Yay for pizza, walking, and kittens! I like listening to or watching stuff while I crochet, too. There are some patterns that are complicated enough that I can't have something else going on that needs focus(Looking at *you*,
WIP blanket of epic proportions I was unable to get done in time for this year's State Fair), but with most patterns, I need something to keep my brain busy while my hands are busy.
Me it's either audiobooks or documentaries/videos on YouTube. Stuff that's interesting and/or doesn't require me to look at it for anything. Sometimes Let's Plays, but they require too much visual attention. I hear tell some people can actually watch TV while they work, but I'm not one of those people, I already have enough headaches in my life without adding an eyestrain one to the mix.
I LOVE SOPHIE'S UNIVERSE!!!! I did a Sophie's Garden back when I was first starting. All white. Lo, the many MANY errors I made. I only got it to baby blanket size, so I gave it to one of the ladies in our church when she had her daughter. I want to do another one, and go the full way, now that I know a little better what I'm doing.
Right now I've got these two Jacarandas going for Christmas presents:
I'm doing them simultaneously, obviously, 4-weight yarn, 6mm hook. I do about two rows a day on each, and I'm doing them at the same time because it's easier to learn each row's process once and do it twice, rather than trying to do all of one, and then learn them all over again for the second piece. I'm just past the halfway point on the pattern. I've briefly paused on them because I ran out of light purple and can't get to the store to get more. The left one is for my friend, because she loves purple. The one on the right is for my son's girlfriend, who loves blue and green. He tells me they're getting pretty serious, so I want to be Supportive Mom.
Our water heater may be on its last legs, to add to the life pile-on.
Hubby says changing out a water heater isn't terribly complicated. But it is an awkward and annoying one. Good luck!
jallenecs - A pizza party sounds like the ideal solution to that situation. (And it's nice to know that other people have issues getting family estates settled in a timely manner; it's been five years since Grandpa passed, and the uncle/executor is still dealing with crud. Part of it's a string of bad lawyers and iffy advice, but part of it is squarely on him for dragging his feet.)
We had a great lawyer, an old friend of my brother in law. Our problem was the land. We had to have a new survey done, and surveyors are super expensive. Part of it was the deed. It dates back to yon, and had not been updated in forever. It was written in the old way -- "go south until you reach the walnut tree, then go east for a hundred paces" that sort of thing, "
metes and bounds" I'm told it's called -- and the surveyor had to update it to modern GPS terms, which added to the job and the cost.
Added to that, the survey had to divide things up. Four sisters, four equal shares, right? No. Elder Sister only got a fraction of her original piece, because she'd received part of her birthright early so she could build a house. I got slightly less acreage because mine was the only piece that had been "improved" (I got Mom's house). Younger Sisters both got the same size, but land ain't like Lego, nothing's quite as even and balanced as you would wish. So it was basically a pain in the butt.
One funny bit on that. To get this process started, my sister had to go to the court house to look at the original titles and such. They keep all those things in enormous bound books, hundreds of them, numbered by volume. She goes in, and says, "I need to see such-and-thus title." The clerk says, "Okay, what's the volume number?" Sister says, "Volume One."
Record scratch. The clerk didn't believe her, that our title was in the very first volume, but it was true. The clerk was impressed, as was I. I knew we'd been here a while, but day-umm!
