Oh my.

I didn't mean to go over a month without posting, but there you go. The month can be summed us thusly:

I stayed off the internets for a couple weeks because my hand really, really hurt. Like, really hurt. So apologies for being a little absent with the comments and emails.

 (This coincided nicely with my raging depression over the postal rate increases though so I was able to multi-task the hermiting. lol Don't get me started on the 90-95% increases for international packages that have pretty much killed my non-US sales - which were considerable pre-increase.)

I ended up getting a steroid shot in my  hand which, besides the horror of getting a needle jammed through the palm of your hand at an angle, has been steadily working pretty well. Week one my fingers were swollen like little sausages and fairly useless, week two I still had clicking but only a little pain.....heading into week four now and it's still evolving. My middle joint feels like a dead zone but it only has the barest dull ache of pain so I'll take it.

The next step is surgery, which should cure the issue altogether and, in the meantime, I'm honestly trying to take it easy with it. Nothing wrong with that because it's given me more time to read and god knows I love reading. :)

Melanie's 2013 book montage

Melanie's favorite books »

Also: more time for cooking, which I really don't do as often as I would like. (As far as making things that require more than a handful of ingredients. I tend to fall back on the easy-peasy tomato sauce and uber-quick stir fry type stuff that takes no planning and go months without cracking open a cookbook.) 

This is a ruby red grapefruit preserve that I made last week. Grapefruit! As jam! Why didn't I ever think about that before? I love grapefruit and I love jam on toast with a little peanut/cashew/almond butter. Very unusual stuff, this is. It's a little tart but very sweet - like grapefruit candy. My recipe made two jars, which might be a little more than we can reasonably eat before it goes bad though. (I know nuttin' about preserving so this is just 'refrigerator' jam.) I need to look up some recipes for jam muffins or jammy cookies to use the rest up. 

My hand has been feeling good enough the last couple weeks to actually get some stitching done too. I'm still going forward with my plan to work on my WIP's in 2013 so I dug up the L*K sampler I started on last summer and got to work on that.

 I had completed most of the second part of this (where the lettering is) last year - THANKFULLY - because even just having the last chart to do went crazy-slow. But, it is FINI and I just need to order the frame for it at some point because I really would like to pop up on the wall with my other stuff. 

I don't see me having a use for these three charts again so if someone wants them, comment here and I'll send them* to the first person who asks. That is your bonus for making it all the way to the end here. :) International is fine, I'll just take out a small second mortgage on the house to pay for the postage or something. HARDY-HAR-HAR. (No really - international is fine!) You absolutely don't have to do the whole big thing if you don't want to - any part can be stitched on it's own with a little bit of 'borrowing' of the border to finish the top/bottom off.

*Minus the little bonus charts that came with them as I am still working on them. They are just 3 little one-color ornaments though that have nothing to do with the main piece so you won't miss them in anyway.

Hopefully the hand continues to feel better so we can get out on the bikes soon without me constantly complaining about it. lol We were supposed to go away in a couple weeks but we're putting that off until fall because Old Man Mooshie the kitty isn't doing so well. Seems better to stay home and spare him the stress of having to be carted off to my mother's for the week and possibly dying while we are away. You need to stay on top of him all day to get him to eat - he's down to 5 lbs now - and keep him engaged, etc. Of course, because we're staying home for vacation now, he'll probably live another 3 months just to show us what he's made of. Ha! He turns 17 next month so he might just get one more birthday under his belt yet. *fingers crossed*