A Little Yarn On The Side

So, no new "things" from my personal account this year, but I am allowing activities.  Last spring a friend invited me to meet her Great Discussions group.  I had never heard of the Great Discussions program, but it's this wonderful program put on by the Foreign Policy Association.  They send out books and a DVD, and the group meets once a week for 8 weeks (I think) and you read a chapter in the book, watch the DVD, then discuss that topic.  I got to join them last year for the last one, which was on global energy policy.  For a topic I had honestly never thought about, it was fascinating.  I just got the email about this year's group, and while I will need to buy my own booklet, I'm counting that more as an "activity fee" than a "thing."  Extra points for it being a totally nerdy activity, too.  :)

I am now just over 1000 yards away from tying my best yardage year ever , and 2000 yards away from that 20,000 mark that I've been chasing for years.  I see a lot of BIG needles in my future next month.........

Knowing that I am on a year-long buying ban and knowing that it could be very, very dangerous, I still couldn't help myself:  I had to look at the Cyber-Monday sales at Knit Picks to see if the yarn I had recently ordered to do ornaments next year was on sale.  Why, I don't know.  Torture?  Curiosity?  Tempting fate?  But for once the Knitting Gods were on my side.  NONE of the colors I had bought were on sale.  Ha! Ha! What I would have done if they were on sale is anyone's guess, but thankfully it didn't come to that.  I am feeling supremely smug anyway.

The Stashdown group on Ravelry is having a virtual "Black Sheep" retreat this week in honor of the holidays and going NOWHERE near a mall for the holiday weekend, and without officially signing up, I have pretty much been participating, thanks to a cold.  Yep, missed Thanksgiving for the second year in a row, but at least this year Andy got to join our friends for the festivities, so we're making progress.  And sleeping most of Thanksgiving Day really did help, as I now have only a slight cough and intermittent sore throat, and I think the nausea level has moved back to the general "I'm-taking-pain-pills" level, versus the "Get-out-of-my-way-if-you-know-what's-good-for-you" level, and never did get to the "please-just-let-me-die" levels of the new muscle relaxers a few weeks ago, so REALLY there is progress.  And, a sock for next year's Christmas gift bag is in progress, the cowl neck sweater is gaining the cowl neck, which ...

Sweater number EIGHT is done: which also counts as WIP number 6 for the year, AND it counts for "Blue Christmas" as well as "What Child is This?" in the Holiday Music Stash dash.  Dang, that feels productive--which is sort of amazing since 11 months to finish a toddler sweater is anything BUT productive.  I know I've been busy, but when it takes longer to produce the baby sweater than the actual baby, something is wrong. 

*  Wake up at 7:00 after a long Nyquil-induced night which you hoped would relieve the back pain from having thrown your back out the day before. *  Make your way to the bathroom, only to realize you are about to pass out. *  With as much grace and speed as one can muster with a sore back, get down to the floor before actually passing out. *  Realize now that you're on the floor, you can't get back up *  Have husband hand you 3 Advil tablets to see if you can numb the pain enough to get off the floor, which you now wish you had swept over the weekend. *  After a while and repeated examinations by both cats, realize it's rather hopeless.  Consider spending the entire day on the floor.  Wish part of the bathroom was carpeted. *  Admit defeat and allow husband to call for paramedics. *  Give the neighbors plenty to talk about as both an ambulance AND a fire truck pull up outside your house. *  Surrender any ...

Look!  A towel without holes!!!!!!!!!!!!  At first I did think that my card might be corrupted (again),because the design was leaving the stupidest number of "jump threads" possible: which are the threads you can see crisscrossing the design.  All those random threads were left by the machine "jumping" to another place to start doing the outline of the design.  It's been so long since I did this design that I didn't remember if it was like this to begin with, so I was worried until I pulled up the design in the software and discovered that, no, it really was just designed that badly.  Whew!  The cards are $200 IF one can find them, and my hip can't currently do a 4-hour round-trip drive to see the non-criminal Husqvarna dealer I finally found. And I am happy to report that there were no nightmares last night!  Thank heavens.  I can't decide what is freaking my subconscious out--a spending ban or buying more stuff.  Seemingly, it's bu...