Odds and ends

I am, as they say, 'without much time' today so I'll be popping non-knit images into this post. Like for example this one I quite like of bookmarks I use. Note the stamped tag from a skein of Viola yarn!

 

In fact, everything I want to say is a little of this and that, like this picture. Starting with hats.

Somebody somewhere has said something nice about the Not Just For Chemo Reversible Cloche (boy, can I name my knit designs, or what?) because I've had a rush of people asking me to e-mail the file to them. For some reason this is the only one of my designs people can't easily download and it's never stopped being a mystery to me. It's the same portable document format as all my other patterns which *don't* have this problem, and loaded onto my website exactly the same way, and a lot of people are able to access it without any trouble at all. 

The upside of this issue is that I hear from a lot of super nice knitters. The downside is that I now realize people are using chemo caps for other sources of hair loss. Hair loss should not be a thing! It's just so unfair, like we don't have enough to deal with in life.

I am guessing this is a cattail in winter mode,
but when I saw it at the farm I couldn't help wondering
if you could spin with it.

 

Speaking of hair, I recently starting trying bar shampoo and conditioner from a few different brands. My favourite thing in this category is the Kitsch Strengthening Rice Water Conditioner bar... I use it only on the ends of my hair and I've noticed so much more wave and pretty, without having to do anything else for it. Plus the scent is soooo nice. And dissipates immediately, which is great for those of us with perfume sensitivity. I love the matching shampoo too but find in my case it's too hard on my scalp to use more than once or twice a week.

Seems like I've got a lot of farm photos at the top of my file, unless you want to see something I put together for Instagram, in which case you could just to go to Instagram (you don't need to sign up to see somebody's feed.)  This is the pond on a grey wintery day. In summer it's alive with colour and, apparently, frogs and turtles. Long may it be so.

There is so much work do to at this property, and we do it, but we take our time and pause to enjoy our surroundings. Like, just walk around, or stop and stand and breathe. 

It has occurred to me I don't do this normally. I'm always walking to get somewhere or for exercise, so I'm focused and moving. This isn't super possible at the farm because nothing whatsoever is level. If you're lucky, the slope is steady, but quite often there are divots and pockets so that your feet are always having to adjust. It is very much not like walking on asphalt or concrete. 

So, I think the farm is a good place to go, and it's lucky there's so much work to do there or I wouldn't prioritize it.

 

Which leads my thoughts down the farm track to - planning season! I am switching this year from the chunky colourful sticker-filled Happy Planner approach to the sedate elegance of Filofax Malden binders, personalized with little watercolour doodles. Keeping my mind open to washi tapes (the tiny ones are from Happy Planner) but for this week at least, enjoying slender black ink on white paper smooth as glass. 

I will not bore you with pictures of the inside, but I went all out this year and ordered personalized calendar pages direct from Filofax in the UK, as this service is not offered in Canada. I was able to choose exactly the layout I wanted, marked with Canadian holidays only, and in English exclusively, to maximize the amount of writing space on each page. Totally doing this again for as long as Filofax makes it available.

 

Now that I'm thinking about planning, I'm realizing I have rambled on way longer than I meant, and still have a pile of work on my desk. So let me wish you a wonderful weekend and thank you, once again, for taking a little time to be with me here at Hugs. See you next week!

(yeah, you knew I was gonna slide in one more farm pic. love that place so much.)