Settling in, Zhuzhing, and Hats

Sunday, I washed my hair, and while it was drying (all morning) I stripped my bed and did a load of sheets, towels, and whatever was in the dirty clothes hamper. And I started a hat.

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I had these two little miniskeins (91 yds/83 m, 50 grams) of this “Glisten Kollage” yarn, 70% alpaca, 25% silk and 5% Estelline (whatever that is. . .) in a dark kind of teal which I dug out of stash. They’re from Peru. They were gifts I got for Christmas exchange back during the knitting group days that I thought I’d see if I could get a hat out of. It’s been sitting in a bowl on my desk to work on off and on while I’m proofing or thinking or catching up on my YouTube channels.

I’d revised a free Ravelry hat pattern called the Coriolis Hat, which had a leftward spiral, into one that had a rightward spiral. I vaguely remembered how the pattern worked, swatched for gage and got a pair of US7 ( 4.5 mm) 16-inch circular needles and cast on 90 stitches. I did 6 rows of k1 tbl, p1, ribbing (sort of a semi-fisherman’s rib stitch), then did one row of *k4, kfb, repeat from * to end of row. Then I started a 9 stitch leftward spiral pattern: *ssk, k8, yo, repeat from * to end of row. When it’s tall enough, then *sssk, k8, yo, until you have 9 stitches left, and pursestring it closed.

I started the hat because I just wanted something small that I could finish in a reasonable amount of time, because all the current WIPs are these big shawls. I need to be able to finish something now and again. (I’ve got some other hats I’ve gotten about halfway through and need to finish, too.

But, I have been visiting with old friends as well. Old friends in new places. I’ve finally had time to put some music on and sit and knit. This is Short, Sweet and Nubby, a rectangular shawl that I still have about 4 feet to go on. It’s starting to get cool enough to have all that knitting on my legs while I’m working on it. I’m just going to knit on it until I only have enough yarn left to do the fringe. Then I’ll stop, add the fringe and knot it. But I’ve got a big skein of yarn left.

I thought I’d better go check on Mom’s house, which has been sitting vacant about half a month now. When the surveyers from the title company came to survey the lot, they couldn’t get in the gate because it was lock, so they took the fence down on the other side. Then they just propped it up in the opening and went off and left it that way. Of course it blew down. I went all round the house and all through it on the inside, and aside from looking so empty, everything was intact and there was no sign of a break in or anything untoward like a water leak.

Today I went to the title company and signed about fifty things. They kept the original of my power of attorney, and I won’t get it back until the title company has registered the sale with the county, probably Monday. Now it’s up to UPS to get the buyer’s paperwork here from Puerto Rico with the moneda for the house. We could get it as soon as Thursday, or it could be Monday. They’ll call me, I’ll go pick up a very large check, and take it to the bank. They don’t get the keys until we get the money. But once we get the money, we can close the utilities account. It was over $200 for September, mostly electricity. Thank goodness we won’t have to deal with that any more. Mom’s bills will be limited to insurance premiums and her cellphone bill, and mine will be limited to streaming services, cellphone bill, and car insurance — and, of course, grocery store stuff — toiletries, paper goods, whatever food mom wants, etc.

Tomorrow, I need to call AT&T and give them the boot because yesterday evening I got a WiFi router and hooked it to the internet that comes with the apartment. I got it up and running, signed on an iPhone, two Kindle Fire tablets, an internet radio, a printer, and my computer without a problem. However, my TV refused to get on the internet despite a five-bar signal strength and being rebooted multiple times. The Carillon computer guy will be by at some point to see if he can reason with it.

I hope the computer guy can convince the TV to get on the internet. If I can’t get on the internet, I can’t stream Netflix. The Witcher is going to be dropping new episodes, and there’s some other series I want to take a look at on Netflix to see if they’re worth bingeing. I can watch Netflix on my computer, but I’d rather watch it on my 55-inch TV, thank you very much. So far, the in-house internet is better speed and quality (no dropping the signal for 45 seconds – to a minute at a time) than what AT&T and that jury-rigged hunk of junk they installed was giving me. It’s certainly a lot cheaper. TV and internet for under $50. He tells me, though, come the first of the year, they’re going to boxes of some kind, and I’ll be able to get in-house TV on my TV like mom gets on hers. Right now, you can only get in-house TV through a co-axial cable connection, and my TV is too new to have one. That’s OK . My TV is hooked up to a DVD player that is not region locked.

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There seems to be a tradition of people starting picture puzzles in the common area to be worked on while you’re waiting for laundry to wash or dry in the common laundry area. This one is suitably themed. I’ll leave you with the Smiley Face Bush in it’s seasonal finery.