When I left Durham, North Carolina, late Monday morning, my overarching goal as I looked ahead at the long road home was to reach Arkansas, the earlier, the better.

I left Durham and headed east, driving through Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Asheville, then I crossed the Tennessee stateline and was onto cities of the Volunteer State: Knoxville, Nashville, and finally Memphis. Then around ten o’clock Central Time, I did reached my goal: Marion, Arkansas.

I was exhausted, and sleep came quickly, as did the morning. Nine hours laster as I prepared to leave for the second half of my journey, my overriding goal as I looked at the long road ahead — 1003 miles to be precise — was to reach that place called home, and I did exactly that pulling into the driveway shortly before 9:30 Mountain Time.

I did not, however, get any crochet done. Not even one stitch when I stopped to refuel, so it wasn’t until after lunch today that I finally had a chance to resume my regularly scheduled crochet.

With just nineteen days between me and the deadline for the New Mexico State Fair, I should be focused just on the squares for that project, but I am finding that the crochet monster I began a few days ago has a hold on me that I can’t easily shake, so rather than fight it, I surrendered and finished a second horn and the mouthpiece:

With the mouthpiece crocheted, the monster released its hold on me, and I was able to resume work on the objectively more urgent project the Flamboyant Afghan for the 2019 New Mexico State Fair.

Instead of finishing anything up, I decided to plow ahead with my yarn scrap abatement efforts and use the still plentiful yarn scraps that abound in my household, and while it isn’t super impressive, I did make some progress on the still long road to finishing this piece:

Clearly, I have a lot of work to do, and I will continue forward, one stitch at a time.