May Day

For many years, this was celebrated as the Workers' Day and in some places it still is.  It's interesting to look at some of the actions being taken today - lifting the minimum wage to $15, workers in the restaurant and performing arts industries illuminating the problems of racist and sexist behavior by leaders - and compare them to the platforms established a hundred or more years ago by the Wobblies and others.

Perspective

To be satisfied with the way something turned out,

knowing it was not *perfect* but to find it *good*.

That line is a quote from somebody else's blog post, and the whole thing is worth reading, then go watch the video that triggered the post.  I've seen it, and saw it before her post, and went back and watched it.  It's comforting, in a way, to see somebody that renowed confessing to thoughts of "not good enough" and then saying that there are times that "good" really is enough.

It's very helpful to remember.

May Mini-Resolution

Finish and file my taxes.  🙋😔

That was a quick month.

For some reason, April felt shorter than February did.

Weather-wise, it's been a bit of everything, including snow (most recently on April 22nd), thunderstorms, lots of rain, lots of sunshine, and high temperatures ranging from just above freezing to over 70(F).  Neither my sinuses or my throat are very happy.  Some of us joked while waiting for a work meeting to begin that we didn't know if ill feeling was from the vaccine or spring.

I'm still staying home, still enjoying lots of arts and lectures and virtual travel.  I hope that organizations continue to offer programming online even when we can be in person again, because it enables me to enjoy so many more things, as in one day I can be in Chicago, New York, and Buenos Aires, or in a 24-hour period attend events in Dallas, Connecticut, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

Work is busy, although less so than in March.  It feels odd to work ten hours a day, instead of sixteen or twenty.  I've been able to avoid work at least one day a weekend also, which feels just as odd.

Mini-Resolution Report

Much the same as before.  I have finished some knitted items, but not my UFOs.  Although I wasn't going to do it, I pledged to make some items for charity, and those proceed.  I've put it aside to finish a gift that I hope to finish by midweek.  I guess we'll see.

Not So Taxing

I meant to post this yesterday, which would traditionally be Tax Day in the USA, the deadline to file our income tax returns.  Except that this year, like last, the IRS extended the deadline, and so did the states.

Otherwise, life continues much the same.  I took a couple days off work, once we got the Very Big Massive Deal signed, and during one received one part of my Pfizer vaccine:

I've read that the Pfizer CEO says that we'll need a booster shot in 6-12 months, and although I hate shots I am OK with it because that sounds like the regular influenza vaccine, with a booster against new strains every year.  With all the variants popping up in the last couple of months, I'm not surprised to hear we'll need the booster.

I took the days off partly as comp time and partly in case I had a reaction, which I didn't.  No side effects to report, other than a very sore arm for several days, and a horrible headache which could be from allergies as much as from the vaccine.  The weather was lovely those days and I went for walks.

In fact:

As you can see, I did a LOT of walking.  An unannounced goal of mine for this year - a mini-resolution, if you will - was to have a week where every day I:

• Walked at least 250 steps in each hour of the 9:00am-6:00pm timeperiod, when my FitBit is set to vibrate if I have not walked enough.
• Walk not only the 10,000 steps per day goal, but enough steps to walk at least 8km (for some reason, this is also a goal widget) daily, which for me is over 12,500 steps.
• Sleep at least 6.5 hours per night.  This is not easy for me even when I am not working on a Very Big Deal requiring 14-22 hour days.
• Walk or do something else, such as my Saturday yoga, to count as exercising for at least a half-hour every day.
• Not shown above: use the new meditation/mindfulness module every day.

Last week was the one where I accomplished these goals.  The exception was the mindfulness; I didn't use it on Saturday, thus only six of seven days (I have it set for three, so it was overachieving anyway) and since I did a yoga class on Saturday which includes meditation, I counted it as good enough.

All those steps on Sunday?  I participated in Foodshare's Virtual 5K Race Against Hunger, and that is the day I did my walking.  Of course I wore food-themed items:

I forgot to wear my race bib, but it didn't matter.  Donations from friends and family exceeded my goal, and together everybody raised plenty of money for the food banks.

April Mini-Resolution mid-month report

I started the DFW Fiber Fest top, and at this point am past the sleeve separation, so it's plain work on the body until the end.  I added the seed stitch borders when I did the separations; the pattern has you do it at the end, but I wanted to be sure I have enough yarn.

The Board posted on social media that this would have been the weekend for DFW Fiber Fest this year and encouraged people to post photos from past years.  Of course my social media feed has been full of class projects, stash enhancement, and yarnbombings from years past, as well as some of the theatre I attended on the non-speaker nights.  Here's looking forward to next year!

No Fooling

I very much intended to write a post yesternight, to have at least two per month, but March is the end of my company's fiscal year and I was flat-out to get a deal done - and then we had annual HR training to complete.  So I was trying to get that done by midnight as well, after an all-nighter on the deal.  At least in business, March was a lion all the way through.

April definitely is starting with showers, which are not as photogenic as snow, so you'll have to trust me for the weather report.  Farmstands and nurseries have flowers for sale, and I had some brave purple crocus on Tuesday, poking above the leaves and branches from last weekend's storms.

Last night was the monthly Cooking Club, and while I'd planned to bake something, I then remembered it's Passover plus the yearend madness, so I made Chili Colorado, called that because it is supposed to be red.  Mine came out more brown, because of the chilis I used.  They were from a friend who grows them and sent some dried ones a couple summers back that I hadn't completely used.  I nibbled one and it didn't seem very hot, so I threw in a handful of pieces that looked about correct.  I must have gotten a very cool corner to nibble.  Luckily I am a chili-head, but BOY!!  I am going to add some potatoes when I reheat the stew, to help mitigate the punch.  The meat is bison from a local farm, and while it was a bit annoyingly chewy when I took some out for the cooking club, the meat I left simmering in my slow cooker (handier for me than the recommended dutch oven, especially as I had only a pound of meat and so had to scale the recipe a bit) absolutely fell apart on the fork.  Definitely a winner, and I recommended that if you don't like heat, put in a spoonful of paprika instead, to get the flavour.

March Mini-Resolution Closing Report

Small progress made on the Omega Shawl, partly because it's in the loooooooong rows phase and it's difficult to notice progress.  I put a small safety pin every twenty rows (ten eyelets) on the leading border as a way to keep track.  No progress on any other UFO.  Some reading done, but no book completed.

I did finish the BLUE project for the KnitTalk Q1 Make-Along, and tomorrow I announce the theme of the Q2 Make-Along.  People are speculating like crazy.  Here's the finished hat:

I am going to donate it to Mittens for Akkol, and there's enough yarn left (Koigu Premium Merino, long in the stash) to make a pair of matching mittens, I think.  Those probably won't have the dots pattern because I don't feel like figuring it out to match the mitten stitch count.

I started a couple more hat-and-mitten sets for them as well.  Because of travel bans information about the grads was handled via email and phone, so we don't have their colour preferences and people who knit sweaters just assign them, then people can make accessories to match.  I had a couple of sweaters done "on spec" - really to try a top-down patternbook, which I can definitely recommend - so I assigned those to grads and looked for yarn to march others' sweaters.  This is giving me a chance to make something of very old New Zealand yarn (it was in my stash before I went there) so I am enjoying the feel of it even though I wouldn't wear the colour.

April Mini-Resolution

Now that the weather is a bit more reliably warm, I want to get out and do a long walk at least once a week.  I did manage to fit one in the weekend before last; last weekend I worked almost the whole time, and during the little gap I had the weather was not my idea of pleasant.  I'm not that dedicated.  It felt very good to get in the one long walk and I want to get back to those.

Since DFW Fiber Fest is again not occurring - it was one of the first events cancelled due to the pandemic last year - and usually occurs in late March or early April, I decided that this week I would knit something from yarn I purchased in their virtual vendor hall last year.  My social media feed has been full of pictures I took in past years of class projects, the yarnbombing, and my acquisitions in the vendor hall.  Of course I haven't had much time, even for a very simple item, but I started this:

Then I frogged and re-started because (1) the collar rolled and I needed to do it on much smaller needles, and (2) the circular needle's cord was very twisty and I was tired of fighting it.  A couple quick dunks in very hot water and holding it taut helped to relax it a bit.  I would like to finish this so I have it to wear next year, and hopefully this summer.  The colourway is Fiberlady's "Oh Happy Day", which was a special fundraiser for DFW Fiber Fest during the virtual vendor hall.  It seems so appropriate to work on right now.

Also to make progress on at least one of the official UFOs, although I suspect that the other items for Mittens for Akkol will take over the time, so I can get those done and shipped.

Spring has Sprung

 Today is the first day of spring, and the title of this post comes from a very silly poem:

Spring is sprung / the grass is riz

I wonder where the birdies is?

Silly and ungrammatical, but we take what we can get these days.

It's heartening to hear about so many more people I know getting vaccines.  Some I would have thought would be a higher priority due to pre-existing conditions or age are still waiting; some younger ones have gotten lucky by being available to take a dose when somebody didn't make their appointment and the location had extras that needed to be used.

Work is still grinding on, with long hours, and people have told me they appreciate it, but hey - it's my job.  I'm glad when I can get some time away from it, but this month there isn't much.  Unlike last year, I didn't have time to make special meals to recognize the holidays this week.  I did make Chicken Cacciatore today, mostly from watching my mother make it when I was a child, and remembering, and a quick look at what I hoped was a reasonably close recipe for reassurance that I was on the right track.

It was soooooo yummy.

Going into the end of the month and the huge work push that it will entail, I am trying to eat better than I might have under past times.  Of course, in past times I might have been onsite eating brought-in sandwiches and pizzas most of the time, with breakfast at the hotel buffet and supper might be nibbles from the happy hour or another brought-in meal as we worked into the night.  A good thing about being home is that I have a bit more control, although I am subsisting more on dried fruit and granola bars and nuts than perhaps I should being at home all the time.  Earlier this week I took the recipe I'd planned for St. Patrick's Day (chicken with a mustard-cider sauce) and turned it into a slow-cooked stew with the addition of potatoes and onions.  It was very, very good also.

A third portion of the package of chicken (from a local farm) was stuffed into a jar of leftover pickle brine and popped into the freezer.  I'll thaw and cook it towards the end of the month.  I've heard of brining chicken in pickle juice and I think it will be tasty.

Today I went to the local farmstand for their spring preview, and while they didn't have much other than plants, jarred things, chocolates, and fresh bread, I was able to buy some beautiful eggs from their chickens:

I almost hate to eat them.

But I shall.

One Year

Of course the news and our social media feeds have been full of the beginning of the lockdowns, or the last events we attended before the world shut down.  Quite a bit of "we thought we'd be closed for two weeks", or a month.  People being sad at the reminder of how long we've had to be inside, away from loved ones, missing occasions and each other.

It's overwhelming.  I don't want to say too much, because I don't have words that won't sound exactly like everybody else.

One year.  Over 540,000 dead in the USA alone.  No telling how many people who caught the virus and survived will never be the same in terms of health and ability.

Over one year since I have seen any family, other than two Zoom calls.  I can count on one hand the number of friends I have seen in person in that time, all at the proper social distance with a mask in place.

One year.

Midmonth Mini-Resolutions Update

As you may suspect with my comments about work, I haven't made much progress on UFOs and most days I am too tired to read, or I read at most a small page.  I needed some less-focused needlework so did a plain hat from some handspun I'd been given, and now I am well through another mostly-plain (one cable) hat.  I have made progress on the KnitTalk challenge BLUE item, and will have a photo before the end of the month.  Maybe I'll get back to the Magical Miniskeins sock by then also.

The longest short month

This February has certainly seemed that way.  It's been almost a year since I traveled - the last trip I went on included the North Texas Irish Festival, which will be virtual next weekend.  I remember my mother being worried and I joked that Chinese people didn't tend to come to Irish music festivals.  One woman at the festival wore a mask with "ALLERGIES" written across it, but most of us didn't wear masks.  We did avoid getting too close, although I didn't resist a hug from a friend of mine who came to the festival using a free ticket I had and enjoyed himself immensely.  The festival is dog-friendly and he has a friendly dog, and we were planning to repeat this year.  Well, we'll do it next year.

Work is incredibly busy.  I had a 16:45 hour day last week, according to my work tracker.  It involved some midnight work with people in China and Japan, including my having to fill out a form that was mostly in Japanese.  I was pleased that I made only one mistake, which they corrected on the other end.  I've worked part of each weekend day this weekend, and last one, and it's likely to continue through March.  My boss approved for me to take time off in April.  I haven't had a vacation since April 2019; last year's was cancelled due to the pandemic, and I didn't do a staycation.  I can think of only one day I've taken that wasn't a national holiday, and I've worked on some of those as well.  I guess I'm a workaholic, but between the weather and the pandemic, I don't have much else to do.

Except cleaning and sorting stuff, recycling, donating to the thrift store, etc.  According to my records, I donated 836 items to the thrift store this month.  They ranged from small items such as a card of buttons to large ones such as the carryon that had seen quite a few flights and road miles before travel stopped.  Books, clothing, housewares I wasn't using, or which I hadn't taken out of their packages.  And so on.  I'm not a hoarder, not the kind you see on television or read about, but I am definitely acquisitive.  Now that I've been around my stuff so much, it's clear what I really need, what I want, and what has no further purpose, at least not for me.

If I'd been doing the Minimalism Game I would have donated 406 items, so I am well ahead.  Yes, it's really a thirty-day challenge and February has only twenty-eight days, but if you add the additional 59 items it's 465, well under the 836 I donated.  I call it good.

I do find items that I'd forgotten, such as this guy:

  

Many years ago the Yarn Harlot wrote about learning to make a monkey out of leftover sock yarn at a retreat.  I thought it looked cute and based upon the photos, made one.  I showed it to her at an event and she was very dismissive.  He does look a little crazed, due to the yarn and my embroider-on-knitting skills.  He's still cute.

I missed the monthly cooking club, also due to work running over, but I emailed a photo of my meal:

The assignment was to cook something from the Pioneer Woman's blog and I chose the Crash Potatoes because I could do them with things I had already.  I changed from cheese on top to slices of lemon, which I needed to use up and I thought it went better with the glazed delicata squash and eggs.  Not a food-blogger-pretty plate of food, but it was very tasty.

Overall, it feels like an incredibly long time, and it's hard to believe that February is the shortest month.  Maybe because work has been so overwhelming, or because I was able to do two trips to the thrift store, or just because the days blur because I am not traveling or even going to local events.  Some cinemas are open, with limited attendance, but I haven't felt like going.  There aren't concerts or other performances in person, not to speak of, and there's still too much snow for me to get in a walk.  The rare time I have the opportunity during daylight it's too cold, or raining.  Yes, tons of excuses.

It's also been over a year since I've seen any of my family, except for a couple of Zoom calls.  I speak to them, and email, but it's not the same.  I haven't seen a lot of my friends in at least that long, except for the ones I saw at NTIF last year.  We keep up via email and social media and a very rare Zoom call, but again - not the same.  I really miss seeing people for more than a distant front-stoop chat, or the routine of post office and weekly CSA or farmstand shopping, or the less frequent food delivery.  It will be nice to sit across a table with somebody and share a meal.  It will be fantastic to hug my family again.

Mini-Resolutions Status

I finally started the second sock, although I haven't gotten far.  I'm well on the way with the BLUE hat for my KnitTalk Make-Along challenge:

The multi has some blue in it that may be too close to the solid, but from a distance it looks better than it does when I am knitting.  I didn't do the deep ribbing the pattern has so I am leaving off one of the rounds of the full-sized dots to compensate.

I haven't finished any of my UFOs, nor a single book.  I am behind on the reading, as I would have to finish an average of one book every two months.  Maybe I need to choose a different book.

More things upended.

 Due to COVID-19, Mardi Gras today was mostly cancelled in favor of safer experiences such as "Yardi Gras".  A colleague of mine who lives in N'Awlins told me this morning that it's one of the coldest Mardi Gras on record there, so he doesn't mind that everybody is supposed to stay indoors.

I added this as my Teams meeting background today.

Here are some shots of the snow that fell at the beginning of the month, after I delivered the social justice committee donations:

  

  

The total in my area was about 8-10", but we'd had some a few days before and then we got more a few days later.  I uploaded one as my new TEAMS background:

In better weather I might eat lunch out there, but not these days.

Midmonth Mini-Resolution Update

No progress to report.  Still reading.  Work is stressy so I've switched to simpler things, such as a garter stitch scarf of  Red Heart Super Saver in "Americana", which I will donate to the Knit Your Bit project at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans.  They are receiving packages again.

I took a load of things to the thrift store on Saturday.  It's good to be back to sorting and clearing out things.  I found a bunch of unusual knitting needles and crochet hooks and posted them to eBay, and they are selling.  Not for what I paid, but it's a little money in which isn't a bad exchange.  Similar to putting them out at a yard sale.  For specialty items I like to do eBay because they have a better chance of going to somebody who really wants and will use it.  I did the same with trims I'd gotten long ago for SCA garb, and some stationery and such.  Those sold also.

In past Februarys I've played the Minimalism Game, where you try to get rid of one thing on the first, two on the second, and so forth.  I forgot about it this year, but I seem to be doing quite well anyway.  Maybe I'll report at monthend on what I've donated, recycled, etc.