* Cast on for a new pair of socks last night. Used some goofy-colored Opal yarn (will post a photo once I get a bit farther on them but yes, it is the sort of excessively-bright, bordering-on-clashing combinations that I tend to like. One of the colors in it is almost an acid green, and that's a color I personally like. I know a lot of people don't, but I do).
I'm using Nancy Bush's "Yarrow Ribbed Sock" pattern. I find the really fiddly Nancy Bush socks (the ones knit at like 10 or 12 stitches per inch on size 0 needles) are ones I never finish, but the simpler and less-tight-gauge ones I do. I have used those "simple ribbed sock" patterns (they are at the front of Vintage Knitted Socks) many times, and also the "Gentleman's Winter Sock" (which is actually resized for a lady, but could be knit for a man, as long as either his foot wasn't too large in circumference or if you altered the pattern to have more stitches).
* I'm also back to working on the crocheted afghan; there really is something very comforting about working on it when you're worried or distressed or too tired for things requiring more thought.
Despite having started new socks I do want to clear out some of the ongoing projects - I have a cabled blanket that's about half knit and I really want to pull it back out and work on it more. And some time, get the grey sweater back out and figure out where I am in the pattern and pick it back up. I need another good grey cardigan.
* I have made myself the promise that as long as I can motivate myself to prep next week's advanced biostats (I think, though, it will be "how to do the various 2-way analyses of variance on SPSS, which will be a bit less intensive prep), I am taking Saturday for ME.
I feel like I need a bit of a "fluster" after all of the worry I put myself through last week. And also, well, also a reward for working so hard on this advanced biostats stuff this far, and working hard to resolve the Visa issue for the international student. So I am going to Whitesboro, and buying yarn and possibly a few fat quarters of fabric.
(Yes, yes, I know last week I was saying "I should give it all away" but maybe? Maybe I get more disciplined about not faffing on the internet and I do more sewing and more knitting. And at any rate: I should sort my fabric and start using some of the accumulated stuff but sometimes combining older and newer things are best)
But part of it of course is just getting OUT. Getting away from town. This town starts to look very small after a couple weeks of relying on the small local grocery and the wal-mart for food, and feeling like "I need a treat" but also "there's really nowhere in town to GET a good treat" (though also: I could use five yards of plain white cotton for a quilt I'm planning, and I know the little quilt shop here has that, and I should patronize them more anyway. Though they did note in their recent mailing that they are soon getting a fancier new longarm quilting machine, that will allow them to do more and faster quilting, and that is good....especially if I finish more tops)
* I have also promised myself once I pay off this month's credit card bills and see my paycheck hit my bank account, I'm ordering myself a weighted blanket. (Purlewe suggested a place that looks very good, especially since they apparently use glass beads - more environmentally friendly and probably last longer - than plastic). They offer different weights and propose going with "close to 10% of your body weight" so I guess for me that's the 20-pounder; that's closest to 10% of my body weight of what's on offer.
I'm hoping it will be cool enough to use in the summer; I suspect some of my sleeping problems in the hotter months are related to feeling "exposed" when I can't have a quilt and a heavy blanket on me. (As I said: in the winter I just turn the thermostat down at night)
*And the last self-indulgence? Friday evening I am getting a Roma's pizza for dinner. Yes, as I said: I really should be trying to reduce a bit (and have done a lot to cut out sweets) but sometimes a nice big greasy pizza is just what you need and I am kind of craving one.
* I started reading two new books. First, I started "Whisky Galore." I bought a copy of this on the strength of seeing (most of) the movie when it played on TCM recently. It's the kind of story I enjoy: entertaining and quirky characters, interesting setting, and nothing so very tragic goes wrong (the motivating factor here? Getting the bottles of whiskey off the run-aground freighter before the Customs men come and seize them, or the ship is scuttled. Most of the sub plots revolve around the life issues of the people in the town, though none of them - at least in the movie - were so horrible or severe; the biggest one being a milquetoast schoolteacher wanting to marry a woman his domineering mother deemed Unsuitable)
I also started another ECR Lorac mystery, "Murder by Matchlight," which is apparently considered one of her best. It is pretty good so far, though again you do see some differences in how people thought then vs. now (specifically anti-Irish prejudices, but maybe in a country where there had been fighting with the IRA fairly recently, it's understandable?). I started that one because I was taking a hot bath Saturday night (when I was so freaked out, before I heard the good bloodwork news, and thought that might help shut up my mind for the night) and I didn't want to take the really nice hardback version of Whisky Galore in case I dropped the book into the tub....
I have never dropped a book in the tub while reading in the tub but I know it's possible, so I only ever use cheaper paperbacks for that.
* Very foggy here this morning. It's been foggy a LOT this January. I dislike fog. Not just because of the obvious hazards of having to drive in it (and there is always That Guy in the old grey pickup who figures he either doesn't *need* his lights on, or thinks he's saving gas by leaving them off. Or alternatively the unclear-on-the-concept person who is driving around with full high-beams and blinding everyone). But I also don't like it, I realized, for psychological reasons: you can't see very far ahead of you. And even beyond the mere practicality, I don't like that and find it unsettling. I like to be able to see in advance. I like to know things are going to be "okay." And you can only do that if you see the path ahead of you.
And yes, that's part of my distress this past two weeks: like I said "It could be nothing at all, it could be "okay, you're going to need some minor surgery/an additional medication to correct this" or it could be "you have cancer, prepare for a full hysterectomy" and that's....a really broad range of things and because I'm a pessimist I try to prepare for the worst. But I can't see the dang path! That's the upsetting thing. And that's why getting the blood results back was such a big thing for me; fundamentally it suggests that the path leading to "nothing at all" is the clearest and most easily seen.
Oh yes, I know, as I continue to age, I will have to learn how to come to terms with either potentially life-limiting conditions that require very invasive treatment (I have never had "real" surgery before; the two anesthetic-requiring procedures I've had was getting a broken nose set when I was 13, and having my wisdom teeth out) or living with something chronic and possibly lifespan-reducing.
(Though in truth? I already live with two chronic conditions: allergies, which are under sufficiently good control and the bad ones I can avoid the triggers of, so I tend to forget that allergies can be dangerous in some cases, and high blood pressure, which is also under pretty good control but also which is "invisible" enough to me most of the time I can ignore that it might be reducing my lifespan EVEN WITH the control.)
But yeah. Fog is also like the periodic unsettling dreams I have, where I am driving at night where there are no streetlamps and my headlights suddenly go out and I can't see where I'm going. Not "being able to see where I'm going" (metaphorically) is one of my low-level persistent fears, and I think fog feels like a real world manifestation of it, and that's why it bothers me.
I have to take some students out for data collection in the field this afternoon and I REALLY hope this burns off by noon; I do not want to drive a 15 passenger van in the fog.
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