Happy Friday, Again! Birds and Socks

Since retirement, I've learned to really appreciate Fridays.  No longer the day when I have to sit on a two hour conference call, listening to the pluses and minuses of life in the engineering business, it is now the restful, slow starting last day of the work week for everyone else.

It's also going to the dump day for my hubby and his buds.  So sometimes I get a nice quiet hour where nothing's moving (the eleven year old has turned into a late sleeper) and I can sit on the patio with my tea and a book.  Or I can just listen to the birds calling and watch them at the feeders.

Blue Jays are loud and very scrappy; also
they love peanuts in the shell* and are fun
to watch.  (*No salt please!)

Cardinals make a nice sound.  We
have a couple of pairs who come
to our feeders.

 

Finch feeders are also fun to watch.  Finches
invented the term 'flitting'.

Of course, we have a ton of our State bird, the
Robin...

OK, so much for ornithology (thank you, Jeopardy!)...

Today I spent the morning reading a book I checked out of the local library on Wednesday, a new J.A. Jance Joanna Brady 'novel of suspense', at least according to the book jacket.  The heroine is I guess a thirty-something County Sheriff in Arizona; I'm assuming her age as it's not given in the book.  In earlier novels her back story says she was married young and had a baby right away, then was widowed and elected to her then-husband's job, which is how she became a sheriff.  In this book she's send her oldest daughter to college, has a five year old son with her second husband, and author, and is pregnant again with a second daughter.

Sometimes imagining the life that would be is exhausting!  But the books are fun reads, and they go fast.  I also picked up another of Jance's novels in CD form so I can listen while I sew.  Multitasking!

Tomorrow I want to go to the farmers' market before I go to the quilt shop.  I've been longing for a tomato that was just picked today, rather than the ones picked a week ago and shipped in from wherever they come from these days.  I want tomatoes on toast with butter and melted mozzarella cheese!  And fresh asparagus, I mean really fresh, just picked. 

Sock progress is being made... slowly but surely.  (I signed up for a class -- Sock Tool Box, Cream City Yarn Shop, Brookfield WI).  From Session 1: Cast on and ribbing, my homework was to try different types of casts on, and different rib patterns.  I have enough needles, so why not make multiple socks, right?  I cast on three socks, and did various ribbings, two by two, one by one, and even tried twisted rib, which is putzy but looks nice.

Session 2: Legs, Legs, Legs! homework was to continue the sock in pattern to the point of the heel, which I did on two of the three socks, thanks to recorded Midsomer Murders and Masterpiece Mysteries. 

This sock has two by two rib and an easy
pattern.  It's called Hermoine's Every Day
socks, the pattern is free on Ravelry.com.

This sock is also two by two rib, and the pattern
is knit three, purl one.  This yarn isn't sock yarn,
no nylon content, so the heels and toes will
be a contrast color using sock yarn, I chose red.

The third sock is out of a bamboo/cotton yarn mix, and it knit up so big that the cuff was almost an inch larger than the other two, so that one got torn down and restarted using fewer stitches and a smaller needle size.  It's crazy because the other two were on 2.5 mm needles and that is very much smaller than I'm used to, so going down to 2.25 mm seems like knitting on toothpicks, especially since I love wood needles!  

Session 3 was on heels.  I had three different heel versions in my patterns, and Lindsay taught us how to do each one in a big overview.  I was the only one in class who had the "Fish Lips Kiss" heel pattern (cost is $1 on ravelry.com, it's really more of a sock 'recipe' than a pattern, and the designer didn't write up how to do the special stitch, although there is a YouTube video) so I stayed a few minutes after class ended to get some tips on that one.

By the time I got home I had forgotten what Lindsay told me.  I knit on anyway... and the heel looked OK, but after watching the video I realized I'd done it wrong, I added an extra step that wasn't needed.  It looks fine so I'm calling it good and leaving it in...

The side you're seeing is the good side, the other side is pulled a little and looks a bit like a gather.  But there is some give, so I'm hoping once I get it on my foot it won't show.

The last session is on toes, and finishing, probably to include blocking.  I hope I get at least one sock to that point, so I can learn the Kitchener stitch once and for all!

Knit on...

Socks

I love being barefoot in the summer, but since this summer is so hot, and the air conditioner seems to be running all the time, my feet get cold so I wear socks in the house.  I have slippers but they get too warm sometimes.

Miss A wears socks inside her tennies and during the school year she would often come over without socks, or with one sock.  We wear the same size shoes so she's prone to borrow both my socks and my shoes (if she can get away with that!)

I have noticed that when she wears my socks, I often never see them again!  Since we get her morning laundry which is mainly pajamas, and her evening laundry gets washed at home, I have no clue where the socks go unless she happens to bring them over.

We discussed that the other day with her mom.  It would appear from that conversation that the socks have gone into the black hole of kid laundry, where sometimes they come back and sometimes they don't!  But if it's any comfort, her mother's socks have joined mine in that mystery place...

I particularly love hand knitted socks.  I have successfully (more or less) knit three pairs of socks and quite a number of single socks that never became pairs.  I guess I have Second Sock Syndrome, that is, I can knit one but I have trouble finishing the second one, or getting it to match the first one so that they can legitimately be called a pair.

Hand knitted socks, NOT knit by me.

Self Striping yarn is fun.

I own a lot of sock yarn... which has the potential to be socks if I just get my act together.  I admire people like Stephanie McPhee, aka Yarn Harlot, who can knit socks while she rides a bike or climbs Mount Fuji.

I struggle.

I have knit a couple of pairs of yoga socks... which leave off the hard parts like heels and toes!

Yoga socks, also not knit by me...

I signed up for a four part Sock Toolbox class at my local yarn shop, Cream City Yarn in Brookfield.  Hopefully by the time the class is over I'll have gotten over Second Sock Syndrome, at least partially.  I'm sure if I don't it won't be for lack of trying on their part!

I can't decide between two yarns.  I love the blue one in the center but it's really skinny yarn and would take longer to knit, but the black & white is already wound into a cake.  I'm leaning in that direction, although the blue would make beautiful socks!

I just found out I am supposed to be knitting a test swatch of the yarn I pick, then wash and dry it before class!  If Miss E gets up and decides we need to go shopping that will cut in on the swatching time and narrow the choice to the one swatch I can actually finish.

Boy this knitting stuff could be stressful!

Swatch on...

Whirlwind

Last time I blogged it was July 2, Day One of my retirement.  Next thing I know it's a week later!

The first week went like a whirlwind.  I honestly can't believe it's passed!  I got a text on Friday morning from my successor, and she said "I'm sorry to bother you.  I was trying to get through a whole week without having to ask you any questions!"  I said "Congratulations to making it all the way to Friday before you did!"

Things I did this week instead of going to work:

1. Got a haircut, and didn't have to rush to the appointment, or home from it.
2. Had lunch with some friends and lingered over iced tea after the meal was done.
3. Spent three short shifts at the quilt shop and didn't spend as much as I earned.
4. Went shopping with Miss A at the book store and enjoyed our usual beverage and cookie... again unrushed.
5. Had a great time with the hubby at a family wedding.
6. Sewed one column of blocks for my Escher quilt top.
7. Cleaned up my sewing room so I can invite my friend Pam over.
8. Went to the library and picked up my books on CD.

Things I did not do:

1. Drive in rush hour traffic.
2. Set my alarm clock.
3. Put on heels.

I would call this week a success!

Rock on...

Day One

I know you all know that Charles Dederich quote, 'Today is the first day of the rest of your life'.

Today was my first day of retirement.  So guess what I did?  I went to the office!!

I didn't really want to drive downtown on Friday because it was hot, the traffic was going to be bad, and that was the first day of Summerfest so there were bound to be a lot of people going downtown.  I let the office know that I would be turning in my keys and my computer on Monday.

I was only there for about 15 minutes, but you know that one of those smart aleck guys would have to say "hey, you didn't retire after all, did you?"

Ha ha.  Yes I did, here's my junk, I'm outta here!!

Job two was to go get my hair cut.  That took about an hour, then home.

Job three?

There was no job three!  Although I did have to make the tweeny some lunch, and clear up some papers that were no longer needed from around the desk upstairs.

Ahhhh… retirement is fun.  No deadlines, no worries, right?  But someone said to me, you know when you're retired, there's no such thing as a day off!

Tomorrow I have to work at the quilt shop, and Thursday I'm having lunch with some friends.  In between there is the holiday, and on Friday there's a family wedding so I need a card and a gift.

Ah, well, tomorrow is another day...

Rock on...

Adventures in Las Vegas

The week of June 11, I was in Las Vegas, yes, Sin City, Nevada, for my day job.

For people who travel for pleasure I envy you a bit, but it's nothing like that for business. 

I had to be up early for the 3 1/2 hour flight and due to the time change it seemed like extra early to me.  I arrived there at noon Pacific time, and it was already in the high 80s.  I am a Midwestern Girl, and we don't experience that much heat in early June.  When I left the Milwaukee airport, it was 66 degrees. 

When we arrived, the baggage carousel was having
an issue.  Everyone stopped to wait for the bags
until an airline employee stood up in the shute
and started tossing bags up to the crowd!

The days in Las Vegas were packed with work activities, Monday was about 16 hours long from airport in the morning to bedtime at 11 p.m.

 

Our convention was at the Mandalay Bay Conference Center.  The building is VERY LARGE.  It was a 10 minute walk from my elevator to the meeting room.  Of course it had to go through the casino!  They still allow people to smoke in there, but they must have really good fans because the air was not blue like it used to be, with clouds of smoke hanging over everything.  At least you could breathe, even if you could still smell it.

Our client event was at the Madame Tussaud Wax Museum.  We were dropped via Uber at the Venetian Hotel taxi stand because in Vegas there is no parking on the Strip.  Who knew?  So in our dress clothes (mostly black) we four ladies (in heels) walked across a pedestrian bridge and waited on the corner for a green light to cross, and MELTED! 

Once inside, there was air conditioning (duh, wax!).  The manager wanted to put our registration table at the entrance, but that was outside... and melting, people!  I said I'd prefer to be inside, and thankfully that was arranged.

I spent the evening sitting across from a white curtain that cordoned off our area from the general public, and next to the statue (is that what you call them?) of Brad Pitt.  We put a name tag on him and invited him to the event.  We also snapped a pic with the boss to prove it. 

that's my red bag in the lower left corner...

There were lots of very recognizable people there (in wax form) and some who looked vaguely familiar but maybe it's just me... I don't follow the Kardashians or whoever is the flavor of the minute like some people.  And being in charge of the registration table did not give me a lot of time to view the attraction.  I did see a homeboy from Milwaukee...

The amazing Liberace!  All glammed up too.

 

At the hotel we decided that a good place to connect to go to the various locations was the statue of Michael Jackson in the lobby.  "Meeting at Michael" became the code.  I'm not sure it really looks like him, at least you knew what people meant by it.  I will say he is huge!

 

 

On the way home I was part of the big blackout at McCarran Airport.  Power went out about 10 minutes after I sat down in the boarding area.  As I was flying Southwest and was in the last boarding group I figured what did it matter anyway.  It was going to be 107 degrees in Vegas, and the airport did get a bit stuffy, but what can you do in a case like that?  Keeping your cool takes on a double meaning.

 

Light was coming in through the windows, but all the monitors
were out.  The gate agents had computers but no microphone
so all messages were shouted from the desk by a woman who
was having trouble projecting!  Most people were pretty patient.

I was reading when a nice man sat down next to me to try to use the outlet to charge his phone.  No dice, only select things are powered by the generators that had come on.  He was anxious because his boarding pass was on his phone and his phone was at 4% power.  Ooops!

 

An hour or so later, the power came back on and he was able to charge his phone to 10% and get in line.  Lucky guy, he was in group A, so he got on before it went dead again.  When my turn came, only middle seats were available, which I knew would happen.  I was fortunate though, I got a seat in Row 3.  Right next to the phone charger guy!  We had a nice chat while waiting to take off.

 

Arriving at home I discovered that it was hot here too, but much more humid.  Fortunately the car is air conditioned.  Hubby and I went for lunch and when I came home I unpacked, put on comfortable clothes and crashed on the couch. 

 

As I get older I find that recovering from travel takes longer too.  Even the vacation trips take their toll.  Changing time zones got me worn out.  The first day was so long, I got to bed at 11 p.m. Pacific Time but my brain was still on Central Time so that meant it was really 1 a.m. to the old bones!

 

I am so happy not to be traveling anywhere that I cannot get to by car for the foreseeable future!

 

No more 'day job' for me, today was my last day.  What do they call that emotion, bittersweet?  Glad to leave the job, sorry to have to leave the people I so enjoyed working with, my work family if you will.  But WOOT WOOT!! I'm officially a retired person as of about noon today!

 

Rock on...

 

 

TWO Weeks to Go!

I have two weeks to work before I retire from my 'day job'.  I can hardly believe it myself.  It seemed for along time that I might have to literally work forever.  One day, I opened up my statement from my 401K account from work and realized that I'd saved more than I expected and the company match was making the account look pretty good.


Not that i saved a fortune!  A little bit taken off my check on a weekly basis made it seem not too painful for today, and added up over time for the future.


If you have a 401K match at your company I am telling you right now, you are foolish in a major fashion if you don't take advantage of it!  It's 'free money' and you will thank yourself later.


So I have two weeks left to work... and what I'm calling work is not really work!  I have a successor and she's pretty well trained by now.  We have one or two things to complete, and really I am just there in case she has a question about something.


We did our final conference last week.  We ran a client meeting and an internal meeting together, and the fun part of it was that when the events were over, SHE took home the paperwork and my briefcase was pretty empty!


The company sponsored a client appreciation event at the Madam Tussaud's Wax Museum.  I don't know what I was expecting, something kind of cheesy i guess, because that's what someone told me was their reaction to the one they saw in New York.

The entrance, next to the Venetian Hotel.

 

This is in the 'musician's lounge'... not the best likeness.

 

Brad Pitt was a guest, see his name badge??  LOL!

 

Liberace, in all his glory.  He's a Milwaukee home boy.

 

Sports were big at the Wax Museum!  NASCAR
was well represented.

Random guest with headgear from Senior Frog's.

 

Traveling for business is always less fun than it sounds like it will be.  On the way there, the baggage carousel decided not to work and I had to wait for my luggage to show up.  On the way back I was in the  airport at 7 a.m. and shortly thereafter the power went out!  Our flight was delayed by about an hour.  The temperature in Vegas was supposed to get up to 107F, I just wanted to get home and take a nap!


I've been sewing on my Escher blocks, I'll update the blog with that progress tomorrow.


Nine and a half working days left...


Sew on!



The Sewing Room Stay-Cation

Last week, after a four day sojourn in North Carolina I took a stay-cation day on Friday.  I had big plans to spend the day in my sewing room.  It was pretty much a disaster after about six or seven weeks of benign neglect. 

That and the fact that stuff got moved back and forth by the Hubster when the delivery guy came with water for the softener.  He has to walk through the kitchen, down the stairs and through my resource center with 80 pound bags slung over his shoulder, so DH kindly removes all obstacles from his path.

not my delivery guy... but close!

I decided to start straightening up so I could find my sewing machine and do something constructive.  Ha. That is an endless task!  And if I wasn't distracted by the 'squirrels' (have you seen the dog in the movie "UP"?) -- well, not squirrels exactly, more like fat quarters and yardage, I was pulled down the rabbit hole of stacks of quilt magazines and patterns.  So on Friday I only cleared the ironing board and the top of the drier.  But I did actually uncover the sewing machine!

I discovered some fabric I'd forgotten I had; that never happens to anyone else, right?  And I came across a big box of small scraps that were intended for a major trimming session.  Ummm, did I say A box?  Crazy, what I save!  But these scraps will come in handy the next time our group does string blocks.  I'll consolidate and eventually I'm sure I'll have a bushel  uh, couple of five gallon buckets full.

I did manage to sew after a bit.  I needed a break from cleaning.  I dug around enough in the cleaning process to locate a fabric that was an adequate match for something in a kit I had started, and finished up a quilt called Tam's Patch.  It's small, a crib sized at most, but I really liked the color combination.  The small print is cherries with green leaves on tan and white.  It's much cuter up close!

 

 

I was this close to the end of the seam on the final piece of border when I had the brilliant idea to check the amount of the thread I had left on the spool... 

 

Fumes!!  Luckily, it was enough to finish the seam, with THIS MUCH left over!

 

After I clipped all the threads and finished pressing, I decided to quit while I was ahead.  It was late anyway, and I don't do my best work after 10 p.m.  In fact, I was amazed that I had stayed up that late.

 

More sewing occurred over the weekend, but that's a story for another day.

 

Sew on...



Southern Food

While I spent a fair amount of time in North Carolina actually working (in the office!  Gasp!!) there were some evenings spent at nice restaurants eating great meals.


The last time I was here, I was taken to a restaurant called The Terrace and they told me I had to have the Red Velvet waffle and chicken.  It comes with a cream cheese drizzle to simulate the Red Velvet cake.  It. Was. Awesome.  So of course there had to be a repeat.

OMG that lunch is SOOOO good... the mix of sweet and crunchy is wonderful and I can see why people love it.  I had that for lunch today!  My stomach was very happy.

For dinner last night I went to a very nice Chinese restaurant and had my all time favorite, beef & broccoli.  Also awesome.


And the restaurant was very pretty inside. 

 

Yesterday I had a healthy day, spinach salad for lunch and then of course the broccoli for dinner.  Good thing too, because here at the hotel they provide free breakfast and dinner.  And for dinner tonight??? 

What else??



I did have a side of fruit.  I need to take a walk around the block.  Or seven.

Sew on, y'all...

Sunny Weather and Warm Days

Where are they?  Yes, this is Wisconsin, so sometimes a sunny day means the temperature is a bit on the low side.

Yesterday I was working in my home office and we had opened the window, but there was a good stiff breeze blowing and by the time I'd been working for an hour I had added to my wardrobe a pair of socks, a pair of slippers, a sweater and a long sleeved shirt traded out for the short sleeved one I had put on when I got up.

No fair, Mother Nature!

Next week I have to go to Charlotte NC again for one last training session with my successor.  She's doing a great job.  It will be good to be in one room and not on the phone and sharing computer screens.

But it's warm there... last week it was in the 80s.  I'm a Midwestern girl, not used to the balminess of all of that heat and humidity.  Yesterday someone said to me "well at least it's not SOUTH Carolina, it's REALLY hot there!" 

Newsflash, it's hot in NC too.  Just because the state is named NORTH, that doesn't mean it's any cooler.  LOL!

Today's tasks are to pick up a piece of wide quilt backing for a project, and also to make some small makeup bags to take out to Charlotte for the ladies with whom I have been working.  That should not take too long, if I can just get down to the sewing room!

My favorite bags to make are the ones in the Mary Mulari book Travel Gear Made Easy.  You can find it here if you want to order a copy:  Mary Mulary's Website

Of course there are many patterns available if you want purses, totes, fancy bags of all sorts.  I find Mary's directions so clear and easy to follow, I rarely venture past what is in that book.

I would post pictures but I've given them all away, except for the ones in my own purse, and they're getting a little shabby.

Time to get to work... I'm getting "the look" from the Boss!

Sew on...

Monday, Yay! Maybe...

For the next two months I'm going to try to take some vacation days before I'm done working for good, at least at the day job.  However, that plan immediately had a monkey wrench tossed into it, and not the good kind...

Well, not a BAD kind either, but you know what they say about the best laid plans, right?  So today is a vacation day, but next Monday I have to go to North Carolina for one more week of training my successor.  I hope it's nice there, and not the 85 degrees they supposedly were having last week.  My boss loves to tease us Midwesterners about how nice it is out there when we're having winter.  :-(

On Saturday evening I went into the sewing room to work on a project.  On the way down I grabbed my potholders to give them a soak in the laundry room.  They were looking a little shabby.  After they washed and dried, and I still hadn't really done any sewing, I decided I'd bind them.  I've been using them for about 15 years but they just had serged edges.  I took out my bin of all those small, leftover pieces of binding that I've been saving and found enough to finish all the edges.  They don't look 'new' but they'll last another 15 years, I hope.  Some of them were pieces of fabric and some were orphan blocks. 

I felt very virtuous.  One project done.  Of course it was not on my UFO list, so once again, distracted by 'shiny stuff'...  LOL!

Today the plan was to finish my bookkeeping for April for church, start on May, and maybe make a couple of phone calls.  So the first thing I actually did this morning was drive over to the car place to pick up DH, who had to drop his car off for service.  He could have walked home because it's close but it was raining.

I said I'd meet him there at 8:00 a.m.  I was on the way, and at 8:01 my phone rang. 

DH:  Did you forget about me?
Me:  I'm on my way.  Have you no patience???

I pulled up at 8:03. 

Me:  You don't call looking for someone at 8:01!  No one is late at 8:01!  At 8:10 maybe!
DH:  Sorry...

Sheesh!

I hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day, either spent some time with your own mom if she's close, or with your kids if you have them.  My mom passed away in 1998 but I have an aunt to whom I am very close, and I wished her happy Mother's Day on Facebook.  She said "that was a nice surprise!"  She has her own kids, but she's such a wonderful person I had to send her that message.

My daughter took me to lunch with her girls.  Well, I drove but she paid...  we went for Chinese which is a favorite of ours but not so much the guys.  They stayed home.  That's fine, it makes a table of four, and we enjoyed the buffet.

 

 Then we hopped over to GoFresh and had some yummy frozen yogurt.  The girls like to go there
 for the toppings I think!  Miss A had so many that I couldn't even see the yogurt.

 

I had vanilla yogurt and mango sorbet.  They had these little beads of juice they called something other than berries but I forget what, and I picked both the mango and the kiwi.  Then we came home just in time for me to take a nice little nap while DH was watching a golf tournament.

 

 

I saw these mushrooms growing in the grass of the church parking lot.  They looked so cute I had to take a picture.  DH says he isn't sure what kind they are but he is not sure they're edible.  I wasted about an hour searching the internet for pictures of mushrooms to try to identify it.  The closest I got was to something called a Glittering Inkpot, which the sites said was edible but it does something gross if you don't eat them almost immediately - they sort of melt down into inky black goo.  Thank you but no.  If I want mushrooms I'll get them from the grocery store!

 

Here's to a wonderful week!

Sew on...