Wishy Washy

Added to Post Today: I have been writing this post for over a week now. I seem to be a bit easily distracted this past week. I started this post last Monday, I keep bringing up on my computer while I am at work to finish up and then patients come in or paperwork needs to get done, or I get distracted by any little thing and forget I was working on this post. I have a couple more posts in my head I would like to share so I think it's time to wrap this one up and get it out there.

When I was at Stitches West I ordered a set of double pointed needles. I had seen the set for sale here at home, and like the points on the needles but the set was $80.00 I thought that was a little pricey. I saw the same set at stitches, even after they shipped them here I saved myself $35.00 what a great deal.



It's all about the points on the needles for me. I like a nice pokey needle. Here is one of the new needles pictured next to the matching size Signature needle. (Signatures are the gold standard when it comes to points as far as I am concerned). I have not knit with the new needles yet, but they are looking good so far.



I have been in the Spring cleaning mood. I am trying to get back to my 15 minute habit. I think I mentioned it before: cleaning something I really don't want to do but really needs to be done. I Set a timer for 15 min and tackle one thing, these days it seems to be the kitchen cabinates.

Here is the after picture of the pantry, I did not take a before a before, no need to publicly embarass myself!

A Day Late

I took a bunch of pictures yesterday for blog posts this week, but never posted! I have the best reason in the world for not posting, the kids are on spring break and I was playing with them most of the day.

I know this is not looking all that different from week to week, but here is the Tuesday update picture. I was a bit disappointed in myself this week because I only got 8 repeats done. Then I took a moment to think about why I was being so silly and hard myself. Eight after all means I have exceeded my goal for myself of one repeat a day.

I hear what Shannon was saying about rows getting longer as you work on a shawl. My repeats were taking me longer because my rows got longer. I am passed halfway on my shawl, which means with this particular pattern, my rows are getting shorter again, so I should be flying by the end of the week.



It has been really windy the past two weeks, and its a very cold wind. So windy in fact that we have had our BBQ slide across the back deck, hockey nets blow across our driveway and onto lawn, crazy wind.

One day last week as I was driving into our neighborhood, I was driving pretty slow as school had just let out so there were lots of kids around, I saw something blowing along the road. I said to the kids is that a ball of yarn that just blew by the us? I pulled over and a grabbed the suspect item only to discover it was a ball of yarn, a very nice ball of yarn, its Merino, Baby Alpaca and Possum.



What do you do when you rescue a lost ball of yarn. Do you post signs on the mailbox? What if someone lost it and needs it to finish the project they are working on?

Progress

I am going to try to show you my progress every Tuesday so you can keep me honest.

I have done better than I hoped this past week, as of bedtime last night I had 10 pattern repeats done which makes me 3 ahead of my goal. I hesitated to say I am getting the hang of this lace stuff, I don't want to tempt the knitting goddess to humble me quite so early in the game.



I was able to do pattern repeats while watching a bit of TV last night. This is huge progress, normally when I knit lace I lock myself in the bedroom or the kissing cave and have complete silence. Mind you I only kept one eye and both ears on the TV and Paul was okay with me pausing the show a time or two so I could count stitches.



Q is playing his last hockey game of the season as I am typing. He scored his very first goal ever in a tournament last weekend and I just got a text from Paul that Q just scored a goal in tonight's game. What a great way for him to end the season. Oddly he has an evaluation skate on Saturday and then we are all wrapped up with the season for all three kids.

PJ got the most sportsman like award for her team this year. I can't think of a greater compliment. Makes me so proud!

Other than that all is pretty quiet here, I think we all need a bit of time to decompress after the busy season.

Re-entry

I am finally feeling caught up after my to quick trip to California. It was a wonderful trip that went by far to quickly. I had a bit of rough time jumping back into routine here, there was a lot planned the first few days after my return, including packing up my suitcase and heading off to a hockey tournament with SeaBass. Things have settled now and hockey season is wrapping up, always bitter sweet, we get our weekends back to do other things, but I will miss watching the kids play the game they love so much.

Stitches West was fun, spending the time with Mom and Shannon was the highlight of the event. Of course I bought some fiber and yarn while I was there, I don't have any pictures to show off right now, and I am not sure I will post any, the fiber and yarn folks that read this blog have already seen the goods I brought home.

I started the beaded shawl kit that I bought at Stitches on Tuesday. I feel like I am making good progress on it and the lace portion is simple enough I can listen to the TV or an audio book while I knit. My goal is to complete one pattern repeat every day at that rate it will take me 34 days to finish the project. Here are a couple of pictures of the project, the pictures did not come out so well even though I pinned it out real quick so you can see the pattern more clearly. I don't think the pictures do the yarn colour any justice and don't show off the beading well.