9/22/2005
I’m setting sail for sleeve island… No ETA for my return from sleeve island, but hopefully it won’t be too long of a cruise.
Seeing as this is my first ever trip to sleeve island I’m not sure if I’ll develop sea legs or sea sickness. Anyone have any tips to ensure that I return from sleeve island?
9/13/2005
Well, I survived the whirlwind road trip to Iowa. Other than the 25 hours spent on the road between Thursday and Sunday, it was an enjoyable trip. I didn’t think I was going to have much progress to show for my hours on the road as I ended up doing a lot of the driving and a couple of the times when DH had taken the wheel I slept. But, I do have about 8 inches or so of Wear-Everywhere (it needs a shorter name) to show now, which is about 6 inches more than when I left. Yeah! On Friday I had lots of little short bits of down time when I could sit down and knit a row or two and that was when it really flew. It wasn’t enough to get my hands sore, but added up over the course of the day it ended up being about 4 inches when all was said and done.
All of the family thought it will be a great sweater. I’m also really impressed with the back side of this fabric and may consider using this rib or a similar variation of it in a scarf…
We did a lot more than knitting while we were there. We were only there two full days, but we packed in a lot. Friday morning I went to the YMCA pool and swam with my MIL to help work out the kinks from the long car ride. Then we drove around Charles City to see where the rest of the family who is in the area lives and we went to Wildwood Park where you drive through the river and then we went to a nearly century old swinging bridge and also drove past a Frank Lloyd Wright house that is on the Cedar River. We had pizza (complete with sauerkraut) and then all the family in the area and some family friends whom I had never met came over to the house that evening. On Saturday we headed into Mason City where we finally got to tour the Stockman House (another FLW house), and then we poked around in that area of Mason City looking at all the other prairie school homes. We had missed one last time that we had read about in American Bungelow a long time ago. Then we walked across the Meridith Wilson Bridge to see if we could get a different view of the house, but there were too many leaves. Then we drove to Forest City to visit DH’s step grandfather, Wendell who seems to be doing pretty well in his new assisted living digs, though he doesn’t appear to be socializing and feels some guilt about grandma Catherine’s death.
So, we were there only a short while, but it was crammed packed. It was kind of sad saying goodbye, but as we were pulling out of the driveway early on Sunday morning it was like a new sort of American Gothic - two new retirees with salt and pepper hair wearing light colored terry robes standing in the doorway of thier 1960′s white ranch in small town America and waving goodbye…
It’s good to be home again though. Having Emma back home (with a brand new bed now that we have the accidents under control) and sleeping in our own bed with our own pillows is nice. Also, it seems we both got terrible allergies while in Iowa or we caught a bug as we are both rather miserable right now.
Now, everyone go give Snow some birthday wishes!
9/6/2005
Miraculously my car is working again. Don’t ask me what the trouble was. It hadn’t been driven since Saturday morning so it couldn’t have been vapor lock, plus if it had been that I think it would have tried to turn over. But, whatever it is, my car started for DH last night. It’s still going into the shop for a once over and the oil change and all that fun maintenence stuff. I’m glad it’s working again, though there are more than a few things that could use doing other than sitting at the garage for 1.5-2 hours this afternoon. We leave so soon and DH just sent me an alarmingly long list of “to dos” that he wants done before we leave (thankfully most are on his plate but then I usually feel I’m in the way if I’m not helping with something). This is another of those annoying things that bugs me. He suddenly gets a bug to have everything completely spic and span - including mopping kitchen floors and doing all possible laundry (even down to the unmatched socks) right before a trip. Nine times out of ten it means us leaving 2-4 hours later than he has told me we were going to leave.
EDIT: Can we tell I’m PMS-ing? Not exactly prime time to be prepping for a long road trip with little time at the destination. *sigh*
I see much knitting to reduce stress in the next 1.5 days….
Here is where I’m at on the Wear-Everywhere Pullover. I’m working the pattern on the smaller needles and am roughly 1 inch from switching to the larger needles. Once I switch to the larger needle I’ll be moving Leaf Lace onto this circ, even though it is a ridiculous 47″ long. I’ll get into why tomorrow (and hopefully I will have it moved by then if I’m lucky). If only I had a circular knitting needle fairy *swoon* . . .
Oh, and I just remembered that one of my favorite bead stores is within walking distance of the garage so perhaps I’ll browse their selection for the beads to put on my leaf lace shawl . . .
