Not the best start to my workweek, but at least I'm not putting things off for tomorrow
It wasn't really the reading that screwed my Monday up -- it was the yarn detangling.
See, the purple-and-turquoise striped-sock was reaching the point where both skeins were collapsing and tangling, so Sunday morning at the gym I spent half my cardio time winding the turquoise into a ball rather than knitting as I strode. And I planned to come home and finish the job by dealing with the purple, only I fell asleep on the love seat. Monday morning after breakfast I had one book to finish (and I expected it to be a quick read) and I thought I'd do a little plain stockinette knitting while I read -- but I'd get that skein of purple yarn properly wound into a center-pull ball first. (I had been knitting from both ends to do the toes and heels of this pair of socks, and I'd just been using the original KnitPicks ball instead of rewinding it to something that would behave itself a little better when using both ends at once, so by this point it was hopelessly snarled.)
I do not know when I settled down to start working on that tangle of yarn -- but it was before 10am. And I didn't finally finish unsnarling it until 2pm. (There's one tiny knot remaining that I'm probably just going to cut out and splice when I reach that point -- but I was too sick and tired and dealing with the yarn by that point to worry with it.) So, yes, it ate my day -- I went to Grandma's and then to the grocery store after that, but I had woken up so early I was too tired to do anything else with my day.
So it's been another of those Tuesdays where I'm doing Monday stuff -- but at least I had a good productive morning, and a decent amount of sleep last night...
This was Thursday after they finished digging and left us with caution tape that I had to get past to leave for work that night.
And here's the damage done to my roses. Note the big heap of mud in the flowerbed slightly to the left of where the trench runs -- that's burying the tiny Peace rose. And a bunch of mud was shoveled up against the Snowfire to the right of the gap. Also a bit was broken off the Mr Lincoln at the left end, and I'm not sure how they did that.
I took this photo of the Ebb Tide this morning. Given how many leaves remain healthy and green, I'm thinking enough roots survived to accept the transfer to the pot and continue to draw moisture for the plant. The wave of yellow is very sudden and seems to be an outbreak of black spot (caused by a weekend of rainy chill and the plant's resistance having been weakened by its abrupt transplanting). I sprayed it with Neem oil and removed a number of the worst affected leaves.
Also, note how this plant tilts to the side. When I planted the bare root plant in the flowerbed last February, only the sprouts facing towards the sun flourished, but the plant's lopsided structure wasn't obvious with the vigorous growth pointing to the front of the flowerbed. Now that it's in a pot instead of firmly rooted in the ground, it's tilting and leaning its canes on the edge of the pot. I rotated it so that the sun is hitting it from what used to be its rear, in the hopes of getting some of the canes to lean back towards the trunk. I may deliberately give it another week or two before putting it back in the flowerbed, to see if I can retrain it to straighten up a bit.
The Peace rose (which, recall, has been fighting for life since the day I planted it, having had the bark cruelly stripped from its canes by nibblesome bunnies before I got it into the ground) was half-buried by mud and stepped on besides. The largest healthiest cane was broken off and had to be pruned away. Yet leaves remain green and the bud is starting to open, so I feel compelled to let it try to recover from this latest insult.
And the final aggravation committed by the plumbers was only half filling in the trench after the city inspector had come by on Friday to sign off on the replacement line (or approve the work or whatever it was the inspector had to okay). Mom or I are going to have to get out there with a shovel and finish the job ourselves. And then at some point I'm going to put the Ebb Tide back where it belongs.
This would have more stripes if I hadn't lost knitting time to skein-detangling and ball-winding. And I made a point of including that tidy purple cake and neat turquoise ball in the photo, because those were accomplishments.
Very nearly finished with this pair, even just working on it while visiting Grandma. Once it's done, I'm going to work on the Ballyronan Cowl until I get it done -- or until something else feels like a higher priority.
I'm debating whether or not I should be calling my doctor's office to make an appointment. The three things I've gotten done the last several years have been A) blood work, B) Pap smear, and C) flu shot -- but I got the blood work done through the Blueprint for Wellness thing, I think I'm supposed to be dialing back the Pap smears to once every three years now, and the flu shot I can get from work or any old drug store. (Last year my doctor didn't have the flu vaccine in stock when I came in to see her, so I would up getting it on Halloween when I went to a pharmacy to get a small light bulb for my electric jack o'lantern and avoid the Wal-Mart madness.) I suppose I might as well...
I am very pleased with that tree on my thumb. My main quibble with this mani was that I was using crappy decal leaves instead of freehanding them -- so, a skill to work on.
And you can see that the polish pen I was using to draw the tree cracked when it dried -- and more so when I added the clear topcoat. It actually kind of works to signify bark texture, and I think I'm going to have to draw a spooky tree on at least one Halloween mani next month.
This week's mani is pumpkins -- pumpkin decals on the fingers, free-handed pumpkins on the thumbs, and a jack o'lantern face on the left thumbnail drawn with the polish pen (that looked quite a bit better before I tried adding yellow highlights to indicate a candle flame within).
And I need to get my clean laundry out of the dryer before I can crash for a brief nap before work. At least I don't have to make my bed...
Crossposted from Dreamwidth with
comments made.
See, the purple-and-turquoise striped-sock was reaching the point where both skeins were collapsing and tangling, so Sunday morning at the gym I spent half my cardio time winding the turquoise into a ball rather than knitting as I strode. And I planned to come home and finish the job by dealing with the purple, only I fell asleep on the love seat. Monday morning after breakfast I had one book to finish (and I expected it to be a quick read) and I thought I'd do a little plain stockinette knitting while I read -- but I'd get that skein of purple yarn properly wound into a center-pull ball first. (I had been knitting from both ends to do the toes and heels of this pair of socks, and I'd just been using the original KnitPicks ball instead of rewinding it to something that would behave itself a little better when using both ends at once, so by this point it was hopelessly snarled.)
I do not know when I settled down to start working on that tangle of yarn -- but it was before 10am. And I didn't finally finish unsnarling it until 2pm. (There's one tiny knot remaining that I'm probably just going to cut out and splice when I reach that point -- but I was too sick and tired and dealing with the yarn by that point to worry with it.) So, yes, it ate my day -- I went to Grandma's and then to the grocery store after that, but I had woken up so early I was too tired to do anything else with my day.
So it's been another of those Tuesdays where I'm doing Monday stuff -- but at least I had a good productive morning, and a decent amount of sleep last night...
This was Thursday after they finished digging and left us with caution tape that I had to get past to leave for work that night.
And here's the damage done to my roses. Note the big heap of mud in the flowerbed slightly to the left of where the trench runs -- that's burying the tiny Peace rose. And a bunch of mud was shoveled up against the Snowfire to the right of the gap. Also a bit was broken off the Mr Lincoln at the left end, and I'm not sure how they did that.
I took this photo of the Ebb Tide this morning. Given how many leaves remain healthy and green, I'm thinking enough roots survived to accept the transfer to the pot and continue to draw moisture for the plant. The wave of yellow is very sudden and seems to be an outbreak of black spot (caused by a weekend of rainy chill and the plant's resistance having been weakened by its abrupt transplanting). I sprayed it with Neem oil and removed a number of the worst affected leaves.
Also, note how this plant tilts to the side. When I planted the bare root plant in the flowerbed last February, only the sprouts facing towards the sun flourished, but the plant's lopsided structure wasn't obvious with the vigorous growth pointing to the front of the flowerbed. Now that it's in a pot instead of firmly rooted in the ground, it's tilting and leaning its canes on the edge of the pot. I rotated it so that the sun is hitting it from what used to be its rear, in the hopes of getting some of the canes to lean back towards the trunk. I may deliberately give it another week or two before putting it back in the flowerbed, to see if I can retrain it to straighten up a bit.
The Peace rose (which, recall, has been fighting for life since the day I planted it, having had the bark cruelly stripped from its canes by nibblesome bunnies before I got it into the ground) was half-buried by mud and stepped on besides. The largest healthiest cane was broken off and had to be pruned away. Yet leaves remain green and the bud is starting to open, so I feel compelled to let it try to recover from this latest insult.
And the final aggravation committed by the plumbers was only half filling in the trench after the city inspector had come by on Friday to sign off on the replacement line (or approve the work or whatever it was the inspector had to okay). Mom or I are going to have to get out there with a shovel and finish the job ourselves. And then at some point I'm going to put the Ebb Tide back where it belongs.
This would have more stripes if I hadn't lost knitting time to skein-detangling and ball-winding. And I made a point of including that tidy purple cake and neat turquoise ball in the photo, because those were accomplishments.
Very nearly finished with this pair, even just working on it while visiting Grandma. Once it's done, I'm going to work on the Ballyronan Cowl until I get it done -- or until something else feels like a higher priority.
I'm debating whether or not I should be calling my doctor's office to make an appointment. The three things I've gotten done the last several years have been A) blood work, B) Pap smear, and C) flu shot -- but I got the blood work done through the Blueprint for Wellness thing, I think I'm supposed to be dialing back the Pap smears to once every three years now, and the flu shot I can get from work or any old drug store. (Last year my doctor didn't have the flu vaccine in stock when I came in to see her, so I would up getting it on Halloween when I went to a pharmacy to get a small light bulb for my electric jack o'lantern and avoid the Wal-Mart madness.) I suppose I might as well...
I am very pleased with that tree on my thumb. My main quibble with this mani was that I was using crappy decal leaves instead of freehanding them -- so, a skill to work on.
And you can see that the polish pen I was using to draw the tree cracked when it dried -- and more so when I added the clear topcoat. It actually kind of works to signify bark texture, and I think I'm going to have to draw a spooky tree on at least one Halloween mani next month.
This week's mani is pumpkins -- pumpkin decals on the fingers, free-handed pumpkins on the thumbs, and a jack o'lantern face on the left thumbnail drawn with the polish pen (that looked quite a bit better before I tried adding yellow highlights to indicate a candle flame within).
And I need to get my clean laundry out of the dryer before I can crash for a brief nap before work. At least I don't have to make my bed...
Crossposted from Dreamwidth with
comments made.