I have left the hotel. I am going to focus on school this semester. I really want to graduate next fall and that means doing well in my classes. Classes do not start until the 19th, so I've been focused on making things and resting. I made a list before I left work of everything I want to do in my two weeks between that and class. Week one is done, and I've accomplished a lot. I've finished a sweater, a pair of socks, a blanket, and a hat.
The hot pink yarn that was going to be a Nightingale sweater is finally a sweater. Its final form is a Ragalano, a very basic raglan sweater. It is oversized and so comfy. The neckline is a little wide. That only makes it a great lounging around the house sweater. Right now it is drying after its first wash.
The socks were going to be the Thermal socks from the Toasty Toes book, but I don't like making patterned socks. They have a section with the pattern near the toe, I then modified the pattern for a few repeats because I didn't like it. Then I stopped knitting the pattern altogether. I finished the socks though, in a week. They even got washed and are drying on the sock blockers.
The rainbow alpaca blanket is done. It took four years and ten months, but it's done. It is a nice big blanket, very warm, and it looks great on my bed. I ended up having to crochet an edging on the top and bottom to keep them from curling over. I used white because I thought it would look cute as clouds at the edge of the rainbow. Of course, I did not follow the order of colors for a proper rainbow.
The handspun hat for my Not Biologist friend's son is finished. It is drying on a bowl so that it looks better when I send it to her. This is my first project with my first set of handspun. My spinning skills are improving, but now I'm almost out of fiber. I think my needles were also too small for such chunky yarn, cuz it was hard to work with. I still want to learn how to spin on a wheel in addition to my drop spindle, but Mom is using hers to make Dad a vest. I don't know if you can really switch between projects on a spinning wheel. I assume you have to finish the bobbin first. I want to get my own wheel, but all my money is going towards school. Maybe with the stimulus money. I have no idea where I'd put a spinning wheel.
I have started another pair of socks with my self-striping yarn. I did not bother to make the stripes match up, so not only do the colors not match up, the beginning of each stripe is off by about four rows. This is a problem for the heels because I'm doing contrasting heels and I don't want to interrupt the stripes, so one sock might have a slightly longer foot. I don't know if that's a good idea. The yarn is so soft and summery. The colorway is endless summer.
I think I've finished all the projects I've actually been working on other than the socks. I did finish my "I can't adult today" cross-stitch. Soon I will start my inappropriate word cross-stitch. I am excited about that one, but I don't know what I'll do with it once it's done. I don't know what I'm doing with "can't adult" either. I have a hundred more paper cranes ready to be hung from the ceiling. I will probably do that today. I believe that brings me to about 430. I'm nearly halfway to the full thousand.
I got some new plants. First was several microgreens grow kits. I planted the first set and they are ready for harvest, though there was a mishap where the container fell off the table. Most seem to have survived. I also got a catnip grow kit, cuz the cats will love me if I keep spoiling them. That still has about ten days before I expect it to sprout. The final new plant is a succulent in a llama pot. It is adorable and supposedly hard to kill. It only needs water once a month.
Mr. Kitty has been spending his days snoozing in his cat tree and his nights sleeping on Mom and Dad's bed. He does not wish to be my friend anymore. I had to wash his blanket and so much cat fur came off it I could have made another cat. The girls are their usual selves, mostly just napping in people's chairs and Smudge taking over Dad's lap whenever she sees the opportunity. I have been taking pictures of them with my polaroid type camera. They are usually sleeping in the same spots every day so the pictures tend to look the same.
I got a book on Bipolar disorder. So far I've just read the introduction. It reads like a textbook, but if it has the information it says it does, it should be useful. One of the things it talks about is defining what recovery is for me, since symptom-free is probably not going to happen. It's hard for me to think about what that's going to look like because right now, I just want to be normal. I don't even really know how I'm defining normal. It's an important thing to think about because how will you know if you get there if you don't know where you're going.