Tinny energy

Having been awake since three this morning with Mike, I find myself approaching the afternoon sort of oddly. I feel energetic, but behind the eyes, it's not quite right. It's like... electroplated. An image of precious metal, but layered on something more base. But since I only have three hours left in the office (though many more working) before my vacation, I'll take whatever semblance of energy I can get, even if it is not quite right.

Mike is not well, and this may or may not affect my plans for my vacation. I had planned to go down to Calgary this coming Sunday, returning the following Saturday. I may make the trip shorter, depending on how the new prescription works out and what the blood tests reveal. If he can walk even as well as he was walking last week (and that was still not great at all), then I may feel okay about leaving him by himself for a week.

This weekend I rested, we cleaned most of the house, and I mowed the lawn. I also dug out the ugly day lily in the backyard, and discovered both a sidewalk block in the flowerbed (probably to keep people like me with shovels from digging near the gas line running to the garage) and a spruce tree root right where the day lily was. Since day lilies are so tenacious, I spent about 10 minutes thinking that it was a day lily root, and wondering how on earth I was going to dig it up. I am not a horticulturalist, that's for sure!

But I'd best be off. Lots to do, so little time...

Playing with string

Totally instant gratification. Crochet is great for that. And I love the colours!


Blue... Gorgeous blue. It doesn't look like much right now (heck, it really isn't!), but someday, oh, someday...

Guess what I'm going to be doing this weekend?

It's going to be a bright, bright bright sunshiny day...

Well, here I am at work, fighting the third day of a headache that shades to migraine without quite getting there. The smoothie I brought for a snack has turned a very unappealing shade of brown (probably the banana) and is slightly more bitter than it should be, but I'm drinking it anyway, and there is little enough to do in this lull between tournament season and Summer Camp, so I think today I actually will make my preferred early leaving time (as I try to reduce my banked time to more reasonable levels). Waiting at home for me are dirty bathrooms, three more loads of laundry, and the most adorable greyhound who wants to get outside in the sunshine (when he's not using unwound hanks of expensive yarn as toys). But between the headache and the fatigue, both the couch and the bed are looking like more appealing venues to spend the afternoon, as much as I would love to get out into the sunshine too (but it hurts my head).

Also waiting for me at home is yarn. Wonderful, bright blue, soft 100% merino that Priest also loved, and has been knitted through the provisional cast-on (I made it work!) and the first 14 rows of this. Which is not destined for me, but for a friend, and I will have to keep that constantly in mind because I love the yarn so much. *sigh* But it is lace, and I don't think lace and headache will mix well, if I feel I can handle knitting at all today. So if I can, I will work on the blanket instead, or maybe tear back the sock and try that again. Straight knit or straight purl. Yeah, maybe I can handle that.

Knit-Lits

Priest had a great greyhound walk on Sunday, and my body seems to have finally recovered from Provincials, so last night I went out to Knit-Lits at the St. Albert Library. The class I helped teach a few weeks ago has turned into a once-a-week, come out and knit with people gathering. Last week we were four, and this week we were three, but I'm sure it'll grow. So this week I decided to bring my sock. I successfully turned the heel on Tuesday (I'm queen of the world!!!! It feels so amazing to turn a heel), but then the instructions confused me, so Wednesday when I got home, I muddled through picking up the stitches, and working through the gusset decreases. When I headed out to Knit-Lits (the library's idea; every group or program has to have a name, so that's the one they suggested...), I just had to knit the length of the foot.


This is the sock before Knit-Lits, and below is the sock after Knit-Lits.


Now you, gentle reader, are probably thinking, "Ness, that sock looks a little, you know, big, doesn't it?" Well let me tell you something. You are absolutely, positively, 100%...


...correct.

So I'm going to have to tear back, and I'll probably tear back to the heel and pick up the gusset stitches again (maybe this time I will have the same number of stitches on each of those needles), but I need a smaller gauge of needle before I can continue. The ones I'm using now are 2.25 mm. I think I should probably drop down to a 1 or 1.25 mm. But if I go to a yarn store this weekend (for the Blue Mystery Project), I can grab a set.

And now, a photo for Nathan: