Off to Laze Around

Last Thursday I saw my diabetes doc, and while I have a couple of minor issues to work on (getting my A1C down to 6.5; losing the last 20 lbs.) I am in very good shape. Even my habitually low blood pressure was lower, which means the exercise is still paying off. He was quite pleased, and it's always a relief to have a good checkup.

As I've been rather anxious over all this, and also deeply upset over recent events in the world, I gave myself the next day and the weekend off to take it easy, especially as the following week was my deadline week for my first day job project of the year. At present I'm working up the last of a skein of variegated yarn into a no pattern moss-stitched clutch for my art supplies, mainly so I can see the color changes in this yarn (Bitty Stripes by Red Heart Super Saver in Moonbeam) and use up the rest of the skein. After that I'm going to make a quilt for my nephew's dog. Maybe. I'm trying not to put any more pressure on myself until I get the day job project finished. This to me is lazy, but there you go.

The fact is that I'm not accustomed to taking it easy. I take it busy, hard, difficult, stressful, patience-testing, exhausting, and anything else but easy. It's not in my nature to laze around. I have so many responsibilities that I will never be able to keep up with them all or do them perfectly, but I try my best despite knowing this. It's becoming harder, too, the older I get, but that's life. I don't have a lot of time left to do anything, so I'd rather not waste it.

That said, it's nice to set aside all my plans and just crochet something mindless. I don't want to do it all the time, but right now it's good for me. I need to let my frazzled nerves settle down, as I have other work-intensive situations ahead to deal with like hurricane season, moving my nephew into his new house, another family member visiting, etc.

I will be stepping up my exercise and watching my diet more closely after I turn in my project for the day job. I'll also be going on a week of vacation, so I can have more fun. Until then, I will be as kind to myself as I possibly can. :)

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Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Love Means This

Invested in a couple of hand-dyed bundles from one of my favorite fabric artists. This one said "Make me into something for Valentine's Day." So I went for a quilted and embellished tote. I kept thinking about what love means to me as I worked on it. Here's the finished tote. Although I was tempted to embellish with beads and pins, I got sick and only felt well enough to do a little stitching every night. As I worked I thought about how often love seems disappointing to us, especially when it fails to live up to our expectations. But now that I've experienced love in many forms, I can say that it's made me a better person than I might have been without it. Love is a precious thing, and should be appreciated in all its forms. I am very grateful for the love of my guy, my child and my friends who have stuck with me all these years. That's you two, in case you're wondering. :) Also finally found something to do with a ve...

Store Closing Haul

The mega Books-A-Million store over in Sanford is closing, and offered an extra 20% off on their current stock -- all sales final -- so I went over to do some shopping. Safely but sadly there was no one in the store but me the entire time I was there. The Holly Jackson novel is for Katherine, the Halloween board book is for Oliver, and the copy of Garden Spells is to keep on hand because I give that book to everyone. The rest of the books are for me. I love Anne Cleeves, and the Galbraith novel sounded interesting (the first couple weren't, but I'm willing to take another chance.) The Escape Room is by a new-to-me author, plus it was cheap. The GreenCraft mag is just a guilty pleasure. Hopefully the smaller BAM nearer to me won't close. I don't buy many books from brick-and-mortar stores these days, but that's really the last one within reasonable driving distance.

Valerean

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