Tuesday evening things

 * Got some more work done on the hat. It's about half done. I'd LIKE to have it done before I leave for Thanksgiving but I suspect I may not get there - I've started the second set of 24 rounds (on round six) and then there's the decreases for the top in pattern

It's hard to photograph and show the diamond lace. This is a worsted weight yarn; it's a Paton's yarn. Not the softest ever and I'm hoping once it's done the wet blocking (I will use hair conditioner, which sometimes helps the less-soft yarns) will make it feel nicer.

Here's a close-up of the lace:

* I put up my Christmas tree this weekend. Saturday evening I put the ornaments on it

I need a little time to just relax, and knit, and look at the tree, but....not sure when.  Today it was after 5 when I got home (had a meeting to rewrite an assessment test, and then wanted to work some on the lectures for systematic botany); tomorrow I have a 3 pm meeting. It's supposed to be short (Gen Ed council and there's only one issue) but I never hope for meetings to be super short. But I think I will go home after it. 

I do also have to do some laundry and also plan out my packing (which I can do Thursday afternoon/evening because Friday I leave for Thanksgiving break. 

* I did find myself a little sad putting the tree up. One of the ornaments I pulled out was one that Jo (passed away in 2021) gave me; another one was one that Charmain (a family friend) had passed along, and she passed away earlier this fall. And I have ornaments reminding me of past good times -  some I got on travels, some that are similar/identical to ones we had on the tree when I was a kid. There's one I bought during the worst of pandemic times, of the Hudson (Ohio) clocktower, with a mouse in a red tartan coat looking up at it (an artist who lives there makes them and sells them online). On the real clocktower, every year, they would put up a big (simple - just a teardrop shape with eyes, ears, and tail) mouse partway up the clock, like Hickory Dickory Dock. At some point the mouse acquired a tartan coat/shawl....

I don't know. On some level they make me happy but also this year I wonder: will I ever have good times like the good times of the past again?

(I also watch the ads for Christmas gifts showing kids tearing with huge excitement into the toy they wanted most and I cannot think of a single tangible thing that I would get that excited for. The things I really want, they don't come from a store....maybe that's the real tragedy of adulthood?)

* I have to think about projects. I have a pair of simple socks going, and I have a scarf I could take. And maybe yarn for another pair of socks just in case - I bought a pattern called SHaGS by Sarah Jordan, where you knit the heel flap and gusset at the same time, so no picking up stitches, and it's supposed to "interrupt" striping yarn less. I want to try it - some of those "alternate" ways of doing socks don't fit my feet as well, but these might work. Or maybe I just take another set of yarn and a simple sock pattern - I found some of the yarn I bought that has sparkles in it, including a leaf-green one that would make pretty leaf-lace socks. 

* Other than that, I'm just tired - for the aforementioned reasons but also I had CWF last night, and I had to back a cherry cobbler (my colleagues liked it, I didn't think it was very good - it was a new to me recipe) for a lunch at school today so my whole Monday afternoon and evening were eaten up. 

* One silly thing I perhaps wasted money on - I had had a crochet pattern for Discord from My Little Pony but realized I'd probably never make it (and didn't have all the yarn anyway) but then saw that Amazon had the janky bootleggy Chinese-manufacturer version (there are a number of Pony characters that Hasbro never made stuffies of, that "Oly Factory" did. And I admit I felt a little oogy about buying one because of the whole intellectual-property thing, but then again - Hasbro has a legal department and hasn't shut it down, so maybe they figure they're making enough "official" money? I don't know.). But it FINALLY came after a long shipping period:

He's about the right size for the little Fluttershy I crocheted. (She was, famously, the Pony who at least partially reformed Discord. And I realize now the stereotypical old "But I can change him!" trope is in action with their character dynamic. And though there was a bit of backsliding, I guess he did eventually turn more or less good?) But anyway: much easier and better on my hands than trying to crochet one, and no need to buy eight different skeins of odd colors of acrylic yarn.