I got nuthin.

I kinda feel like I lost this week.  I don't know why, maybe because of the three-day last week-end.  I know shit got done, the house is clean, we've been eating, I have knitted things in my basket and fresh chapters to put up, but somehow I don't actually remember any of it.

Ah well.  Maybe this week will be better.

Have I mentioned that I discovered I enjoy fucking around with girls much more than I do with boys?  Boys are still more fun to top, they suffer so nobly and then get so cuddly after, but when it comes to actual time in the sack girls are more fun.  I know, forty-some odd and I am just figuring this out.  And that is okay.

Also, my Physical Therapist is, well, I don't know what his actual faith is but he comes across a lot like a Mormon Elder.  Short sleeved white shirt, ugly tie, comb over, ancient glasses and everything.  I don't know how I'm going to explain to him that I likely injured myself caning my submissive and would like to get back to that ASAP.  Maybe I can tell him that I chop down trees for fun or something.

I did get two chapters of Safe Harbor written up.  I'm not certain I like the way they came out, but then I like the other option even less.  But the main antagonist had to have that done to make something else work, so I have to choose between those two options, so there you go.  At least with these two chapters I can now move swiftly to the finish and move on to other things.  Which may be finishing The First Run right off, before I get into another thing.  I'm mulling over an odd sort of experiment where we never see what happens to the protagonist, or what said protagonist is thinking, we read the entire story through the eyes of the people observing him.  I'll have to noodle on that one.
I'm also working on a Criminal Minds/Lost Girl crossover of sorts, but I'm having trouble with it.  The usual set up to CM fanfiction is bad guy hits-good guy escapes-good guy recovers-bad guy returns to finish-good guy is victorious and comes out stronger than before.  Which is not a bad framework for a story, but in this one I'm having trouble with the first round of bad guy.  I have two girls in their late teens/early 20's who are stuck in a house for magical reasons.  Their parents are taken out of the picture and an aunt and cousin come to live with them, their cousin being a typical neckbeard.  But for all that neckbeards (and I have known several) are annoying they usually aren't cruel enough to be the kind of bad guy I want.  I need a better bad guy.

And now I just had an idea.  Not a clue if it will work, but I had an idea.  Hmmm.

Okay, moving on.

______

On tap for the week:


Home project of the week - We're experimenting with Domestic Discipline.  More on that next week.

Soup of the week - Farmhouse Chicken Chowder.  I vary the Cooks Country version, which is behind their paywall.  It's totally worth it to pay for their content.

Books of the week - Tinder Box by Anthony P. Hatch and Lake Woebegone Days by Garrison Keilor, because I read slow these days.  Although I will finish Tinder Box and will likely move on.

Crochet of the week - A stocking for Denver, who went to the Rainbow Bridge years ago.  We want to put up his and Smokey's come the holiday because they are still in our hearts.

Knitting of the week - The Building Blocks Blanket is ongoing

Sewing of the week - I've started on the Stitchers Stocking again. Still insanely slow going. I got a two inch section done this week.

Writing of the week - Safe Harbor I might even sit down and polish it off this week.  Cross your fingers.

Shocked, I tell you

So I made it to the end of the month with about $5 to spare.  Not a shock given the vet bills we had to pay.*  I am still shocked when money doesn't spontaneously disappear out of our accounts.  Funny how the first time we've tried to keep a bank account since my Nanny left banking we can get it to work without an issue.

Ahem.

So writer's block sucks monkey balls.  I will finish Safe Harbor, I just have to get over the hump between the last big thing and the ending.  I need to put something in there.  I think I know what, but I need to write it.  And of course the next story wants to be born and The First Run wants attention and I think I can get around the slow bit in Percival's Dominatrix.  Girl of Mysterious Sorrow has gone dormant, but that's okay.  The Rams are sturdy, they will keep.

I had a revelation today.  There was a discussion going on on Reddit over why someone's mother/mother-in-law orders rich desserts she knows will aggravate her Diabetes and then badgers others into sharing them with her despite their health conditions.  My reply:

The woman who raised me did the exact same thing. From what I could tell it's as if they know what they're doing isn't good for them and they feel guilty. They can't handle feeling guilty themselves so they project that other people are judging them and that's where the feeling is coming from. But if they can get someone else to join in then the other people in the room have no business judging them because so-and-so is doing it too. And guilt magically becomes self-righteous indignation. This covers anything from eating something indulgent to gossiping to spending too much to treating someone like crap

Multiply that behavior times a fuck ton of binge days, add in a few health issues and you have my current weight.  She used to binge at restaurants all day Saturday at a minimum.  We're talking all three main meals plus at least two or three snacks.  30,000 kcal easily and I am not kidding.  But she's be furious if you didn't keep up with her, and that is why.  Even if you restrict to  1000 kcal during the week the math is still against you.

Ah well.  Someone on there put it quite well, even though a contractor fucked you up it's still your house.  You can be all kinds of pissed at the contractor, that's entirely understandable, but it's still up to you to fix things.  Your parents were contracted by society to help you build the best life and strongest body possible.  Said contractor fucked it up...

Okay, moving on.  I finished this:

That is the Round Rose Cushion done in Vanna's Choice in Silver Blue.  Everything else was bits of scraps.  I love that scrap for roses.  Finishing that has put me behind in my knitting again but since it's liable to be over 100°f tomorrow I might just bail on my class again.  If not it doesn't seem to matter anyway, it's kind of become a free-for-all.

Also, that problem that very nearly had me not-married?  Much improved.  Possibly in a way that's causing my writer's block but I would take a happy marriage over fast writing any day.
______

On tap for the week:

Home project of the week - None. This week is already crazy.  I have my first PT appointment and two parties to attend.  I'll be happy keeping up with the everyday stuff.

Books of the week - Tinder Box by Anthony P. Hatch and Lake Woebegone Days by Garrison Keilor, because I read slow these days.

Crochet of the week - Not sure yet. I'll get back to you.

Knitting of the week - The Building Blocks Blanket is ongoing

Sewing of the week - I've started on the Stitchers Stocking again. Still insanely slow going.

Writing of the week - Safe Harbor At least one chapter will go up this week. Maybe two. and I'll likely start noodling on the new one to try to get my brain going.

______

*Without going in to detail I am not ready to delve into without crying one of our fur babies went to the Rainbow Bridge in May.  I'll tell that one when I can.

Another week blown away

...into tissues.

The theme of this week was...

No, that's not one of ours and I don't mean the four-legged kind.  (Although I suspect one of the four-legged kitties around here is developing asthma on me.)  No, the spousal unit has been sick all week with a nasty chest cold thing that's had him trying to cough up a hairball on a regular basis.

Of course this means I've nothing done.

But let's start with what has been working, shall we?  If only to perk up a bit before we head back down.  For starters it turns out I can keep to a budget and keep the bookkeeping straight.  For years and years money tended to evaporate right out of my account.  Nanny swore it was because I couldn't keep track to save my own ass.  But when it's in his account I don't have any problem keeping track.  Funny that, an account she can't access...

The second week of soup lunches has gone smashingly well.  Lunch is simple and quick and we've both been having a much easier time of sticking to meal plans.  That said I seem to be burning calories a lot faster than I should.  I've been trying to keep my calories down to my B.E.E, but when I try that I go woogie brain nearly every day.  Keeping it around 2400-2500 seems to be working, given that I burn at least 3,000 a day, or so says my Fitbit.  But now that I've gone off gluten again that means a bowl of popcorn in the afternoon.  Woe is me.

 (And for anyone who is about to point out that the Fitbit is inaccurate, I have to say go back and re-read.  It's inaccurate for moderate-to-high heart rates, making it not medically accurate or useful for athletes.  It does just fine for the low-to-moderate heart rate of the average tubby housewife who wants a good ballpark for what she burns every day.)

Of course what I have not been doing is writing or knitting.  FML,  seriously.  I will straighten out my schedule this week, I swear it.

That said, I am also stepping up the housewife game .  Granted as often as I do that you would think I would be at the top by now.  I suspect the top involves household staff.  Anyway, I'm starting with adding a few things to my Daily List, and working out a more comprehensive weekly list and so on.  And then doing as much as Frankenbrace and I can do together.

The one thing I have learned this week is that I need to get up more or less when Kitty does, so I can drive him to the bus stop if needed.  Which means a strict bedtime.  Which means a strict other few things.  Which might lead to more of other things.  Fingers crossed, but it should.  That is the reward of discipline after all.

Ahem.

I have no idea if I'm ever going to come up with a weekly schedule or not.  But I think I might try.  And if I do I'll share it, or anything else that comes up.  For now my discipline says I must go shower and all of that.

______

I'm going to start a bit of a new feature here.  What's on tap for this week.

Soup of the week - Chicken and Rice, aka Gluten-Free penicillin.  That recipe without the noodles, served with cooked rice instead.

Home project of the week - A list of home projects.  After that the bathroom linen cupboard.

Books of the week - Tinder Box by Anthony P. Hatch, because Mummy loves a good disaster story.
                                 Lake Woebegone Days by Garrison Keilor, because I love Lake Woebegone, even though the ramblings of Baby Boomers can sometimes annoy me.  Tell me about them, not about you.
                                 All of the housework manuals.  Research you know.

Crochet of the week - Round Rose Cushion, which I should be able to finish.

Knitting of the week - The Building Blocks Blanket is ongoing

Sewing of the week - I am picking up the Stitchers Stocking once again this week, I swear.

Writing of the week - Safe Harbor  At least one chapter will go up this week.  Maybe two.

Time for another round of excuses

Yup, I dropped this again.  Time for another round of trying to keep it up.

So what happened?  A lot of things happened.  Let's take them in order, shall we?

------

Salad happened.

Yep, salad.

Salad.

This stuff:

Salad.  All healthy and green and shit.

See, when the spousal unit was at home we were having a nice, big salad every day for lunch.  His internal hunger goes off at exactly 11:45 am every day, at which point he'd stick his head in my office door and say "Lunch?"  And I'd say "Sure!" and we'd go off and build salads together.

75 g  Lettuce

10 g  Green Onion

25 g  Spinach

25 g Red Onion

25 g Snow Peas

40 g Bell Pepper

40 g Radishes

40 g Cucumber

50 g Shredded chicken

2-3 cherry tomatoes, depending on size

2t Salad dressing

A very precise, carefully measured salad.  Every day.

In order to facilitate this, when we ran out of salad fixings he'd go to Trader Joe's on his bicycle, buy about $40 worth of produce, come home and we'd chop it all into square containers.  Into the fridge it would go to be made into future salads.  And life was good.

Until he went to work.

See, going to TJ's in a pain.  It's all the way on the other side of town.  The parking lot is small and cramped and crooked.  If you don't get there before 10am you're going to be playing bumper cars with the Baby Boomers in their SUV's in a lot built for sub-compacts.  Also, Annie has a bad knee (more on that in a minute) so she can only get to one errand a day before she has to have a sit down.  And the spousal unit does like to drive to work on occasion.  So I only got the car 2-3 days a week and I have 3 grocery stores to hit.  So I could only get to TJ's once a week and even that day it was a pain-in-the-ass.

Problem #1.  Produce doesn't last a week.

Now for a long time I thought I was gluten intolerant.  I won't say allergy because "allergy" should really be reserved for things that make you break out in hives and stop breathing.  I say gluten intolerant because I did not digest it well.  I'll spare you the details.  But in the effort to save money in the days between jobs I decided to try non-GF bread again, and I found out that I can eat a slice or two a day with no ill effects.

Big mistake.

See, I used to be a baker.  A ribbon winning cookie baker.  And now I could eat flour again.  So of course I started making cookies.

The other thing to note is that I have a fucked-up hunger response.  Thanks to my shitass childhood I don't usually feel hungry,  I'll eat something and then go and go until my blood glucose drops, my liver dumps and I end up with zombie brain.  And how do we fix zombie brain kiddies?  With something quick and sweet.  Cookies!

So since my spousal unit wasn't sticking his head in my office door any more at 11:45 am I was letting it go and letting it go and grabbing a couple of cookies when my BG was dropping because it was a lot faster than building a very precise salad.  Until about 4pm or so when I realized I still needed to build him one to take to lunch the next day.  But by then I wasn't hungry and it wasn't that long until dinner...

Problem #2  I wasn't eating my share of the produce

Problem #3  I was letting myself go zombie brain too often

And oh yeah....

Problem #4  I really am gluten intolerant.

Yes, I started spending an excessive amount of time sick and miserable because I was getting 1,000 calories/day from wheat products.  Especially cookies.  And I have not been nearly as productive as I could be in what time I had because zombie brain.  And wasting money on food to be tossed and all the trouble with building it all and on and on....

Solution?

Soup.

You get all the health benefits of all the vegetables,  It keeps for exactly 7 days in the fridge, so you can make it on Tuesday and eat the rest of the week.  If you're concerned about that throw some of it in the freezer and take it out later in the week.  And when you go zombie brain pour it in the bowl and pop it in the microwave.  2 minutes later you're eating something healthy and gluten-free.  And it's already pre-packed for the spousal unit to take for lunch.

So this week I'm starting the soup train again.  Which means I'll only have to fuck around with meals one day a week.  Go me.  I'm starting with The Pioneer Woman's Chicken Tortilla Soup (tortilla chips are GF).

------

The next thing that happened is that I decided to take a knitting class.

I can't knit sweater right now, I'm still losing weight.  I can't knit socks right now, I'm still losing weight/water.  I only wear so many hats and scarves and mittens.  But we are in the process of girling up our bedroom, which means I can do pillows and blankets.  And since we have cats they have to be (dirt cheap) acrylic or (reasonably cheap) superwash wool.  And I was in desperate need for a non-kinky social group.

(By the way, God is an iron)

So when my LYS offered a class using the Building Blocks book by Michelle Hunter I signed up.  Learn to cable!  Learn to read charts!  Learn mattress stitch already!  Fuck me, I was there!

Problem #5  I have a knitting deadline every week.

I am a slow-ass knitter.  I don't know how people make as much progress as they do.  It might be because they knit in front of the TV and I only watch an hour a night, I don't know.  But all I know is that knitting to a constant deadline is a drag.  But here I am. (In fact I should be knitting now.  I'm behind).    But that's another reason why I haven't been writing, I've been knitting.

Pictures at some point.  When I catch up.

------

Then there is the knee problem.

Take some advise from your Auntie Annie, don't get old and fat.  And since everyone gets old, don't get fat.

When you are old and you are fat and you decide to a) take up exercise as a hobby and b) take up caning as a Domme four things will happen:

1)  Your sub will be very happy
2)  Your general health will improve greatly
3)  You will learn that you have arthritic knees that are prone to injury
4)  Between caning the granite ass of a bike commuter and swinging kettle bells you will strain a tendon in said knees and end up with a partially dislocated patella

If you are going to do all of those things please make sure that you have good health insurance.  If you don't you will be living with chronic pain and hobbling around on a cane for roughly 4 months.  Which will suck down all of your energy and then some.

Problem #6  I've been hurting a lot.

That said, I've lost 20 lbs since my diagnosis, which is just about a pound a week.  And I got it fixed on Friday, said kneecap was wiggled back into place and now I get to wear The Frankenbrace for the next six weeks while the tendon heals.   And I get to start physical therapy which will hopefully lead to working out again.

 Go me.

------

So that, collectively, is why I haven't been writing.  But now that I am in therapy (see previous entry re: I'm still married) I've come to realize that I need to make space for this sort of thing to stay sane and not have hysterical fits when shit does not work.  So I am going back to writing once a week.  Or else.

This is already too long.  More next week.

And then shit got weird

It's been at least, what, February and most of March since I updated?  I'm sorry, around the, what, first part of February shit got weird,  Before that we were stuck in Winter Curse land and I was too cranky ass to worry about it.  After that we were still in Winter Curse land and...

Let me put it this way:  I'm still married.  Even *that* was touch and go for a while.

Note to husbands, when you have something big to tell your wife, even if you think it's the most awesome thing EVAR!! wait until you have a steady income coming in.  They might not have your Aloha attitude and might be making a lot more sacrifices than you realize and might be vastly more stressed than you are.  And remember, if it affects you it affect her.  You may not be able to see that it does, just go with it.  It does.

And no I am not going to share.  His personal details don't belong on my blog.

Anyway, the big deal over the past six weeks or so have been us working it out.  That's kind of consumed 80% of everything.  But we have, or at least we've reached a balanced point for now.  He's in therapy to deal with his end, I'm looking for a therapist to deal with my end, and in the mean time I'm trying to treat it as a fun thing and not think about it too deeply.

And on top of that he went out and got himself a full time job.  Yay!  Which comes with a steady, reliable paycheck.  YAY!!! One that doesn't leave us a lot of leeway for extras.  Boo.  But at least all the basics will be comfortably covered and he can keep his old job at the same time, working the off hours.  Any money they kick our way goes to savings and then fun.  So it should work.  The Winter Curse has come off with the cherry blossoms once again.

The huge thing is that his new job is at the nearby uni, which gives us access to the community garden.  Details next week, but this is awesome!

I've been writing, more or less, and knitting on the Ugly Car Blanket, since garter stitch is soothing, and trying to sort out dieting and scheduling and such without someone home.  I got used to him home all day and change takes me a while.  But I think it's sorting out at last.

After all, I'm blogging again.

Okay, next week with pictures.  In the mean time, Happy spring!

Third week of 2016

I missed last week.  Sorry.

Not a lot has been happening around here.  My wheels have been spinning a lot.

For one thing the Winter Curse continues.  We still haven't been fully paid.  Sure, his bosses have been giving us a few hundred here and there but they haven't caught up.  We've been managing groceries and bills but rent is still an issue.  Saving every dime is our current mantra.  Not a bad thing, a little frugality never hurt anyone, but it make it impossible to plan to work for a goal if you're not certain if the goal will be there when you get there.

To that end I have re-jiggered my project list to tap the stash more.  That and I realized that we really need a lap blanket in the car.  Skirts all the time (capris for the gym) + winter weather + arthritis = miserable knees.  So I am making a stained glass lap blanket.  Take all the scraps of mostly Red Heart Classic you have and knit small versions of Granny's Dishcloth.

---

Pick a needle size that makes a fabric you like.

CO 3

K 1 row

*K 1, K 1LRinc, K to end of row*

Repeat from * until you have 4 inches on a side

K 1 row

*K 1, K2tog, K to end of row*

Repeat from * until you have 3 sts on needle

K 1, K2tog, psso

Fasten off.

---

The end result looks like this

The plan is to do a row of single crochet all around in black, then fasten the squares together through the back, which makes a neat edge.  Multiply by a lot for a lap blanket for the car, Red Heart wears like iron and is machine washable and is cheap, so the perfect project right now.

---

Also, LRinc:

Works really well with my wonky Arabian knitting style.  Nearly invisible in garter stitch.

---

The other big distraction for these two weeks has been dieting.

I am a big woman, still. Somewhere on this blog I have progress pictures, I have lost 100 lbs in the past few years, so I know it can be done.  I gained back 20, or so I thought, when I went in to have my knee looked at the first time.  I did not, and do not, want to be one of those failed stories and I do need to get the weight off my knee somehow.  So I cut back to 2000 calories, 200 under my BEE, and started weighing everything.  A week later I had lost 10 lbs, because water is a thing.  But it's also an encouraging thing, so for the past two weeks I've kept it up and returned to the gym.

End result?

Constant physical hunger,  Not emotional eating, not I'm bored eating, I mean physical hunger so hard that eating raw onions was seriously tempting, and at one point happened.  Physical pain that for 2-3 hours a day blotted out everything else.  All I could do was sit and wait to eat again.

Utter distraction.  I couldn't focus on anything else but this.  I couldn't talk about anything else but this.  This overwhelmed everything.

Going to the gym on my husband schedule sucked six hours out of my day.  Six.  He's baffled by that because "we're only at the gym for 3 hours", but then I have to wait for him to finish his more elaborate snack and drink his coffee and get in the shower, and then I need my shower, and by the time all that's done there's another 3 hours gone and then it's lunchtime.  So my productive day is reduced from 11 hours to 6 hours, which is a huge cut.

Oh yeah, and between the constant pain, the lack of energy, and feeling powerless because I have no control over my house right now, I have not exactly been either dominant or horny for weeks.  Not good for the marriage.

I will grant that my BG numbers have been excellent, so in theory my body has been getting what it needs.  But I have been miserable.

End result:  I gained 2 lbs.

Conventional wisdom would say that I should double and re-double down.  Cut to 1800 calories.  No 1200.  No, 1000.  No 800!  Spend even more time at the gym.  More cardio, more reps, more more more!

And it's true.  They say that you should just eat a "healthy" diet and walk 30 min a day, but you read the forums where, let's face it, skinny people gather and they're all eating 800-1000 kcal/day. working out 2-3 hours and smoking either tobacco, pot or both.  And they feel so stuffed.  They have to force themselves to eat up to their total.  Some days they don't eat because they're still full from yesterday.

Granted there are others out there who truly do stuff themselves on junk food, eat vast quantities of crap day in and day out, and their bodies just rot out from under them.  I've seen them at the stores and it's terrible.  And CICO does work, it's working quite well for the husband.  He works out 3 hours a day, eats 1800 kcal, and is slowly but steadily losing.  And he's not hungry, he has ample energy and is fine.

It's just not working for me.  It might be because I have PCOS and that changes the cues your body receives to tell it when it's hungry or satisfied.  It could be because I have a high ACE score and that changes how your body reacts to stress, and dieting is a stress.  It could be lipodema.  It could be a lot of things, I'll have to keep working with my doctor to find out what's going on.

All I know is that I have to live this life.  I could make myself miserable to prove something to them, the great them out there, to be able to say that yes, I lived on 1200 kcal or less and I worked out 4 hours a day and I endured being sick and miserable and useless for days on end.  Either it would work, in which case they would say I should keep doing it forever because it's worth it, or it wouldn't in which case they would call me a liar.

Or, you know, I could just live healthy and let the chips fall.

Granted there is the whole pain in my knees thing.  That is something I am going to have to work out moving forward.  I might end up going for a DEXA scan sooner so I know exactly what I'm dealing with.  

But for now I plan to live a healthy diet.  I've found that 350 kcal over my BEE tends to be the minimum that leaves me with ample energy and some, but minimal hunger pangs (you should be hungry 20 minutes before a meal, not 2 hours, and not 20 after you finished one).  I plan to continue to eat a minimally processed diet of whole grains, fruits, vegetables and lean meats.  I plan to continue to eat a low-carb, high protein diet because that tends to keep my hormones balanced without the need for medication.  I plan to allow myself 2-3 cheat days a month.  And I plan to walk 30 minutes a day, as my knees allow.  And I will revisit in 3 months and see where I am.

I'm still done with being fat.  But I'm even more done with being this miserable.

---

In the meantime, because of all of this, not a damn thing has been done.  I've barely written anything, I haven't been reading. and projects are going insanely slowly.  So I plan to take this week and catch up on the rest of my life.

Musical inspiration for the week:

Yes, it's Christmas music, but it's Windham Hill.  Which is just the thing when you are either hung over from the taco you ate at the party last night (2 of those cheat days are play parties, just to make it easy), or you're coming down with something.

If I am on top of everything I am going to bed until the spring.

First week of 2016

So the first week out has not been as productive as I hoped.  But given what's happened I cannot complain.

Let's see:

This

plus this

plus this

equals this

In other words shark week plus going off the hormones in little brown bottles, which I have to do every three months, plus a cortisol shot to the knee equals a week where very little gets done.  I do not focus well when I'm on my period, I do not focus well when I'm off progesterone and I do not focus well when I'm anywhere near a steroid.  I spent much of this past week reading Reddit.

Thankfully that seems to be passing.

On the plus side I've decided I'm finally done with being fat.  I always said that when I was ready I would do this.  I'm finally ready, not just to start working out but to start dieting in earnest.  I cut down to 2000 calories this week, because if you're going to feel like shit you might as well get it all over with at the same time, and promptly lost 11 pounds.  I know, I know, a lot of that is water but my knees don't give a fuck.  That's 44 less pounds of pressure they have to deal with, which is what matters.

I guess having a needle pop off the back of your kneecap is kind of a wake-up call.

Speaking of the shot, it wasn't that bad.  Didn't really hurt except when he literally hit the back of my patella, that hurt like a bitch.  Threw my blood sugar off, which was expected, but only for about 12-14 hours and it only went up to 215, which is not horribly horrible.  Left me crazy thirsty for the week, but more water is just not a bad thing.  And my knee is about 90% better.  Not back to pan free perfect but quite tolerable.  I do have arthritis after all, they will never be perfect again, but I can live with this.  And my left knee is responding well to the Celebrex, it might not need a shot.

That said, I am avoiding leg day until I have my knees gone over by an orthopod.

Speaking of the gym I am taking one more week off, just to let everything heal, and then trying to go back.  Spinning, so as not to put pressure on said knees, and HIIT using upper body machines so as not to have to try to stand and balance weights and perhaps walking in the pool.  When I am cleared by said orthopod, perhaps with Sinvisc on board, and have braces for my knees I'll go back to serious riding and kettlebells.  One step at the time.  But I am looking forward to going back.

I did manage to finish a few things this week.

Sideways Bobble Hat done in Lion Brand Homespun in Blue Mist on size 10.5 needles.  Crochet cast on, three needle bind off and only five wedges because my gauge was ridiculous.  But I did it in five days, if I was more dedicated/focused it could be done in a day.  It's likely as close to an instant hat as it gets.

Also this

Kitty Cat Tea Cozy, which is based on the Wake Me Up Tea Cozy.  Done in Red Heart Classic in mulberry blend.  It was supposed to have that kind of gathered top but I didn't make it tall enough so I was just going to seam it across.  Then the husband saw it and said "It kind of looks like a cat" and I had to add the details.  It suits him, he is the fabulous purple Dungeon Kitty after all.

Yes, you pour tea out of the cat's nose.  Hush.

I also finished In The Heart Of The Sea this week.  It's quite good if you like stories of historical disasters.  I love me some disaster books, so this was right up my alley.  Now I want to go see the movie:

Next up is Dune by Frank Herbert/

I haven't written jack this week.  I have lots in my head but I haven't been able to focus.  I might just catch up today, or I might catch up with my sewing. 

Slowly but surely on that one.

Speaking of writing I've been nominated for the 2015 Profiler's Choice Awards, which means nothing unless you're really in to CM fan fiction.  But I was nominated in four different categories.  I'm honored.  And flattered.  It's kind of cool.

OK, musical inspiration for the week.

Yes, it's country.  It's not even "good" country, it's horribly poppy country.  But it's making me think of wearing snug jeans and boots and perhaps being able to show off a tight waist and go dancing.  Which is inspiring right now, so you can all just hush.

That's it for this week everyone.  Later.