I Am Most Chilled, and I'm Knitting and Binge-ing

(With all due respect to the Beastie Boys, who I like to think might be tickled by my post title)

(Because it's a riff on their lyrics, ya see)

(Kind of both rhymin' and stealin', if ya think about it)

(I'll stop now)

*

ANYWAY, this post is about my fall and winter hobby of knitting on various sizes of knitting loom while watching various sizes of internet entertainment. Basically it's my excuse to roll out a list of shows I've binge-watched. 

The thing is, I don't like to just sit and watch a show, because I feel like I should be doing something more interesting than that. I also don't like to just sit and knit, because even though I'm making something I want to make, the kind of knitting I do is not complicated. It's repetitive and time-consuming, and I like the results I get. Mostly, instead of varying the kinds of stitches I do, I vary the colors, textures, and thicknesses of the yarn. That works beautifully for the kind of blankets I make. I mess with different stitches a bit more when I'm making hats, which is a great way to use up smaller amounts of extra yarn, and then I can wear them, give them as gifts, or donate them (my usual choice lately). I've also been known to make legwarmers and wristwarmers. My point is that I feel better about watching a show when I knit, and I feel better about knitting when I watch a show.

As you might imagine, I have watched a lot of shows. I'm often late to the popular ones because I prefer Netflix and Amazon Prime Video to traditional TV. 

For example, I just started Riverdale last week. What a beyond-weird take on the comic books. Those were the only comic books I read in my childhood, btw. I like the show, despite its penchant for Wagnerian theatrics (sorry, has anyone else watched the movie Free Enterprise more times than is recommended by the various psychological organizations worldwide? Because that reference was for me and for you, and I may have just used the singular "you"). I'm just trying to imagine the thought process that led to turning the lightest and fluffiest of all implied-polyamory comics into the grim parents-are-mostly-psychotic dystopia which is the Riverdale I am currently inhaling at the rate of two or more episodes a day.

Moving on... I'm going to do more of an actual list from this point forward, because I would like to bring this post in for a landing before the end of this month. So here are some more shows that I've enjoyed enough to binge and type the titles of, including last year and probably the one before that.  Who doesn't want a list of recommendations from a person who knits AND can throw around both Beastie Boys and Free Enterprise references in a single blog post? Shh, that wasn't a real question. 

Here. Have that list I mentioned sometime in the distant past. It will be in no particular order, for your convenience. These are all on Netflix now. I've only seen the seasons available on Netflix, in all cases. Do we still have to beg for spoiler avoidance in 2018? Let's assume we do. NO SPOILERS PLEASE.

• The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
• Orange Is the New Black
• iZombie
• Stranger Things
• The West Wing
• The Magicians
• Better Call Saul
• Penny Dreadful
• Travelers
• Colony
• Weeds
• Santa Clarita Diet
• Ozark
• Limitless
• Disenchantment
• The Rain
• Sense8
• Breaking Bad
• Cleverman
• The Haunting of Hill House
• Shameless
• Mad Men
• The Good Place
• Glitch

Wow. Aren't you glad we both know this about me now? o.O

In case you, like many normal active people, did not read my blog posts over the weekend, here they are:

All the Qualities I Love about Being Human - A Thumb-Haver's Objective List

A Good Weekend for Art in Madison, WI

...and that is all for today. Stay safe! 

Dealing with the Northern Winter: Some Things I Do and Products I Use

(A view from my front window this month.)

I live in a small town near Madison, Wisconsin. Intellectually, I know that it seems cold to people in the south when it's only, say, 50 degrees Fahrenheit outside. However, what I'm dealing with today is, without considering windchill, 4 degrees Fahrenheit. FOUR. And that, reader, is not actually the coldest it gets around here. 

We didn't much of a gradual progression this winter. It went from being more normally cold, in autumn (like in the 30s and even 40s) ,straight to frigid right after the winter solstice. I typically like winter better than summer. If you're cold you can put layers on, but if you're hot, you can only spend so much time submerged in a tub of ice before your life starts to fall apart. However, even I, the winter-preferring freak, can begin to struggle when it's this cold, and so very, very, constantly dry and electrosparky. In the summer, my skin is so oily that I develop sensory issues about my own face, but in the winter that completely reverses itself and I'm so dry that I lose the ability to move my mouth or blink.

Hyperbole? I don't even know that word.

Whatever! Here's a tiny list of the products that help me feel more comfortable. I'm not affiliated to any of them. Maybe you'll find them helpful.

• For dry feet: Burt's Bees Coconut Foot Creme with Vitamin E
• Facial Moisturizer: Garnier SkinActive Ultra-Lift Wrinkle Reducer 2-in-1 Serum + Moisturizer (they give you your money's worth in the title length alone)
• Eye Area Moisturizer: Skyn Iceland Icelandic Relief Eye Cream
• Lip Balm: Fresh Sugar Lip Caramel Hydrating Balm 

The latter two are a bit pricey, but you get a lot and you only need to use a little at a time. The "lip caramel" truly looks and smells like caramel.

One product that does not live up to its hype, in my opinion, is the Jack Black Intense Therapy Lip Balm. I tried it after seeing a lot of good reviews, but it doesn't stay on as well as a basic Chapstick, I tried the most pleasant-sounding scent for my taste, Black Tea and Blackberry, and even when I diligently avoided eating the stuff I ended up with a weird taste in the back of my mouth from the scent. At least it wasn't expensive! But I can't recommend it.

So far, I haven't gotten to the point of needing hand or body moisturizer (and I honestly have no explanation for that), but I probably will get there. Please leave recommendations in the comments if you have them.

For my mental well-being in winter, I like to make sure I use a full-spectrum light for part of the day (it's good lighting for doing my makeup, it turns out), and I take extra vitamin D because we in the north cannot get enough vitamin D from sunlight between November and February. Not that we're supposed to be sunbathing the rest of the time, anyway. As always, if a medical expert tells you not to take it, then don't.

I also like to make sure I have green plants around. I grow low-maintenance, cat-safe spider plants in my house, and occasionally visit the not exactly nearby Olbrich Botanical Garden's tropical conservatory. Once or twice each winter, I find it very worthwhile to take the 40-minute drive to a place where I can hang up my coat and enter a warm, humid environment of tropical plants and flowers where there's a waterfall, koi swimming around in the pond, and birds to look at. 

And to avoid colds, I have zinc lozenges (Cold-Eeze brand; I found them at Walgreens). The instructions are to start taking them immediately after cold symptoms start. I also take one after I get home from going anywhere crowded (that's in addition to washing my hands frequently and trying not to touch my eyes or nose). The idea is that zinc fights cold germs, but it's better to have a lozenge or use a spray than to swallow zinc supplements, in order to keep the zinc in the location where you want it to rough up some viruses. It doesn't taste great, and you should eat something before you use it, because it can be unsettling to stomachs, but I think it's helpful. There's a lot of chitchat about this on that newfangled World Wide Web. (Remember when we used to call it "the web"? I rewatched an episode of Charmed last night while I was knitting, and that intrepid researcher Phoebe reminded me of olden days when she used that term.)

What are your winter tips and recommendations?