Basix by Staub Enameled Cast Iron Cookware

Oliver.

Today, I mowed my grass again; well, I didn't get to the backyard, but I did the entire front yard. It had been a day over two weeks. The pulled muscle in my lower back thankfully did not complain too loudly; it is feeling a lot better, but I certainly know when I've overdone it. And I'm going to do my best to make sure I don't pull it again, since that's what usually happens.

For the second time in a week, Gracie darted outside; I refuse to chase after her, so outside she will stay. Which is fine, really; I mean, I have two other outside cats who live quite nicely... and she got along with them before the kittens arrived, anyway. So I'm certain she'll be fine, and I'll be a bit better off with eight in the house instead of nine.

Tomorrow, I'm going to mulch the tomatoes in the garden again and also mulch the small amount of volunteer kale I found while mowing this afternoon (outside the garden boundaries, even!) Hopefully, I'll eventually be able to smother most if not all of the morning glory/bindweed. Hopefully.

While incapacitated on Sunday of last week, I knitted myself four washcloths. For some reason, most of my washcloths have either gone into the rag basket or gone missing, so I was in need of more, because I do use them sometimes. So, instead of buying new ones, I decided to knit a few. I am still an appallingly slow knitter, but perhaps by knitting washcloths, I'll get faster. Who knows...?

I was also not in the mood to write at all last week. I blame this on two things: I was really, really uncomfortable sitting just about anywhere, I got two books in the mail last week and wanted to read them if I could sit comfortably enough, and I had a plot twist the week before that I had to work through a bit before I decided if it was actually going to happen that way... or not. I decided it would, so I'm back in the swing of things now with A Glint of Silver.

I'm still going to try to hold out as long as possible with not turning on the air conditioner. I don't actually know if it still works, honestly, and I'm not going to test it, either. My electric bill was $21 last month. I'm not sure why it dropped four dollars, but I'm not complaining. Maybe I will get to that elusive under-$20 one of these days after all!

In between complaining about my back last week and attempting not to die from the pain (Monday was the worst day EVER; I didn't want to call in sick due to coming back from vacation, but I probably should have), I made a couple of decisions. The first one was that after rolling up the rug in here, I found two small rag rugs to put on the floor. One is under my chair, because my chair tends to scrape, and one is just on the floor, more for the cats to sleep on than anything else. I think I bought both of them at Tuesday Morning back when I worked next door to that store. (I haven't been there since we moved, incidentally!) But anyway, I looked at both of these rugs, and I really like how they are made. They're much thicker than rag rugs I've purchased from other weavers. So I decided that I would put making random rag rugs (there's really no pattern) on my list of things to accomplish this year. This means, of course, warping and weaving on the Big Green Loom. Which is something on the list anyway, so that works. :)

My second decision involved spinning, and spindles. And today, I went through my spindles and pulled out nine for destash. That might sound like a lot, but in all honesty, I really had to consider how many spindles I actually use and proceed from there. And the answer was that while all of the spindles I own (save for one or two) are fabulous spinners, some just aren't the right style for me. And I'd much rather destash the ones I don't completely love and then, perhaps, buy another of the style I do love than keep them out of some thought that destashing them would be a bad thing. I've destashed spindles I wanted to keep before, after all... and I survived. So I will do that again.

My third decision involved sewing. I am completely in love with my new-to-me handcrank sewing machine. I'm not sure what it is, but there's just something so... fun about using it. I'm not sure if it's the whole non-electric thing or just the fact that it sounds neat while I'm using it, or the fact that I can go as fast or as slow as I want without any issue, or the fact that it's just cool, but I've resolved to sew something--even if it's just making a dress into a skirt or whatever--every week if I can possibly do so.

My fourth decision involved decluttering, and the fact that the next set of yard sales are in July, which isn't that far away. I'm going to make a concentrated effort to go through my clothes and the rest of my stuff and just truly get rid of the things I don't use, wear, or even like. There are some things I've been holding on to, thinking that one day I will need them, or decide that I want to use them, and honestly... I think it's time for them to go.

And my fifth decision was that I really need to start taking care of myself a bit better. I pretty much pull out my back at least once a year. There are preventative things I could be doing to combat that, and yet, I don't do them. So I need to work out some sort of plan and implement it to do specific exercises to strengthen my back muscles so this doesn't happen again. Because it's absolutely not fun.