Yarn help plz?

Anyone know how this is gonna crochet up? Is it self-stripy? Or will it be mottled? The store people didn't know.

Lockdown

No, it wasn't just you. I had a slight meltdown in the middle of the night last night and questioned the wiseness of my whole blog's existence, and so I closed it to anyone but me. I opened it back up this morning.

I overshare, and I overshared again last night. I've taken the post down that I wrote. It embarrassed me. The whole blog embarrasses me! I feel so...DRAMATIC. I hate DRAMA.

The truth is I'm doing really badly, and have been for some time. I have another doctor's appointment on Wednesday, so that's good. I dunno.

I don't want people to judge me based on how pathetic I must come across recently.

Honk

I'm dupped dup.

You know how occasionally you'll get one of those head colds that causes one of your nostrils never to work? (How's that for an awkwardly unsplit infinitive? Y'all should already know my take on that.)

Back to the headcolds. For the last two nights I've taken decongestants, and, as a consequence, have spent a couple of hours in the middle of each night awake. Blah. One night it was 2-4 a.m, and last night it was 12:20-2:30 a.m.

I'm not ever really sure when to go to the doctor about this kind of illness. I mean, they can't do much for a typical cold, but then at some point it can develop into one of the nasty infections.

Behold potential TMI and proceed at your own risk:

Yellow, thick SNOT! When I'm lucky it comes out my nose, but more often that not I have to hork to get it out.

If I'm not better by Monday I'm for sure calling the doctor.

Cryptic

I still have that crush I mentioned several weeks ago. And I just admitted it to him directly after hinting for quite some time. And I can't tell whether his response was encouraging or discouraging. The direct response was opaque (basically that I didn't have to worry, because he was innoculating me with a weakened strain, and so I'd be immune soon--have I mentioned he's hilarious?), and the action was to say that he had to go to the gym NOW. Maybe he doesn't know himself, right? I'm still having fun with it, though. It scares me to think about what feels like an inevitable dashing onto the rocks of rejection, but I'll keep plugging onward, living in the moment.

I have never heard of this.

So, Laurie, remember those fireworks on New Year's Eve?

Yeah. Apparently it was actually "celebratory gunshots."

That's tacky.

Last second

The grant is due in hand on Friday by 5 p.m. at an address located in the city where I work. It's 95% done. My job at this point is to copy, hole punch, collate and double check that all the I's are crossed and the T's dotted.

I'm out at a high school all day tomorrow. There are a few documents that need to be notarized before they can be included in the application; our ED is doing that part. The last piece of the puzzle will be complete on Friday morning, when our board chair is available to sign something. Then the ED will hand deliver the application, and we'll be done with it.

I'm not happy with the budget; I had some say as to what was included, but in order to make it fit the amount we can be awarded, the ED cut some areas. I can understand some of her changes, but I'd have re-allocated things a bit differently. For the most part it's OK, but there's one expense related to program marketing that I am definitely annoyed was left out. I'm pretty sure, however, that we can tweak things around if we get awarded the grant.

I have other concerns about the content as well, but the ED is done with it and just wants to turn it in--and she has said this in no uncertain terms. My issue is that there are significant tasks in there that will be my responsibility that I a) didn't know about until this morning and b) will have to negotiate if we get the grant, cause there's just no way I can do it all on top of what I'm currently doing. We'll have to have that conversation later on, I suppose. I'm not glad that I didn't get to give her feedback on the new information. I have questions and some very strong opinions about doing things slightly differently, but in effect, I've been silenced.

(ED. My part is done. Six copies are collated and put into binders.)

A bit more normal now, but please let me have another liter or so of water, ok?

Oh my, did I wake up feeling nasty this morning. Thanks New Year's Eve! (In reality: "Thanks, Stew, for drinking those last two glasses of prosecco that tipped you over the comfort zone right before bed AND a huge cup of strong coffee that kept you from sleeping!")

Laurie came over last night for a slumber party!! We hadn't ever met before, so it was truly courageous on her part to hike 45 min to an hour away.

I made dinner--local, of course. Baked rainbow trout with my garden's still-surviving dill and sorrel, green salad with butter lettuce from some hydroponic place around here somewhere, with added carrot, arugula and some other unidentified lettuces from the tub-o-greens I have growing and then a homemade (kind of messed up, but tasty!) cherry-crisp with some Maple View Farms cream whipped up on it. Please note that when I take pictures these days, I resort to some extreme body and laptop contortions in order to do so. I wish I had a picture of me taking pictures of this dinner with the built in laptop camera.



Laurie also introduced me last night to an uber-local (to her) brew: Old Town Brown Ale. Rowr.

We traded seeds. Totally fun. Actually, it felt more like I took seeds from Laurie while she either already had or didn't need the ones I had to offer her. At the same time, it also felt like we were participating in a ritual that we'd done before, only as different women, many years ago. That sounds hokey to me, reading what I just wrote, but I really did feel a pang of connection to a long tradition. Maybe it's just a good imagination on my part. I've got my work cut out for me to try to fit all of these new veggies into my small space!

I had a fab time, and am thrilled to have met our Miss Laurie!