Pumpkin Sunrise

This weekend was glorious!  There was plenty of sunshine overall amongst the clouds and the temperature was 71 degrees yesterday.  I'm ready but not ready to let go of the cold weather.  I am ready for spring and warmth, I'm not ready for the heat which will be coming right along shortly there after. This weekend was spent at home and getting back into the regular routines.  We took a walk with Frodo and enjoyed being outside without a jacket.  We heard the spring peepers (frogs) loud and clear as well.  They are all yelling 'pick me! pick me!' to each other. I was tempted to switch the winter quilt to the summer quilt on our bed but the weather is going back to chilly, so I'm waiting another few weeks.  Oh and my daffodils bloomed overnight as well.  What a delight to look out the window and see something yellow.  I sketched a bit and watercolored a bit.  My friends came over for some serious knitting time.  I do love being with them.  The laundry is do

This week I've focused on my creativity and making myself show up.  Do you do this?  As you know, I read each and every single one of your comments and try my best to visit your space if you have one.  Some of you are avid knitters and some of you are wannabes.  Some of you are creative and some of you want to be creative.  All of us have felt something along the creativity spectrum and this is what I want to talk about. Part of being creative is setting intentions.  I have set many goals for myself - rarely do I carry them out immediately.  I have sat on writing goals for more than a year before I wrote on a blank page.  I've done the same with spiritual intentions, knitting aspirations and lately sketching intentions. For a year I've wished to draw and yet did not DO it,  I thought about it, dreamed about it and fantasized about it.  I've learned this is my creative process.  It's the beginning of something wonderful. Some of you wish to be knitters.

I'm one row away from putting the sleeves onto scrap yarn!  This cardigan has been a delight to knit.  Top down construction is my favorite sweater design.  I'm already worrying if I have enough yarn but a yoke sweater does eat up a lot of yardage before the sleeves are set aside.  I'm ignoring my worries and knitting away.  The noro sock is progressing slowly but surely (don't call me Shirley!).  Yes, this is still the first sock but it's my grab-and-go-to-work project so I really only work on it maybe 3-4 hours per week.  When I knew I was going to NYC on a bus, I decided to start a super easy shawl to take and knit.  Sadly I could not knit on the bus because of the swaying.  I rarely get car sick ever, yet while knitting on the bus I had to keep looking out a window.  So I didn't knit much!  What are you knitting or working on this week?

How was your weekend?  My weekend was stuffed with walking!  We went to NYC for the day on a bus.  I'm not sure I'd do a bus again, but hey we got to NYC and back so there is that! We arrived in the city near Macy's Department store around 9:30 am and left around 8 pm.  We focused on walking the High Line, Chelsea and Greenwich Village.  It was bitterly windy and cold for most of the morning but that didn't stop us.  We had great fun until around 5 pm when our bodies betrayed us from all the walking.  We walked 10 miles yesterday (crazy!!).  I'm sore from head to toe today.  Sadly, whenever I over do it my joints go wacko---it's a RA thing.  After today's rest, I will be back to normal. I've linked websites the best I could to what we saw or did with the photos below.   highline Eduardo Kobra mural Dorothy Iannone mural Another Eduardo Kobra mural chelsea market Osgemeos hip hop mural E.A.K. Ramen  (high

Golly is it dreary outside as I type this blog post.  March is such a fickle month, it's not quite winter and it's not truly spring.  I am ready for slightly warmer sunnier weather.  Everyone I talk to is whining about the weather (maybe I start the whining?).  Everyone is itching for spring, for coatless freedom. The preschooler (well almost preschooler!) is super sassy and makes for a babysitting day a challenging day for me.  I know every month she is growing and this is a phase that won't last forever but I wonder how I did it with my two children.  We both know that the terrible twos is coined that phrase for a reason.  At the end of a babysitting day, I am beat! My son used to lay down and scream his head off in public all the time.  I must have been battle weary, right?  The thing about aging is that memories are softened around the edges and well, I don't remember my frustration or my annoyance.  Time erases facts and replaces fond feelings. I'

I'm getting close to the last short row shaping section then I'm off to setting the sleeves aside on my sweater .  Honestly, this has been my main knitting project the past week.  I haven't had much brain space for much else.  I wish I could put my finger on exactly what is taking up all of my time.  I'm happy and feel good so I'm not going to get too caught up on the whys.  The knitting is there waiting for me. How do you like the condition of that skein of yarn?  As you probably have guessed, this is a skein that Holly got ahold of and went wild with the tossing and turning.  Even though she loves yarn she rarely eats it or break it up into pieces, usually I find a knotty mess for me to untangle. Anyways, this skein was a previous knitting project that failed miserably so I ripped it out, balled it up and set it aside for another day.  Today I was thinking about this skein and so I'll be mulling over what exactly I want to make.  The noro sock

Knotions knitting magazine asked me if I would review their ebook, ShawlStar, which is being re-released with an additional three more shawl shapes at the end of this week.  I was thrilled with this opportunity since I knit a lot of shawls and I do love to help out our knitting community. The original ebook was published with 40 shawl shapes in 2018 and comprehensive is THE word to describe this ebook on shawls.  The author, Elizabeth Felgate, goes into detail about the various shawl shapes, discusses the pros and cons of each one and gives a 'recipe' to create each shawl shape.  Guidelines are given to create each shape and includes variations as well.  The amount of information is impressive and will have you itching to design and create a shawl.  The instructions are clearly written with many photos and examples of the shapes as well as schematics indicating the direction of the knitting.  The table of contents makes it easy to scroll to the specific shawl shape or

jaycee cardigan progress! Hello!  This is going to be an overly chatty post because, well, I have a ton of stuff to tell you.  My Friday afternoon was kicking off into a brilliant weekend.  We had our dinner planned out (a steak for him, salmon for me) on the grill and maybe a walk after dinner.   My husband was cutting mushrooms and we were 'bickering' which is the polite way to say we were arguing over the freshness of the mushrooms.  Honestly, they were rotten but he insisted they were fine (they were not).  I had the onion ready for him to chop and he used the newly sharpened knife and we continued to argue over the mushrooms. Well you know where this is going, he cut the tippy tip of his thumb.  If you know me well, I cannot triage anything with blood.  Just stomach viruses.  So I am asking him from a far if he needed stitches.  He wouldn't answer so that meant yes. I called urgent care (as opposed to ER and a $200 copay), they asked a few question

this morning's sunrise! I'm finding the older I get the less able I am to handle stress especially when I'm stress free for days on end.  The frustrating part is my perceived stress is something that I'm not in control of at all.  Recognizing my lack of control albeit later than sooner, helps me manage my reaction to stress.  The other funny aspect of stress is how personalized it is.  My stresses might not be your stresses. I'm feeling great now, but I'm reflecting on what I could do to lessen my reactions and manage my thought processes. Holly handles stress by hiding I had very little time to knit or pursue my creative outlets the past two weeks and I believe my lack of creative time makes for a faster negative reaction to stress.  In other words, the more I create the better I am at managing stress. When I'm stressed for some bizarre reason I forget to pick up my knitting and get into my zen state of mind.  I know!  How completely sill