Back to work tomorrow

For a half day, at least.

On a more important topic - I finished the body of the Tie One On wrap and knitted one tie.


I hope that it blocks flat. It is knitted across the long way and has 4 rows of ribbing at the start and finish (top and bottom edge). Right now the ribbing seems to want to fold up over the stockinette that follows. The sample I saw in the store didn't do that, so I will have faith that the folding will stop once it is blocked.

The weather was gross today, but the weather peple did get that one right. We'll see if they get the snow showers tomorrow right. I will be working a half day and then coming home and attempting a walk with Karen. Don't know how far or how fast I'll go, but I will try. Eldest son came over today to return my car (which he had borrowed so he could look for a car of his own to replace the one that was totaled by the insurance company after his run in with the guard rail). He did grocery shopping for me, which was a big help. He stayed for dinner, which he hasn't done in a while and was very nice.

I am off to knit the other tie on my wrap and watch more home improvement shows (I think I have seen all of the episodes they are broadcasting right now since I couldn't do much but watch TV for a few days, but I'll take a look). Have a good night.

Morning visitors

These guys came to visit this morning while I was eating my breakfast. I love to watch Dark Eyed Juncos eating, but they are more cute in the snow. They do this little hop dance when they are trying to get at seeds under the snow that has DH and I laughing.


No snow this morning but I was cheered to see them. The sun is shining today so that makes me happy, too. I think I need one more day at home and then I will be able to go back to work. Today is for doing a few more things around the house than resting but still taking it easy. No spinning, but more knitting. I can't seem to get away from the latest perfume - parfum de Icy Hot. blegh.



Our boat just come back after getting a new bimini top and side curtain. It looks good! Now we will be able to use the boat earlier in the spring and well into the fall and still be warm and protected from spray when we want to be protected. yipee!

I am off to the recliner and more knitting on Tie One On.

Bump, bump, Ouch!

I fell down the stairs yesterday. Well, down half a flight. I followed the vacuum, which is, I suppose, better than having it follow me. I was taking the vacuum down the stairs, carefully sliding it down ahead of me rather than lifting and carrying it since I had a sore back already. My feet just slipped out from under me and down I went. I landed hard on my left butt cheek and bone, with my right arm and shoulder sort of jammed up because I had tried to stop the slide with that arm. Once I managed to get up I wasn't sure whether I should keep moving and not stop or lie down and not move. LOL.



This morning was much better than I thought, all things considered. I was sore all over but able to move everything. I will be home from work tomorrow but I might make it back to work by Tuesday - Wednesday at the latest. No bruises showing yet but I think there is a big one building beneath the skin judging by the pain I feel when I sit down. : (



I have been knitting. It's not esay knitting when you have to spend most of your time either standing up or lying flat, but it can be done. This is the Tie One On that I mentioned in Thursday's post. Here's my progress:



















I also managed to get outside for a little while (the sunshine was irresistable) and took a few photos of the remaining snow and ice meling. Here's one of my faviorites.

ice bubbles 4
Originally uploaded by linda*57b

I have watched a lot of Style and HGTV this weekend, a little golf, and read a book. Well, to be honest, I finished reading the book I had already started. Sitting is painful so I stand (which is how I am writing this blog post) or lie down. I have used a lot of Icy Hot and taken a lot of Ibuprofen. I really hope I feel better soon. Have a good Monday.

It was all talk and no action

Last night's forecast for several inches of snow followed by freezing rain was a lie. Again. We had less than an inch and there is nothing falling now. Schools and businesses closed, people stayed home, all for nothing. I think we need a sweep of all meteorologists in addition to all politicians. Replace them all with people who know how to be honest and do the job they are paid for. I am disgusted. : (

I plan to work from home today, and actually, considering my back pain, it will be a few hours each day over the entire weekend. I have my papers set up on the counter in the kitchen so I can stand and work instead of sitting. (sitting increases my discomfort) I do hope to get in some knitting and spinning over the weekend, but I am not sure about how that will affect my back. I start physical therapy on Monday. I hope that will help. This is getting old.

My mother will be coming to visit in a couple of weeks. We will be going to the MD Flower show. This has become a tradition for us, with the excpetion of a couple of years when I was recovering from surgery or other illness. We shop, we browse, we get inspired by all of the wonderful garden displays. We usually buy a few plants (too early to put them out yet, but who can resist at the end of winter?). There is also a craft show at the same venue which we will check out (I like to look for holiday gifts there) and this year there is an orchid show. My mother recently started growing orchids, so that will be great for her to see. I'll take my camera and take lots of photos.




This is my mother and DH at Jones Beach last weekend. I am sure that you could not see the water from the boardwalk today. They are having all the snow that I was hoping for there. Bummer.

there was a lunar eclipse last night

I actually saw it! It seems like they are usually taking place at 3 AM or some other ungodly hour but this one started at about 9 PM. How impressive is it to see the full moon slowly disappearing from view? Actually, it didn't disappear; it was clearly shadowed but still visible. The shadowed part looked sort of amber in color. Very impressive.























You can see (despite the blurred photo) that the moon was being shadowed in this photo. At this point I was hand holding the camera instead of using the mini tripod - hence the blurriness. Sorry. But this was one of the few shots that showed the amber color.














I went to my LYS tonight for knit night and was totally tempted into making a purchase.






This Silk Garden Lite will become Tie One on
Someone had made one of these and when the owner modeled it in the store I just coudn't resist. It looked great! I can't wait to finish mine. I actually liked the one in my LYS more than the versions shown on knitty.com.



Just because I like them, I will share a couple more photos from our Jones Beach trip last weekend.















Have a good Friday, and if you live in the East, be careful in the "wonderful" weather predicted.

Christmas in February

We spent a few hours at the beach this past weekend. We were so bundled up, you couldn't see much skin, but we were there.




The waves were awesome. Everything somehow gets into prospective when you see the ocean. We (each of us) are but a small part of the world but we can each play such an important part in keeping the world the way it is or letting it deteriorate.

We noticed that there were a lot of seagulls on the beach and in the water near shore. Many more than usually seen. When we got closer we could see that the birds were eating clams that had washed up on the beach.


I don't know whether there was a kill of clams for some reason or if there was a storm that washed them up (seems unlikely since they are buried in the sand). We asked a few people but no one seemed to know.


We had a grat dinner that night and then opened our stocking stuffers (we had decided against big gifts this year). We had great fun with that! My mother really got in to the stocking suffer spirit this year and got some great things, especially for DH. The next day we did stuff around the house and then went out for a wonderful dinner at a steak place nearby. Conversation flowed easily and the evening was a success.

We had to leave Monday to head back to MD, so our visit was short but it was very good to see my mother again. She will be 75 this year and I don't want to take having her around for granted.

This was on the wall of the lifeguard building at the beach. We stared at it (not for the first time) for quite a while, trying to decide what it is. Anybody want to hazard a guess? Keep in mind that I don't have the answer. I am looking for one.














On the radio on the way home from work today I heard that there is a group of people who are trying to change the law so that they can buy unpasteurized milk. The radio person said this groups claims that the taste is changed with the process (I have no doubt) and that they feel like they "should have the right buy milk directly from the cow if they want to and she allows it!" I laughed for a good long time at that one.

My Valentine's Day

Flowers, chocolate and a gift certificate for a pampering manicure and pedicure. What more could a girl ask for?

It's hump day

It is Wednesday and I made it to work today despite the weather. We didn't have 2 feet of snow or anything drastic (and fun) like that, just ice and freezing rain that created a solid coating over everything. I literally slid at about a 40 degree angle down the driveway this morning at 6 AM. Not fun, especially with the car parked on the street directly across from the driveway! But I lucked out and so did the neighbor). LOL.

The gift scarf was completed last night. I hope to have blocking photos soon - maybe later today. I also finished the knitting part of the alpaca sock. I just have to do the bind off tonight (I hope) and they will be wearable. With the weather we've had the last few days I can use nice warm cuddle up on the couch socks. I do love to finish knitted projects.

This weekend we are going to visit my mother who lives on Long Island. It will be our Christmas visit if you can believe that. Between illness and schedules we just haven't been able to get up there, and she couldn't come down to see us for the same reasons. It should be a nice relaxing weekend of visiting, eating, knitting and some walking. I hope the weather cooperates and we can get to the beach for a little while. No, not sun or water bathing. Just to look at and “feel” the power of the ocean and the world that is so much bigger than us. It’s a great reminder. I have not yet planned and packed my knitting projects for the trip. That is a high priority for tonight.

The omens and signs continued yesterday.
I did not mis-read any more progress notes. Good.
I did leave work before the ice and accidents started. Very good.
I did have some ice near the end of my trip but I got home safely and in a reasonable amount of time (compared to my co-worker, who takes a commuter bus home and didn't arrive until after 8PM last night. Usual time is 5:30) good.
I tried to do some laundry. The washer broke. Bad.
The washer tub was full of water and clothes. Heavy clothes, when it broke. Bad for DH.

He was able to do a temporary fix today so we will have clean, dry clothes this week.
Very good.

Over all, not bad for a day that started very questionably. Stay safe, all.

What kind of day will this be?

What kind of signs am I getting this morning?
It's less than 20 degrees outside and I have to go to work. Bad.
It snowed last night. Good.
It only snowed a little bit. Bad.
No accidents on the way in. Good.
My card won’t let me in the parking garage – I got a ticket instead. Bad.
That means I have to stop at the pay booth on the way out, which, at the speed those parking attendants work could add 10 minutes to my commute time. Bad.
It’s too cold to knit while I walk to work from the garage. Bad.
The soda cans in the fridge at work are not frozen. Good.
I am craving candy. At 7 AM. Very bad.
I started to read a progress note in a patient’s chart, and instead of “cath tip” I read “catnip”. Potentially very bad.
I don’t have a lottery ticket for tonight’s drawing for 150 million dollars. Probably good since my chances of winning that are pretty slim, but dreams die hard.

Have a good day and try to stay warm.

It's the weekend!

I AM trying to take as much as I can from each day, enjoy it to the max, but I really do prefer the weekends. LOL.

It turns out that I do have some progress to show you. Here's my hand dyed, handspun handknited sock. My first.


I dyed the fiber (Corriedale) at my house last summer, I spun it in the fall and started knitting it less than a month ago. One done, one to go. I hope to cast on tonight or tomorrow morning. This is such a great commute/travel project. Since I don't know how well I spun this fiber as far as sock wear is concerned, these will probably be cuddle up in the house with warm feet kind of socks, not outdoor socks, but I will do this again. It was a lot of fun and I truly feel that I made these 'from scratch".

I have a photo to show you of my completed alpaca sock.


I added the extra half a pattern repeat to the length and an additional lace row to hopefully get a little more ruffle look and I think it is better. I may be able to finish the other sock by next week, but I have other projects to work on, also.

I am off to do some work. Have a great day.

a sad lack of progress

I don't have much knitting to show for my time away from posting. I don't even have any updated photos to show you. And the really sad thing is that I can't claim that I've been working hard on the bedroom redo and it's done. I am tired and just don't have energy for much of anything. The source of all this fatigue, I think, is the back problems I have been suffering. The pain is not enough to put me to bed but since everything is extra work because of the pain, and pain itself is tiring, I am wiped at the end of my work day.


I have made some progress on the gift scarf, but since it's a scarf and the pattern repeats, the photo would look the same. I would like to finish that project and get it to the recipient. I have about a baseball size ball of yarn left.

I haven't made any progress on the Selbuvotter glove because even with the corrected chart and the knitting doctor's help, I think the instructions are wrong and I have to spend some brain power working out how my planned fix will affect the stitch pattern and I have been too tired to do that. Part of me wants to be very angry with the author of the book or the editors or somebody, because why can't they get this right? I paid "good" money for that book (as if there was bad money! but that's the expression I grew up with)and it should be right. I do know that there are ample opportunities for things to go wrong. It seems to me, though, that there are a lot of errors in this book. Some novels that I read have more errors than others - a lot more. How does this happen? In novels, you would think that spell check would handle most problems, but even spelling mistakes appear in some books. I have been known to not finish a book if there are too many errors. Once I am into a knitting project, though, it's much harder to give up on it due to too many mistakes. Mistakes are harder to find in patterns, especially in the charts, but that is what they hire tech editors for. At least they should hire tech editors. Grrrrrr

I have finished the second alpaca sock with an extra half pattern repeat and an additional row of yo's and decreases to make it more ruffled. I have ripped out the edging of the first sock to add the additional half repeat of the stitch pattern and the other row of edging. Some of that has been re-knitted, but not all of it.


The bedroom is painted - mostly - due to Bob's efforts. I have to do the ceiling cutting in and the trim needs to be painted but the walls are mostly done. It looks good and will look better once the trim is a nice fresh white color.

I am very confused by the weather we have been having. I heard that the ground hog indicated 6 more weeks of winter, but I am not sure we even started winter, never mind getting more of it. Soon the crocus and daffodil bulbs will be popping up. Are we just having a very mild winter or are we being fooled - big time - by Mother Nature?