Started something new

 I didn't finish a lot of things over break; I did finish the two socks I had on the needles; pictures will come later

This is one of the things I took THINKING I would start it but I didn't get to it. So I started it tonight. String Theory Colorworks' colorway "Diode" (there are other stripes in a deep purple and a green and teal further on the skein. 

This is just the start of the sock - the ribbing for the cuff. I'm using the instructions in a recipe (it's more a recipe than a defined pattern) called "Columns" by Nancy Wheeler - it's the instructions on how to insert a couple narrow bands of a fancy stitch running down the sides of an otherwise plain sock. So it's good for striping or patterning yarns. You have to be careful with fancy stitches on those because either the stitches get lost in the patterning or else it kind of fights with the pattern. 

These are going to have a small panel of an eyelet lace on either side. 

I also mowed today; the lawn wasn't TOO overgrown but it needed it. And then I went in and decided I couldn't quite face going through the vials from the April sampling yet, so I started making my Powerpoint things "compliant" with the new accessibility standards and frankly if I had been totally boring and done black type on white background when I made these, I'd have saved myself a lot of work. (But back in the 2010s, they were telling us NOT to be boring! Sometimes I wonder how much of these shifting goals are just to keep us busy). 

I got the first three chapters for the intro class done, and the first one for ecology. I'll have to think about what to do for the stats class that is mostly text - I had been writing things on a smartboard and just saving it and posting it, but I'm SURE my handwriting is not accessible, I guess that's a question for the tech folks when I also ask about what to do with sharing .pdf files of papers I want students in another class to read (those, even the ones from published journals, are apparently Not Accessible and therefore Not To Be Used.) I THINK a lot of this is for fully online classes and mine are fully in person.

I'm also holding off on going through the stuff for environmental policy; I'm going to have to steel myself to read about ALL the changes (there's no more Forest Service? what?) that have happened in the past year in addition to having to up the accessibility. 

(But yes, tell me again, about how "lazy college professors" get "the whole summer off" - we are technically not paid for the summer so this work is all "for free," and I think of Sam'l Johnson's description of someone who wrote for some reason other than money....)