Stuff

Atlanta's weather hit or topped 100 F for the fourth straight day. It's only done that one other time (in 1980). It's never done it five straight days...but tomorrow is forecast to be cooler, so it looks like we won't set a new record for consecutive 100F days.

I was off today, and I've mostly spent the day inside. Outside, I've tried breathing our ozone-alert (orange) and particulate-matter-alert (yellow) air, and I've concentrated on trying to keep dumb animals from standing on black asphalt when they could move six inches onto the grass (or pine straw). Sam doesn't understand why I keep moving him over, but at one point today he was standing on three feet, holding the fourth one in the air, when I gave him a push toward the grass. He looked at me as if I were just making his problem worse. I just checked his feet, and I think he stepped on something sharp; it looks like there's a small puncture. So maybe I was making his problem worse, poor boy.

My brief trips outside have triggered bad breathing and sinus problems. (Our pollen count is up with grass and ragweed, and those always give me a hard time.) Tomorrow I go back to work. My four-footed clients will be coming in with coats full of pollen, and I'm not looking forward to it. (On the other hand, I sincerely hope I get some dogs. We've been really slow, and I need money.) I work Sunday through Wednesday, 10-hour shifts. There's no rain in the forecast for the next week (well, there's 20% chance of rain in the evening, but we've had that for more than a week, and the rain never materializes here); we get a break in temps, though: low nineties before the temps start to climb again. Whoopee.

I've worked on the Rosalinda doily, but with my sinuses bothering me, I've opted to sleep more than work. I only have 10 of the 12 squares done, and I probably won't get another one done tonight.

This may be the last doily I work on for a while. I need to work on a needlepoint Christmas stocking. I've sorted the thread and mounted the canvas on stretcher bars. (I did that week before last.) This one is stitched with thread rather than yarn (last year's stocking for Ashley was tapestry yarn), and it's 14-mesh canvas. That's 196 stitches per square inch--and the stocking is about 16 inches long and maybe 10 inches at the widest point. I've swiped a picture off Jo-Ann's Web site (where I ordered the kit from).

 

There is beading and metallic thread and lots of fiddly little stitches, but at least it doesn't have French Knots as snowflakes! But if stitching it gets to be too much, I'll take a sanity break and work on a doily.