This may be more than a trigger

Greathusbandbob's son posted the following picture on Facebook yesterday.

I offered the following commentary.

I also whipped up a quick crocheted project to appease him. 

So looking forward to delivering it to him.

This started, in fact, as a knitting blog.

I got some new blocking pins at the festival.  I've seen them in the knitpicks catalogue but couldn't picture their usefulness until I saw them in person.  They have turned "I hate blocking" into " I don't hate blocking as much."

This is called the Chilkat Cowl by Rosemary Hill (Romi).  I've always loved her designs.  The yarn is a blend of cashmere, silk, camel and alpaca from China Road. It is a cowl long enough to pull over your head and the tassels are drawstring to close up the gaps.  I may have ordered some additional yarn in blues to make another... or two.

I also may have accidentally purchased 6 times more blocking mats than I will ever need (I can't believe my math skills failed me and I somehow thought I would need 48 sq ft.)  They may come in handy at school. 

I also moved the blocking staging area from the dark recess of a storage room to the den in the basement, realizing that I could tuck it away out of site.

Diet realizations of the week included the fact that I can not buy delicious protein bars (even when they have 30g of protien) because I will eat the entire box in two days, defeating the purpose of low calorie high protein.  Back to beans and quinoa I return.

Also, while culling some photos I found this one which I took while waiting for road construction to let me pass.  These are my favorite goats that I pass every morning on the way to school.  I love them.

In the heart of summer break.

The only thing I've heard/read that has offered some solace in light of recent events.  My friend Stitchjones posted it.

The first sentence "Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief."  I have lost a good bit of sleep in recent days thinking of those state-orphaned children.  When I do sleep, I wake in the morning with that feeling characteristic of profound grief.  Upon waking up- mind says "hey its a great day"- mind reminds you of the conditions of those kids- sadness resumes.

I have to stay away from it so as not to descent into abject sadness.  But sometimes I have to watch it to bear witness.

Greathusbandbob got a jumpstart to his heart yesterday.  They put him to sleep and shocked him with the paddles and for now he is sino-correct and no longer in afib.  Should it not remain that way he'll undergo freezing part of the muscle via a tube down his throat followed by a pacemaker.  

LSAT- I had been procrastinating.  At first I thought it was due to fear of failure.  But it may be that my brain needed to marinate the thinking process.  Logic games have been my weakness.  When first trying them a score of 0/7 was not atypical.  Today I worked through 4 problem sets and got a 7/7, 4/5, 4/5 and 4/5.  That gives me an 86% which I've got to believe is at least passable. 

Food and exercise- I'd give myself a B- for the week. There were days of no exercise or a bagel (never on the same day) but there have also been days where I followed the rules, went walking even when I was disinclined, and ate the right food even when the wrong one was an option.  That little extra push is what makes it a B- instead of a C+.  The two classes of exercise a day has proven to be mostly unrealistic.  I am intimidated by anything other than the dance classes and two a day wears me the hell out and invites inconsistency.

And finally the knitting.  I bought this yarn at the Waynesburg Sheep and fiber festival. It is cashmere but it is thinner than spiderweb lace weight.

I'm not sure what the hell I was thinking.  My leetle sausage fingers  have been incapable of casting on and knitting 2 stitches each on 4 double pointed needles for this pattern.

It's called Lyra by Herbert Niebling.  There is also an option for a larger version that becomes a square.  I've decided to use this yarn purchased at a Pittsburgh festival.  

It may be hard to see but this is one of those gradient skeins.  I have probably started 3-4 different projects with it.  I'm thinking this may be the one.  It's a no tv-no distraction- quiet time sort of knit and every row that turns out with the right number of stitches feels victorious.

Cooking shows

Are my new favorite thing.  Baking shows for now.  Just watching them manipulate ingredients makes me a better cook.  In the same way that when Liza the dog sees horses she thinks she’s a show horse.  I’ve binge watched "nailed it" and "zumbo's just desserts"- both on Netflix.

Today I made sausage vegetable lasagne.  Sausage and broccoli and carrots in the sauce, spinach in the cheese mixture.  Classico marinara sauce and oven ready lasagne noodles.  Everything was "on point" (that’s a cooking term) except the dish was filled too full and made bad burning smells and lots of smoke in the oven.  It was pretty amazing though.  It tasted just what I was hungry for. #proudofme.

Yesterday the dog was hilarious.  She devised a multi-step plan to score a walk.  Used to be she'd just bring me the shoe.  Yesterday she whined at greathusbandbob until he opened the door where I was still in bed.  She jumped on the bed and pushed me out with her nose and her digging at the blankets.  She waited for me to have coffee and breakfast. Then she brought out the tennis shoe.  Then she brought out the other one.

Food in the house

Buddha Bowl

I went to the grocery store and picked food that I liked to eat in a bowl.  

Ingredients:

quinoa

grape tomatoes

cauliflower

broccoli

carrots

celery

parsley

sunflower seeds

pine nuts

roasted chick peas

roasted pinto beans

cucumber ranch dressing

Lazy cooking

Sometimes you just don't want to cook.  And you don't have any "fast foods" in the house- cereal, leftovers, eggs, salad stuff.  So you get creative.

I present chocolate granola burritos- ingredients (give or take)

Cashew butter, unsalted cashew pieces, oatmeal, dark chocolate pieces, chia seeds and honey.

Carefully stir.  It can be a hot mess.  Put in a tortilla and wrap.

There is some fine tuning to be done- more honey- less cashew butter- maybe salted cashew pieces.  I just needed something filling to eat so I would quit thinking about ice cream.

Project the First.

The yarn room.

It’s wrong much more than it’s right.  Probably because I bring things in without taking other things out.

I’m going with the grocery/department store theory that you have to move product for people to notice it again.

Shelf one- worsted and lace.  Purple/maroon anyone?

Shelf two- the top is yarn club stitch jones skeins and baby yarn.  Next is sock yarn and suede and Noro.  Third down is madelinetosh and elsbethlavold.  Below that is a sweaters worth of borocco baby alpaca, a few projects that I’d actually like to see myself complete and balls of leftovers.

I snapped a photo of this mini shelf with some alpaca that I once had plans for only to notice the crate to the left with a pile of more suede (I thought there was more somewhere and an entire bin of Kaffe Fasset pastel worsted. Also a couple of "I wonder how big I want them" log cabin afghans in cascade and elsbethlavold.

The discard pile is t as bad as it’s been in the past.  Last year I made an unwind the project bag.  That didn’t work so I reunited them with their friends.  There are no yarn police out there to tell me I can’t have them with regular balls and skeins of yarn.  I was left with a couple of organizing bins that I’ll take to the tv knitting corner and try to make sense of it.

Juicy Lucy

Carrots ginger oranges

 

Apples oranges spinach

 

You haven’t lived until you’ve seen/heard a juicer eating a carrot.

I like to watch the wheel go round.

body to go with the hair.

I've cut my hair short three times now.

Once at the end of high school.  I didn't love it then but I look back at pictures and it looked kind of adorable.

The second time was right before I went to South Africa.  I wasn't sure what the water/shower conditions would be and didn't want to fight that.  It was a good plan and I look at pictures and I don't hate it.

The third time was yesterday.  There are no official life changing events in the works.  Except maybe instead of the event precipitating the cut, the cut has precipitated the event.

There are three more days of school left next week.  Summer lists in the past have included 3-5 things- some of which I do and some of which seemed like a good idea at the time of list making but then weren't that interesting to me.

This summer's list has two items.  One is to finish what I started last July and spend at least an hour a day at the gym. This plan also includes the juice machine- maybe twice a day with a solid dinner and a meal replacement protein drink. I am fairly certain this one will stick.

The other is to study logic problems.  Right now I get about 50% of them right.  When I first started looking at them I was getting 0%.  I just have to remember that.  I kill it on the reading comprehension problems and am getting better at the logical analysis ones.  I believe this one will stick because I've noticed that once I step into the world of logic problems, time does that going by faster thing and the next time I look up it's three hours later.

For the big reveal for anyone that didn't see it on the book of Face...

Keeping in mind that this was at the end of an entire day of rotating grades in first a field day and a water day, it looks pretty o.k.  The pink shirt was the only thing I had to change into and was most necessary after a day like that.  There were not remnants of make up to be found.

The sign of a good hair cut is that you don't automatically want to brush it out as soon as you get home.  That's the first time this has happened.  Although it may have something to do with the fact that I was still in shock and also terrified at what I had just done.

In trying not to imagine myself looking too much like an old lady teacher person I've pretended that it's a Molly Ringwold, Mary Lou Retton sort of cut- except for they are old ladies now too.

An indication of things to come.

Tried the juicer again today. Beets, green apples, and oranges.  It was delicious and consumed (2 of each which is more vegetable than I’d eat in a week). The juicer worked better with the spout closed but I forgot part of the brush packet and I think I probably fed the pieces in a little too quickly.  I’m excited for the next one.  I’m thinking one a day after going to the gym.  It was kind of filling.

As for food that can be chewed, today’s experiment was found on the app Yummly.

Fried potatoes, onion, cabbage and white beans with fresh thyme and salt and pepper.  It’s a keeper.  Only one potatoe chopped bean size which makes the white beans trick you into thinking they’re potatoes.  I’ll use less cabbage next time for a better balance but they felt a lot like noodles so it was a lot like eating potatoes and noodles the two ultimate comfort foods.

I found a vegetarian lasagne to try when this runs out.  I need to research whether you can bake cashew cream sauce because that would make a great white lasagne.

Tonight’s dinner

Is brought to you by the juicer.

It's called mighty green grape juice.  It’s chilling for the moment.  The recipe also called for parsley but once you add that it’s the only thing you can taste. I’ve been doing fine on the protein what with Larry and Lenny's cookies serving up 16g.  I have not been so great at fruits and vegetables.  I think a few more rounds with the juicer will make all things vegetables easier.  I had not used it since that first time so assembly was a little rough around the edges.

There were leftover grapes and asparagus from the second batch so I threw those in with an orange and we'll see how that goes.

More thoughts on the juicer.

You haven’t lived until you’ve heard it crunching long sticks of asparagus/zucchini/cucumber like a giant vegetable eating GOG.  (A sci fi movie reference). Also once you start putting things through the juicer you look through every inch and corner of your refrigerator to find more things to put into it.  It’s very satisfying.  

I blew it on the clean up by forgetting to run water through but it still wasn’t horrible.

A part of the ticket

About a week and a half ago a good friend of greathusbandbob's was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.  And then last night he died.

I know it makes greathusbandbob sad but when he gets sad he says "it’s all part of this ticket called life."  I like that thought. Dying and having those you love die is the price of admission.

That being said, it is such a shock to have someone there and then gone.  First he was, then he wasn’t.  There wasn’t even time for treatment or even hospice.  Which I suppose is decidedly better than the long and drawn out (for the patient) but worse for those trying to make sense of it.

And really, there is no sense.  It just is.

Every now and then it’s fun to go shopping

Dark purple and salmon for something double knitted.  3000 yards of cashmere cobweb weight for some lace I’ll do if I don’t do law school. Blocking pins with wood attached for ease of blocking. Some striped sock yarn that feels like Neapolitan ice cream if it had grape in it too.  And a porcelain mug because I love them.  Not pictured is the homemade soap to put in yarn stash to make it smell good.  Watermelon and sugar plum.  The soap salesmen were three and four and handed them to me and said "smell this, it’s your favorite." And it was.  And then they said, "wait, I wanna smell it." And there was an adorable border collie puppy. And you know the rest.  Also not pictured is the adorable crocheted sheep toy that the dog thinks is hers.  I was hiding it from her at photo time.  I can try to pretend otherwise but I do love fine fiber.

The dog can read my mind.

It was not too hot today.  I took my usual Friday after school nap secretly intending to take the dog for a walk in her happy place when I awoke.  I did not tell her this and it wouldn’t have mattered if I had because she is, in fact a dog.  After an hour of sleep she jumps into the bed and gets me up, pushing at me with her nose.  Then she is circling every move I make.  She knows.  She just knows.  I think she is a mind reader.  We went to her happy place, walked in a couple of circles and enjoyed the time.  I just don’t get how she knew.

Tomorrow is the burg's sheep and fiber fest.  I’ll meet drknitnightjustine after I finish shopping with my cousin. I can’t imagine buying more yarn.  I really have done an ok job of refraining. Or at least of using what I buy right away.  I’m making no promises.  If I spot my favorite thing... pottery coffee mugs... I’ll likely add one to my collection.

I have of late become the kindergarten aide therapist.  The k-er's can log on and off in the computer lab mostly independently.  While I wasn’t thrilled to be teaching this rather than music, I am proud that they can all do it independently.  Such was not the case last year when instruction wasn’t formalized and everyone was winging it.

This leaves a good bit of free time for both myself and the aides that accompany the kids. I like all of the aides and am not complaining but it is most definitely the time for all family feuds (theirs) to be revealed.  Sometimes people need to talk.  I let them talk, ask some questions and rarely insert any personal anecdotes as they release their thoughts.  Then they apologize and/or thank me for being the listening person.  Three aides.  Three talk therapy sessions. (Where I don’t talk) sometimes making it awkward to have to get up and help a kid fix a problem.  It is exhausting but it feels like the right thing to do.

With the one full week left of music appreciation (and no chrome books to work with) I believe we will explore Weird Al and musical parodies in general.  This morning, after researching what I might find, I remembered the Dr. Demento show that used to air on the radio on Saturday nights. Those kids got to hear the songs "Dead Puppies" and "Rolypoly Fish heads" and I confirmed their beliefs that I am the weirdest teacher they know. I know for certain that I never had a high school teacher like me.  But building relationships and being yourself teaches them to do the same, which matters.

Tonight’s dinner was brought to you by eggs and leftovers (peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, quinoa, spinach, low-fat cheese) combining to make an omelet with low-fat sour cream and salsa on the side.  The omelet pan purchased on a whim some time ago let me down once again and it has been disposed of.  It didn’t look like an omelet but it tasted like one.

Here’s a secret I’m telling no one else.  The gym is having a get healthy lose the fat summer contest.  And I entered.  I’m not telling anyone and don’t really expect to win but it will likely keep me secretly motivated.

And finally.  Haircut procrastination.  I am done with the scraggy ends of my hair but some perverse psychological issue prevents me from calling and making an appointment. (I used to be that way with ordering pizza-I’m hoping I’ll get over this as well.). Secretarysandy to the rescue.  She’s the kind of friend who gets that about me and offered to make the appointment.  Also she wants me to do it before school is out so she can see.

In no small bit of hilarity, the girl who thinks she’s going to go to law school can’t make her own hair appointments.  We all have our strengths and weaknesses.

Someone please laugh at this with me.

So we are at the  "14 day and everything you do is on my last nerve" point with the adults at school.

Small inconveniences are blown up into "CAN YOU BELIEVE......'s."

"I've had enough's" have been gestating for nine months.  They are busting out all over.

I found myself in the "fed up for stupid reasons" state of mind at lunch today.  I needed a distraction.

I went to an LSAT study site and worked on some logic flashcard problems.  As greathusbandbob always says, you can't thing of two things at once.

This leads me to what's cracking me up.  Common question type

The coach is dividing the following people into two teams, Ally, Bonnie, Cecil, David, Eleanor and Phillipe.  Answer the question based on the following rules.

Cecil can be on David's team if Bonnie is not on Ally's team.

Ally and David can never be on the same team.

Eleanor's team must have one boy and two girls on it.

I made that question up.  There are no answers. BUT... what's cracking me up is that once home I find myself thinking..Why can't Ally and David be on the same team?  What is their history?  What makes Cecil so special that he can only be with David when Bonnie is away from Ally?  Does Eleanor count as one of the two girls?  Is Phillipe a boy or a girl and has s/he come out as such yet.

Drama and tragedy to logic problems.  Holy Hilarious Batman.

Countdown

The countdown looks like this.

In the spirit of going backwards, I will do the same.

Dinner tonight.  This is some restaurant quality food right here.

Fried tofu (finally figured that out- more and hotter oil.) cucumber, red onion, mushrooms, green pepper, quinoa, Thai sweet chili/red wine vinegar dressing, roasted cashews.  It was a happy explosion at the taste buds.  Mushrooms and green peppers were my add in. No red onion next time.

Knit night this week.  A surprise visit from the amazing Tara brought giant flower making.

With knitnightdrjustine making use of the leftovers.

Hair plans- it’s time for the once a decade shorter haired version of me.  I’m thinking Helen Mirren has the look I want.

And finally in the category of former students making good, taking care of wildlife...

Soft cute fuzzy things

I ordered a kit.  The yarn is alpaca, cashmere and silk.

The first grade at my school has baby ducks.

In other news

For the first time ever my answer to a practice question was set up and answered exactly like the given answer.  It was the easiest possible problem.  I had seen part of the set up before.  But when you’ve been scoring at about 50% it was nice to have a win.

The graduation present to the one senior in my class was a win.  It was an outdoor safety/survival kit and one of those things people use to flash at the sky if they’re lost in the woods.  (She’s majoring in fish and wildlife and even if she changes she's a hunter). I told her she’d probably never need them but if she did she could look back and say Mrs. Terry saved her life.

Hey look, I’m doing it.

Sometimes it’s just a random collection

Spanish-today I turned down a $.99 tequila at the Mexican restaurant.  More surprising than that is is in spite of losing all memories of my Spanish learning last spring I was able to say I didn’t want any because I didn’t want to get fat.

Kids- Friday was our all-county choir performance.  I participated and conducted for the first time in several years. (It doesn’t help that rehearsals are always on knit night.) This year I had 5 students participating who showed up for every rehearsal and remembered their music.  It’s good to have enough years of experience to not take things to seriously and still get things done well.  I had quite a few adoring fans.  My favorite part was standing in the wings as kids exited the stage and clapping and cheering for them and seeing their happy.  

Two girls went past and said "give me 5" holding up a peace sign.  I was like... huh?  They said "Roman numerals."

Here’s the thing about LSAT logic games.  I love them but I still struggle.  I’m improving but I have to be more focused.  My brain sort of relaxes and goes loose.

And finally while conversing with cousin today she said, "every day at 4:00 I come home and watch Wagon Train and my cat jumps on the bed and watches with me."  I said "You have her trained. Or else she just likes Wagon Train."  She replied "I think she likes to watch the wagons go back and forth." She wasn’t kidding at all.