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.

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