photo of the day

photo of the day
winter scene

Sunday, December 31, 2023

Ringing out 2023

2023 was a interesting year, not necessarily in the Chinese curse way of "may you live in interesting times". The times were interesting, and on balance it was a good year.  

* The IRS said it owed me money (not a lot, but I'll take it!)

* I retired after working full time since the mid-70s! Totally strange and disconcerting.

* No resolutions tonight, no customs to guarantee a good year, just hopes and good intentions to make it so.

And now I'm going to do something I haven't done in at least 15 years when home: I'm shutting down my electronics for the evening to spend some lovely time with my honey.

Happy New Year!

 

Tuesday, November 14, 2023

Some Progress!

I've been retired for 5 weeks now, and can report that last week I started not hating it!  I still miss the regimentation of a work schedule and haven't gotten myself into a new schedule, but some of the irritation of prior weeks is gone.

Last week was huge in the grand scheme of retirement projects. My boxes of fabric and yarn and other crafting supplies are no longer in the unlighted, unheated shed and are instead all over the house.  There are 97 of them, but so far I've found at least 12 that are not crafting at all, and some aren't even my stuff. I am doing a review and purge of each box before moving things into the sewing room, and it's amazing the things that moved with me. It's overwhelming, but I'm trying to deal with 2 or 3 boxes a day.

The first box of fabric had several 3 or 4 yard lengths of 60" wide wool and wool blends, clearly destined to be pantsuits or skirt suits for work in the financial district of San Francisco!  Since that's no longer a priority, and I have plenty of pantsuits, that fabric will be donated. There are several more boxes with similar contents. 

Some of the yarn boxes are filled with single or 1-2 skeins lots bought to knit baby sweaters for my nieces and nephew, all of whom are in their 30s now and who are parents to my grand nieces and nephews, most of whom are already pre-teens. I will be donating that yarn as well although I will be keeping most of the sweater sized lots for the time being.

I have been knitting most nights, and other times too, and I've been invited to join a couple of knitting groups!  These socks were finished in early October and I love them - Opal of some sort, my standard pattern except that I did the heels turns differently because I forgot which one I used on sock 1!  I don't think it matters, and I did want to try different ones at some point. The colors are much more "southwest", more rust or cinnamon than tan.  One of yesterdays boxes was sock yarn; at least 2 dozen Opals, and I know there's another box of Opal somewhere!

The weather has rather suddenly turned gray and cold, nasty really, with strong winds that make it unpleasant to be outside for very long.  I don't remember previous Novembers being like this and neither do my Facebook memories; I hope it returns to the normal crisp autumn days before winter really sets in.  I notice it more now than when I was working because there are things I'd do outside if it wasn't so raw and dreary.

That's all for now - another update with another finished project very soon!

Thursday, October 19, 2023

 The More Things Change...

It's been a while since I last posted, and it's time to try again.  This time there's a better chance that I can keep it up because I just retired from my wonderful, crazy-making, demanding job after 15 years!

That's 15 years working for this company, and a total of 55 years working - yeah, it was time. And it's been hard.  I first told my boss I would be retiring by mid-March, then end of June, then August 5, then September 5, and finally October 6.  Difficult for me to stick to a date - there's always something going on at the office, and I loved my team and the work that we did.

So what do I expect to post about now?  In no particular order:

  • Knitting
  • Piecing quilts
  • Reupholstering furniture
  • Resuscitating my sour dough starter and making bread
  • Learning Italian
  • Gardening
  • Genealogy
  • Unpacking the final boxes from our move
  • General sewing
  • Needlework (needlepoint, crewel, embroidery)
  • Touring New Hampshire
  • Getting a Ham Radio License
  • Reading more books
  • Learning to weave - I have 2 looms, so it's time!
  • Finishing the living and dining room, also tv viewing area
I'm sure there are other things too.  Short term things, like getting my office rearranged and turned into an exercise studio/office and organizing my sewing room better.  Cooking more - and more meatless meals - is high on my list.  Getting out to meet people; Covid made it very hard to meet people right after we moved here and making friends has been slow.  

I've been nervous about not working and hoping that all that free time doesn't turn into time spent on the computer.  That would be just like work!