I stayed up late...

...and then came home from work and knitted all night.

I'm even thinking that today, today...my day off...I could just sit and knit.  This whole plan to go to the grocery store and be responsible and buy healthy food and cook it so I can eat it and not undo all my amazing progress from last year.  Yeah...that plan is starting to feel shaky because I have amazing socks on the needles.

See...

 Peachy Keen by Cookie A, February 2015 sock club pattern in the club yarn: Anzula Squishy in Begonia.  It's SO AMAZING.  Soft, squishy (of course) and shimmery beautiful.  The pattern is really very simple.  I'm almost done with the leg...and the gusset decreases happen in the foot patterning at the top rather than along the sides of the ankle.  Totally cool :)

And just to prove that I DID finish Feeling Groovy and casted on Peachy Keen RIGHT AWAY.  That's what I stayed up late for two nights ago.

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Work news is cool.  I'll be shifting responsibilities next week from order fulfillment to "back orders and receiving."  I'm really very excited as this is an area I identified in my 3 month meeting.  And I've discovered over the past 6 months (can you believe it's been that long???) that I love doing inventory stuff.  And organizing the yarn.  It's all wonderful and cool and I can't tell you how terrific I feel that I work in a place that listens and helps the employees find "their place" even if it isn't one that existed when they arrived.

Case in point:  I'm a data geek.  (Y'all knew that right?  PhD in research methods testing out some data analysis on a survey instrument that I created...worked for years doing data analysis for grants...) Anyway, I love data and while I don't miss the academic world, I do miss playing around with data and figuring out patterns.  So, Laura recognized this and has put me on a huge (and I mean huge) data project which I'll be devoting 2 of my days of work to (the other 3 to back orders).  She said yesterday in morning meeting "we'll have to give Leslie a new title and a crown or something because she's going to be our yarn expert...with her sticky brain she'll know it all!"  Ha!  I told her I'd accept a scepter. :)

I love having a sticky brain by the way!

I breathed...

Well...I managed to get through the terrible awful.

And I have to say I did it through the encouragement and love of good friends and loving family and an inner strength that continues to amaze me.

Everything is now final.  And I have to say that my anxiety levels which I would have put at a 7 or 8 on Saturday and they remained that through the hearing on Monday have dropped to a 2.  I'm so calm and relaxed and just feel at peace.

I do not, for one moment, like HOW things were done, but I do have to say that they were right.

It's still incredibly sad and I still have moments of huge sorrow and grief.  It's all tangled up with the loss of my dad, uncle and husband in such a short period of time.

But, I will instead discover a new me that had been hiding and is so ready to come out and play and love life and live and enjoy what's happening all around her.

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I knitted on this sock yesterday on the flights and at the airport.  The yarn is Allegria by Manos del Uruguay.  Yummy yummy yummy.  I can't wait for them to be finished so I can wear them and everyone will see me coming from a mile away :)

Yarn

It's no secret that I love yarn.  In fact, those of you who have been to my place know just how much I love yarn and the rest of you can simply guess based on your own love of yarn or whatever other artistic pursuits you follow.

Yarn does it for me.  I love to look at it, feel it and then make things from it.  If the things I make are useful, more the better. If they're pretty AND useful, awesomeness.  If they're pretty, useful, and soft and luxurious...well...that's a match made in heaven.

Meet Honor by Lorna's Laces:

The color way is one that JBW is featuring while Sandy is undergoing her chemotherapy.  It's called "Go Sandy Go" and 100% of the profits are going to the SD Ireland Cancer Research Fund.

Honor is 70% alpaca and 30% silk and is just pure heaven.  I love knitting with this yarn, and garter stitch is perfect because it's showcasing the color and making the yarn squishy soft.  The pattern I'm using is French Cancan Shawl.  I have enough yarn to make the entire shawl from this color but I may combine with it the Fraser Colorway...we'll see how I feel when I get to that awesome lace and cable border.

This shawl will definitely meet the match made in heaven category.  I'm impatient to finish it up because it's so lovely and wonderful to touch...but that would mean I was done with it and that would be sad too.

Smoke, Part 2

The smoke continues to be really bad.  My reactions to it today weren't so bad as they were this weekend, but I do have to say I do not want to be outside.  This is what it looked like when I left work today:

If you need a comparison, go to my other blog post where I was bragging about the awesome mountain scenery I would see everyday when I leave work.

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I knitted away on that shop sample hat last night but I got tired...it was a hard day at work yesterday.  Today wasn't so bad and I did get to get on the phones and "eavesdrop" as Jeanne talked with customers.  I will do this for a week or so until I'm comfortable with all the things I'll need to do and then I'll start taking the calls and have someone eavesdrop while I interact with the customers.

JBW continues to be such an awesome place to work, and everytime my brain tried to think of the divorce or the changes in my life, I reminded myself that I picked myself up and got here and that this is a great place for me to be and that I am going to be wonderful.

And it worked, y'all.  The negative thoughts went away and I wasn't even aware that they'd gone away.  I love the power that we can have over our attitude and our circumstances.

Life is, indeed, good.

Smoke

I'm learning all kinds of new things living out west...like there's fire season and it comes with some amazing sunsets.

And smoke that makes it really hard to breathe and apparently irritates my sinuses and eyes something terrible.  Hopefully my eyes won't look like they did yesterday.  That was really bad.

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I worked the 9:30-6 shift today.  It was hot.  And smoky this afternoon.  We had to close the warehouse bay doors to keep the smoke out.  It got hotter in there without any air moving.

I was tired at the end of it.  I'm so glad I cooked soup yesterday because dinner tonight was super easy and tasty...and now I'm done and can finally go shower this stinky self.

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But before I go I want to share my shop sample that I'm working on.  It's the St. Stephen's Hat by Classic Elite Yarns and is knit in Fresco.  If you buy the pattern and the 5 colors needed to do the colorwork hat you can actually get 4 hats out of all that yarn!  I'm going to do both the stripe one (that's what's on the needles right now) and the colorwork one and then see if I'm interested in continuing to do two more.  Could be good give-aways or Christmas gifts or something.

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and finally, if you want to go look at the awesome people that I work with, please do!  I'm so proud to be part of this team (and tomorrow, they're putting me on the phones...)

The happy spot

You know that place...the one you go when you feel really good about yourself or your decision or just because you feel like it.  The happy spot.  The one where you can pause, look about you and say, "yep, I did the right thing and it feels really good."  For me that was always my spot on the couch with my knitting all around me, my glass of wine on the end table next to me and something nice and calming on the tv...or just music...or sometimes nothing.

Unfortunately I don't have a happy spot here at the apartment yet.  I like my chair--trust me when I say that it's a million times better than the floor--but my makeshift Ottoman (paper box with a fluffy pillow on top) leaves a lot to be desired and the "sprawl" factor just ain't happening.  I'd LOVE to have a big comfy bed to curl up in right now and read for a bit...but the air mattress is what I've got to sleep on and it doesn't invite "curling up."

Right now I'd really love a happy spot...the one where I could sit back and reflect on everything I've done this month...on how I've turned something really crummy into something positive...that's for me...that will allow me to grow and develop and learn to love and cherish myself.

But...

...

At least Pearl found her happy spot!

Happy long weekend everyone.  I'll be pulling yarn orders at work...and couldn't be happier about it!