This is from the YNAB newsletter.
While I have never taken a loan from my 401k or withdrawn funds from my 401k, there were a few years where I saved less that 5% of my income. And wan savings (especially when you make less than the median income) does not make for a good chance of retiring before 65. It’s a bummer how much clearer the retirement thing becomes in one’s 40s.
It is finally finished! While I wish I would have stuck to one color of orange for the sun’s rays; overall, I’m very pleased at how this sampler turned out.
This sampler used these stitches:
Backstitch chain took a lot longer than I wanted it to and ate up a lot of thread. I also kept losing the wave pattern and had to go in and put extra undulations so keep the waves going. About twelve rows in, I went back and looked at Shannon’s picture and she did not use nearly as many lines as I did. I think I was shoving them together.
I did five layers of padded satin stitch. I’m not sure that it looks very different than if I had done three layers, but I did get a lot of nice practice on my satin stitch.
My favorite was the half interlaced cross bar. Shannon modified it from a different stitch. I like how it fills the space and also looks woven in a cool way.
We have already begun the 2023 Year of Stitch! I’m excited to see what this year brings.
Dima sent me this cute postcard about Mary Blair.
She also reports that she enjoys traveling.
Diane sends this Jane Austin quote to me from the high desert.
This statement is true for me too!
Matt and I had a good time at Portland Center Stage’s play about a modern-day Sherlock Holmes. Once the play started, those sheets were pulled down by the players and the games began.
Ashley Song and Kimberly Chatterjee were good as Holmes and Watson. I also really enjoyed Dana Green who played three very different roles. Darius Pierce also played several different roles.
Zentangle No. 2 builds on Static (wavy one), Tipple (circles), and Crescent Moon (the half moons) by adding Fescu (the plant-like one), Knights Bridge (checkerboard) and Nekton (hashmarks.)
Zentangle No. 3 includes Knights Bridge (checkboard), Festune (the blood-cell looking thing), Hollibaugh (the boards and darkness one), and Poke Root (the plant looking ones.)
I really enjoyed how shading Hollibaugh made the boards look layered.
The seat next to mine had an envelope tucked into it. I was super curious as to what was this theater note passing.
I managed to restrain myself from opening it, but I did give into nosy parker reading out of the corner of my eye when the couple claimed their seats and opened it. It seemed to be a thank you of some sort. Probably for subscribing or donating, is my guess.
Also! I didn’t realize the seats aren’t all the same color. That’s fun.
These cookies are from Molly Yeh’s Home is Where the Eggs Are and when I saw the picture they immediately reminded me of the cookies that used to be served during coffee hour after church when I was a child. I don’t recall that those cookies were jam-filled but I do remember the sprinkles. I haven’t seen such cookies in years.
So, thanks to a three-day weekend, I made them. And let me tell you, these cookies are delicious! Plus they used up nearly all of the sprinkles that had been sitting around for years in my cooking tub.
Were they also a pain to make? Indeed. I prefer cookie recipes that I can either cut into bars, drop from a scoop, or slice from a log. This involved chilling dough and then rolling pieces into a ball, flattening, adding jam, carefully sealing, rolling into a ball again, rolling in sprinkles, carefully flattening with a glass, and then chilling again before baking.
So these won’t be an everyday cookie. But I did get a good tip to freeze the unbaked cookies and bake a few at a time. I’ve been freezing unbaked cookies, but I like the intentionality of freezing raw dough and then baking. Also, as the recipe notes, these do taste even better the next day.
In December, at Crafty Wonderland, I bought a pair of legwarmers from Texture Clothing. In doing that, I opted into their mailing list and that got me a two-for-one deal on gusset shorts.
They arrived with a sticker, a sucker, and a handwritten note that referenced my previous purchase. Well done, Texture Clothing, well done!
Zoe visited New York City over Christmas and, among other things, visited the Strand. Zoie points out on the postcard that it’s not called “the Strand,” a thing she discovered during her visit.
And I do see that it’s just “Strand” on the bag. But the back of the postcard itself says, “Altogether they created the Strand’s beloved idiosyncrasies” So the bookstore itself does use “the.” Maybe it’s “Strand Book Store” (no the) and “the Strand”?
Anyway, Zoe said the bookstore was pretty fun, but ranked it below Powell’s.
She also reports that she spent a lot of time in New York on transit, which was restorative. I agree that it’s nice to have some restorative public transit time.
