A Small Miracle???

 No, not that I'm actually back here. Though, it's a thought. 

To say it's been a rough year would be an understatement. Actually, the last entry was just before my mom needed her hip replaced, and I'm now her medical person. So there were numerous medical appointments, the surgery itself, post-op care, etc. 

It's all fine, she's walking better than I am, and she's not in pain. 

I've had my second PRP shot in my left hip. That picture right there is the plasma they spun down from my blood. All that goes into the joint where the injury is, and it acts like your body's own "cortisone." It takes a while; I had 3 or 4 INSTANCES only after the first shot, where I was pain free, and they didn't last. But the effects are cumulative, and I have great hopes. They were very happy with the amount of plasma I was able to produce. 

I've noticed muscle atrophy in that leg and I'm a bit confused, but working on rehabbing it. The JOINT doesn't hurt, but I have some pretty interesting and intense muscle cramps. I'm using a cane, which my doctor and his nurses suggest that I decorate for the holidays. Little do they know that I'd actually do that... 

And, in one of the most bittersweet moments of this year, my nephew announced that his wife is pregnant. My sister won't be here to see that grandbaby. 

Let's start there...

The Knitting...

I have put aside the Long Sands Tee, not because of baby knitting (well, sort of) but because of the project below...a HUGE book editing gig. 

But once I heard the news, I was back in "start" mode. I had started, a few years back, a baby afghan for them, thinking I'd get a jump on things. It was going to be a feather-and-fan (also known as Old Shale) in the colors of their wedding afghan. I remember I set it aside because I managed to screw up the pattern, and one of my fans was off. And there was no news on the baby front, so I thought I'd eventually figure it out. 

In the meantime, JoAnn Fabrics had a sale on their Bernat Baby Softee, and I picked up 4 bundles: 2 each of aquamarine and "little mouse" (a sweet tan/taupe). I had no plans, but I figured the colors went well together and who knows - someone will turn up pregnant sooner or later. 

So as you know, my habit is: baby sweater, afghan, hat and maybe booties. This little one is going to be born in May - no need for sweaters. So we have to think differently. Still doing a sweater but had to look at my original "standard" - which doesn't go beyond a size 6 months. While that may work out mathematically, I've made the 6-month size for EVERY baby, and it fit them at birth. We grow 'em big here...

And... I decided to do a version of the Encore 8-hour afghan that I've done before. I'll tell you my theory on that in a second. I had enough Baby Softee to do the afghan. But not enough to do the rest. 

No more of that color combo at JoAnn (of course)... And I really wanted to do "simple" instead of what I had initially chosen for them. 

So I hoped on to Jimmy Bean's Wool. What with my own hip issues and a schedule that has gone from "nuts" to "impossible," I wasn't going to be making the 4-hour trip to my LYS anytime soon. 

I wanted something coordinated. What I found was a freakin' miracle to which I can only attribute the powers of the Knitting fairies or my sister, whatever plane she's on. The colors match. Two different yarns entirely: one set of Cascade 200, a superwash wool, and the Bernat Baby Softee, an acrylic. And they MATCH. Of course there's the sheen on the acrylic, but holy moley... the bottom knitting is the Baby Softee. The top two balls are half of what I bought for the sweater, the Cascade 220. 

I am so gobsmacked and jazzed! I was prepared to be ok with something "close enough." Well, near-perfect is certainly "close enough." 

So the sweater? (Insert drumroll here) I've decided to try for a Baby Surprise Jacket. I figure a 12-month BSJ can have rolled sleeves if by chance the baby is smaller, but if at 6 months, the peanut is more like a 9-10 month old, it'll still fit. And garter stitch is remarkably stretchy. I can do the turquoise/aquamarine for the body, and add random stripes of the cafe latte. And then reverse that for the hat. Yippee!!

Ok, now my screed on simple knitting. The pattern I'm using is off the Bernat site, and it's actually for a gradient, where you'd have a pale color, with two darker colors, and switch the darker colors half-way through. So, let's think green & cream. The green would be perhaps a grass green and then an emerald color. You'd hold the emerald + cream together for the first half of the afghan and then switch to the grass green + cream for the last half. I've done that in an Encore pattern with a different pattern: 2 of the darker colors first, then dark + light in the middle, and then 2 of the light at the end. It's gorgeous. 

But since I only had 2 colors, this is going to be very tweedy and I already love how the colors are patterning themselves. 

And let's face it. For me, at least, if I screw up a lace pattern, or have one more stitch or whatever in a complex pattern, I can fake it. It's a "design element." Here, with just garter border and stockinette body? There's no where to hide. Your skills, such as they are, shine (or not) in plain knitting. 

Besides which, this particular afghan is draping like a dream and the texture of the yarn is bouncy and yummy. And, thank you, grandma - my tension looks really good so far. It's a 20-row bottom, and then 12 knit at each side. Alternate knit and purl through the body for stockinette and you're good to go. Then 19 rows of garter at the top, and a bind-off for row 20. Easy as pie. 

If I had more colors, I certainly would've used them. I should work on some sort of scrappy baby blanket, but this is going to be good. For what it's worth, they're not revealing the gender, even to themselves. They want to go "old school." Which is fine - this colorway will work for whatever they have. 

I also have my "travel sock" which I'm piddling with. Honestly, since this hip injury, my hand-made socks are easier to get on than the store-bought ones...so I should get skippy and just finish a pair! 

One stitch at a time...

The Baking...

The last time I saw my sister alive was on Christmas Eve. Needless to say, this year is going to be hard. Well, let's just put it out there. SUCK is kind of the order of the day. 

There was a small family melt-down over the timing of Christmas Eve, which I will for now ignore (it'll go in my novel). 

I digress. 

My sister's favorite part of the dinner was the cookies. All baked by hubby and me. Her favorites were M & M cookies - take your basic chocolate chip recipe and instead of chips, put in Xmas-colored M & Ms. We made big ones, soft and chewy. We'd set aside a dozen for her and she'd take them home, hoarding them. One a month. 

To be honest, so far, they're not on my list. I'm not sure I can make them. My list is actually short-ish, all things considered. 

We did, however, do potica. And the dough was not happy. It was pretty stinky, as a matter of fact. It would roll...and then Slowly. Go. Back. Hubby had to fight it every step of the way. They weren't pretty. I was ready to chuck the whole thing and start over, but he persevered. 

They baked up pretty. The taste and texture were there. They got rave reviews. And they never knew how close they came to getting binned! So we're stocked for Christmas, though we may do another single batch for Easter. We make 1 batch of dough (unless we get crazy and do a double -- which results in anywhere from 6 - 10 loaves and is a marathon weekend of baking). And we make 1.5 batches of filling. My family has come to like just a tad more filling - actually about 1.25 batches, but I don't want to "math" that much. 

Hubby has a fix for that extra filling. His granny's Never Fail Pie Crust, and a mini cupcake tin. Voila, my mother's new favorite cookie and lots LESS fiddly than Pecan Tassies (or nut cups, as my granny used to call them). 

So the list is, so far, brown sugar cookies (rolled with our Ukranian cookie press rolling pin); lemon cherry cookies; coconut macaroons; chocolate shortbread; poppy seed cake; almond crescents; chocolate chip bars; lemon bars; pineapple crescents; snow-on-the-mountain and filled cookies. Oh, and Jewish Honey Cookies just because everyone loves them. 

I'm not sure if anything else will make it to the list. Probably not. We're giving a lot of it away, aside from the platter we do for the family dinner. It's a labor of love, but there's someone missing. My brother's favorite is the pineapple crescents - he gets his own bag too. 

So anyway, that's the plan.

The Project...

I've snagged a great editing gig. I've done 6 books already, and I'm on #7, for a publisher that I've worked for before. I'm the "last set of eyes" on the books before they go to press. A great gig, the books are all pretty good, and the only problem is -- with my hip. Because I can sit a long time editing 8 or 10 chapters. Then I figure I need to stand up. 

Oy, the creaking! So I've settled in to doing 2 chapters, then I get up and walk around, get some tea, take a trip to the bathroom, pet a dog. Anything to keep me moving. 

And I'm still able to make my deadlines. The books are all coming out in 2023, so I'm looking forward to seeing them in print. 

I've started thinking about a book I'd like to write or at least be the lead author on. Maybe that'll happen soon. Stay tuned!

The Bat...

I work for a church. The church buildig itself is old, from around 1910-ish. And occasionally, we have visitors. Of the animal kind. During Covid, when we were in lockdown and not permitted to have services, we battled the spiders, who promptly saw this as an opportunity to reclaim the entire building. 

Then, we had a cat in the basement - which I actually was hoping we'd be able to lure into the office to keep the mice at bay (a different building). That didn't happen. 

We've had a bird fly into the church while we had the doors open. We've had bats - mainly dead already.

And then there was last week. A parishioner comes up and says, "There's a bat in the sacristy and if So-and-So sees it, they're going to freak out because they don't like bats."

I go take a look. It looks dead. There are cobwebs around it. It's about 12 feet up. 

I call Animal Control. In our county, bats are supposed to be removed and tested for rabies because it's a problem. I think, "No worries, we'll get the little critter out of there and it'll be fine."

Well. Animal Control isn't allowed to get up on ladders. Dude says to me, "I can do this because on this one step, I can reach it, but next time, the bat should be within reach." Seriously, in my head, I'm thinking, "Ok. I'll leave a note for the bats..." And then... It's alive. I hear peep-peep-peep...and he's got it in some salad tongs, wings flapping, a very peeved bat. 

He can't let him go; it's his duty to take it in and send it to Bat Heaven. I'm gutted. And now we have to figure out how he got in (the bat...). 

I'm still a little concerned about the "bats have to be within reach" thing though - who tells the bats??

Random Picture...

It's Advent. This was from last year; this year, I'm not sure I'm going to set up our Advent Wreath - which is what this is. Two years ago, our vicar had a "make your own wreath" project for us, and this is what I came up with. 

In spite of the fact that I knit, I'm not entirely a craftsy person. I thought this looked pretty good; I didn't want real candles, so these are the battery-operated ones, and the ribbons and gold balls just look nice. 

We are going to have a tree of some sort on the dining room table. Tomorrow, I start the annual Ornament Extravaganza, and I know I'll have to order 18 ornaments for the gestating Peanut, but that's going to happen later. 

And in the meantime, knitting continues, and I bake.