Technicolor Dream Shawl

A bit of Springtime color to hopefully coax the sun out sometime soon!


Sunday Market Shawl
Yarn: Noro Taiyo

Exercising the knitting muscles

Day 9 of absolutely no vigorous exercise and I am starting to go batty.

I was busily exercising my stupidity muscles last Monday - dancing around my house with the music turned up nice and loud, no kids around, feeling oh so free and awesome - when I decided I was so funky and cool of a dancer that I was going to throw in the splits at the perfect moment in the music and - AAAAAARRRRGHHHHH!
What was that?
What just went pop?

I sat stunned for a few moments as pain shot through my right gluteus and hamstring.
Did I really just do that? Am I really Andy Bernard from The Office?

I sat and tried to stretch gently. I then proceeded to dance (more gingerly) for another hour, determined for it not to be anything, but here I am 9 days later, still with a major pain in the butt - literally. I know I just need to rest it, but oh how I need to get moving again, for my body and my SANITY (endorphins you know).

No vigorous exercise, but definitely more knitting, and purchasing of knitting related items.

Last weekend was the annual LYS(local yarn store) tour in our area and some friends and I did a little yarn crawl. We got to maybe 7 of the 25 stores participating in the tour and had lots of fun chatting in the car, feeling yarn, collecting free patterns, being silly girls, eating yummy things (though at lunch there was a hair in my salad - I sent it back and it returned with a teeny gnat on a piece of cheese - I couldn't bear to have them throw away another meal, but I showed the server because I thought it was just too funny, wiped the bug off and ate the salad).

Good times despite having to shift and re-shift my aching bottom while driving - don't know why I agreed to be the driver. Driving all day and strolling all the LYS's had to be as good exercise as running 8 miles or a good weight training session right?

Anyway, these are the treasures I scored on our little jaunt.







(Just noticed those first two colors I chose look rather muscle
tissue-ish...interesting...maybe my subconscious trying to help me knit my muscles back together?...hmmm...)

Yay for cheap labor!

He's been plenty old enough for a while now -
I've just been nervous about the blades and motors and all that.
It gave him a great sense of accomplishment though.
Now to come up with a few more tasks to hand off since I am suddenly the mother of a
Big Boy...

Gift

All of those still baby faces of kindergartners singing their lungs out for us moms.

Paper flower with his picture cheesing at me from the middle.

Another handmade plate to add to our priceless collection.

Being served a homemade muffin and fruit by the most handsome little 5 year old server ever.

Favorite recipes compiled into a whole book of "Tasty Treats". His is
"Special Brownies":
1 scoop of cocoa powder, some black beans, no eggs.
Blend it all together and bake it for a little while...
(there is more to it to make it actually edible;)

My last kindergartner sitting on my lap, arms slung around me singing "hug a friend's neck hug a neck next to 'ya, hug a friend's neck and sing lala..." while I tip my tears back into my eyes and try to remain composed.

To hold all this sweetness.
To swallow him right up and keep him safe forever.
To teach him confidence and trust and love and let him go.

The dilemma of the mother's heart - the joy-filled ache - the gift.

No one can eat just one...

So how about I be super interesting and post another one of these!

Potato chips I can handle actually - I'm completely able to stop with 1 if I decide to do so.

But here is my second novelty yarn scarf and I just bought 2 more balls of the stuff at my LYS.

We all have to indulge every now and then, but at least these have 0 calories!
Really, ZERO guilt because these are all slated to be gifts for teacher appreciation week and Mother's Day!

My First Granddaughter

Knitting for dolls makes me feel extremely granny-ish, but it's a nice size of item to try out new techniques and stitch patterns.

Novelty

It took just 2 hours to finish this scarf that will be gifted to a teacher for next week's Staff Appreciation Week.
The yarn is called "Sky" by Ironstone yarns and though I don't usually choose novelty yarns, this one was OK to work with and I like the look of the finished scarf - the speed with which the project can be finished is a plus too of course!

Roy G. Biv

A week of rainbows has brought me out of my 3 month blog hibernation.

A beautiful rainbow (actually a double - squint hard and you'll see it) by the water outside the restaurant where hubby and I were celebrating 14 years of marriage.

And my daughter's rainbow birthday cake that she and 3 of her friends made to celebrate her 8th birthday.



And singing my favorite rainbow song in the car with my kids at the top of our lungs - "ROY G BIV" from They Might Be Giants "Here Comes Science" album.

I can see clearly now...