Lifted Contingencies

The inspection and financing for the house has gone through. We've given notice to our landlady (who couldn't have been nicer about it) and now it's time for the real grind - packing and moving. The closing is on May 31st but we've got a bunch to do in the meantime. I'm starting with getting rid of all sorts of stuff we haven't used since we moved here. We did a pretty big de-clutter prior to leaving Vermont a year ago, but now that I know what we do and don't need, we can pare down some more. Check out the new place! We're really close to the foothills in the south end of San Jose.

I'm in love with our new yard:

The only change I want to make is to get rid of some of the small ornamental trees and replace them with dwarf peach, Meyer lemon and lime trees that we already have in pots. I think my husband as additional plans, but we haven't really talked about them yet.

I had to put away my spinning wheel for a while - I really have to get packing, and I also have a few WIPs to finish.

I have been walking a lot lately - 6.5 miles yesterday for WalkAmerica with other people from my company to raise money for the March of Dimes. And then today my walking partner (for the Avon Walk) and I did 15.5 miles, including some pretty steep hills in Los Gatos. I'm tired but I actually feel pretty good! Especially after this:

And last, a shot of the rose my husband 'adopted' in my name at the Heritage Rose Garden at Guadalupe River Park and Gardens. Sigh...isn't he romantic?

Still Life with Beagle

Ta-DA! My first skein - about 115 yards of uneven but not-too-shabby worsted weight. Ok, maybe a thick worsted but much more consistent than anything I'd done before. Plus this was my first time plying. I'll decide later if I'm going to dye it or leave it as is. The wool is Corriedale - I picked up a pound of it at Stitches. Very nice and soft, and suitable (obviously) for beginners. I'm pretty pleased with my first real go at this!

Midge is great! I'm very happy with my choice. My first 20 minutes were a little out of control but I'm feeling a lot more comfortable.

By the way? The Beagle (her name is Trouble) is actually alive. It's just her 'isn't it time to go to bed?' expression.

Ohboyohboyohboy!!

Lookee what arrived today! Meet Midge (the name hit me on the drive home). She's not fully assembled here - I was too excited about taking a picture before the sun went down.

I am befreakin' side myself! It's a good thing I bought a bunch of roving at Stitches West in February - I am so not-good at spinning! But now that I've got my own, I should improve pretty fast.

Can life get any better? I don't think so!

The Dark Side, FOs & WIPs, etc.

Thanks for welcome! I had no idea that joining the blog world would mean that I’d be coming over to the dark side. Hee..if I’d known that, I’d have done it long ago.

This isn’t the craziest time in my life (I’ll tell you about those some time) but I seem to have chosen this walk down the blogging path at a pretty busy time for me. I’m in the middle of a huge project at work, (coordinating training for over 200 managers throughout the West - it’s like herding cats, let me tell you), I’m heavily into training for the Avon Walk, and we just signed a contract to buy a new house (!!!) so we’ll be moving soon. Yikes! Well this will all give me some things to write about, that’s for sure.

I’ve been pretty busy knitting too. I’m currently working on Rose in a brown/black variegated 100% raw silk from Tess’ Designer Yarns which I picked up at Stitches West in February. Rose is a short-sleeved version of Soleil, from Knitty. I’ve made Soleil twice – once for myself out of Soysilk, and once out of Vivace Bamboo as a sample for this LYS . I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to go with the original short sleeves on Rose, or extend them to ¾ length. Here’s where I am so far:
I also finished a couple of things recently. One of the reasons we moved to CA last year was to be closer to the 3 cutest and coolest nieces on earth (in the interest of privacy I’ll refer to them as Thing 1, 2 and 3 – they’re 9, 7 and 5). Anyway, about a week ago, Thing 2 asked me if I’d knit her some socks. Here they are - jeez, kids’ socks are quick!



Then Thing 3 asked if I’d knit her some earrings. Huh? Well of course I said ‘sure’. And ran out to get some wire. I came up with these, which are actually crocheted not knit, but hey she likes them (just don’t tell her they’re not knit, ok?).

I’ve also finished my Hedera socks (first lace project) out of Koigu semi-solid. Love the Koigu! On the needles I have a candle flame shawl, some toe-up socks, and as usual, something for Dulaan. Next up are some more tops for me (I need them for work), some felted clogs, the Eleanor stole and some skully argyles for my kid – who’s almost 21 so not a kid, but ‘kid’ is easier to type than ‘giant to whom I can’t believe I gave birth’, isn’t it?


I made Pho Ga for dinner. It was a very nice day.

Ok, I Give

So here I am, not blogging. I've secretly been not-blogging here too. I'm doing the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in San Francisco in July, and Tuesday has been proclaimed "Boobie Tuesday"; I've been writing updates each week on what it's like to train to walk 39.3 miles over 2 days. I can't wait for my post the day after the walk - I'm going to call it 'Goodbye, Boobie Tuesday'. Heh.

But now I'm here too. I didn't think I'd ever get around to this. I always felt 'too busy'. I've come to realize that everyone else who blogs is probably too busy as well. And yet they do it anyway. So I'm going to give it a shot.

Knitting. That's probably what I'll write about the most, since it's what's on my mind a lot of the time. Love knitting. I'm definitely a process knitter - I just love to do it and I'm not especially attached to the things I make. This winter I made a commitment that for every item I knit for myself or family/friends, I'd make one item for Dulaan. I've managed to keep up with myself pretty well! Check 'em out:

As you can see, I'm a better knitter than photographer. I'll try to work on that! Anyway, it's getting late. It's Friday evening and I haven't had a glass of wine yet. What's up with that?