Typical Pacific Northwest weather. Cloudy, rainy, windy, grey and cold. Still, i am surprisingly happy; content and at peace with myself - finally.

With one exception...

Baths and showers all around. Baby girl, myself & ... the cats. yes, the cats. they need a flea shampoo bath. They get the flea drops and we have used the carpet spray from the vet, but they keep coming back. i'm not sure what to do short of getting rid of the cats.

Now for the rest of the story...

So the whole flea thing is not that big of a deal and isn't making my life miserable...it's just an irritation that i wanted to get out of the way... oh yes and my capital i still isn't working...as well as my capital y and delete button. at some point i will need to clean up the mess that was made. ok, done with the complaints for the day!

To do list for the day:

• Baths
• the usual household chores, i.e. laundry, dishes, vacuum
• file my weekly unemployment claim
• work on a design mockup for one of my projects

yes, sounds daunting doesn't it? Maybe i can get a little morning practice in too and coffee.

Knitting...

i need to finish the cotton wash cloth i started months ago. Then, i would like to start a new fun project like a hat and scarf for Lily.

i am still fighting the instant gratification need and so my project ideas are still of the small variety; children's sizes, hats, scarfs.

Spinning...

This is my secret hobby desire & want: to be at a weekend beach front cabin in the San Juan islands with a fire burning in the fireplace, toasty warm, and spinning luscious fibers to my heart's content whilst Ryan taps away at his keyboard, writing to his heart's content. oh, and there would need to be a yarn/spinning store within walking distance! and a local funky coffee shop!

Dharma...

Early yesterday morning, i was up before light and did 108 prostrations. it was the perfect way to start the day. it set my body and mind up perfectly for moving through the day with the right motivation.

Evening practice yesterday was a grounding way to begin the closing of the day and handling the chaos that typically ensues when Ezra comes home from his dad's and Lily hasn't seen her big brother all weekend.

Tonight, Red Tara tsok dedicated to Lama Gyatso & Dave Heinrich.

Tomorrow night, Red Tara tsok, in commemoration of H.E. Chagdud Rinpoche's parinirvana.

Busy week full of blessings.

Now on with the day!

The Resurgent Knitter

One of my favorite past times is knitting. I will admit to not being very good but I am a little bit more than a beginner. My thing is that I like immediate gratification so I tend to lean toward the easier patterns and smaller projects like hats, scarves and big bulky knits for sweaters. The sooner I can see my results the happier I am. Maybe I have ADHD or something but I can get pretty bored with something very quickly if I have to do a stockinette stitch that goes on forever, like in the way of an adult sweater in worsted weight yarn on size 9US needles.

The last project I completed was about a year and a half ago. It was a boatneck sweater by Debbie Bliss for the baby I was expecting. It was a size 3-6 months, so it was small and knitted up fast. The challenging part was sewing the pieces together. I wasn't completely satisfied with it but it was cute.

Now that I am thinking about it, I think I did knit a couple of small scarves since then, but nothing to write home about.

A friend of mine has been knitting and spinning for a long time and one day she had come over with a small drop spindle and wool. I thought it was so cool! I wanted to do that too!

I was a student and single mom at the time so I didn't have the expendable income to blow on wool and a wooden drop spindle so it had to remain a yearning desire.

Jump forward several years and I decide to put a drop spindle, wool and a book on the subject onto my Amazon wishlist a few weeks before my birthday.

My friend and I always joked around about how no one ever gets you stuff from your wishlist. It was true. No one ever does. So when it was her birthday back in February, I was determined to get her something from her wishlist, and I did.

But I digress...

My friend comes over a couple of days before my birthday bearing gifts - even after I said no gifts. She hands me a cool bag from a local yarn store, Village Yarn & Tea.

Inside are several wrapped gifts and as I begin to unwrap them I realize that she had just given me things from my wishlist - a drop spindle, carded wool, and a book. As a bonus, she also put in some recycled sari silk yarn from Nepal. How cool is that? I was giddy like a child!

Another friend, the spinning friend, also came over and gave me yarn along with a pattern for a neck warmer. This was all I needed to get me back into knitting again after quite a long hiatus.

I am so thrilled to have my hobby back as well as a new one that compliment each other so perfectly. In between spinning wool, I knit my neck warmer. Which has cables, something I have never done so it is an especially fun challenge for me. Needless to say, I did end up having to frog the damn thing and start over! So I'm a bit rusty, I'm just warming up!

Thank you to my wonderful friends who know just the right things to enable me in my obsession of yarn and fiber.