crocheting, the most dangerous of yarn-based hobbies!    

Yeah, the terminology is quite confusing. The same word is used informally and as a technical term. Take "worsted"   - Worstead (UK) - a town known for weaving that gave its name to a type of smooth weaving yarn. - worsted (yarn structure) - yarn spun with the fibers parallel, making a smooth yarn. Typically used in weaving fabric for suits. - worsted (yarn size class) - a medium sized woolen-spun yarn. The chart at https://woolery.com/yarn-weights-helpful-explanation/ includes length per 100g, which is very helpful.   "Woolen" is equally bad. It can mean something made from sheep's wool, something that would have historically been made from wool but now is made from any type of fiber, or a yarn that is spun with the fiber in a spiral organization to incorporate lots of air (making a fluffy/bouncy yarn).   You will notice that nearly all knitting patterns tell you to knit a gauge swatch first. This is because knitting is elastic and different people hold the yarn tighter or looser when they knit. Two people can use the same yarn and needles and get a different number of stitches per 10cm. That is not a serious problem for a hat, but it would make a sweater come out the wrong size. I often test two or three needle sizes when I swatch. That lets me see which needle size makes the right texture of fabric with the yarn.   As Harriet said, the next step is to do the math. You measure your body part. For simplicity, say that you do not need to adjust for being snug or loose. The knitting will just fit around the area (this is fine for hats; socks need to fit snuggly or they are uncomfortable). My head is 57cm around at the place where I would wear a hat. If my gauge is 5 stitches/cm, I need 5 x 57 = 285 stitches.   For a first project, I would just start by using a yarn of a similar size to the one in the pattern and not do any adjustments. After you have knit several rows, try it on. If it is too big or too small, you can start over with fewer or more stitches. Most hats start with a really stretchy ribbing section, so it is likely to fit you.  

Love this!      

I agree.

One thing at a time sounds like a good plan!

You did a good job making Trek and Hike not repetitive, though!

Edit: on the plus side, I have recovered one nostril.  

I think sometimes lady heterosexuality feels like a stupid fucking supernatural romance novel where you’re wandering antisocially at the rave, feeling a little asexual, following these glowing orange arrows the organizers placed on the floor like quest markers.   There’s some cute humans at the rave, but you just got baptized in blood, or whatever. It was gross, you didn't like it and you don't know if you wanted it. You're different now in ways you don't understand yet. You're a little scared that if you fuck one of these guys you might accidentially kill them. They look squishy. You're afraid of them and you're afraid of hurting them.   Then you see some guy running around on all fours like an animal, the glowing orange rave arrows are pointing directly at him, and the really weird thing about it is that he’s fast as fuck. You say what the fuck? and he says oh, yeah, I was a super weird kid. I’ve been doing this for a long time. Nothing to see here, lol. Just a perfectly default human male. You say puppy? and he says my vampire queen? and you look at each other startled. Like a heart attack.   Instant recognition. Compatible anatomy. Sexually dimorphic equivalents. You can fuck this thing without killing it. It may be possible to reproduce with this creature. Same, or similar, species. Pheremones. Hormone profile. You can literally smell it, everything he is, and you understand it. You know exactly what he is and everything that will happpen when you look at him and it's all terrible. It breaks your heart. You want to fuck him so hard.   He starts salivating and pacing around you in circles, saying I love you. I belong to you. I'm your property. I want to fuck you so hard. I've never been so turned on in my life. You’re the entire universe. I'm going to move into your house, right now. You need to shrink me and make me into a keychain so I can live in your pocket and go with you everywhere. Give me meaning. Paint my universe. Harness my energy. Be my woman.   He says you’re stuck in some sort of vampire/werewolf romance novel with me, I know the tropes and can see the fourth wall, and there’s momentum. You see those orange arrows? That's the plot-vector. We're on a predestined collision course. I'm a character in your questline and I can bend the narrative. You’re going to have to kill me to get me to leave you alone.   He's working himself up into a frenzy, his eyes are bulging and he’s foaming at the mouth. Twitching. It’s ugly. It’s Cronenbergian. You can hear his bones shifting and cracking. You’re thinking this is creepy as fuck and insane. It's beautiful. I am so fucking wet right now. I want to get railed by this guy so bad. And I do need someone to go to the bodega for me during the day.   Something's shifted in your body such that you have low confidence that your genitalia is compatible with that of the rest of humanity and you already know, somehow, that this man will let you chain him by the neck to the wall of your closet and love it. But you're not convinced romance is the novel you're stuck in.   You walk around the city late at night with this guy and he says, he murmurs like a purr, earlier, when the sun was up, there was a parade. Humans partied, made love, formed relationships and broke up. They got a little too drunk, lost their phones, and cried. These are all classic problems. Heartbreak and intrigue, and life, life, life. I've seen most of it before. You haven't, because you've been asleep, but you'll be able to walk in the sun soon.   Having this weird fucking guy around is good for you and the plot momentum makes it easy to love him. You just follow the glowing orange rave arrows back to each other, over and over. You meditate together as the sun rises, even though it hurts, and he says it's okay. It'll get easier. Bite my arm. Drink my blood. Leech off my energy.   But sometimes while you're trying to sleep you hear him thrashing back and forth in the closet, snarling. I can smell other men out there, and I hate other men. I hate other men and I want them to die. Let me at those men so I can growl at them and bite them. I can see the fourth wall, I see the glowing orange rave arrows, and I have plot armor, because the werewolf in a supernatural romance novel never dies. I can do whatever I want and it will be awesome, like a videogame. I want to go crazy.   When he says this you feel all the iron in your blood start to congeal, like a magnet, clustering together to pack into bullets, and you know like an instinct that if this process is allowed to continue it will end with shrapnel ripping your skin and exploding out of you like a bomb. Three-hundred and sixty degrees. You can do it in the woods, away from people, but it'll hurt. So you yell no! Bad! Go to the gym!   Go hit guys who aren’t allowed to hit back. Chew on your toy. Do my evil bidding. Roam the night and bring me meat that belongs to Jeff Bezos, a King of this realm. He does so and says thanks, princess! Thanks for regulating me and making me a better, more terrible, creature. I love to hit guys who aren't allowed to hit back, and I love you. You say good man! and scratch him behind the ears. You do the dance of heterosexuality around the glowing orange rave arrows no one else can see. You meditate while the sun rises.   But over time these techniques stop working, sometimes in the shower you see his shoulderblades start to crack and deform, and he’s starting to growl at other men on the street. Ridges are forming on your knuckles, beads along your spine. It hurts to sleep. He massages your fucked up bones while the sun rises. He murmurs and purrs, and it hurts less, and it's beautiful, but you say come on, buddy. Pull it back. Reign it in. You're contributing to this. He says it's fine. I'm responding to your energy. Stop resisting. Stop resisting. The contemporary-classic playstyle of heterosexuality follows a sort of actor-critic dynamic. The man presents something that he has built, or proposes to build, and the woman judges it. She says I like the idea, but we should tweak a few variables, or she says no, I hate it, try again, and zaps him with the taser. He spasms on the ground and says that actually hurts. Holy shit. When I get up I'm going to fuck your face so hard, and then I'm going to build you the fucking Taj Mahal.   You start arguing about the definitions of man and woman. He's thrashing around in the closet, you're rubbing the ridges of metal on your knuckles, and he growls a man handles the crisis. A man is expendable, the first to dive into the dirty work. You zap him with the taser and say a man does not need to justify his own existence. A man does not create a crisis so that the man can manage the crisis. A woman is a creature that works.   He says a woman does not need to work. The purpose of a man is to provide for a woman. A woman will always be able to find a man to provide. There is no reason for a woman to work. You say fuck you, a woman is a creature that works, and hit him with the taser again, but it doesn't work. He loves it, and he's just happy that he's the center of your attention. He doesn't care if it's positive or negative attention.   You think oh man, I’m starting to feel the looming risk of some sort of civil lawsuit or citation. Do I have some moral responsibility to get this guy euthanized? I don't want to do that, because I love him, but he's getting increasingly Cronenbergian. Am I fueling this somehow?   You say get your shit under control. How can I help you get your shit under control? and he says I don’t know. I don’t know. I hate other men and I want them to die, but I love you so much, I love you so much. Don't abandon me at the shelter. You say buddy, you’re a part of me now, I can feel you like a limb, and you feel so alive. It feels like the songs people sing about being alive. I can't lose that. You’re hurting us. Please get your shit under control. I think you should read some feminist literature.   The feminist literature doesn't help and he starts to lose language, it’s just whimpers and snarls except for moments where language surfaces in short bursts. Punctuated by I love you. I love you. I love you. He says it so fiercely that it feels like being touched by the sun and you love it, the heat of it illuminates everything, but then he snaps at the neighbor's child in the elevator because he thought it was a man and he hates those guys, he wants them to die.   The neighbor says what the fuck is wrong with your fully grown, adult human male? You need to get that shit under control. You say I know, I'm so sorry, I don't know how it got to this point. I've been irresponsible somehow in a way I don't understand yet. You tell your fully grown, adult human male hey baby, we're going to a party in the woods, and there'll be a lot of people there with rumors about art, the economy, and the natural world. There'll be lots of men you can bite in the woods and it'll be totally fine, they all have plot armor there. On the way, we need to stop at Wal-Mart. I love you so much.   He foams at the mouth, he's not stupid, he understands what is happening, and says I love you, I love you. I hate other men and I want them to die but I love you, I love you. Do what you want with me, but don't abandon me. I need you to provide meaning, and purpose, and direction. I need to be governed, and regulated, and controlled. I trust you, you make me a better person, I love you. Do what you want with me, but don't abandon me. I want to be by your side, all the time, I love you. You say I know, baby. I'm going to take care of you, puppy. All that shit you just said is way too much responsibility to put on one woman, even a weird vampire woman trapped in some sort of horror story, and my priority will always be my evil tasks. But I will never abandon you. We're going into the woods where you can bite other men and then you're going to sleep. I'm going to carve out a little corner of the narrative where you can rest, dream, chill the fuck out and get it out of your system, and then you can rise from your grave and try again.   So you shove this guy by the back of the neck into some sort of cage, he doesn't fight back because he loves you, and you cover it with a blanket so he won't see other men, who he hates and wants to kill, but he can still smell them. He's making these weird noises from under his blanket in the elevator and it's embarassing. You think this sucks. I wish I was off doing my evil tasks, instead of dealing with the problems of this fully grown, adult human male that I love for some reason. But everyone has bad days. He calms down once you drive out of the city, away from the men he hates and wants to kill, and you reach behind the seat to stroke his hair as best as you can and say I see how this was my fault. I saw what story this was going to be, but I enabled you because I thought it was cool and creepy. We got too weird, too fast. Next time, if it happens, you need to manage your own aggression. He purrs because he doesn't give a shit about what he's done wrong as long as you're touching him, because he loves you. You lead him into the woods and he's wagging his tail, he can't smell any other men so he's just happy to be by your side. He's all fucked up looking by now, the skin is straining to accomodate the new geometry of his bones and it's weird, it's gross, but it's not scary because you understand what is happening and will happen. It's just sad, because you know his new shape is incompatible with life.   So you put this guy down in the woods, as best as you understand how, and he doesn't fight back because he's just happy that you're paying attention to him. He's staring at you with these loving, loving eyes the entire time, wagging his tail, and says it's gonna take me three to five years to crawl out of this grave, because that's the timescale I operate on. But I'm gonna do it, and I'm coming back, and you're going to have to kill me to get me to leave you alone. You say please do, buddy, please come crawling back, and shoot him in the head or whatever and it's gross and sad because these things always are. It makes you cry. The sun comes up while you're walking back to the car alone and it stings but it doesn't burn.

4 days.  Then it's got a quite reasonable amount of calories.  I skipped the jump start last time I did this diet, but I figured I'd give it a go this time because I've been pretty bloated.   Day 2 I had significantly less headache.  I'm also pretty sure it was caused by caffeine withdrawal, given how much I was thinking about coffee and "maybe I'll just get a really small cup, to take the edge off the headache." 🤪  I am hopeful that there will be no headache today.  And, I'm down another pound and change this morning!  I'm certain that's going to level off pretty quickly, but I am definitely enjoying seeing the scale drop like that and am planning to try to keep the momentum of feeling good about it going, even when it slows down.

Amazon.com: CLOCKY Extra Super Loud Alarm Clock for Heavy Sleepers Adults Kids Teens Bedroom, Move Jump Roll Run Away Easy to Set Smart Digital Alarm Clock on Wheels -Funny Gag Gift (Black) : Home & Kitchen   Not finding an automatic tea pot, but a coffee maker with a timer loaded with tea could work.  Or, if you want something more carrot to go with the above stick, this is beautiful and I think I need it in my life.     Normally an accurate response.