I should go back and see how many times I’ve started a post with “I’ve been slack.” This one may take the cake, though – it’s been nearly 5 months since I’ve bothered to blog. Part of this is the problem of it building – not only do I post on the blog, but I put pictures in the gallery, and list projects on Ravelry. One or two are not a big deal, but once you’ve gone a month or more, it gets to be daunting and you put it off – and off – and next thing you know, it’s the end of January.

So here’s a post that’s mostly pictures – but you’ll get the idea.

September:

Mark goes bald – all in one day. Actually, it was for a really good cause – he had his head shaved for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, which raises money for children’s cancer research. In the end he raised $690, and spent several weeks being mistaken for Mr. Clean.

Also in September, Mom’s cousin Dori was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. They held a benefit to raise money for her treatment and for her family. I made lace scarves out of Noro Kureyon and Silk Garden.

The bottom one was actually one of Mom’s Christmas presents, but this is the only picture I got of it.

In September we also took a family trip to the beach (with the MINI club), and celebrated Shea’s 18^th birthday. Sniffle, sniffle is all I have to say about that. During our trip, I worked on a pair of socks for a sweet lady (Donna) in the MINI club. These are my first pair out of Berroco Sox, and I must say I loved it.

I also knitted some boot socks for OtherMom, who along with Dad has recently moved to the NC mountains, where they actually get snow. These Cherry Tree Hill DK socks should fit the bill quite nicely.

I finished the socks to go with my orange sweaters – Lorna’s Laces Gold Hill was the winner, and it was the Sockapalooza 4 pattern (I think – don’t quote me on that).

At some point in September, I also started the Mystery Stole 4. More about that later.

October:

October is mostly a blur. The MINI club took a trip to an alpaca farm (gotta love it when you can combine interests!). I came very close to kidnapping this sweet girl and bringing her home with me.

Sometime in there I finished up Mark’s Gentleman’s Fancy Socks, made with a Trekking Pro Natura. Another great yarn – washes up beautifully.

Somewhere in October I got tickled by the top of my washer and dryer on laundry day – now that there are 2.5 wool sock addicts in the house, we’re running out of drying space!

November:

November was busy, full of play practice, mountain trip, and a new roof.

Of this roof, I can say four things:  it was time, it was expensive, it made for a very noisy 2 days at home, and it was worth every penny.  We had weeks of driving rains in December, and my kitchen would have been a disaster.

And I can’t forget to mention frantic knitting for birthdays and Christmas:

Mark’s Happy Feet Footies – knitted during our trip to Fontana – it was a slightly rainy, cool weekend, but the leaves were still beautiful.

At some point I finished up the Mystery Stole, which by now had decided that it’s fate was to go live with Grandma – I knew she would love it. Yarn is Malabrigo in color Molly (I think), with 1000+ beads hand-knitted into it.

As anticipated, Grandma flipped over the stole!

I knitted socks for Mom and Lee for Christmas:

Great Adirondack Silky Sock – pattern is Mockery

Happy Feet – basic ribbed pattern (in size 13!)

I made fingerless mitts for Sarah’s birthday:

(thanks to Jennifer for modeling) – Sweet Georgia Speed Demon, Berry Hill pattern (and enough yarn left over to make a pair for me!)

and socks for my sister for her birthday:

2×2 ribbed socks, Mama E’s C*Eye*Ber Fiber color English Roses

December:

December came and went in a flash – we had Mom and Lee in for Minnesota – visiting for Hayley’s play and my birthday, and the rest of the family here for the play and for birthdays. Hayley had a principle role as the Minstrel in Once Upon a Mattress. The play was phenomenal, and H had a great time, and did a fabulous job. If you haven’t seen the play, the Minstrel and Jester are the main narrators, with several parts of the narration sung. Here she is with the Jester:

In mid-December we got the sad news that Dori had passed away.  She was young, with pre-teen and teenaged children, and it was a sad loss.

By the 3^rd week in December, the big girls were home for college, and we had Christmas break. It was busier than usual, and definitely noisier than usual, but we had lots of fun. Holly was “bored” – nothing to study, and her computer was broken, and she needed something to do, so she asked if she could knit something. I said sure, and we found some yarn, and she knit a 7-foot striped and ribbed scarf in 3 days. There was enough yarn left, and she made a ribbed beanie.

Then she needed another project. I took the girls to the yarn store, always an expensive thing to do. Shea picked out 4 gorgeous yarns for a scarf (I’m still waiting for her to send pics, as she took it back to college), Holly got yarn for a beret, and Hayley got yarn for a scarf and legwarmers. Here’s Holly’s beret:

It was much bigger to start with – too big and floppy, and we tried to hand felt it, with no luck. We decided to throw it in the wash machine and see what happened – and here it is. A bit smaller than planned, but really cute, and Holly loved the idea of felting. This was a common sight around our house during the month that Holly was here:

That still wasn’t enough – she ended up making another beret-type hat and another beanie before she left.

I made her a school colors scarf, and a pair of socks (of which I apparently didn’t get a picture):

The “M” is for her school name.

I finished up a pair of socks for me in Sweet Georgia Boheme – the pattern is Simplicity from the new Eclectic Sole book.

I got an awesome Christmas gift from my husband – a beautiful sweater chest for the end of our bed, made by a good friend of ours.

I made a sweet pair of booties for Zoe, my new niece-to-be, due in June. Her mom and dad refuse to dress her in pink, so I figured green was cute, and thought it would be fun to give them a baby present WAY in advance.

January:

Just before the end of Break, the girls went to see my sister for a photo shoot. Brenna is an awesome photographer, and she shot well over 100 pics of them. These are some of my favorites:

We are so blessed!

It’s now January 20^th, Inauguration Day. I had taken the day as a personal day, as it was a teacher workday – it would have been ½ a day of meetings, then I would have left for a doctor appointment. As it turned out, it snowed last night, the workday was cancelled, and my doctor’s office is closed. Of course, the roads are 98% fine, but that’s how it usually goes. Hayley was disappointed that we didn’t get as much snow as Shea did in Charlotte – they got 3-4” and campus was actually closed today.

One more thing before I go – many of you out there know Alison, designer and knitter extraordinaire, and one of the best people I know. She has been truly sick these last few weeks, beyond anything I can comprehend (if you want details, they’re on her blog), and I’m asking for your prayers for her. There’s a running joke in the comments on her blog that God must be getting really tired of hearing her name, there are so many people who love her and are praying for her. Alison – we love you, and hope that you recover soon!

I’ll admit it right here. I’ve never had any measurable bit of athletic skill whatsoever. I’ve been known to trip over my feet. I tried tennis, basketball, dance, gymnastics, cheerleading, and was no good at any of them. I was a reasonably decent roller skater (who wasn’t in the 80’s?), but I could never turn around to backwards the right way to be able to turn at the corner of couples’ skate.

With that said, I actually won a competition today during our Faculty Back-to-School Carnival. Faculty/staff only, no kids, with competitions like cornhole (I didn’t know what it was either – it’s apparently beanbag toss), knock-out, scooter races around the gym, racing rubber ducks down the waterfall (not enough water, they all got stuck multiple times), and more. This was a clever way to bring together nearly everyone in the school to actually do something fun, and it worked very well.

I had signed up for the rubber duck race only, figuring I’d save the more sports-like events for the, well, sportier. We had seen “chilling marbles” on the signup sheet, but no one seemed to know what it was. Once I saw it, I knew that I had found my sport. Back story – I have monkey toes. I pick up dropped things (see clumsy above) with my toes – why bend down? Mark has always called it lazy, but the girls do it too. So we went outside (in the rain) and saw a large washtub, filled with about 8″ of water and a few hundred marbles, surrounded by chairs. The object, of course, was to pick up as many marbles as you could with your toes in a minute. The first group of 8 played, and when time was up they had picked up anywhere from 9 to 27 marbles. Sarah and I knew we had to get in on this, so we pulled off our shoes and socks, rolled up our jeans, and had a seat. When we finished, I had a big pile, and while people hollered out “21″ and “25″, I was still counting (and proceeded to count the rest out loud) – until I reached 38. Yes, folks, I am the reigning Queen of Chilling Marbles. Even with my gimpy toes – I rule.

It took me only 38 years to find my sport – anyone up for a challenge?

I’m sure that could be taken in several contexts. In this case, it’s decision-making help. I can be a tad indecisive (yes, I’m hearing those snorts) at times. Shea picked out 2 sweaters for me the other day, both of which are a dark orange (1 summer, 1 fall). I of course need socks to go with them, and I got to shop the stash, which is so nice now that it’s all out and organized. I found several sock yarns with a dark orange in them, but of course now I can’t decide. And there’s no one here to ask, so I’m taking an internet poll. Of course, since I’ve gotten so bad about posting, there may be no one left out there to read this blog but Mom, and she’s in Alaska so I can’t even ask her. Here’s the dilemma:

And here’s a better shot of the sock yarns:

Clockwise from the top: Lorna’s Laces in Gold Hill, Cherry Tree Hill in “Earth tones” (always good for a laugh, and no, this is neither of those!), Trekking color 103, Fleece Artist Merino, leftover One Sheep Hill (from the Bigfoot shawl – would have to be ankle socks), One Sheep Hill in some bright clowny colors, and Mama E’s Desert Fire. I just can’t choose, and I don’t want to skew your choices by telling you my favorites. Leave me a comment with your favorite.

My other dilemma is the Rose top. I finished up the body last night (still needs sleeves), and tried it on.

Whoops – shows a bit more than I intended. And before you ask, I am so not the “wear a cami under it” kind of girl. This is a summer top, I live in NC, where it is HOT in the summer, and I don’t need another layer under this, no matter how light. There will be a single crochet edging on it, but that will not be nearly enough to bring it up the inch or so that I need. If I had any crochet skills at all, I’d concoct a cool wider edging, but I have not a clue how to do that, and I don’t think a knitted edging would do it at this point. If I rip it back (Mark’s suggestion, as he thinks the body should be a bit longer anyway), I would have to go all the way back down, and improvise the pattern to leave the armholes where they are but start the neckline higher. I could do that, but I really really wanted this done to wear to the faculty back to school party Monday night. So – suggestions? Or do I just suck it up and wear the new orange sweater (and with what color pants? Brown? Black? Too Halloween-y?) to the party? Ugh! Too many decisions and already a headache.

For now the sock yarn is hanging out, waiting for a choice, and the tank is folded up in time-out. I’m going back to my reading.

that this is how people find my site. Obviously there aren’t enough sites out there about what girls do for fun when they’re home alone. I’m sure they’re quite disappointed when they get here. Because, you know, I’m rarely home, and when I am, it’s almost never alone. And if you need fun stuff to do, I’ve got some sticks and string…

These are not the worst of the search phrases – there are lots more that are too gross to mention. And this post probably just got me several more hits just like these. Yeesh.

My life is always crazy this time of year. I work in HR at a school (OK, I actually AM HR at the school – just me), and in 3 more working days, I have 30+ new employees starting work, and the day after that, my other 220 employees come back, expecting a fresh handbook, harassment training, and basically happiness and glee from me, the lovely HR girl.

As I was racing home from work yesterday (my first day back after 2 missed days, 1 for a migraine), still with a headache, I called the Queen and asked if it was crazy that I was coming up with an odd version of the 12 days of Christmas in my head, but mine went something like this:

4 days before the new employees come, and here’s what I have:

12 bio changes
11 pointless emails
10 pounds of paperwork
9 payroll questions
8 background checks
7 “no thanks” letters
6 want-ad phone calls
5 minutes to eat
4 new contracts
3 workers comp injuries
2 handbook changes
1 huge mound of paperwork

If only this was everything there was to do, I could maybe de-stress a little. I could also be stressing slightly about sending Shea off to college NEXT WEEK. Though creating the song helped – at least I got to giggle for a minute. That and an Icee saved the afternoon, and of course I got to go hang out with some of my knitting buddies last night (missed you Kim, Cindy, and Karly!).

Between this and the rest of my life, there hasn’t been much time for knitting. OK, well, I’ve been reading a lot, but only because Hayley dragged me into the Twilight series, and I couldn’t put it down until I’d read all 4 books! I’m going to give you the rest of this post in pictures.

For anyone thinking that the office was too “knitting-heavy”, I give you the new and improved version:

We now have the knitting/dragon/moose/MINI theme in full swing.

Including what I like to call the “Wall o’ MINIs”.

And the desk, with the pile of paperwork I brought home to work on today (yes, I’m posting when I should be working. I promise I’ll get it all done.)

Then there’s my cool new knitting bowl – our friend Jennifer has recently become a full-time potter. I told her that I’d heard this cool idea about a bowl to hold your yarn, with a slot to thread it through. She took the idea and ran, and look what she brought me on Saturday:

She wouldn’t let me pay her, since I had given her the idea, and she’s already sold a few. Instead, I asked what size shoes she wore (and she said “7, why?” before looking down at the sock I was knitting, then she said “Oh.”) After a quick try-on and a next-day finish to the 2nd sock, these became Jennifer’s socks:

I also recently made a cute pair for socks for a sweet new baby at work – Skylar Neveah. This yarn is Miss Babs in Watermelon, left over from Holly’s socks.

Unfinished knitting hanging out at the house:

Sock #1 in Mama’s Pajamas from Mama E

Artisokka Rose sweater in SWTC Bamboo – halfway through for the second time – first was too small.

Muscari socks in Lorna’s Laces – love these, but they are definitely not a car project.

Gentleman’s Fancy Socks for Mark – getting there!

All right, now that I’m feeling guilty for doing this instead of working, but slightly relieved for finally posting, I guess I should get back to work. Have a great week (or 2!).

will take over her old room! Hayley has been gone for 2 weeks (first to chorus camp, then on a plane BY HERSELF to go to Grandma’s for a week). In that time, she has turned 13, and has called home exactly twice. On her new cell phone (b-day gift from Mom and Dad – couldn’t send her on a plane without one) – and the ringtone she picked was the theme from The Office. That’s my girl! She’s doing great, and we’re driving to Charlotte to pick her up today, but she is just growing up too fast! She’ll probably have grown another inch when I see her. Shea, of course, has been growing up too, but I think it’s easier to see the first one grow up when there’s still another little one behind her. Here’s a pic the girls got together and took of themselves:

Anyway, before she left, Hayley moved in to Holly’s old room, and we’re fixing up her old room as an office/yarn room. We can’t move the computer and its assorted stuff in there until we get the electricity upgraded in that room, but we can do just about everything else needed. The only thing really missing at this point is a comfy knitting chair for me, and we haven’t found one we can afford yet. Looking in through the door to “my” corner:

Notice that the swift and ballwinder have permanent homes, much to Mark’s chagrin. The unit the swift is on has wheels, so I can just roll it to where I need it.
The desk area:

We found this great desk at World Market – we wanted something really simple, yet elegant. Mark picked the curtains, and we chose the wall color based on that. Backwards, I know, but it worked for us. Here’s my little corner, sans chair:

Bookcase with knitting magazines and ballwinder, and a yarn-holding moose. The red pig was Mark’s choice – he found it when we bought the curtains and had to have it! Imagine a nice comfy chair right here – it will be my quiet getaway place.
And of course the closet:

I’ve been kind (OK, OCD) enough to label it for you so you can get the full effect. You never really know just how much yarn you have until you put it all into one place. I still have to move other craft stuff in there that has been stored in my room.

In other news, the Socks of Kindness are finally done. They weren’t hard, but the repetition kicked my butt for a while. Now that they’re finished, I absolutely love them, and hate that I dragged them out so long.

The yarn is from Mama E – Signs of Spring, I believe an exclusive KnitPicky colorway that I picked up back in March when Mama was here for the dyeing workshop.

Currently there are lots of boring socks on the needles – a brown one for Mark, a rainbow one for me (which may be frogged), one for me in Mama’s Pajamas (another Mama E exclusive), and my carry-around striped one. Oh, and another pair of cute baby socks for another new baby at school. I’m waiting for some yarn to come in from Turtlegirl – she was destashing and just happened to have some SWTC Bamboo in a colorway that The Queen sent me a ball of a few years back. I think that it’s going to become the Artisokka Rose sweater instead of the ArtFibers, which just doesn’t do the pattern justice. I know, poor ArtFibers yarn just can’t decide what it should be. I’m starting to contemplate Clapotis.

I’m off to go get ready to go get my girl – I’m so glad she’s coming home. It has been SOOOO quiet around here!

Forgive me, oh great and powerful Internet, for I have sinned. It’s been 5 1/2 weeks since my last entry, and – whoops, sorry, channeling someone else’s childhood. There has been so much going on the last few weeks, all leading up to today – my last day of vacation. While you would think that this would mean that my house is clean and stocked with groceries, and that I’ve caught up on all the little things that have been going undone, you would be completely wrong. The house is a wreck, there’s nothing to eat, and while I’m going to try to rectify that last part today, the wreck will just have to remain. I have baked, I have lazed, I have read, I have knitted, and I even went for my Mother’s Day massage and manicure yesterday. Since there’s so much to catch up on, I’m just going to hit the highlights and throw a bunch of pictures up, and it will look like I’ve worked oh-so-hard on this entry, while I’m really just flying by the seat of my pants as usual.

We (and I mean that in the royal sense) have graduated, or at least survived it. Holly’s family came in from Korea, did a whirlwind tour of Winston-Salem and Atlanta, and went back home, taking her with them. We’ll see her again at Christmas, but that’s a long time away! Before she left, I made sure she was appropriately knit-covered:

Fountain hat from Interweave Knits – pattern here. Yarn is some funky hand-dyed we found on Granville Island in Vancouver.

Basic socks in Online Summer yarn.

Also on hand is yarn for socks and a scarf and hat in Holly’s new school colors, sent by Mom with her graduation gift. Fortunately I have a few months to worry about that.

Hayley’s chorus teacher and his wife welcomed their first baby, Madeleine. We thought socks an appropriate gift (aren’t they always?), and the teachers at school just flipped over these:

My own pattern with a ruffled edge in leftover Lorna’s Laces in Happy Valley.

Sarah and I joined the girls from the Charlotte Purls and the Charlotte Knitting Guild for some fun on WWKIP Day in Charlotte. There were lots of knitters, knit shops, pizza, and even snow cones! And of course, door prizes. Sarah and I both got prizes for being the people who had driven the furthest to the event – I got the Little Box of Socks (I love it!) and Sarah got Stitch ‘n Bitch on CD.

Stacey gave me a hard time about my lazy-person chair, and the fact that my ball of yarn was conveniently resting in my drink holder:

We ran into the lovely and talented Jan Smiley again, and met Connie with the cool Columbine wheel.
I of course had to pose for pictures with Cristi and Stacey.

Before we headed for home, we made a quick detour to Charlotte Yarn, where we’ll just say we had a great time and found lots of stuff we loved!

Fast forward to last Thursday, when we left for Waynesboro, Virginia. Now Waynesboro is not really that exciting, but it is where the Blue Ridge Parkway officially starts. Mark and I, and about 30 of our MINI friends, met there to drive the entire Blue Ridge Parkway this weekend. The Parkway itself is 469 miles, but driving to the top and home from the bottom added considerably, and we put about 1100 miles on the new MINI over the weekend. We made stops at key sites for photos, hiking, eating, and spending the night. We had a great time, though I was truly happy to be out of the car when we got home. I got teased a good bit about always having knitting in my hands, but I managed to finish about a sock and a half of this pair, along with bits of another pair, during the trip.
They’re officially known as Spring Forward socks, but I can’t stop referring to them as Sproingy socks. The twisty-turny pattern was perfect for the drive we were doing at the time. I did have to put down my knitting at a few points, this one in particular (this is a GPS photo – the pink is the road we’re on):

It does look pretty bad, but realize this – it’s down the side of a mountain. Down, the whole way. I held on pretty tightly, and Mark was ghostly white by the time we got to the end of it. It was worth it, though, for these gorgeous views.

We got a lot of strange looks when we were stopped anywhere as a group, and here’s why:

(We’re the front car on the right in both pictures.)

We had tried to visit a yarn shop in Staunton, Virginia, but they apparently had a staffing issue and were closed. There was a sign on the door stating this, and they gave a number to call in case of emergency. It took me a few minutes to decide that me being there probably wouldn’t qualify as an emergency, so we left. We did have a few extra minutes in Boone (9, to be exact), during which I popped into a cute little shop called Laura’s Yarn-Tastic. Since time was limited, I bought the only thing I knew I could buy without a pattern or yardage needed – sock yarn. They had just gotten in a great shipment of Miss Babs sock yarn (and chunky yarn – oh man – need more time!), so I found 3 that I loved, and we were out of there.

From top: Rainbow, Rock Wall, Rose Garden (got my 3 R’s for the day!)

So, that’s it – 5 weeks in review. I promise to try to do better, if there’s anyone out there still actually reading!

and I’m almost finally back up to speed. Short version of the long story – I was sick. Really, grossly, coughing, fevered, feeling like crap, sick. Off and on for about 2 weeks. Thursday before last, Kim guilted me into going to the doctor. Strep and flu tests both negative, so it was most likely a viral infection, made worse by the fact that my immune system is suppressed – I just couldn’t shake it. She gave me a z-pack anyway, just in case it was something bacterial, but basically said the main thing I needed to do was stop my arthritis meds and let my immune system get back up to speed and fight off the infection. Almost 5 days completely in bed, and no Enbrel or methotrexate for a week and a half, and I finally seemed to shake the rest of it. Of course, by this Thursday I was hurting so badly that I asked Mark to cut my toes off. We made the decision that I was “better enough” to start taking my Enbrel again, so I’m getting back to normal now. Then I woke up with a migraine today – ugh. Ever feel like your body is just totally working against you? I’m definitely ready to trade mine in for a younger, healthier model.

Our beach trip was great, though way too short. The drive down there pretty much did me in, so I was on the couch or in the rocking chair on the screened porch during our downtimes. It was great being there with 2 cars – on Saturday morning the girls took off to do what they wanted, and Mark and I took off on our own – wow! What a difference from our normal “dragging the kids around” vacations. This was the last big family trip before the big girls leave for college, and that made it just a little bit sad. We won’t be a family of 5 for much longer – suddenly it will be 3, something we haven’t had in almost 13 years! The girls spent most of the weekend running around taking crazy pictures (with my camera), so I didn’t really get to take too many. Here are some of the good ones:

On the way…

The ice cream shop in Calabash

Silliness on the beach

Silliness around town

As you can see from the pictures, they just didn’t have any fun at all! Now that we’ve taken Holly to both the mountains and the beach, we asked which was her favorite. Definitely the beach, she said. I’m not sure how 2 mountain-loving people have managed to have 3 beach-loving girls.

There was of course knitting at the beach. We even stopped at the one knit shop in town, Knitting Up a Storm. It was a nice shop, run by a very nice British lady. There was nothing there that I would consider particularly unusual, though she may have had every single color of every single line of Regia sock yarn in stock. I did come home with some Regia silk, some Happy Feet and Universal Pace sock yarn for Mark, and some gorgeous Misty Mountain Farm Jubilee sock yarn for me. I spent most of my weekend working on these – they are Artichoke socks in the gorgeous Pagewood Farms merino/bamboo blend (colorway Creamsicle) that Tricia sent me for Christmas. This yarn is so soft, squishy, and shiny, and I need more. Right now!

I also finished up some Tidal Waves in another Pagewood Farms merino/bamboo for Mom (for her birthday – these went to her along with the socks in the last post, which were for Mother’s Day). These came close to not going in the package – Hayley developed a strong love for them, and tried them on more than once!

Also, for OtherMom for Mother’s Day, I whipped out some Fixation footies in between coughing and fever spells (I believe they should earn double points for that!).

Finally, I managed yesterday (on a trip to have lunch with the MINI folks for the club’s third anniversary) to finish up the socks I worked on during Hayley’s softball games this season (they finished 1 and 8, but they had lots of fun!). She picked this yarn and loves them. I did make them a little long, since she’s growing faster than ever, and her feet just keep getting bigger.

The best part of working on these socks was the reaction of 2 kids (1st and 3rd grades) to my knitting and the yarn. They had never seen anyone knit. The little girl, in particular, wanted to know how it all worked, and Sarah and I patiently explained the different parts of the socks (Sarah was at the toe, and I was at the heel). The self-striping yarn, in particular, fascinated her, and she kept trying to guess which color was next. I let her pull the yarn out of the center of the ball until the next color change, so she could see it. I believe by the end of that game we had created 2 future knitters!

These last few weeks of school are always crazy, with every group having an end-of-year party. Add to that all of the graduation stuff, baccalaureate, etc., and Holly’s family coming into town, and it equates to large quantities of stress. I suppose I should go finish up the grocery list so we can have food this week. I’m desperately looking forward to a 3-day weekend next week, and praying that I will feel good so I can get some stuff done around here!

In my last post, I talked about feeling good.  My mom says this cursed me, and apparently she was right.  A week and a half ago, Mark brought me home some nasty virus.  That, combined with all of the &*#@^%$ oak pollen outside right now, has conspired to make me a sick, miserable mess for the last 10 days or so.  Hopefully the worst of it is over now, and I can enjoy this mini get-away we have planned. 

Due to our unusual staggered vacation this weekend, I spent last night at home all alone.  Mark and the girls are at the beach, and today Holly and I will join them.  Holly, however, didn’t want to miss her last day of school today, and had to be there at 7 a.m. – and since I wasn’t working today, I was not about to get up and take her.  I asked her to see if she could find a friend to spend the night with, and ride to school with this morning, and she did (and they say teenagers never do what you ask!).

After work yesterday, Sarah and I attended a self-defense seminar put on by one of the teacher’s husband, a tae kwon do master.  It was fun, funny, and man was it a workout!  My butt may never be the same.  Sarah then took me to pick up my car (oil change before the long drive), and I was on my way.  I stopped at the grocery store to pick up my favorite “alone” dinner – Stouffer’s mac & cheese, and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.  I also stopped at a discount store and picked up 3 Sterlite clear tubs – I was going home to have fun with the yarn!

While my mac & cheese cooked up nice and brown on top (yum!), I broke out the yarn.  All of the yarn.  My, what a sight to behold.  The problem with the yarn being cooped up in non-see-throughable containers is that I forget what I have.  I petted, played, sighed, and admired.  I had threatened to come home and roll around in it, and take pictures of it in comprising positions, but someone had already packed and taken my camera, so you’ll just have to believe me.

In the end, the yarn (which was in 2 large containers and 2 big plastic bags) ended up in 2 large containers and 3 smaller clear containers.  The sock yarn, being king of course, got 3 clear containers of its own.  One is for the really good yarn – CTH, STR, LL, Mama E, and any hand-dyed (including mine).  One is for the “other” sock yarn – Regia, Trekking, Online, Louet – you get the idea.  Both of those are rather full.  The third is for sock yarn remnants.  Some are actually full balls, but they’re 50 gram balls and wouldn’t make a full pair of regular socks, so they’re in with the remnants.  I actually have some really good remnants – maybe I’ll make a pair of Monstersocken some day.

The rattan chest in the living room that formerly held most of the “other than sock yarn” stash now holds the good stuff – shawl yarn, Noro, some llama – the stuff I’d like to see most.  The former sock yarn container now contains all the felting yarns and all of the other stuff – the stuff I probably won’t need too often.

While eating my yummies and playing with yarn, I watched most of the 2nd DVD of Firefly – still loving it, though Shea says it’s the most implausible show she’s ever seen.  Well, yeah – combine the future with the prairie days, and it’s a bit strange, but I love it.  And obviously there’s a knitter on the costume crew.  You’ll catch glimpses of knitted shawls and sweaters in every episode.  In one of the episodes last night, I saw Zac Efron playing a very young Simon, and I was impressed that I actually figured out it was Zac – he looked very different.  I stayed up late, watched Lost, and slept in until 9 this morning.  

I suppose I should go start packing!  It’s very strange to only have to pack for me – other than the bag of food I sent with Mark and the girls, everyone packed for themselves.  One definite bright spot in this whole growing-up mess.

For the first time in a long, long, long while, I’ve been feeling pretty good. So much that I actually got to tell my rheumatologist that I’ve been feeling good. He’s so used to seeing me when I feel like crap. Instead, I’ve been waking up (early, even on the weekends!) in the morning and feeling like getting up rather than hiding under the covers all day. On the way home from school I haven’t been yawning my head off. Last week (over the course of two evenings) I took my beloved Scumbuster and power-scrubbed the kitchen cabinets – all of them. It’s something I can’t do by hand, as I just don’t have enough elbow grease or the finger strength. But give me a powered scrubber, and watch me go to town. The first night I had all of the bottom cabinets done, and its batteries died before mine did! I have also begun walking again (this could have something to do with the whole feeling good thing), and have walked just over 10 miles in the past 2 weeks. I’m still exhausted at the end of the day, but it’s a good exhausted, and I feel like I’ve earned it. Sorry if I’m dragging this on and on, but feeling good is just such a new feeling for me, I have to be excited about it!

Of course more feeling-good time leads to increased knitting time, and I’ve been cranking it out. First I finished up the Big Bad Brown Socks – aka Classic Socks from The Knitting Man(ual) for Mark. He picked the pattern, I picked the yarn – Louet Gems fingering in (I think) Bark. I like the yarn after it’s been knitted and washed, but while knitting it I tended to think of it more as string than yarn – it made my fingers sore, and made me seriously rethink the enormous quantities of it that I purchased back at Christmas.

Next I finished up the Mardi Gras socks. They’re not for me, but we’re not going to talk about that. Suffice to say that the intended recipient likes the yarn, and the socks are a bit small for me. She will just have to wait, however. The yarn is my own hand-dyed (KnitPicks Bare merino/silk – very yummy!).

Part of my increased knitting time has been due to good movies (and thank goodness, the end of the writers’ strike), and we have seen a few. We watched August Rush, and though the story was pretty improbable, it was still really good, and the music was awesome. Then Friday night I watched the original pilot of the Firefly series, Serenity. I had heard so many good things about it, and I really loved it. I can’t wait to watch the next episode, but I want to wait until Mark watches the first one, as I know he’ll really like it. I tried to explain to him that it was like a combination of Star Wars and an old Western, but that just didn’t make much sense to him. Then I looked it up online and saw that that was exactly what Joss Whedon was going for when he made it!

When we went to see the Harlot, I cast on for a new pair of socks for me, with some great Mama E yarn (her warehouse is back open, BTW!), Signs of Spring, that I picked up when she was in town. It’s in super bright springy colors, and I knew I needed a funky pattern. Through Ravelry I found the Socks of Kindness, and knew that they would fit the bill perfectly. Here are 2 pics of the first sock in progress – the first shows the color best, and the second shows the pattern best.

I also started a more mindless pair of socks today, and am surprised at how quickly these are going. They are yet another pair of Tidal Waves, in some really yummy Pagewood Farms merino/bamboo/nylon blend. The color is called Meadows, but it is really very aqua, and they are cute enough that Hayley has already threatened to steal them when they’re done.

I should have lots of knitting time this week, between a chorus concert and softball. Oh – and how could I forget this – the new MINI is here, and Mark is over the moon, and very busy making modifications! And yes, it looks very much like the last MINI, but we’re not allowed to say that.

I have decided to put a sock project in the car and leave it there, and only work on it when I’m riding. Since we go on lots of drives, it will be fun to see how many socks I manage to make “just” in the car. This one is an automatic, so it should be a little easier to knit while Mark’s driving. Unfortunately, I will be driving at least one way on an upcoming 4-hour trip, so there’s knitting time I’ll never get back.