Feeling the Wind in My Hair...

I have not forgotten you. I just haven't been able to put fingers to keys for a number of reasons. One of which was, I felt like I had nothing to say. 

I took a walk today. Nothing startling in that, except that we're in that bipolar time of year when we're not really sure what season we're in. And if we hang around for an afternoon, that'll change. And then change back. And then change again...you get the picture. 

Anyway. 

As I was walking, in my sparkly red Dansko clogs (totally unsuited to walk in the neighborhood, but cool for work), I noticed the breeze blowing through my hair. I haven't really shared tons of shots of myself; and I stink at "selfie." But I've been growing my hair out into a short bob, after oh ---- nearly 40 years in a pixie, if not more. At least in some iteration of a pixie, that is. And I noticed the wind blowing through my hair. 

I haven't felt that since freshman year of high school, when my hair was down past my waist. And then I chopped it off into said pixie. And I think I probably should've kept it long, but there you go. One more life achievement dashed. 

Oh well. Life is full of choices. Here's a picture - a rare one, by the way, of your intrepid blogger and her bob... I'm really not a grouch - I just can't smile and focus my phone's camera at the same time. This is a semi-messy station at the doctor's where I work. 

And in the spirit of "oh well, everyone shares," here's a picture of my office, a/k/a "used to be our file room." Seriously. 

The lighting sucks. The room is truly a closet. Thankfully, I have a glass door, otherwise I'd suffer from claustrophobia (worse than I already do). The computer is old and cranky. 

And I sit far, far too close to it. So after about half a shift of this, I need to step away and blink my eyes. And refocus. 

I've already put the type size down to a point where the doctor really doesn't like it, I've gotta be able to see for at least a few more years (ha) -- till I get the knitting stash down to reasonable proportions, so I have to take care of my peepers... 

And I have the oldest computer in the place; so it regularly crashes. Usually when I need it, like today. Trying to get the doc ready for a presentation next week. 

He knows that it's on its last legs; we're just keeping it going by sheer will. 

Beauty School...

So you know how I am about make-up. I don't usually wear it because it feels like I'm suffocating. And I can never get the color correct. No matter how "many shades for every skin" it says. Mine is always somewhere in the middle of "Casper the Friendly Ghost" and "Palest Nude." And it still feels chalky and like Kabuki artist paint.

What's a girl to do? Well, I went to Young Living Essential Oils Beauty School. It was in Lisle, and it was a weekend. And believe it or not, it was fun. That there is my book, along with my beauty kit. 

Lest you think I've gone over to the "girly side," rest assured; I'm still getting the hang of it all. 

And there was the hotel, with the requisite "five down pillows, all of them flat." The mattress was amazingly comfy. The room's fan was adequate (I love my ceiling fan). No, I was a "bad oiler" and didn't bring a diffuser. I did bring my current knitting project and was able to get a nice bit done, all things considered. 

But please, someone, tell me why there are never any firm pillows in a hotel room? Seriously, that bunch there? That's how I had to sleep just to feel like I had my head and neck supported. And then, the pillows tried to kill me. They rose up along the sides of my head and tried to smother me. 

On a good note: for the most part, I was able to stay on my detox plan and had plenty of food to eat. I brought my stick blender and breakfast shake supplies and was able to get that made every morning, though I never did get the fridge quite cold enough to keep the berries from thawing. 

Small beans, considering. 

I got a photo of myself with a special camera that detects vascular damage and sun damage. I was pleasantly surprised that the sun damage wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I got burned badly a couple of times as a kid, and I thought it might have caught up with me. But it was better than I had any reason to hope for. Now to keep it protected. 

I didn't get my make-up till after I got home. Yes, I purchased the bare minimum: foundation, blush and a setting powder. I've managed to get it on to go to work a couple of times, though my blush skills are not good. Bad, actually; gotta work on that. 

It stays on; it doesn't feel like I'm unable to breathe. And it washes off like a dream. 

I'm not sure about the color of the foundation when summer comes, though. Even with sunscreen, we do ride our bikes outside a lot and I do have a slight change in my skin color. But I could just...skip make-up in the summer. 

There's an idea!

The Knitting...

The project I set myself to, a Close to You Shawl by the end of this month, is coming along. I won't quite make it by the end of the month, but first week in April definitely. I've got about 3.5 more repeats of a 14-row pattern. With a 1-stitch increase every row, that means... A LOT of stitches to get through. But I'm mindlessly blowing through it. 

The picture to the left shows the first ridge. The picture to the right shows about 9 ridges; I'm a little over 2/3 of the way done, so it's bigger. I will have to break into that second hank of the MadTosh; just not sure what I'll do with the remainder. Maybe some socks? It is sock yarn, after all...anklets, maybe?

My friend Deanna would love the stitch marker I'm using; it's a set of flamingo markers that I'd purchased from Sonda's shop ages ago. I wanted to use something fun; the functional one I'm using to mark the right side of the shawl.

You can, technically, wear this either way because everything's knitted. But there is a right side for the purposes of knowing when to bind the thing off. The bind off is a picot and it pretty much has to be, just so it finishes the echo of the ridges on the opposite side.

I hope this helps Kristin and Blair raise a lot of money for their IVF treatments. Here's a link to the auction. This shawl will be part of it as long as I get it done in time...

I'm honestly thinking this weekend will see it finished, though, because the weather is going to be crummy and I won't be tempted to go outside much.

It needs to be done. End of discussion. So with a lot of help from some lovely lattes I got turned on to by my friend Lulu, I'm knitting my fingers to the bone. This one is called Red Velvet Latte, and yes, it's on my "ok to consume" list. The Lunar Latte I just had is going to be sweeping me off to dreamland soon.

Here's another link. And no, I'm not being compensated for these. It's just stuff I like that I want to share. This is a company out of Australia, and that's where you'll get your stuff shipped from. Shipping is a tad pricey. But it's all great organic products. And the blog and photography are lovely!

Would I like to be compensated? Who wouldn't? But I don't think I need to chase that particular rainbow; y'all would have to share my blog a lot for that to happen... And so would I.

In the Kitchen...

So this happened: I bought watercress. I have no idea what, actually, to do with watercress. I know I can add it to a salad. I know that at High Tea, you might have watercress sandwiches.

And that's about it.

I didn't want to add it to a salad because when I bought it, unfortunately, it snowed like the dickens that week. I had to use it up, so I made a watercress sauce/dressing.

Recipe for Watercress Sauce

1 bunch watercress, trimmed of most of the stems
Good quality olive oil to cover
Salt & Pepper to taste

Wash the watercress; pat it dry. Pack it into the beaker of your stick blender (or a tall jar if you don't have the beaker). Add olive oil to cover, add salt & pepper, sparingly. 

Whiz it up...add more oil if you need to. Taste it. It should taste of watercress (green and slightly peppery), not oil. Adjust seasonings. 

Use as a dip or sauce. 

And then, at church, Pocket Priest has invited us to all use our Instant Pots...we've been cooking lunch every Sunday after the service through Lent. On St. Patrick's Day, I made a Dublin Coddle. Yummmmmmmmmmmmm-yyyyyyy.... And then I made Guiness Stout Bread (top) and Irish Soda Bread (bottom). Nope, I didn't eat either of them.

I will find you the Coddle recipe and put it in another post. I can't find the one I used; when I was given the bottle of stout, I chose to not use it, but instead, used it in the bread.

That was a better choice, I think. Everyone loved all of the food and we marvel at how hungry people are after church!

See the eggs?? Cool, huh? From a friend of Hubby's who keeps 17 chickens.

They're on the small side, but they're all lovely, and I can't wait to crack these babies into some scones or even just plain fried eggs!

Home-grown eggs are delicious, the yolks seem richer somehow, and I just appreciate someone giving us these treasures.


And just to finish  out the section, a picture of our altar at church; this is the Lenten arrangement. It's lovely and simple.

Our church is well over 150 years old and we love the way it feels, sounds, and kind of embraces us. That altar holds a columbarium. Many of our older members are in there, being cremated and put into little boxes.

FYI, it's not creepy at all. Kind of like they're watching over us.

Random Pictures...

Two of them. First is Quinn, dressed for St. Patrick's Day. The older she gets, the more she looks like Tippi. It's hard for me to tell them apart in the dark, lately.

She's my little snuggle bunny still, and is always smiling when I'm home. Makes me feel wanted, right?

And I finally managed to get a picture of mother and daughter, more or less together. Of course, they saw the phone and ducked...

I tried to get a shot avoiding the little pile under my table...But I failed. It was either that or fake them out. And it's darned near impossible to fake out an Elkhound.

Time for bed; the morning will come early. I have more pics to share and a few more items to discuss, but they'll have to wait for the next time.

Marching On...

OK, that's facile and stupid. But I'm "blogging with migraine" so forgive me. 

Doctor's Report...

So today was (finally) the follow-up from the "roto-rooting" of last month. Overall, good. But -- esophagitis and a bit of gastritis. That's not good. I'm back on the Rx version of Prevacid, 80 mg (40 mg 2/day). They want that to heal. 

But on the plus side: no celiac disease, no h. pylori, no candida. A few other issues that are, frankly, age-related. And "being a mom" related. They're delighted with my (now) 8-lb. weight loss and consequently lower BP. And they said "keep it up."

I'm a bit dismayed, but glad. Esophagitis in particular is something that folks like me, with GERD, want to avoid at all costs. It's nasty and it can be deadly if left unchecked. They seem to think that 3 months of this high-dose Rx will fix it. I'm also thinking the anti-inflammatory gut reset will, too. 

The Knitting...

I've turned the heel on Petty Harbour #1. It's going ok. I love heel turns. I'm actually, now, on the closing of the gusset. This time, I'm going to keep the pattern down the instep. We'll see how that goes. 

Normally, I like a plain foot, mainly because of comfort. But these are a really nice pair of socks, and frankly: they're beige. I need patterning. If only to keep me awake during the long foot part. 

Speaking of long feet parts... I screwed up on the Green Traveling Sock #1... As you can see in the picture, the foot is "kid-sized." 

No, honestly, I do NOT know what I was thinking. Or not thinking, as the case may be. I know I wanted a star toe and I looked high and low for a pattern, like the 3 or 4 other pairs I had. Could  I find it? Nope. 

So I winged it with web directions: "star toes for everyone" kind of thing. 

Obviously, I started the toe about 2" too early. I'm thinking of steeking - a/k/a "cutting into live knitting" and adding more at that green stripe. That's just below the closed gusset, which I think is the best place to do it. I can add more; then re-knit -- maybe not a star toe this time, but either way. Re-knit so I can wear it!! 

I've tried it on and it fits. But it's so, SO tight that it'll wear badly. Not to mention crunching my toes. 

I'd like to do a different toe. I do wedge toes on 90% of my socks. Either that, or I buckle down this weekend and finally clean up my office space, hopefully finding the notebook or pattern that has an actual star toe pattern that I can follow. 

I know - I've got my MBA, and you'd think I could figure it out. 

I can't. I don't like math, and I'm too old to change. Besides, my MBA was in marketing and HR. 

I ordered the Etude #1 shawl AND yarn from Expression Fiber Arts. Yes, in those colors exactly. I think they're stunning. And another thing I'm not necessarily good at is colors. I love color. But I'm not particularly adventurous at matching and setting up colors for patterns. 

Hubby shines at that. I'm boring. I swear, I'd stick with grey gradients. 

Anyway, Etude #1 will be the next project I cast on. 

And I managed to do something weird with Kid #2's afghan. I think I can redeem myself if I have really managed to miss a stitch. It's not that I dropped one; I'm actually OVER by 1 stitch; so I used K2tog to get the count back where I think it should be. If I'm wrong? I add a stitch. He won't care if there's a "make one" in there. It's also coming along. Almost ready to change stripes again. Picture next time. 

Paczki Parade...

I work next(ish) to a Polish Deli. It's hopping this time of year with the sale of paczki (poo-nch-key). That lovely and now popular Polish donut which, in my great-granny's time was a way to use up all the sweet stuff before Lent. 

Lent starts, if you're interested, on March 6th. 

So I saw these at the local "health food" store. No, these little beauties are in no way 'healthy' even if you want to say it's traditional. Traditional isn't always healthy, as we all know. 

When they're home-made, or made by a real Polish bakery, they're not light. They're full of sugar. And when Great-Grandma made them, they were fried in lard. Or, in her later years, shortening. 

Dusted (in her kitchen) with either white sugar or powdered sugar if she wanted fancy, they were stuffed full of fruit. 

Now-a-days, you can get them filled with just about anything. And there's a local brewer who's doing "paczki-flavored" beer. Can't even wrap my brain (migraine or not) around that. Because there are at least 15 flavors. Which goes in the beer?

This was the parking lot Thursday. From 8 a.m. till I left at 5:15 p.m. Cars in and out all day.

Many buying lunch, but lots of them carrying boxes of paczki out.

They're getting another 2,000 this Tuesday, for Fat Tuesday. 

How do I know? I asked my mom if she wanted a couple of them, to which she replied, "Is the Pope Catholic??"

I went to the doctor's office on one side of town, and it ran late. All I could think of was, "Boy, I'd better get there before they close" as I dashed across town to the very opposite side. 


There weren't many left. I got her a Bavarian Creme with chocolate, and a "strawberry & cream" - which wasn't exactly what she wanted, but it was either that or prune...or blueberry, and I couldn't remember if she liked blueberries! 

These? Well, no, I'm not planning on eating them. They're a unique flavor: rosehip. Very nice and light, slightly floral. I thought if Mom didn't like the strawberry + creme, I'd take that home for Hubby. 

And I told Hubby that if he didn't want them, I'd be perfectly happy bringing them to church on Sunday. 

I have a feeling these aren't going to make it to church. 

I'll be texting the kids a picture of this. One of them lives far away, out of the reach of paczki. The other? I can see him driving down for these. 

Everyone Gets a Cone...

Yeesh... Two of the 3 dogs are in cones. 

Tippi is in a cone because she gnawed the crap out of her back leg. It's healing nicely, but she managed to confound the Inner Tube of Shame and the soft cone. So Hubby went out and bought her a "satellite dish."

The dog isn't happy. But the leg is coming along very well. It was so bad that we had to skip our last therapy visit. I had to leave it open so that it could begin healing, and that's against the rules. 

And it's not safe. 

And it wasn't pretty. 

So we think she'll be ready to go back to work on this Tuesday, which will be nice. I know she's anxious to get back to work. 

I started her on Turmeric butter. Not actual butter, but you mix turmeric with water, heating it up a bit to make a paste. Then you add coconut oil (which she loves anyway) and keep it in the fridge. She gets 1/2 tsp. total, split up at breakfast and dinner. It'll take a few weeks to see if it takes down that inflamed lymph node. Fingers and paws crossed. 

Raisa, on the other hand, has some sort of skin rash. We've started to add a little olive oil to her food, and Hubby is getting something called Linatone, which is what the elkhounds had when we first got them. 

She can still get to a dry spot on her chest; we're hoping to get that under control. Her coat's a mess. Thanks to backyard breeding, she's got one of the worst coats I've ever seen. 

Her head is gorgeous. Well-shaped, and the coat is just what it should be; nice and fluffy. 

From the back of her head on down? Not so good. And the scraggliest tail I've ever seen on a husky. Not to mention the coat's thinner than normal. The vet says "it is what it is." She can't make it grow better. 

But we've got to do something with the state of the itch. 

So we'll try the Linatone and see where it gets us. 

Beverages, etc...

Apparently, CBD is now all the rage. One of the patients gave Doc a tiny vial of hemp oil for him to try. Not likely... And I saw these supplements in the local Meijer. 

Not sure how I feel about that. I mean, I do give it to the elkies when there's thunder coming. We call it "boom boom cookies" and it seems to at least calm them a bit. 

But randomly swallowing these supplements? I can't see it. 

I have no problem with alternative medicine. I'm sitting here in this picture with my "Mermaid Latte" to help me sleep. It coincidentally matches my shirt! Using Ayurveda, it's got some herbs + chamomile in it. I make it with coconut milk. 

Not the coconut milk in the cans, but actual "milk stuff" made with coconut, since on this cleanse, I'm non-dairy and for a while, no nuts either. It wasn't bad, though I do miss my almond milk. Or "almond milk-like beverage" since "nuts don't lactate."

But a coconut DOES have milk. So there. 

Anyway, I think people need to evaluate before jumping on a bandwagon, that's all. I'm all for it for pain relief, and relief from chemo and glaucoma. 

I just don't think it's right for everyone. 

And it's incredibly ironic that it's next to the Doritos... 

It Was Windy...

The Sunday before last, it was really, really, REALLY windy. We went out to church, and when we came back, this is what we found in the back yard. 

I mean, it's ours. But this is how we found it after the service. 

This is solid cedar and it had about 80-ish pounds of dirt in it. 

There's no way it should've blown over. Except that the winds were in the neighborhood of 40-60 mph. 

Everything got whomped on. 

Lucky for us, we didn't lose major tree branches. Nothing fell on the cars. 

Hubby righted this and put the basin of the concrete bird bath in it. At least, now, if we have anymore wind, this thing shouldn't move. 

I hope. 

It was really freaky hearing the wind moaning through the high-tension wires. Haunting. 

Random Picture...

Every once in a while, there's a really pretty sunrise. This isn't much to look at close-up. But look at the sky and see the pinks and lavenders? 

I caught this on the drive into work one morning, when sensible folk are still in their pjs... 

I live in the semi-urban 'burbs and we still get to see a lot of sky around here. 

Even in the dead of winter, in the icky February/March dullness? If you look up, you're usually guaranteed to see something beautiful. 

It's there. Just gotta look up.