not much and cranky

This past week hasn't been very productive around here.

I'm cranky because we got a new internet router thing and last week I set it up and I hate tech stuff.  That took ages longer than it should have and my "better" service S.U.C.K.S.  It's not faster.  It's supposed to get a 5G signal, but about 85% of the time it does not.  I'm hoping it gets better as they upgrade the service in my area, but since they were going to shut off the old service, what can you do?  (Yes, there are other companies, but since they all run off the same cell towers, they're all gonna likely suck just the same.)

And THEN I went to pay my bill (that they will not send me in the mail because of reasons - never mind the extra hassle to get my printer to communicate with anything now that we have a new router) and I have NO mailing address and not even a NAME of who I'm paying.  You know, the things your bank needs to send them money?  I mean, I get they want me to do it in their app, but how convenient is that?  If I do it through my bank, I can log in ONCE for all the bills, not ONCE for EACH bill I have to pay.  But the bank wants to know who they are paying, picky folks that they are.

So I used my car and gas and drove to the store where I got my internet (we won't say who, but they have stores just for themselves) and paid my internet bill with my credit card so next month I can pay my credit card bill with my checking account.

HOW IS THIS EASIER?

Oh, wait, no one gives a rat's fart about the consumer.

Okay, enough complaining,  This blog is about quilting and happier things.  Assuming I can get the damn internet router to work long enough to publish it...

As I said, this week hasn't seen much sewing.  I had two days in a row off, which was great.  The first day I kinda blew it with getting much done, but I needed a little down time.  And I did make it into my sewing room and tidied up a bunch of stuff.  But then I was just not really excited about actually sewing, so I left again.  I knew having the space tidy would make it easier for the next time.

Which was the next day!  I worked quite a while on the cat carrier covers that I cut pieces for quite a while back.  They just need the little labels on them to designate size to be officially finished.

(proof of progress!)

Maybe I'll get there today?  I have to be in to work at 3 today - a late start, but the boss is trying to spread us as thin as she can to get the best coverage possible - so we'll see.

I finished dehydrating the tomatoes.  It took a while and I probably did it longer than I should because I forgot you have to let them cool before testing to see how done they are.  I put one on a grilled cheese sandwich to try and it was good, but a little chewy.  (It didn't exactly rehydrate, but it did taste good.  Maybe next time I'll break it up and then at least I won't get the whole thing pulling out in one piece!)

I haven't dehydrated anything else, but I have a couple days off in a row again coming up, so I think the basil and rosemary and maybe dill (if it's not too far gone) from my garden will be my next efforts.

And then I've been reading.  Shifts at work have been all over the place (as is usual), which makes it hard to have any sort of routine, but reading is a good thing you can just do a little of here and there.

I finished one book this week:

It was awful.

I'm sorry to anyone who likes this author or book, but I will not ever try to read anything of his again.

The main character (I thought it was an autobiography, but it seems more like he made up characters that were pretty much like him, from what I now understand) takes a number of cross-country road trips, getting there and back in various unreliable forms of transportation with friends who are idiots.  He is also an idiot.

There is drug use and drinking in abundance, as well as a lot of mistreatment of women and people in general.  Every decision is a bad one and leads to more bad decisions.  I cringed regularly.

I kept reading, hoping there would be some epiphany that led them to lead more responsible lives.  There was not.  (That may be a spoiler, but I really don't care.)

I have no idea what made this book so highly regarded that it is was reprinted by Penguin as an "essential classic" and no clue what made it a classic in the first place.  Maybe it represents a way of life within that generation?  Maybe I'm too young to get it?  Maybe it's just garbage and someone high enough up in the publishing world said it was deep and no one else had the balls to say it wasn't, so it stuck and no one really gets it?

I'm sorry if you liked it.  Please tell me what I'm missing.

But this also makes me wonder if, in 75 years, books that we're publishing now and certifying as classics will cause people to cringe and question our sanity as well?

So anyways, that was a bust.  I've known of the author for a time and thought this would be a great choice.  It was not.  At least for me.  Instead I think it's going to win worst book I've read this year.

Onward.

My book-nerd app where I keep track of what I've read also allows me to log pages read each day.  A reading journal, if you will.  On September 27th, I logged my 1000th day in a row reading.

Some days it was few pages (you can see the monthly graph there), some days it was a lot.  But it was every day and I'm pretty darn proud of that!  I plan to keep going, but a big number won't come around again for nearly three years...

And that's it for today.

Now to decide if I want to read a little of the next book, take a nap, sew or something else I have yet to figure out.

But at least all the chores are finally done.  Whew!

Happy quilting and whatever,

Katie