Just walk away...

I often tell my daughters to just "walk away" from frustrating situations and potential skirmishes. Now it's time to heed my own advice. This morning I accidentally cut two holes in the body of my Mom's fair isle cardigan. I was trying to trim off some fringed edges and wasn't paying attention and I cut too deep. I have now put that whole sweater in my bottom filing cabinet drawer. That is where my knitting f-ups reside and it's getting pretty full! Maybe I'll have a felting free-for-all some weekend and make a bunch of purses out of the boo boos. Mind you, that's a lot of purses.

I started knitting "Liv" from Elsebeth Lavold's book, Viking Knits this morning. I'll start some socks this weekend too so I have a portable project for driving. I'm going to use Mama E's Keohinani for the socks and they will have cables too.




My oldest daughters are now officially on spring break. Chips, the gecko, is residing on our bedroom dresser and the sound of crickets chirping echoes from his terarium. I've never lived anywhere that has crickets, but they're supposed to be soothing to listen to. If not then Chips' home may be moved to the top of the refrigerator in the kitchen. We have to keep him safe from kitties and younger siblings.


After three different shades of yellow paint, we finally settled on a color for Ashley's bedroom. The first gallon ended up not being enough. The second can ended up being too green to match the first gallon and we ended up changing the shade altogether. There is still no molding or trim up, but here is the color we chose...












And finally, today is the last official day of Secret Pal 7. I'm going to keep visiting both Karyn and Cindy. I was Karyn's SP, Karyn was Cindy's SP and Cindy was mine. Did anybody else who participated in SP7 have triangulation with the exchanges or was our set up of giving to one another a coincidence? Just curious, as this was my first time. Anyway, I hope that my family's financial and other situations allow me to participate in SP8.

Not much new to report. The family has been taking turns being sick for the past couple of days. I did manage to finish the socks with the yarn that Cindy gave me. I also picked up the yarn needed to finish the fair isle cardigan. The week-long break on that monstrocity was welcome. My next project will include cables of some sort. Last year I bought some Elsebeth Lavold yarn and a book, but I've not taken the time to decipher her charts. She has lots of fabulous cables in her sweaters.

Autumn (who's 7) asked if I would teach her how to knit over her spring vacation. Amber is excited because she was chosen to watch Chips, her 4th grade class pet over the break. Chips is a Leopard gecko who hopefully will survive his stay with us. Being known as the one who killed the class pet could mar a kid for life.

I stand corrected. The Dutch style of heel turning ended up fitting quite comfortably. I think the ribbed heel flap is the main reason. I don't think the ribbing always accompanies this heel style though. I still need to do some socks with a short-row heel. Hopefully the second sock will be finished by tomorrow evening. It was difficult trying to take a picture of the heel while wearing the sock.










The clouds went away and the sun does still exist! The girls and I were able to spend about an hour outside pulling weeds. The hyacinths are planted (and in need of watering). There is so much yard work to be done... yikes. For the record, I want to know who decided that dandelions were weeds instead of desirable flora? Probably somebody who had hired gardeners.





Brian primed the walls in Ashley's bedroom today and he'll paint it tomorrow. Currently the shelves and furniture are all stacked in the center of the room. Not the best for painting, but it's coming along.

Still no news on the job searching, but he's sent out lots of resumes and filled out many applications. I'm worried that he'll become discouraged. The whole situation pisses me off still, but I don't blame him in the slightest.

Weekend at home.

We enjoyed a relaxing weekend at home. Brian worked on the drywall finishing in Ashley's room and put up the remaining trim in our bedroom. I washed our house's siding and picked up some hyacinths and new bark for the front yard. The weather fluctuated between rain and sunny periods so yardwork ended up being left until later.

Saturday afternoon the girls and I played Monopoly.



I ran out of the correct shade of green necessary for finishing my Mom's birthday cardigan so I started work on some new socks. They are the Feather & Fan pattern from the book, Socks, Socks, Socks. These are being done in the yummy Piece of Vermont's Granny Smith color that Cindy gave me. The pattern is relaxing to do. However, they use Dutch heel shaping and the resulting heels are very narrow.

This week is half days of school for my two older daughters because of conferences. Then the next week they are on spring break. Unfortunately Spring break for my youngest isn't until the middle of April. Not that we had any big trips planned, but coinciding vacations would have left us with an option to leave home for a few days.