Monday Menu, week of June 17, 2019

My life has been topsy turvy over the last few weeks. This has made me forget things like posting my weekly menu and such. Here's this week's menu. I'm going to post a few recipes later this week that are used in the menu. The school year is almost done. I'm trying to get ready for summer break and failing because I'm still trying to catch up on things from the last few months that I didn't get done due to the last depressive episode. I'm honestly feeling frustrated with it all.

At least I'm beginning to see progress again on getting my blood sugar numbers back under control. A little more discipline in how I am eating and a change in how I take my medication has made an immediate improvement. Now I just need to get used to this change.

Date	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sun	Donuts	sandwiches / leftovers	Pizza
Mon	kids: Donuts me: english muffin egg, coffee	Kids: school Hubby: ham salad sandwich & chips Me: pizza & chicken	hamburgers carrot salad & cheeseburger salad
Tues	kids: school me: oatmeal, egg, coffee	Kids: school Hubby: ham salad sandwiches & eggs Me: salad	tacos & taco salad
Wed	kids: school me: oatmeal, egg & coffee	Kids: school Hubby: burrito bowl Me: leftovers	chef salad / sandwiches
Thurs	kids: school me: coffee oatmeal & berries	Kids: school Hubby: leftovers Me: leftovers	slow cooker pork roast
Fri	kids: school me: veggie omelet & toast & coffee	Kids: school Hubby: leftovers Me: leftovers	slow cooker orange chicken with rice
Sat	eggs, bacon & fruit	leftovers / sandwiches	meatball sandwiches

Fiber fluff: Cold processing fleece

Dear friends,

I am way behind on the spinning guild's sheep study program. I have a laundry basket full of sample fleeces waiting to be washed. Today, I just tossed two samples of fiber (that just happened to be unlabeled) into buckets of water. Now I'm going to let them sit in a place that's a bit sheltered on the back deck (under a table) for a little while to see if this suint fermentation method actually works to clean it.

I have two samples I need to prep for spinning. One is Dorset and one is Finn. The Dorset is a white fiber and the Finn is a rich brown color. I'm going to spin them on my Ashford student spindle, as I did the other samples. When I'm done spinning them, I'm going to ply them with white size 10 crochet cotton. This way I have a standard to gauge how the ply for each sample is different.  I'm going to try to make some time to borrow the drum carder that my mother-in-law has to get this stuff prepped.

I'm tempted to try spinning one of the other fleece samples in the grease. Before I do that, however, I have a ball of Icelandic roving to finish spinning. I need to ply the remaining yardage of the 4 oz of merino/bamboo/silk top that I finished spinning earlier this week. Approximately 2 oz of this has been spun and plyed together. It has to be wetted and hung to dry to set the twist in it. When I do this, I will measure how much I have. The second 2 oz is going to be plyed with silver sewing thread. The stuff that I just finished spinning singles of is in a dark grey, black, white color way. I think that the silver thread is going to look really cool with it.

I have a finished yarn where I first attempted the plying with the thread. It worked up pretty cool. I wasn't in love with the colorway of the fiber. The fiber was some random dyed fleece in a colorway that I wasn't thrilled with. I gave most of it away. The small bit I had left I spun up to relive stress at some point last summer. Plyed with the thread, the colorway is much improved. The murky grey came out looking like steel and the rest of it has a sparkly shine that pops up and makes the colors look less haphazard and muddled.

Total yardage spun/plied: 119 yds
Goal for the year: 1 mile / 1760 yds

First sampler of the year: All you need is love.

The lettering is simple back stitching. The big heart is needle weaving. The little hearts are each padded satin stitch. The tulip is outlined in stem stitch for each part and filled with long and short stitch. The lower half of each leaf is satin stitch. The upper half of each leaf is tied satin stitch.

This was something that I drew up free hand. Hence things being a little off center and such. Still, first one of the year is finished.

I've picked up a cross stitch pillow cover that my grandmother Barb was going to make before she passed away. It's going to be my next needle point project for a little while. I also am going to finish the cushion she started. It's just missing the final set of french knots. The problem is I have to figure out what color it is supposed to be because the paperwork for these pattern sets was missing. The tulip pillow case appears to be in pinks. But the cushion cover I can only guess what the final set of stitching was supposed to be.

I'll post pictures of this as I get going and make some progress on it. Fortunately, it isn't counted cross stitch, because I find that maddening. The printed is a bit easier, and this is fairly large so I don't need my glasses to do it.