Risky People

 It seems to be becoming a very bad habit. After a mad dash through the grocery store. Yes today we masked up and went to Trader Joe’s.  I was like a crazy lady dashing around the store filling my arms with what we needed. Finding John and the cart and dashing off again.  We got stuff for dinner and a few extras.  I did however in the mad dashes forget the dates.  Oh, well there is always the next time  

My reason may sound as flaky as a croissant.  There is this thing that is happening in Tucson and as I tend to be a magnet for the crazy people, it happens to me often.  Unmasked and most likely unvaccinated come up to people wearing masks and tend to get as close as possible without knocking us down or shoving us.  I really, really hate this.  I really don’t know who raised this selfish, ill mannered people, but this has really got to stop.  Don’t they know after a year what a safe distance is. I find it hard enough to leave the house on a good day.  No, I don’t have a fear of being outside.  I have a fear of getting sick.  Yes, and please stop trying  explain to to me what an autoimmune disease is.  I think I get the picture on that one.  

Most of the time after the stuff is put away I tend to crash into a solid 2 to 3 hours of sleep.  Stress makes me tired.  I could have done so many things.  I hear it’s not going to get better any time soon the county health department said that vaccine rate for first shots has slowed to a dribble. With the stanch Opposition to both the masks and vaccines it is going to be a long road to recovery, not months but maybe years.  

I feel we should do what parts of Europe are doing. No vaccine equals no dining out, no theater, no travel, no in person shopping and the list goes on.  The only exception to the rule are medical requiring a doctors signature and paperwork to back that up. No religious, political party affiliation, or hair brained excuses. We have to work together as a world to solve this.  Please be part of the solution.  

I Hate to Disappoint People

There is some dunderhead on Raverlry that has decided to name themselves the official judge of others people’s knitting. You know the type, the dreaded Knitting Police. You all know how I feel about these self appointed idiots.   Knitting is one of my own art forms and I like to push the boundaries as much as I can.  I like each piece of my work to be different and unique.  Seriously if I wanted conformity why both knitting at all? I would save the time, space and money and just get what ever cheap crap you can get at the dollar store. The kids in Tucson deserve much better than that.

The thing about this idiot,  is that they don’t know that my hats go to a clothing bank for kids.  These kids don’t have much, so getting something that no one else in school has is pretty special. I have heard stories from people who work with these kids how much they love their hats.  Not many know that I am the Hat Lady. I will not let one very insecure person stop me. They can give me as many ugh’s as they want. That won’t stop me.  They were too much of a coward to leave their name. How childish is that?

Which brings me to another point. I was raised with these quotes among many.  “ If you do not have anything nice to say, then say nothing at all.” Another that comes to mind “Silence is golden.” With everyone around the world dealing with the pandemic of COVID19, none of us need this. I knit to relax, have fun and escape. We all need to relax and chill for a while.

This is the hat that got the ugh.  I personally like how the blue and red swirl and mix.  I hope it will be going to a future University of Arizona Wild Cat.  Have a Great Weekend everyone and remember to social distance.

Leave it at Home

I usually love meeting up with friends to knit.  Today was not one of those days. Little miss I am not happy with my life choices was in over drive today. When I left the house it was 28 degrees below my minimum temperature requirement of 70 degrees f.  So I wore my wool coat, the one I got when Teri was a toddler, so last century.  Well yes I did buy and expensive coat but amortized over the years the current cost per year to wear my nice coat so far is $6.66 not bad for a nice wool coat. Then again the devil is in the details.  Next was my sweater, a fancy one if I have to admit it.  Bought when the kids were in elementary school and on sale. Amortized over the years works out to $4.75 a year of wear at this point. My point to her was that I buy nice things that last, I also take care of them, they might cost more at the beginning,  it the cost per years of wear. Brings the price way down.  It went this way for yarn and other things in my life. Let’s get one thing straight right here and now. Life to to short to knit with crappy yarn.

Then it came down to how to pay for things. Here I was even called un-America.  This is going just a bit to far.  Every family handles their finances to the best of their ability. Every family is different. Every family would like a redo at some time in their lives. A blog is no place to go into this.  Suffice to say my knowledge of our country and financial well-being has been one of saving for what you need.  Not living beyond your means.  The changes came about in the 1960’s with the advent of readily available credit.  The banks learned that they could create a new revenue stream by giving people more credit then they could handle and charging high interest rates and late fees.

Then came  The Lifestyle’s of the rich and famous in I believe was the 1970’s showing what more money could buy, whether it was trips, bespoke clothing or accessories. Designers are very smart people. They created mass produced lines with a lot less detail than their bespoke lines, but enough to get the customers flocking in to buy the goods.  Travel also became cheaper and faster.  Work ethics were also changing.  Gone was the 6 day, 80 hour work week of past generations. Most jobs even introduced paid vacations.

This is were the country started changing.  Some people planned and saved. Thought it was still a good idea to live under their means.  Other people went headlong into the credit card debit way of life.  Let’s fast track forward to this century.  The people who were frugal are for the most part doing OK.  The people whom opted for the credit card to the max way of life are nearing or at retirement age. They have started wondering if they are going to be able to get out of debt before they retire.  They have visions of county run, rat invested living conditions.  They are scared and need to lash out.  I understand all of this, however I am not in the mood to be on the receiving end of someone else’s bad choices.  It’s time to pay those credit cards off no matter what you age is and save for big purchases.  You probably won’t be able to buy a car or house without a loan, but the more you put down on the big ticket items the less interest you will pay and have more money for the things you want.

Now want and needs is an entirely different conversation.  Not for now but later.

A Little Mishap

There are certain things in life that must be done methodically every time that they are done or things go wonky rather quickly. Take Eric's new lift for example. It is mounted to the ceiling with the lift being operated by a pneumatic air compressor which is operated by a switch. We ask everyone who uses it with Eric to make sure that it does not get tangled. Tangles always cause problems.  I noticed that this mornings aide did not put the lift back on the charger, but failed to notice how badly tangled the wires were left until it was too late.

Do to tangling in the wires the pneumatic motor became disengaged, is simpler terms it broke at a most inconvenient time. Yes half way down. This left Eric miffed to be stuck in mid air. My tall guy was out and about an hour away. I am to short to reach up and fix it. The bed was to far from the problem to safely fix the lift. It would have been a very embarrassing call to 911. I can not lift Eric by myself.  I finally found a step ladder so I could reach up and fix everything. The whole incident took less than 2 minutes, but to me it felt like hours. Eric's glares did not help much either, but I could not blame him, his ride broke midway through.

This will result in everyone who works with Eric to be retrained on the lift. I personally hate redundant training, but will do this because it is a safety issue.

By the time everything was fixed and I was calm enough to drive we had missed the movie that we wanted to go to across town and hurried to catch a later showing at another theater. By the way we went to see Zootopia. It is a must see movie for this summer.

By the way as long as we are talking about retraining, I would like to mention that a movie theaters the handicapped seating is for those who truly need to use them. For example people in wheelchairs and their companions, people who use walkers or canes and have other mobility issues. You just do not know how hard it is to move a wheelchair through those heavy doors to go to the other side. I think it would be much easier to move your able body self and kids a few seat and show some manners. I am off my soap box now.

In No Order

In no particular order the following got done over the past few days.

1.  Eric brought in 27 pounds of tabs to the Tucson Ronald McDonald House.  Our goal for the year was 20 pounds. Eric now stands 37 pounds. Way to go Eric.  If you are in Tucson you can drop your tabs off at the Tucson JCC.  If you see me on a regular basis I will still take them. 

I just cast on hat #15 out of 30.  I am going through yarn much faster than I thought I would. A big thank you goes out to Barbara M. For her wonderful pattern. 

Eric has gotten into waking up at 5 am. So I am a bit tired by the evening.  

A lot of projects got finished in the craft room including positioning pillows for Eric's day program. 

If fiber is a _______ to spin, then it is equally bad to ply.  

If you are wearing my hand me downs that I shrunk out of, you have no right to call me fat.  It's a shame that the person who made the comment does not read this blog. 

If you want me to teach you to knit, you have to let me have time to show you how and explain things. In other words stop talking long enough for me to say something.  

I am the luckiest woman alive.  I have Great kids.  A wonderful husband.  The best friends a person could ever ask for.  With that my ramblings will stop for the evening. 

A Really Good Day

I had a very busy day today. With Eric at his day program, I was able to go to knitting guild today. Barbara Moore gave a lovely talk about the history of hand knit caps. She also gave us a pattern for a quick hat for charity that is a real stash buster. It uses 2 stands of worsted weight yarn. With about 1 hour total knitting time this afternoon I am half way through with my first hat. John made a suggestion of making a whole bag full for the next guild meeting to burn through some of my stash. The question I should have asked was what size bag, before I said that sounded like a good idea and agreed to it. Since the hat is not my own design I can not post the pattern here.

I also think that I may have insulted a few people at lunch by asking one person at the table to use her inside voice when she started yelling at the top of her lungs during lunch. I was ready to crawl under the table because I was so embraced to be with someone that rude. Not to mention that the entire restaurant was staring at our table. Teri would have loved being a fly on the wall when another person who did not know all about Eric, commented that we should not let Eric be such a slacker (her words not mine). We needed to motivate him  to be more like his older sister. I told this lady who is new to our group that we were content to have Eric in his day program ( I could have not drop a bigger hint), and we had no problem with him staying home as long as he wanted. Not everyone has to go to college.  I think the final round of me insulting the world came about when the server came over to offer us desert and I turned it down for the entire table.

After lunch, but before afternoon car pool I also managed to get some lovely fruit for snacks this weekend and get a 20 minuet nap.

John and I also went to a retirement dinner tonight. It still seems odd at times to think that we are retired.  The speaker was a Retired Air Force Major General. It was a great talk, that was surprisingly short. I should have written down the name of his book so I could read it.  Afterward John and I went to Frost and had a nice walk to help me get to my 10,000 steps for the day.

It is time to call it a day so that I can fill my day tomorrow with knitting, cleaning, laundry and hopefully some spinning.

The Quandary

I am in a quandary. I love to get out of the house and knit with my friends. I consider that a wonderful treat to say the least. We have fun. We check out each others progress. Trade yarn back and forth. Some times we knit in silence and sometimes chatty. We teach each other things we have picked up along the way. We like to consider ourselves a happy fun group.

The problem is that we have picked up a new member. She assumes that since most of us stay home alone working on chores or projects that are necessary or near and dear to our hearts that we need constant chatter. This has gone beyond the boundaries of normal social chatting. Today it got to the point of droning and not letting anyone get a word in edge wise. Today I had to skip lunch with friends because her constant drone and constant questions ( to read if I don't get the answer I want, I will keep asking the same question over and over again until you relent ) gave me a migraine that is now just going away. I am talking about the sun glasses stayed on for hours today, 2 bottles of cola and 2 doses of Excedrin.

I really don't want to be rude to her because 2 wrongs don't make a right. I know that everyone has a need for other people in their lives. Who am I to judge her? I really, really, really want to give her a book by Emily Post but fear it might be to rude or worse just go over her head.

I am open to Very Gentle suggestions. She is a few years younger than I am, so she must have gotten some of this in school and church. What would you do?