Never a Dull Moment

So it has not been a quiet week here in Lake Wobegone. John spent most of the week in Los Angeles. He had meetings and conferences but did have some time to kill Friday afternoon before getting on the red-eye (ugh) flight home. He went down to the beach, and snapped this lovely post-rain shot. Meanwhile, back on the home front, I was dealing with all the usual stuff, plus report cards, a major windstorm, which led to a 6 hour power outage Thursday afternoon/evening, and braces for Rachel. The power outage was complicated by the fact that Rachel had a paper to type. That was due the next day. That she hadn't started typing yet, and that I was unaware of up until that point - well, except that I had been asking her when it was due for quite some time, and she didn't seem to know. She honestly thought that since her rough draft had been approved by the teacher, all she needed to do was type that up. I know they talk about editing in school, and we've edited with her, was she not paying attention???? And of course, the power outage started about 3pm, just before she got home from school, and ended about 9pm.

It worked out ok, I made the kids do their homework while it was still daylight, and we went out to dinner. Then I took all the kids plus my laptop over to the church, plugged in, and Rachel typed her paper while I had choir practice. By the time we got home, the power was on, so I printed her paper and made comments on it while they all went to bed. The next morning, I got her up early, and she and I worked on it after I put William on the bus. Thank goodness her school starts the latest, and that morning she actually had a 9am appointment to get her braces, so we had a few extra minutes. The braces didn't take long, and she made it to school, with a decent paper, in time for her math test.

Her teeth are still kind of sore, but she's adjusting. I stand by my theory that Advil is a wonder drug.

I thought I'd post some of my finished objects that I've knitted. I haven't yet taken a picture of both socks, but they've been worn and washed once already. I finished the item that I'm sending my sister for the baby, but I want to get that mailed to her before I post it.

I knitted and felted this bag in November, but I still haven't gotten around to sewing on the embellishments. It came out smaller than I was hoping, but it's nifty, and it was fun to felt it. I'm thinking I should make a larger felted bag/purse, but I'm still looking at patterns.

Sheba had to get in on the picture taking. Walking on knitted objects soon leads to sitting on knitted objects.
And this is the sweater I cast on. It's a top-down V-neck pullover pattern from Knitting Pure and Simple. I just started the 2nd skein of wool (Cascade 220 Paints in #9844, which is a blue/purple/green variegated), and I'm still on the shoulders, so I have a ways to go. I cast on a pair of socks for Rachel in a cheapo sock yarn from Michaels, but I'm not really liking either the color or the pattern so far, so even though I have about 4 inches knit already, I'm thinking of ripping them out and either starting over in a different pattern or just using a different yarn. It takes me so long to make progress that I'm reluctant to just frog it, but...

We'll see. Tomorrow the kids are off from school, so we are planning to go into New York and visit the Natural History Museum. I'm probably driving into Hoboken and then taking the PATH (subway) in, so I probably won't take knitting with me. Even though socks are the perfect thing to knit on the subway.

And John and I did go out to dinner for Valentine's Day. I had made reservations (on the theory that if I wanted to go out, I had better make my own reservations) at a semi-upscale Italian place. It was nice, I had buffalo carppaccio and grilled swordfish with a crabmeat risotto, and John had buffalo mozzarella and then ostrich. Yes, around here that is semi-upscale. The REALLY nice place (I got to go once) closed about a year ago after they were damaged in a flood. It was a five-star restaurant, and really was better than anyplace else I've ever eaten. Then we walked around the mall afterwards, and actually got to talk to each other without interruptions. It was very nice.