Chicago December 2015

This has been quite a trip to Chicago. The second day I was here I got a cold. It wasn’t the worst thing because since I didn’t feel like going anywhere, it was easy to hover over my computer going over the edits of GONE WITH THE WOOL. I also had to go over the patterns which took a day itself.

In the meantime I sat on my glasses. They didn’t break, but they were almost horizontal so that the bottom was close to my face and the top of the glasses far away. Somehow I managed all my work with the cockeyed glasses.

The cold lasted two and a half days, which amazingly coincided with me finishing my manuscript. Once I was well, I went downtown to get my glasses fixed. I was afraid they were beyond hope and I went to a place where I could get new glasses if they were toast. Going outside with the crazy glasses was a real trip and I felt kind of nauseous. I just showed the glasses to the clerk without volunteering how they got they way. She said they were so bad she couldn’t guarantee they wouldn’t break in the process of straightening them. I was all set for the worst, but a few moments later she brought them back all straightened out.

Apparently, I had gotten used looking at the world through the cockeyed glasses because I had to get used to them being straightened out. The weather was crazy. Usually at this time of year in Chicago it is cold and possibly snowy. The temperature was in the upper fifties and people were shedding their jackets. It felt like October.

Downtown was extra busy because of the holidays. I got my fill of Christmas windows which I could at least now see well. Amazingly, my cold was completely gone. I always check out Macy’s which used to be Marshall Fields. Years ago when I was in college, I sold toys there during Christmas. It was always very festive and so crowded you couldn’t see the counter across the way for all the customers. There were carolers walking around the store and it turned out some intrigue. Two clerks who worked at the next counter were helping themselves to the cash

And now I am ready to send the edits off through cyberspace, relieved I made my deadline. This book has a lot about Monarch butterflies and I thought it would be great if I could include a pattern to make one. But I didn’t have a clue and then I found the answer in the most surprising place. On the floor. It was something I’d made that had got folded on its trip to the floor and when I looked, it resembled a butterfly.

The other project is made on a knitting loom. It was fun learning how to use them.

And now I go home in a couple of days. I’ve gotten the okay on the next Crochet Mystery which looks like its going to be called HOOKING FOR TROUBLE, which probably means I will start working on the manuscript

It figures the way this trip has gone. I was about the finish this and post it when everything started disappearing on my computer and then the phone rang. I answered the phone watching my computer shut down with no warning. Apparently, it was some Windows update that took over my computer and just decided on its own without telling me or giving me a choice that it needed to restart. Luckily, I was working in WordPerfect and it automatically saves every ten minutes or so. I’m going to put this up before anything else happens.