Knitting The Hand Basket to Hell

Tough night, rough morning. No details, just - rough. Yesterday I overdid, skittering around like a high-strung hummingbird on speed, letting myself feel overwhelmed, resulting in an anxiety attack. During the night there was pain. This morning, there is exhaustion. I do not have the strength to chew a bagel. Oy. I also do not have the patience to discuss politics. Today I am annoyed with all of them, including Hillary (and I usually give her a pass.)

If you haven't been watching All-Star Academy on Food Network, you missed Andrew Zimmern getting feisty. Let me paraphrase - "Sure, they're all Iron Chefs, while I'm just the schmuck from Travel Channel with too many frequent flier miles." I wish I could get the actual quote; there was something about eating bugs (or was it whale anus?) and he may have mentioned Brooklyn. Crazy competitive and darkly determined, he won the challenge. Good show @andrewzimmern!

My current project goal is organizing the upstairs bookshelves which should bring me naturally to the next project, organizing all of my craft materials - knitting, crochet, needlework, jewelry-making, and even my coloring books and pencils. Even after giving away enough yarn to start a small store, I still have too much of everything. That includes a ridiculous number of UFOs (unfinished objects), another dirty little secret of knitters and their crochet cousins. Some of my UFOs date back to the early eighties. Others need nothing more than to have the ends woven in, or a few buttons sewn on. And still others just need to be blocked, one of my least-favorite finishing activities.

Of course that doesn't even touch on the painful topic of half-finished afghans, scarves, shawls, hats, and socks, all requiring thousands of hours of actual knitting or crocheting. No wonder I got that overwhelming feeling. Better that I not think about that too much and just stick to finishing the dozen or so pairs of socks.

Why, thank you, Doctor! Now let me show you what a well-turned heel looks like:

I haven't really been up to cooking lately, so I pulled a few finished dishes out of the freezer, but having never learned to leave well enough alone, I did play around with a package of frozen flanken, spring boarding off of my recipe for beef ribs. It's pretty easy but I still shouldn't have done it, but what the hell? - Gotta eat, right?

Look for that recipe tomorrow. I just realized I am practically spoonless, and Blogger is getting wonky as I type.