Getting back to the routine

I'm getting back into the whole work routine and I'm exhausted. 

It's a recurring thing I'm seeing on social media the last several days.  The holiday hangover. 

I took extra work off between Christmas and now. It went by in a blur. 

It was so enjoyable though, which makes the return even harder. 

Also, it's hard to believe it's Wednesday.  Just goes to show that my nose has been to the grindstone. 

Looking back at my last blog post to see where I left off. ... 

I feel inspired by my friend Becky to share a meme. 

The weather has been erratic.  Warmer than usual temps.  Then dropping down to below freezing. Snow.  Then rain. Yeah, rain. It wasn't even above freezing when that happened.

When I wasn't running around with people I was slowly working with crafts. 

Okay, okay, when I was running around with people I *was* crafting. 

After the start of the new year I took the tree down and did something I told myself I wasn't going to do. ...

Yeah, I did it. ... 

I put up the indoor greenhouse. Not all the way, mind you.  You'll notice I don't have the lights set up yet. Well, not the grow lights. ...   For now ... it has all my succulents and houseplants.  

Furby Jr. did such a good job guarding the Christmas gifts that I put her and her boyfriend in charge of the plants. The plant on the bottom shelf I'm hoping will come out of dormancy and isn't actually dead. 

What prompted me to go ahead and put the greenhouse up? 

This: 

Jan. 2, people. The earliest I've ever seen seeds at Menard's. 

I was a good girl. I only took a photo for the blog.  I still need to go through my seed collection and see if there's anything I need. Some of the garden Youtube channels are already discussing what seeds to start this month. 

I'm staying strong, you guys. 

Monday I was back to work. While I was expecting a ton more email, the other work more than made up for the lack of messages. I'm still not fully caught up. We are, however, sitting quite nicely for the upcoming publishing day. 

In the evenings I've been working on this and that, on the crafting front. Not as much as I thought I would.  I've been wiped out and tired after work and when supper is done. I'm thinking maybe it's a barometric pressure thing, because the tiredness feels so random after having so much time off work. 

So, despite my best intentions of doing so, I didn't do any writing in the evenings like I thought I would. 

Proof that I've been doing *something* crafty: 

My work bench hasn't been this full of *stuff* in a while.  Last night I was inspired to make some floss tags, floss ring bling and a needle minder. It was all fun to make. 

I ordered a few new things to help with various crafty things and finishing cross stitch projects. And since things can't travel alone, I have a few new charts. One of these days I'll have my very own Stacy Nash Animal Cracker all done. 

If I remember correctly, I ordered the badger one. Why? Because I live in the badger state, of course. Now that I think about it, I might have ordered two, and the second one is a bunny. 

I've been working on my cross stitch, knitting and crochet. You'll see the start of my Armande cardigan in this photo. 

Back in November I broke down and ordered a yarn cake turner thingy. I finally got to use it this past week.  I LOVE it. 

This morning I was working on the second square for the granny square CAL I'm doing with my friend and fellow flosstuber Kat. I realized that maybe I messed up the first square.

The first square: 

I shared this one on social media.  Yes, nothing looks wrong, but I realized that I missed a few rows where you make that line. 

Have I fixed it yet? No.  I kept on with the square I was working on.  I had to rip back a bit and rejigger. 

How the squares should look:

Now I'm sure you noticed that the two don't look quite the same. Well, the second square I followed the directions.  The first one (green one) I thought I'd make some adjustments.  Since I have to rip back part of the square I'll be going back to what the directions originally called for. I made changes because I thought it would be easier.  Not really.  I'll be rewriting directions so they make sense to me and I don't have to keep rewatching the video that accompanies the blog post. 

Well, I guess that's all for now.  Catch you on the flip side!