This and that

• Sunday morning I overslept.  I woke up about 3 minutes before choir rehearsal started.  Instead of rushing to get ready, I grabbed my cell and sent a txt message to my choir director. 
• I skipped church directly.  Instead, we went grocery shopping, did some housecleaning, and I did some cooking and baking, including:
  • homemade rolls
  • cornbread (in a cast-iron skillet)
  • chili (portioned out for the rest of the week)
• Knitting.  I've been knitting on a hat for a friend with cancer.  His hair has fallen out, so I've got to get this hat finished and to him!  For my knitting friends, this is the Koolhaas Hat and I'm knitting it with ArtYarns Ultramerino 8, color 106. This dear friend has a terrific sense of humor and style. 
• I'm also working on socks, a baby blanket, and picked up yarn and patterns for two more baby projects for my niece.  The report on the latest sweater and hat is that they fit and are darling!
  
• My sewing room is a mess.  A huge mess.  I had bought some plastic storage bins, and I spent some focused time Sunday putting yarn in bins (lace projects, nieceling projects, sock yarns).  Is it still a mess?  Yes.  Have I made progress?  Yes.  Enough?  Nooooo. 
• It's the end of the academic semester at my university, which means many projects are coming to a head, the students are frantic, and the temptation to drink coffee all day for energy is pretty high.  Instead I'm struggling with focus, drinking enough water, and trying to keep working away.  It'll get done. 
• I won't mention the looming building project, except to say that my tendency to plan ahead has been noticed in a good way.  So far. 
• Ergh.  I'll be out of town all of next week.  It's for a good thing -- a leadership development program.  I'm looking forward to it and I'm apprehensive all at the same time.  I'm bringing lots of knitting if I'm allowed to keep my hands busy while my mind races ahead.
• I think I mentioned I had surgery on 2/29/2008.  This is what was done along with a few other "girl stuff" things.  I'm happy to report that I've had two cycles and everything's going really well.  The pain issues haven't been totally eliminated, but things are MUCH better.  I'm tempted to give away some of my supplies, but I'm going to wait about six months before I do. 
  
  • One of my friends had the same procedure, but apparently the directions about the recovery were not as clear from her doc.  She did too much too soon, and took a very long time to recover.  I was given some really great pain meds, told to rest, not make major decisions for a few days and to not lift anything more than 10 lbs for 3-4 days.  Some women go back to work the next day.  I'm not so crazy about that in a society that makes it too easy to be a workaholic (and you'll see my photo next to that word in the dictionary).  The rest made recovery much easier.
• Car follow up-- yes, I got my little red back from the body shop and it's looking and running great.  While I enjoyed driving the "pimpmobile" as my friends called it (the Chrysler 300 rental), I'm happy to have Li'l Red and it's MPG.  Speaking of MPG, gas prices hit $3.23 today in Kansas City.  Egad!