Knit a row, get ready for houseguests, knit a row, get ready for houseguests, knit a row, give the hands another break so it’s not too much all at once. Of either. Got the moose body finished, the head done, a third of the antlers, and was going to do more tonight.

We once hosted my sister and BIL and their six boys overnight and eight extra people is a lot of pillows and blankets to have to scrounge up.

Besides, this being earthquake country, you never know whom you might have to take in. (Been there did that.)

So the guest room has a large stack of blankets along the wall and all the extra pillows go from the bed to that wall. When we have a pair of actual guests on that queen bed, that’s way too much and the herd needed to be thinned. I reached for one.

It was damp.

There is absolutely zero anything to do with water whatsoever in that room. None. Nor has there been. As I told him, yes I use that bed for blocking but I haven’t even done that in awhile and I certainly don’t pour water over it.

Fourteen damp blankets, including the quilt on the bed where it touched the others. Only one pillow definitely needs to be tossed so far.

I pulled them all out and started running the washer. Four handmade quilts were laid outside in what was left of the sunlight. SusanH, yours was in active use and not in there, thank goodness.

But one that Richard’s grandmother had made us as a wedding present. One that she’d made for Richard’s mother. A crocheted afghan my grandmother’s friend had made her who knows how long ago. Ooh, man, that one, at least it was the cheap Chinese one from a thrift store that took it the hardest.

If I ever wondered if I’d had covid at some point that interfered with my sense of smell (the first bout of it did not), that answered it: I could see the black spots but it wasn’t till I started pulling everything out of there that I got any whiff of it and he hasn’t smelled it yet. But I could enough to tell how bad it must be to someone else.

The wall. Well, it was bone dry on the outside, at least.

My childhood friend Karen helped set up a tie quilt at her house when we were 18 and put it together with me at a summer in my life when I was so down and so needed that time and that help. Her daughter and husband are the ones arriving from Maine in a few days–that quilt had dibs on the washer. (Also because I knew it could handle it.)

Meantime, our covid tests arrived at long last after dinner and we decided to do me for now. Did it, set the timer for the results, went outside to spread out another quilt to dry.

Richard has the lights in the family room set to blink from wherever he is in the house for when I don’t hear something I need to. The lights were blinking. I know that timer is obnoxiously loud for him, and I had my garden shoes on that I didn’t want to track across not just the house but anywhere near that hall lineup of stinky blankets that didn’t need one more thing happening to them. A moment late because I hadn’t thought of it fast enough, I kicked them off.

While turning and rushing.

One clog caught on my foot and twisted sideways and then so did I.

It was a few minutes before I could let him help me carefully up. Part of me thought, this is where I get to be glad I usually can’t feel much of the pain after five or ten minutes. Hopefully this time too?

And that is how I am typing this. The shoulder/upper arm hit hardest and we’ll see what tomorrow says, but I can lift it now (Demo’ing to prove it to myself after typing that and going, oh. Maybe don’t do that again soon.) The hip I landed on is just bruised. I think.

I think that’s definitely it on the knitting for the day.

Oh, and the covid test? It was negative.