When in doubt...

Rip it out. While I have been working on the project, there's been something not quite right about it. I love the pattern, Blue Whale by Stephen West. And I love the yarn, Madelinetosh Pashmina, color Forestry (I think can't find the band.) but I didn't get gauge even though I went up two needle sizes. Any way I realized that I wasn't going to have enough yarn to finish and even blocking wasn't going to give me the drape I want so it's back to the beginning I go. I'll try upping the needle size again. Now if I only knew where that #9 needle was.

New members of the family.

In February one of our cats, Thoma, suddenly died. Since then his buddy, Jack, has been really needy and clingy. We decided that he would need some new company so last weekend Mike brought home a couple of 8 week old kittens.
The new kittens are half Siamese and are a boy and a girl. We decided to name them Lucca and Cleo.
Mike was home thins morning and took a bunch of pictures of the new kids at play.
http://www.digitagraphy.net/Cleo&Lucca/

Happy cat

We bought a new cat toy for Jack. It's one of those fishing things with feathers.
I was passing by the the chair when I noticed him in this position. Then I looked closer. He was fast asleep and had his paws wrapped protectively around his toy.

It's amazing when ...

As a hand spinner I love to make yarn but many times once the yarn is finished there is a period of "What's next?" It's not often I find a pattern that fits without some major tweaking but I did. While reading the fall addition of Spinknit I stumbled onto Sara Lambs Copper Cowl.
At first when I looked at the project I thought, I'll be dammed, I just spun up some yarn in that color. Then I looked the project notes and saw that she used pygora as did I. I had spun about 250 yards of 2 ply lace weight pygora-silk in the same color last fall.
I started this project last Tuesday and am just about done.

A finished project

Last weekend Mike and I were able to finish a project. Mike layed out all the pavers and was able to set his new BBQ area. I was able stain the deck and put in bark mulch. I raked up all the sticks and twigs and old leaves in both the backyard and the front. It's the first time the yards have been this neatened up this early. Last year because of all the snow and such I was trying do get the yard cleaned up in June and that's too late. I can't wait for nice weather and have my friends over.

Before



After



I am so tired....

If I weren't so tired I probably...
Cook more so I'd eat better and if I ate better, I'd exercise more so I'd sleep better.

But as any one can tell, when you've slept in the same bed with the same person for more that 18 years, when they don't sleep, you don't sleep and no amount of otherwise healthy living on your part is going to cure that.

My darling husband hasn't been sleeping well for a long time. You see he has a case of restless leg syndrome (my guess) and a pinched nerve either in his foot or his back (I'm guessing here as well) but of course we don't know for sure because he won't go to the doctor to have it looked at.

Now most of the time unless there's an obvious wound, trying to diagnose something like "a pain in my leg" is a bit "there's a strange noise, that only happens sometimes," under the hood of your car and it take some trial and error to pin point the problem.

Actually, I thinks it's easier to pin point and fix that strange noise than fixing the human body but I still have a weird whistling noise coming from under the dash that my mechanic swears only I can hear it.

But with that all said, you still needs to take the first step and try the doctor, instead of yelling "Go to the doctor!! no way they don't know anything, they just want to cheat you out of your money, they never fix anything." and then whine "my leg hurts."

When he doesn't sleep, I don't sleep. Sigh. Love hurts.

Some Assembly Required

I got Mike a new BBQ for Christmas. It was one of those "some assembly required" project.

It took a couple of days to finish this but Mike's happy with his present.

He made us a very good New Years Eve supper of BBQ'd ribs, meatballs, Hopin Johns (black eyed peas), and cole slaw.