totchipanda

LONG WEEKEND TIME AND THANK FUCK because I was over this week before noon on Monday.

Tonight: dinner with dad
Saturday: dinner at aunt's house
Rest of the weekend: MINE MINE MINE

Plan is a whole lot of stitching! I've started working on sky in the cross stitch, which is almost done on this corner. Foliage is up next, then I'll work on the lady and her parasol. Dinner at aunt's house is the perfect time for knitting without little helpers. I'd also like to do some sewing. The trousers LITERALLY only need a hook and bar. I have so many other things I want to sew! I even have fabric washed! It's just doing the dang thing, pinning and cutting and all that. I CAN DO THIS. I am getting so bored of my winter wardrobe, it's really time get 'er done!

Lefty has been resquished and they did a proper ultrasound with the little wand. It appears to be a cyst. The tech was lovely, and said that she had seen the records and could clearly see that the ABUS ultrasound (with a plate) noted a cyst exactly where the abnormality was located on the mammo, but whatever, docs wanted rescans, we are doing rescans. It looked HA YUGE on the screen, but it is likely very small.

It started snowing last night and was and is still snowing now. I left for my 8:45 appointment just before 8 and arrived at 8:40. But then my u/s was scheduled for 9:30 and she was done with me by 9:22. So, small wins. I got home just before 10, the drive home MUCH easier than there lol.

At home I finished attaching the fly to the pants, then sewed up all the legs, pressed seams and pinned up the hems. Just hemming and a waistband left. And then I made a food and took myself in to work! Tonight I plan to make chili for dinner, maybe even cornbread.

I dibs'd out of dance class night because of the snow. I will practice practice practice, I promise!

IUD has been picked up, now I need to book my other tests for the week before my surgery. I also got my last tax form so I can do that soon, probably tonight. I'm not expecting much, but as long as I don't need to pay, I'm fine with it.

I got nothin' this AM. I was full-ass awake until 330 AM. I tried to sleep just after midnight, lasted 10 minutes before realizing that I was really heckin' restless and just gave up. I'll sleep when I sleep. Which was 330. I managed to drag myself to consciousness at 6:50. Heckin' tired, yo.

Hoppin' mad all day yesterday. I put one thread into the cross stitch and otherwise just let myself rot.

Thank fuck it's nearly the weekend. I have Things To Do (tm) but I can't wait to turn into a mushroom and only interact with people BY CHOICE.

Boobs: Squished. Just need to book that silly blood draw now. (someone please remind me)

At home, I lazed about for a time, and right around 5pm, when I would normally be getting home, I picked up the cross stitch. I feel like I didn't do much with it even though I spent like 4 hours? Only three threads worth. IDK. I was watching The Pitt, I had a cat, I ordered in dinner, it was fine.

I wanted to go grocery shopping after, since I was already out, but I just couldn't be bothered. So I still need to do that. I will see how I feel over the next couple days, but I can't put it off too long as the cats are nearly out of food!

Do NOT want to go back to my desk next week just to have boss breathing down my neck. Theres a task she's wanted me to take over for months but she refuses to let me have it fully. I'm not pushing it bc I am planning to be out of here much sooner rather than later. Did not hear back from the other company so my search resumes anew. Again.

On Wednesday I cut out the Lucille trousers from the grey wool on the full width as indicated in the pattern. I think I have enough in yardage and offcuts to make a skirt too. So weekend plans are some chores (they need doing, alas) and some sewing, and hopefully get the fabric for K in the wash so I can get that cut out too. And a whole lot of cross stitching!

Health: Improving. Saturday I woke up NOT feeling like I was swallowing glass, so there's that, but I had a heckin' migraine that drugs were not touching. It started with waking up at 1:45 am feeling very nauseous and generally gut-sick, but I managed to get back to sleep without being sick. Woke up again around 8 or something, still nauseous, managed some drugs, watched some videos, and fell back asleep for another 3 hours. Headache then was still present but less painful, and then M pointed out (since we'd had tentative plans, and I messaged saying absolutely not) that the weather had changed drastically. Like hovering 0C to 12C, and incoming wind warnings (the wind was indeed heckin' windy). But I did feel good enough to meet my dad and sibling for dinner, where I absolutely destroyed the fried pork dumpling pan. Yum yum yum.

Yesterday still not feeling great, but well enough to make a (very large) cup of coffee and cross stitch. In the afternoon, M watched Heated Rivalry finally and I watched along with her. We banged out the entire 5.5 hours in one sitting. I put SEVERAL threads into it, mostly flowers and leaves, I am so proud of myself. When my hands got tired, I glued together some boxes for my flower shop booknook kit that I bought uh... October? All the while, Calcifer slept on me, so I'm sure she's saving up her crimes for later.

Then I took a stupid shower for my stupid mental health and it stupidly worked.

Today, my sinus is still congested and I can feel it all along the left side of my face, into my teeth and down my neck. It's really uncomfortable. I think I ought to do my erranding that I didn't do on the weekend (bc sick) or at least go to the store and pick up something to make for supper. Did I bring a shopping bag with me? No, no I did not. Heck.

I started writing a post on Friday about how I wanted to be more mindful with my weekend buuuut I got sucked into a game and it just sat on my work computer all weekend. Ah well.

So, weekend recap. Trick and I watched a slime recording of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry the musical (which our baby boy Jack Wolfe starred in) on Friday night. All I knew about it was one song, that it was a book and then a movie, and that the titular character goes for a walk and then goes for a heckin' walk. I was not expecting it to be so deep and dark. Trick sobbed through the last ten minutes while I made :( :( :( faces. Wow.

Saturday I kind of bummed around a bit as I was in short-term waiting mode. I started setting up my March pages by writing "New York City hangover... Take me back..." on the blank Febraury pages post-trip. My aunt and dad stopped by just after 1pm with her pattern collection, as her eyesight has become too poor for her to sew anymore. There's some gooders in there! A number of Folkwear and Truly Victorian ones, one RH (hissssss), one from Past Patterns, a bunch of big 4 costume patterns including some I needed to replace after the flood. She said that any that I don't want and can't re-home, to take them to the fabric sale at the church down the street at the end of April. I might actually get to go to that fabric sale this year as it's always the same weekend we go to the South City 3 hours away, but so far this year they have not announced anyone that makes me want to go (after spending $$$ in NYC, on my health, and also I'd like to get my brakes done before I do another long trip

Sunday I spent most of the day just bumming around after waking up at 6 am with the "i am not going to get back to sleep for 3 or more hours" feeling. Got out of bed at like 11am lol. At some point I did put FOUR needles worth of thread into the cross stitch, yay me.

Today I ordered fabric for one of K's requested dresses. It was a heckin' challenge to find it from a semi-local place that took Paypal, but I did it. Remains to be seen if they will fulfill. At lunch today I printed out scaled copies of the pattern pieces and did a mock up to see if it would work on 44" wide fabric. K is shorter than me, so I think it can work.

While I was filling the coffee machines, I was thinking about how being depressed makes it hard to do my hobbies, which would help me feel not-depressed. It's a terrible cycle, and I am going to be talking to my therapist this week so I will likely bring that up lol. Gonna keep trying to do the thing. One of these days, it will stick.

So tired today. I went to sleep at a reasonable time but woke up at 330 and couldn't get back to sleep until more like 6 am. I reset my alarm so I could at least get SOME sleep, but of course then my body was convinced that we should be sleeping (and we absolutely should have been). I dreamed I was working at the job in the mall that I left 16 years ago and I was gutted to wake up and find out that I had not, in fact, done an entire day of work already. Sob.

My "I'm gonna sew!" energy just became "I'm gonna tidy my sewing area!" energy, and you know what, that's fine. I'm still debating the best use of the grey wool. I did my laundry on Saturday night, finally. Yesterday I put two threads into the cross stitch while I watched YouTube, and that has me lightly fired up to keep going. I was definitely hyper fixated before, and then burned out after what, 2.5 months? Maybe this will be a more sustainable pace lol.

TOO EXCITED ALL WEEKEND TO SLEEP. Monday I set alarms for like 2:30 and 2:45 so that I would have enough to putter for a bit before picking up M and getting to the airport. Once there, a shuttle driver cut us off and said "don't walk! Get in!" and gave us a paper to remember where we parked. Easy peasy getting through security, we had lots of time to get a drink and snack.

Security and customs in City 2, where my local friends were a couple dozen people behind us. We had just enough time to eat and caffeinate again before we boarded for NYC. I napped for a bit. Arrived a little bit early thanks to good airstream, but the plane sat for a good 10 minutes because it was so early.

We figured out the train situation and took the subway into Manhattan. Spent several minutes trying to orient ourselves. Luckily the hotel was not far from the station, and we got settled in a teeny room with bunk beds and a private bath. It worked. We said often, we weren't there to visit the hotel.

Dinner at Bubba Gump's in Times Square, which one member of the party confidently started walking, 10-15 feet ahead of us, and took us too far out of the way. Then we were all super tired and went to bed.

It wasn't cold, hovering around freezing, but at night the wind would pick up and it was BRUTAL. We enjoyed watching some people clearing snow from the side of a road by shoveling it into said road.

TUESDAY
Our party got up at different times so we did our own things for the day. M and I walked to a Bagel Pub (fantastic!), then to Empire State Building, where we spent 90 mins or so touring the upper floor and outdoor portion. It was rather peaceful up so high, and offered great views of all sides. Personally I loved how much older architecture was there, how purpose-built even an 86 storey building was when it went up.

Back on the ground, we tootled up to Bryant Park and then the public library, which was BEAUTIFUL. Not much of the actual library we could see, the book rooms were largely closed off for research use. But they did have a nice gallery of collection items to view, including the OG Winnie the Pooh toys!

We went back to the hotel to drop off our small purchases before heading to the show. We unfortunately got hangry and left later than we wanted, especially since the other half of the party was still out and about (they went to the Museum of Modern Art) and we had all the tickets. Snagged a burger and ate it while we walked, because there were 8 million people in the shop and nobody knew what they wanted, or did but were waiting for a member of their party to confirm, and they weren't answering. HANGRY RAWR. Too peopley in that state, so we peaced out.

But we made it ahead of our friends before the doors opened. It's so different being in a theatre that has a dedicated show vs one that is adaptable to many. The lobby was maybe 8 feet wide and then we were in the theatre. The seats were small, but also larger than our season seats at our newer theatre in town. Usually M and I are touching, and for this show we weren't. We were about 6 rows back and y'all. I need a separate section to wax poetic about this. The show (Hadestown) was SO GOOD. M's local friend snagged us a spot at stage door, where only two cast members came out. Then the five of went to the local friend's favourite post-show bar, Hold Fast, which is run by a Canadian lol. We ended up staying out past 1 am. It was really nice.

WEDNESDAY
Bagels again, but at a slightly closer location that we didn't like as much. It was right in the middle of the garment district, and M had to hold me back a lot bc I sure did not have money or suitcase room for any of the shinies! They were busy, and didn't seem to know what was going on. Then we located a subway station and popped on to go visit the Museum of Natural History. We did not see nearly as much of it as we could have, and we said to ourselves, that is alright. We'll just have to come back another time.

Outside, we stopped for a street pretzel and then walked through Central Park from the side where we entered down to where the "zoo" was (as it was marked on Google Maps). Back to the hotel area where we went for tacos (authentic, and fucking delicious) and our next show, Wicked. We enjoyed it very much! Afterwards, we stopped into a store dedicated to various theatre shows and adjacent things. I found the costume books, including one that I have only ever seen scans from OOOOOOO AAAAAH.

THURSDAY
Met Trick downstairs to get some cash as they decided they wanted a Hadestown t-shirt but were leaving for Katsucon shortly after. Once M and I got going, we went back to the first Bagel Pub for our final breakfast there, and then hit the train line to go to Brooklyn to see the bridges. Fantastic views, the sun was out and it was warm in it (although still windy and bitter). Back in town, we went to the Strand bookstore and then Joe's Pizza nearby, which was delicious. In the city, we went into Grand Central to stare at the ceiling for awhile before going back to the hotel to charge phones and de-people for a hot minute.

I saw Hadestown again while M went to the show across the street. She did not get to see the principal cast member she wanted to see, but she ended up loving both the show and the understudy. Same experience at my stage door as on Tuesday, so I went to join hers to take photos for her. We chatted a bit with one of M's friends who'd flown in from the UK to see these shows, and then took ourselves out for a snack. We thought we'd just hang around as we wanted to see the displays in Times Square switch over to art for three minutes at 11:57. It was hard though, because the wind was the worst of the whole trip!

FRIDAY
We checked out around 10 and they were AWESOME about storing our luggage for a couple hours while we finished our trip at the Museum of Broadway. It was neat because the beginning and end took you through the stair wells and backstage areas of an actual theatre. Of course I loved all the costumes and it was SO HARD not to touch one of the Hamilton jackets that was on display. (It looked like wool. I wanted to touch.) Stopped off at Dunkins for our very last NYC meal, picked up our luggage and headed to the airport. We were rather early, but that gave us time to get through security and find our gate and rest for a bit before getting a pre-5-hour-flight meal. Coming home was tougher, much more peopley. We were both so overstimulated and so done with all the travel. Couldn't we just stay? Alas. I missed the turn off coming into the city and took a detour before dropping M off, and I got home just after 2 am.

Amazing trip. Over the course of the 5 days, we did 73k steps, saw 10 landmarks, ate 5 of the 6 things we wanted to eat, and within 48 hours we felt right at home. I even started to learn the language of all the honking drivers did. We are definitely going back, hopefully October 2027!

TIME TO START PANICKING. Haha JK, I've been panicking since last week. I was telling a friend that I am just an anxious traveler, I worry about the car breaking down, is there going to be airport delays, will something explode??? I think the trip itself will be fine.

I did decide that 2 weeks was too early to start packing, so there's that.

Came home Friday to a flooded bathroom again, damnit. It was mainly in the hallway, soaking through the carpet. Ugh! Put down towels and walked away. All I could smell all weekend was the mustiness of the soaked items, it almost smelled like cat pee.

Saturday we went to IKEA and I picked up the lamp that I wanted to help illuminate my sewing desk. Then we went to Sally Beauty so I could pick up hair dye, and Walmart for M to get toilet paper. The dye + developer was a new brand than the one I've been using, so I was a little concerned about the colour being uneven but went ahead with it. On Sunday I dyed my hair and it came out perfectly!

I planned, in September, to make a couple pieces for my regular wardrobe that would work for a closet cosplay of Orpheus. I then did not touch my sewing machine for 4 months. (I still haven't.) The show is NEXT WEEK and I haven't even started. Yesterday I made a concentrated effort to clean the veggies off my table, wipe it down, cut the paper pattern out, and then start to lay out the wool. The directions have you lay out the fabric full width, which I did not do. Calcifer started to "help" by holding it down, so I stepped away to think about my life choices. Do I have a large enough space to lay out 60" x 4 yards of wool fully? Not really, but it would be the most economical. It's also an itchier type, so would I need to line it to protect my delicate skin? With what? SIGH the week before a trip is not the time to be making these decisions. I also haven't washed it so there's that too. It is awaiting my attention. And now my counter is covered in veggies so I better do something with those too.

I also finished knitting a hat. I don't know where the faux fur pompom to go on it is though. I bought that AGES ago.

That's it, that's all I did this weekend.

The 100 day project starts on February 22, and heck yeah I'm fired up about it! (As fired up as I can be, more than a month out lol) I saw the email this morning and immediately started thinking about what I could do. First thought was sewing: finish up the silk sack dress I started however many years ago (fabric purchased 2017). Whatever else. Maybe a whole wardrobe from the skin out, all by hand? Then I thought, I have cross-stitch projects wot need finishing. The purpose is just to make time for creativity. One needle of thread at a time eventually creates a whole project, you know?

I have only finished my journal up to the week that I'm gone. I'm trying to decide if my "cover page" (which spans the opened book) should be the whole trip, including daily journaling, or if it should be the overview and then spread the rest of it out on the next pages. I don't plan to take it with me (extra weight and space that I could use to bring back souvenirs!) so it would all be post-trip anyway. I've already stuck down some stickers and written some lists in pen, and boxed out the spaces in pencil. I think I can keep it simple enough for the two pages.

Then I'm back for one week and the project begins! Doing cross-stitch also means I can have everything prepared and ready to go (who am I kidding, it's already prepared and ready to go). One page will be enough, and then I can bump weeks back a little, which would be perfect for setting up March. Alright, I think I have a plan!

Dance class tonight or else I'd start on all this right the heck now!