Zenning Again

This week with the encouragement of my friend Vicky, I am taking zenning to a whole new level. I have started going through my craft bags looking for unfinished objects. Henceforth to be called UFO's. So far I have emptied one bag completely. Finished three scarfs. Did I mention create more small balls of yarn for hats? Found a lot of knitting needles. In my defense in the past when I had too many empty knitting needles I just cast on a few more projects. Stash them away in a craft bag until I was bored and needed a new challenge. This is why I have so many bags filled with UFO's.

I am going to try to eliminate the extra craft bags.  There are no guarantees here though. I have so many beautiful project bags. I now have a lifetime supply of large tote bags and project bags. Some I will pass on to new knitters that I teach. Some will be used for shopping, although since the zenning project began a few years ago, I am less likely just to go shopping if I am bored. I am more aware of what I bring into the house. I just don't buy more stuff. The exception here seems to be yarn, roving and tissue paper. After all I have spinning wheels, looms and knitting needles to keep busy, not to mention my idle hands.

Eric is having less bad nights since we discover that his vitamin D was contaminated. Last night was an exception. I was up with him until 4 am. Got a little sleep when he settled in. We both took naps this morning. I am still at the point where my energy reserves are completely gone. So I need to slow down a bit until they are back. A perfect time to sit and knit.

Now what to make for dinner.

A Good Day

Today is the first day in a very long time that the laundry got washed dried and put away on the same day. Considering the laundry was overflowing from the laumdry room, I think that this is great. Yes, the impossible does happen from time to time.

I also managed to lay out Teri's blanket on a table in the craft room. The idea behind this is that because the blanket is so big, that it usually takes longer to find a place to put it and set it up each time that I want to knit. So it is now ready for me to walk in and do random knitting. Today I had time to knit 3 short rows. In case you were wondering, it is a queen size blanket knit in a modular pattern. Yes those are U.S. Size 7 knitting needles. What was I thinking?

I am also waiting for Eric to fall asleep. We put him down at 7 pm to give hime 3 hours to settle down. It is now almost mid-night. Hopefully I can get him settled down in the next hour or so. Wish me luck.

11

Last night I got 11 hours of sleep. It felt wonderful. My only problem is that one great night of sleep does not make up for all the sleep that I lost over the summer.

After a slow start I did manage to get a 1 load of laundry done. I also got to watch Dinosaur Train with Eric while I got to knit. I am off to knit now.

Consolidating

In the past two days I have consolidated 4 bags and 1 basket of hat yarn into 1 basket and 1 bag. So I now have 3 empty bags that used to hold yarn. Progress. I also managed to finish 2 hats and 2 scarfs today. Yes, I did cast on 2 more hats, I don't want the knitting needles to get lonely. I also found this UFO hat and added 3 more inches to it.

It's Been Awhile

I have been busy deep cleaning and taking care of the guys. We have also had a nice visit from Teri and Tej. Eric had also received a very bad batch of vitamin D,  that was contaminated with bacteria. So tomorrow we will start another round of antibiotics to make sure it has cleared his system. Did I mention that the contaminated vitamin D has already caused one round on pneumonia.

So what did I do when both guys cleared the house today? Since I have a fundraiser coming up in October, all bets would be on , making some jewelry. Maybe tagging and pricing some finished pieces. Maybe even warping a loom or putting together the new loom. If you choose any of the above you would have been wrong. I was too tired to do any of it. Instead I took a 3 1/2 hour nap. It in no way makes up for all the lost sleep over the past month but I do feel better.

Blender to Tuesday

Monday evening as I wrote my blog I had such great plans for Tuesday. Well long story short, Eric shared his cold with me. I am not quite sure how Eric and I made it through Tuesday. Did I mention that this cold hit me like a brick wall, hard and fast? Wednesday was a little better, I even had the energy to watch Sesame Street with Eric after napping all morning. Eric was nice enough to nap all morning too.

Today Eric made it back to program and I slept for most of the day. On the sweater that  I am now knitting is about 1 inch below the arm holes in the mid 50's by row count. Now I know why some friends prefer to knit sweaters in the round, no purling every other row. I am also way behind on chores. I know that I will catch up 5 minutes at a time. I need to leave plenty of recovery time.

My sleep cycle is really messed up from Eric being sick and this silly cold. So the first thing I need to do is reset it. I figure with about 5 minutes of zenning the craft room tonight that I will be tired enough to sleep. Wish me luck.

Plans

My plans for Tuesday are already in the blender. I will be at home with Eric all day. Although the fever has broken from the cold, his asthma has kicked in with vengeance. So while Eric is busy watching PBS kids, I will get the serger out and make some more cleaning rags out of old cloth diapers. The cloth diapers last for about 2 years of Eric use and then become rags that last forever. I serge the old diapers in half so that they don't land up back in Eric's room.  Oh, and I love how the cloth diaper maker has raised the price about 5% in the last 2 years, but it is now a 5 pack instead of a 6 pack. So the price increase is actually much more. Can we say inflation?

While cleaning the craft room today, I finally added the charms to Teri's charm bracelet. So  instead of spending 20 minutes trying to figure out where to put the charm bracelet I spent 10 minutes getting the actual work done. Now the next time she comes for a visit she can take it home. I also have filled another box with craft supplies for Eric's day program, although I don't know when he will be well enough to go back. I am down to the dibs and drabs of the zenning and must resist the urge to stuff everything in a closet for later. Maybe I can fill another bag to go.

The sweater is coming along quite nicely. I am almost finished with the first skein of yarn and I am 34 rows into the pattern. The pattern called for 24 inch circular knitting needles. At row 18 I changed to 36 inch circular knitting needles. Tonight at row 30 I changed to 60 inch circular knitting needles. I wonder who goofed up on this one? In about 10 rows, I will take the sleeves and put them on stitch holders. Then finish the body and go back to do the sleeves. I am thinking at this point that it will take about a month to finish. I am also thinking that I might just have enough yarn to make it a long sleeve sweater. I bought enough yarn to make this sweater 2 sizes larger. This is my first me sized sweater. The 2 sweaters that I made for Elmo went much faster.