Last day of the first half.

Hey, I remember this stuff!

It's knitting, right?


I can't tell you how long it's been since I had a picture of knitting on this here blog.  (Well, I could, but I'm too lazy to go back and look.)  I actually got to do some of that this weekend whilst ignoring the still-unpacked boxes lying around the house.
Saturday morning after a leisurely, loooooong breakfast...



...T went outside and gathered the bikes.  With the "help" of the chillens, he fixed them up, pumped up the tires, tidied everything nicely, and got us all ready to go.
There's a lovely park near the new place, with a bike path that goes for miles and miles, past xeriscape gardens, ballparks, duck ponds (we saw a TURTLE!!!!!!! MOM DO YOU SEE THE TURTLE?!  THERE IT IS MOM DO YOU SEE IT? MOM! MOM!!! A TUUUURRRRRTLLLLLLEEEE) and it had been calling to me.  We helmeted up...
 

...strapped Smacky in the seat, and headed off, in the middle of the hottest part of the day.  It was a bit shady, which was nice, and we all remembered water and sunblock.  We didn't go far, as Bug's little legs and hard-used bike tire easily, but it was a high-point, for sure.  After a grocery-shopping trip (during which we discovered there IS a limit to what a diaper will hold, and it was actually SMACKY leaking from the cart and not any of the groceries) we got a babysitter, and headed out to the Rhythm Room for a CD release party.  We saw Chris James and Patrick Rynn (part of the Rhythm Room Allstars) who were joined by Big Pete Pearson.  Big Pete looks like Redd Foxx and BB King combined, and in his early 80s, he can still sing the blues and shake it.  Live blues? Rocks my socks right off.  (We bought the CD for Chris and Patrick, and Big Pete; I have only listened to the first one, but really, live blues has something intangible that is lost when you put it on CD.)
Sunday involved the boys playing camping outside (cuz nothing says fun like wrapping up in a sleeping bag in 108 degrees)...



while I tidied up the kitchen, mopped the floor (hooray for no-longer sticking), and discovered that my Dyson sucks, cuz it no longer sucks.  There was chocolate cookie baking, too.  (Chocolate crinkles, to be exact.)



After I ensured there was no heat stroke and finished my cleaning, I sat on the couch with a beer and my knitting, and people?  It was OH. SO. GOOD.  Sometimes I forget to relax when I know there are boxes to unpack, dishes to wash, floors to un-stick...  I will have to do a better job of taking time to have fun in the evenings.
Since it has been several days since I wrote most of this, I'll add a little more - yesterday we bought our tickets to go to Seattle for T's birthday.  We'll be gone for a whole week (in the hottest part of the summer, OH YES I'm getting out of dodge) visiting T's parents and celebrating his mumblemumble birthday with his family. 
Since we'll be heading to someplace that has decent weather and actual moisture in the air, I figured I'd better finish B-Side.  I'd knitted the better part of one sleeve and discovered that the gauge I'd used to recalculate the increases was suddenly no longer the right gauge, and 15 inches of (sport-weight) sleeve had to be ripped.  I ripped it out and threw it aside in a fit of rage and it's lucky I didn't tear it to bits with my teeth set it aside, but thought yesterday I'd like to have it done for Seattle.  Whaddya think - two sleeves, a button (zipper?) band and the making-up in a month?  (I'm not doing the shawl collar.)



We'll see, I s'pose.  I'll be giving it my best effort.  (Which is good because even though I bought more size 5 Options tips to replace the heinous, awful, OMGIhatethemsomuch Zephyr tips I was using, I can't find them, so the red Palindrome scarf is on time-out until I get bored with B-Side again finish B-Side.) And why no, I haven't been thinking about buying the extra beads I need to finish Madli.  No, not at all, and I haven't even been googling the website for that bead shop near work to see if I could get the seed beads I need.  Nope, cuz I'm focusing on B-Side and not even thinking about those other projects...  And under no circumstances was I thinking about destashing the brown Beaverslide I bought for Linden and getting something in red like I'd originally planned.  Nope, focused, that's me.

(Need to point out that all photos that are a) good, b) not of knitting, and c) don't actually contain T were actually TAKEN by T, and I had the audacity to post them without editing them in any way.)

Effing ohs and late with the mail.

So, DH has been home for a few days now. That is my sole excuse for not posting since (checking) Wednesday. Huh, I thought it had been longer than that. Anyway, the first day or so he was home, I kept waiting for him to keel, and I think he did too. But he didn't, and each day he can do a little more, and breath just a little better. He's still very weak and sickly and on 5l of oxygen which limits his ability to travel (the tanks we have only last an hour at that rate of use, so we gotta hope the doctors are on time, for sure) but he's making steady progress. Even working on the computer a little bit and getting up for his own drinks and breakfast. (I still have to caulk the bedsore in his ass, though. I told him if he ever doubts my commitment, I will simply say, "ass caulk" and he will remember. Thank FSM it is almost healed.) (ETA to reply to kat's "shame on them": they treated it as soon as they knew about it, but he didn't tell them, he told ME. I found it while helping him shower, then reported it to the nurse over his objections. Then they got a sticky pad for him to sit on (he couldn't lay down at all or he'd drown in his own lungs) and I drew a face on it before they pasted it on. You might have an inkling why he didn't want anything said...)
In the meantime, as things are evening out and the boy is acting out much less now that daddy's home, I have had more knitting time. I effed an oh, people! I present my June PSC offering, Snow on Cedars mitts from a kit by Woolly Wonka fibers and Anne Hanson (details at the rav link):


(No, I didn't let my scissors disappear into the couch, and yes, I was indeed wearing shorts.)

Bad pics, but that's what happens when your backup photographer is sree(3).



(This is also why there are no modeled shots of the Mary Jane sweater or the Cookie lace. Those two deserve good photography.)

I got some bad news about the sock club, though. My July installment was lost in the mail. They have promised to send me another package in January of next year to make up for it. In the meantime, I am working on Madli and on the May PSC socks for the husband. It's nice to work on lace again, though I'm glad I warmed up on the mitts - the beginnings of that first mitt saw me tinking half a row for every two or three I knit. Now I have my lacy mojo back.
Not my concentration mojo, though - apparently I wrote this post, then wandered away before clicking Publish. Sigh.

Turns out I'm not such a tramp after all.

I'm just a serial monogamist with ADD.
I can't knit on two projects in the same time period. I can't alternate in a day, or every other day, or whatever. I currently wish I could actively work on the PSC socks and Madli, but I can't. I can only knit on one thing, until forced by circumstance (too many people around to concentrate on lace, going out to stand in the unemployment line and lace is too big, finally quiet in the house so must work on lace, etc) to change to the other. I practice project monogamy. o.0 (I only just practice on a short scale. No way will I ever be the person who knits on one thing only until it's done. Those people are just weird.)
Anyway, I have knit a few more repeats on Madli. I'm up to 8 now, and still enjoying the pattern.

I CAN, however, be multi-craftasmic with abandon. In a stunning example of delayed gratification, restraint, and self control (given that it took me FOUR HOURS to remember the phrase "self control" - all I could think of was "self denial" - you can tell the concept isn't practiced much around here) I have finished one bobbin's worth of future sock yarn and have started the singles for the second bobbin's worth, rather than plying the first bobbin right away. This makes it harder for me to succumb to second-sockyarn-spinning-syndrome.



Of course, it's pretty easy to take some time to spin when my mornings look like this.



Yesterday during my morning spinning time, these two little guys kept me company:




(Look, the Evil Twin blankie in the wild! This photo is MUCH closer to actual color.)

If anyone has seen my brain, I'd like it back, please.

Sigh.
Two more days until the DH is home from his trip and I can go somewhere and be ALONE. (He thinks he's going to be all huggy and kissy and lovey and "I missed you so", but really, I'm going to chuck the kids at him and run away screaming for an hour.)
Toward that end, I let the Bug stay home from daycare today. o.0 (Please see title.)

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I'm the only one in the JoanCookieOtteralong who hasn't flashed her Madli. Or her nupps. Actually, mine are not real nupps - they're fakes.



That color, while lovely on my monitor, is nowhere near the deep dark teal/marine blue of this yarn. I have no hopes of catching up with Ms. 20 repeats in a day or Ms. Poor me I only did 15 in a day. I'd be worried, but a) it's not a race, and b) someone has to finish last...
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Look! Sweet peas! Stock! Petunias! Gerania! Green leaves and (achoo) pollen pods! (Click to embiggen.)



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In other news, I'm enjoying the heck out of the slippin' stripin' socks. The laceweight makes them nice and squishy and the stripes hold my interest. (Nora said something about easily-entertained mouth-breathers the other day - count me in that group.) I have no pictures as yet because I forgot to take a picture while I had my camera in there and now I'm too lazy. I've turned the heel on the first one (subbing a short row heel for the called-for gusset and heel flap) so I hope to have a finished one to show off soon.

Beginning the week, beginning the month

First, a flower for Joan. My geranium is blooming again.



Today starts the JoanCookieLace project. I wound the yarn, I found the needles, I am paralyzed and have not started yet. Sigh.
When DH is gone for any length of time (in this case, it's been three days), the fiber starts to take over the house.



What you see there at the bottom is the first time all my Options tips have been put away (except the pair in Linden and the pair in Mary Jane) since I got the set. Labeled, even. I told you I was paralyzed - I did that this morning whilst looking for my size 5 tips.

I also picked out my first sock-club yarn. I consider it a deep and bitter irony that the ONLY WIP I put in was the one I pulled out first. I am thinking the universe is telling me to finish up some damn projects already. Anyway, I'll be finishing the Slippin' Stripin' Socks from last year's Sock Madness (signups are right now, if you're playing). These are laceweight socks held double, with the colors of one strand of laceweight changed in and out to create stripes. They're cute, and they're going to be really really soft. (I just have to remember not to wear them if my heels are cracked. Dry climate, alas.)



One more cutesy picture - I saw friends on Friday that I hadn't seen for months. (Well, I'd seen Dr. B, as he's Bug's and Squeak's doctor, but his wife, Gramma B, I hadn't seen.) They bestowed wonderful gifts on the boys (including the little sweater on the table in the picture toward the top, cuz she's a knitter) and gave me this mug, which combines my two best (non-family) loves: knitting and moose.



It says "woolgathering". Hee.