The Shawlette is Finished

 I finished the shawlette at 9pm tonight. Alas it was to dark to take pictures.  I also won yarn chicken.  I did not even have enough yarn left over for an extra row.  

I also did something I have not done since March of 2020. I went to Starbucks, ordered a tea. Yes I sat on the lovely patio in the shade.  I had the patio to myself.  I listened to my book and got a whole lot of knitting done.  I also got to the post office and gas station.  The gas was down to $4.79 a gallon.  Then it was time to go home and do a couple of loads of laundry.  A little picking up too.  

Be Careful How You Ask For Things

Yesterday Eric had me up at 4 am, because he kicked his covers off and was cold. So I asked Eric last night before he went to sleep not to wake me up at 4 am again. He followed my instructions to a 

T.   He did not wake me up at 4 am, but instead at 3 am with the wild eyrps.  Yes, I know it was not 4 am and that being eyrpy is just a fact of life. I still wonder if I had said don't wake me up before 6 am if the results would have been different?

On the bright side, I am caught up with all the eyrpy laundry at the moment. I also got to sneak out of the house for 30 minutes to pick up a Brugers Bagle breakfast sandwich and a cuppa tea.  I also picked up a hot Starbucks treat too, so that I am in the tea this morning.  It still won't be enough to keep me awake, but it's a start. Did I mention that it started raining at 7 am? And because Eric is sick today, that I will not have to get Eric and his chair from the car to his day program while trying to keep us and the chair dry.  

So today I will knit and do finishing work. Then I will count rows in the finished basket for the one million row challenge on Raverly. Then try to get as much as possible in plastic bags and containers because the demolition on the kitchen starts Thursday morning.  So anything I don't want to be dusty will have to be in the craft room or in plastic containers. Yes, I will take you along for the  journey, sometimes with just pictures.  

Not an Idle Summer Day

It has been a very busy day. It started off shopping at the Friends of the Pima County Library sale. I found a slew of good knitting books in excellent condition for a very reasonable price. Most of these will be raffle prizes at future guild meetings. The hard part for me will be letting most of them leave the house. They are all that good. I also found a lot of books for Eric, so if you like to read aloud to a very willing audience please feel free to give me a call. Then it was off to Starbucks for a much needed caffeine break. I also found a replacement for one of my favorite coffee/tea mugs that found it way to the trash can in pieces. I just wish that people would let me know when they break something.  Darn if we did not go a little out of our way to Savers. I did find a Lego set for $1.00 for my friends son. The funny thing was I promised that we would try to find a set of Lego's if he agreed to go with us. I just love good karma. That was not the best deal of the day. I can't say much more about it, although the person I have this in mind for will just love it.

Then it was lunch with John followed by a short nap. I did manage to get one project off the knitting needles, however so the needles would not feel useless I cast on the next project. I did also find the time to do a little spinning this afternoon.

Since I am handing Eric over early tonight to John, I think I will call it an early night. My to do list is a mile long for tomorrow.

Hot Chocolate Chai Tea Recipe

After a long night with Eric, my most amazing accomplishment was a 2 hour nap and a walk around the block. So rather than bore you with the details I will share a new winter drink combo that I think you should try.

Hot Chocolate Chai Tea

1 to 2 tablespoons of chocolate chips
8 ounces of hot chai tea in a large mug
Vanilla soy milk to top it off (you can use other milks but I am not sure how it will taste)

Put the chocolate chips in the bottom of a large mug. Pour the hot chai tea over the chocolate chips. Stir until the chocolate is completely melted. Add the desired amount of say milk and enjoy.

If you would like to indulge in this with out going into the kitchen, Starbucks will make something very similar.

A Perfect Day

What a wonderful day I had. I spent the day at the Tucson Wool Festival. The people were great, the vendors were awesome and a few sheep and goats got their hair cut. I would like to publicly thank Kathy and Mark Withers for putting on such an awesome event.

Some of the highlights included:

Demonstrations of spinning on wheels and spindles.

Farm tours.

Knitting and crochet demonstrations.

Carding demonstrations.

Mini lessons. I got to teach a wonderful 5th grader named Georgia how to knit. She had a good inch knit by the time the show was over.

There was a very quick visit by John and Eric. They were so wonderful and brought me a sandwich and of Venti cup of iced green tea from Starbucks. It was a little on the hot side for Eric so I sent John to look around and sent them packing after about 15 minutes. I did not think I have it in me to do an all nighter tonight.

Oh yes and I did not take home as much as I came with. I would also like to say what took me 4 days to assemble for the show was unpacked and put away in less than and hour. Go figure. Well it is almost 6 pm so I am headed out to Mayco's to pick up dinner. Have a wonderful evening.

Murphy's Law Rules the Day

I thought I would blog a little on the early side today. Eric did not have the best of nights last night and around 4 am his Kangaroo Joey decided to stop working. Not being totally awake it took me until about 6 am to figure out the problem and call the equipment company.  I managed to put together a temporary feeding "machine", yes that's right a syringe and a bolost tube powered by myself and his camp councilor. Yes we do have a new pump. The equipment company forgot to call me with a delivery time and left the new pump on the doorstep.

But wait the day gets better. We get to camp and I realized that I have the wrong backpack. I have the red one not the blue one. So I drive home behind the group of cars who will not go over 25 mph in a 40/45mph zone, both lanes mind you. I then drive back to camp. I changed out the back pack and decided to stop at Starbucks on the way home. I could not figure out why a once bustling Starbucks was so slow. That is until I got my drink order. I ordered a venti drink and received a grande, one size smaller. I asked why and was told that since I brought my own cup it was policy* to make the drink one size smaller than the cup.  I took my 3/4 full cup of tea a little miffed. Then it was back home to drop off the red backpack because I could not leave it in the hot car. I know it was only in the high 90's today but with the car closed up in a hot parking lot it was too hot for Eric's emergency kit.

Today must not have been my day to knit either. I spent as much time tinking** as knitting. I did take Jeans advice and call the Starbucks Corporate Offices and spoke to a nice young lady by the name of Lexi. I asked her about the "new policy*" that I was told about at the store. The Very good news is that is not the corporate policy and that they will send me a coupon for a replacement drink. I would like to give Starbucks a shout out for great customer service and the professionalism of Lexi.

This paragraph contains some politics so if you don't like politics please skip it and go to the next paragraph.

I should not have checked my e-mail either. Our wonderful, thoughtful Governor wants to cut our respit services by 50%. When Eric was born the state run institutions were closing down with state and federal  officials saying that they would continue to provide services that would enable us to keep our children at home and in the community. Over the last 2 decades there has been a gradual decline in services.  A mear 20 years later just as our children are reaching adulthood they are cutting the services to the bone and beyond. Yes I know that we are in a recession and money is tight. But it is time to stop cutting taxes. It is time for our elected officials to stop running around like life was a popularity contest and do their job. A sound bite slogan does not give me a good nights sleep. Raise our taxes if you need to but dont' throw our families under a bus.

The political statement is over.

I was to tired to fix much lunch so it was cheese and crackers and time for a  nap. A note to my self, Sheri please restock the cheese drawer. Do you think I will remember tomorrow? A 2 hour nap and it was time to pick Eric up from camp. Now if I could just stay awake long enough to get Eric to bed tonight it will great. If he sleeps though the night it will be even better.

Well it is time to find the energy to pick up and do a little cleaning before the weekend.

At least when I make chili, I usually make 4 servings so at least dinner is cooked for the night.

**Tinking - the polite way to say you have to rip out the @#*&% rows and knitting and redo them

Last Night

I should have known something was going to go wacky. I had the urge just to get out of the house yesterday. I had no real errands to do so I went to Starbucks for 2 hours of knitting and relaxing.

While at Starbucks I did figure out the shoulder repeats for the shawl pattern I promised to give as Christmas gifts on Friday. So that was good. I have less than a skein to knit and then I will type the pattern for my beta testers. Did I mention that the Beta testers are from my Friday Fun Knitters group and have wanted me to write this pattern down for at least a couple of years..

After Eric's dinner he started feeling yucky and pulling my hand to his tummy. Well the eyrping started at about 10 pm and that did not seem to ease the pain. Then there was the 3:30 am total change, I am so glad that I put the extra chucks down around midnight otherwise I would have had a full bed change instead of just PJ's,blanket and chucks*. Basically what that means is 1 load of laundry instead of 3 loads.

I feel very proud of myself that I did not start the caffeine till about 4 am, but I am beginning to wonder if I should have started earlier. By the way that's when I started the laundry too. I was up so why not start a load or two and warm up the house a little.

So Eric and I are home today. He had 5 days off for Thanksgiving and only made it to school for 2 days this week. I wish I could figure out how to keep him well. I also hope that he naps today, I know that is a totally selfish thought, but it's not quite 8 am and a nap sounds good already. I think it's going to be a very long day.

I hope that you have a wonderful day and enjoy your families.

*Chucks are those pads they use in the hospital under patients so that they do not have to change the bed as often. I consider them a resource saving device. They are less work to put on the bed then a total bed change. They require less water to clean than a complete bed change. Can you tell that I love them.