Old Dog+New Tricks=Brain Freeze

I’ve been terribly disorganized for the past week and a half.  I blame it on houseguests who cause my morning coffee break to run right from breakfast all the way to mid-afternoon.  So all I’ve done this week is eat, drink and visit.  Ain’t life grand?

We’ve had some cooler spring weather, resulting in scenes like this:

and this

 
and this
 

This shot may grace my Christmas letter this year.   Photography is a bit like golf for me:  I have no idea what I’m doing, but periodically I get a good shot.

I have been going cross-eyed looking at bed and breakfast websites in anticipation of our upcoming trip to Scotland.  I decided that we should try to meet people instead of staying in some anonymous hotel, and our travel agent doesn’t deal with b&b’s, hence my own research.  The one we booked on the Isle of Skye is run by an older couple, who emailed me a “wee map” so we won’t get lost on the way there.  I can’t wait to meet them. Then, because Mike was so enthused about the idea not involved in making arrangements, we are staying on a sheep farm in Inverness for 4 days.   The owner trains Border Colllies, so I’ll get a dog fix while I’m away.  Mike generally prefers not to make any reservations before we go anywhere (doesn’t want to be “tied down” to a particular schedule, but he doesn’t seem to want to fly standby…Go figure.) but that is so far out of my comfort zone that I cannot even describe it.  Now that the  arrangements are made, and the Visa card is groaning badly, I have to attend to mundane things like doing our income tax and submitting a GST return for the business.

What knitting I’ve been doing started with a very painful 90 minutes of trying to do an Emily Ocker caston to do a Pi Shawl (Zimmermann).   That works out to 10 minutes a stitch.  I think I have a mental block when it comes to EZ, because her directions and diagrams sometimes appear to have gaps in them.  Turns out that if you stop being a moron read carefully, the directions do make sense.  I just needed an hour and a half  to digest what the heck was going on.  Accordingly, last Wednesday’s S&B was, shall we say, less than productive.  It is a nifty caston, though, and results in a pretty little flowery-shaped thingy in the middle of the circle. 

Once the caston is accomplished (with three cheers and a tiger for me!)  the knitting is simple.  I especially like EZ’s direction after the last round of increases: to “knit until you are tired”.  I have 575 stitches on the needle (yes, I missed an increase.  Tough.) and a round takes me, well, just short of forever. 

I’m using Misti Alpaca worsted weight and provided my splices hold, it should be fairly soft and loose once it’s blocked.  I have no idea how big I’ll make it; I am on the third ball and I still have 5.  I won’t use ‘em all on this; maybe a scarf or two or a vest.  This is lovely to knit with; so soft. 

I can see how one might get bored with this now that the increases are done, but for now, it’s excellent for knitting at a soccer game, in front of the telly, or anywhere that I might be carrying on a conversation.  (Well, that’s just about everywhere I go, even if I’m alone.  Sad, that.)  

We’ve got a full house for supper tonight; my folks, Andy, Geoff and Courtney, Mike and myself.  I was up well before breakfast today, and the cheesecake is made, the salad is marinating, and the spinach lasagne is waiting in the fridge.   Now all I have to do is clear off the dining room table (or “Laptop Central” as I like to call it) and set it for supper.  I told Dad to bring wine, so we may have a bit of an adventure there.  He said he had just bottled some, but I told him we’d rather not have the fresh stuff.

Next morning:  WordPress has very kindly updated the blogging program here, so it took me until today to figure out how to get my pictures inserted.  Thanks for the warning, guys. I was just thinking how sad it was that I just figured out blogging and everyone is now all about Ravlery, when they pull a stunt like this and it turns out I really haven’t figured out blogging. (Kind of like when I set up a Myspace page just when Facebook came on the scene. I guess I’m just a little behind.)

Geoff and Courtney have left to return to Calgary.  They have elected to give Cruise Ship Life a break for now, so are embarking on the Get A Job adventure in Calgary.  I look forward to the day they have their own place and I can ship all his stuff to Calgary.  Think of all the storage space I’ll have!  I wonder what I could put in it?