Passing Time Productively

How nice--it's been a busy couple of days so time is passing quickly and productively.

I thought I'd share the progress on the green shawl. It is lumpy and unblocked, but you can see that it is looking shawl-esque. The neckline is what is at the top, and the bottom is the curved stuff on the needles. It's a simple garter stitch Faroese shawl--it wraps around the shoulders and should stay on well. That's the plan, anyway. Yesterday I got to look at the color card for this Shetland Jumper Weight yarn, so I picked out a color for MY shawl, which will be next. With each row approaching 400 stitches, though, it may be a while! I am almost to the border, though!

Friday I had my official "vacation" day, in which (after the requisite job applying) I went to my friend Karen's house in Lakeway, and we ate delicious vegan food and then went swimming in what is left of Lake Travis. It is 55 feet under "full," so the beach area was many, many yards from where the water actually was. Karen't daughter took some underwater photos of fishies, which looked fun, while Karen and I took a well earned rest and just floated in inner tubes. We earned the rest after blowing the tubes up! Neither she nor I are good at doing nothing, so it was probably a rare site to see BOTH of us just floating and talking about how we wished we could live somewhere that the neighbors would not judge our lawns. But we came to the conclusion that no place would be perfect--sticking us out in the sticks would sure make getting to food a pain.

I spent Friday night blissfully at home, doing nothing other than knitting, reading, and talking to the kids on the phone for a while. I skipped out on the Dear Partner's gig, which was good, as it turned out to be the smokiest one they ever played, in which even the smokers in the band had to go outside to smoke in "fresh" air. Turned out no one had turned on the smoke eliminator thingies. Next time, they'll know. That band is doing great, though, and I think they may start getting more regular work--people like them.


Yesterday was a fairly standard Saturday in which I headed out to Knitting World and taught someone some stuff and chatted with the usual gathering of friends. It's always nice to catch up on people, support them, and be distracted by what's going on in the lives of others. It's really a nice bunch of folks there. I spent most of the day crocheting this Java Jammie thing that appeared in the Berocco email newsletter. Both the yarn shop owner and I had printed it out! I made mine "Venti" sized. I sure enjoyed it, though the shiny section of that Boho yarn is really hard to crochet with. Now my drinks will look "classy." The rest of the day, I tried to avoid having yarn thrown at me, but at some point, I realized I was feeling pretty down and not being a good contributor to the atmosphere, so I went on home and fell asleep.

But, I rallied and headed out to the next band gig, which was also smoky, but I survived. I wore one of my new shirts, and was informed I was "hot" by the drummer's girlfriend. It actually IS a flattering shirt, but GEEZ I have to do something with my hair. That will be next. It was nice that quite a few of our friends came out to hear the rock band. Unfortunately, one group brought five children, and they weren't allowed in the room where the band was, which led to some hard feelings. I guess the venue was "family" oriented, but not totally. I did enjoy the variety of people to talk to, though--and there was a lot of applause and stuff, which must have made the band dudes feel good. And the dancing couples lent interesting "scenery" to all. It was quite amusing that my friend Scott kept complaining that they blocked his view of the guitarists' hands--first time I ever saw a man complain about women flaunting their artificially enlarged chest areas and gyrating. It was "hat night" and most of the guys had on hats, in honor of the Dear Partner wearing his ancient jeans cap. Need to figure out a way to wash that thing...

Today is rest, laundry and work on the shawl day. It's all rainy, which is nice in a lot of ways. Cozy. Makes for good nesting.