Feeling better, thank you!

It was a rough start to the weekend, but I followed everyone’s advice, did little more than I had to, slept, kept the fluid coming, took the OTC meds doc always recommends, as well as some magical elderberry elixir my SiL made me and I think it is working. Still coughing and congested (its likely another sinus infection, they seem inevitable when I get a cold) but I FEEL 100 times better.

I managed to do the grocery shopping Saturday, barely. Actually left the store without running the card… checkout girl caught me before I finished unloading. AWKWARD! But I blame the cold induced fog for that.

A caught the cold, so we have been hacking and sniffling our way through the last few days. Good there is an extra day!

I did do a lot of spinning the last few days. We had a virtual spin in on the Friends of Knitting Sarah ravelry group, and it got my spinning mojo going. I finished up the Shipwreck spin I have had going since March 25 (ravelry helps keep us honest on how long things really take!) it looks like it is about 263 yards before its bath.

And I started an finished this bfl crepe ply spin. I really wanted to work on perfecting my crepe ply (not there yet) and I wanted to experiment with bit of color drafted in. This is about 90 yards, again, pre bath.

Other than this I literally have done nothing in nearly 5 days. I think I need to go clean something.

From the couch

I am home today with a cold, and as I put it to my coworker, a side order of a tummy bug. That might have been caused by cold meds on an almost empty stomach, time will tell.

So I am parked on the couch, knitting close at hand but no ambition to do it at the moment.

I am supposed to be phoning in to a meeting, but they forgot to send the code along with the phone number. I asked for it but decided not to push it. If it comes while I am awake, I will listen in. Otherwise, no.

Tomorrow we will wait and see how I feel. It is very tempting to just take the day and make a huge long weekend, but I would feel guilty if I am not as sick as I was this morning. Which was pretty sick. Now I just feel tired and blah.

Be glad you are there and not here.

Long weekend

I am tired and ready for bed, but just wanted to write you a quick note.

We went to Wilkes-barre PA on Saturday, niece C the younger graduated from Kings College on Sunday, and we drove home today. We are just exhausted, as you might imagine! But it was worth it! Another beautiful niece all grown up.

I knit a lot, finished a secret project, got the toe of a sock done, and knit an inch or so on my sleeves. Not as much done on the sweater as I had hoped, but the secret project got done!

And, of course, this:

Brother C and niece C the younger on a happy day.

So happy we made the long trip!

(I actually fell asleep before I finished writing this, I guess I was tired!)

Almost back

Knitting hard on the Fine Sand cardigan all week got me back to the point of dividing the sleeves from the body last night. Yeah!

Thankfully still loving this project!

On other knitting fronts, I spent Saturday afternoon at Whorls and Purls making this

A paper bag full of brown yarn balls! Why, you might ask?

Well, years ago, Mom bought this yarn, and a few years after that, I knit her a cardigan from it, which she loved. Then she lost a ton of weight and the sweater no longer fit her at all. She was very sad about that, so I offered to rip it out and reknit it on her size. The ripping out took three hours! So this will be my next sweater project. Luckily the pattern was my old standby top down cardi, I can knit those in my sleep almost!

Here are a couple of progress shots of other things I am working on. Spinning is progressing slowly because I knit the sweater so monogamously, but the second bobbin is done.

And the second sock is moving along more quickly now that I am around the heel.

I didn’t just knit this weekend, I also did a small amount of gardening. Very small! I planted carrot and lettuce in among the garlic, in the hopes of fooling the resident wild bunny. I suspected he survived the winter because my tulips were leveled, and we had confirmation of that with a sighting yesterday.

I also planted some cosmos and zinnias in various places, if they grow, we will finally have some color around the place!

And we had two meals so far with our own asparagus! I think there will be a few more this week. I planted 5 plants about 4 or 5 years ago, having no idea what the yield would be. That is enough for us to enjoy in season, but not enough to put any by for the rest of the year. If I ever get another good spot for it, I will put in a whole lot more. I really love it picked fresh for dinner!

Other than that, my limited time out in bright sunshine was spent continuing to fish debris from the pool. I am trying to figure out how to reach the middle without getting into it. Even with the long handled rake, I can’t reach the middle. So I scoop what I can reach, and stir it all up so the filter can do its job, and progress is as slow as every other year. Sigh.

This week is looking reasonably normal. One late day meeting that I can’t knit through, but otherwise a normal work week, I think.

Next weekend we are off to Pennsylvania to see niece C the younger graduate from college! Seems like she was just born! It will be good to see her and her sister B, whom we haven’t seen since a year ago when she graduated and returned home to Pennsylvania. I miss the days when these girls would come have nice long visits with us in the summer. But I guess grown up kids have to work and want to be with their friends, not their two old aunts. Such is life.

Well, let me leave you with two shots of other parts of my world.

The ugly curtains were proclaimed to be perfect and wonderful, and they do the job of cutting glare on the computer screen.

The quince in the front yard started blooming in the nick of time, just as the first hummingbird arrived.

Hope you had a good weekend and that your week ahead is better than you expect!

Pet Peeve time

Reply all.  Have I written about it before?  I really hate it.

Seriously, people, why?  Yesterday a lovely email went out to EIGHTY people letting us know that one of the eighty had been recognized for some amazing accomplishments.  I wrote to the person and congratulated her.  That leaves SEVENTY-EIGHT people who hit reply all and said “Congratulations!” or “Good job!” or something else that I don’t need to read or know about.

My inbox hates each and every one of them.

I make a practice of rarely using reply all.  It is like the girl with the curl on her forehead.  When it is good, it is very very good and when it is bad, it is horrid.

Just saying.  Feel free to comment and agree or disagree.  🙂

 

 

Keeping you in the loop

Or, what a difference a month or so makes! The real spring is here!

Remember when I posted here about the family heirloom primroses, and how sad they looked in the garden with the rocks and the snow?

Here is what greeted me this morning when I left the house –

I shared them on Instagram with the hashtag #notdeadyet  🙂

 

I also found this as I was getting into take that photo – some little volunteer violets. I think I will leave them be and hope they spread.

And now I see there are some wee weeds in this photo, I will get them out tonight.

 

I also saw several volunteer lupines in the garden, and I will leave them be, I adore lupines, even though I know they are technically invasive.  They grow in the gravel we call soil, so I have to love them.  I doubt that these seedlings will bloom this year, but you never know.  And I have some more mature plants that will bloom this year and scatter their seeds to the wind for me.

I also have asparagus up! I counted about 16 stalks this morning.  Of course, seeing no sign of them on Saturday, I bought some asparagus at the grocery store.  We will be well fed on asparagus this week!

 

Frog pond

I finished the sleeves and tried on the sweater.

It fit, but just wasn’t roomy enough. Ripped out the whole thing and will cast on today in the larger size.

I went to all the trouble to spin this yarn, and I love it and the cloth it makes, I love this pattern, so it is worth the work to make it fit.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, frogging is to rip it out. Rip it, rip it. Ribbit ribbit…get it?