It seems that I’m settling into the no-day-job routine. I think this is Monday of week 3, (I actually had to check a calendar). I still miss seeing the folks whose chit chat surrounded me these past many years. I miss walking around the path while trying to (re) teach myself french. I miss showing folks what I was knitting over lunch. I miss the feeling when I was able to help solve someone’s problem. There are many, many things I don’t miss. The post-bankruptcy filing months were particularly awful. For a long while, there was basically nothing to do, yet we still had to come in to the office. These weeks were filled with anxiety, doom scrolling and stress eating. Then the last month was just frenzy. Trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to cover the roles of others. The constant jammer of a particular individual stressing that he would NEVER find another job. Stories that just made me feel older by the minute. The teasing that “maybe” we’ll keep you on for a few more weeks- then the nothing.

I physically feel so much better. I am sleeping solidly more often. I have lost the annoying 5 pounds that I had put on since the new year. I am exercising. I’m cooking more - still not every night- but more.

Last week I went down to Dublin to see the grands and I spent 2 nights (mid-week!). They are so very sweet and perhaps the smartest children ever born. Euan is a bit more than 2 1/2 and little Una is 17 months. They are very busy. They run and smile and tickle and laugh and push cars and hook up tow trucks and cook me fake food and “hot tea”. While there, we went to the playground and had a sunny morning at the zoo looking at polar bears. But mostly, I think we just sat on the floor and talked about monster trucks. There were really very few monster truck discussions at JOANN.

What have I been making, you ask? Well, I started the next session of beginning quilting and have begun it’s accompanying new quilt a week ago. The top should be done by Easter. I’m using a mish mash of stashed fabric. Some Batik fat quarters, a few leftovers from Jubilation, a couple of pieces from a baby layette (smile) and a weird white that I got at sample sale that I’m actually regretting using,—it’s weirdly thick in places. I have 4 blocks done. I also picked up a quilt that I started a year or so ago- I now have a plan in mind to finish it. I’m trudging slowing along with Lily’s Nordic Mix.

Also last week I saw all the cotton flannel that I had stacked about. I saw it more from a sense of “how can I better utilize this space” - and I thought Paper (less) Towels.

A million years ago (or 1996), we had just had our second baby and had decided that the family would function better at home. Meaning that I never went back after maternity leave,- (I am such a stereotype). I came up with schemes for saving money- mostly spent at the grocery store. I felt that one of these money pits was paper products- so I stopped buying napkins and paper towels. (I also cloth diapered- but that’s another story). We went back to paper napkins, but the paper towel thing has stuck. I probably have not bought more than a dozen rolls of paper towels in the past 28 1/2 years.

So, last week I see flannel- and think the world needs more paper(less) towels! I made up a set for Rhuna and myself, then the serger kind of took on a life of it’s own and now there are Paper(Less) Towels aplenty :)

Quiet Days

Shetland Wool Week