Exhaustion

I have missed most of my walkies this week. Mainly because two days of the five were spent hauling boxes up and down three flights of stairs, vacuuming floors and dragging heavy items across two driveways in an effort to move one sister's belongings out of her house and to the other sister's garage before the new renters take over sister one's house. I figure that counts for my exercise requirements for the week. On the plus side, after all that stair climbing, I had no aches or pains (merely a tightness in the lower calves; I tend to bounce up stairs, not climb), and I actually sweated.

To understand why that's a positive, you'd have to know that I haven't sweated in nearly a decade. I did a year long diet when I was 28 that absolutely destroyed what metabolism I had, and for the subsequent 8 years my body temperatures didn't go high enough to require me to sweat, even in the hottest of hot summers. Air conditioning made me feel as if my skin were peeling off, I would get so cold. But this year, I've actually been uncomfortably hot. Air conditioning feels good, not torturous. And my scalp is feeling my pain, as the return of prickly heat and a mild case of tetter have made it necessary to wash my hair daily--which I also didn't have to do before. I am greatly encouraged.

Anyway, I've finished up the scarf pattern, but I don't really have a good software package to print out the charts. I'm going to have to work on that, actually. Here's a finished product, post blocking picture:Using Nieceling as the model, because golly, she's way prettier than I am or ever have been. Time was, she looked so much like us (her father's family), you'd think she'd been cloned, but now she's the (very pale) spitting image of her mom! Funny how nature works that way. In any case, this is her on her 15th birthday. Awwww. She was a good sport and wore my wool/alpaca blend, heavy worsted weight scarf in midsummer so I could get a picture of the whole thing on a person. She got a lot of swag, and we were nice to her in front of her boyfriend, so she could afford some generosity.

Anyway, the scarf is lovely and warm, and currently residing safely in my cedar chest of yarn joy until it's required again. I'm currently writing the instructions long hand while I try to figure out if I can post the charts or what. Technology, she is not a kindly goddess.

I have lots and lots of pictures, both in-progress and finished product, so I may opt out of the chart altogether and just long-hand it. Might be better that way. I'll have to think on't.