I Get By With A Little Help...

So I came home on Friday to find that Heather had vacuumed the house, run the dishwasher and made a pasta salad for dinner. Damn. I hate it when I get to relax and enjoy things.

And relaxation is definitely needed. I've been getting up at 4:00 to be at the office between 6:00/6:30 - all so I can leave by 4:30 pm and not have to work late. Very few people come in early so that first two hours is amazingly productive. As an Executive Assistant I get interrupted a lot, so having that time to fully focus is great. The office is still a pretty hopping place to be until about 7:00, so staying late wouldn't give me the same benefit. Plus evenings are for knitting (if I'm not asleep on the couch) and I'm not giving those up.

I just finished the Scrunchable Scarf for my hair stylist:

I like how it turned out - the Dream In Color Classy offers great stitch definition and I love the subtle color variation. Right now it's not the softest thing I've ever knit, but I've been told by several reliable sources that once it gets a good soaking, it will soften substantially.

Good Lord, Another One?

So in June, to celebrate my 50th (holy cow, really?), I'm taking a trip to Vermont for my high school reunion. It's a boarding school so this is a weekend-long event. Of course part of any alumnae event is the fact that it's to help raise money for the school. They're having a silent auction so I agreed to donate something.

Can you guess what that something might be?


Yep, another Swallowtail Shawl. This time in Alpaca Cloud from Knitpicks in Midnight Heather (embiggen the photo to get a better sense of the color). I'd be perfectly happy to try some other patterns (I have a ton in queue) but this is knitting on a deadline and I'll be much more likely to finish on time if I'm familiar with the pattern. Besides, I just love it. I hope someone with cash to spare loves it too.

One of these days I might knit with something that's not nearly black. I'm sure my eyes will appreciate the rest.

Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon*

It has been a nice weekend. Heather and I went to knit with the Minions of the Pointy Sticks for a few hours on Saturday. We got to hang with Jasmin, Gigi, Tika, and a bunch of other fine minions. The woman behind the counter where we met was more than a bit on the surly side, but I'm not linking to the establishment where we met because I'm hoping she's the exception and I don't want to slam an entire group for the behavior of one. Aside from Snarky McHuffypants, it was a lovely and pleasant afternoon.

I got up early (but not 4:00 - I'm not completely nuts) this morning and met up with Kathy for a good cardio walk, and then some chai. A very nice way to start the day, and the workout made me feel great. I've spent the day puttering around the house and knitting, and I'm now on the couch waffling between loathing the annoying the ESPN announcers and enjoying the ball game.

Go Red Sox!

*Anyone know that song? An old fave of mine. Queen is so cool.

Pass The Catch-Up Please...

I seem to be behind a lot lately, don't I? Life is fine, I've just been busy. Work is great but I've been putting in a lot of extra time (it's worth it, believe me) and sometimes I have been too tired at the end of the day to eat, much less blog! But it's Sunday and it's early, so with any luck I'll be able to finish a post before I need to get going on other things.

This is gonna be random...

The big news is that the girl half of this couple:

is now here, staying with us. Heather and her dad drove from Vermont to California last week in just over 2 1/2 days. Tough people, those Vermonters! Her dad stayed on for a few days and flew back home on Tuesday night. She's here to job hunt and settle in before Jess drives out with their stuff to join her. Hopefully that will happen soon - but not too soon - I've been enjoying having her here! My husband informed me last night that I am going to have to give her back at some point, but I'm not going down without a fight, letmetellyou.

Friends in Fun Places

Considering my walking-zombie state I've managed to be a bit social. In late March I went to see the Roger Steen Band play locally - look who's up there singing!

(That would be the lovely Janice.) As they were one of 3 (?) playing that night they had only one set - I'm hoping the next time they'll be up for more. It was great music and a fun evening spent hanging out with friends. If you're in the Bay area, go check them out!

Yesterday I went to a book-signing party at Bobbin's Nest - fellow Boba-Knitter Cookie A. has written a book!

If you're a sock knitter, you'll love this one. If you're not - it may inspire you to become one.

Speaking of Knitting...

I've been doing a little of that too.

I finished one of my vanilla socks:

I've been making progress on Lady Eleanor:

By the way, if you're itching to make this or any other project using Noro yarn, Webs has Kureyon and Silk Garden (among other things) on clearance! I'm holding back, but I thought I'd enable. You're welcome.

About a month before Jess and Heather got married, I mentioned their plans to my hair stylist. He said he'd love to do my color but I told him that while I'd love that too, I couldn't afford it (the guy is wonderful but charges accordingly. I color mine from a box - that's how cheap I am). He responded saying that he wanted me to look my best and wanted to do it for free, as a gift to celebrate the day. Sweet, huh?

Well I had to at least say thanks.

This is the Scrunchable Scarf in Dream in Color Classy (Black Pearl color way).

And I'm still spinning - though slowly. I think I'm going to adopt the 10-minutes-a-day habit. There are a ton of things I want to spin and at the rate I'm going, I'll be 90 before I get it all done. Just a little a day should make a big difference.

I'm on my third (of 3) bobbins - just a few ounces to go before I get to ply.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Quite well, thank you.


Ok, I didn't grow these particular purple potatoes but we do have some in the ground. Have you every had really fresh potatoes? They're amazing!

We did grow these - though the lettuce was a happy accident. Some must have gone to seed last season so we got a bonus head this spring.

Peaches are forming.

Cherries are blooming. Yes that's a CD hanging there. Not for musical entertainment - the glare is known to discourage birds.

This should also help discourage birds:

Vicious, vicious Beagle.

Before we moved here we used to visit the area while on vacation. I constantly marveled at how some plants that had to be replaced each year in Vermont, could grow year around (and huge) out here. More than once I told my husband that if we ever lived in this area, that I wanted a house with a rosemary hedge. Well lucky me, we have two.

These are the foothills behind our house on a recent foggy morning.

Makes me glad I live here.

I Am So Proud Of My Home State!

http://www.boston.com/news/local/vermont/articles/2009/04/07/vermont_legalizes_gay_marriage/

It's a good day today.

Renewed Energy

I finally feel as if I'm recovering from the stress of the past few weeks. For nearly a week after my trip to Vermont I'd put in a long day at work, come right home, eat dinner and crash. The energy has slowly come back though, and I've become productive again.

I finished my niece's socks.


And started some new ones for me.

This is a mill end from Blue Moon Fiber Arts that I picked up (okay, practically snatched out of my best-friend-evar Tika's hands) at Stitches West in February. Hot pink normally isn't my color (I leave that to Jasmin) but I thought this colorway was pretty cool.

Our back yard has been quite productive as well! We've been eating peas:

And carrots:

The onions are well under way:

Here's a blurry but pretty iris:

(I'm wondering if I could possibly interpret that into some hand-dyed roving.)

And the roses are going crazy:






Ah, Spring!

Catching Up

Thanks everyone for the hugs and sympathy with regard to Riso. Even though I didn't have it in me at the time to respond to you each individually, it helped a lot to know you're all out there. He was a great boy and we miss him, and we'll be ok.

I have a bunch of catching up to do - some things big, some things little. So this is a bit random but here we go:

A few weeks ago some of you saw me at Purlescence trying to knit something out of cut-up mailing envelopes to wear to my company's 10,000,000th customer celebration. Well the knitted fabric (if you can call it that) ended up too stiff so I went another route, but here's what I ended up wearing:

We were asked to don company-inspired cocktail wear - so between a bunch of mailers and copious amount of black duct tape, I cobbled together a Netflix flapper dress. Not knitted (though my Isadora-Duncan-style scarf was crocheted), but I'm still pretty pleased with it. Yay for fringe.

I never elaborated on my father and stepmother's visit over Stitches Weekend. I took them to Stitches thinking they'd last about 90 minutes - they're super high energy people, but they're not exactly fond of crowds so I figured our time there would be short. I was wrong - they lasted over 4 hours and made few but very high-quality purchases. In the meantime I got to see some friends, missed running into a few others, but over all had a very good time.

My stepmother is a very creative person - she sews and quilts, and also knits beautifully. She brought me a few presents. First, no one has ever made so socks for me before! I love the color and they fit perfectly.

Miguel liked them too.

The other gift is really special. Growing up, my grandparents had a house on Martha's Vineyard. On the sofa in that house were two hand-needlepointed pillows, a gift sometime in the '50s made by a friend of my grandmother's. When they sold the house a few years ago, my stepmother saved the pillows, even though they were in pretty sad shape. She saved the needlepoint and made them into new pillowcovers for me.

Cool, huh? And they're even 'my' colors.

Oh yeah - so I went to Vermont last weekend. I even bought shiny (kind of) new shoes for the event:

The event being my son's wedding! Meet Jesse and Heather.


The event took place at Heather's grandparent's house. It was simple and lovely and perfect. I flew to Vermont on Friday, and home on Sunday. Fortunately the flights went perfectly so there was no travel stress. Just knitting time. I made a ton of progress on these:

These are plain vanilla socks for my oldest niece, who loves camoflage colors - this was the closest I could find to that. The yarn is Regia Galaxy Saturn which is a very nice basic sock yarn at a reasonable price.

I've also been working on my Lady Eleanor Stole:

It's a very easy knit - easily done while socializing - and I love watching the color changes. This is out of Noro Silk Garden in a discontinued colorway that I bought at Webs about 2 years ago. I will likely use it more as something to keep on the couch to throw over me when I'm cold than as a wrap, but we'll see. A girl can always change her mind.

I'd be slacking a little in the spinning department but have picked it up again. I'm currently making a 3-ply sock yarn out of Superwash Merino in the Aqualung colorway from Crown Mountain Farms.

I have 8 ounces of the stuff which is easily enough for 2 pairs of socks. If I don't trade away half with someone else, I may ply 4 ounces of it together in the standard method and Navajo-ply the other half just to see the different effects. As usual, the CMF fiber is just fab - I recommend it highly.

And last, I've been having computer issues for a few months. My laptop (IBM Thinkpad) is over 5 years old and the left mouse button under the touchpad actually has a huge dent in it from my thumbnail hitting it thousands and thousands of times. Certain keys were non-functional (not being able to cursor left is a real bitch, letmetellyou), the wireless card was fading fast (losing the internet every 30 seconds isn't fun either) and in general, it was just dying. It did a fine job while it lasted, but it was time to move on.

Enter my new buddy, Mac:


Purty, huh? I opted for this over another PC because I was tired of Microsoft commandeering my computer while I slept and making changes in the name of 'security' that ultimately screwed up plenty of other things.

I'm still learning about Mac and a new way of doing things, but I think we're going to be good friends.

He's Gone

Riso December 31, 1996 - March 16, 2009

We let him go gently this evening. He was ready. We are heartbroken.

Drive By

Ok, this picture is really blurry but it captures the mood perfectly! I had the pleasure of meeting up with Norma and Joan for lunch and a little yarn crawl on Saturday before the wedding. We had the best time. Here we are in less blurry form:

I've been following Norma's blog for years, and Joan and I have commented on each other's blogs but mostly 'know' each other as frequent commenters on Alison's blog. It was absolutely fab to meet them both in person!

Oh yeah. The wedding was pretty cool too.