Monday, August 27, 2018

Another quick post

Setting a timer for 15 minutes and writing seems to be an excellent way to keep up with posting.  I've got a spare 15 minutes before heading out... so welcome to this week's post!

Behold, the mummy!  Not the same mummy with two glorious black eyes in the previous blog post, but an 'it's not winter yet, but this newly knit scarf will be GREAT for keeping the wind off the face' mummy.  One weekend, 4 skeins of chunky yarn, a stitch pattern book, and voila.  Cozy warmth.

Last week's mummy was the result of an unexpected and abrupt meeting between a face and a concrete sidewalk, courtesy of a sudden unbalancing tug on a dog leash, resulting from a dog catching sight of a rabbit in the shrubbery.  I'm not sure who was more startled - mom, dog, or rabbit.  The dog now avoids that section of the yard on her constitutionals.  Despite mom's avowal that she didn't need stitches, the nurse at church thought otherwise so we popped over to urgent care in lieu of the church service, and made it back in time for the fellowship meal afterwards.  Despite the doctor's considered opinion that the faceplant would not result in black eyes, the gloriously purple rings were evident within a day.  Now, almost 2 weeks later, they've sunk beneath the cheekbones and add a greenish cast to the face.

Bicycling -- the smiling providence of a flat tire, perfectly timed to avoid a deluge, turned into a trip to town the next day for a new tube, a replacement tube, possibly a new tire tread, and a Serious Consideration of cycling shoes/pedals.  I came home with two tubes, two new tires (mounted!), new pedals, AND new shoes.  With a bit of a bike realignment/tune-up and bike fitting tucked in there, plus practicing How To Unclip While In A Trainer.  A few minutes clipped in on the trainer clued me in to the fact that I might be using different muscles now that my feet were affixed to the pedals, so I decided not to overdo things with a long ride right away.  Maybe 5 miles would be a good first ride?  So, after getting home, I headed out, and decided after a few miles that a loop round the block shouldn't be pushing things too much.  13.5 miles, check.

The next day was a normal riding day, but I didn't want to overdo things - so I planned a 20-24 mile ride.  Except around 24 miles, I was having too much fun so decided to ride up to my mom's for an ice cream sandwich.  40 miles later and 5 towns later, I was home.  (That's total -- not from the 24 mile point.)

So, with Saturday rides of 30 and 40 miles, what was I do to this past Saturday but something a bit longer?  I plotted a route to Truman (45 miles), left mid-morning so I'd be home before the sun was blazing hot, TOTALLY underestimated how long it would take the fog to burn off, and had fog dripping off my helmet the first two hours of the ride.  One hour in, my glasses were consigned to my jersey pocket.  And I had a delightful 3 hour ride -- followed up by a 5 mile jaunt with Vir (his first time on a bike in several years) to make a total of 50 miles for Saturday.  Will I do 60 miles this coming week?  We shall see.  I think my next bike-related purchase will be a tail light. 


Thursday, August 16, 2018

The 15-minute blog post



Let's start with some yumminess.The above was a gift from a family I dogsit for. This dog doesn't require much ... I open the front door for her to come in, then she and Bandit spend the rest of her stay either sleeping, riding in the car, or taking one another's sleeping positions.  With a little bit of 'when is my family coming back' thrown in.  The shiny spot on one muffin is a QUARTER.

Counterpane update! I reached 40 squares and am taking a counterpane break to knit a stole for myself.
Yarn for stole
I've decided to use the Print O' The Wave pattern, from Sharon Miller's Heirloom Knitting.  The problem is I have just ONE skein - and I'm going to live dangerously and work the edging last.  Worst case scenario, I have to frog a whole lot of edging and back up a repeat or few.  Really bad worst case scenario is that I have to do it twice because I calculated wrong during the first frogging.  I've about 1.2 repeats (out of 3-4 dozen) done. 

I've also submitted a design for the next issue of Cast On, and it's been accepted, and the yarn arrived today.  So the stole isn't going to grow particularly fast.  Oh, and I had a test knit last week too.  And SysAdminning has been busy.

So I've needed a bit of balance in my life, beautifully achieved by riding 20-30 miles on my bike a few times a week.  Except this morning, when I had a flat tire.  A rock embedded in the tread was the culprit.  And my spare tube was spare because it had made a lovely hissing sound from the valve once upon a time, and was only still around because I hadn't been able to figure out WHY is was making that noise, once it was off the bike.  I put in on, and voila -- hissing noise and decreasing PSI.  No bike ride this morning.  So I picked tomatoes.  A lot of tomatoes.  How a lot?  Enough so that my stock pot couldn't handle all the product of the food mill, and I had fresh tomato soup  for lunch.  I think the stock pot is going to be simmering for another 3 hours or so to get down to 'half'. 

Oh, and it POURED rain about 90 minutes after my ride was deemed cancelled.  So much for TWO weather apps telling me I had 4 hours before the rain was supposed to arrive.  The frowning providence of a flat tire produces quarts of tomato sauce AND the lack of a drenching. 

I still have a lovely harp -- with two things that need fixing (move a lever, move a string).   Are things really shifting around on it, or did I manage not to notice, for four or five months, that one C lever was not aligned with the string?  And that the D next to it isn't equidistant from the C and E strings?


15 minute buzzer went off.  Should I save the story of the last photo for the next blog post?  It'll give me something to write about!