May is going to be a very full month. It requires To Do lists and discipline, two things at which I suck mightily.

To Do:

1. Clean out kitchen cabinets, sort everything by keep, give to one of the kids, or give to Goodwill.

2. Clean out garage so there will be a staging area for the storage of the cabinets when they are delivered. The weekend of May 15 is garage weekend, I can't get to it before then, but I MUST get to it then, period.

3. Select paint color for kitchen - paint weekend is Memorial Day weekend, because the cabinets will be ripped out and it will be easy for me to get a ladder in there to paint the highest points of the vaulted ceiling in that area.

4. Buy a taller ladder. (See 3.)

5. Select kitchen cabinet hardware, purchase dishwasher and new lighting.

6. Hire guys to do the lighting lighting and build a patio (fortunately, it appears that these can be the same guys - a friend hooked me up with two general handyman types who are also electricians).

7. Select and plant plants along the fence line. Dog-proof the yard.

8. Lose the next five pounds during May. I'm sick of being at this plateau, it's time to get serious again. I've maintained what I've lost so far, which is good, but I haven't been exercising enough and I slack here and there on the diet discipline, so the weight quit coming off. It's weird psychological thing, but even though I am definitely thinner than I was at the first of the year, I no longer feel thinner, I feel just as heavy as I was at Christmas. My body has adjusted to this in-between weight and it is now my "fat weight" somehow. So it's time to get things moving again.

Obviously the above list doesn't contain a whole lot of fiber-related activity, but I'm still crocheting and knitting this and that. I finished a large crocheted critter blanket in "Caribbean" Homespun and started another in "Mission." Yes, I really am going to run out of Homespun and quit making critter blankets one of these days, but right now they are the ideal TV and chatting project, and they're useful. I'm making them as big as I can with the yarn I have on hand, dog sized rather than cat sized. The new ones are all bigger than 30 inches. I know that there are many who shake their heads and wonder how I can sit for hours doing row after row of half double crochet, which is just as exciting as stockinette, and all I can say is this simple repetitive stitching is my meditation. Sometimes I am in the mood to follow a pattern and sometimes a pattern just feels like too much work. I don't need a challenge, I need a chance to turn off my brain, and simply making repetitive stitches is very relaxing.

I've been "shopping around" - virtually - looking for the right yarn for Florida shawls, and then remembered Softball cotton (that lovely red cotton my Anonymous Benefactor sent me during the very bad time last year. I used it for a Sitcom Chic and love to pieces). Softball cotton come in a sport weight and is available at reasonable price and very generous yardage from Cotton Clouds. It's soft, it's textured, it's machine wash/dry, and the yardage is great for the price - I could get two shawls from one cone. So I've ordered a cone in a neutral tan. I'm picturing a fringed Trinity Stitch shawl.

And I just heard the starter's gun for another work week, so I'm off!