Breakfast with Heather

I had the day off, so I slept in and got up about an hour ago. I need to take my Lithium, but I'm out of my delicious Kozy Shack Sugarfree Tapioca.

When I first got up, the house was a bit cool. Ron's doing the whole "silent sphynx" routine. Ron got angry at me last night and I took some advice I got from God (years ago) - Ron had been saying and calling me ugly things, and I was so angry that all I could do was take it. I don't want to tape his mouth shut, tempting as it is, and I thought it was very unfair that I just had to sit there and "take it". "But you don't have to sit there, Heather." I heard it very clearly. So now, when Ron's lost his temper and is saying things that would make your eyes bleed to read, I go outside. Even being eaten by the mosquitos is better than that. No matter how angry he is, Ron won't come outside and make himself a "public" spectacle. Part of it is the brain damage, impulse control and all, but part of it is just bad habits. I see it as, it's his shame, not mine, and I said I was sorry I didn't put the sponge back [rolleyes].

Onto happier subjects, remember the wool I was talking about in my other post? Well, I spun and plied the black Perendale together with the black Welsh. I have to admit, it looked very disappointing. They were almost the same shade of black. The spun yarn seemed rather thin and wimpy. But I gave it a chance. When I plied them together (which went really well), I could notice some difference in the two colors. Hm. I wound it into a skein on my niddy-noddy. Then I put it in my large pyrex casserole dish and covered it with water. I let it soak until it was "sopping" wet. Then, I put it in the microwave and cooked it for 10 minutes.

The house was filled with a wonderful warm, wooly fragrance as the yarn "set" its' twist. The pyrex dish is too big to rotate in my microwave so it went "thunk, thunk" every 20 seconds or so as it tried to revolve. I took it out very carefully and covered it. The goal is to let the yarn hang out at a "simmer" temperature for at least 10-20 minutes, if not longer. I left it alone until it was cold. Then, I poured out the water. I held up the skein of yarn and let all the excess water drain away in the sink. Here's a good place to mention the fact that I use clean, processed, wool top. It is in great shape when I get it, it doesn't need to be washed. However, my spinning book advises it. I got a little dab of Eucalan and put it in the pyrex dish, then added water and yarn. I let it sit about 20 minutes, then I drained it all off. With Eucelan, you don't need to rinse, so I hung it up on a hanger (it was about 1 ounce) near the fan. Let's go look at it.

It's perfect. It's got a nice subtle flavor. It's a few shades darker than my brown Corriedale/black Perendale twist, but it's got the same flavor. I loved the way the corry/peren worked up as I was knitting it so I've got a winner!

I'm spinning up another half ounce of Black Welsh to ply with the Brown Corriedale, the corry's already done, but I'm still working on the Welsh. I'll finish it today and hopefully get the yarn plied and set tonight.

I'm also working on my Feather and Fan shawl/wrap. I'll be glad when it's done, it's been fun, but LONG. I have about 7 (16 row) repeats to go, so "soon". It'll sure be warm this year! Watch, we'll have a mild winter. ACK!

Since I don't have any pudding, I had to make some oatmeal. God looks to be slowly weaning me off processed food. I can't eat nuts, chocolate, yellow things, or red things. Good news, I lost at least half an inch off my belly. I used to eat oatmeal squares, but they have nuts. So. I realized "Why should I be eating all this processed oatmeal crap when I can just buy a big canister for the same price as one package of processed?" Then I got some dried fruit, boom - my own custom oatmeal.

Today it was "Sunmaid fruit bits" and 5/8 of a cup of oatmeal, cook for around 2 minutes (until it almost overflowed the pyrex measuring cup). I added a little artificial sweetener (I keep 3 kinds in a pencil box, right next to the oatmeal). Not bad. It's not a gourmet item, but it's decent and it will keep my lithium from tearing up my stomach.

The only real pill problem I've had recently - my pill cutter died. AGH. I use that to cut my Lexapro. One day I took my Lexapro late - big mistake. I was a BASKET case. All the old depression came washing back, hell is a good word. It was hellish. So far, I can force my old one to work, but I need to get a new one.

And that's breakfast with me. I hope you enjoy your next breakfast. I had a lot of fun doing this.