What a long day... that happens when you wake up at 2:17am and don't go back to sleep... and leave for work at 4:25am....

I guess that I got off kilter with the day off on Monday?  Anyway, I finally got up at 3am... and read the Internet news, checked my email, etc.   THEN, I said, "Forget this... I'm going to get showered and ready for work."   Yes, I left my house at 4:25am.  The gate guard on base did look at me a little funny when he scanned my military ID to get on base.   He probably was wondering why I needed to be at work at 4:40am?   At least, we didn't have another meeting after school today.  I was able to go to the base and mail 3 boxes to friends.   Two people will really be surprised with the contents of their boxes-- since, it's not their birthday or anything.   I don't think that I have shared this knitting project?  If I did, pretend that I didn't... after all... I only had 3 hours of sleep last night.  My mind is a bit tired by now.   Anyway, these are cotton dishcloths that I knitted during some of my physical therapy appointments this summer.   The sessions started with heat on my knee for about 15 minutes and ended with ice on my knee for another 15-20 minutes.  Of course, in the middle part was a lot of pain and discomfort-- but, we won't discuss that.  During those 'waiting times'... I would knit.   Other people there?  They'd play on their cell phones.   I used 100% cotton yarn by the name of 'dishie' from knitpicks.com.  I also used a variety of patterns.   I made them for my friend's aunt- she would take me to my physical therapy appointments.   I had thought about knitting her a nice warm soft wool hat... but, my friend said that she wouldn't wear a hat.  So, I'm not one to force my knitting onto others... and I totally understand the 'no wearing of hats'... unless it is VERY COLD. This is a wool hat out of alpaca that I knitted for my friend's mom.  She'd drive me to the doctor appointments.   She has strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes.   So, I thought that this color was a good choice.   This yarn was also from knitpicks.com.   This is a free hat pattern that I found on www.ravelry.com.   The dishcloth patterns were also found there or just some stitch patterns that I know how to knit without needing a pattern.

Woke up at 5:15am on a SUNDAY

Why body? WHY?

I tried to go back to sleep. I used all of my life-long tricks to try to fool my body; no lights being turned on, I flipped my body over to the 'other side' which had the added bonus of not having the 'time' on the alarm clock in view, I stuck one leg out from under the covers, I smushed up my pillow, I smoothed out my pillow. Nothing helped.

So, after about 20 minutes I finally gave in and got up.

I guess I should make a list of things to do before work tomorrow:

1. Laundry This is not an easy task in Germany- the wash and dry cycles
take a long, long, long time.

2. Pick up the mess that I made while looking for paperwork yesterday.
I'd love to have just enough money to hire an assistance to take
care of things like paperwork- because, you know that they wouldn't
have to LOOK FOR PAPERWORK and thus wouldn't MAKE A MESS looking
for it in the first place.

3. Write a few emails and a couple of real letters.
I have 2 friends that we only correspond with letters as we have for
the past 21 years. Truthfully, I like getting what I call:
REAL MAIL.

4. Clean out the fridge -Toss anything that is bad or is going
to go bad in the next few days into the 'refuse trash' which I call
the BAD FOOD TRASH that goes in the BLACK CONTAINER that will be
picked up by the 'refuse trash' people on Monday.

*When I first moved here, I had to associate the colors
of the bins w/ the type of trash that goes into the different colored containers.
The refuse trashcan is BLACK and so, I use the term BAD FOOD to help me remember the type of 'trash' that goes into that container. The paper recycle bin is GREEN- so, trees make paper and the leaves are GREEN. The yellow bag trash is made out of YELLOW PLASTIC and the recycle trash that goes inside? Plastics, styrofoam, and foil pieces. Hey, you do what you can when the words written on the sides of the containers, to let you know what goes inside, are written in a foreign language.


*Trash pick up in my little community is limited to once a month for the different types of recycling and the 'bad food' trash is picked up twice a month. So, you don't want to miss any of the recycling days. Not that I would have had any personal experience in having missed the recycle days in the past or ANYTHING like THAT.

5. Cook SOMETHING that I can have for dinner and for lunch at work for a couple of days.

See, I told you it was pretty dull here.

*I'm not going to add 'cleaning up the house' because even living alone... that is something that I have to do on a regular basis. Problem is- I have no one to blame but myself if things are not put back where they belong/etc. Maybe I should start having an 'invisible friend' to blame the messes on- like young children imagine?

I haven't been knitting anything in the past several weeks.

Reason? I woke up one morning with a 'stiff neck' and thought that I had just slept crooked or something like that. Well, as the morning progressed- things got worse and soon I wasn't able to turn my neck in ANY direction. Of course, it would have to happen on a SATURDAY morning, right? I went through pain and no sleeping because of the neck situation until work was over on Monday. After the students left my room for the day, I went down to see one of my teacher friends- who had briefly saw a local physical therapist in the German town near the base. (she'd had knee surgery in the states that summer)

I asked her who she saw and she gave me the location of this guy. I went straight to his office and begged to be seen that AFTERNOON/NIGHT. He agreed to stay late and saw me at 7pm after all of his appointments for the day were over. I found out that he could only give me a neck/shoulder massage without doctor orders for physical theraphy. However, this massage, was enough that I was finally able to sleep for 4 hours that night. It's now been several weeks of therapy and I think that I'm well enough to start a new knitting project... or 'shh' pick up something that isn't finished.

So, what have you been doing? I'm sure much more exciting things than I have been doing.