Labour Day Weekend 2009

The last holiday weekend of the summer is usually invigorating for me. It spells the (almost) end of extreme summer heat, which is a huge relief. The older I get, the more I hate summer heat! I took this photo at the bottom of "University Hill" the other morning. When we're greeted with low cloud cover like this, you know summer is coming to an end. Labour Day weekend also spells the beginning of new school terms. While I have a grandaughter experiencing the joy and excitement of her first days in kindergarten, and two friends who are off embarking on nursing programs in other cities, I am not returning to school myself this September. Last year, I started a graduate program via distance ed, and I've come to the conclusion that obtaining my Master's degree via that method is not for me. I miss classrooms. I miss human interaction and debate and the complexity of humans sharing ideas face to face. So I'm in academic limbo until I figure out what to do. Maybe I'll head back up "University Hill" to my friendly local campus?

This weekend is not what I expected at all. I was invited on a fishing trip.

I'm not fishing.

The alternative was a sewing weekend at home.

I'm not sewing either.

Last Monday, I had a close encounter with a sidewalk. I stepped backward in an attempt to avoid a collision with a rude dude in a hurry, realized I was off-balance, and tried to quickly step forward to regain my balance.

Didn't work. I left a few patches of skin on the sidewalk. Here's my left knee ...... right after the fall and before the kaleidoscope of bruises started to show. Fortunately, my knees were not seriously damaged. My glasses, however, were ...... and if you know me at all, you know I really can't function without my glasses! Fortunately, I keep the previous pair of glasses for just such emergencies. I'll spare you the picture of my face. I skidded along the sidewalk on my left cheek bone. It felt like it was happening in slow motion, and I remember thinking "this must really hurt!" I'm not sure what position my left arm was in while I was thinking this, but it received the most damage ...... I tried to shrug it off as just scraped and bruised, but by that evening, knew I wasn't going to pull it off. I had to face up to the reality of fractured and torn. Consequently, my left wing is now out of commission for the next couple of weeks, and will require some physiotherapy after that. DAMN! (I'd say worse things than that, but Motrin is keeping the pain at bearable limits.)

So here it is the long weekend, and I'm doing everything with one hand. I have no problem typing one-handed, although it's a little slower going. There are a number of things I can't figure out how to do one-handed, such as putting on my bra, doing up buttons, opening the jam jar, and opening the front door of my building. Thankfully, neighbours have helped out with the door thing ... the rest of that list I'll just keep to myself!

Here's one of the sewing projects I was going to work on this weekend ... felted coasters. I did this first part of the project two weekends ago. First, I knitted four big squares out of some Noro wool that I've had buried in my stash for years.I knitted them fairly loose, about 5 stitches to an inch on 5 mm needles.Then I felted the finished squares by hand by squooshing them around in the kitchen sink in warm water with a few squirts of dish soap.Contrary to what many people think, you do not need super hot water or washing machine agitation to felt wool. You only need warm water and dish soap and the patience to work the wool between your hands until the desired degree of felting is accomplished. Here are the felted squares laid out to dry:

Sorry, fuzzy picture! These squares are quite densely felted ... no individual knitting stitches visible now. The next step will be folding the four corners in to the centre so that each looks like four triangles on one side and one square on the other side (does that make sense?) and then add tassels to the outside corners.

So how am I entertaining myself this long weekend???

Reading ... "Baked to Death" by Dean James ... a light-hearted British tale combining modern-day vampires and medievalist re-enactors. Watching DVDs ... the first entire season of "Deadwood" ... America's Wild West at its raunchiest and rawest. Playing computer games ... Sims 3 ... for the first time ever, I have played an invented character throughout an entire life span, birth to death. It was quite a surprising moment when she popped out of her body and faced the Grim Reaper!

What are YOU doing this long weekend???