Bitten by the Zentangle bug

I started the second chapter in the primer last night. It was an almost completely execrable tile. And I'm OK with that. Anne Lamott, in her advice to writers, counsels to go ahead and write the [horrible] first draft. So I did.

Tonight I practiced two of the new tangles. I'm quite pleased with one of them. It's the one I hated the least last night. And I drew bigger circles for the second one. I'm updating iTunes on this computer and blogging a bit while some of the ink dries. I'll finish that tile tomorrow night.

I've listened to all seven chapters in this week's reading for Sunday School. Tomorrow I'll start reading each chapter in depth, chasing down the footnotes, and making notes as I go.

If I want to get any knitting done today (and not let Zentangle take over my creative life), I need to post this now and restart my computer.

Keeping it simple, keeping it honest, keeping it real

One of my favorite no-brainer meals is a cup of Easy Mac with a nuked burger from Costco cut up into it. Sometimes Rarely, I'll stir in cooked broccoli. More often, it's a handful of sliced grape tomatoes. Today, while the macaroni cup was doing its thing in the microwave, I rinsed and sliced up the last of the grape tomatoes. I placed them in a ring around the burger while it heated through, and I sliced up two green onions and stirred them into the mac after adding the cheese. It made for a pretty and deeply satisfying lunch.

The Fitbit works well in one Costco that I patronize but not so much in the other. I am quite sure that I put in more than 150 steps while I was in there this morning. I'm also a little puzzled as to how I could have racked up 86 steps in my sleep. Oh well, as one of my professors 40+ years ago stated at the beginning of the semester, there are lies, d@mn lies, and statistics.

I've had a quiet, putter-y day so far. (I've begun this post at 3:30 in the afternoon.) Small breakfast. Two small, sensible snacks. And now lunch. Also two loads of laundry. Clean sheets on the bed, and about a third of my Gudrun and other delicates hanging to dry in the shower, now that I've had a shower of my own. I've done cleaning and maintenance on the CPAP. I've read several pages in an issue of The Economist. I'm ready to head back to my squeaky clean bed and listen to a General Conference address while knitting. I got most of the way through it yesterday morning, and when I got into Diana, my phone synced with the car, and my audio disappeared. I had neither the time nor the patience to figure out how to make that stop, so today I'm starting over.

***

Finishing this up at the time I would normally be going to bed, because I had such a great nap. (Dozed off while listening to a second General Conference address and took the hint.) Dinner tonight was a nuked potato topped with guacamole. I had read of it as an alternative to butter, sour cream, and salt. In terms of taste, it was great. I like my potatoes salty but not ridiculously so. The guacamole provided just enough seasoning to keep thing interesting. In terms of appearance, it was kind of gross. But I ate it anyway, and I will probably do so again. Cheap, fast, and easy, unlike me.

I finished the Zentangle that I've been noodling at for approximately a month. I'm nearly done with the issue of The Economist. The new issue arrived today. I love the cover, of England's new PM drawn suspiciously like our own president, riding atop a double-decker bus labeled "Make Britain Great Again" on a roller coaster track that dead-ends into space. And at least one person inside the bus is emulating "The Scream." [Andrea Over the Pond, I don't know what your politics are, so I hope this doesn't offend you.]

I need to go sort out next week's meds and make a little more progress in studying this week's New Testament lesson. There are so many people named in the Book of Acts, and so many places, that it's rather like trying to keep track of the characters in "War and Peace." I find that I'm liking and understanding Paul a little better, this time around. I have the prophets Mormon and Moroni to thank for that. Their writing styles are similar to Paul's, and the translation is vastly more recent and therefore comprehensible, at least to me.

It's been a great day. I feel physically rested, and refreshed in all of the other important ways. Be good, and remember Whose you are.

I had forgotten...

... how much I like nectarines. I bought one, and only one, the other day because I didn't know if Middlest or Fourthborn like them, and I wasn't sure if I was up to eating three of them. I left it in the plastic bag and put it in the fridge.

This morning I decided I'd better eat it before it died of old age. Didn't want to squirt juice all over my clothing, so I sliced it six ways from Sunday and thumbed the sections into a small take-along.

After eating my sandwich, I only had room for one bite. So now I am sitting in bed, noodling around on my phone, and eating the rest of the nectarine. Cutting it up was one of the better ideas I've had. Because as much as I didn't want to get juice all over my clothes or my chin, I especially don't want to get it on the sheets.

I spent about half of the day in a series of meetings, which I guess is a pretty good thing, because I didn't have all that much to do until the last hour or so. New case, answer thankfully not due for another week, and a full set of discovery that I can clean up for our paralegal when I'm back on Monday morning.

Plan for this weekend is to putter a little and create a lot. More Zentangle. More knitting. Maybe start putting some of my bead acquisitions together for new earrings. A whole lot of reading, I hope.

Nectarine is finished. And so, my dears, am I.

I've grown accustomed to this purse?

I may have moaned and gritched about this. If so, I've slept since then. The 20th anniversary (with the corporation) gift which I chose was a designer bag, of the brand which Firstborn prefers. I didn't open the box for something like a week. When I did, the purse was smaller than I'd envisioned, and I certainly couldn't lug all the stuff that I was accustomed to. And I wasn't sure that I liked it all that much. It retailed for nearly half again as much as the bag I chose five years ago, which is hanginging dejectedly from a knob on one of my dressers, whimpering in leathery tones, "Don't you love me anymore?"

There are a few things that I'm discovering that I like about the new bag. It fits neatly under my arm and stays on my sloping shoulder, probably because it weighs five pounds max, and not fifteen. Like me, it has a quirky shape. It's black, so it works for work or church or family brunch at IKEA.

I'm hard on bags. My favorite was a large red leather tote from Franklin (as in Franklin Planner) that I bought half-off at a price that nearly choked me. And was a fraction of what either of these bags would retail for. Good purses, like good steaks, should cost less than $10. Right? I stuffed that bag like a pregnant elephant, and it lasted at least five years. The bag which is in timeout no longer stands tall like a soldier on review. It bulges out on the front and back. It has hourglass creases on the sides. And it probably has another 15-20 years of usefulness left. I'm wondering how well this fancier bag will last. It's more delicately constructed.

In other news, if you start drinking 64 ounces of water a day, and one day you drink half that much, your hands and forearms will tattle on you. I'm naming the left one Mojave and the other one Sahara.

Random thoughts during scripture study.

(This is based upon a draft that I began in November 2017.)

I had been listening to Mosiah 28, where the repentant sons of King Mosiah ask their father for permission to go preach to their enemies, the Lamanites. Since the likelihood of their getting killed far exceeded the likelihood of successful missionary efforts, the king was understandably concerned, and he took those concerns to the Lord, who reassured him.

Random thought the first: I wonder what their mother had to say on this subject. Was she still on this side of the veil? Was her faith as great as her sons' faith, or did she have a Sariah moment in which she said are you all nuts? (or the Nephite equivalent thereof)?

Random thought the second: with these four sons out of the picture, none of Mosiah's other sons wanted to inherit the kingdom. Was this because they had other interests, or because they wanted nothing to do with either a mortal kingdom or the kingdom of God?

Random thought the third: why did Mosiah confer the records which his sons did not want upon Alma the Younger, rather than Alma the Elder? Was the senior Alma already close to death? (Both he and Mosiah are dead by the end of chapter 29.)



I loved this song, back in the 70's. Thankfully, now I know about the Holy Ghost, and I know that all of my questions will be answered someday.

~~~

I have to say that my study has vastly improved since "Come, Follow Me" began at the first of this year.  As much as I'm enjoying the New Testament, I am really looking forward to studying the Book of Mormon next year.

OK. I've caught up my bookkeeping, and I've eaten a delicious dinner of questionable nutritional value, so it must be time to read or to knit. Maybe a little of both.

I saw a doll today that is really tempting. I have bought no dolls for two years. This is an MSD boy with a lively and mischievous face. And they offer extended layaway.

Breaking the mold

When the workmen tore out the last of the kitchen cabinets at work this past weekend, they discovered mold. Our office manager texted us last night that we would tentatively open at 1pm, pending what a mold expert had to say. Midmorning, we got another text, stating that we were closed for the day and that there would be another text no later than 8pm regarding whether we would open tomorrow.

Currently, we are looking at a tentative opening time of 1pm but are not to go in until we get the all clear, which may not happen until close to noon. Followed half an hour ago with notice that the kitchen would be sealed off and completely unavailable and to plan accordingly, if we are allowed to go in.

So, what have I done today? Read. Knitted. Read some more. Gone out for dim sum with doll friends to celebrate Middlest's birthday, which was yesterday. Napped. Read, again. Tidied my room a little more. Gathered up clothing for donation. Finessed the timing for salmon burgers in my George Foreman grill. After eating rather too much dim sum and the consequent nap, my body was vaguely hungry but pleaded, No more carbs, please, for the love of all that's good and holy.

I have trundled the trash bin down to the street and am now enjoying my cool, quiet bedroom, about to wash my evening meds down with buttermilk, which minimizes the dysphagia. And then I'll turn out one light and read (surprise!) by the other until my eyes say we're done. No need to set the alarm tonight.

I could get used to this.

Defragging.

You know how lots of people don't want to engage with others in the morning until they've had one or many cups of coffee? Not an option since my baptism 44 years ago next month. (Plus, I never really liked the stuff. It just makes me sweat and skip to the loo.)

I can't say if I've been this way all my life or if it began when I had a houseful of teenagers and a growing disconnect in my marriage to their father. But I crave solitude at the beginning and end of the day.

At various times I've ma'amaged this by mall walking or by doing needlework in the foyer when the kids were in seminary or by having a mini-devotional or by going to the gym. (Walking several laps in cool water brings both alertness and calm. It's as close to Zen as I'm likely to get without knitting in my hands.)

I finally found the metaphor for this over breakfast with Middlest a week or so ago. (I think Fourthborn was still snoozing.) Defragging. He nodded in recognition.

Most days I've spent enough time awake in my room, with three quick games on my phone followed by diving into my scriptures, that I can genuinely enjoy any available companionship over breakfast. I am both ready and delighted to be civil.

Other days, especially those where sleep or dreams went sideways, I just want to stay in my room until it's time to deal with the breakfast dishes, sluice off, and slink out the door to work.

~~~

It's been a good weekend. Decent progress on Middlest's scarf/cowl. (Maybe I should just call it a scowl?) I've eaten wisely and well. There has been napping. And masses of reading. Church was great, as usual. I've tried to be sensible about media consumption. Spent time hanging out with the dead people after church today. Discovered that I have a plethora of fourth cousins here in Texas. I've made goals for non-scriptural reading for this week. Just need to go into Come, Follow Me and bookmark the lesson, the readings, and the adjunct material. The videos for last week's reading were deeply touching.

One problem solved. OK, two.

Middlest has been the primary document shredder chez nous for quite some time. I've tossed a lot of paper onto the shred pile in the past week and a half. Thankfully, he's not had a chance to do anything about that. Because I accidentally sorted the current bill for my long term care premium into the shred pile, and three minutes of careful digging has retrieved it.

Work went well today. And on one of my skips to the loo, I was able to help an attorney in another firm on our floor get back into her suite. No, I did not pick the lock. I had my phone with me. She gave me her number. An associate answered and came to let her in.

Not much knitting so far today. I'm going to put things away, turn down the lights, and try to go to bed by 9pm, aiming for a solid eight hours before morning.

In which your intrepid heroine pokes a hornet's nest

I've mentioned that the office is being remodeled. The support columns throughout our office used to have mahogany(ish) baseboards around them. Even the round ones. I think all of the columns have been repainted at this point. Two of the round ones have now have vinyl baseboards. I asked the managing attorney if this was going to be the new aesthetic. She hadn't noticed.

This, after a morning in which the workmen were drilling ten feet from my desk when I got to work. It was audible all the way across the office. It continued for another hour or so, until someone spoke to someone who spoke with someone else, who made it stop. The managing attorney was not made aware of it until after it was blessedly quiet. (Both she and the office manager were elsewhere at the time.)

Mid-afternoon, the head of the building management company arrived in our suite with a peace offering: at least two dozen fresh from the oven cookies from Tiff's Treats.

The renovation guys were absent yesterday, and they're not supposed to be working tomorrow or over the weekend.

In knitting news, Middlest's cowl-in-embryo is now a scarf just short of two feet long. I've knitted up all of the pre-knitted dark blue but am still soldiering away on the lighter blue. Also, I found my little red clicker row counter. And three separate patterns that had gone AWOL.

Furthermore, I've sorted through massive amounts of accumulated paperwork that I collected last Saturday: trash, recycling, shredding, and deal with it already. There's a half inch stack of envelopes in the last category, in a pile by my left elbow.

I caught up my financial spreadsheets, and my credit score is four points higher than last month. Baby steps. I had some momentary panic last week when I learned how much dental work the kids need, according to the dentist who's filling in for our regular dentist while he deals with an acute health issue. Assuming he concurs, it will have to be piecemeal.

OK, I'm going to tackle the deal with it pile. Later, gators.

Stuff I learned today.

Banana bread is my nemesis. Or my Waterloo. Or my anti-matter. One of my coworkers made two loaves this weekend and brought them to work. I did my impression of a sensible diabetic and took half a slice. And then the other half. And then...

Predictably, within the hour I had the woozies. I ate the high protein portion of my lunch to even things out. Midafternoon, my right knee started aching like it used to. (My joints have been much less crabby since I made a general improvement in my diet, so for almost a month now.)

Lesson learned. I can only have banana bread when 23 other people are in line to fight me for it.

In knitting news, I've made a lot of progress on Middlest's scarf that will become a cowl. It's nearly two feet long, and I'm still having fun with it.

In order-out-of-chaos news, I tackled a small corner of my room. Disposed of Beloved's two Rolodex files. Consolidated two batches of UFOs into one basket. Scooched the banjo into a more secure spot. There is still a three inch high pile of paperwork that was resting under various bags. I'll deal with that in a day or two.

I am now free to knit with a clear conscience. And I will probably go to bed early tonight, the better to sleep off today's culinary minefield.