Happy heavenly birthday, Father Hand. Stay off the smack.
This has been a week of epic length. It started with Mother Z's funeral. She received a terminal cancer diagnosis just before last Christmas and lasted for eight months. During that time, in typical Mother Z fashion, she got absolutely everything relating to her departure organised to the letter, down to the shop where her immediate family were to buy their black funeral suits. She chose the music - recordings of choirs she was in - and the pictures for the slide show. She even wrote her own eulogy. It was exactly as she would have wanted it and it was standing room only. A sad occasion but a good celebration of her long life.
The rest of the week was a chaotic whirlwind of work. I began with heavy overwhelm but had started to see the wood for the trees by Friday. The to-do list is gradually abating and I have had the 'I need to quit my job' conversation with Mr Z that he reminds me happens every September. There is definitely a little shadow over my shoulder of the dissertation that I have made no further moves with, but it has been less than a fortnight since the launch days so I think I will be OK.
What else has happened? Hmm, hmm. I spoke at an online conference on Thursday evening. I came down with a horrible cold on Wednesday that swept on very quickly, so I skipped yoga and went to bed at 9pm. Happily I felt better when I woke up, though Mr Z has since succumbed to the same and we wonder if it might be covid. We did at least make it to brunch yesterday.
Progress was made on the nice goals list. The fancy boots arrived and they are gorgeous and they do actually fit, which is good, really, but I was anticipating sending them back as they were quite spendy. Now I just have to make sure I wear them. I also did a lot of preserving last Sunday (hence the no blogging, I was at capacity) and churned out nine jars of crab apple jelly and six jars of mango chutney.
I am at row 34 of 50 on the colourwork chart of the Christmas jumper and feeling slightly less worried about running out of yarn: for some stupid reason, I bought the yarn required for a size L when I was in Oslo over the summer, as opposed to the 2XL that I am knitting. This isn't an easy problem to fix: according to the pattern, I am 100g of sport weight and 50g of laceweight short. However, based on current progress, I think I will be OK. I have some ideas for getting round it if I run out, anyway, here they are in order of preference: knit it slightly cropped; add green bands to the sleeves/waist to save on the white; knit it with elbow-length sleeves; contact the yarn shop and ask if they can ship me some more; find someone in Oslo and ask them if they can go into the shop, buy some and send it to me. I think the most likely scenario is that I will have enough sport weight but run out of laceweight, but as they're carried together, I can get more of the laceweight (which is more easily available in the UK, thankfully) and even though the dye lot will be different it probably won't be THAT noticeable. It is the undyed colourway, after all.
To go with the knitting, I had to find some things to watch, so I worked my way through the first eight episodes of Ken Burns's Vietnam War, which was actually much better than I was anticipating. Then it was removed from Now TV, because of course it was. Trying to decide if I want to see the end enough to buy the final episodes on Amazon Prime. I reckon if I just wait long enough, it will pop up on another service. The Mr Z declared it was time to rewatch The Wire (I never finished it all on the first watch through anyway) and I decided today that I would give Yellowstone a try. The jury is out. I like the landscapes but it doesn't really feel like it is for me.
