Back From the Abyss

Okay, it wasn't the biggest abyss I've ever been in, but the past few days have been "challenging". And I am having a hard time describing exactly why, which is frustrating as well. And I'm not about to say that I won't feel that way again tomorrow, but for today, I feel great!

I decided to work a couple of extra hours this morning, so I went and did that. Only two hours talking to the Stupid People wasn't so bad, in fact the time just kinda flew by. I finished the cuff of my second Lana Grosse MegaBoots snock and then it was time to go home! I went to church and knitted another 30 rounds on the snock, which always makes me feel productive. And then we came home to the yummy smell (and taste) of dinner from the crock-pot. My friend told me about a new recipe last night and I decided to try it. It was very yummy, although there are a couple of tweaks I would make to it. I can barely boil water, so for me to actually cook something edible is quite the accomplishment.

After lunch, I decided to tackle a sewing project. I make felted handbags out of recycled wool sweaters, and I had a huge box full of unused sweater parts that were starting to get on my nerves. So last night I ran them through a wash cycle and this morning I laid them all out to dry and block. When we came home from church, some were still a bit damp, so I threw them all in the dryer to finish. And then I sat on the living room floor and cut out blanket squares. I have made many many polar fleece scrap blankets, and I used the same blanket square pattern as I use for those. I wound up with 30 squares, and some bits left over for the next go-round. Every 12" square is pieced in either two, three, or four pieces. My next step is to lay them out on the floor and decide how I want them to go together. The stitching-up part is always the part I hate the most though, because wrangling a growing pile of squares is a bit tricky. And as I've never done a wool one before, I reckon this one will be even more so.

I also dived into the fabric stash (yay stash-busting!) to get polar fleece blanket squares for my nephew. My mom mentioned that he likes SpongeBob, and I actually found a 3/4 yd piece of SpongeBob fleece. Well, that's not big enough, so I went looking some more and came up with three matching solids to put with it. I've cut out as many squares as each piece of fabric would yield, and now comes the fun part of piecing it all together. I do both 12" and 6 1/4" squares. Obviously the smaller ones make a 12" square when 4 of them are pieced together. I've never photographed any of my fleece patchwork blankets although I've made over a dozen of them. I gave one to MCM two years ago for Christmas, and that's the only one I'd really like a photo of. I'd like to have it back, but I have the feeling it's already been thrown away, along with the wool snocks I made him earlier this year. *sigh*

My house is still a mess. My kitchen needs serious cleaning, and all my piles of projects have taken over the living room. I haven't folded this week's laundry yet, and the only reason the trash got taken out is because I asked the DD to do it. But I am still happy. I've gotten things done, I've gotten things started, I actually cooked food that was edible and hasn't made anyone sick yet. I worked two hours today so that I can leave early another day this week, and it feels so good! I never know how long these good feelings are going to last, so I have to really enjoy them, and try to analyze how they come about. Life isn't always crappy. I wish I could remember that . . . . . .