It's a Nana-mal Crossing Birthday

So, as I wrote about before, we've played more than a little bit of Animal Crossing.  I encouraged my mom to get a Switch and the game, but she held off for one reason or another.  When she finally started playing, she took to it the way we all thought she would.  By that, I mean she played a bit obsessively (no judgment, but it's a pretty accurate description).  It was a good way to help her fill some hours and made for good conversation when much of our lives were rather limited.  Anyway, the degree to which she enjoyed it gave me an idea.  

My mom had not really had a big birthday party of her own ever.  She went from parents who did not do such things to marriage and motherhood where her birthday was rolled into the day we decorated the Christmas tree to having her birthday celebrated with a granddaughter's.  Sure, there were cakes and meals and small celebrations, but not a full big party with decorations.  I noticed, and a few years back I asked her whether she would like one.  She said we'd have a big party for her 70th.  However, for her, that meant she would take everyone out to a restaurant that had a separate room we could reserve, she would buy our meal for us, and none of us would have to do any work.  Yeah, that wasn't going to happen, and not just because I don't think we can ever eat in a restaurant ever again.  

Anyway, the vaccines finally came along for everyone in the family, people were still masking, the Omicronian invasion hadn't yet happened, and a big 70th birthday party seemed possible.  Mom is Nana to the grandchildren, she loves Animal Crossing, and thus, a Nana-mal Crossing Birthday just felt right.  So, I began shopping and crafting.  At some points, I had ideas of doing far more than what I was able to accomplish, but I think I did pretty well.

The family came together and we made a party to celebrate her that she enjoyed so much.  We were so lucky to have that brief moment when we could all gather, and the memories are all the more precious now that we can't all be together.   

On the Homestretch-ish

First, we celebrate.  I have only one more column in the final quadrant of the Hue Shift Afghan!  Looking at the remaining yarn, I don't think I will have to play yarn chicken.  I picked it up the other day, finished the in-progress mitered square that was on the needles, and then worked the last mitered square on that row.  Next up is that final column (of five mitered squares).  After that, it's just a simple matter of stitching the quadrants together, working the simple garter stitch log cabin border, and then weaving in (more than 100 but less than 200, I think) all those ends.  Sure, those last steps are a lot, but the weather has been cooler, and having a bundle of blanket on my lap will be nice.  

I don't have any particular plans for this blanket.  I feel about the colors the way I expected I would at this point in the process--don't hate, don't love, and perhaps ready to not have to look at them for a while once I finish.  Still, the overall knitting has been quite enjoyable for the most part, and I'm not opposed to knitting this pattern again someday.  Don't tell my sister, as I believe she's still on the first or second quadrant, and I have no intention of finishing the knitting of hers for her.  I've been gently encouraging her to bring her knitting out and work a bit on it during some "downtime-ish" moments she has currently.

So, onward I knit, and perhaps before year's end, I'll have a new blanket.  Or, I'll tell myself I can get the 2022 Mochimochiland Holiday Pattern if I finish this quadrant, and then spend the rest of the year knitting little things.  Seems like a win-win situation, right?    

If You Haven't...{what, another?}...Have You Even Quarantined?

Would you look at that?  I've returned with another post on this quaran-times topic.  Totally going to be a series now, eh?  So, today we ask, "If You Haven't Studied Another Language, Have You Even Quarantined?"  Well, have you?  As for me, I had been trying to brush up on,  expand, and improve my Spanish in early 2020 with Duolingo.  I had been canvassing, and while my particular assignments were not meant to require additional language skills, the occasional encounter showed me that my Spanish-speaking and comprehension skills were inadequate.  Anyway, we weren't very long into quaran-times when I just wasn't up for continuing the task.  That little green owl's reminders did not spur me on to further study and practice, and when the passive-aggressive message that it seemed that the encouragement didn't appear to be working and would now end, I was fine with it.  

At other times, I considered starting a different language.  Japanese seemed a good choice, and one that several of us in the family would like to learn and/or had practical reasons for learning it.  I even looked at different programs, workbooks, and flashcards that we could get and share, but it never got beyond the idea phase.  It's one of those things where I think we'd like to know how to read, speak, write, and understand Japanese, but none of us are ready to put in the work.  Additionally, learning a language together can be great, but it does have some of the dreaded "group project" aspects to it, and perhaps it is just as well that we never really got going with it.  

Then about a year or so ago, I became much more interested in learning a different language, ASL.  I've always been interested in languages.  I bought numerous phrasebooks and dictionaries and even took a couple of "classes" throughout my childhood, and ASL was no different.  Of course, that's not how you learn a language.  At best, you might be able to learn some vocabulary and phrases, but that's not learning a language.  What can I say?  I was a kid, and I was exploring my interests with the resources available.  Anyway, Bruce being hard of hearing is another reason this language interests me, and I thought we could both learn ASL.  Then, at about the same time, other people emphasizing the importance of learning ASL kept coming up, and I knew I needed to give this real attention and effort.     

So, I started looking at how I would go about learning ASL.  Let's be clear, we're not just talking about learning a few signs and phrases.  I mean, I get how just that could be helpful in some ways, but we're talking about learning a language, and that takes work.  Anyway, I began looking up books, as that has been my go-to, but I knew that just books would be seriously inadequate.  Then I began a search for online courses, and that's where I found Lifeprint.  It is an amazing site filled with resources that are taking me far in my language-learning journey.  There are lessons filled with so much information.  There is an official ASL University playlist of hundreds of videos.  The instructor, Dr. Bill Vicars, is great.  When I'm doing a video lesson, I like the way it sometimes feels like I am learning along with the students in the videos, seeing them confused at the same parts I am, and improving along with them.  

I've learned a lot.  I've also made some missteps on my language-learning journey, and I am working to fix those.  Bruce has not chosen to join me in learning ASL, and that is fine.  He has learned a few words and phrases, and that's helpful.  I also see as time goes on, he is becoming a bit more interested.  Maybe it will be like Call the Midwife.  When I started watching that, he was very uninterested, but over time, he would find himself watching along with me and asking questions about characters and storylines.  We've now re-watched all of the episodes and will likely do so again in the future.  Maybe one day we will also restart these lessons and learn together.    

I also had hoped that others in our family would learn, but there has been even less interest from most of them.  I did not expect much.  I expect even less having learned that many Deaf people's hearing family do not learn ASL.  That is wild to me, but also not unsurprising when I think about it.  Still, one young niece has been trying to learn the ASL alphabet and likes to fingerspell everyone's names.  Another niece who is old enough to take the learning journey on her own recently asked me to re-send her the links so that she can start again with learning ASL.    

I know I'll only get so far with the online lessons, videos, and books, but I'm not going to let perfect be the enemy of good.  I've read what the generally agreed upon recommended, top-tier, gold standard, best ways to learn ASL are, and I know that I'm not doing them.  Still, I'm studying, practicing, reading, putting in the time and effort, and I am learning.  I even unlocked a particular language-learning journey achievement recently--the new language showing up in a dream.  It wasn't much ASL, and the dream didn't make much sense, but I understood what was being signed, so there's that.        

       

 

Challenge Accepted

Many of you reading this have never and probably will never meet me in person.  You may have some ideas about my personality, or perhaps you've never really given it much thought at all.  I'm an introvert, weird, and sometimes if I receive a quick response on a text/dm/email, I find it extremely difficult, bordering on impossible, to respond that response, but write imaginary ones in my head for hours, days, weeks, months, or years.  I alternate between very short texts and emails and tremendously long blocks of writing.  That being said, I doubt you'd be surprised to know that I can chatter away with someone for a really long time.  Fun fact:  I'm a telephone pacer.  I wander about, walking back and forth if I'm on the phone for any measurable length of time that doesn't require me to be seated.  I'm also a telephone avoider, (although I don't hate the phone) am awkward, and have not yet developed the skills necessary to not rattle on and on until something comes along and necessitates an end of the telephone conversation.  

Recently, I've reconnected with someone I met through knitting back when I was an in-person social knitter.  We have been having weekly Zoom meetings lately.  It is the free version, so we are limited to forty minutes.  I don't think we are related, but if we are, we don't need a full-on genealogy survey to find a common ancestor, because if one exists, it's obviously Chatty Cathy.  So far, we've been mixing small recaps of recent history mixed with what is currently happening in our lives.  It seems like we've barely begun when the ten-minute reminder countdown clock appears.    

  So, while it might be frustrating at times when one of us is mid-story when the video feed cuts out, I choose to look at it in a positive.  This could be a chance build some (much needed, in my case) skills while staying in touch.  Sure, it's a challenge, but it is also an opportunity to make the most of limited time.  And if we keep up with meeting weekly, we might even get around to knitting together.  Speaking of knitting, I picked up the stitches on the black blob, and it could be perfect for working on during the Zoom chats.  I still need to knit a few rows on it to see if my pick-up rate was right, but I feel pretty good about it.  As I'm sure you can tell, this isn't a current photo, (and judge away, 'cause the picture is from February 2019) but possibly the best picture I will ever get of this sweater.
       

Don't Call it a Comeback...Yet

Sure, these UFOs have literally been here for years, but I've not been working on them, and the mere act of dragging them out may not mean anything.  Their longstanding neglected status is not all these projects have in common.  They're both in states of waiting for their next steps, and their next steps are the final steps in knitting them.  One needs a bit of ye ol' pick up and knit action, and then it's just stockinette (and rev-st-st, and maybe a little more st-st) until bind-off time.  The other needs the set-up for the lace edge, and then it's a short chart repeated all the way around, eating up body stitches as I go, a quick graft, and the knitting's done.  Right now, they're also both rather unimpressive (and not terribly exciting when it comes to color, either) blobs of plain knitting--one garter, the other stockinette.  

They also have quite a bit of knitting left on them.  I mean, if I squint, I can make out the finish line in the distance.  The lace edge is an eight-row chart of thirteen stitches, but I will be working it over and over again to make it all the way around.  Sure, it's likely I'll get the chart somewhat pasted onto my brain after I've done it a number of times, but it's not mindless, and when I reach the corners, I will need to consult the written directions, too. I'm not going to attempt calculate the stitches that remain, but the number is not insignificant.  After some quick calculations, I think that the simpler project has over 16,000 stitches to go, but the knitting is pretty mindless once I get it on its way.  Still, if I recall correctly, the "requirements" for NaKniSweMo is knitting a sweater of at least 10,000 stitches in a month, but that's a bit hazy to me and I could be mistaken.  Then again, that's a totally made up, self-imposed, unimportant event for next month.  Ugh.  I just realized that next month is November.  I'm going to need a moment.  OK, I've pushed that reality back into a corner and can get on with other things. 

I guess I'm in the so close yet so far away zone with these, but giving them a chance to be something other than blobs of knitting in a bag seems like a good idea.  I hope you're giving good ideas a chance, too.                 

Nearly a Nickel Creek Title*

My Kindle Fire has been unwell for a while, and I've been sad about it.  Not only have I enjoyed the device over the years, how I got it is special to me.  As it has been getting progressively sadder, I have tried all of the wishful thinking and lucky rituals trying to get it well.  I gotta say, the one where you hold down the power button for twenty-eight seconds in the light of the full moon, surrounded by a circle of power formed by all your best charging cables seemed the most promising, but alas, it was not.  Finally, I managed to do a factory reset, and now I'm back up and running again.  Woo-hoo!  

So, yeah, what with the end of the Mochimochi Photo + Video Contest 2022 (no, I was not a winner, nor did I expect to be) and a bunch of other stuff, I've not done quite as much knitting.  I mean, I was cranking out the tiny creations all summer, so the slowdown is not unexpected.  I don't think I've shown all of the little creations.  Anyway, I do have ideas that would get my needles going.  I would say I'm excited to show you, but much of what I have is not exciting at all.  Of course, now you're excited and feel confident that it will actually be interesting.  In thanks for your good and positive thoughts, I present you with a little bit of my knitting with my revived Kindle Fire.  It's just a couple of Fumin' Wombs from the 20th Anniversary Knitty.    

*Why Should the Fire Die? 

Sharing Is Caring

I made a thing.  Actually, I made many things, thought a lot, took many pictures, and then I made this thing.  It's my entry into the 2022 Mochimochi Photo + Video Contest.  I had hoped to have made something better, but I think it's good that I put myself out there and tried something.  This contest is awesome, and I really like seeing what everyone makes.  Today is the deadline for entries, so you have just a little bit of time to enter.    

No-No-Notorious, Notorious

Watching the water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi has had "Don't Drink the Water" by Dave Matthews Band stuck in my head for days.  Now I'm trying to dislodge it by getting another song in there.  So...

Ah

No-no-Notorious  

Hey, it could be worse, I could have tried to change the lyrics to go along with knitting Tori the Tiny Triceratops.  Knit-Knit, Kni-tori-ous, Kni-tori-ous.  You like that better?  I get it.  You're trying to decide whether you find me more clever or more entertaining.  Tough competition on those options, so why choose? 

Anyway, back to the pattern.*  Have you checked it out, yet?  It's good, a fun knit, some assembly required, and so satisfying when you get it all together.  Yeah, that's why I've done it again.  And again.  And again.  

*Side note:  The end-of-summer sale is happening this weekend over on Mochimochiland, so check it out, if you like.

Big Changes

We knew this day was coming, but we hoped we would have at least one more year before it happened.  Still, no matter when, we would still want more time.  My brother, sister-in-law, and two nieces moved away today.  It's all happened so quickly.  We were so grateful that they worked to find a way to isolate and test so we could have a little in-person time with them before they left.  That they were willing to do so meant so much, and that they worked out the details to make it happen.  We're sad for them to go, but happy for them to have new adventures and opportunities.  We hope their new home exceeds every amazing expectation they have.  Our loss is The Centennial State's gain.         

Should Have Knit More

If only I had knit more little things I would have created an awesome entry for the 2022 Mochimochiland Photo + Video Contest by now, right?  

I have this little pile of recent knits.

There's this other pile I knit before that.  

Then there's this other pile of little knits that have been just hanging out in a bag in my knitting bag by the couch.  

Don't forget the pile of tiny rabbits and carrots, 

or the gathering of little Elizabeth Warrens.  

Of course, we haven't even gotten to the biggest pile.  

Still, I'm coming up empty.  If the answer to music is more cowbell, the answer here must be more knitting, right?  I'm starting to think it's just not going to happen, and I am trying to be fine with that.  I just wanted to contribute to the event.  Oh, well.  Then again, I still have a few more days, so maybe I will manage to get something together.      

One Thing Leads to Another

Do you ever stop and try to figure out the paths your mind takes to get to a particular topic, activity, or line of thinking?  I do that pretty often.  Sometimes when I have a number of concerning things going on in life my brain tries to sort them into patterns, tries to make puzzling things make sense, works to understand things when I might not have enough information, and the next thing you know my mind has stirred up something seemingly out of nowhere.  I've got quite a bit of that going what with some family getting ready to move away, others appearing to be engaging in patterns of behavior that have historically meant they were not doing well, swirl that all up with the pandemic, climate crisis, inflation, and all of the *gestures broadly* stuff, and it doesn't take much of a leap to figure out why my brain is going the places it goes.  

Other times, the hop-skip-jump is lighthearted and fun.  Anna just announced the call for entries for the 2022 Mochimochi Photo + Video Contest and its theme, Sharing is Caring.  So, I had recently knit some corn.  Maybe sometime I'll fill you in on what got me knitting corn, but that's a story for another day.  Anyway, sharing is caring, inflation is terrible, people are in need, corn is food, I should knit more food and turn it all into an awesome stop-motion animation (a skill I do not possess) and let it join what I'm sure is going to an amazing crop (see what I did there) of entries for the contest.  So I flipped through patterns and the pearl part of the Joyful Oyster pattern from the book Adventures in Mochimochiland was a great starting point for an apple and a peach.  After that I knit a little banana, a tomato, and a lime.  At this point I get a bit mentally stuck in my bin of green yarns and unnecessarily lose too much time lamenting not having full-size skeins of Limeade Heather, Alfalfa, Green Tea Heather, and Edamame despite having mini-skeins of them all and only needing small amounts to knit tiny fruit and veg.  I can be a bit silly, for sure.  I have so much and can relax and enjoy.  Anyway, after knitting all of those healthful foods, you know I'm back to Adventures in Mochimochiland and knitting a donut.  Then my brain is back in the green bin and after another flip through Teeny-Tiny Mochimochi I've knit a little pear.  

So, yeah, I may see if I can put together an entry for the contest, but I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone else does.  In the meantime, I think I need to knit a smaller donut and then maybe I'll try to knit up some little veggies (more green!), but maybe now that I've taken a picture and blogged these, I'm done knitting little food for now.  Sometimes I'm like that, y'know?  

Take care of yourselves and others, lean into love and allow yourself to experience the joy that is available to you. 

"Knit on, with Confidence and Hope, Through All Crises"

Well, I stumbled a bit with the confidence, remembered that hope is a discipline, and lately, we've all had plenty of crises.  It's been quite a month, hasn't it?  Not for the first, nor probably for the last, in difficult times, I turn to knitting.  Here you see my poorly photographed Pride 2022 knitting.  Not only did I knit on with hope, but I knit on with love, and I knit on for love.  

  

You Might Think

By the time I had the third Palette sampler box, I had amassed a great list of reasons for having all three.  Not the least amongst them would be that I would know exactly what each color looked like and when ordering new balls of Palette, I would order the correct one.  No more frustrations caused by the difference between the photo and its display on my screen not matching real life.  That makes sense, eh?  

Fast-forward (or rewind, depending on your perspective) to a Knit Picks gift certificate I received for my birthday.  When I finally got around to using it, I filled in the order with a few balls of Palette.  I knew I needed a ball of a plain orange.  Well, orange is not as simple a color as you might think.  I ordered Orange, but I should have ordered Cayenne.  

The Palette sampler as color card tool only works if you consult it.  Who knew?

That being said, when I do get out the mini skeins of the samplers, I have fun.  Just looking at all the colors is a joy.  There are so many colors that I don't have (outside of this collection) but that I could see buying full skeins of in the future, perhaps.  While I do have quite a few colors, it amazes me all the ones I don't have.  

Speaking of the colors I do and do not have, amazing isn't the right word to describe a recent experience.  I was playing with colors, trying to find the right ones, (pinks and oranges, if you were wondering--pinks and oranges if you weren't wondering) knitting from a bag filled with little balls of yarn I have wound off from the full skeins of Palette to knit little things.  Anyway, one of those pinks worked well, and when I had used it up, I went to the craft room for more of it, and could not find more.  Then I compared the scrap to the pinks in the sampler to figure out which it is.  It's Cosmopolitan, and that solved one mystery, and another mystery started.  

There was no main skein of Cosmopolitan in the stash.  I cannot recall ever knitting up a full skein of it, nor do I have any finished items composed of it.  Still, I must have had it, otherwise I couldn't have that small ball of it in the knitting bag.  I spent way too much time searching, but I don't have it.  The bin where it should be seems pretty full, but maybe there is a missing bag of pinks and purples that I failed to put away properly.  If so, I have a happy reunion in my future, eh?  In the end, it prompted me to wind off a couple yards from the sampler mini-skein to use now.  I mean, the mini-skeins aren't just for admiring, and once I did that, it freed me to do the same with a few other colors I wanted to try, and try I have.  I will try to remember that feeling, and not continually set things aside for the "right" "special" "perfect" time.      

Not Enough Orange Yarn

Sometimes I turn to yarn and needles while I process thoughts and feelings.  Tiny heart after tiny heart.  So much loss.  So much grief.  Hate.  Fear.  Terror.   

If You Haven't...{again?}...Have You Even Quarantined?

Truly, I'm just as surprised as you to find myself returning to a recurring blog topic, but here we are.  We'll head straight to the question, "If you haven't played a ton of Animal Crossing, have you even Quarantined?"  I answer with a resounding, "Yes!"  I have played so much Animal Crossing.  

I even tried to come up to lyrics to the K.K. Slider hit, "Steep Hill," but worry not, I had no success.  It is my favorite song of his.  What?  Like I'm the only one to attempt to pen lyrics to a song by a video game cartoon dog?  Next you're going to find something wrong with me for admitting to having teared up a bit on a Saturday night as he sang it.     

Animal Crossing New Horizons is a great game for Quarantimes.  It is gentle, it follows along with the hours of the day and seasons of the year.  It is not a game of winning or losing.  You can play for hours on end, fishing, swimming netting bugs, designing, decorating, building, shopping, and interacting with a range of animal characters.  Your island is a wonderful home you can transform in countless ways.  

You can connect with others near and far.  Many people in the family played, some of us much more than others (ahem, me, Mom).  We occasionally traveled to each others' islands.  We sent in-game gifts and notes.  It gave us something to talk about when nothing else was happening.  

Besides playing with family, I played with strangers (and one time talked on the phone with a niece and brought her along on a memorable journey to randos' islands).  I traveled via Dodocode to see the amazing way people designed, to experience the seasons on the opposite hemisphere, and to buy and sell turnips.  

While I'm playing far less than I used to, I don't know that I'll ever stop, and it will probably forever hold a special place in my heart and memories.  

How about you?  Have you played Animal Crossing for fun and for coping with a global pandemic?  What's your favorite K.K. Slider song?        

 

 

Let the Sun Shine (ready or not for all the hot)

Spring has sprung, and that means many things.  The weather is warming, the sun is often shining, and there is so much more green.  I've been doing a little yard work, and have added some lily of the valley plants to the flower box.  With the return of leaves on trees and flowers blooming comes pollen, and with that, nobody's favorite guessing game, "Is it Allergies or is it COVID-19?"  We're still staying home, for the most part.  It's just what makes the most sense for us.  The weather has been changing quickly; the chill of our winters jumped to the warmth of early summer, skipping over much of the milder spring weather.  Of course, I start typing this post, and weeks go by, so we are now seasonably warm.  I'm just saying, we jumped thirty degrees in a week last month and it has mostly stayed there.  Anyway, before it becomes too hot all the time, we are spending some time outside with family.   

Here at home, life continues much as it has, but now with a little more knitting.  No, not the Hue Shift Afghan.  I haven't much felt like working on it, but knitting little things has appealed to me.  It started with things to put in some Easter eggs.  At first, I thought about knitting a different pattern for each of the kiddos' eggs, but knew that was not a good idea.  Instead, I chose Tina the Tiny T-Rex (still waiting patiently for Tori the Tiny Triceratops to make it over to Mochimochiland instead of just being available on Knitrino).   For a bit, it looked like we would have rain for Easter and we would not be able to attend, and I thought about knitting a dinosaur for everyone in the family.  I quickly recovered from the ill-conceived idea, and just knit at my own pace and let Bruce pick which ones he thought were best to put in eggs.  We were so very fortunate to have nice enough weather to celebrate Easter and Mother's Day outside with the family. 

Being out of practice checking up on knitblogs (yes, some are still active out there, and I think there should be more) I missed when a post on twitter by Anna Hrachovec showing a sunflower gif then yielded a pattern for us all.  Anyway, I caught up, donated and got to knitting.  These sunflowers are brightening things (we are in need of cheering, for sure) and the pattern is presented for free with a requested donation to groups helping Ukrainians--double yay!!  Since I'm not yet satisfied with my petals, (I kept ripping out and re-working, and that's not the answer) I believe I will be knitting more sunflowers.  

I hope that some good light is making its way to you and yours.     

It's Groundhog Day!

C'mon.  Admit it.  As you read that, you heard the movie, right?  No?  Just me then, eh?  Oh, well.  Anyway, Happy Groundhog Day!  I hope it is living up to all you hoped it would be.  Small disappointment here in that none of the channels I receive is airing a back-to-back-to-back marathon of the movie.  Other than that, many things make today rather Groundhog-Day-esque.  Bruce is feeling a bit unwell and is sleeping while Law and Order plays.  I'm doing laundry.  I did a Duolingo lesson.  I'm back to that after a friend sent me an invite, and I took that nudge to get me back to it.  Though, I have to wonder if that, ahem, persistent owl put her up to it.  I played Animal Crossing.  I scrolled twitter.  I refilled the bird feeders.  We've switched medical appointments back to virtual rather than in-person.  I did the Wordle for today.  I added some groceries to the online cart for our next delivery.  I medically harassed Bruce (medical harassment is our term of endearment for the multiple intrusions in his day of various medical things like meds and vitals).  The Good People of Genoa City were not particularly entertaining.  I drank coffee.  I did a sign language lesson.  At some point today I'll probably talk on the phone with my mom.  I moved a knitting bag closer to me in anticipation of working on the Hue Shift Afghan.  Yeah, I re-started that after a friend wrote me about it.  Still, it has been more avoidance than knitting.  There are mourning doves and brown-headed cowbirds fussing at the feeders.  I don't know what we're having for supper and don't particularly feel like thinking about it.  While I don't do every one of these things every day, this is a relatively accurate snapshot into our lives.  All-in-all, not too shabby, eh?   

What about you?  What's your endless loop, or is each day a fresh new adventure?  Here's a picture of the inside of that knitting bag with the in-progress blanket and the Groundhog I knit some years back.   

p.s. Happy Twos-day! 2-2-22