Knitting boom
Dec. 20th, 2021 10:48 amRecently I went through my projects and was ruthless in deciding which ones I'd emotionally detached from and which ones I truly wanted to finish. After frogging the rejects, I actually had like, at least 10 projects I really wanted to finish. Here's what I've completed since like, end of November (minus this first one being Oct.):
Basic Raglan by Joji Locatelli
In Oct I mentioned in passing that I finished a sweater on the girls trip. When I finished it I thought it might be a little big, but it is SO cozy and I wear it all the time. It needed about a fourth of the bottom and both sleeves:

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All in all, I've done a LOT of knitting since mid-Oct and really since end of November. Which is nice, because I barely knit at all from like June until then.
My face and my knit
Sep. 22nd, 2021 02:02 pmI started this tank top in 2019 and finished it in 2020. My weight fluctuated enough that it was too small by the time I finished it. I set it aside, and I even slated it to try to give away more than once.
I’m glad I kept it, because now it fits so well! The armholes are a little unforgiving but it’s totally manageable. Which is good news because the color is so good and I love the pattern ^_^

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Movie marathon? Who are we??
May. 10th, 2021 02:18 pmYesterday Steve and I walked to Walgreens for a few things, and then up to Caribou for coffees. The weather was FINE, but it's still way too cool for my liking. Warm up, dammit!
On the way home we got to talking about TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), and he told me he'd never seen Secret of the Ooze. I was like "BUDDY! How have we made it 12 years into this relationship and you have not seen it EVER?!"
We own it on Amazon (I made some of my students watch it, haha), and on Blu-Ray (we own very few movies but Steve found it at a garage sale). I started it right when we got home. We had SUCH a good time marveling at how late 80's/early 90's it was — in dress, in music, in camera shots, in sound mixing. Every moment of that movie is amazing.
The soundtrack is a BANGER. Oh my god. And it's just a really funny, wholesome movie. David/Sancho said that the first TMNT got a ton of backlash from Mom groups for its violence, so the second movie doesn't even have the turtles directly use their weapons (instead there's a bunch of entertaining martial arts that is more distraction than violence). I love how the movie takes its time with scenes and absolutely doesn't take itself too seriously.
After it ended Steve was like "OMG I LOVED that. Wow. So good."
We realized we had momentum, so we decided to just make an evening of movies. We are NOT movie people, generally. It's so much effort to get going! But we did it!
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Vlogmas is where you record Day in the Life (DIL) every day until Christmas, and I also open a yarn Advent Calendar. This year's advent is from HighFiberArtz and I LOVE IT! I add all videos to a playlist, and if you're interested in spending ~15 minutes with me per day, check them out!
Pics of yesterday
May. 28th, 2020 10:54 amTo start, wanted to show you guys one of Nero's favorite spots to lay:

You can find him so often at the top of the stairs. XD
( More cat goodness and lunch stuff )
Got some yarn goodies! Happy to support these guys. <3 <3 They threw in the big tote as a gift!! I love it XD
( Lovelyyyyy )
Steve and I went for a leisurely, short walk. The city is FINALLY redoing our neighborhood roads, aafter 30 years of slapping pavement on top of the cracked stuff. The roads are getting torn up and are all hustle and bustle with big machinery, but I still got some pretty pics!
( Nature! )
Nero was very stubborn and ridiculous about being on my lap in the evening.

Bad pic but a bunny was helping out, eating dandelions in the yard:

It was Day 2 of my workout program, "Fun" day. So I did the walk and played lighter-hearted/less intensity ITG (because ITG will also be my day 3, Interval cardio) AND traded off with Steve every few songs.

Workout outfit:

( Workout! )
After showering, Steve and I got up to some fun even though we were both SO tired. I'm happy about how into me he seems lately! I'm always surprised! But omg we were both so sore. It was hot though! Then we made a pizza - it was a "croissant crust" from DiGiorno he wanted to try. He said they really lost out not calling it something like "CRUST-ssant!" XDD
After that, played a bit of Hearthstone battlegrounds together. This match here - I think this screenshot was the first time I went up against them. I was certain I'd lose - look at his board and health compared to mine! We ended up going head to head at least 6 times, tying most games and the rest I wore them down. I ended up taking first somehow!! It was awesome. My opponent also was having a silly fun time at the ridiculousness of our matchups, because it NEVER goes on that long. By our last matchup he had the one Big Boi up to over 100 attack and health!

Separately, in a meeting this morning, Mike told me that SPPS (Saint Paul) teaching staff received a gag order to not talk about the incident at all - with students or with staff. The FUCK. If they did that to us when Philando Castile was killed, I would have quit immediately.
In a meeting this morning, Mike, Jake, Alex, Sandy and I all talked about the shit going on in Minneapolis. Jake and Alex are on the up and up, Sandy's almost there, and Mike is focusing on the wrong thing ("Losing the contract with the U won't hurt the police force financially") - but Jake really nicely educated him on the "message" it sends, and Sandy pointed out that she used to work at a bank, and cutting off the relationship with the police force does hurt individual officers who used it as a part-time job.
Percentages
Feb. 15th, 2020 11:19 am60% Tiredness
25% Righteous Indignance
15% Annoyance
As he expected, I was indignant at first, but then when looking at the numbers, he's mostly not wrong. Although I guess the caveat is I'm not *angry* most of the time, and I laugh a lot. So it's like, don't take the list as me being a negative person. But stronger emotions come to people's minds first, right? I asked where laughter/joy is on that list, and he said it's embedded within Tired and Annoyed, because being tired is all encompassing, and I have an uncanny ability to be simultaneously annoyed by something but able to still see humor/recover quickly.
*I was telling him about the latest drama in the fiber community - a racist piece of shit with a huge following is releasing a yarn set called "polarizing" and all the colorway names make a mockery of the lived experience of marginalized folx.
76// Friiiidayyyy
Aug. 3rd, 2018 11:36 amAfter yoga I went home and showered quick before heading out to meet Steve for lunch. I was super hungry from not having eaten plus the yoga, so when we got to Jamba Juice, I decided to order a smoothie bowl for more substance. While we were eating/drinking, we sat in this random courtyard at the U of MN and did a couple raids in Pokémon Go and chatting about Steve’s day. And of course, because the world is weird and small, we ran into my old coworker Janice from Nokomis, the speech pathologist. She was apparently there with her daughter. We talked awkwardly for a minute and then she sat by herself and we sat across the courtyard. lol. I was there to hang out with Steve!!!!
When Steve went back to work and I went home, I was just waiting for him to come home. I ended up napping for a couple hours until he got back, and he was self-proclaimed crabby and I was worried about him! I tried to make him feel better with low to mixed success, and he decided to play a bit of ITG while I knitted and watched Parks and Rec. He had an okay day... at the very least he got some exercise in, which was good.
Nick came over soon after he finished playing and showering, and we went to pick up Naf Naf. I had eaten my leftovers from Olive Garden so I didn’t get anything. I spent the rest of the night finishing my sock #1 with the Totoro colorway, and I’m so excited to get started on the second one. It fits perfectly and looks so cute! Pics when I finish the second one. During that time, Steve finished Yakuza Kiwami and it was amazing. A+ game. The second one comes out at the end of the month, and Steve will def get it right away.
Sleep was difficult again, tossing and turning for hours, super anxious.
71// What a Saturday
Jul. 28th, 2018 03:06 pmI started in the nearest town, and made a loop. The trip for me is 66 miles, and some people BIKE their route. Crazy!!

I’m so glad I went to my closest shop first, because they cheated and made TWO of the shawls, and their second version didn’t make it onto the picture of samples, and that one was my favorite, so I bought the base color from there. Then I went to Stillwater, which wasn’t that far but took a really long time due to construction, a wedding, and general idiocy of the people in town. Parking was a nightmare but I parallel’d my way in. I did get a great view of the St. Croix river and the weather was gorgeous.

This was cute.
One of the women said she thought my shawl “looks like a StevenBe original.” I told her the pattern was the local yarn shawl but that the yarn did in fact come from StevenBe!

After Stillwater was White Bear Lake. This shop turned out to be near Andy’s old tattoo studio, so parking was easy, though it was Dog Days so still busy, with the added bonus of puppies everywhere. The shop was not a shop I’d ever go to again, with grouchy signs about cell phones (Steve called me while I was in there and I started sweating) and a grouchy old lady running the place.
I talked to Steve while I headed to the next place, an area of Mahtomedi (mah-toe-meed-eye) I’d never been to before and super close to my house. Beautiful backwoods drive. Got lucky with parking. Enjoyed the shop, will go there again. Lots of compliments on the shawl, friendly people, good snack and drink selection (though I didn’t take any, I made a note for the future).
Ben and Sean had been in contact with us about possible hangouts, and after I stopped at home they confirmed they wanted to hang because they were in town for the weekend. I mentioned dragging them to two yarn shops and they were in favor of the detours.
After they picked us up, to Grand ave in St Paul we went! Got my yarn, bantered about the best color on the wall (Steve and I chose the same color - a teal - though I didn’t know his choice prior), and Sean argued the case of a burnt sienna and Ben voted for a navy blue. We determined there was hunger and walked over to Brasa. I’d only been there once before for my grandma’s birthday several years ago but it left a bad taste in my mouth because there are no vegan options and my mom complained about the lack of even vegetarian options (the logo IS a rooster, to be fair). Knowing that I could probably find something to eat as a vegetarian vs vegan, I wasn’t concerned. I chose the one vegetarian sandwich and the group got a bunch of sides in addition. I got the seasonal mango lemonade to drink, and I don’t even like lemonade but this was delicious. I was only able to consume half my sandwich, some plantains and chips, and I was bursting full.
Last yarn stop, 3 Kittens in Mendota. Another cute shop, signed up as interested in a shawl class by an intense old lady who was incredibly interested in a lot about me. She wrote down the name of my shawl and talked to me about the shop expanding. It was another good shop I’d like to take more time in. Sean and I walked around commenting on the yarn before the group headed to our actual destination: Mall of America of course.
For some reason, 5 star raids on the weekends always start later in the afternoon, but during the week they’re ready to go promptly at 8am. So weird. We got to the mall around 3pm, and after everyone went to the bathroom there was a raid ready to go right by us! We were all able to catch crappy Registeel, and then we sat at a table chatting and Pokémon Go-ing for like an hour. I was talking to Bethany and Haley about wedding stuff and to my cousin Morrigan about food stuff (he wants to lose weight but doesn’t want to try hard at all, mostly it was me confirming that NO KETO and giving suggestions). Eventually we got coffee (and Ben went and got Sean some Very Bad Tea because they screwed up her order) and wandered around the mall. We did stop into Air Traffic for awhile and Ben tried some of the juggling bags and we looked at the various silly puzzles. Soon after, I was feeling soooo tired and suggested we get moseying. I wasn’t trying to end hangouts by any means, but I wasn’t wearing the best walking shoes (converse) and my pinky toes were hurting. Steve reminded me that I needed to pick up my bridesmaid dress, and the lady made me try it on. It fits so much better with the strap shortened by like 2 inches and the hem brought up like 6 inches. The Asian lady said she loved the lace on my waist and said it made my curves look good, Steve and Sean approved, and Ben said it “is a very purple dress”. Hahaha.
When we got to the van, Sean mentioned something about wanting shelving from Ikea, and I was like, “well IKEA just so happens to be RIGHT THERE, wanna go??” And after some discussion about whether Ben’s friend/coworker Dustin was still playing in a magic: the gathering tournament, Ikea it was.
We wandered slowly around the living room and bed section, trying like every single couch and bed and chatting. Steve and Ben apparently talked about ITG and friend stuff (like that Ben wants to stream to ONLY US and why he doesn’t like other people, even other friends, to view the stream), and Sean and I talked a lot about housing desires, locations for living, future plans, and of course, The Compound*.
We cut the IKEA trip short when Dustin announced he was ready for dinner, and Ben drove us to Minneapolis to a place called WSK (World Street Kitchen), another place with basically one thing on the menu I could eat and yet sounded amazing (a crispy tofu dish). I was still somehow incredibly full from earlier even though it was like 9pm, but I suspected it was in part due to the fact that Steve ordered me a large coffee and I drank all of it. We met Dustin and Stacy, who were kind of geeky and maybe not the kind of couple Steve and I generally hang out with, but they grew on me over time for the most part. Mostly it was that Stacy made a few lame comments indicating her disdain and boredom while Dustin played in his tournament, and Steve and I are not the kind of people who participate in disparaging each other’s hobbies and interests and don’t like when people in couples do that. Be with someone you can support!!!! Otherwise, though, the conversation was good.
After we ate, it was noted that we were DEFINITELY getting ice cream, and the place to get ice cream was attached to WSK. It’s called MilkJam. And it is top tier ice cream. They have rotating flavors of amazingness, and the line was out the door. Ben said that the line was pretty short, less than 50 people, probably because it had just finished raining. Because we couldn’t each just try one flavor, Steve and I opted for the “flight of 4” which were smaller scoops to sample. You COULD order a scoop of all the flavors (like 12) for $58. We agreed on all the flavors to try, and in order of favorites: Cereal Killer, Mango Sticky Rice, Thai Tea and Uma Thurman. The cereal one surprised me at how good it was. It was a lightly orangey/milk flavored ice cream with crunchy (NOT stale or soggy) fruity pebbles in it, and I was brought back to my childhood so hard. The mango sticky rice was exactly like it sounded but the rice was firm and delicious. The Uma Thurman was a tart passionfruit something, and it was good, but it wasn’t my favorite. Now. The ice cream was suuuper creamy and yet not so rich it would give you a belly ache, and I definitely wanted SO much more immediately. Sean got the “dark” which was a decadent dark chocolate that tasted like the most perfect brownies you’ve ever eaten (again, smooth and creamy and yet not bellyache creating). I can’t believe I’d never been there or heard of it!!
Finally it was time to go, and Ben and Sean dropped us off. We weren’t ready to give up on the day though, so I worked on my current sock (using the Mei/Satsuki from Totoro colorway by Canon Hand Dyes) and he played some more Yakuza Kiwami. He’s made a lot of progress and is definitely getting close to the end. We finally called it around 12:30 and hit the hay.
*The Compound is a gigantic homestead that the four of us invented for our Ideal Housing Needs. It’s small enough that we live in the same area and can hang out all we want, but big enough where we can have our individual privacy and aren’t expected to spend all our time together. The idea is that with four of us, we can afford exactly what we want without breaking the budget, and because we’ve already tested (several times) smaller living together scenarios and they’ve been successes, we think we could actually be viable housemates.
Soooo that’s been my day. Miserable and in pain. When I was able to recover enough to think, which entails waiting an unknown amount of time for the pain to subside, I continued listening to Mindy Kaling, watching Chef’s Table, and knitting on my shawl. The day wasn’t a *total* bust.
When Steve got home, we ordered a pizza* and started watching The Incredibles, because I had bought us tickets like a month ago to see the 2nd one. It was really funny to watch the first one and think about how, at the time the movie came out, it was state-of-the-art animation AND the humor was fresh and unique and funny. Still a good movie, but there were several things that didn’t quite age well, including police officers shooting at a black man.
Once we finished, we had about 10 minutes to get to the theatre before the 2nd one started. We live that distance away so it was no biggie, but omg was the theatre PACKED. Like, the parking lot was INSANE with people driving like idiots and fighting over non-spots, and I discovered that at the end of the lot there were several spots. I parked and Steve admitted that I was 1000% right to buy tickets ahead of time** and made a funny comment about hurrying to get seats, when I had to remind the old fossil that when I bought the tickets, I picked out our seats too. Whew, no stress. We got a drink and I got a snack because I was still hungry, and we settled in just in time for the previews.
The animated short, Bao, was so damn cute and of course made me tear up. The guy next me said he didn’t get it, and Steve and I marveled at the insane food animation.
The movie was quite good, and I did like it more than the first one. It was funny and cute, and I was nerdily impressed that they were around the right age for the math that Dash was learning (percents/fractions/decimals and 1-step equations).
*We were on a time crunch, and for the first time in history, given no lead-in or prompting whatsoever, the pizza guy launched into a monologue about losing his expensive rayban glasses and hiding it from his wife??????
**Steve told me it was weird to order tickets ahead of time, and I informed him that not buying tickets and picking seats long before the movie was outdated and lame. Ben even talked about this issue way back in 2013 when pre-buying tickets was a new thing. It’s like, sorry grandpa, I don’t feel like showing up to a movie HOPING I won’t get stuck in the front row by myself. Gone are the days of needing to settle for crappy seats because you showed up late. This is the future, where you can choose the best seats ahead of time from the comfort of your own home.
My day was spent feverishly trying to test and get emails sent out, and by the end of the day I had a pretty bad headache, so I came home to a waiting Steve and tried to nap away my headache in the dark. The nap was unsuccessful because I realized I wasn’t tired, just low energy and kind of emotional. Eventually I sat back up and did some scrolling until Steve was kind enough to heat us up some dinner, more potato soup. Yummm. When he was gone I started thinking about how grateful I am that Steve has stuck with me, and how strong he is, and how much I love our life and how much I appreciate him. I mean I think that stuff all the time, but seeing Pat and Aimee for some reason really launched my head into a tailspin about how even though it was just 3 months ago, that all that feels like a completely different life, and I feel so divorced from that behavior, and a life without Steve is such a sad, empty, pathetic version of a life that is so pale and colorless. He makes my life so full of happiness and love, and I don’t want a life where he’s not in it. So all of that has been swirling in my head and he brought me down heated up soup and bread and I just started crying. He asked me what was going on and I tried to tell him, I hope I did an okay job. It’s hard to articulate all of my feelings on the matter and they just get so intense that apparently what I do now is cry. Lol.
After I calmed down and we talked about it, we ate our soup and enjoyed Kripp playing some Hearthstone, exactly what I want to be doing with my life, and precisely who I want to be spending that time with. Soon after, Nick came over. We chatted for awhile about this and that, and then put on The Office while Nick continued Uncharted and I got scolded for continuing to scroll and not knit, which was so valid. I really would rather be knitting, I think it’s just that I love the iPad so much, it’s hard to transition away. I knit a good chunk more rows on my LYS shawl. I’m about 1 and a half repeats from doing my first color change. The Hedgehog fibers yarn is GORGEOUS and soft and I love working with it. I continue to encourage everyone to take up knitting, it is such a fine hobby AND YOU GET TO USE WHAT YOU MAKE (or gift it, whichever). Like you make an actual textile and it is amazing, and super impressive to non-knitters. To be fair, a lot of it IS impressive. But still. ;)
YarnHarlot posted an entry recently where she was able to take horrible, cheap dishcloth yarn and weave two very nice scarves out of it, and it has made me even MORE excited to learn weaving with Sean next weekend at Sow’s Ear. Another fantastic use of yarn, can’t wait.
Noah and I texted a bit about our food consumption and MyFitnessPal. Noah is realizing that MFP underestimates calories and overestimates exercise. I explained that with my Apple Watch , my scores get wonky as the watch actually tracks my true activity, which can lower (or raise) my total amount of food to consume for the day. It’s kinda cool but also kinda confusing. I’m just aiming for a specific range at this point until I get a better grasp of my activity levels. But Noah sent me a super cute text that ended with, “thanks for excitedly doing this with me, it’s keeping me motivated to become a thinner dood.” Awwww. It was so sweet, but more starkly put into perspective how he lives in the middle of nowhere with only white racists and teenagers as company, and I want to be a good friend! And you KNOW how much I love a good motivational health regimen. What better way than with friends who need support?!
I forgot to mention yesterday that Steve and I went to Stephanie’s Yoga Flow class for anniversary and that was super good and fun. She moved a bit too fast for my liking, and she was as dopey as ever. I prefer classes with slightly less poses in favor of holding to get a deeper stretch. If you’ve ever tried to hold a pose for even 45 seconds, you know that *less* poses does NOT equal *easier* poses. Moving too fast just means that you can’t settle in, make sure you’re doing the pose correctly, with all its micro adjustments and muscle fatigue. But it was good to go for anniversary, and I really want to find a class that works for Steve. Maybe I’ll take him to hot yoga, since that’s the same poses every time and they are slow and drawn out. But still the opposite of easy.
Now I’m about to head to bed. Nick is still here but I think he def needs to head home relatively soon because he has to work, and Steve will probably stay up playing Owl Boy on the Switch, which we just got in the mail yesterday. Looks good so far!
I made us morning smoothies again, but this time I used a bit less water, and that made the smoothies more manageable. I didn’t have to cut down on the other ingredients so that was good. One side effect of the whole more vegan lifestyle* is the pooping. I already poop more often than the average person - you can guarantee that if I have time, I will poop twice before I leave for work, once at mid day, once when I get home from work, and once probably around dinner time. And that’s at a minimum. You might be able to say that my two morning poops are part of the same poop, and I’d allow it; I don’t have time to sit on the toilet for 45 minutes while my body remembers to move the next bit along. The good news is, I don’t have anything blocking me up, but it’s time consuming and like CALM DOWN BODY. I have never really been the kind of person who gets either diarrhea or constipated. Only when really sick or traveling. But with going ham on the fresh produce, I feel like I can poop every single time I go to the bathroom! This is really getting out of hand. XD I think i would be far less happy withy situation if I didn’t have a bidet. Seriously, if you don’t have one, look into one, get one immediately. No more insane, inefficient wiping! Just a few seconds of water and pat to dry and you’re good to go. Ahhhh.
Uh, so where was I? Oh yes, after breakfast. Steve and I wrote our respective entries for yesterday, which was a good lead-in for the real part of the day: anniversary. We showered and decided we were gonna go mini golfing at Can Can Wonderland. Yay! At the gas station I decided to double check the directions, and I noticed Google say that they are closed. Whaaaat? Go to the website and sure enough: Monday through Wednesday there is no wonderland to be had. Damn! Steve and I looked into a couple other places, but they wouldn’t be opening until 3. In the meantime, we wanted to get that ice cream we were craving. And by ice cream I meant soy ice cream. So we headed over to J. Selby’s. Steve rightly suggested we actually eat there since I was bound to hangry if we didn’t. Being mindful of our goals, I ordered the house salad and Steve ordered the vegan fried rice. Now, when I said “house salad,” did you picture iceberg lettuce, a couple tomato wedges and cucumber slices, a little red onion, croutons and ranch? Well, that just means you’ve never gone to J Selbys. Please behold the J House salad in all its glory:

Not only could this salad legitimately feed a family grazing before a holiday meal, but it was so rich with yummy ingredients that I could not have been happier. The dressing I got was a house-made lemon garlic tahini, and the croutons for the salad were also housemade. I ate probably slightly less than half. I did this by literally making my own mini salads using the plate that the condiments had come on, so that I could appropriately distribute each individual ingredient to my liking. I was very pleased with the result and the leftovers.
At some point during the meal it began to rain a decent amount, and Steve made a comment about maybe it wasn’t a mini golf day. Not to be deterred, I suggested we simply go to Mall of America to play at their okay course and walk around. Thankfully, he was agreeable to this and we headed out. The mall wasn’t super packed, and that was nice. It’s SO MUCH more tolerable on weekdays than weekends. We had a couple of false starts with the golf course but would circle away when we’d see like, a family of four just buying their game or a huge line forming. There were not enough people at the mall or playing the course to justify waiting behind people the whole time. That just allowed for some decent Pokémon Go (of course) and just general meandering around the mall.
Finally we got to play mini golf and I slowly and steadily kept falling further and further behind. At least for the first half. I was surprised to find at the end that I was only two strokes behind Steve (three if you don’t count a silly TERRIBLE mulligan attempt), who was still several over par. Not our best day, score-wise, but definitely top two experiences playing the course. The pars for each hole have clearly not been updated as the course has, because there are some ridiculous par 2’s that I would love to see someone get.
After mini golf, more Pokémon Go. I was able to secure a Latias this time, though it was still super close - I had been down to my second to last Pokéball. Phew. I did it! Lol.
Home was dinner - potato soup for me, relaxing with Steve reading more of Ben’s book out loud while I knit or comforted Grim. Ever since the tree fell on our house in 2015, Grim has been terrified of loud noises, and is the saddest most miserable cat in storms. When his anxiety gets too bad he usually will go downstairs and hide in the bathroom, but today he laid stiffly against me, pressing into my hand and being curled up so tight. No shaking this time though and he’s still on the bed. Noah and I texted a bit today about MyFitnessPal, eating and exercise, because being healthier is way more fun with friends.
Made a little progress on Steve’s sock. I thought I was closer to the heel than I was, but I was glad that I could just knit round and round still. His feet are so much bigger than mine, I constantly think I’m making them too big around, and then I put them on his foot:


All in all, I’d say a super solid anniversary. Definitely grateful to have Steve in my life and him to let me be a part of his. What a good life.
*most things I cook are vegan, or barely not-vegan. I don’t use eggs in my cooking and I rarely use cheese. If I do, it’s small-farm and not-cow if possible. When I get coffee though, 99% of the time I’ll just get half and half cream, because most nondairy dreamers are flavored and gross. The brand I buy for home is NOT heavily flavored and is delicious.
We took our time waking up, and then I made us some smoothies following Rawvana’s 5-day plan. The smoothies are mostly “green” and I know Steve likes fruit smoothies, but I thought it would be fun if we followed the plan together for the week to jumpstart our health process. Guys, the smoothies are hilarious. They make 60 ounces of liquid. Howwww are we expected to drink that much at one time?? I hate consuming a lot of liquids at once, and if you take too long with smoothies, they get frothy and thick, almost chunky. Steve was able to get his down and then decided to go mow the lawn. I decided to get going on lunch and try to finish my smoothie. Lunch is a Mexican salad, and it’s really good when you actually measure the ingredients right. I had a mishap where I actually used way too much cumin for one set of the salads and it made for sooo much intense salty flavor. But it was all right. Even though Steve took over an hour on the lawn, I still wasn’t finished with my smoothie by the time he came in. He stood over me while I finished it (lol) and then we ate our salads. Other than the extreme saltiness, it was good!!
Next on our agenda was to go to Steven Be yarns, because they were having a 25% off everything sale. Steven himself was there, along with his mom, and she is a very old first-generation German immigrant. She even referred to her marriage as “I married an American”. She told a slightly awkward but funny story about how her friend or sister had encouraged her to buy Steven a Barbie doll, and she refused and bought him a truck that he never played with, so for his next holiday the friend bought him a Barbie, which he loved and played with and made clothes for. His mom had her own yarn shop and obviously passed all that down to him. They made a book together and it was really cute, but the items in there are too intense for me - extremely textured, chunky yarns, flamboyant colors and combinations. But the stories in there were pretty neat.
The thing that is just a little too much about Steven Be isn’t that the store is overwhelming with choices - because even though that’s true, I love seeing so many options and samples, it’s that everyone is trying to be so helpful that it feels like when you’re at a garage sale and the sellers are eyeballing you hard while you look at stuff and you feel a huge pressure, like they’re gonna take it personally if you don’t like everything. I ended up only buying one skein of yarn, a beautiful gradient that I wanted last time but was too expensive for a single skein at $61. With 25% off plus 2 more percent bonus, it was far more reasonable.
It was hot as as balls out, my car sitting at 103*, but we really wanted to do some Pokémon Go. This week’s Advneture Week, where you get crazy experience for spinning stops you’ve never visited, so we drove around that area of Minneapolis for quite some time to find stops. Oddly, we found a cemetery that was just FILLED with stops. Feeling a little weird, I drove in there and we slowly drove past the stops we could, but eventually we got out and walked around to get the rest. We marveled at some of the massive headstones, sculptures, and crypts that were there, noting that as people stopped being able to afford the luxury of headstones (or as cultural views of grave sites shifted), many more recent sites only have the small flat slab. It was an interesting way to spend a half hour! There’s even a gym in the cemetery?? Just seems a little inappropriate, but I’m not complaining too much, we got so much experience from that one area.
After that, we drove around a bit more, stopping at random place for more pokestops and debating whether or not to get ice cream. Initially we totally were going to and even came across a random ice cream shop, but literally when we were going that way, the weather changed to be ominous, windy and dark, and threaten rain.
So we finished the raid we were doing in Pokémon go and decided to head to The Wedge for a couple of things. As I was turning the car around, I saw a couple people walking down the street. My head thought, “oh, that looks like Aimee!” And it took a few seconds for me to realize Oh wait, that’s Pat with her! And THEN my brain started to panic, because we were turning around right in front of them and ohmygodwhatiftheylookintothecarwhatdowedothen?! Steve didn’t look up or over to see them, and they didn’t look into the car. We drove for a few blocks while my brain screamed with anxiety and adrenaline, and I debated whether to tell Steve. I made a basic pros and cons list, because I was the only one of the four of us who knew this happened, and what a crazy near-miss it was. We had JUST been on that street, and if we were 20 seconds later getting into the car or they were 20 seconds earlier, we would have walked right into each other. And it would have been the worst. I never want to run into either of them, anywhere. Too scary, too awkward, too terrible. In the end I decided to tell Steve, because I didn’t want him to think I was keeping something from and I also wanted someone to share in the “what are the odds”?!?! Because we were in the most random of areas, AND make a joke that the universe turned the weather so that we would leave the area before disaster struck.
After a bit of conversation and talking it through, I think Steve and I got to an okay place (it of course brought up a lot of thoughts and feelings for Steve), we got to the wedge. We picked up a few things, like half and half, sprouted bread, tea and crackers. After that we decided to head home.
Home was cooking dinner, which was a potato soup. For this soup I ended up using all of the remaining red bell peppers (pretty sure we bought 12), a bunch of potatoes and sooo many Roma tomatoes. While that cooked, Steve and I watched Hearthstone and played a game of rummikub, which I narrowly won after an entire game’s worth of being crazy behind.
We took the soup downstairs for more Hearthstone, and it was so hot for so long, lol. Finally we got to eat it and it was delicious, but a lot. It’s crazy how full liquids can make you. I bullied Steve into drinking all of his broth, to encourage water intake and flushing out his system. When he let his food settle enough he decided to play ITG. I think he had a decent day, he was playing some challenging songs the whole time, and some new ones we’d never seen before that seemed pretty neat.
I was working on knitting, but for some reason when I wound the ball I was using, there must have been a tangle that happened deep within the ball, because my yarn kept catching on itself and getting twisted. Instead of dealing with it and being more and more annoyed, I went to get to the root of the issue. Turns out something just went horribly horribly wrong, because I never did pinpoint on specific thing, and I ended up needing to cut the yarn because I needed to weave the yarn in and out of itself - it had just gotten so insanely twisted up! It took an hour and a half (aka the rest of my night) to resolve, but NOW the yarn is ready to be used nicely.
Also during the evening, after dinner, I gave Steve his anniversary gifts. As always, I had so much fun getting gifts for him. I like to vary it up between gifts on his Amazon or backloggery, unique gifts and gifts that are practical. For him this year, I got:
-tickets to a Final Fantasy music show that we’ve seen before, because it’s local and intimate
-new wallet, handmade from Etsy and Splatoon themed
-a new mug for his new job, with an Undertale theme
-a KitKat sampler from Japan, with really fun flavors
-the newest Kirby plush, ice Kirby (he’s trying to collect them all)
-a Hollow Knight figurine, super gorgeous and neat, also from Etsy
-a complete in box copy of Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones for GameBoy Advance. I was so damn excited for it because the box is like MINT, and I knew how much he’s been wanting this game.
-a card I ordered from Catana comics with a heartfelt message inside
He of course loved the gifts and was so happy about the card. We love giving gifts to each other and I’d been waiting SO long to give them! My big gift this year of course was this iPad I’m typing on, and I love it, but I know he was feeling a little weird about getting one big thing (he did the same thing at my birthday when he gave me my Apple Watch) because we’re so into these many thoughtful gift situations, but I am eternally happy about having both and it has just as much sentiment as the other ones. So much loooove.
Oh, speaking of loosening up-


lollll "They can actually take jokes." Natalie is a Hmong student with a non-montessori background who has done so well in our class this year. I love her.
2nd block we went outside because it was Fun Friday. The first group was chill, I sat on a bench across from DQ, who spent the entire 20 minutes or so yelling "help" for his own entertainment and to annoy Chanel I'm pretty sure. Chanel is good with consistency but god does she talk too much to kids when they're trying to get negative attention. I thought DQ was being kind of funny, and his yelling was just silly. Like he does things to purposely upset her even if he has a consequence. For example, the other week he refused to pick up a waterbottle he left on the ground before we went in, because SHE told him he needed to, and mentioned like a thousand times he was gonna go to Reset if he didn't. This week he ate two bags fruit snacks and dropped the wrappers on the ground, and I reminded him that those needed to be thrown away. He did the "what wrappers?!" thing and covered them with his feet. While Chanel would say something in a serious tone and threaten reset, he and I bantered back and forth about the crazy disappearance of bright pink wrappers, and I said to just not let them blow away before we went in. And then he picked them up without me asking him to when we left. Part of it is he can obviously get a reaction/attention/verbiage out of her, and I think with me part of it for most kids is that I just kind of make it clear what my expectation is with the tone of "I know you'll do what is needed and I'm gonna just leave it at that" - like, they're old enough to know what to do and I trust they'll do it. (And of course when they DON'T, I'm very much like, "Ooookayyyyy then, that sucks but I'm still not mad here's the consequence you knew was coming"). Anyway, in my second group only Dyshawn wanted to go outside and he asked if he could bring a friend so we grabbed Dacarie, and Tealie's class was outside too so we got to talk some more!
Tealie and I have gotten a lot closer this year, and we got pretty close last year even though we didn't work together. Our first year together we spent a lot of time stepping around each other and had a couple of tense weeks where we weren't talking things through, and then our second year we were much better but still had some tense moments. Working with Brian changed Tealie's attitude, and this year we've been REALLY chill and not taken things too seriously, and now that she's got all of her curriculum down she's not spending the time she was with planning and creating the same way she was before. We also received a lot of mixed messages about our roles in the classroom during our first two years, and with more clear expectations, we are much calmer. Also maybe with Anna gone - her previous work best friend (they're still very close outside of work and I think they're connected by a marriage in their families or something) - she feels more free to hang out with me. I was worried for a bit because she and Steph were teacher leaders at CMStep in Cincinnati last summer and are still helping out with that, that I'd get pushed out because Steph is so needy, but after the first couple of months and things settled, Tealie still prefers my attitude to Steph's generally. I'm really gonna miss her, we always referred to each other as the "dream team" even when I was teaching with Jenny Madden and she was teaching with Brian. I have a feeling though we'll stay in touch and hang out more outside of work instead!
At Nokomis I spent the afternoon testing a couple kids, one for a complicated initial eval. He got into a car accident a couple of years ago and has a diagnosis of TBI. From an academic standpoint, he's doing just fine. He's personable, conversational, and quick. On reading he stuttered frequently over words which is not a part of his speech patterns. I have some more testing to do on him next week. He seems like a huge sweetheart. I met with my special ed lead for Nokomis, Shannon, and asked her to do some observations and a parent interview for him (I like observations but they take time and I HATE interviews). Yay! I also sent home some forms for his family to fill out.
This weekend is Gamer Weekend aka picking up Noah. i came home to a sleeping Steve and cuddled into him and watched Hearthstone while he napped and I unsuccessfully tried to nap. I woke him up at 4 and we headed down to Fairbault. We hit some random annoying traffic beginning in Burnsville whichslowed us way down, but otherwise it was good. I finished most of one of my mom's gloves - got the ends weaved in (or knotted when I got sick of it) and the bulk of the second one done too. Driving down with Steve was cute and I love spending time with him. We had to go straight back home because I had plans to see my dearest Breanna!
At nick's suggestion we met at a place called Pinstripes. It's in a rich city that's about halfway between our houses. Meals are $15-25 and drinks are an average of $11 per. Bre really wanted to walk around the lake/park and I was in my wedges, but two drinks was the perfect amount to distract me from any pain I might have encountered while walking. Mostly we talked about our various lives - catching up on her nursing school stuff, my work, her moving back with Lamin now that she's finished studying, updating on her parents (back in love) and aunt (enabling) and cousin (alcoholic + meth) and brother (still mentally ill and just moved back home) and our mutual friends (off and on with Holly and about to take a trip with her, off with Lindsey), making up with Hannah, Gleb's sister just had a baby, and random high school peeps. For my part I didn't really talk all that much other than about my family and Steve, and work and summer, and offering opinions or asking questions (talked about being off birth control, asked about her plans for kids etc.).
We walked and talked or sat in the gorgeous park for most of the night, with me sending pics and updates to Steve, as I think this was the first time I was out alone for so long since Feb and I didn't want him to worry about me. Bre commented a couple of times about my texting him, but I just told her he missed me. She was okay with that.
At midnight the park and restaurant closed so we headed out. It was really good seeing her, and I'd like to spend more time with her in the future. In a dinner-like or relaxed even capacity though, not on the daily. I'm too much of a loner for a lot of hangouts, like she and Holly are going on TWO camping trips over the next month. Not the thing for me! Only if I'm with Steve basically am I okay with that at this point. lol.
Came home and hung out with Steve and Noah for a bit but I was SO TIRED. So bedtime it is.
My morning was good, we switched to mean/median/mode/range and plotting and analyzing data, and that’s been going well. Helped Vincente and Malik on their stuff of course, talked about silly middle school things like how the space between the crook of your elbow and your hand is the same length as your foot, how even though Malik is only 12 that he already experiences “tall people problems” such as hitting his head on the bus door and that his bed is too short and he has to spread his legs to sit on the toilet because the wall is too close and his femurs are too long. I’d like to add in a side note here about this specific one, where he told me this last one the most innocently a kid could, like not at all thinking about the fact that to sit on the toilet he would need to be pooping and of course it is taboo to admit you sit on the toilet in middle school - though this generation is way more open to talking about pooping/farting etc. than mine was... I might have actually melted into the floor if ever it was suggested I do either of those things during ANY of my school years. XD
2nd block was fine, the first period was kind of annoying because Chanel was gone again, and I let the second period be super low key because there were only 4 of them and Dyshawn was really in the mood to talk to me today and it’s the end of the year so I let him. He’s the ringleader of a trend of timed “slap boxing” matches at school. Slapboxing is exactly what it sounds like: like boxing, but you hit with an open hand so as not to leave marks or do lasting damage. The new game invented and going around the school is to get filmed slapboxing with someone for 10-15 seconds and then you’re done. I asked Dyshawn what the purpose of that was, and why it was fun. He said a lot of people kind of want to fight or prove themselves, and a timed match (supposedly) means no one gets mad, hurt, or (probably most importantly) caught fighting at school. He showed me a couple of videos - Brian had angrily told me that Dyshawn was targeting the 6th graders but there were kids of all ages in our school participating - and everyone is smiling in them before and after???? So like, it seems to be working for now... but you KNOW someone’s gonna play dirty and it will all fall apart. Really interesting though. When I was in school play fighting was really rare, because it ALWAYS turned into a real fight. And in my hometown, if you were caught fighting, both parties went to court. Always. No exceptions. It was a great deterrent. I’d say from 7th-11th grade (I didn’t go to high school for my senior year) I witnessed 4-5 fights in total. A couple of years ago that was the daily average at my school, a school of 500 kids. Anyway, kids are ridiculous and endlessly interesting.
After that I went out to Eden Prairie to meet Steve, Nick, Quimby and Courtney for lunch. Since Steve’s last day at Supervalu is tomorrow, and they all work out in EP, Steve invited me out with them. My car’s air conditioning is broken and I like the windows down anyway, so I was a sweaty mess by the time I got all the way out there (about a 35-minute drive). We went to India Palace... Wait. India Palace is in Woodbury! Jk, this is a different India Palace. They’re franchised, and this place was good, but not as good as the one we love. But it was definitely tasty. We took our time eating and chatting, and invited people to hang out today after work. Then we stopped in at Starbucks because it was in the same strip mall. Then Steve and I said cute goodbyes and walked to our cars... and I couldn’t find my keys. Kay, I REMEMBERED locking my car. The first thing I thought of was how I’d JUST locked my keys in my car twice over the last 3 months. Awesome. But I distinctly remembered tucking them into my purse! Wtf! I started kind of panicking, because I didn’t see them in the car, so I didn’t think I locked them in. And then I turned and Steve was walking back to me! He came back to bring a drink to his coworker Jay, and I filled him in on my problem, and we went into the Indian place again, thinking maybe I left them on the table. Nope. Went to Starbucks, not there either. We walked back to my car and peered in super intensely. Didn’t see them. Went BACK to the Indian place. Back to Starbucks. KAYYYYY. I knew I drove there using my keys??? I could NOT figure it out. Steve had to get back to work, and I really needed to get back to work, and I was so afraid I’d call AAA and they’d open my car and the keys wouldn’t be in there, and then what? Eventually Steve had to leave but he felt really bad, and I started to call AAA but decided to retrace my steps one more time (I tend to panic when I have an audience and can’t see or think rationally because of embarrassment/insecurity/idk), and lo and behold, found them on my walk. THANK GOD. Called Steve, so relieved, jfc.
I still had enough time to make it back to Nokomis without getting in trouble (as in, with enough time to be face-to-face with kids). Today was actually a concert practice day for the younger kids and the older kids are finishing up a poetry residency with real poets, so I spent a lot of time in the E2 classroom talking with Nicci, one of the E2 teachers. Then I decided to take Jeremy for some work, and he asked if he could bring a few friends with since it was gonna be just him. I said sure, and so he and 3 friends ended up in my office for about an hour. They were all super cute, like, “So this is where you go every day” and one of them even asked me if I lived in that office. I pointed to my comfy chair and said that’s where I slept. They all figured out I was joking, but in that kind of innocently suspicious and somber way younger kids who don’t understand dry humor do. It was still funny. They were all working really hard, and two of the boys were so happy when I helped them figure out how to do some of their math work, and Jeremy was just beaming with excitement of being able to work with his friends in my office. Every so often one of them would quietly say, “It’s so nice in here. I can actually think because it’s *quiet*.” Aww.
I got home around 4:35, and Steve got home soon after. We picked up and put away laundry and collected alllll of the dirty clothes and got them downstairs, and the house is vastly improved. Someone in the gaming community died today, TotalBiscuit if you’ve heard of him. He had cancer, and he was 34. People told the Hearthstone streamer Trump (not to be confused with the other guy) WHILE on stream, and he told a few stories of his interactions with TB and Hearthstone beta etc., and the stream comments were a mixture of support and comments about cancer and TB’s experience, and he suddenly broke down into tears. Chat immediately turned into a bunch of hearts and “everyone cries” and people encouraging him to end the stream to grieve. He initially said he’d be fine, just needed a few minutes, and mentioned how surprised he was that he started crying. He broke down a few more times over the next 10 minutes or so and was finally like, “Okay guys, you’re right, thanks for understanding, gonna take tonight off.” it was quite sad, poor Trumpy boy, heart hurts for him. I think Steve and I both got somewhat choked up just in sympathy.
Eventually Nick, Courtney and Scott came over and we went to Catrina’s for burritos. They were yummy as usual. Catrina’s is a local Mexican food place, like Chipotle but better in every single way except for the fact that they don’t have a vegetarian meat option, just beans. Catrina’s opened a few years ago, and we know the owners pretty well. They opened another location a year or so ago, and they’re just about to open a third location, and they were recently featured on a national news segment. They’re delicious and we go there every week at least (they’re also within walking distance of our house). Good thing we didn’t decide to walk today, because it started storming after we got there. Phew! Today I decided to mix up my salsa choice because the citrus jalapeño just looked too fresh and good. Today was a good burrito, as usual.
When we got back to the house, Scott played the remastered Shadow of the Colossus, we put on the Office, Steve started a game on the SP, I continued working on Mom’s fingerless gloves after Steve guilt-tripped me EVEN THOUGH I wanna knit my shawl instead (“Leah, it’s getting way past Mother’s Day and I don’t want you to be giving these to her for NEXT mother’s day“). I’m actually almost done with them now, just gotta finish the cuff on the second one, knit up the thumb, and add the kitty heads. And weave in the ends of course but that’s a given. And THEN I can work on the shawl. The next thing I start should be the afghan Bethany wants for her wedding. I can work on it alternately with my shawl or other projects.
On my knitting podcasts, a frequent topic is whether the people in question stick with one project, or have several going at once. When I began listening to podcasts, I thought that I was basically a “one project at a time” person, because even if I’d have multiple projects started, I was never working on more than one thing at a time. Unfinished projects were projects I’d abandoned but not emotionally given up on and didn’t want to admit that I’d never finish them. Now that I knit like every day, and more seriously, I generally have 2-5 projects going at any given time, and I’m confident in where I left off and that can and will finish it. It’s funny, when I thought about how I only worked on one thing, it made me feel very knitters, but that was only because I associated multiple projects with not finishing them ever. Now that I actually have been consistent in getting things finished, and working on different types of projects at the same time (more mindless things for on the go, more elaborate ones for home), I feel way more knitterly smug than before. Also I just really love knitting.
All day and night Steve and I were texting each other cute texts. We’ve been so good lately, he makes me so happy. I love spending time with him and we have so much fun. SO MUCH LOVE!!! So goosh <3
19//An off kind of day
May. 22nd, 2018 11:01 pmFirst block was spent getting everyone organized again and talking about how we wanted to organize the rest of the year, and I think we came up with a good plan. 2nd block was fine. Nokomis is doing field days and concerts and other things this week, so my schedule there is a little wonky. I ended up spending a lot of time looking for pics of the students graduating from 8th grade from the past few years. That was fun!
When I got home, I was super tired and decided to nap. I’m struggling with sleeping still, constantly dozing in and out and feeling like I’m never really sleeping. It leaves me feeling so damn tired by the end of the work day. I slept more than I anticipated, getting up at 5:15 after having fallen asleep probably around 3. It felt good though, and when I woke up, I found Steve downstairs and we decided to get some food. It was Naf Naf again. Steve, being sweet, offered to pick it up for us, but I was thinking it would be nice to eat outside! On the way, we stopped at a gym in Pokémon go, and Steve mailed a package. We had a really funny moment when I told Steve I was gonna get my excellent curveball throw on this random wheedle (for my Mew quest), and I TOTALLY did. It was hilarious and also I’m a bamf.
Naf Naf was good, but since I’ve continued to feel gross about myself and STILL keep eating out and not making my own food and exercising not that often. I know part of it is my energy struggles, especially when I’m sleeping worse at night, I end up using so much of my available free time then catching up. Ugh. Haley was just chastising me and Bethany and most people yesterday how we don’t have as “intense” of personalities or extreme willpower to follow through but she does. I declined to point out that Haley literally has no other hobbies other than laying in bed and watching YouTube videos (no, really) so of course she doesn’t feel like she’s giving up one enjoyable thing for the cooking or working out or whatever. It’s annoying that there’s so little time in the day to split things up, but I really, REALLY want to get going. I know summer break is coming and I’ll have more time available to get it together, but I don’t understand how other years I made time for yoga or ITG and it’s so much harder now. Part of it is probably how into knitting I’ve gotten into and how much time it takes, but still. Sucks!
Speaking of knitting, I started the Local Yarn Shawl tonight. It is really amazing so far. The yarn from my last post is super pretty, and feels light and easy to knit with. I completed one round of the repeats and can’t wait to do more.
Tomorrow Steve’s company is doing a happy hour for him at 4:30 and I’m meeting them there! Now that he’s leaving I’m gonna meet his coworkers :P
18//The most Monday of days
May. 21st, 2018 10:07 pmThe morning was pretty similar to Friday - morning basketball with the boys, Josie as the sub, running various boys back and forth to reset and teaching Malik more 2-step equations patterns. Jane, the nurse, told me she visited with my Nokomis principal over the weekend (they’re friends outside of school) and Melissa told Jane that she was going to miss me. Aww. 2nd block was decent, again with walking through 2-step problems with the groups. Seriously, do you remember learning 2-step equations? Not only are they really fun and easy. Once you know the pattern, but they’re directly applicable to a myriad of real-life situations. I was in advanced math all throughout my school age years, but I did not internalize these concepts AT ALL when I was learning them. I really enjoy them now as an adult and I try really hard to impress the value of specific concepts like this that are valuable to everyday life.
Best part of my day: coming home to see Steve for 10 minutes as I grab food for lunch before heading to Nokomis. I cut up a giant apple and gave half to Steve and added the other half to some cantaloupe and took my Naf Naf leftovers. We talked about the rest of the day plans and professed how much we were missing each other. I did get to talk to him on the phone several times today while transitioning between schools and that was really great.
Nokomis was really busy, as Mondays are my busiest kid days. Any spare second I had was spent working on the evals and IEP for the afternoon. All too soon it was 2 and I needed to run back to Parkway to present my academic findings for Kee, one of Molly’s OHD students in her setting III ASD program. That went a lot better than expected and I was able to leave by 3. Elba, the assistant principal, and I walked out together and she put her arm around me and said she understood how hard it was to go between two schools and that everyone wants you full-time and you work so hard, etc. She’s never been affectionate with me before and it was really cute.
Okay, BACK to Nokomis and finishing up some last-minute things on Jeremy’s IEP. Jeremy’s parents are the cutest, and they were actually really relieved when we told them that Isabella doesn’t qualify for SpEd at this time. You never know whether parents will be happy or upset to find out their kid doesn’t qualify for services, because some parents see the benefits of SpEd while others worry about stigma, etc. But thankfully they were happy and we talked about how at the very least, Isabella has no delays and is in fact above average in some ways, but she’s young and immature and struggles with focus and it will be a good idea to keep an eye out for changes in the future, whether her attention improves or worsens. Jeremy’s IEP went well; he’s old enough that I felt confident speaking to his 5th grade year and beyond to middle school (and Jeremy has a sister that goes to Parkway so parents are familiar with it). By the time they left it was 5pm. Ugh, such a long day ;A;
Raced home to Steve, watered my plant, and we went to pick up Tyler for game shopping. We also played and talked Pokémon Go, did a Gengar raid, and Tyler opened my whole world up by notifying me of an app that rates your Pokémon’s IVs and potential. Weeeee! No games were found today and we only went to Level Up, but burritos were had and they were delicious. After we dropped Tyler off, Steve and I came back home. He played a couple arena games in Hearthstone and I wound yarn for a shawl I want to start. I got a tangle in one of the yarns right at the end of winding (I believe it started that way, lame) and that took forever to fix, so I didn’t actually get to start the shawl today, but maybe that’ll be a thing tomorrow. I’ve been really wanting to start one of my cool new knitting projects with the beautiful yarn.
I participated in a sock knitting contest, where you try a technique you haven’t done before and post it in the thread on Ravelry - it was aptly named the “Never Have I Ever.” It was super easy for me, having only knit one pair of socks prior to the contest, lol. I had a feeling I’d win something even though over 150 people entered (I am generally a lucky person with contests and such), but often times I get the Monkey’s paw when I do win. That’s a tad dramatic, but what I mean is, often I get the “worse” or lamer thing, and I would say I definitely DID win the lamest prize - a slipper/sock/foot covering book. But I haven’t actually SEEN the book yet and I could easily just be a crybaby because I ALWAYS want to win yarn, basically exclusively, lol. Anyway, it’s still exciting to win something and hear your name read over a podcast. Pretty sweet.
