My rose bushes are blooming so beautifully.  They have almost doubled in size since we planted them.  I am now looking around for other places to put them.

I am running on very little sleep today.  It's all "woman getting older hormonal issues" and there's nothing I can do but cope with it as best as I can.  I know I will eventually get back to a more normal sleep schedule but for now 2 or 3 hrs a night seem to be all I get.  It goes nicely with the sudden power surges.  My whole body just feels off.  I have warned the people around me that today is not a good day to push my buttons.

There is a bit of positive news.  Peter Kevin had what sounded like a good phone interview yesterday.  The interviewer said she was suggesting he be called for a face to face so we're crossing our fingers and trying not to get too excited.

Memorial Day was such a nice day.  Valley Forge is such a beautiful park.  We sat in the shade and talked and ate and generally had a nice low key day.

On Monday I tried a recipe for Nanaimo Bars.  These are evidently quite the sensation in the Pacific Northwest and Canada.  They are delicious but oh so sweet.  More like candy than cookies. 

I also used up all the left over bread and rolls from the Memorial Day picnic and made a pan of bread pudding.  I love this stuff and could eat it by the bowlful.  Pk says it's for "poor people" and he won't eat it.  I imagine it was originally just a way for people to use up stale bread and maybe some extra eggs but nowadays, bread pudding has become a gourmet dish in some places.  This one is plain, just egg custard and bread.  I didn't even wait for it to cool off last night.  True comfort food.

I finished the middle square of my shawl and have had to rip out the edge stitches once to make sure I have the correct number.  I didn't want to do any fudging.  Last night I managed to get all 600+ stitches put back onto the needle extension and it's ready to start the edge lace. 

Pk and I also found some time to go see Godzilla on Tuesday.  It was as entertaining as all get out.  It was a pretty good remake.  Just enough of the original flavor to make it fun but enough new material to make it interesting.

And now I am off to jump into my (hopefully) interesting day--or at least interesting enough to keep me awake.  No easy feat that.

May.  I haven't gotten used to writing the date with a 5 in front of it and May is almost gone already.

I wish I could make a list of many exciting things we have done in May but in all reality, we have done nothing out of the ordinary.

I did get to experience my first rose.  Isn't it pretty?  All three bushes are now almost covered with blossoms (and if I weren't running late this morning, I would have taken a photo of them on my way out the door to work).  They are so pretty.  I love the way the little bushes are sprouting out all over the place willy-nilly.  They will look all wild and natural and not manicured. 

And now that I've seen how easy they were to obtain and to take care of, I may want to go and get some more. 

Our weather has been typically springlike and odd.  One day will be 86 F and sunny and the next will be in the low 50's and windy and cold.  At one point, we had both the space heater and the window fan in the bedroom.  Usually when one comes out, the other one goes away.  This year we're just not sure which will be needed on any given day.

I have been knitting with the Deschutes  (60silk/40merino) singles I bought at MDSW and have been loving the feel of it.  The Fir Cone Shawl is huge (as you can see) and is a shetland style shawl.  The center square is knit first and then the edge stitches are picked up and the borders are knitted.  One lace pattern for the center and then three different sections on the edges.

It's a sport weight yarn and so it grows more quickly than a laceweight.  There are 12 repeats of a 16 row pattern (which is easily memorized) and I  am through 6.  Look how odd it looks.  That's the back and it looks like an egg carton or some of that sound proofing material they use in sound proof rooms.  It's mindless enough to be able to work on it while watching some television but complicated enough to require some attention so it's not boring.

It's also eating up the yarn so fast that I called the farm that sold it and ordered two more skeins, just to be on the safe side.  The woman, Sunny, who owns the farm was so pleasant.  I emailed her on a Friday night and she emailed me back early Saturday morning and when I called Saturday afternoon, I got her on the phone and she said she would try to get it into Saturday's mail.  I said there was no hurry and Monday would be fine.  Nice lady, good service, beautiful yarn.

 

This was my other fiber purchase that weekend.  It's Coopworth roving in the Violet colorway.  I love violets and it thrills me to see them popping up in the middle of the lawn.  This looks just like a patch of violets. 

It's Memorial Day weekend coming up and I tacked on a vacation day at the end so I could have a bit of a longer weekend.  We have no big plans.  Peter Kevin is planning to man the table for the Wood Workers' Guild on Saturday at their town's Fair.  I told him I would bring a spinning wheel and keep him company-as long as there is no rain.

Sunday we are planning a picnic at Valley Forge Park with the girls and their families.  Valley Forge is an important part of the American revolution story and seems like a fitting place to picnic.  The rest of the weekend will probably fly by in a haze of chores and relaxing. 

Happy Hump Day to everyone.  I'm off to a mandatory 2 hour "compliance" training.  Every year.  2 hours.  Boooorrrrinnnngggg. 

But Mandatory.

Saturday I wore this shirt.  Kate gave it to me last year for Mother's Day (I think).  It's one of my favorite Dr Who episodes (the one with Vincent Van Goh).

I got so many reactions to it!  It was amazing.  I used to have a sweatshirt that said "All this and Brains, too" which got a lot of responses but this one beat that.

One young man yelled "Allons-y" at me.  It sure was a conversation starter.

But, once again, it was all about the sheep (and their by products).

Kate and I went with the idea that we wanted to find 2200 yards of sport weight yarn to make shawls out of the Folk Shawls book (Cheryl Eberle).  She's making the Irish Shawl and I am making the Fir Cone Shawl.  They are large squares.  She bought the first two skeins of a lovely light grey color and I bought 2400 yards of a merino/silk single that is softly spun and has a lovelylovely halo.  You can almost see the softness.  I rolled one skein into a ball (it's way too big for the ball winder and took forever by hand) and started my project last night.

babies



Jacob sheep



I am in the middle of a very dark shawl but because it's so dark, it's difficult to work on if it's not daylight.  This is not laceweight and it's such a lustrous cream color that it's easy to see. 



big sheep



There were sheep, of course.  These were a couple of moms and their very young babies.  There were baby Jacob sheep.



Katahdin



There were big sheep and small sheep and Katahdin Hair sheep.

(I borrowed the image from Wikipedia, I couldn't get the Katahdin to look at me).  They aren't sheared but just shed in the spring and the birds use the shed hair to build nests.

We bought some Kettle Korn and some honey and some cookie cutters.  I got a giraffe and a brontosaurus.  I chose a tiara cookie cutter for Em and a tyranosaurus for Kate.  It's time for the Spring Dinosaur cookies parade.

We had to park almost a mile away from the fairgrounds.  There are policemen directing the parking and every few cars they would send a group over to the other side of the road and waaaay to the back of a field.  We couldn't see the fairgrounds from where we were parked.  An older gentleman drove up in a bus and drove us to the road and then we caught a wagon ride to the fair.  I was very thankful for them at the end of the day!

Yesterday we did the laundry (and watched the soccer games) and all too soon the weekend was over.  Those 48 hours just fly by. 

And now here I am back in the real world.  Work is busy and we'll have new doctors soon so there is a period of adjustment and then hopefully things will settle down.

Happy Monday y'all!

So, we've had a bit of rain this past week.  My office mate (who is inclined toward exaggeration and extreme curmudgeonliness) said he heard that we got the equivalent of 7"/hour of rain.  I have a feeling that while it did rain long and hard (enough to cause a 4' wide river to run down the sides of the street), it wasn't truly that bad. 

Of course, since our house sits at the bottom of a hill, all the water runs down toward us and through our crawlspace to get to the storm drains in the street.  We learned a long time ago not to leave things on the floor in our rec room.

The sun came out briefly, just enough to send the humidity through the roof (and you can imagine how lovely it made my hair.  I get lovelier and lovelier as the humidity rises) and then it rained some more last night.  Pk dropped me off at the train this morning and then started running the pump.  All this moisture has rusted some of his tools even though they are not in the water.  Just the added moisture in the air.  He has old tools (planes and turning tools) which don't have the rust resistant coating that more modern implements are equipped with.  He's been applying Rust Go Away (or something like that) to clean them up.

And speaking of my unemployed spouse, he has been Getting Things Done Around The House for the past month (has it been a month already?).  Two years ago the lines that connect our house to the power grid came loose and caused a power surge that destroyed some appliances (but not the computer which was plugged into a surge protector.  They really work.  Who knew?).  We replaced the refrigerator, the power strip for the computer, the microwave and the computer module for our stove.  We left the dishwasher sit because it was not a necessary thing. 

Fast forward to now when Pk has some time on his hands and it's too damp/wet to spackle.  We got the parts to fix our ice maker (and it now makes ice) and we got the new computer module for our dishwasher (and it now washes dishes).  The old module had melty parts inside and some copper parts had vaporized in the power surge.  We are getting used to having it back and I must say, I love it (but probably not as much as Elanor, aka The Dishwasher, does).

And here we have neon socks.  Here's one of Pk's neon green socks.  To show how bright it really is, I posed it next to a more subdued green sock. 

It's a pattern I made up on the fly and he likes it.  Sock number 2 is otn and will be done soon so he can wear them if he gets job interviews (it will show potential employers that he has a fun side and is not old and fuddy-duddy-like.  At least that's what I tell him). 

We passed our inspection at work and are breathing a sigh of relief because citations from this particular entity mean giving back money.  We don't want to do that.

This weekend is Maryland Sheep and Wool.  I always forget it's in May.  Pk remembered and insisted we go.  "It's an Adventure".  He and I (along with El and Kate) are driving down tomorrow morning and going to spend the day petting sheep and admiring llamas.  Pk will look for the Broom Making Guy and the Honey Making People.  He appreciates the sheep, but he really likes the Broom Guy.

The weather is supposed to be sunny and perfect.  I love a good Adventure.

I'm looking out my office window and I can see the morning sunlight reflected off the still wet leaves on the Ornamental Pear.  Trees amaze me.  Just yesterday, these leaves were buds and almost overnight Shazzam!! There are leaves full grown on the branches.  How do they do that?  I am wonder-struck (I am making this word up because it fits) at how fast they grow.  It is so cool.

Well, duty calls and the message light on my phone is RED and BLINKING which means someone needs me for something.  I guess that's a good thing.  Job security and all.

Have a Good Weekend!



Here we are Easter Morning sitting in the sunshine.  Pk was watching a soccer game and I was just leaning on him and photosynthisizing.  The air was a bit cool but the sunshine was just lovely.

I brought some flowers inside to enjoy the color and forgot how smelly daffodils are.  I really don't like the smell.  I also don't like the smell of lilies (that actually gives me a headache) or eucalyptus or cilantro.  That is my favorite small pitcher/vase (once it became a vase, it was never a pitcher again-something ewwwy about that).  It's made of local clay by a local artist.  And it's just big enough to hold a small handful of fresh cut flowers.

My roses are here!  We stopped at the garden center on Monday to get some grass seed and just happened to notice that there were roses.  These are Knock-Out Roses.  There is a white one, a yellow one with flowers that fade to cream and a pink one.  Pk dug the garden bed just for them as an anniversary present last year.  We have been haunting the garden center but everything is a bit late this year due to Winter's seeming unendingness.  The bushes are in the ground now and with any luck will start to bloom soon and will bloom all summer until we have a hard frost.

Knit picks advertised some limited edition colors in their sock yarn in neon colors.  I don't know about you, but I couldn't resist.  We got purple for Elanor and Pk and I both got neon green.  He wants his socks to be a solid green color but I decided to stripe mine with navy blue.  I'll make the heels and toes blue and then it's 5 row stripes.  I'm going to carry the alternate color up the side so I don't have many many ends to weave in.  I started one last night to see how it would work and I love it.  And I'll have enough to make2 pairs.  I'm thinking of doing one in Fibonacci stripes and one with regular stripes.

And sadly, tomorrow is the funeral of the last of my mother's siblings, my Aunt Elsie.  She was born in 1925 and was a preemie.  She was so small that my grandfather's wedding ring fit all the way up her arm to her shoulder.  But, she survived.  She was one of the funniest and loveliest women I have ever known.  She loved to get down on the floor and play with the kids.  My girls adored her and when her grandson was born, she was over the moon.

On Hallowe'en, I used to take the girls to my Aunt Joan's house and she and I would cook dinner while Aunt Elsie took them trick or treating.  It was dark and she would shine the flashlight all over saying "Lightning! Lightning is everywhere!".  She wore a pumpkin hat and got as much candy as the kids some years.  I will miss her so much but I am thankful to have had her in my (and my girls') life.

We are all about the Spring here.  I say that even though it was only 32 degrees F (0C) here this morning and I pulled out my woolen mittens so my hands didn't cramp up on my way to work.

But all around the house are dozens of daffodils and tulips and grape hyacinths all hopefully blooming.We had a few days of 70-80 degree sunshine and boy did those bulbs make the best of it.  They are so beautiful but then a frost hit Tuesday night with actual snow in some areas and the fairly fragile spring blooms are not going to last very long.

 I am sitting here trying to psych myself up for the day.  It's Thursday in the real world but for me, this is my Friday.  I took off Friday and Monday to give myself a long weekend.  Although there have not been any immediate ramifications of Peter Kevin getting laid off, I can't seem to stop my mind from going to the "what if" place.  What if he doesn't find a job by September? (when his severance ends).  What if I can't pay the mortgage, what if we can't buy food?

I know this is a useless thing and just makes me grind my teeth but I can't seem to help it.  I am generally a positive person deep inside I believe everything will work out but some days.......Added to this, they are changing our insurance at work and I have lost the plan I've had for the last 20 years.  I understand that we are a health system and they want us to use our own doctors.  I really do.  But I live in NJ and the health system is centered in Philadelphia.  If I have to be hospitalized, it'll have to be in Philadelphia which is a bit of a pita for Pk.  Parking alone could bankrupt a person.

Fortunately, my current pcp accepts the new insurance but my copays will be higher because they are not one of the Penn Health doctors.  But they're MY doctors and we have a relationship that's been built over the last 15 years.

But, enough of that.  Things will work out.  They always do and whatever happens, we'll deal with it.  We always do.

This weekend is Easter and that means cooking.  We are going shopping tomorrow which will include a trip to the Russian market to get some kielbasa and some breads.

Then it's off to the produce place and then Shop Rite and then the liquor store.  Then someone has to come home and put away all those groceries.

Saturday we will make baked beans and potato salad and I will bake babka and maybe some sugar cookies (we'll have Easter mooses and bats and dinosaurs of course.  What else would you have?).  On Sunday, I'll have to just put the ham in the oven and cook up the kielbasa and pierogies.  There will only be the three of us so I'll cut back on the amounts.  When I suggested that maybe we didn't need quite so much food, Pk said "Why don't you just ruin Easter?".  So, I'll humor him and make his traditional favorites but just much less of them.

The garden center folks said the roses bushes will be in at the end of April.  The season is a bit slow this year due to all the cold and snow.  By the time they come in, the bulbs wil be done flowering and will just be photosynthesizing to make more bulbs.  We're going to put 3 or 4 rose bushes right behind the daffodils and tulips.  I am so excited.

Work is busy.  We have an inspection coming up in about 10 days.  It's an important one because it's mostly financial.  They want to see notes for every service we billed for.  Fortunately, I am not much of a billable person so I don't have many notes to worry about.  But everyone is a bit on edge because you know, it's all about the money.

The sun is shining and the tree outside my window is full of ugly smelling flowers (although they are rather pretty) with their bright yellow pollen.  Yes, the pollen is flying and starting to cover most surfaces.  I am ready with antihistamines and extra tissues.

I hope y'all have a joyous Easter (if that's your holiday), a warm and happy Ostara (if that one's yours) or a happy and healthy Passover.  And if I've forgotten one, I'm sorry.  Whatever and however you celebrate, I hope your weekend is happy and healthy and filled with all the good things in your life.

"Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not be squeamish about taking a good look."

~Pema Chödrön



The crocuses managed to fight their way through the snow and ice and bloomed into these lovely purple and white beauties.

And the yellow ones are so intensely yellow that they glow in the sunlight.  They were well worth the wait.

We have some hyacinths and the daffodils have finally decided to throw off their green coats and show off their frilly yellow dresses.  I think they are my very favorites of all the spring bulbs (at least until the grape hyacinths come up-they're so darn cute)



(photo from celtic swan website)



We had a birthday dinner for Em over the weekend and Pk and I gave her some hand forged needles from Celtic Swan Forge.  They're bronze and silver with rose quartz set in the end.  They are gorgeous.  We gave her some cashmere yarn to knit with them and I think she liked them.

And of course we had cake!  Em wanted chocolate so I called the bakery and asked for chocolate cake.  They made fudge cake and then put fudge on top of it.  It was delicious. 

Sunday I did the laundry and tried not to give in to the nervousness that is waiting just below the surface.  Peter Kevin got laid off on Thursday.  They gave him a modest package (he'll get 8 paychecks going forward 4 months and then that's the end).  Theoretically, if he finds a job within that timeframe, it's all good.  I am not so optimistic and our job market continues to be dismal so the nervousness sits just below the surface of my day. 

This is the first of two baby sweaters finished this month.  I think I'm caught up now.  Most of the folks who work here are young-ish and in that baby-making stage of their lives.  This is such an easy pattern to make and it makes a nice, unisex sweater.  I used a cotton/acrylic blend so it's washable and also a bit soft. 

I'm hoping the baby machine will slow down a bit.  I have to get started on Kate's wedding dress.  I'd like to finish it before the heat of the summer sets in.

I was given a gorgeous skein of red laceweight yarn and bought a pattern that uses roses as its main design because I thought it would be pretty.  The pattern has 6 charts.  SIX.  I am not good with charts and I am having second thoughts about this but I just put it aside for the time being.  I am cleaning out wips that are never going to get finished and looking for things to make that will require some concentration and will teach me something.  I'd like to try the roses but SIX charts gives me pause. 

Life goes on here like it does everywhere.  We will keep moving forward (as you do) becasue what other choice do we have?  There may be some belt-tightening going on but we are so lucky and have so much that we'll be fine for a while. But, if you run across any spare job finding mojo, could you send it our way?