Kninja Knitter

I didn’t get a ton of knitting done, but it also wasn’t a quiet week.

Stitched or Still-in-Progress

I didn’t have a lot of time to knit this week, so only a couple projects got any attention. I managed to finish the first sock on my rainbow striped pair, and I cast on its mate in time to take it to the theater!

Cast-on Conversations

And because October is rapidly coming to a close, I had to make time for a pink project to knit for the Down Cellar Studio Pigskin Party’s challenge. Because this challenge has a 200-yard minimum, I opted for something that would allow me to double-up on yardage. This hat pattern is designed for worsted weight yarn, and I found some pink stash in a sport weight. I’m in good shape to finish by EOD on Friday.

Grandson Glimpses

I had some bonus time with the little guy this week. I got a text Thursday afternoon asking if he could stay with me that evening as well due to some family drama. I certainly wouldn’t decline the offer for extra time with him! I went home after choir practice and waited for them to arrive. Thankfully, the requisite meltdown when mama went to leave didn’t last long. We had a mostly pleasant evening, and he went to sleep pretty quickly.

Of course, I had to work the next day. And that proved to be challenging indeed. For most meetings, I could handle having him on my lap, playing with an alternate keyboard or post-its and a pen. The one call where I needed to focus, share my screen, and type as I processed what team members shared, I had to send him to the living room where The Wiggles were singing, whether he was there or not. Well, as you may have guessed, he got into a bit of mischief. When I finished my calls, I had to deal with this:

Once we got to lunch time, I could step away from the computer more easily to keep him entertained. I handled a lot of messages on my phone, and after we ate, he went down for a nap.

Friday evening, we headed over to the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium to enjoy their Boo At the Zoo event. After we got to the parking lot, I got him into his costume. Flying solo with him, the best I could manage with the makeup was to dab on a nose. That was good enough!

As I shared last week, he was Chase from Paw Patrol. An animated German Shepherd character, Zayne was quite happy to walk through the zoo in costume. Other kids there were thrilled to see his costume, too. One kiddo, also dressed up as Chase, asked to give him a high-five. He wanted to see the tigers, but none were out. We did see an elephant, and we stopped to see some of the birds in the Asia Quest section of the zoo.

Because it was just the two of us, we didn’t do a whole lot. We grabbed some dinner after walking around Asia Quest, and then we made our way to the Trick or Treat Trail. He’s not quite hip to the “trick or treat” manner of begging for sweets, but he’s always quick to say thank you! Sadly, he’s not tall enough to ride most of the rides here. Maybe next year…

This week we’ll have the neighborhood trick-or-treat night, and we should be able to do a more extensive face paint experience for that, since mama can keep his head still for me! Sit tight and more photos will come next week!

One last fun tidbit from this visit: he finally got to visit my basement, lol. After he wet pretty much everything in the bed Thursday night, we tossed everything in the washing machine to get clean. Then he accompanied me when it was time to move everything into the dryer, and again as we collected everything to bring back upstairs. He was amenable to adding his beloved blankets to the laundry, so I was fine with him joining me in managing their journey from “stinky to smelling nice!”

Tail Talk

No photos here, but I had a briefly harrowing experience this morning as River bolted out the back door after I’d left it open too long. Fortunately, she bolted to the closed side of my property, which is well fenced in. She made her way under a patio chair and meowed incessantly for several minutes. When I finally shifted the chair away from her, she bolted again – this time, back up the stairs and into the house.

I do think she knows she’s living a cushy life now, having food spit into a bowl for her every few hours. And while she may never be a lap cat, having lived “on the streets” for so many years, she enjoys being petted. So perhaps this was a singular occurrence that she won’t repeat. 🤞🏻

Soundscape Sessions

This week, I made it back to the Ohio Theater to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. This was my motivation to cast on the second sock and finish the toe ahead of my drive downtown. The show was delightful, and there were some really cool effects! I’d be very interested in a Behind the Scenes segment explaining the ones that were less obvious,

The next show on the schedule in November is Some Like It Hot, which I’m only loosely familiar with. Maybe I’ll do some research, or perhaps I’ll just go and enjoy the show. At least I’ll be able to keep my season seat for this one! (I’ve had to change so many of my seats because my season ticket conflicts with church choir rehearsal. For November, though, we’re canceling that rehearsal due to our accompanist’s conflict.)

Random Ramblings

One last bit of news from the past week: I finally “broke down” and got a MacBook computer. I’ve been a PC girl my whole life, but I’ve had an increasing number of issues with my laptop, and the anti-virus software is expensive and I’m getting incessant notifications from the software provider to promote add-ons. Given my experience in the tech industry, I don’t find much value in those add-ons. And even though I repeatedly click the “Don’t Remind Me” box on those notifications, they keep coming. Blech.

I have several iDevices (my phone and a couple tablets), so some setup could be done easily via iCloud, and there’s another utility to migrate some things from the PC as well. I did have to reformat my external hard drive, so thankfully I had another copy of those files elsewhere, too. But now I can offload a bunch of things from my Google Drive.

Some people can’t handle computer work that isn’t work related unless absolutely necessary. I am not one of those people. Computers have been a part of my entire adult life, and I find them particularly useful. I get annoyed that my iPad can’t do some things, but I’m grateful for the alternate resource to use. I was also glad that my recently acquired Bluetooth keyboard and ergonomic mouse also work with the MacBook.

Perhaps I’ll make a little more time to put together some digital scrapbook pages to share – I’m still working on the photo book pages from my 50th birthday adventure, so I could share a few snippets.

Knit on. 🧶