Into the Void

The New Year is more than a week old & I'm in trouble already. Somehow, in a peak of madness perhaps, I signed on for THREE Coursera courses!!! This is not how I planned it at all. But, it seems, while trying to change my email address, I signed up twice under different email addresses. I have yet to figure out how to change my original address to the new one .  .  .  .   Coursera keeps referring me back to their Student Forums which don't address my problem at all. I'm sure I'll figure something out in the end even if I only cancel the second account & stay with the original address for now. I shouldn't expect too much from a free outfit since the local college, that cost me thousands, could never figure it out either. So, for now, I'll just have to defer one course to the next session for sure & try to finish two.

So, with most of my free time taken up with Genes & Microbes, I'm only working on my blue Frankensocks at the moment. I've turned the heel on one of them & just finishing the turning the other one. I would've been further along but I ran into a problem with the yarn. It may have been gnawed by bugs at some time in it's history but I haven't seen a thing in the bags & bins that I normally keep my yarns in. And the problem doesn't seem to be everywhere either. Just the occasional ball. And usually deep inside where the damage can't be seen. Second hand yarn from a hospital Thrift Store in one

case. A ball from a friend in another. Lovely expensive Alpaca from a yard sale in an exquisitely kept home. And two balls I know I bought from a shop in Vancouver years & years ago. 'Manly' yarn that sat around for eons in a zip-lock before I used it in a pair of socks for my Ex. The first time he washed the socks, one shredded. I thought at the time that he had splashed them with cleaning fluid or something with acid in it in the garage. But while kniting a little of the leftover yarn into my sock heel, it pulled apart as I knit   .    .    .  rip out part of a heel. Then I found a lovely dark blue remnant of another manly sock & IT broke in several spots!! It's very hard to repair a dropped stitch in a K1S1 heel flap when it's dark blue & it's dark outside. So, last evening, I re-knit & re-turned that very same heel for the THIRD time with new yarn. That's the LAST time I will knit dark blue/black heels on anything in the winter, at night. Time to find some bright blues to work with. And I tossed the damaged remains of the other two blue socks.

Oh, and did you know??? There's a new Scholarly study coming out this week on colds & rhinoviruses. You know how we've been treating sore throats & coughs with honey & lemon concoctions for ages??? Well, a new study suggests hot chocolate may be a better treatment. Why?? Well, it seems the chocolate is sticky & may better coat the irritated cells of the throat blocking the nerve sensors that trigger the cough. That's why.