In light of the fact that my secret pal cannont leave me an anonymous comment on my blog, I’ve reverted back to comment-free-for-all. I hope I don’t get spammed again, but if you’re online, chances are, you’re going to get spammed. It’s really funny how my husband gets email spam all the time and I don’t really get any. Of course, I don’t belong to as many lists and groups as he does.
Ahhh, remember the days when spam was just a funky meat by-product?
We went to my mom’s house this weekend to help her celebrate her 50th birthday, which is today, actually. 
Colt proved himself once more to be the great white lizard hunter. His prey was a lovely little blue-throated guy who let us check him out for a few minutes before we let him go to his home in the rock wall.
I finished the branching out! I finished it, weaved in ends, washed it in SOAK, and blocked it before we left today. It took a little over 1 and 1/2 skeins of Frog Tree sport weight alpaca, but isn’t she lovely? And how perfect to actually finish on mom’s birthday.
I got cash for my birthday. I picked up the summer IK and found that the brioche stitch tank top would have broke the bank, but that the lotus blossom tank was within reason. So, I debated between a lovely crimson color or the varigated aquas above. You can see who won. And I got it for half price. Yup, you read right, half price. The store owner, who is the coolest by the way, had a sale a few weekends ago and somehow did not return the yarn to full price in the computer. I offered, twice!, to pay full price, but she wouldn’t hear of it, so I got 4 skeins for the price of 2. And it was in Oregon, so no nasty sales tax!
This, and his fellow skeins, will turn into a great vest for hubby, once the pattern gets here and I finish baby hats (ha ha ha). I’ve chosen a simple v-neck sweater vest. The fantastic thing, it was $3.50 a skein. It was a great weekend for my knitting expansion expedition.
I got my first secret pal package and it’s WONDERFUL! 2 bars of Cadbury chocolates, Debbie Macomber’s “A good yarn” and “Mason-Dixon Knitting”! I was so giddy that I unwrapped it in the car waiting for my older son to get out of kindergarten and my younger son said that I have to share my chocolate. We’ll have to see about that. We have a long car ride ahead of us this evening. We’re going to my mom’s house, about 300 miles away, to help her celebrate her 50th birthday this weekend. The chocolate may go into the black hole of the knitting bag until the kids are asleep or otherwise distracted.
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! SECRET PAL!
My mother is turning 50 on Monday and I do believe she’s in denial (and I don’t mean the river in Egypt). She emailed me on my birthday to say how nice it was that I was turning 17 and that she was turning 39 next week. I really love my mom’s sense of humor.
In other things, I’m about half-way through mom’s branching out scarf in the yummy alpaca. Believe me, with all this crappy rain we’ve been having, she can still use it in late May. I’ve also cast on for the March Shamrock hat. It’s been frogged back once. This is my first attempt in fair isle and I foolishly believed that I could knit one stitch of contrast color, catch floats for 15 stitches, and have it come out all right. WRONG! So, it’s all main color until the larger part of the shamrock which has shorter floats, and then I’ll go back and duplicate stitch. This should work better, and I feel better about it after consulting the owner of a local yarn shop (who’s been knitting longer than I’ve been alive) and my best buddy and having them verify my idea.
I’ve been reading Yarn Harlot books, as I got all 3 of them for my birthday, and I’ve already finished one. I HEART this woman! It’s nice to read about her humble beginings as a knitter and hear about her failed works, and realize that she’s just like the rest of us. When I read blogs like Grumperina and Yarn Harlot, I sometimes wonder why I blog, when I’m not nearly as good as they are and they are just so quick and so crafty! Now I know: they’ve come a long way from their first wobbly stitches, and one day, I will be there too.
I found out tonight that my children have a well-tuned sense of self-preservation. We were joking about what we were having for dinner and my husband and I said we were going to cook one of the children. My older son, without skipping a beat, says “choose Kevin, he’d be more tender.” Of course we start laughing hysterically. But what a sense of self-preservation.
Speaking of self-preservation, I got spammed by some purfume blog person. NOT OKAY!!! Therefore, I am screening my comments before they are posted here. Please, please, PLEASE still leave me comments, I’d love to hear from you. I just don’t want blog spam.
I’m offically 28, as of 3:12 pm, pacific standard time. My morning started out with my older son being sniffly, so I shipped him to the shower. We then went to see my good friend Sarah, and she gave me a most wonderful knitting gift. Till now, I have only done socks on DPNs, but I’m willing to try anything. Sarah did DPNs once, and has since solely converted to the magic loop method for socks. The bag she gave me this morning contained the magic loop book, a 40″ size 2 Addi Turbo, and 2 skeins of lovely turquoise sock yarn ( I LOVE blue). What more could you ask for on the morning of your birthday?
Of course, I got some great goodies from my inlaws last night. And my secret pal emailed me a great card, with a frog on it. It’s been a lovely day so far. 
Ben and Jerry’s have finally figured it out. They now have baby ice cream cups, as seen above. Cute, full of the fattening B & J goodness we love (some more than others), but in a convenient portion-controlled size.
Yup, this is me and the fam on Mother’s Day. The short person on the left is the one who sliced his thumb a few weeks back and the little one on the right is his tormentor.
Knitting has been coming along, slowly. The heat we’ve been having has been sucking my energy, along with working on filling the garden boxes. The tart hat was huge hit, her mom absolutely loved it. And I got an email from my secret pal! My friend Sarah was in SP7 and her spoiler never contacted her, so she ended up with an angel, but it was still a big dissapointment to her. I’m so glad to have heard from mine already!
Woohoo, and with the baby shower tomorrow, I have finished the tart! It’s in Cascade 220 Superwash, so the bobbles aren’t as prominent as the photos on Knitty, but it may fluff after washing. It’s yet another hat on a growing list that I probably won’t do again unless it’s a very special baby. But I can only blame myself for this one, I always say I’ll try anything once.
Top and side views of Miss Dashwood. The pics look really pink, but the hat is really more lilac-pink. I’m not a pink person and try very hard not to knit with true pink colors. It was knit for a second cousin who arrived a few weeks before her scheduled time, so I made it with superwash wool and edited the bobbles out.
Pics of our garden boxes. 
The third garden box is hiding under the canopy for our truck. I hope that we have compost soon to fill the boxes so I can plant seeds and plants for summer harvests. 
I’m a klutz, my husband is a klutz, so it should be no surprise that our kids are klutzes too.
The reason I say this is because we got a swing set this weekend. And it wasn’t even an hour after we got it put together that my eldest son, the same one who sliced his finger and just got his stitches out a week ago, took a header off the olympic rings and split his lip slightly and bit his tongue a bit. No ER visit required this time, although I did pester his dentist at home to make sure I was doing all that I could for him. I’m seriously contemplating wrapping Colt in bubble wrap when he’s not in my line of sight.
I’d upload pics of the swing set, our garden boxes that we (okay, hubby and kids) built, and the completed Miss Dashwood, but my camera decided this was a prime opportunity to tell me its batteries need to recharge. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to post.
I do feel accomplished, though. I sent my first postcard out to my secret pal in Colorado. And I may have found great cheap sock yarn to send along later…
