I wasn’t entirely correct about that callous on my finger from flick carding. There’s still a blister under there. Which is disappointing because I really wanted to go whole hog on the last fleece to be flick carded in my secret stash.

But, I did take Thursday off to be with Miss Butterfly, and despite the fact that we were mostly working on her stuff and her room, I did find time for flick carding. Between that day off and doing an hour or so of flick carding last evening, I feel like I am making steady progress.

The black bin is the locks still needing to be carded. The full bag is flick carded locks and they’ve been squished down so often that I can’t fit anymore into that bag without wool spilling out the top. The mostly empty bag was yesterday evening’s progress. There’s still a fair amount to go, but progress is made. I hope to spend a little more time with it this evening. But, flick carding is an awfully dusty job requiring a shower after the fact, so I am saving it for the evening.

This is a nice light colored fleece with some additional grey running through here and there. It’s good, but it’s not stunning. The last fleece was far more interesting to flick card and to spin. I purchased this already washed, and the person washing it certainly washed it far harder than I would have. It’s kind of a pain to pick the locks out from the balls of wool that were washed, and this is leaving me quite a lot of waste. My own washing technique became a technique in which I take a lot of time before washing to preserve the structure of the locks to make flick carding so much easier. And there’s a lot less waste. This fleece also has a lot of second cuts floating around in the washed wool, where my own technique would have all of that removed before the washing happened. Does my way save time? Not necessarily, the time is either taken on the front end or the back end. But, for me, it tends to keep me more motivated about the processing after washing the fleece.

I haven’t been spinning at all since I am hoping to get some knitting projects done again to even out those yearly totals. But it’s hard to have flick carded fleece around and not spin it just to see how it’s going to spin up! I am giving myself the goal of finishing one knitting project first. I’ve got three active projects on the needles.

As a nail polish update, I ended up changing out my nail color on Thursday. So, I went from Sunday evening to Thursday evening, totally a record for me. And, the honest truth is I could have gotten at least one more day out of that manicure, it was starting to crumble at the very edges, but not enough to have to remove. I just had the time and wanted to change it out. I have a hot pink on now, which is a color I love, but I think I’ll change it out again on Sunday evening. It’s a nice Sunday evening routine when I have the time for it, and going into the week with a fresh manicure is pleasant.

Let’s see, what else? Work. It’s going surprisingly well right now. I mean, there are all the little emergencies of a week of work going on, but despite the fact we are short staffed, everyone is chipping in nicely and things are rolling along. I don’t know if I mentioned it or not, but I was able to get rid of one overwhelming project that takes up a large portion of my time. I didn’t have to give it to someone on my team or even someone in my department, or even someone at my university! I gave it to another university entirely. She and I communicate about it regularly still, she still has questions, but the daily work of it isn’t on me anymore and that leaves me a lot more time to actually train and manage my team. It’s an amazing feeling! Prior to this, I was so overburdened that I couldn’t get through my days getting everything done. I just had to prioritize my projects and hope for the best. And let other things drop, and see where they landed. This upcoming week I believe we’ll be conducting interviews for a new person for my team, and that’ll be exciting as well.

Miss Butterfly begins high school on Monday. She’s a teenager with all the teenage angst and irritations, but she also has a fairly positive attitude that I think will serve her well. She’s nervous, just as I would be, but I feel confident that once she gets settled in, she’ll be fine.

This morning I am enjoying a very quiet morning. Miss Butterfly is hanging out with her father, and Mr. Ink is at work. This leaves me and the dog, and there’s nothing Lizzie likes more than a quiet Saturday morning with Mom. I am convinced of this, as she gets grumpy if it doesn’t work out for me. She had a vet check this week, and besides an infected eyelid, which she now has drops for, she’s a pretty healthy old lady.

That’s it from here! Tomorrow will be a makeup post, and then I don’t know what else will get posted this week since I am still plugging away at a shawl that is growing bigger but not getting finished awfully fast. Have a great weekend!