halfcactus

I had trouble getting to sleep last night but I did manage to sleep until almost 5 this morning even though I think my son in law was moving around earlier than that. The dehumidifier in the basement (in the room next to where I'm sleeping) was running for much of the night. It has been running more over the last day or two because the humidity has risen, and it makes a very good white noise machine. (The wall between the rooms does not go all the way up to the ceiling.) It's a pity I have no control over when it runs, because when the humidity isn't really high it might run for a short time and then cut out, but in more humid weather it runs almost continuously, and I would be happy if it ran all night.

Yesterday I ran out of the yarn I've been using to crochet squares for a blanket (more is coming tomorrow), so I decided to use up some other yarn I've had on hand for a while by knitting a hat as that's all I've got enough for. I wanted to start with a magic circle (because I like knitting hats top down) but I couldn't seem to get the hang of it. I've used a cast on for knitting top down on hats or socks before, but it isn't a magic circle. With a magic circle you get an actual circle with a tail you can use to pull it tight so there is no hole on the top. I spent most of the afternoon looking at videos of people demonstrating this technique, but I don't learn well from videos. Eventually I found a non-video tutorial with pictures and was able to follow that. Everybody seems to have a slightly different way of showing and describing the magic circle, which is confusing for someone who is trying to learn it. Plus I couldn't find a tutorial for a left hander so I had to transpose as I went. My poor brain was very confused. However, with the picture tutorial, I think I've got it.

My Acer computer came back to life! I left it unplugged for about 10 days and then plugged it in and tried to turn it on, not expecting it to work. However, to my great surprise, it came to life almost instantly and has been working just fine since then. I'm very happy because it seems to connect to the (somewhat dodgy) basement wifi better than any other computer I've ever used down there.