Drizzle-y Day

This is a day when all the full-spectrum lights should be on all day long in every room.  Gray and drizzly only good for mooching around the house--so that means we have to go out this afternoon to one doctor's appointment and two grocery stores, no, make that three because for the second week in a row there was no Aldi ad in yesterday's newspaper.  I can't get used to seeing the wet street all black and shiny, it looks unnatural, but I'm sure I'll get used to it soon.  Or not.

Once I recovered from finishing the Sudoku Afghan I started adding rounds to the third Rebel Girl hat and this morning I dug out some leftover balls of yarn to use to duplicate stitch the words onto the hats.  DIL1 made up a mantra for Rebel Girls--Strong, Smart, Kind, Brave--so I'm going to put two of the words on either side of the hat.  That way it'll be reversible depending on how a person feels that day.  I have a feeling that my "Strong" side will face forward a lot.  I've never done duplicate stitch and I'm looking forward to it.  I'm thinking that having a piece of cardboard to stiffen up the hat while I'm working on it might be good.  I'll try it and report.


Yesterday being November 1 kind of snuck up on me so I spent most of yesterday morning getting November set up in my Bullet Journal.  It's working well for me now that I'm into my second year.  Every month I read the newsletter email to see if there are any refinements I could make but, aside from missing the drawings I did while I was laid up with my broken ankle (thank you, Vicodin) I've got it about where I want it.  It's till mostly a "to-do" list with a journal-type entry below and random printouts from the Zen page-a-day calendar that I get on email every day washi-taped in every once in a while.  And I include a swatch of the fabrics I sew and sometimes a picture of the garment.  There are days, and sometimes a run of days, when I just don't manage to get it open but most of the time it gets its daily list, yesterday's recap, and the puzzle and yoga squares colored on the habit trackers.  I like it.  It appeals to the impulse for order I inherited from my looooong line of Germanic ancestors and I get to write with a real live Waterman fountain pen.  Ahh.

November 2--Emile Cardinaux, Poster Advertising Davos Winter Resort.  This high in the mountains it was always cold and inevitably snowy so Verna couldn't figure out why none of the women wore pants.  They had on fashionable dresses with fashionably short skirts worn with thin stockings and dressy shoes.  Her trunk was full of wool slacks, thick knitted socks, wool sweaters, flannel shirts, and lined, lace-up boots with thick soles.  She liked to dress up but she refused to court frostbite in the process.  She had a couple dresses for going to dinner but that was it.  Being outside for any length of time made her feel as though her face would freeze right off.  She couldn't imagine running around in a dress and coat that barely reached her knees.

Time to put together a nutritious lunch before braving the drizzle for the afternoon.
--Barbara