A New Kind of Stash

Good morning!  First off I would like to thank everyone for your comments.  I try my best to respond to them but of course my life has been a real whack job for a while & so, as much as it pains me, I have not been able to respond to them as well as I'd like.  Please forgive me for that.  I'll try to do better   : )   Also, I do have a few commenters who are set at no-reply.  I cannot respond to the lovely comments you leave but please know that I do appreciate them very much   : )

Yesterday was sort of a bad day.  Have you ever decided to do a particular thing ... something that has needed to be done for a long, long time ... & then discover that you can't do it because you don't have what you need to accomplish it?  Now ... common sense tells you that if you can't do Task A you should just move along to Task B & take care of Task A at another time.  Well, enter the OCD people.  OCD people become fixated on Task A & even though they know they can get a lot of work done on Task B ... maybe even finish it ... they just can't get past the fact that what they really wanted to do, what they really felt like doing, can't be done.  They are then paralyzed ... unable to do anything.  That was me yesterday.  I wanted to clean out the diningroom which over the past month or two has become a catch-all of many things.  I needed boxes in which to place these things.  I actually wanted plastic containers.  I thought I had some empty ones put aside somewhere.  I didn't.  I was able to get past this setback by telling myself I could use cardboard boxes instead.  I have a lot of those lying about.  I did find a couple I could use but oh no!  When I put them together I didn't notice that I had gotten the tape on them unevenly.  My husband suggested I just remove the old tape & replace it but of course removing the old tape would've pulled off some of the cardboard from the box & good heavens, what would that have looked like?!?!?  Yes, I am this bad ... lol!  So I sort of wandered around in a daze for a while ... looking for boxes & containers that I knew weren't there ... & then I spent the rest of the day eating & watching DVDs.  One bright spot in all this is that almost all the goodies are out of the house now.  I can see myself starting my prescribed 28-day cleansing ritual sometime next week.  My doctor tells me it's supposed to rid my body of all the toxins it has accumulated.  Then I'll get back on my healthy eating program again.  No more cookies, no more cakes, no more brownies, no more chocolate.  Sigh   : (

In the past I have mentioned that I am pretty much blind as a bat when it comes to close-up stuff like reading, working at the computer, seeing vegetables as I'm cutting them on the cutting board, seeing the food on my plate at the dinner table, etc.  I had the horrible experience with trying no-line bifocals again last month & took them back to exchange them for prescription readers.  I picked up the readers this past Tuesday (a post in itself but I'll spare you) & I can see!  Unfortunately they hurt my nose so I will have to revisit the office & hopefully they will be able to do something about that.  Anyway, since returning to cross stitching last summer I have not been able to stitch anything unless I'm sitting in my recliner while using my daylight magnifying lamp.  Even stitching on 10 count fabric would've been impossible.  Well, now that I have my new readers I can see so much better!  I was stitching on some 14 count Aida the other night & bravely pushed aside the magnifier to see if I could stitch without it.  Technically I can but I won't.  Although I can clearly see the holes in the Aida now I just don't see them as well as I do with the magnifier.  This presents a problem because there are times when I'd like to have some handwork to do ... like when I'm sitting out on the front porch or riding in a car or staying over in a hotel somewhere.  I used to be a knitter many years ago & always loved it.  Knitting has a calming effect (usually) & you don't really need perfect eyesight to do it.  There are, in fact, blind knitters!  Therefore I have been toying with the idea of getting back into knitting to give myself something to do during these times & when I picked up my glasses I had John take me to a nearby yarn shop where I purchased some yarn.  Here's what I brought home with me.

The first 2 photos show yarns which will be used to make shawls.  When God decides to send me a little blessing one of the things He does is He makes the weather less than 75 degrees with a breeze blowing & in the shade of the porch it can sometimes be a bit chilly.  I should have John take a photo of the "shawl" I've been using during these chilly times & you will see why I needed to knit myself one or two   : )   In the past I always wanted to look like Stevie Nicks.  I wouldn't mind looking like her now.  She wore a lot of shawls.

Regrettably I look more like a cross between these two Stevies ... 

Steve Carell & Steven Spielberg.  On my good days.  Just add a couple dozen pounds.  Ah well, you play the cards you're dealt.  I'll post some shawl photos when I get one started   : )