Happy Spring!

Disclaimer: My keyboard is still broken so please excuse anything that should be capitalized and isn’t it only responds to the shift keys when it wants to.

It’s March, late March, and it’s Spring. This is what’s going on in my world.

I am working on a few goals this year;

1. getting a garden going for real this time,

2. becoming a “Fuck Yeah!” friend,

3. getting more movement into my days, (as I sit here blogging like a slug…)

4. eating more veg,

5. becoming more competent at my job, and

6. Decluttering!

There is some progress in all areas, however slight. The beds are in as of last Fall and I hope to get planting (with guidance) soonish. I am saying “Fuck Yeah!” as much as seems safe to friends asking if I want to do stuff. I am on my feet more for sure even if my phone isn’t showing the steps. It, like my little laptop, has issues and it dies a lot. I am eating slightly more veg and focusing on just making sure it happens every day. Tougher than I thought it would be. At work I am taking on some new responsibility, nothing huge, just helping cover while my boss is out on maternity leave. I am practicing to get better at commcat, trouble-shooting when there are issues with computers and printers, planning for Summer Reading as best I can. I also keep signing up for webinars but I have been missing most of them. I am just so burnt out on zoom and all that. I have a few coming up that I plan to actually attend and I intend to view the recordings of the ones I’ve missed. Decluttering is still stupid and complicated because my usual drop off places are still not taking things. meh. I do have some stuff ready to go and I will do more when it makes sense to.

One of my niece’s just got married! ^_^ YAY! So nice to have something to celebrate. She and her new husband looked gorgeous and I was so glad that we could at least be there remotely. My eldest daughter is taking a couple of online classes and doing well. My middlest is getting a little money in with a kind of online gig type thing and took over dish washing and it really helping me out. My youngest is in the final stretch of his senior year and is doing well, sticking with it, getting ready to ease into the future. My husband is still working remotely but is finally scheduled for his first vaccine. (YAY!) We will be celebrating 24 years together later this week. WOW.

Gaming is still the main source of entertainment around here, I think we are in and/or running about… 6-7 games. I am using Pathfinder 2e to run my husband in a one-on-one game. We used to run one-on-one a LOT when we lived far from anyone and had a young child. I’ve missed it like crazy and apparently he has too. ^_^ So I am still struggling with constructing encounters that won’t kill him. LOL. Even with all the charts and whatnot encounters are so brutal. I think I have been thinking about it wrong, like my math is somehow backward or twisted. I’ll get it sorted out. One-on-one is not a thing Pathfinder is super designed for so I am pretty much making my own “adventure path.” It’s fun and challenging and I am enjoying all the prep work. I have part one pretty well finished and have started part two. I’m not sure how many parts it will have. I was thinking two, taking the PC from level one to… 8? 9? 10? But I might keep it going. Have the main quest die down for a while, let him “Witcher” it up monster hunting all over Golarion and then bring the main quest back later. I don’t know, we’ll see how he likes the main quest as he hasn’t even started on it yet. He’s travelling to investigate a rumored event and I’ll have to see if he likes it or if it’s too weird for him. I can do grim and gritty just fine but it’s always leavened with chaos and whimsy which he doesn’t always “get.” If he doesn’t like it I know some people who will so I’ll just save it and rework it for them later and cook something else up for him. I love him so much.

Anyway, I need to get ready for work.

XXXOOO

i am a gemini=full of contradiction

note; please excuse lack of capitals and a partial lack of proper punctuation. my laptop is being a beast.

i aspire to live in a tiny home. it’s insane how drawn i have been to this idea since the very first time i came across it and yet it may not be something i could actually live with. on the one hand, i can see paring down on many, many possessions. i can see getting by with minimal kitchen gear that all nests together as much as possible, minimal dishes and cutlery/utensils, no problem. minimal wardrobe wouldn’t be an issue for me, i could digitize the movies and shows i ‘need,’ i already use a little laptop not a big desktop, i can totally see minimizing down to essential towels, bedding etc, i can see one day living with just a single cat or smallish dog instead of constantly cohabitating with a minimum of 3 furry fellow-travellers. shoes are not an issue. i can get by with a single pair for each function; snow boots, hiking boots, sandals, work shoes, and one dressy pair. i don’t even need a bunch of make-up i wear it maybe a few times a year. i’m sure there are other areas i could easily pare down as well, but…

it all falls down when i consider;

books. i have lots and i am forever acquiring more despite my best intentions. i have a nook, and there are many books i could handle having only digitally… but i ‘need’ a shocking number of books as physical objects. i love them so completely. books.
art supplies. paints, canvases, sketch books, colored pencils, bags crammed with odds and end i intend to use in some nebulous future project, adhesives, brushes, etc etc etc. it is hard to imagine paring it all down enough to keep in a tiny home.
crochet and knitting gear. holy crap. i have lots. lots. i can honestly see paring this particular hobby down a fair bit, getting rid of items i don’t really need, of which there are many. this one might be doable; a single bin of yarn, a basket for scraps and all the hooks and needles.
also sewing stuff. i have a sewing machine, a serger, and tons of fabric and hand sewing items too. just the basics of this one is fairly bulky.
games and gaming books, minis etc. we have a lot. we have several game platforms and tvs for video games, multiple bookshelves of rpg books, endless, boundless bins and bins of minis, etc. plus board games, card games and on and on. we could probably halve the amount without pain but it would be awfully difficult to divest ourselves of much more than that.
fandom stuff. yeah….. i do not, we do not, have a vast epic collection of museum worthy, collectable amazing fandom stuff, but we do have more than it seems at first glance. i have made tons of cool harry potter/hogwarts stuff for wearing, decoration etc. i have tardis string lights and a dalek pepper pot. in brief we have; marvel stuff, star wars stuff, doctor who stuff, game of thrones stuff, star trek stuff, fruits basket stuff, ruroni kenshin stuff… and many, many more. how would i even begin to pare that stuff down…

plus, i keep a lot of food on hand in case of emergency/illness/etc. i am not sure how low i could manage and not induce anxiety in myself. i tend to have at least a few months worth of food on hand. they wouldn’t be the best months we ever got through but we damn sure wouldn’t starve.

oh, and stuffed animals, using the term very loosely, i have more than would likely be great in a tiny house. henry, rocket, cap, and yix all live in the bedroom and i have a doll crib overflowing in the hall with more. i have pared down in that area, wildly. my remaining collection is ‘bare-bones’… for me.

so i want to live a minimalist lifestyle in a tiny house …but… i will also need another tiny house for my books, another for arts and crafts, and we’ll need a dedicated gaming tiny house as well.

yeah.

sigh.

i think that many tiny houses probably equals pretty much a regular house.

disappointing.

Snag

My idea of reopening my shop in March has hit a snag. Well, snagS, to be honest. A lot has been going on in my world.

Ramping up crafty productiveness made me suddenly decide to make my first sweater… I think. I have vague memories of maybe trying before? Eh, likely not terribly successful, or why isn’t my wardrobe chock-a-block with cute sweaters I made? So, I found a tutorial for a super cute sweater I totally want to wear ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYHF8e8q1hY&list=LL&index=4&t=14s ) and bookmarked it. Then I searched for “super easy beginner sweater tutorial” and landed on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xl-O8RC_g8. So, I made a sweater. Not just any sweater, MEGA SWEATER. It is huge! I didn’t actually watch much of the tutorial, I used the linked text pattern, if there was a swatch/scale I missed it completely. My sweater is unstoppable.

It’s so huge I couldn’t get it all in one shot.

That ate up basically all my free time for a week. On the plus side it could be layered over the most massive of other sweaters. (Mega Sweater has no equals.) Yeah, so I’m calling it a modest success and a great learning experience. Meanwhile I have moved on to making the next sweater and I did do a swatch and it worked out fine. I’ve finished the front piece and started the back.

Despite my efforts with the swatch it is clearly wider than intended…

There will be some scalloping added in the neckline and I hope to use it to make the sweater more reasonable. If it comes out really wonky I am considering trying again with different yarn and hopefully whatever lessons I learn/knowledge I get from this first try. Crochet is tricky! But I’ve had it with being afraid to try things. Fuck it! Life is not a dress rehearsal.

I also got side tracked making a baby present for my beloved boss. She’s having her first baby like any minute now and I wanted to make something nice as I know she appreciates heartfelt handmade items. I made these adorable stars that were going to be a mobile but ended up being a wall hanging. and it looks like “insert pic into text” is just a well-oiled machine! Anyway, she loves it and already hung it near the crib. I’m glad I went with ‘wall hanging’ because she is making a mobile. Here’s a bigger pic:

These little things are fun and easy to make. Fast too!

So, I still have a couple of weeks, or more if I open later in March, to get things done. I have several pairs of mittens that need liners, (that I still need to make) a basket full of cloth waiting to be made into cloth napkins, a couple of boxes filled with handmade envelopes, and lots of plans to make more mittens in new and exciting colors. I’m just not sure I will get enough done to be ready to actually open. The liners are a big project as are the napkins and our place is currently cluttered all to heck since I haven’t been able to purge things we don’t need for almost a year. I really need to box up major amounts of clothes, books, etc and get them to the thrift shops to find new homes. It’s getting ridiculous. No, I won’t soon be seen in an episode of “Hoarders” but clutter is basically everywhere at this point and no room really looks nice anymore. Yeah. I need to get to work on the clutter even if it has nowhere to go. I need to figure out something to do with it all!