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This morning I woke up to a fit of coughing.  I’ve had this allergy attack for a couple of weeks now.  I think it has to do with this being the first spring in our new condo, which backs up to the woods.  This is also high tree pollen week. BEAUTY 

I turned to look out the window, as I always do, just to watch the trees in the morning, and to check the condition of my corner of the world.  At first glance I thought the trees all had blue flowers in them.  When my mind registered that this couldn’t be true I realized that the sky was so blue beyond the gaps in the leaves it looked like flowers.
I then ran out to the kitchen to get my camera and tried to recreate my first look.   What do you think?

Speaking of Beauty:  These are my Mother’s Day flowers:  

 J O B CREATES LOST BRAIN CELLS

 This marks weekend ends 4 weeks and 2 days on the job.  I think my mind hasn’t really dealt with my being back at work.  I called my daughter and left messages earlier this month to find out what to get my 3 year-old grandson, Jake.  I thought his birthday was May 4^th, but she reminded me it was May 20^th.  I get to take him to Toys-R-Us on Sunday to pick out his present. 

I also thought I missed my newest son-in-law’s birthday.  I was so upset that I did I fired off an email that had the words of the song (Happy Birthday to you) in it.  I called last night to invite them out to dinner to celebrate his birthday and Beth told me it was June 6^th.  He probably thinks I’m crazy, and maybe I am. 

KNITTING 

I finished the minnow knits vest and it’s really cute.  I started on the matching hat and brought it to SNB Newington to check the size progression and the consensus was that it was too small, so I have to frog out about an inch and make it bigger. I started on one half of a sweater pattern called Mother’s Day Duo for Mother and Daughter.  I used an acrylic and cotton yarn that is, and I still find it had to tell yarn weights unless the label specifically tells me) going pretty fast.  I finished the back and have cast on both the left and right side to do at once.  Let’s see if I can do the mirror images for the arms. 

I am also dying to cast on for the Annetrelac Socks that I found on Ravelry.  Chris is making a scarf out of the Entralac  pattern and I love the look. But before I do I still need to finish a pair of May socks, so I think I’ll do a bulky quick pair, good for winter nights.(wikipedia:  Entrelac is a knitting technique used to create a textured diamond pattern. While the end result resembles basket-woven strips of knitted fabric, the actual material comprises interconnected squares on two different orientations.) I find I’m much more organized when I use Ravelry, but I also find I get lost for hours, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that.  I CAN NOT go there on a work day morning.

I chose to write this morning because I have been catching up on my blog reading and saw Amy Tan Ridley, a R&B Singer singing in the subway and now am a fan!

I tried to embedd the UTube of her singing, but you can see it at my son-in-laws blog here.

 Here is the Kitty we got last fall, she’s still not a year old. This a picture of Pricess Fluffy in April 2008

   And here she is in May 2008!!  Whose cat did the groomer give me???????

I didn’t realize what a small cat she is.  She weighed 11 lbs before grooming.

I’ve finished my sweater with the yarn from Kris’ Painted Sheep Yarn: 
 I’m debating putting a kangroo pouch pocket on it, but I need to figure out how.

I’m also making a Minnowknits Vest and Hat #175QK with Breeze Heirloom yarn.  It’s handwash or dryclean only, so perhaps it’s not good for a kids vest, but I love working with this yarn and love the colors.  The pattern calls for bulky yarn but this seems to be DK.  I didn’t want to do all the math to make it work, so I just cast on for the largest size and used the recommended needles for the recommend by the Heirloom (size 5) and let the size be what it came out to be.  FYI I cast on size 8 and it’s a size 2.  It’s almost finished.  I still have to do the arm band and I intent to redo the neck band. 

I figured out how to make a smooth edge when decreasing.  I didn’t perl the last stitch and then just bound off on the knit side.  Probably everyone knows this, but wow, now I know. See how smooth (the color is off but it’s the same vest as above) the bound off edge is?  That 4 rounds of bindoffs!!

I feel like I’ve knit the Nutkin Socks over and over again.  It’s not a hard or complicated pattern, but I keep loosing concentration.   First I made them too small, now I messed up the toe decreases.  And I’m not mentioning that I have no clue on how to do a short row heel.  I just used a traditional heel.

 To ease my frustration I started a multi-color vest.  At the NeedleArts sale and found a great Austrailian wool with a touch of lycra in it and the colors were perfect.  I just bought a bunch of skeins.  Did I mention it’s an 8 ply and knits easy?  Did I also mention it’s not bulky and that’s what the pattern calls for?

 My work around was to cast on for the largest size and see what happens.  I figure that I could find someone to give it to as a baby gift.  The size 8 works out to a 2, just as I expected given the needle size and yarn recommendations for the pattern and what I actually knit with.  Not a problem I have a perfect candidate, my nephew’s little girl, Alora whose birthday is 5/5/08.

 I cast on in the purple finished the back and it went quite quickly.  I cast lime green for theleft front measured after a couple of inches and noticed I was either  knitting tighter, or because the first five stitches are seed as opposed to st st it was a half inch too narrow.  Yep, I ripped and will cast on with additional stitches for the width.

 I have officially completed 5 days of my new job.   I love the commute, 4.5 miles up the Berlin Turnpike.  I hate that I have to get up at 6-6:30 to get ready.  It takes me an adverage of 30 - 40 minutes to read the paper, eat breakfast and make lunch.

I finally found out what the benefits are.  Most importantly pay day is bi-weekly and the first one is next Wednesday (YAHOO) 2 weeks vacation and if I remember 5 sick days. 

 I already told them that I have to take 2 days off in June to see Bette Midler in Las Vegas, and want some to leave some Thursdays early to play golf.  Am I demanding or what?  I have also stayed until 5:30, an extra half hour every day this week, missing this weeks golf game

 My sweet hubby bought lobsters (my favorite) for dinner Friday night as a surprise celebration for completing my first work week. proving once again that he is the sweetest man.  He even said that he’d take on the laundry (he has owned the kitchen for a couple of years now).  Between that and the cleaning lady every two weeks, I may still have lots of time to knit and he still has plenty of time to play cards.

I’m reading a Tami Hoag novel, mystery.  It’s a good bedtime read and listening to xxxx on tape.    I checked this morning and still not any movies that call out to me.  We did watch “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” the other night with a very young Jack Nichloson.  After all these years it’s still funny.