Monday, February 11, 2008

Mud, Yarn, Mourning and a Sighting

The ground is coming out of its seized up state. The yard is still a safe harbor for a 10' x 20' island of snow, but the rest of it is mud or dirt hiding a mushy subsurface. Grape hyacinths are poking up as are the frighteningly large populations of irises and white onion-y things. Go to sleep, fellas. This is Nevada. This is the land of Memorial Day snows after February 'springs'.

Took advantage of the 60 degree temperature to trim the hedges so they no longer scratch at the windows like a gnarled fairtale monster. Made a lovely bowl of soup and some of the best bread I have ever baked. Also, baked some chocolate chip cookies for our Sunday morning guests.

And I spent a lot of time screwing up my knitting. I finished my Jaywalker sock. I wove in all the ends and then tried it on my right foot. Too long for my foot, strange bunching about the ankle and too tight around the calf. And my calves are not that big. I went to bed, woke up for a couple hours in the middle of the night and tried to assess the situation. What do I do? Start over? Make a second ill-fitting sock? I am honest with myself and decided that I'm so sick of this yarn and pattern, I will rip it out in the morning and make a scarf out of the yarn a few years in the future when I can stand to look at the yarn again. In the morning, I try the sock on my left foot. It fits better, but the calf is still stretched thin. I decide to not rip out the sock right away and I start working on my Mom's birthday present. I am groggy (note that I said I was awake for a couple hours during the night). A few wrongly placed yarn overs later and I'm cursing my knitting. Sigh. It took me about an hour to 'fix' it, but it's not the perfectly knit item that it once was. I work on Clapotis and as I am about to start the meat of the pattern, I realize I did some seriously funky yarn joining. At least that was easily remedied. Oh, Clapotis! Have I told you how much I adore you?

And mourning? Yes, but nothing too serious at the moment (although I did feel choked up when I was sweeping under the couch and found about a dozen of Nora's tennis balls). Kidlet has officially given up her nap. My two hours of peace in the middle of the weekend have been rudely and abruptly stripped away.

The sighting: spotted towhee. I love bird watching. It feels good to get back to it. I used to be obsessed with birds when I was very young. I would pour over the bird section in the encyclopedia, memorizing the birds and the motions required for flying. No, I didn't not stand on a chair in the spare room trying to move my arms in the same manner as the birds in the hopes I would fly. Nope, that wasn't me. Ok, it was.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

i still have our old dogs collar, it has her white hairs stuck to it and i can't bear to get rid of it. and what to do? just toss it away? it was a part of her. it's funny how something small like tennis balls can trigger all those emotions.

sorry about the nap. or lack thereof. river gave his up a few months ago and man, that was hard on momma! but when i realized bedtime was earlier, it ended up being tolerable.

it'll come around again. the upswing.

right now it's 11pm and i hear cicadas. they think it's spring. it's crazy.

Anonymous said...

clearly, i didn't make it over here last night.

i am feeling your pain on the naps. that was such a huge, hard adjustment for me. i was so used to that quiet in the middle of the day. but we continued with "quiet time" for a while after the napping ended. everybody had a bit of quiet time by themselves - my believe was (and still is) that we each needed it as much as the other.

and hyacinths and irises!? love. spring.

Anonymous said...

oh. and did you see my bird picture on flickr from the weekend?

Ani said...

csm--we now have two dog collars hanging on a coat rack by the door. it's kind of like we're still waiting for them to come home.

emily--yes! i was going to try and figure out the bird puzzle, but it looked like everyone had it all figured out. so fun! and yes. spring. :)