up a quite spot with my rocking chair and knitting in the dual room and for the first time in weeks was able to relax.

It’s Official

It’s official, I will not die with the biggest quilting fiber stash.  I told John today that I would make face masks until we no longer needed them or I run out of fiber. After listening to Bill Gates speak on television tonight it might be as long as 18 months.  So much for traveling in our retirement.

Tomorrow marks the lasted change in our life’s.  The proposed craft room will be a long term temporary pantry complete with a small freezer.  I am sure we can convince the fiber to get along with the pantry supplies.

I have a big day of sewing and remodeling planned for tomorrow so it’s time to get some sleep.

Wondering

I am wondering if this is how my grandmothers and great grandmother’s felt as they were knitting socks as part of the war effort of their generations.  No, I am not knitting socks but rather sewing face masks for a local Tucson non-profit.

I am using the material that I had purchased to make quilts some day and some sheets destined for another project.  The material went through the 4 1/2 hour sanitary wash and a very hot dryer.   I will make the first one and then if all goes well I will mass produce them a dozen at a time.  If the first pattern does not work there will be others to try.

I am not sure if this will help with the current COVID-19 crisis.  I was asked and will do my part and hope it helps.  Using the old biblical adage “ If you save one man, you have saved the world”.  Now I am off to pull the dried fabric from the dryer and iron it before I cut the material.

Additionally these are my prototypes.  I will make one change tomorrow.  I will have a different fabric on the back.  For these I just used a sharpie pen to mark the back.

Day 17 of COVID19 and Counting

The dress I wore today is 2 inches longer than the last time I wore it.  I don’t think it can be classified as an Empire Waist dress anymore either, you guessed right that seam is a good 2 inches below where it needs to be. 

On the knitting front I have decided that I need simple knitting that I can do in my sleep.  I am just so stressed by the uncertainty and people not doing the right thing.  So I pulled out this basket of yarn which will be made into hats and maybe a few scarfs.  I want to finish it before the end of April, yes we will still be home for all of April too.  I will show each hat as it is finished. I really hope we will be able to go out by mid June.

Bits and pieces of COVID19

Nothing says the house needs to be reorganized more than “sheltering in place” do to the COVID19 outbreak.  But I am limiting myself in the amount of time that I am spend.  Today the hour before breakfast was spent putting our extra blankets in vacuum bags for John to put up higher in the closet after his work at home shift had ended. This gave me space for things I use all the time at a level that I could reach. Also more baskets and bags off the floor.

Another thing that I have noticed is that I am not eating enough during the day and find myself hungry at night.  I did not have this problem before because we ate most of our meals out.  Now that I am only eating when I am hungry and not planning my eating times around how crowded a restaurant will be I am just eating less.  We are also eating better sized portions and healthier food. Take to day for instance I had only had 560 calories from the time I woke up until after dinner.  This meant that I had to eat roughly 700.calories before bed.  So my bedtime snack was a toasted cheese sandwich, dried fruit and a breakfast bar.

Even worse this is the time when I would normally be shopping for smaller clothes.  Wearing the skirt at the rib cage is uncomfortable.  I am a touchy feely  person when it comes to clothes shopping, gee it must be the fiber arts in me.  I like to feel the fabric before I try on clothes. Today’s skirt was 6 inches above my waist sitting on my rib cage to keep from tripping on the skirt or having it fall as I walk. Real first world problems during a pandemic.

Well it is time to wind down for the night.