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!

 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!

An Anniversary, of sorts

My first blog, Yellow Rose Ramblings, made its debut on January 25, 2003, or just over 18 years ago!  It was followed on December 16 of that year with Furball Farm, which may be a more accurate depiction of my life.  

I think we had 16 14 cats then - who knows?  It all runs together after a while.  I had to check with the old blog, and what a hoot that was!  We'd just found our late cat FullHouse when Furball Farm started.  He was a lovely 14 year old when he died, shortly before we moved to New Hampshire.

At one point, it seems that blogs were topic-specific, hence the separate blogs for cat tales and for the rest of my life. I never pretended to have a knitting blog because I am not a fast knitter, and I don't follow the "flavor of the month" yarn or designer on a regular basis.  The blog has always been more of a diary of what's going on, what I'm making or doing or growing, or even cooking - sort of a slice of my relatively boring life.

I've not been a prolific blogger the past few years - too much work, too little time, not enough knitting.  I blogged regularly on BlogCity, and when they went kaput the blog bounced around quite a bit, looking for a place to call home.  It seems very strange to end up where I started!

The grind of moving is over and now it's time to begin getting back to a normal life, doing the things I love. And along the way, I've begun piecing quilts, in much the same way I knit: too many projects going at any one time, and too many dancing around in my head.

2021 has a different feel to it.  I'm more energized and more ready to share what's going on.  I want to give the blog a little more space, a little more consideration, and perhaps even a little more love.  Heaven knows, the world can use all the love it can get, and KnitsWithCats provides me with the space to spread a little of that love around.

I want a do-over!

I think we can all agree that 2020 was not the year we expected.  It certainly wasn't the year I expected when last I posted - I'd done everything possible to ensure a good year - the food, the rituals, the cleaning - and it just had no impact whatsoever.  We had a pandemic that got longer and longer and still haunts us, we had an election that was contested for no reason, and I'm sure there were other issues that I've forgotten.

At any rate, even if I want a do-over, it's not going to happen, so it's up to me to make 2021 behave and be the very best it can be for me and those I love, wherever they are.

So, at the end of December, I didn't kill myself to have a spotless house (difficult when there's still some construction happening, and boxes to unpack), or to have the perfect "good luck" meal - except for black-eye peas, which are good anyway - or to observe the various rituals.  We had a quiet evening, drank Prosecco, toasted the New Year and watched "Lovejoy" on Acorn for hours. It was a grand start to 2021.

So we can never speak of it again, and so I have a list of photos to post in the coming weeks, here's a wrap for 2020:

1. Spent way too much time working.  The Paycheck Protection Program and other bills targeting COVID-19 economic issues had us (my team and I) working 70 hour weeks for way too many months.  I did manage to take a lot of Fridays off, due to the company policy that limits my vacation carryover to 40 hours.  That has to be taken by March 15, so Friday off will continue.

2.  We did a lot of work on the new old house.  The master suite was finished and we moved into the bedroom and office, as well as a couple of closets.  I love the deck, and the view.  

3.  Despite our excellent timing (ripped the kitchen out starting March 1) we managed a complete kitchen remodel by the end of August.  We changed the orientation of the kitchen, ripped out 4 walls, created an eating area, a den, and a laundry room, and we love it!

4. Knitting and quilt piecing mostly did not happen.  I spent hours sitting at night holding my knitting needles and yarn, totally unable to knit even 1 stitch.  Still, I managed to finish 1 sweater that needed 2 seams sewn for 5 years, and 1 sock.  Embroidery also stood still.  Somedays I was able to stitch 1 length of floss, but not more.

I was so envious of knitters and quilters on social media who posted a new sweater or sock or quilt or other project every week or so.  Due to the issues mentioned above, and the fact that work was more intense when we all worked from home and couldn't go out, I was less productive than in many years.

5. My first New England vegetable garden was a success, much to everyone's surprise.  Tomatoes that weight almost 2 pounds, Rainbow chard that produced until Thanksgiving, lots of lovely basil - I can't wait to plant again in 2021.

So here's to blogging more often, and reconnecting with the self I feel has been pushed aside.  She's ready to come back and be present and connect with people in 2021!

  

  

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I'm not *really* superstitious, but it seems that there are traditions around New Year's Day that really should be observed, you know - just in case.  So in that vein, I made sure the the "first foot" over our threshold was a handsome dark-haired man (Ken); I let the old and new moon shine on silver coins; carried bread, wine, a clementine, knitting, salt, and wood over the threshold myself.

Today we'll dine on ham, sauerkraut, yellow-eye peas (no black-eye peas in any local markets), and okra.  That's the southern part.  Cheesecake for the New Yorker.  The sauerkraut counts for the German, I think.

I've neatened my knitting and am ready to start a new project - not that all the old ones are finished.  I've got 2 recently finished but unblocked projects in the wash now, and will block them in the unfinished master suite where the cats can't get to them in a few minutes.  I found a counted cross stitch I started before Ken and I got married (19 years ago) and will restart it so I can finish it before our 20th anniversary.  I've read, chatted with family, played in the snow. If this is beginning as I mean to go on, this will be a good and fun year.

Winding Down

It's November already, and the year is winding down.

It's been a year of changes for me - lots of big changes, not all expected - and yet somehow, life seems to move smoothly on, as it should.

As reported before, we made the huge move from the San Francisco Bay Area to a tiny town (population 4,798 or so) in south central New Hampshire. This is the source of most of the changes!

     - We moved from an "old house" built in 1948 to an "antique" house, where the original part was built in 1790.  There are also 3 or 4 additions, all done at different times and in different styles.

     - We'd lived there for 20 years, and knew our way around; now we have to rely on a GPS for trips to new places. This is disconcerting, and I'm excited every time we go somewhere and don't need the GPS.

     - Snow? I haven't ever really been exposed to snow, other than  the few times I've gone to Lake Tahoe or another ski area.  Forecasts are calling for a cold and snowy winter here!  Indeed, we had flurries that didn't stick on Friday and actual snow is expected 2 or 3 days this week.

     - The house needed rather more work than the inspection called out. So far, we've dealt with a rotting support beam in the basement, and the posts that were sinking into the rotting wood (now we know why that part of the hall floor felt a little unstable), lots of wood rot around the garage windows and siding that was uncovered when the rotting upstairs deck was being repaired, the side door (which is the one everyone uses) was installed incorrectly and the moulding was disintegrating on all four sides, 2 of the 3 chimneys need to be rebuilt (one is done and the other will be done in the spring) because the mortar is missing between many of the bricks...you get the idea.

     - We've also embarked on the first batch of remodeling projects.  We had a new 8 x 16 foot shed built, in hopes of getting more stuff out of the garages so we can get cars in.  So far, that hasn't happened, but we did finally find my liquor stash and our stash of fancy balsamic vinegars and flavored olive oils.

     The upstairs deck has been repaired and is now safe, and ready for use next spring.  We'll be using it a lot, I hope, because the new master suite opens onto it.  The contractor started putting up sheetrock today and I think we might be moved in by New Year's!

Work continues to be a challenge and a joy.  I am really lucky to enjoy what I do and to have such great folks to work with.

Finally, knitting is fun again.  For much of the last year, I've been too stressed to even enjoy my hobbies.  Knitting, sewing, embroidery, reading - none of them could hold my interest.  I am happy to report that I've read 2 books since Friday, and finished a shawl and cowl in October.  Photos coming, I promise.

So Much Has Changed...

...since my last post!

We sold our house in CA, bought a house in NH, and moved 3300 miles across the country.  We shipped a full tractor-trailer truck load of stuff*, shipped our cars, and yes, shipped our cats.  In fact, we did all this in less than 6 weeks!

This is my happy place - the view from the kitchen!

I promised myself a vacation if I pulled this off, and so we made the move via Amtrak's California Zephyr, in a sleeper car bedroom.  Someone cooked for us, told us when to eat, and catered to most of our whims.  We spent one lovely day in Chicago with Ken's oldest friend and saw lots of sights and ate an absolutely wonderful dinner at Blackbird before boarding the Lake Shore Limited for the final leg to Boston.  The train trip turned out to be the best vacation ever - I didn't accomplish a darned thing, but I did take many wonderful naps!

The socks in the photo below were finished today (proof of finishing photos to come), and my knitting mojo seems to be back - finally.  I'm finally able to read a bit, although nothing terribly deep or intense - which is a relief.  My stress-level is so much lower than it has been in years; I'm actually shocked that I can sleep all night and sleep for 7 or 8 hours!  I haven't slept that long consistently since I got out of high school.

We are finding our way around the area.  What did people do without GPS?  Cell phone signals are awful at the house, so we are looking at different providers.  We've figured out the transfer station for garbage, getting deliveries of fuel oil and going to town on weekends to do serious grocery shopping.  Thank goodness for Amazon, eBay, and LLBean. It's nice to be able to order and get items a day or 2 later.

*I am still stunned at how much stuff we moved.  We got rid of more than 4 full truckloads with 1-800-GOT-JUNK, gave stuff away, donated truckloads of clothing and household goods to St. Vincent de Paul, and we still completely filled a tractor-trailer!  About 300 boxes and lots of furniture were household items and my knitting, sewing, quilting, and book stash.  There were also about 200 boxes of stuff from Ken's shop and garage!  More about unpacking later!