Blah

Alas, another glorious blog post is not going to be written.  Two days ago I came in from cherry picking with two sets of puncture marks right next to my right eye.  The whole area feels vaguely scratch/puffy/annoying still.  And a kleenex box and wastebasket are my best friends today.  Brilliant thinking will have to wait until the gunk in my head is slightly better at conducting thoughts. 

I do know, however, that I have turned the first corner of the shawl's edging.  Three more sides to go.  And Scaramouche is next up on my listening list. 

Now I shall go curl up and feel wretched.  Once I feel wretched AND idle, I will probably knit.  At the present, I think wretched will keep me sufficiently occupied, though.  And maybe a real book.  Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican, or Jerusalem? 

A wimpy update

I had plans of writing a glorious update, with photos and bells and whistles. 

But you know, it's almost 7 PM, I haven't had supper yet, the lunch dishes are collecting microbes, and I haven't touched my knitting yet.  So I'm going to shuffle a Beautiful Update to next week on my to-do list, and get the important things done. 

One important thing is knit the 12th repeat of the edging pattern.  And hopefully quite a few more!  I've got 11 done ... 229 to go.

Allergies

For many years, I had seasonal allergies.  To be honest, I'm not sure which season they were for, but they weren't connected to any one thing and thus they acquired the name 'seasonal'. During our first years of living in Minnesota, the seasonal spring allergies became so bad that I regularly lost my voice around Easter.  I was just about ready to head in to the doctor if they did it One More Year (because who likes to have no voice for the Easter Hymns several years running?) when Filia had a hospital stay in mid-March and voila - my allergies didn't happen that year.  They did next year, and I made the trek to the doctor, and took Singulair and Advair and kept my voice, but still supported the tissue paper companies. 

I don't like taking medicines on a long-term basis, though, and so never refilled the Rx.  Instead, I drank diluted apple cider vinegar with cayenne pepper and honey, or pushed oodles of fluids, or avoided being outside during the high-pollen hours, or just lived with it.  And somewhere along the line I began drinking lots of tea.  Then somewhere further down the line, I realized that I hadn't had any allergy symptoms all one spring.  Or the next one.  Or the next one.  Until I went on vacation and missed my daily pot of tea for one too many days. 

All of which is curious anecdotal evidence about the multifactorial pain in the nasal cavaties which are my allergies. 

But now - despite drinking tea, and fun beverages which Vir affirms taste like dog pee, my allergies are back.  They're not seasonal, but monthly.  And they come with chills.  Really?  Chills in June, when it's 80 degrees out?  Yes, chills.  (My allergies have come with chills since at least college.  I have no idea why.)  I've learned that if I do NOT bundle up and lay low, but carry on with life, my chills will turn into a fever.  So I bundle up and lay low, and the symptoms pass in a day or two.  So far.  Fortunately, laying low involves knitting and reading - and if needful, naps.  I can spend DAYS in those activities.  The first two will keep me delightfully and productively occupied if I am 'well', and the naps will fill in the blanks if exhaustion hits. 

Anyone ever hear of monthly allergies before? 

And why does Vir know what dog pee tastes like? 

Queen Susan Disclosure:  Slow progress, but still moving ahead.  I'm in round 150 of .... 164.  Getting closer! (closer to only 23% left that is, not finishing the thing.) 

Another pictureless update

This week sees The Queen Susan at 141 rounds completed.  I'm on the last set of charts for EVERYTHING (except the edging, which I haven't even printed out yet) and am happy with my progress.  The surgeon was happy with the progress Abigail's incision made, too, and she can now be up and about for reasonable chunks of time.  That means my self-imposed home-bound status is coming to an end. Alas, I will miss it. 

In our pitiful non-attempt at a garden, the asparagus is being attacked by invisible asparagus beetles.  The beetles leave eggs behind, but I've only seen one actual bug.  I continue to pick asparagus on an almost daily basis.  Our dog shows more enthusiasm for his portion than he does for his morning meal, and if we don't offer him the ends, he mopes.  Poor thing.  I planted 3 kinds of squash (red, hubbard, and patty pan) and at least one of everything is up.  Two years ago, the red pumpkin (Rouge d'Vin Etamps, I believe) was kind of a pasty flesh tone.  I wonder what color it will be this year.

In book-reading, I've finished Redgauntlet and added several more books to my queue.  One of my Kindle Collections is 'Unread Books'.  Redgauntlet, by Sir Walter Scott, looked like it was doomed to sit in the Unread pile forever, because the first half-hour of the book was BOOOOORING.  After reading some reviews of it, however, and how it was wonderful and exciting and possibly his best work, I decided that perhaps I should just slog away.  It got much better.  I haven't picked a next fiction book yet.

I am completely ignoring school-planning for next year.  It's much more fun to tinker with fermentables in the kitchen.  A friend is bringing over some tibicos grains today.  I had no clue there were so many different ways to use them!  Unfortunately, many of the ways are contradictory.  We shall see what happens.

Thought of the day:  The holiness of God, or holy, or sanctification, or any word in that family, is not mentioned in the Bible between the 7th day of creation (Genesis 2:3) and Moses (Exodus 3:5).  That's quite a gap!  It seems like the topic should have come up with Abraham.  Or Isaac.  Or Jacob.  If it did, it didn't make it into the Biblical record.