Reverse 100 Things: Three-quarters done

I haven’t mentioned the Reverse 100 Thing Challenge since last month, and here we are at the end of March. But I really have still been working on it, with the goal of throwing out something or other every day for 100 days.

Mostly it’s been glass or paper or plastic to be recycled and books to be given away (more than you see here, but how many photos of old books and piles of paper can you look at?) –

but there have been a few unusual odds and ends –

Obsolete computer memory
and antistatic bags that old computer parts came in

A worn-out pepper mill

And now I’m 75 days into the challenge – three-quarters of the way through.

Spring. You’ve heard of it.

But this year, so far, there’s not much chance that you’ve seen it.

Here’s what it looks like.

Another fast frazzled post

Too much going on to do much in the way of writing today, so –

Since it’s Palm Sunday, a photo of a palm tree. I was surprised to see that Italian palm trees grow all the way to the southern city limits of Rome.

Friday Fictioneers: Horse Sense

A day late, but here’s my Friday Fictioneers story for this week. Another great photo presented by the one and only Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, another 100 words of fiction to go with it –

Horse Sense

Well, okay, you never saw me do this before. But you have a lot of sayings about animals, right? Sly as a fox? Stubborn as a mule? Not that mules have anything to get stubborn about. How about sensible as a horse?

See, I’ve heard our legends…long juicy green grass, so soft and thick you can roll in it, so tasty you could graze all day long. Maybe there’s grass like that someplace, but not around here. But I figure if I can just water this pasture enough, the grass will grow. And after that, I’ll take care of those brown hills.

Thank you to a stranger, who will probably never see this

Yesterday was an ordinary day, until early afternoon. Then, as I was leaving the supermarket, a woman with a few bags of groceries and a bunch of cut sunflowers came up to me.

“This is going to sound strange,” she said. “But are you a mother?”

“Well, yes.”

“Well, today was my mother’s birthday,” she said, her voice breaking. “And these were her favorite flowers, and I make a habit every year of giving somebody else a bunch of them.” And she handed the flowers to me.

I mumbled “Thank you” – I wish I had more presence of mind in situations like this and had said something more to her – took the flowers home, and there they sit, in my living room in the biggest vase I own.

I hope she feels happier today.

Weekly Photo Challenge: A Bunch of Lunch

The last several days…

A few handfuls of peanuts and a clementine

Sliced apple with peanut butter

Wrap with yogurt and lentils cooked with onion, spices, and a bit of tomato

Wrap with moretum

Cheese and salsa quesadilla

(This week’s photo challenge is “Lunch“.)

Spring??

It seemed like it a few days ago, anyhow. My crocuses have been up and blooming for a week now, my daffodils are starting to develop buds, even my daylilies are poking up above ground level.

And for tonight, they’re forecasting sleet. 😦

Prompts for the promptless: Wu wei

Another in Rarasaur’s series of post ideas! This one centers around the slippery, paradoxical concept of “wu wei” – I think I’ll let Rarasaur explain it:

Wu wei, or non-doing, is a Taoist practice involving letting one’s action follow the simple and spontaneous course of nature rather than interfering with the harmonious working of universal law by imposing arbitrary and artificial forms.  In other words, it is the action of non-action.

So – a few pictures of wu wei in action. Or not…

Water – whether it’s sea or clouds –
can’t help acting according to its nature.

Forests, trees, ferns…they grow or die as nature makes them.

Nothing can not-act so naturally as a boulder.

But to demonstrate wu wei with attitude, you have to be a cat!

Friday Fictioneers: As Good As It Gets

Here we go again, another 100 words based on this week’s photo –

As Good As It Gets

It’s nice to be next to the window. Everybody says so. The flowers I get can go on the windowsill where I can look at them, instead of squeezing them onto that tiny stand. I just smile and nod, but I’d rather look at the streets, way down there, too far to reach.

I remember. Being twentyish, the whole world ahead of me waiting, nothing bad going to happen ever. My friends and I could explore for hours, everything new. It was good being young. Now? I’m not stupid. I know I’ll never walk out of this room. But the window is nice. The streets are nice.

I want to go exploring again so bad.

Playing with yarn – big and little oopses

I’ve been knitting away for weeks on a reversible cowl, sort of like a ring-shaped scarf, and it looks like I’ll finish just in time for warm(ish) weather – starting this week, I’ve seen crocuses and second-year pansies that sprouted and started to bloom again, and there are rumors of robin sightings.

Well, the timing doesn’t matter much. Some people say it will get cold again in about eight months, and besides what really interests me is finding out what kind of strange shapes and designs you can make out of long fuzzy string.

Not that I managed to get through this experiment without mistakes, two in particular – the big oops and the little oops. The little one was too annoying to live with, so I ripped it out and fixed it. The big one? Fairly noticeable, obviously wrong, and it can stay just the way it is.

The Little Goof

For those of you who knit, two-sided knitting is done almost exactly the same way as basic knit one – purl one ribbing. The differences are that you need two yarns, and you alternate yarns for each stitch. (Well, except when the pattern says not to.) What happened was that I only moved one of the pair of yarns to the back of the fabric for one stitch, leaving the unused yarn running in plain sight in front of the new stitch.

When I finally noticed it and talked myself into fixing it, I undid that entire column of stitches, all the way down to the mistake, and then rebuilt it with a crochet hook.

(So what we really have here is a double-sided, reversibly patterned, knit and crochet cowl. Maybe I should throw in a bit of cross stitch too. Or some welding.)

The Big, Permanent Goof

The cowl has a design of hearts, alternately pointing up or down. (The pattern’s not even a little bit subtle.) And I made one heart pointing the wrong way. And it’s going to stay just like that.

Hmm. Maybe I should have thrown in a couple of sideways hearts to keep the upside-down heart company. Too late now.

Let’s see, what can I knit wrong next?