How I Spent My Weekend

It is the first Monday of Standard Time, and I'm guessing a lot of you are still messed up over the time change. I know there's a lot of to-do about staying in Daylight Saving Time, but I'm in the camp that believes Standard Time is better. Regardless, it's the switching back and forth the gets on my nerves, and I'm thankful that yesterday was a lazy day even without factoring in a broken foot so that I could adjust a little easier.

So, how did I spend my weekend? Let's just say it looked like a lot of this:

We had tickets to go see the musical & Juliet on Saturday afternoon, and I was really looking forward to seeing it with Molly, but even if someone had driven us there, it would have been a lot of walking and too great a risk of someone stomping on my foot, so my father took her instead (my mother had a hair appointment she wasn't able to move or else she would have gone). Molly loved it, and while I'm sorry I couldn't go with her, it was nice to have a Saturday afternoon to myself without errands to run or chores to do. I was also supposed to go with the Mister to his high school reunion that night, but he went on his own and Molly and I had macaroni and cheese and watched Only Murders in the Building.

Yesterday we all slept in a little and had a leisurely breakfast, and I did some knitting and watched some podcasts while the Mister did the grocery shopping. In the afternoon, while Molly did homework, I worked on the sock pattern (the actual pattern writing part) and then we baked another apple cider donut cake with the cider that was left. The one we made on Friday tasted good but came out of the pan in two pieces, so I wanted to give this one a try, especially because more than one person recommended it on Friday. The verdict is that the Smitten Kitchen cake takes longer but is a more sophisticated cake (not as sweet). I think it would be a good recipe for Rosh Hashanah, actually, because it reminded me a bit of honey cake. I neglected to take a photo before we dug into it, but mine ended up looking quite a lot like the one in the recipe, although a bit taller.

As you can see from the photo above, there was a lot of knitting on my sweater this weekend, and I've actually just about finished the body -- I just have to finish binding off the back!

I guess I was a bit of an overachiever in spinning the contrast color, because when I completed the colorwork, I hadn't even gotten to the first shift in color. Molly suggested that when I do the sleeves, I work from the other end of the gradient, and I'm toying with that idea. I'm not sure if having the sleeves and the body be different will look good or weird. Thoughts? I have a while before I have to decide, but I'm pondering.

I am hoping that work calms down a bit last week. With all the foot drama last week, I also had a very large (nearly 80 pages) and very high-profile annual report to review, plus December graduation lists started coming in. At least I know that this week I don't have to worry about commuting to the office or picking Molly up from school, so that gives me a little extra time. And I will be able to knit through two additional meetings this week!

Tomorrow's the big day -- please make sure you get to the polls if you haven't voted already! I know it'll likely be several days before we know the results, but at least all the ads and text messages will stop. I will be voting in person tomorrow, either by getting a ride or getting out the crutches, and I'll be spending the rest of the day feeling (as I saw someone post on Instagram) nauseously optimistic.

Friday, Finally

Thank you all for your good wishes for my healing yesterday. The orthopedist couldn't have been nicer (my mother actually sees him for her arthritic knee!), and he told me that I should have my foot in the boot pretty much all the time. I can take it off to bathe, but that's about it. So no driving for me until I see him again in five weeks, which is a major bummer. The Mister dug out the crutches I used when I got that bad sprain many years ago, and I'll use them when I have to go longer distances. The doctor said that given that I'm generally physically active, I don't smoke, and I'm not diabetic, he expects the foot to heal quite well. I just have to stay off it as much as possible and let it heal. And that's likely to be the hardest part.

While this is a major bummer and a big inconvenience, the timing has worked out well, if it had to happen. Right now is a particularly busy time at work, so I'd be sitting at a computer for most of the day anyway. My boss has already told me not to worry about coming into the office until I'm healed, so I don't have to worry about that (and now I'll get bonus knitting time during my biweekly team meetings). And because my niece is due to arrive soon, my parents took only a brief trip down to Florida and now are back, so they'll be able to help out while I can't drive. I've also decided to use this opportunity to work on my upper-body strength and do some focused workouts to build up those muscles. I miss running and walking outside, but I'll do what I can from indoors.

Today I am hoping for a better day. Molly is home (it's an in-service day at her school), so we'll be baking an apple cider donut cake to take to family dinner tonight. I'm hoping to finish up a big, high-profile project for work. And we'll have that family dinner again, so I'll get snuggles from my nephew and my favorite puppy. This too shall pass.

I'll leave you with a couple of photos. First, the sum total of my bell pepper harvest from this year:

I may have grown only one pepper, but I can tell you that it was delicious! We had it on our salad at dinner on Wednesday night.

Second, something to make you laugh. When I fell on Sunday, I also managed to break the case of my phone, so I ordered some new ones. I'm always amused by the poor English translation on the packaging of products, and I thought you'd appreciate this one:

Click to embiggen so you can read the smaller print!

Be careful out there, friends, and have the best weekend available to you. And don't forget that we turn the clocks back to Standard Time on Sunday!