How Cool Is That?, Free at Last and Olivia Petit

HOW COOL IS THAT?

A couple of years ago, 3/23/11 to be exact ’cause I went back and checked, I decided that I wanted – no, make that needed, to learn how to make pottery. Like a lot of things I get obsessed with, this idea eventually seemed to fade and then take its place in what I call the idea cabinet part of my head. It never fully got relegated to the back side of the cabinet. It just hung around, surfacing every now and then in the foreground of whatever I was mentally working on. Long story short I signed up for a basic handbuilding pottery class at the art center here in Little Rock yesterday after seeing a random class schedule online. The first class is April 1 and to say I’m excited is like saying Albert Einstein is a math whiz. Personally, I think looking at the collection of pottery at the library Monday shook something loose.

IN THE OVEN

It’s been a while since I’ve done any what I call real baking, meaning from scratch, not a box. Not knocking the box thing, Lord knows it’s saved my fanny more times than I like to count, it’s just not as satisfying to me as measuring out ingredients and watching my big Kitchenaid do its thing. So, this afternoon, I pulled out the fresh blueberries I found Tuesday, the pecans I got cheap at Christmas and froze and the little bit of sour cream I had left over from some other cooking project and made a (surprise) blueberry-pecan-sour cream coffee cake that smells heavenly. I’m having cake for supper. Oh, you haven’t heard?? They’ve made coffee cake a food group!

SEE YA NEXT YEAR, BUH-BYE

I had my last visit (hurray hurray) with my hematologist today and he released me, to come back in a year. His release was the final step in getting back to normal after my surgery. For the first time in a long, long time, my blood counts are normal and I don’t have to be followed every week or so with blood draws and lab tests. To give you an idea, about a week before my surgery, my hematocrit was 9.5-ish and today, it was 12; translated into realspeak, my doctor said it pretty much means that I have 2 1/2 more pints of blood today than I had a month ago. No wonder I feel more energized. Please excuse me, I’m going now to leap a tall building in a single bound. While I’m leaping, you can admire the flowers I saw outside the clinic this morning ; )

Little Rock Hematology Oncology Clinic

REDEMPTION

The Olivia Petit sweater and I have come to an agreement. I’ll do a better job of reading the pattern and making sure I understand directions and she’ll be a good sport and knit up all pretty and sweet like she promised. Really, it was operator error with the difficulties earlier this week. After I put her aside, slept and reread her pattern more slowly and closely, my mistake was obvious and best of all, fixable. It did entail several, like ten, rows of tinking, but I’m finally back on track with most of my sanity intact. This is what she looks like so far –