A little farther

 I mostly worked on Chalcedony yesterday, the sleeve is a bit bigger, even if it might be hard to tell

I had to shift to double-pointed needles because even the 16" circular was getting unwieldy.

This is going to be a busy week - CWF tonight, board meeting Wednesday night. At least next week is spring break.

I am trying to figure out a fun thing to do ONE of those days. Hiking in Chickasaw, sadly, will be out; my knee isn't good enough yet for that and it seems too far to drive for (a) only being able to stick close to parking lots and (b) at a time of year that it's not quite as pretty (later on is better). 

I could go back to the yarn shop, except, uh......I went back this weekend because I needed OUT:

I'm telling myself I need to do more walking, it will strengthen my knee. That's a skein of peach-colored Dream in Color yarn, and a tiny stitch sampler of an embroidered sweater, and needle holders for double-pointed needles so your stitches don't drop off them.

I also went to the new Michael's. I did buy some of those color-changing cakes with a vague idea of doing one of those giant granny-square afghans (where you start a granny square and just keep on going - it's an easy crochet). This store ONLY has self checkouts, which is not an idea I love, except that there is a "balloon ordering station" (I don't know, either) that IS staffed, and when the checkout freaked out on me (they do that), she came over and helped me.

But yeah. You've probably seen photos of the stuff behind plexiglas in Targets and Walgreens'; my conspiracy theory is some stores are seeking to make shopping unpleasant enough that shoppers are eventually all driven to "order online, pick up at the curb" which would mean far fewer employees would be needed. (And maybe eventually transition to a giant warehouse with picker-robots that choose what you've ordered and send the bags of stuff down a conveyor belt for you to pick up. And really, what's the point in even leaving the house, then? (the drive to most of those places would cost as much in gas and time as shipping). Already we've lost many "third places;" for me, shopping is almost the only one left other than church (and I am often "on the job" there, at least volunteer wise). 

I also remember the "showroom warehouse" stores when I was a kid, where you see a thing on the sales floor and then have to fill out a form to get it - that was a common model for appliances and some furniture when I was a kid. Then you went to the delivery door and they loaded it in your car. I think the attraction was the store could carry more stuff because they only had one (like one of each model of microwave, or one of each type of blender, instead of boxed examples) on display. I could see that coming back (except you have to use an app, because everyone wants you to use an app) to order and pay, and then to go get your thing. 

So I don't know. Self checkout is okay when it works but it feels bad to me not to have even one normal cash register. (Also Michael's seemed not to have any books or magazines, other than a few brochure-type things near the yarn)

Oh yeah, I'll surely go back. But probably less often than I go to the "real" yarn shop.