At the end of the day on Friday, I asked a coworker if he had any plans and he said "No".  I said "me neither, isn't it great?"  and he agreed.

Isn't it nice to have one of those weekends where you have no real plans and don't have to be anywhere or see anyone?  And the weather cooperated and it was sunny and more mild than it's been in a long time.

Pk chose to fix the front of our siding. 

See the small black square there above the front door?  That's where the old roof used to be attached.  It had been covered with some flashing for a temporary fix but the siding needed to be repaired.

And look how nice it looks!  It took him most of his day but it is so worth it.  He used some of the siding from the back of the house.  It all matches in color and looks really good.  He was so proud of himself. We have enough pieces of siding that match to finish up the "public" sides of the house, the front and side.  We'll put some T111 siding on the back until we finish demolishing the old porch area and decide what to put in its place. 

I washed the windows and curtains on Saturday and did a general clean up (and of course did laundry).  I love the way the windows seem to shine.  I never realize how many water spots and how much dirt is on the windows until I clean them.

Today, we "puttered".  Pk cut up some logs so they could go out on the curb and I worked on his socks (and watched episodes of the X Files- I've never seen it).  It was a beautiful weekend.  We slept in and ate our favorite foods and let life flow over and around us.

MDSW is next weekend.  Pk and I are going on Saturday.  He is really interested in a "feeder lamb" (a small lamb that you fatten up and then have butchered).  I have a feeeling that it will cost more to feed and butcher the lamb than it would be to buy lamb in the grocery store.

Purple tulips!

I am interested in some Icelandic Sheep roving.  I had a conversation with a woman who raises them last year and I think I'd like to try spinning some.  I am not going to "buy all the things", just things I've never used or can't get anywhere else.  Or maybe some sock yarn.  The artwalk sock yarn club has changed and I miss it.  Now I have to go and actually choose my own colors.  Roxanne pulled me out of my comfort zone and I will have to make an effort not to fall back on my old faithful colors.

Oh, and a new broom.  The man who makes corn brooms will be there and Pk is looking forward to seeing him.  And there's the booth that sells honey and the potters and and and.....I just hope the weather is good. 

But before that, I have to get through this week at work. 

""Be grateful to everyone" means that all situations teach you, and often it's the tough ones that teach you best."
~Pema Chödrön

This is one of those no brainer things.  I try to remember that I learn something from everyone but often walk away from situations feeling like it was a waste of time.  It's often only later that I realize that I am looking at a situation differently because of the encounter.  Now if I could only remember that sooner.

Blogger is messing with me this morning.  When I went to New Post, I got the full line of options at the top, which gave me hope that I would be able to write a post with photos.  But somehow it won't work.  I should have known better but Hope Spring Eternal.....

Ha!  Where there's a will, there's a way.  I did an end run around blogger and voila.

These are some rogue daffodills.  That's the edge of our lawn.  There are a crowd of daffs up by the house but these few are starting a colony of their own down by the sidewalk.  Every year we say we will be bringing them back into the fold but someone forgets and mows over them.  And these are some tulips from an Easter past.  When I look into the garden bed, I can see the ghosts of Easters Past.  We don't have too many tulips left.  I love them.  We are planning to put some roses in this bed but since we know virtually nothing about growing roses, it will be a slow process so we can learn as we go.

Our weather has been so eratic.  Yesterday the high temp was 47 degrees (8.3 C) and today it's supposed to hit 74 (23 C).  That's a 30 degree difference between the two days.  It's impossible to dress comfortably and we are always checking the weather to see where we will be on any given day.  Layers are my friend.

We celebrated my brother's 45 birthday last Friday (his actual birthday was the 14th but everyone was busy).  I invited him and his family to pizza and wings and we secretly brought cupcakes and candles and a present.  He called and said that due to circumstances beyond his control he wouldn't be joining us.

We ordered food to go and descended on him at home.  It was fun.  We don't live too far but time and circumstances often conspire and we don't see each other as often as we could. 

We gave him a set of Pk's salt and pepper mills (the ones in the front).  Peter Kevin is getting good at making these and I'm so proud of him.  The ones in the back are pear wood and are rather heavy.  You could bean someone on the head and knock them out but they feel so smooth and warm in your hands. 

His next project is to learn how to make pens.  I'm not sure why he wants to make them.  I guess it's like learning to knit lace or to spin a certain kind of yarn.  It's the learning how that's the interesting part.

I am experimenting with a sock pattern.  I know I've spoken of Pk's favorite commercial socks.  He lovesloves Thorlo socks. 

He likes the cushioning on the foot and the fact that they are ribbed on the instep to make them fit better.  I have made a pair of socks that I ribbed on the instep and will try to add some extra padding on the foot by "darning" some yarn into the existing stitches.

The photo is a bit dark but you can see the instep pulls in with the ribbing.  They are the strangest looking socks I have seen. 

When I finish this one completely, I'll take a better photo.  For now, it's an experiment in progress.

This coming weekend is Clean the Curtains and Windows weekend.  As much as I love the clean bright windows, I don't look forward to it.  It makes me feel accomplished when I'm finished.  I ought to sweep and wipe down the baseboards, too but I don't want to be too ambitious.

But now it's time to get to work.  I have treatment plans to write and some charts to close and a client to chase down.  I'd rather sit here and watch the clouds float by and watch the leaves grow on the tree outside my window.  (Did you even wonder at how fast leaves grow?  It seems like one day the bud is just opening and the next, the tree is in full leaf.)

Happy Wednesday y'all.

The trees in our area all look like this.  It's beautiful.  The ornamental pear trees and the cherry blossoms.  They look like colorful puffballs.

I love them and hate them.  I love the beauty of the blossoms but the pollen, oh the pollen.  I spent most of last weekend trying to fight off a sinus induced migraine.  Ugh.  Spring has only just begun and the pine trees haven't started releasing their lovely yellow/green pollen.  That becomes thick enough to write your name in on all the furniture in my house.

I have worn my 'workhorse' sweater to work this week since the weather has been cool but not freezing.  It fits just like I hoped and it's warm but not overwhelming.  I am thrilled with it and proud of myself.  And I need a new long term project (I seem to be drawn to them).  I made Emily her sweater for after her surgery ("I'd heal quicker if I could wrap myself in handknit love.....") and I made El her Feb Lady Sweater.  Kate has been waiting for HER sweater.  She is more complicated.  She chose handspun yarn.  Actually, she chose roving for her sweater and a pattern.  I have two pounds of roving, one a dark grey alpaca/silk mixture and the other an amethyst colored merino.  She wants a yarn spun out of one ply of each. 

The original plan was for Kate to spin the yarn and for me to knit her a Riding to Avalon.  That was over two years ago.  I asked Kate how the spinning was going and she hasn't started yet so we decided I would spin the yarn and (hopefully) be able to make the sweater she wants.  This weekend I sampled the yarn and decided it will be a difficult spin. Two very different fibers.  It should be fun.

Tuesdays are my least productive days.  Mondays are always very busy so Tuesdays I have to force myself to get things done.  I often do little bits of things (like cleaning things up or organizing things) because I am a bit brain dead from Monday's back to back clinics.

Today, I spent the day checking up on the Starbucks employees who were redecorating our 2nd floor kitchen and making it into a room that the clients can eat lunch in and sit and relax in and just enjoy.  They took a bland, plain room and transformed it into a colorful area with round mosaic topped tables and a mural on the wall.

These kids (and they are kids) are all employees taking part in the company's volunteer program.  They worked all day together and I didn't hear a single word of discord all day.  They worked cheerfully and seemingly with joy to bring some color into our clients' lives.  They painted the walls a pale pale yellow green and the cabinets a beautiful purple and the colorful mural which is a Philadelphia skyline and positive words with a butterfly and a large shade tree. 

I was so impressed with the work they did.  Say what you want about Starbucks, they are involved in our community.  It's not quite finished.  They'll be back tomorrow.  I can't wait to see how the tables look when they're finished.  Our clients helped with the painting and the children in the children's program did some as well.  Even some staff helped so we can all feel proud of the project. 

It was inspiring. 

This is an absolutely terrible photo of me but I wanted to share this bad enough that I asked El to take the photo.  Not that El can't take a good photo but she is not a knitter and I told her to focus on the sweater. And she did. 

So, Voila!  Today I finished the first sweater I have ever made for myself.  It needs to be blocked to even out the stitches but I kinda like the organic look to it.

This is a totally handmade sweater (ok, technically the sheep made the wool).  It started out as a couple of bumps of roving that I bought at MDSW in 2011.  It sat in the closet for several months until I could decide what I wanted to do with it.  I finally found a pattern I liked but even though I swatched and the swatch was dead on, the actual yarn didn't work out to gauge like it should have.  I blame that on it being handspun and not as perfectly even and measurable as mill spun yarn.

It took me a while to decide which needle size I needed to get the fabric I wanted for my workhorse sweater.  I finally started the actual knitting last May on Memorial Day weekend.  I worked on it on and off all summer and this past winter realized I was not going to have enough yarn.  I frantically contacted the original vendors but after a year and a half, they could not help me.

I thought of Joan at Cupcake Fiber Co.  I love her rovings.  The colors are great and they are so well prepared.  I sent her my swatch and asked her to match it or make it coordinating/contrasting.  She sent me a box of roving that added a nice contrast.  Since the pattern is for a yoke type sweater, I just decided to do the yoke in the contrasting color and it worked out really well. 

Pk made the buttons out of wood.  Each one is a bit different but they all go together. 

This is a heavy sweater.  I used 3.5mm needles on a worsted weight yarn to make it dense like a jacket.  I wanted it to be an outer-wear type sweater.  One I can wear to work as a light jacket in the spring or in the winter when I need something warmer inside.

I am very happy with the way it came out.  Em said "it suits you" and I think she's right.   It certainly fits perfectly. 

And it only took almost 2 years........

And since Em got these for her birthday, I can show you the salt and pepper mills Peter Kevin made her for her birthday. 
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They're made of spalted ginko.  It means that the tree got a fungus that worked its way through its circulatory system making the dark designs.  Peter Kevin took the wood and put it on the lathe and shaped them and then drilled out the insides to make room for the grinding bits.  Then he polished them up until they feel so smooth in your hands that it's almost as satisfying petting them as petting some yarns. He did an amazing job.  Now he wants to make some pens.....there is no stopping a craftsman when he/she learns a new skill.

"Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today."
~Thich Nhat Hanh

I spend a lot of time thinking about hope.  It plays a huge part in what I do every day.  If the folks I work with don't have hope that they can get better and have a life again, then why bother?  There are so many things I hope for.  I thought I'd share a few.

-I hope that the North Korean leader(s) come to their collective senses and stop playing around with dangerous materials
-I hope that the people in Newtown find some peace in their lives but I know that it's a bit soon
-I hope that Spring comes soon
-I hope that I get to grow old with my Peter Kevin, the love of my life
-I hope that Elanor finds a job (she had an interview at a local bakery this morning)
-I hope to get to the west coast one day and meet Roxie and Amy
-I hope to go to Rhinebeck one year
-I hope that my dad is happy (and also my sister-I haven't seen/heard from either one of them in a very very long time but I think about them often)
-I hope Peter Kevin's boss will one day realize how good he is at his job and give him the respect he deserves
-I hope my atm card comes soon.


Some of these hopes are important and some are just whims.  That's the thing about hope.  It's endlessly available if you just know where to look for it.  I spend my days helping people find it.

My last one there is not whimsical.  I discovered yesterday that someone used my atm card number to order some things from walmart.com.  I called the bank immediately and disputed the charge.  They put an immediate stop on the card.  So, now I have no easy access to my money.  I have to go back to the days of writing checks.  I have to go to the bank on Friday and get money for the weekend and write a check for my groceries.  Not having immediate access to my money feels so odd.  It's funny because atm cards haven't been around all that long but they quickly became integral to my routine.

When the new card comes I have to contact all the automatic debits I have to let them know the number is different.  I am loathe to blame this on knitpicks which seems to be the thing to do these days.  I know some of their information was compromised and they may be responsible but I don't want to add to the dump pile already on top of them.  The woman at the bank told me it could just as easily been someone with a random number generator who got lucky.  They're evidently everywhere.

Well, that's my tale of woe.  I hope you're day is going well.  I'm off to eat some lunch and read a bit.  Pk made me a salad for lunch and he usually makes good ones.