February 2018 – Page 4

Payoff! February report

My total amount paid for January was $655.34 which consisted of my usual $103.67 and an impressive additional $551.67. Of that total, $647.21 was applied to the principal and $8.13 was applied to the interest. I had budgeted $383.25 initially, and then cashed in $11.10 of BottleDrop refunds, as well as my $12.00 in Christmas scratch-off ticket winnings. Thanks to the calendar, Matt paid me twice for food, giving me an extra $147.60. It all adds up.

I added nothing to my list of things not bought to achieve my goal. Truthfully, I wonder if I’ve wandered away from that part of the project. I seem to be buying this and that (things under $40) when I “need” them. It might be good to check up on that.

My payoff estimator has me finishing this project by June of this year. Hopefully I can meet this goal. My remaining balance is $2,633.53.

Dishcloth: Amish Diamond

I’ve stalled out on my project of making my old t-shirts into a quilt using sashiko embroidery. Sashiko is kind of intense, what with the having to make grids on the t-shirts. The needles are very sharp and I poked myself a lot. I need to solve some problems–the poking–and then I can return to that project.

In the meantime, I’ve felt like a slug just watching movies without having something for my hands to do. Enter the Leisure Arts book Knit Dishcloths by Julie Ray. This book promises 15 extremely easy designs inspired by quilt blocks.

Here is the first. It’s called Amish Diamond. It knit up quickly, taking only two movies to get to a finished project.

I like knitting dishcloths because the stakes are pretty low. The yarn is inexpensive, it doesn’t matter if I mess up, and this pattern was easy enough that I could concentrate on the movie when I needed to. They also make nice little add-ins to put with a gift for someone.

Three sentence movie reviews: Double Indemnity

This is a film noir that I would recommend to someone looking for a film noir.* Aside from the frankly unbelievable speed at which the characters fell in love, this was a taut little thriller with some good twists and turns. I also enjoyed the importance of the Dictaphone to the plot of the movie.

Cost: free from libarary
Where watched: at home.

*I’ve probably only seen two other film noirs, but I found this to be quite engaging.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2018/double_indemnity.html

Here are the scratch-off pictures:

Sorry for the blurry first picture; I like the reveal.
This movie is so good. Totally worth the watch.

I should probably re-watch this one, due to seeing it 20+ years ago and also very late at night.

Do you want to scratch your movie poster itch? Get the scratch off poster here.

What the fridge looks like at the end of the month

My every-two-weeks shopping trip, combined with the fact that a month isn’t four weeks, but instead four weeks and a few days, meant that I ate leftovers for this week. Tomorrow, I go grocery shopping. Today? All that is left are things in the dairy family (cheese, buttermilk, milk), two servings of soup, some lentils and a drawer full of onions. Thank goodness February has only four weeks.

Postcard from Minneapolis

My camera was confused by all the colors on this postcard and took a rather dark picture, which I then brightened in post.* Sara reports that the day after she wrote this, she plans on having a working day. So far her semester has been filled with campus/school site things. But she’s got a long to-do list and she’s going to tackle it.

I’m sure that she did!

*”We’ll fix it in post!” I like to make that excuse about stuff. Sometimes things get fixed in post production, sometimes not.