Time on Treadmill: 30 minutes.
Readiness for bedtime: Give my my hot cocoa and flannel nightie now, please.

For the last couple of weeks I’ve noticed something disturbing. I’ve been having more and more of a hard time gripping things with my left hand. I would try to pick things up or hold them, and time and time again I’d drop the damned thing. As I am a woman of a certain age, the first thing that came to mind was, “mini-stroke”, followed by a raft of other medical maladies that are not pleasant to contemplate when you know your medical insurance goes bye-bye at the end of the month.

And then today, while I was cursing at a wrapped coil of wire I was trying to saw into jump rings without sawing into my own finger, I noticed that gee, the skin on my left finger and thumb tip is really coarse, almost as if–

As if you’d been making jewelry nonstop for the past six weeks and have been holding small, hot items pinched firmly between your left index finger and thumb while you sawed/filed/sanded them? my subconscious piped up.

Um. Yeah, that.

And in doing so, you’ve built up an extremely thick callus on those extremities, making it difficult to tell when you’re touching things and thus rendering you unable to grip them accurately?

Um…

You’re an idiot.

Yes, I know. But at least now I’m not worrying about stroking out in the middle of a session on Chuck. While I’m on the subject of my jewelry, however, I’ve got some stunning new sterling silver pieces up at the Etsy store as well as some very cool beaded and chainmail pieces, so please go take a look and help me feed the Horde of Five.

In other news, I worked on Shifter Woods: Growl, trimmed my beloved’s beard for him and then helped him dye it because ageism is rampant in the tech industry, and finished a Byzantine bracelet for a customer while watching Dr. Pimple Popper. Some very, very strange stuff grows under human skin, that’s for damn sure.