Monday, November 25, 2024

Repeated Renovations.

It has been a busy week! Again!. I finished the second sleeve on the Oregon Autumn Cardigan. I need really good light to pick up the stitches for the front and neck band. 



In looking at the directions for the front/neck bands, I noticed that the numbers to PU don’t add up to 336 (for the size I’m making, X-small.) I went back to the original pattern, and that’s what it says: 336. 99 + 64 to PU on each side = 326 sts, + stitches on holder/waste yarn 41 sts =367 -1 stitch decrease in the middle: 366, not 336. I did a little math and came up with 335 as being equivalent to the 380 sts for the next size up, in relation to the other stitch amounts, and rounded to 366. The 2X2 ribbing will go all the way around from the bottom right to the bottom left, so a 4-st repeat and then 2 sts at the end, so they will match in the front bottom. I needed to make an even number divisible by 4 with 2 sts left over, and 366 works out. This pattern has been out for a long time, so I assume someone else already caught the mistake.


Our garbage disposal went out a few days ago and could not be fixed. Charlie thought he had a new one purchased in Utah when we lived there. He found it in the shed. He called a plumber and set up an appointment to have the new (unused, but several years old, of course) installed. The young man came on Thursday and took everything apart.


He had to run out to get a part, because the new one needed to be installed a bit differently from the old one, but it didn't take him long.



The new disposal works great! 


The plumber mentioned that he had a two-year-old daughter. He left with one of my new books, signed by the author. He sent a text later to thank me for the book. Apparently it was a hit at home.


Another item that broke down is our over-the-stove microwave, but that stopped working shortly after we moved in. We had one of those home warranties, so we called the company, and they sent someone to look at it. The repair man said it couldn't be repaired. A new one wasn't covered by the warranty, so we were out the deductible. The light and fan worked, so we've been using those and storing our tea in the microwave. We bought an inexpensive microwave that sits on the counter. 



The problem with this one is, the light from the kitchen window shines in your eyes in the morning, making it impossible to read the "buttons" or to see what's happening inside. It's like a mirror. We're finally going to replace the old microwave with an over-the-stove microwave/convection combination, with vent fan and light. 
I think it should be enough like the one in the r-pod that I'll be able to transfer what I learn about the convection function to that one as I become more familiar with it.

The new microwave arrived Saturday and a married couple came to install it.



It doesn't look that different from the old one it's replacing, but the fact that it works makes a big difference. It came with a rack that fits onto some holders, just like in a regular oven, as well as a round rack on legs that can be used on the turntable, just like the one in the Pod. I don't know where we're going to keep the accessories yet. I'll figure that out. 



The kitchen looks better than it has in years.



The air fryer was sitting on a cart at the end of the island. Now it and the tea kettle are where the old countertop microwave was. That makes the cart useful in case I need additional counter space, and who doesn't?


The old countertop microwave does a good job, so we moved it to the laundry room upstairs, so if we're working upstairs we can make a cup of tea right there without coming down to the kitchen. The problem is, the electrical outlet behind the washer and dryer has two places to plug in, and both are taken up with the washer and the dryer. There's another outlet on the opposite wall, but we will have to run an extension cord over the door and down to the microwave, before we can plug it in. A job for another day.


The kids were coming from Beaverton yesterday, as well, so I made some Pulla (Finnish Cardamom Loaf). The recipe makes two, and we've already almost finished off one.



I started cleaning two weeks ago, beginning with our bathroom and bedroom, figuring they wouldn't be seen by company as much. I did one room a day, and Charlie vacuumed a couple of rooms, but we didn't hadn't vacuumed upstairs, the stairway and the living/dining room when the kids arrived. The boys will help with that today.


The pups went to the groomer on Thursday. When they came home, the plumber was here to start installing the garbage disposal. They enjoyed meeting him, and he has a dog, so he enjoyed them, too. We got in a walk, too, so they had a busy day with little time to nap. 


I put the fleece jacket on Dusty, because he feels the cold more than Sandy.


On Friday I received an email from Apple, saying that my old laptop, which I traded in when I bought the new one, had been checked out and was worth the full amount estimated. My check from the Butterfly Keyboard Class Action Lawsuit also arrived, so between the two, nearly a fourth of the cost of my new laptop was covered.


Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends in the US who are celebrating this week!



I have a lot of difficulty responding to comments to my blog posts because of technical issues beyond my control (my lack of understanding of how things work). Message me on Facebook, Ravelry or Spoutible if you need information.


If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart". Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil, Mariah or Classic Tales Retold, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.


Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still working on the Oregon Cardigan.

What's on my loom: Still in its corner under the windows.

What's on my sewing machine: Still its dust cover.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: This week's story from #TheDollsStorybook is Water, Water. Three of the dolls each have a different idea of where water comes from. Mandy helps them decide who is right.


What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Dean Koontz's new book, The Forest of Lost Souls. Also reading a physical book, In the Shelter of Each Other by Milree Latimer. Not very far into either yet.

What's in my wine glass: El Tinto Lot 43 from MadroƱa. Always a favorite!

What's my tip of the week: I saw this Dawn Powerwash in a commercial on TV. I don't usually buy things based on TV ads, but I thought this might save some water when we're camping. I bought it mostly for the spray bottle. It' lets you wash one thing without having to fill the sink or let dishes pile up in the sink. It turned out to be a very good product, not just for dishes, either. Apparently you can get refills for it. It's really good at cleaning grease from pans.



Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes. 


The stories in More Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Welcoming a StrangerThe RescueUnmaskedFuzzy Town––A Play and Sky Blue.

Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook. Poems included are Valentine's DayKeeping PetsBack to School, Victor the VultureThe Week Before Christmas, Insomnia and Veronika's Vocabulary Verses.

The stories in Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Little Green GreatcoatThe Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.

The stories in Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Best BudsGetting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The stories in Mariah are Being LittleBesties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less, because the publisher gets a cut. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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Monday, November 18, 2024

Excuses!

I didn't get much knitting done during the week again, but I'm very close to being ready to start the cuff on my Oregon Autumn Cardigan. I may have started the cuff by the time you read this.



I'm continuing to clean the house in preparation for the arrival of the kids who live within driving distance. They're planning to come for Thanksgiving. I got my workroom done except for vacuuming the floor. Once I make the beds and vacuum, I'll only need to clean the guest bath, and the upstairs will be done. Then to start on the downstairs.


I've had some jobs to do related to the latest book, as well. Amazon has the photo of the cover of the book now. It's available for presale, shipping December 5th. 




However, if you don't get free shipping from them, or you want it right away, Book Baby has it right now. You will have to pay for shipping, but half of the purchase price of the book goes to support pediatric cancer research and treatment, instead of the one-dollar-something Amazon pays them.




Autographed copies will go out to people who want those as I get checks. I can use Zelle, now, but a check is easier for my pea brain, at least until I learn how to use Zelle. I'm not using PayPal anymore after our cyberattack in May.


The new book has links to the free knitting and sewing patterns shown in the photos in the book. Of course, they aren't live links in a printed book, but if you don't want to key them in and risk making a mistake, you can take a photo of the link, highlight it on your computer, copy and paste in the URL slot on your search engine. 



I like to donate my new book to the library each year, and I leave my book in the free Little Libraries in our neighborhood. Wednesday I dropped off the book at the main library. Thursday I took the car and drove to the locations that were too far to walk to. We went out on Saturday in light snow to leave books in the nearby Little Libraries and walk the dogs at the same time.



I use social media to let people know about the book, and I used to use Twitter/X, but it has become totally toxic, so I deleted my account after removing my personal information.



I decided a few months ago to add BlueSky to the social media I use. I had left the Twitter/X account open, but I read that my personal information might not be safe if abandoned, so I decided to remove my personal information and then close it. Right after I did so, everyone and his uncle decided to leave Twitter/X and come to BlueSky. I discovered that there are a lot of knitters, crocheters, spinners and weavers on BlueSky, with more coming every day, so I added that to my bio. I can't keep up with the follows! (I always try to follow back unless the account gives me reason not to.) Apparently there are apps and programs you can use to import your followers from X to BlueSky. I had a lot of followers, so I suspect some of my new followers used them. I'm finding some I recognize, at least if they left their name and profile photo/avatar the same.


I sometimes get unwanted attention on social media. This one was in my Direct Messages on Spoutible. A friend on Spoutible got the same, almost word-for-word, direct message from the same account. I've obscured his/their/its photo and name, because I'm sure this person (if it's a live person) is very embarrassed at being discovered.



My friend played with him a bit, telling him she was shocked to find out that she wasn't not his one-and-only, and that it was going to interfere with their relationship. I got a kick out of that. It was creative, but I wonder if anyone falls for this stuff. I get a lot of those on Facebook, and it's very annoying. Of course, on Facebook these heartbreakers have to plant an entire profile page. They're always widowed, retired from the military or airline pilot, usually living overseas somewhere. Life used to be so simple!


We have ripe bananas right now, so I made smoothies on Thursday and waffles on Saturday (using my banana-oat waffle recipe). While I stood over the waffle iron, waiting for the light to go out indicating that the waffles were done, I went through my follows on BlueSky, following back. I guess I can multitask after all! Who knew!



I have a lot of vegetables in the fridge that need to be used up to make room for food for Thanksgiving and our visitors. I decided to make stir-fry to go with rice. 



I used Quorn ChiQen Pieces with the vegetables. Whole Foods used to have them, but now they only carry the breaded items from Quorn, if they even have those. I don't want to pay for breading, because we don't need it with the rice, but I've found Quorn products at Natural Grocers. I picked up another Turkey-style Roast for Thanksgiving. We'll be having a turkey, but not for me. Natural Grocers has a nice selection of Quorn products, a good supply and they were on sale!


You may remember that I recently replaced my old laptop, originally manufactured in 2017 but purchased refurbished in 2019. You also might remember that I had the keyboard replaced twice, and that I feared it was going to go out again, so I traded it in on a new one.



Well, the new one is up and running, although not without some challenges to overcome. It looks almost the same. There are some slight differences, though. It's much faster. It's easier to pick up with one hand, because of the shape, I think. The edges aren't as rounded. The keyboard is easy to type on, and the battery is good for a whole day of being on.



I had to transfer everything from my old computer to the new one and then delete everything from the old one. I did that last week. On Wednesday the package for mailing my old laptop back to Apple arrived. (I'm trading it in.) It was all ready to go, so all I had to do was put the laptop into the box, close it up and peel off the label on the front of the shipping box, revealing Apple's address, then drop it off at the UPS store. I had some struggles getting the new iOS software to download, because I didn't have much memory. This happened before when I had to send my old laptop in to be repaired. Apparently, if I understand it correctly, when you upload new software, you might need more memory than just what the software needs when it's already on your computer. Then after the new iOS was up and running, the Photos app search function wouldn't work. While talking to another tech-support person at Apple, I mentioned that I thought it started with the new update, Sequoia 15.1. She had me hold while she checked out information on the new update. It turned out to be a bug they were aware of. I'll be getting a new update soon (I hope) taking care of the problem.


So, as you can see, I had good reasons for not finishing my cardigan yet!



I have a lot of difficulty responding to comments to my blog posts because of technical issues beyond my control (my lack of understanding of how things work). Message me on Facebook, Ravelry or Spoutible if you need information.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon and B&N and search for "Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart". Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil, Mariah or Classic Tales Retold, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them.


Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still working on the Oregon Cardigan.

What's on my loom: Still in its corner under the windows, but thoroughly dusted.

What's on my sewing machine: Still its dust cover, after being dusted.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: This week's story from #TheDollsStorybook is Rules for Success. Mariah and Charlotte ponder why changing the rules for hopscotch so you could step on the lines made the game less fun.


What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Dean Koontz's new book, The Forest of Lost Souls, about halfway through. Also reading the physical book, In the Shelter of Each Other by Milree Latimer. Not very far into that yet.

What's in my wine glass: Only Fans Malbec 2018 from Washington. It's nice.

What's my tip of the week: If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, this is the time of year to start using winter vegetables: root vegetables and vegetables that can be stored for a long time, like winter squash. You can get the same nutrients as you would get from summer vegetables like zucchini, but you will pay less, because they don't have to be shipped as far.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog and they are reproduced with a few changes. 


The stories in More Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Welcoming a StrangerThe RescueUnmaskedFuzzy Town––A Play and Sky Blue.

Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook. Poems included are Valentine's DayKeeping PetsBack to School, Victor the VultureThe Week Before Christmas, Insomnia and Veronika's Vocabulary Verses.

The stories in Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Little Green GreatcoatThe Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.

The stories in Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Best BudsGetting What You Want, and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The stories in Mariah are Being LittleBesties, and Distraction.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less, because the publisher gets a cut. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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