29 August 2008

A good week

What makes a week good for you?

In this good week, I got up pretty early every day so I could do one thing I WANTED to do for myself. You know, a little variation of the "put your oxygen mask on first before you assist others with theirs" bit of airline safety instruction. Two mornings I went walking. A couple mornings I permitted myself a little time for knitting with the early morning news & entertainment programming. And I've tackled a couple of those daily or weekly household tasks that it's NICE to do with some degree of regularity.

In this good week, I've eaten some pretty healthy things, and on a regular, planned basis! While this should be standard, right now it feels remarkable, as it has been a week of packing lunches, dinners, and/or breakfasts to go go GO. Today's lunch included a really fragrant white peach with blueberries and a dollop of really thick, plain yogurt. 23 more days to make it a habit, right?

In this good week's knitting, I finished off the Juno Regina. It's modified - a few repeats fewer, a little less wide (in pattern if not in actuality), the yarn is a little heavier (Ancient Threads TRI - a sock weight fingering). It's also a little shorter - about 63 inches unblocked. I didn't run out of yarn, also good. While I have enough left that I wished briefly I had knit the center span longer before I started the detail of the end pattern, I'm much better off than if I'd run out of yarn before I was done.

This weekend I will block it. It'll be the last time knitting will have little to no competition for the cutting table! Picture time will happen then, too, as the camera and the scarf are at different ends of my commute!

And finally, in this good week, I've been remarkably productive. I have managed to clean up my desk daily, so as to keep the chaos at bay. And I've really been able to keep up a modest degree of some balance in my week.

Looking forward to a GOOD weekend.

24 August 2008

Occupied Occupant

Classes begin soon, so blogging gets dumped in favor of knitting for the recreation time. I stopped in to do three things, so pictures, hastily:


Finished the Pomatomus sock. The yarn is Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn in Green Mountain Madness that was waiting patiently in the sock yarn bin.


Lousy close up, but there it is.



Among the several outings of the summer, I spent some time in Colorado.
Loved the mass of hiking markers here.



Nearing the end of a slightly scaled down Juno Regina for a gift. This photo is from the start. I've just that much left to go, or nearly. The yarn is a very pretty handpaint done in natural dyes - logwood grey and indigo. This will be a gift for one of my hosts in Colorado.


And while I did shop for yarn this summer (and I hope not to have been too indulgent an influence on Ms. Poetangel at Stitches MW), I curbed my purchased caffeine expenses mightily this sumer. This lovely, fragrant, and very thrifty bottle of Tea Masala has made some very nice chai. It's helping me through this box of loose tea I'd been neglecting.

There.
That's better.
I was starting to think it might look like I'd never again be an active blog resident.

14 August 2008

Not a complete spendthrift, it seems

It could be worth mentioning that I am not a Luddite. I may look like one, but blogging should certainly fly in the face of that notion.

This weekend my VCR gave up the ghost. Something fried, as not only did it fail to power up, but the cable/antenna boost it gave my aged television also disappeared. Perfect for fall, I thought. Some of the flexibility of summer permits a little too much casual and accidental vegging viewing. More time for NPR and listening to music.

This resolve was hastily dismissed on Monday night as I made my way home along a less traveled route and past a major shopping center. I was in Big Gadget Purchase Box Store and out with a VCR with DVD player and recorder, not within spitting distance of the budget plan which had me listening to the radio, before I knew where my planning genes had gone. Worth mentioning here that I have not ever had a DVD player and had long since removed Blockomoviester from my holiday card list the day they swept all their stores of VCR tapes and replaced everything with discs. Again worth mentioning that I do not fear changes in technology, I just don't care to ditch working equipment due to this aggressive sort of planned obsolescence.

The television I have is a wee bit old. I have been fortunate enough in my adult life to have only owned two very cast off televisions, both of which were gifts in which I was gracious enough to dismiss the pity/incredulity of the giver. (First - You don't HAVE? Then - You only have that little black and white thing?) This my second television only has little screw heads to which to attach your antenna/e or cable - two sets, VHF and UHF. Lovely little adapters help the coaxial cables talk to the television through the VHF route. And while the dearly departed VCR was new enough to come equipped with lovely little yellow and red, audio and video, right and left plugs, the VCR was flexible enough to still talk to the television through the coaxial cables while the rest went idle. I used the VCR to access the cable channels, and was delighted to learn that even replacement universal remotes that ignored the television worked nicely with the VCR.

Turns out that something else has changed in the planned obsolescence schemes, however. Newly purchased machine requires connections through BOTH the coaxial and the little yellow, red, audio, video, left and right plugs. I read through everything three times and then packed up the whole business. I returned everything to the Best Return Treatment Ever counter. That was the end of my impulse purchase moment, and I escaped unscathed.

I told them I'd come back when the television died.

Yes I do know about the February converter box issues.

I'm not going to act in haste this time. I'm thinking.

PS. I did remember to try sending the coax from the VHF straight to the wall - great VHF antenna boost. I think I trashed the old antenna, though, so UHF will have to muddle along without my attention.