Blah

It's Monday and I am officially bored. Things I am bored with:

Knitting rows of garter stitch on the top edge of my shawl. Yes, this means it's almost done, but why oh why does it have to be so boring? I then have the border to knit.

Work. Well, who isn't? I guess that's why they call it "work".

TV. Why isn't there more stuff that I like on television. You would think if one has over 200 channels to pick from, there would be something to look at all the time. Ain't necessarily so...

The weather. I want to go outside and start working in the yard. It's still too wet out there to rake or anything. Except I do need to uncover the daffodils in the front garden soon.

Going to the grocery store endless times in a week because we always are running out of something.

The list could go on and on.....but it stops now. For fear of becoming boring.

Not again...

Read this Flood advisory for Oshkosh:

* UNTIL MIDNIGHT CDT WEDNESDAY* AT 409 PM CDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATEDANOTHER AREA OF MODERATE RAIN WITH EMBEDDED THUNDERSTORMS OVERSOUTHERN WISCONSIN WILL BEGIN TO SPREAD INTO CENTRAL AND EASTCENTRAL WISCONSIN BETWEEN 430 PM AND 530 PM. SINCE 7 AM...UP TOINCH OF RAIN HAS FALLEN SO FAR WITH LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS OF 1 TO 2INCHES IN THE FOX VALLEY VICINITY REGION FROM FOND DU LAC TOAPPLETON. ANOTHER INCH OR TWO OF RAIN IS POSSIBLE THROUGH THEEVENING HOURS. IF ADDITIONAL RAINFALL EXCEEDS 2 INCHES THISEVENING...FLOOD WARNINGS MAY BE ISSUED.* RUNOFF FROM THIS RAINFALL WILL CAUSE MINOR FLOODING TO OCCUR... ESPECIALLY ALONG SMALL STREAMS AND NEAR LOW WATER CROSSINGS. SOME LOCATIONS THAT WILL EXPERIENCE FLOODING INCLUDE...APPLETON...GREEN BAY...KEWAUNEE...MANITOWOC...MARINETTE...OSHKOSH...SHAWANO... STEVENS POINT...STURGEON BAY...WAUPACA...WAUSAU...WAUTOMA... WISCONSIN RAPIDS.

Have I done something to offend the rain gods? Please let it stop. I don't want to have to watch my basement flood again.

Weekend acquisitions

Paulette, Cheryl and I went to the alpaca show on Sunday afternoon. We must have missed Patty, since we didn't see her anywhere there. The alpacas were cute anyhow.


We then went to Barnes and Noble. I found this book that I have been wanting for a while:





My review of this book is that it was well worth the $18.95 I paid for it. There are only a few things I would never knit in here.


On Saturday we went to Yarns by Design in Neenah. I was looking for Handmaiden Sea Silk. I wasn't disappointed:




The yarn is destined to become a scarf for me.

Not much else exciting is going on here. April is getting closer. I like spring a lot, but this April is going to be trying. I have something to do every single weekend. Ugh. I'm not happy.....

Thirteen

Thirteen. That's the number of people we had at Knit Night last night at the Koeller Ave. Starbucks. We had to fight for chairs. In the end, we won. The attendees were: Sara, Paulette, Cheryl, Jodi, Margaret, Rachel (on spring break), Diane, Diana, Gail, Vicki, Patty, Ciara, and another woman whose name escapes me at the moment (sorry!). Click the links on the highlighted names to go to their websites. It was a good, but noisy night. We have a lot of talented knitters in our group. Lots of us are knitting lace. Vicki brought along her finished shawl. It is awesome and much more beautiful than it is on her blog. I thought about taking a picture, but it was too hard to get out of the circle of chairs to do that. Besides, I was knitting on my shawl.

If anyone is interested, there is an alpaca show, "Spring Bling Alpaca Show" in Neenah, WI this weekend, March 21-22. It's being held at the Tri County Arena, in Neenah (yeah, that rhymes!). Our fellow knit night knitter and alpaca farm owner, Patty Kandiko, will be participating. The hours are: Saturday, 6:45AM-5:30PM; Sunday, 8AM-2PM. I will probably try to get there on Sunday some time, since I have a meeting that lasts all day on Saturday. I'll have to hustle my bustle on Sunday, since the show ends at 2PM.

Only one more day of work this week. Woo hoo!

Ice out!

Yippee, for the most part all the snow in our yard is gone! There is one tiny area in the backyard that still has some, but other than that it looks like this:

The little post in the center of the picture is the remant of Christmas decorations that still need to be removed. The ground had been too frozen until now to even try to get it out of there in one piece.

The retaining wall made it through the winter beautifully.

I am feeling better now. Unfortunately on the weekend there must have been some powerful allergens outside. I felt terrible. I tried taking Cold Eez and Airborne to see if it would help. It did! I had remembered that I saw some allergy stuff at the grocery store when I was buying Airborne for the millionth time this winter. I was right:

It seems to be working so far.

We're still working on Churchill to be an outside guy. He is interested in the outdoors when I show him. The other day he almost went outside--but he didn't have a leash on, so I didn't want to leave him out there. I miss Jeffy. I didn't realize how much he kind of forced me to be outside in the yard this early in the year, because he wanted to be out there.

Knit Night is tonight! I have 21 repeats done on my shawl. I think I'm going to aim for there to be 30 overall (there were 15 in the original shawl). I'll have to see how big it is when I get that far.

Next week is spring break at UW Oshkosh. No wonder the students are getting kind of squirrely. I can't wait for them to be gone for a week. I need the break from them as much as they need a break.

Snow, snow go away...

Ugh. We got 7.1 inches of snow yesterday. Paulette and I went out to shovel after the weather on the 10:00 news. We were out there until 11:15PM. I figured I was awake anyhow, and it was either shovel then or in the morning. I'm not a big fan of the getting up at the crack of dawn, so last night it was.

Saturday was a beehive of activity for me. Lucky Paulette got to stay home most of the day. I had: a hair appointment in the morning, a funeral in the afternoon and a dinner for the Democratic Party in the evening. I was happy to stay home on Sunday (except for going to church and the store, and of course, Starbucks). Unfortunately daylight savings time kind of messed up the day a little. I made up for it by taking a nap in the afternoon. Woo hoo.

I got some knitting done--not a lot, but some. I am now up to the 15th repeat on my shawl. If I was actually using the weight of yarn the pattern specifies, this would officially (in the pattern's eyes, anyhow) be my last pattern repeat.

Paulette and I had a fruitful trip on Friday to The Sow's Ear in Verona. Witness:

This is Harmony 100% merino wool laceweight. The picture doesn't do it justice. It is so finely spun it should be called "threadweight".

This is Blackberry Ridge laceweight--spun in Wisconsin! The picture shows it much more green than it actually is. It is more of an aqua color in real life. It's destined for the Summer Shawl in the book, "Knitted Lace of Estonia".

I tried to get Churchill to pose for the camera at lunch, but he was sleeping under Paulette's bed. My lunchtime entertainment consisted of this:

This is a shot of the movie, "The Glenn Miller Story", one of my favorite movies. Of course, I didn't have time to watch the whole movie. That's what DVRs are for. And this time I was lucky--I found it just as the credits were starting, so the whole movie is saved on my DVR!

Knit, purl, repeat

My shawl is moving right along. I now have 11 repeats done:





And I'm not bored yet.

I am slowly getting better-I think. The goldenseal is doing it's job to clear out my ears--but what a yucky way to go. I hate colds. Some day I will be well again.

This week has not been such a good one for the Music Department. Our guitar teacher had a heart attack last Saturday and died of complications after bypass surgery on Tuesday. He was 47. It's such a loss--he was a very good classical guitar player.

It's Friday for me today. I have a meeting in Madison tomorrow. As a bonus, Paulette and I are going to a knitting store, The Sow's Ear, in Verona after the meeting. It's where the yarn for the above shawl is from.

Not much else here to report. Have a good weekend, everyone.

Last dance?

Paulette, Cheryl and I went snowshoeing yesterday at Walla Hi County Park in Manitowoc county. It was 12 degrees outside-brrrrrrr. It was pretty cold walking into the wind. My handknit items performed their duties admirably. The snow was really crunchy and ice covered from the rain that fell during the snowstorm last week. I didn't care. It could be the last time until December that I get to go snowshoeing. Here are pictures:

Paulette and Cheryl

Paulette and me

I didn't get any knitting done yesterday at all. I am still (yes, I am) getting over the illnesses that have plagued me since January. The latest is a lovely ear infection. Not a large one, but annoying enough. I am taking goldenseal for it, which seems to be helping. The last time I had an ear infection, I went to the doctor and got antibiotics which killed off good bacteria in other places of my body. Not good. And the antibiotics really didn't help get the gunk out of my ears. So, this is now a do it yourself job. Anyhow, I was so tired from snowshoeing yesterday that I fell asleep almost as soon as we got home. I should have just gone to bed.

Churchill had a good birthday on Saturday. He got cat grass, a new catnip toy, and treats. Let me tell you, if I had to come back as any creature after I died, I would come back to our house as a cat and get spoiled rotten.