Rant Until The Cows Come Home

No cows were harmed in the making of this blog post

Friday - My back feels like it is breaking, damn it. Advil is worthless right now. Here I am, propped up in bed and the pillows are just making the pain worse.  No idea how that works, but I hate it. I had rather reasonable plans to shelve some books and give Woody a well-deserved bubble bath, but that all fell into my Fibromyalgia Garbage Can of Broken Dreams, to be followed by a sleepless night. And that resulted in my starting out for Saturday morning tai chi class disgracefully late, which also meant I broke my own rule about not leaving the second floor of this house without having taken my medications, and that kind of omission never ends well. Class was intense this morning - not physically intense, but tai chi intense. And that's all I am really going to say about that, except you should all come out and try it. So of course I had to stop at the St. Cloud Walmart on my way home (yes, that is my third Walmart day in a row and I am tired from it), because I had to buy yet another 3-drawer container, because ... well, let me show you.

You may recall just how pleased I was at the resolution of my paper overload - photostats and other paraphernalia related to my hobbies, but none more especially than knitting. You may not have realized I was positively smug about it.

I love the illusion of organization. It satisfies my obsessive-compulsive nature. And yes, those are some of my jewelry-making supplies on the lower shelf.

You also may remember that I still have not fully unpacked from our move to this house 2 years ago. Nowhere is this more obvious than in our dining room/library/kitchen extension/music room/used to be the law office conference room.

When I chose my upstairs bath as Project Zero, I knew that it would start to flow naturally to my closet, the hallway, the master bedroom, and finally the dining room. I was/am in no rush for any of this, as I have neither the energy, strength, nor immediate need to have a nice neat house. My big entertaining days are over and besides those stacks of boxes give Anakin a place to keep in touch with his catness.

So I'm not clear on exactly what made me peek into one of the big boxes in the dining room, but I did and all I could do was stare in horror while sending up a silent prayer that the heretofore hidden stack of papers was chock full of recipes and cooking hacks.

No such luck.

I'm still trying to figure out how I could have forgotten the existence of these papers, which contain a veritable treasure trove of patterns, notes, pictures, and more patterns. Most of my favorite patterns for socks and squares are in that stack, so what was I thinking, assuming I was thinking, albeit in my New Normal Fibromyalgic way? Really, that kind of memory glitch feels like I dropped my personal hard drive on a cement garage floor causing severe damage, and that doesn't feel good at all.

The good news, of course, I that I did find them, (Christmas in April!) including my design notes for those handknit wash clothes I wrote about just yesterday.

What makes those wash clothes particularly charming is the combination of multiple patterns for each cloth. In designing them, I pulled out a bunch of stitch libraries and got busy mixing and matching based on a number of different factors. Having those notes (which make sense to me), allows me to recreate my favorites or having a starting point for any pattern tweaking. So while I am a bit bemused, I am pleased.

Now you know why I ended up in Walmart yet again, purchasing more Sterilite. At least I now understand why one of the guests at the graduation party whispered "plastics" in Benjamin Braddock's ear. (And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson.)

I am also more than a bit bemused by the sudden resurgence in the cow population of Osceola County. Driving to tai chi class this morning, I noticed that at least three empty lots have been converted to cow pastures, complete with real grazing cows and their gamboling calves, which means major development construction is on its way. I don't know if those tax abatement cows have anything to do with the really big rodeo set for April 7th (Kissimmee=Kowtown; you knew that, right?) or if they are participating in the cattle drive through downtown Kissimmee this coming Monday.

Cattle drive. Yes, I live in downtown Kissimmee. Can't wait to see just how close they get to my front door.

I still don't feel like cooking, so Rob and I picked up a ginormous amount of Chinese take out last night and ate while we watched the Magic lose - again. To the Milwaukee Bucks, of all teams. We are totally excluded from the playoffs - again. Next year, kids.