Week 9 & 10 - In Which I Become Unemployed

The last couple of weeks have been a blur, frankly.  To me, lots of things have been happening and I just sat down to review them all.  Some folks would say it was a typical couple of busy weeks. You be the judge.

The MOST IMPORTANT NEWS...As of this past Saturday, I am officially a Retired Person.  After just shy of 15 years, I finally decided to leave the library.  Life's too short to have to deal with some people in one's life (there are a couple of personalities there that I'd tried to live with and it just wasn't happening for me) and this was a mostly easy decision for me to make.  Add in the fact that my library pay for parttime work is equal or just a tiny bit less than my Social Security check for fulltime leisure....it was a no brainer decision!  I sent a text to my brothers to tell them that Mom's 3 kids were all now unemployed - I was the last one to retire.  One of them sent me this note:  "I prefer not to think of it as being unemployed. Think of it as "working smarter"; you're being paid while you sleep in until noon.  Or even if you sleep until noon next Thursday, you get paid for every day. We should have known this back in the 70's."   Dangit, he's right!

I spent yesterday knitting and sewing....today will likely be more sewing.  I figure I have enough projects to last me till about age 100 so I really don't need to worry about being bored.

Two weeks ago, the Qualifying Round of Sock Madness started.  Everyone who registered (I think someone mentioned there were over 1500 folks from around the world who registered for this annual sock-knitting contest), received the qualifying pattern at the same time.  We had exactly 2 weeks to knit a pair of socks, following the pattern exactly with no modifications AT ALL!  If we did that, and sent in photos with specific areas marked so the mods could judge if we really did follow the pattern with no modifications, we made it into the actual competition.  Here you see my pair:

I used a yarn with the name of Llamacorn....I'd had that yarn for a year or so and never found a pattern to use it with...this pattern wasn't necessarily the perfect one but I made it work and the moderator who judged my pair only said "Wow, a lot of colors when magnified to 150%!" You can see where I used black marking thread to show where the smocks are on the sock. 

So now I'm waiting to be put on an actual team and have the First Round pattern appear in my inbox...Then I'll be knitting like a fiend to complete the pair and be one of the the set number of qualifiers for the next round.  I rarely have the expectation of going past Round 3...I'm just not that dedicated a knitter nor am I that fast...I'm hoping the next round starts before Saturday morning - I'm leaving for a week in Utah and will have some quality knitting time on the plane!

Mom has been knitting, too.  She decided she wanted to knit herself a sweater with some money she got for Christmas.  It's been over 70 years since she last knit a sweater ( for a boyfriend who she was no longer seeing by the time she got the sweater done).  She picked out a lovely little cardigan-type of sweater that is knit all as one piece except for the collar piece.  No buttons or buttonholes.  She's been working on it since January and this past weekend she finished it.  Isn't it great?  I'm so proud of her!

And she, rightly so, is proud of herself, too!  

Well, I'm off to start work on my 2nd day of retirement!  Thanks for stopping by.

Week 8 - Where the Devil did Mother Nature Go?

Okay, now,  I realize I'm spoiled...I make no apologies for that.  John has spoiled me our entire married life.  There is very little that I want that he has denied me.  So when I say I'm done with winter, I'm really done with winter. The only problem here is that John has absolutely no power to fix this.  I'll forgive him this time!  Besides, I think the police are on the trail on this one...they don't need John getting involved.

The weather here in southwest Missouri has been ever-changing.  Mid-60's one day and two days later we have snow and wind chills below freezing.  Take today.

Not sure exactly how much snow we got, but the temps are positively frigid...and continue on a downward spiral toward zero degrees.  Overnight temps are expected to hover around 2 degrees with a wind chill of around -15 degrees.  I am hoping they cancel school tomorrow...that means the library will be closed as well and I can have another day off this week. 

We also had a snow day this last Thursday.  I spent the day making a small decorative pillow for our entry.  The embroidery machine has gotten a true workout this week.  I'm planning a bigger pillow for later in the spring - assuming we ever get a spring.  

Here's what I made this week.  It measures 4" by 8"...

And then I worked up another Row by Row block - this one from 2016.

It's from Bittersweet Quilts in Joplin, Missouri.  I wish now I'd swapped out the dark blue in the kit for a lighter blue so you could see the galvanized milk can better....but I might be able to highlight the can with the tackdown stitching for the applique...

The time is gong slowly with regards to my retirement.  Only 2 more weeks.  And then I'm going out to Utah to see the kids and grandkids for a week.  John will stay home and make sure Mom is ok while I'm gone.  

If it's March, it must be Sock Madness.  We got the qualifying pattern this morning and I am going to sit down and start knitting once I finish this blog post.  This is my 12th year competing and the 13th year of the competition.  I look forward to it every year, even though I have no expectations of getting much past round 3 each year.  There are 7 rounds, with more and more folks being eliminated each round.  It's fun to challenge myself to knit patterns that have never been seen before (some of them have been written specifically for the Madness) and I always - always - learn at least one thing new each year.  

Once I finish this qualifying pair, I'll post.  I'm using a colorway called Llamacorn.  Intriguing, isn't it?

Thanks for stopping by.