Kninja Knitter

Ay-yi-yi! The week was going fairly well and then Friday smacked me in the face in a big, bad way. I’ll share the ugly stories in a minute. But first, I’ll celebrate the positives.

Stitched or Still-in-Progress

We have a finished object! It didn’t take long last week to finish the crown decreases on this hat. And now that I’ve shared it in the Splash Pad Party threads on Ravelry, the designer of this pattern is in love with the ribbing. 😁

It’s the last week of July, so my window of opportunity to complete my Camp Loopy project for the month as well as any other Splash Pad Party entries. The project for The Loopy Ewe challenge in July is nearly complete! I’m on the final section which has ten-row repeats using both colors, and I’m about to start on a bonus repeat of the pattern since I have plenty of yarn to work with.

I ended up putting a great deal of time into the cardigan just because it makes me happy. But then I realized that there’s no way I can complete it by the end of the month unless I take a sick week, lol. I did, however, finish the left side, then I set up for the back and started on the center back lace panel. The stitch pattern is the same as on the sleeve and shoulder, but the edge stitches join the panel to the left and right sides.

And the last project I worked on this week was my WIP shortie socks. Unless I completely change gears to something on large gauge needles and worsted or bulky yarn, this is likely the only other project (after the shawl) that I’ll finish by July 31. It’s only a four round repeat, and it’s very easy, but I’m tracking my progress in KnitCompanion so that I don’t have to think about it at all when I get to the second sock. I have about 2.5” to go before I start the toe decreases.

This is a Year of Projects post. Officially the Group is in its 15th year, my second. If you would like to find out more about the Year of Projects Group on Ravelry, please join in the fun!

Environment Evolution

I have a couple topics to share here, both causing me some intense frustrations. On the outside, I’ve been struggling to keep my yard under control. The weather really isn’t cooperating – and then roll some aches and pains into the mix, and it’s just plain hard. A week ago I was able to get outside and mow about 2/3 of the lawn and then the battery on my mower was depleted. Note to self: charge that battery between mowing sessions! It’s not rocket science! It didn’t help that midway through my efforts, a semi-random jerking movement in my arm sent my shoulder pain through the roof and I had to just stand still for 6-7 minutes to let the throbbing subside.

Then it took until Saturday morning before I had the energy and opportunity and fair weather to get out there again. While I should have gone over the whole yard again since the battery was fully charged, I opted instead just to pick up where I left off because the center of the lawn was ridiculously overgrown. What had already been mowed wasn’t completely out of control. Of course, the rest of the weekend we were inundated with rain. We’ve got more rain due today, so I’m planning to cover the yard in full tomorrow. At least now it’s all in the same length “vicinity”!

But while I was walking across the width of the yard, I was becoming increasingly annoyed and embarrassed by the state of the weeds that “decorate” the front of my house. When the season started, I could have addressed all of this more easily, but I wasn’t in the headspace for that work. While I’ve understood the mechanics of mowing for most of my life, the gardening concept doesn’t come naturally to me. When I bought my house, I really enjoyed the patch of Lilies of the Valley that lived on the corner. Twenty-five years later, they’ve taken over a lot more real estate in the bed. And the evergreen shrubs that used to flank my porch overgrew the house and then died. There might be some hostas in there, but it’s hard to tell because the weeds are so tall and everywhere. This will be a bare-minimum project at least until the excessive heat subsides so I can do a better job of weeding. Meanwhile, I’m watching lots of YouTube videos to be prepared at the end of this season and the start of the next, making use of cooler weather to really get this under control.

So that’s what’s happening outside. Inside, I’m ready to scream – in fact, I think I did scream a few times over the weekend. On Friday, late morning, I was on a conference call with a couple colleagues, and my internet dropped. Thankfully I was done presenting, and since I’d been having difficulty with my connection being unstable, I was using my phone’s Zoom app to stay connected for sound (listening and talking). It took about 45 minutes of back-and-forth with a customer service rep for my ISP before I went to my front door to find a hang tag from a tech that stated my internet service had been disconnected “due to signal leakage.” No notice. No offer to check things inside my house. No nothing – and there also wasn’t even anything on my account record since the CSR didn’t know about this until I shared the news.

And the kicker: the earliest they can schedule me (from noon on Friday) is Wednesday morning. I work from home. They don’t care. I have a number of smart home devices, not to mention a WiFi based home security system. They don’t care. No internet for 4.5 days – that’s their idea of service.

Yeah. I’m switching my internet provider. I ordered a new system from AT&T, but it’s been slow to get processed. (As of Monday evening, UPS doesn’t yet have possession of the package though the label was created early Saturday morning. I’ll be heading over to a local store to see if I can pivot…

All weekend with less-than-favorable options for watching anything via streaming (either watch it on my phone or blow through my mobile hotspot data plan?), I ended up going old school and pulling out my Blu-Ray discs. Sadly, I couldn’t put my old Blu-Ray player to work since the remote has disappeared, and you need a WiFi connection to set up the app. Fortunately I was able to procure one rather cheaply at Best Buy. I’m going deep into my video stash to watch some of my long-time favorites. I started with Ashley Judd and Hugh Jackman in Someone Like You, and the last movie I watched on Sunday night was Patriot Games at the midpoint of the Jack Ryan set of DVDs I have.

Exploits in Exercise

Sadly, I’ve not gotten much exercise in quite some time outside of the normal workings around the house and on the job. I haven’t been to OrangeTheory in nearly two months, and the heat and rain have made it very difficult to go out walking, though I do what I can when I’m able. My biggest health issue right now is pain in my left shoulder. It started back in January and got worse in late April. I’ve been diagnosed with bursitis and rotator cuff tendinitis. (Apologies if I’ve shared this before) Just when I think it’s starting to get better, I move the wrong way or roll over in bed and WHAM – it hurts like the dickens. I need to schedule the physical therapy, as I know that’s the only way it’s going to improve. But it’s hard to make that a priority when work is in my face so much. I’ll get there… I hope!

Now to head over to the AT&T store and see what they can do for me. I’ll let you know how it turns out!

Knit on. 🧶