HighFiber

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 Stranger, The Rescue, Unmasked, Fuzzy Town––A Play and Sky Blue.

Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook. Poems included are Valentine's Day, Keeping Pets, Back to School, Victor the Vulture, The Week Before Christmas, Insomnia and Veronika's Vocabulary Verses.

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

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

The stories in Mariah are Being Little, Besties, 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 11, 2024

Stitches, Steps and Stones

First of all, on this Veterans' Day, let's remember those who have served, some of whom didn't come back or came back with injuries from which they would never recover.

When I was a child, this day was called Armistice Day. The holiday was to commemorate the armistice after World War I (aka The Great War, because they didn't know others would follow), the day they laid down their arms and stopped the killing. In the UK and some other countries it was called Remembrance Day. Then, after WWII, the celebration was extended to honor all veterans and those who died in later wars. In the US, the name was officially changed in 1954 to Veterans' Day. Our flag is out today. We don't just leave it out. As children we were taught that flag etiquette required the flag to come down at sundown and need not be flown except on national holidays or other special occasions. So there it is, until sundown.

One of these things is not like the other, and this will explain my absence last week

I hope no one worried about me. It's the first time since I started writing my blog that I missed a post. Well, this is what happened:

You may remember that in January 2023 the keyboard on my laptop went out again after having been replaced in 2020. It was a major headache to get it replaced the second time because Simply Mac, who replaced the first one, went out of business during the pandemic. Geek Squad was handling repairs for Apple, but they sent it off, kept it for three weeks and then sent it back because they said I needed to pay for the repair before it was sent, even though it was still covered by warranty. I called Apple, and they sent me a box and had me send it directly to them. They had it back to me in a week, good as new. At least until now. The keyboard is called a "Butterfly" keyboard and, as I've learned, it's prone to going out. There was even a lawsuit, which was settled. I'm still waiting for my check, but it won't be much.) What happens to me is the space bar stops working. It's hard to type without spaces. Well, there I was with the same problem as before, so I decided the heck with it; I don't want to have this issue every couple of years, so I called Apple to get information about a new laptop. I had to consider what I needed and how to pay for it (I didn't have the Apple Card yet, which gives you free financing on their products), and I wanted to trade in my old one. It arrived on Friday. There are many steps to transferring the data, which I was able to do by myself (yay, me!), and then getting help from Apple to wipe my old laptop clean. That's done, so now I'm waiting for the shipping box for my old laptop to arrive. It saves me some money to trade it in.

The new computer is similar, but I have some new features, like being able to use my thumb for the computer to recognize me without having to put in a password every time. So far, I'm liking it. The keys seem much easier to depress, so I think this is going to work out better for me.

Sunday, November 3, we went to a concert put on by the Central Oregon Symphony. It has been a while since we attended one of these. We sat in the back and wore masks. They are performing now at Caldera High School, because the auditorium at Bend High School, where they used to perform, is being rebuilt. It was a lovely performance.

A good part of the week was spent with the usual cooking and laundry duties, walks with the pups when it wasn't raining and calling to make sure everyone registered had voted. I worked on stories that will appear in upcoming weeks, so I wouldn't have to do that when the kids are here for Thanksgiving, as they will be here all that week. I also did some research to see how to delete my data from Twitter, because I won't be going back. It used to be a good source of news and chit-chat, but it has become a cesspool.

The weather was nice on Friday, but I couldn't walk because my new laptop was going to be delivered. Saturday was cool and overcast, but it wasn't supposed to rain, so we took the pups to Good Dog Off-Leash Trail.

The pups had a great time. We met up with some other dogs along the way. There were a lot of poodles this time. The best part was getting to the water, even though it was cool

Sandy has turned out to be a real water dog, just like Rocky. He also is very interested in people, more so than in dogs, we think. That was another Rocky trait.

The dogs had a good time playing with the other dogs while we were at the river. Sandy would go out into the river to retrieve a stick, but Dusty would just wade in a little bit. He won't swim without a ball being thrown, no matter how warm it is.

He really enjoyed romping with the other dogs on land, though.

We started the Walk for a Dog app when we got out of the car, but for some reason it had our beginning location about a mile before we reached the parking lot. I don't know why that happened. I know I started it when I got out of the car. Maybe some kind of glitch. However, I'm pretty sure our hike was about three miles. The red marker is where we started and ended up.

It doesn't matter, though, because they count the number of walks and donate to your selected dog charity based on that. All walks count as long as you go at least 1/4 mile, which we always do.

I think the dogs covered three or four times the mileage we humans walked, because they ran ahead and back and then out away from the trail, and they took a lot more steps than we did, when you consider that each of them has four feet. Saturday is a good day to go, because there are a lot of people and other dogs, and the coyotes will stay hidden.

Dusty was wiped out when we got home,

I got in some knitting during the last two weeks and almost had the border motif on the sleeve finished when I discovered that I had misread the color letter a few rounds back and had to frog back. I'm not much further along than I was, thanks to that, but I might as well have the sleeves match. It's hard to see the difference in dim light, but in bright light it really shows up. So here I am now.

For some cuteness, here's Katie, our grandkitty. (No cat can resist a paper bag!)

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 Twinkle, Twinkle. Why di stars twinkle, and why does the song say stars are little? Mandy to the rescue!

What's on my iPad/iPhone: Still listening to Dean Koontz's new book, The Forest of Lost Souls. Also still 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 Madroña. We've never had an El Tinto of any Lot that wasn't great!

What's my tip of the week: Brushing your dog's teeth can help reduce the times they have to be put under to have them cleaned professionally, although they should have X-rays every few years, because some things don't show on the surface.. I was told to brush once a week, but it was always a struggle. I started doing it every night at bedtime, and it got to be a routine. Don't use human toothpaste. They don't spit it out. There are doggie toothpastes available, or you can mix olive oil with baking soda 50/50. You even can keep a container of each handy, dip the toothbrush in the olive oil to moisten it, tap the baking soda with it and knock off any extra, and then use that.