shelves, beach, hat

My husband is off from work for the week between Christmas an New Year’s Day, so I took advantage of that to get some projects done around the house. This week’s project was the assembly of an Elfa shelving unit for the living room. It was a bit like putting together IKEA furniture with more vague instructions. There was a lot of “according to your design” in the instructions, which isn’t super helpful when the design was a schematic without measurements. I am quite pleased with how it came out, though, even if it is taller than I anticipated.

woo, shelves!

We also had a beach day, which is always something I enjoy. Someone took the time and care to craft a peace sign on the dune behind my favorite dog beach.

peace man, cool yeah

It was a beautiful day! I read somewhere recently that looking at the horizon shifts your mindset to the big picture and gives you perspective on your place in the world. I am not sure I would have been able to put it into words so clearly but a trip to the beach gives me a mental reset. One of my life goals is to live walking distance from the beach but until I can, being able to drive there in about an hour to soak in this beauty is the next best thing.

waves and rocks

In knitting news (since this is ostensibly my knitting blog) I finished a hat just too late to donate to my Hats for Paradise project. I have another one on the needles as well. I might drop them off at Bay Area Cancer Connections. I have donated chemo caps to them before and this one might fit that bill.

finished a little too late

I have been thinking a lot about the goal of posting on my blog rather than Facebook and I’m still feeling a bit uncertain about my plans. I know that I don’t want to be on Facebook as much but I would still like to share what I am doing with friends and family. Without sharing the links to these posts on Facebook, though, I am not sure that anyone sees it. Am I blogging into the void? Perhaps. Will it be a good exercise for me anyway? Also, perhaps.

I hope you will join me for the experiment to see how it goes!

 

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christmas gifts and food

I got an Apple Watch for Christmas. Those of you that know me know that I am a bit obsessive about reaching my 10k step goal daily. This past year I had a 9 month streak of hitting my goal! I got sick in September and that ended that. I have been less strict with myself about getting to my goal every day but I often try to go for an extra walk in the evening to get the steps. Well, now I have some new goals to try to hit too!

closed my rings!

I closed the rings yesterday but today I have only gotten the red (calories burned while moving) and blue (stand at least once per hour). Somehow I got 10k steps today without getting 30 “exercise minutes”. That one is going to be a challenge when a lot of my walking is done with the dog. He stops and breaks the “exercise minute” counting, or something.

I also got hand knit socks for Christmas, from my mom. Aren’t they pretty?

hand knit socks are the best socks

Finally, I was given a cookbook: Dinner in an Instant. Tonight I made a pasta dish from it, and it was delicious!

creamy chickpea pasta with cumin and mint

I didn’t have all the ingredients because my husband and younger son ate the hummus when I wasn’t looking, and it was still delicious. I think it will be even tastier when I make it again and do have hummus. (I blended the chickpeas instead which made it not super creamy but still made for a tasty dinner.)

So my holiday went well. I hope yours went as well as mine did!

pre-rain hike, social network thoughts

I hiked early this morning at Fremont Older. It was still dry then, and quite beautiful out. There was even a rainbow,

California is gorgeous

I’m very glad I got out when I did because it started raining not long after I got home and has been drizzling or raining hard ever since. Hiking is an important part of my physical and mental health routine. It keeps me grounded and never fails to improve my mood. I started off this hike feeling a bit gloomy but felt much better by the time I was done. Nature is amazing and I am very lucky to live in a beautiful place with access to many hiking trails!

The challenge with being on Facebook less is words. When I was not thinking about any of it, I would have just posted that photo to Facebook and not said much about it. If I post it here, I feel like I need to have more to say. I rejoined and then left Ello. It seems to be much more intense than I remember. I’m also not sure what category to put myself in (??) on Mastadon, so I guess Twitter is it for now. Twitter has its own issues, of course, but I am there and I’ll stick around for the foreseeable future.

I actually hope that blogging more and Facebooking less will mean that I write more, and not just “today I…” kind of boring journal posts. Perhaps this will be one of my intentions for 2019! Perhaps.

knitting and cookies and new games, oh my

I finished some knitting projects! (I know, shocking, right?)

First up, the results of my hats for Paradise project. I made six hats.

My mom made one with a cute pom pom.

I also decided to donate some scarves I had knit for another donation project and never got around to mailing (oops) plus a cowl I made as a sample for knitting class and the purple one I was knitting over the summer.

A friend of mine from my mostly defunct knitting group also gave me a couple hats, a scarf, a couple cowls, and a baby blanket.

All of these items are now on their way to Paradise, hopefully to bring someone some warmth.

I also put the finishing touches on a baby dress I had knit and whipped up a bunny for the couple who sells my favorite coffee at the farmer’s market.

I love that bunny pattern. If Ravelry is to be believed, I have knit it 28 times. You would think I would have it memorized, but I have to look at it for the ears. I can manage the rest.

In other exciting news, I baked fancy cookies.

And I got a new game with many game pieces to pop out and build into adorable trees. It’s called Photosynthesis. I grew the best trees when Niels and I played it this afternoon. Go me!

Facebook

I am thinking about leaving Facebook because of recent revelations about their cavalier attitude towards user data and privacy. I am hoping to use my blog more regularly instead of posting everything there.

I have also rejoined Ello and Mastadon. I am abigailvr everywhere if you would like to connect with me.

In the mean time, here are some cookies I baked today.

See you here soon!