spring – Page 7

Mid-May Photo Dump

May 13, 2013 Marie Leave a Comment

I have a folder full of photos I’ve taken over the last few weeks but it has taken me impossible amounts of energy to get around to editing and posting them. I’ve been going to my chiropractor twice a week for the last 5 weeks attempting to regain some sort of normalcy in my life as far as my pain level goes, and today I feel like I finally had a bit of a breakthrough when I was informed that I can step my appointments down to once a week.

Chocolate berry bake thing. I just kind of winged it, mixing milk and egg and flour and sugar and cocoa powder and whatnot and baking until it wasn’t runny anymore. Next time I bake it I want to play with the recipe a bit more and see if I can improve upon it.

Baby knitting for a coworker. I refuse to knit sweaters and other wearables until I know the gender, so for now I’ve been knitting this sweet vintage bunny as a gift. I have it mostly sewn up at this point, but I’m undecided on whether to put a plain fabric in the ears or if I want to pick out some pretty quilting cotton fabric for them.

My veggies should be outside, but we had to bring them in thanks to a few frost warnings the last few days. The weather is supposed to warm up tomorrow and stay there, so I’ll probably plant them in the evening after work.

Saturday I scored a fantastic deal on new dishes. I’ve been wanting new ones for a while now – I think a lot of the experience of cooking and eating dinner at home can be improved simply by having nice dishes and silverware that you love (and I no longer love the set my grandmother found at a garage sale for me), but dishes are always so expensive. I found, by sheer luck, a display of these gorgeous plates and bowls and a few additional pieces (such as the larger serving/salad bowl and such) on clearance for 80% off the full price. I couldn’t believe it! As soon as I came home I made up a batch of brownies to bake while I took the stickers off and washed them, and then promptly enjoyed a straight-from-the-oven-and-still-gooey brownie on my brand new dishes (I also may have just wanted an excuse to eat a brownie… Mother’s Day is pretty torturous and emotional around here so eating my feelings was definitely the theme for the weekend.)

Has anyone ever played Fluxx? I’ve been desperately trying to find games the Mr and I can play with just the two of us – most games I’ve found say 3+ players – and last weekend while out for a “date day” we stopped by a game store at the mall and I found a display of several versions of Fluxx. Of course I had to grab the Monty Python version. We haven’t yet taken the time to sit down and figure it out and play it, but we will soon.

I cast on for another pair of socks. True Love this time, which is a pattern I picked up back in February when the designer was giving it away as a freebie for Valentine’s Day. This is only my 2nd pair of toe-up socks, and it took me 3 tries to get the cast-on right. Things have gone smoothly since then, and I’ve noticed that my intuitiveness with cables is much improved. It still takes me a bit to accustom myself to each individual pattern’s marking/style, but I’ve started to be able to just look at the pattern and know which cable and which direction I’m going rather than having to constantly refer to the pattern notes.

My Burst of Colors shawl, a little rumpled from leaving it on the spare bedroom desk after blocking. Excellent for some mindless knitting, and it’s made in the yarn I picked up in Michigan on our anniversary trip. I LOVE this yarn. It’s so soft, and the colors are gorgeous. And, even though I intentionally purchased it for a Color Affection, I have to say that I’m happy I chose to knit this instead.

I had quite a bit leftover, so I made myself a little coffee cup sleeve for my Starbucks days for knitting. It’s a bit tight, and the X pattern in the middle got a little lost, but it serves its purpose and I’ll probably use it more than I’ll wear my shawl!

And my geek girl mitts, finished and blocked and ready to be shipped out for my yarn swap at the end of this month. The yarn was a little too thin and more like lace weight than a fingering weight. But they still turned out nicely and the stitch definition is quite nice on those cables. (On a totally unrelated note, the fabric behind the mitts? It’s the seat of an old chair I picked up at the Goodwill a while back. I thought I’d recover it with something that matched the room better but the current one has grown on me in the only way an old, beat up chair can.)

Rainy days and aching bones

April 11, 2013 Marie 1 Comment

April showers are supposed to bring May flowers, but yesterday some nasty storms blew through our area and I decided that I didn’t want to wait until May for flowers. So I stopped by the grocery store on the way home and picked myself up a little lovely bouquet with pretty green, cream, and coral flowers and a 12-pack of tasty, delicious beer. And I settled in with my dinner, my drinks, and some knitting and movies on Netflix and had a cozy evening (with candlelight, just in case the power went out).

Today I had an unexpected day off, which is just fine on this cold, gray, dreary day today. I had an appointment with a new chiropractor, but we could only get part of my ‘out’ areas back into place. I very much like this new one – he doesn’t force things or push/tug/pull too hard unless he absolutely has to. And instead of forcing the one spot today, we’re just trying it again on another day. Unfortunately, this means that my entire right side of my neck is tender – both from the spot he tried to adjust and the spot he actually fixed. So it’s been a day for taking it easy at home and not doing much that requires a lot of neck movement. Minimal computer time, a lot of icing the area down and no knitting, since I have to look down too much on my current project. So spinning it is! That fiber I ordered is spinning up beautifully, and I think my plan to spin thicker to not blend the colors so much is working! We’ll see how the finished product looks, though, once I’m done.

Epic Project Weekend

April 7, 2013 Marie 1 Comment

I’m happy to report that Spring seems to have really, truly, officially arrived. The temperatures have warmed (and appear to be staying around for a bit), the birds are out in full force, my garden plants are budding leaves, and I’m overall more in the mood to get things done rather than wanting to hide and hibernate indoors.

There’s been so much accomplished this weekend! Yesterday morning we got up and out the door for my #2/13 5k race for the year. The wind was bitter cold, and I wasn’t at all physically ready to complete a 5k again. But I did it and I ran as much as I could, constantly pushing myself to run more after I’d take a break to walk. The Mr was taking photos of the event, so I stepped out of my comfort zone a bit and tried to make funny faces at him when the camera was on me. :)

I followed up my race with my regular monthly knitting day with my girls. And a Starbucks Vanilla Blonde coffee, because if I didn’t have some caffeine I was probably going to fall asleep in the middle of knit group! I’m almost done with my Burst of Colors shawl (though truth be told it’ll probably be scarf-sized rather than shawl-sized). I cast off for the white and picked up stitches in the ‘seabreeze’ colorway, and I made some good progress last night while we had a family Monty Python and the Holy Grail night with the Mr. and his son.

Today has been deemed ‘project’ day. It’s a beautiful 71 degrees and sunny with not a cloud to be found! So to take advantage of the weather, Mr and I made a trip to Lowes to pick up some necessary items for repairs around the house. Our garage door is breaking down but we can’t afford to replace it, so we’re trying to make it work for now. And then, while he was working on that, I broke out our brand new circular saw to cut some wood and build a crate. I’ve never made anything with wood before, and I’ve never used a saw, so it was both scary and exciting. The crate turned out great, though it’s far from perfect. But for a first project? I think I did pretty great! And I’ve got a bit more confidence now to make more. Next one I might make the effort to sand and stain it so I can use it for stackable yarn and craft storage!

Speaking of crafts… don’t you just love those stitch markers?? They look like little Earths! These are going in a package to another knitter, but I might just have to make myself a set. And I’m definitely making myself a set of earrings out of them for Earth Day!

Celebrating Spring

March 31, 2013 Marie Leave a Comment

I know, for a lot of people, Easter Sunday is a big deal. I grew up in church. I grew up with having a new dress each year, with egg hunts and baskets of candy and toys. I know why my family celebrate the day. But it’s never felt… important to me. At least not in the same way it does to my family.

Instead, I choose to celebrate Spring. I choose to celebrate the return of the sun and its warmth and the return of the flower blooms and the birds. I choose to celebrate Spring because it’s the only thing that feels right to me. And it’s a bit of a compromise – I still attend Easter dinner, even though our personal beliefs differ, and while my family prays over the food and thanks Jesus I quietly reflect on all the amazing things that happen during this season. It keeps the peace.

Wet Jeans & Courage

May 4, 2012 Marie Leave a Comment

This picture probably doesn’t look like much. But from the knees down, my jeans are soaked.

Today I had a whole new experience: riding my motorcycle in the rain. I assure you it wasn’t intentional. And I worked myself up way too much over it throughout the day, dreading the moment I had to get back on the bike and face the music (or, rather, the raging storms that were blowing across my route home).

It took a lot of courage to get on that bike. And it took even more courage to start heading down the road. And then it took a whole new level of courage to not pull over as soon as the rain drops started pelting my face (Um, yeah, I need a new helmet. This little half one is great for around town, not for longer distances). And you know what? It wasn’t that bad! Nice, even!