You can't fool Mother Nature!

But she can certainly fool us and is having a ball doing so. Let's see--a recap of this week's weather--Monday was 82 degrees and a fabulous spring day. Tuesday was similar. Pheelya and I went out for manicures and pedicures, wearing our spring tops and flip flops and we sat outside for lunch at Einstein Bagels. It was actually hot in the sun! Wednesday was cloudy with drizzle and in the 60's. Then, bam! The temperature took a dive! Thursday and Friday were in the 40's with talk of, dare I say it? Snow! Now a month or two ago, the "S" word would have been music to my ears! Being a teacher, snow days are the best surprises ever--particularly if you've planned accordingly and have all the fixings for expresso drinks, homemade soup along with digital cable and some UFO's lying around (who doesn't have those!!) But in April, on Easter weekend no less--well that's just not right, so Mother Nature needs to have a serious attitude adjustment. I won't have her personality problems messing up my spring and summer! Got it? No heat waves, hurricanes and that stuff! Clean up your act, girl!

Here's the view from the back door this morning!

Here's the view from the front porch! I had put my annual pot of tulips out and they closed up tighter than a drum! I guess they are trying to keep warm too!
After taking that photo, I found MikeyMo on the back of the couch.

I couldn't resist another photo of him, particularly since it shows off his extra digits. For those who don't know, Mikey is a polydactyl kitty. That means he has extra toes. When Ems found the litter at the restaurant park in May 2001, she brought them home (there were 5 of them) and exclaimed "One of them is polydactyl. Can we keep it?" Who am I to say no to keeping a cat! Of course we ended up keeping Greg too! Mikey is gaining weight which, according to the vet, is a good thing because it shows that his diabetes is getting regulated. However, because he was overweight before he lost weight, it isn't a good thing. I had to temporarily put him on some Purina food due to the pet food recall. His prescription food was recalled. He likes the Purina stuff a little too much and I find him eating too frequently. Fortunately, I was able to pick up another type of prescription food for him today. Hopefully he won't like it so much and will only eat it when he's really hungrey! Mikey has his own web page which is dedicated to his polydactylness (is that even a word?).

I had a lovely day at the hairdresser's yesterday. I decided it was time to go red again. My hair was already auburnish. It had been copper red several years ago. Those who haven't known me long, don't know the transformations I've been through. I like to reinvent myself every so often. 14 years ago --one year before a very major birthday, I decided to do just that. I went to the hairdresser with long, wavy, highlighted blond hair and told her to cut it off and dye it red. I walked out of their looking like Sharon Osborne! My kids' friends used to call me Sharon and I had literally been stopped by strangers with comments like "You know you look just like Ozzy's wife!" Geez, who knew? So the last major birthday, I decided to grow the short hair out and reinvent my personal style by basically dressing like a girl. That means that I traded my clogs for stilleto heels and the "mom" jeans for somewhat low rise bootcut jeans. I also have accumulated a collection of vintage dresses, mostly from the 50's, which I live in during the warmer months. During this time period, my hairdresser decided to take most of the red out of my hair. So this being birthday week (my birthday is on Easter Sunday), I decided to have her red it up a bit!

It's actually a subtle change, but the true test will be when I go back to school on Tuesday. I'll see how long it takes one of the kids to yell out "Did you dye your hair?" You just can't put anything past them!

Other stuff--I really got started on my Sahara sweater for the KAL. The Great Big Sea yarn isn't gauging exactly, but it is close enough. It is stunningly beautiful. I had photographed the skeins in an earlier post. The color gradations are very nice and it just glides on the needles. It has that sheen that only silk can have.


That's it for now. I have to go play Easter bunny!

Midweek Musings

WoW! Another FO! This one was started and finished in 2 days! This is Asminah's Hat from Kody May Knits>


I made a few modifications to the pattern. Instead of adding the crocheted brim, I knit 5 rows of K1, P1 twisted rib. Kody May did 2 1/2 repeats of the pattern and I did 3. I thought the hat should be longer since it is a chemo cap and needs to cover more. It is knit in Berroco Touche which is a 50/50 blend of Cotton / Modal Rayon. This is one of my new favorite yarns! It is extremely soft, has a nice drape and knits like a dream. It is worsted weight and can be used in any pattern calling for worsted weight yarn. I think I may get some for a summer tank. I just love the stuff!

I started swatching my Great Big Sea yarn for the Sahara pattern. It isn't gauging exactly--sort of in between what it should be when done on size 5's and size 6's. I guess I'll go with the 6's since the bust measurement of the pattern is an inch smaller than mine. I think I will have a love/hate relationship with this yarn. It is stunningly beautiful! The silk in it causes it to stick to itself. I found this out when winding a center pull ball. When pulling from the center, it rubs against itself and tangles. I pulled out big wads of yarn. Once I got it untangled, I wound it up and stuffed it back into the center of the ball then decided to use the outside end to unwind the yarn that way. That seemed to alleviate the tangling issue. This stuff is so slick it almost slides off the addi turbos! I'm debating whether or not to use my Bryspun circs instead. I'm assuming that it would swatch the same given that the needles are the same size.

So I'm trying to talk DH into getting a bigger bed. We still have a double. With both of us having a small amount of middle age spread, it's getting a bid crowded. But that's not the main reason we need a bigger bed:

That's the reason! Greg sleeps the entire night on our bed. He does not take cat naps either. He sleeps like a rock! He just sort of bounces around in the middle of the bed whenever one of us moves or pulls the covers. When DH gets up in the morning, Greg gets up next to my shoulders or literally climbs on me and sleeps on my belly! He's not exactly a petite feline either--he weighs 19 pounds! Sometimes Mikey gets at the foot of the bed at night which means that I can't move at all! So a larger bed is in order! A king size bed would certainly allow all the kitties to cuddle with us, but I think that would be just too big!

I have to forgo the pleasures of knitting today to work on taxes. Yuck! I can make up for it tomorrow at my hair appointment. I usually get a fair amount done while waiting for the ol' color to develop!

Other news--We are having winter weather! Here it is 4 days before Easter and they are calling for snow flurries! Even weirder is the fact that it was 80 degrees 2 days ago! Nothing like weather by Sybil!

Iron City

Went to Pittsburgh over the weekend for Bird's junior recital. Of course, I worried the entire weekend. Friday night I heard on the news that the prescription dry food that Mikey (and the other boy kitties) eats for his diabetes was put on the recall list of foods with tainted wheat gluten. Of course as luck would have it, I had just bought a bag the day before figuring I would just leave dry food out for the cats while we were away. I called the vet and they were out of the other diabetic dry food so I rushed to the store to get a high protein weight loss food for the weekend. Of course, the cats were oblivious to all of this as can be seen by their responses:





Oh for a cat's life! I think the daily list of activities would look something like this: Wake up, eat, sleep, play, sleep, sleep, play, sleep, eat, play, sleep, sleep, play, sleep. Rough life! We should all be so pampered!

So I fed the cats before leaving for the Burgh Saturday morning, and as I often have to do, I shut Samantha in the powder room with her food so she wouldn't eat the boys' food and they wouldn't eat hers. She has a special food for cats with urinary problems. When we got home Sunday evening, I heard a kitty cry and lo and behold, there was poor Samantha still shut in the powder room with no food or water. She didn't even pee in there--she's such a little lady! I felt a major surge of maternal guilt and I apologize to her everytime I see her! She seems to hold no ill will though as she still crawls in my lap for love!

Jeremy performed quite well on his recital. It was a joint recital with a senior who studies with the same trumpet teacher. Afterwards, we went to a new restaurant on the South Side called the Double Wide Grill which is in a converted gas station. It was very cleverly done and the menu is good. They have a lot of tables outside since the weather is getting nice and they open the doors to the bays so the whole thing is open. It was a very pleasant evening. I was surprised as to who neat Bird's house was. I mean, think about it! Three fraternity brothers in a house can make for a real mess, but it was surprisingly neat--except his room which was basically a disaster area. Fortunately he's up in the third floor so no one sees that!

I finished a chemo cap while waiting for J's recital to begin.


This is the Eyelet Lace Elegance Hat by Kody May. She designs wonderful hats. Her pattern is flat knit and I altered it to knit it in the round. I used Berroco Cotton Twist since they don't want wool in chemo caps! I hope to knock off one more of her designs before Wednesday so I can turn it into our knitting club to be distributed to cancer patients.

Random thought--What is it about cats and boxes? Whenever I throw a box on the floor to be recycled, someone gets in it. The box can be half the size of the cat, and someone still tries!


It's spring break, and while I would love to spend it finishing odd projects, I have to bite the bullet and clean. Yuck! Cleaning house is the single most unappealing activity I can think of! I like the way it feels afterwards, but I just don't want to be the one who has to do it! Obviously, there are no volunteers around here, so by default, I get to indulge myself in such pleasures as dusting, vaccuuming and washing floors! Goody! Gotta go!

Stash Control

I think I need to join a self-help group and if you are reading this blog, you probably need to join the same group. If you knit, then you most likely hoard yarn. I know that my stash probably doesn't come close to some people's, but I could knit from my stash for years and not run out of projects. Most of my stash is yarn that has been purchased for specific projects with the exception of some felting wools and cottons for dishcloths. The stuff for projects is pretty premium as yarns go--stuff like Colinette (a lot of it!) and other hand painted wools, merinos, cashmeres etc. The reason I'm bringing this up is because I had added to my stash substantially in the last 2 weeks. Last night I took a class at Cloverhill in graphing celtic knots which required no yarn. Of course I walked out of there $80 later with a bag of goodies. I purchased 3 skeins of Cotton Fleece in Sedona Red for the Rusted Root pattern. This is the exact yarn I wanted and it was relatively cheap for a whole sweater! I also purchased 3 skeins of Cotton Classic for dishcloths. The real expense was the new Rowan magazine and the spring issue of Vogue Knitting.

Other stash additions: My hand painted yarn from Uruguay which I bought off of Ebay finally came and it is lovely. It rivals Malabrigo except it has a slight barnyard odor to it--sort of like "wet dog" smell. I'm debating whether or not to wash it before knitting.

It is variegated light turquoise and green--for the My So Called Scarf pattern.

The other major stash --soon to be FO--is the Hand Maiden Great Big Sea yarn that I ordered from Loopy Yarns in Chicago. This stuff is like heaven! It is worsted weight 50% silk, 30% merino, 20% seacell. The color is called pumpkin.

This is for the Sahara KAL with the Sexy Knitter's Club. Now I have to find beads to add to the yarn for the beaded bands. I am going to take a skein to Beadazzled to see what goes with it.

I did finish a lovely lace dishcloth called the Moss and Ivy dishcloth.


The color is much prettier than in the photo--it is more of a lilac color.

I've decided that I enjoy knitting lace. Of course I haven't done any really complex lace patterns, but I just bought the book "Lace Style" at Borders which has some nice patterns in it which aren't too complex.

I hope to start my KAL projects this week over spring break between cleaning the pantry and the living room. I also hope to finish 3 chemo caps by next week to turn into our knitting club.

Of course no blog entry would be complete without at least one kitty photo!

Here's Bar (otherwise known as Harley) doing the "cow."

Chicago, Chicago, that toddlin' town!

Not that I would really know! I just got back from our OAKE conference in Chicago this morning. I love it when people ask how the city was. Who knows? They put these conferences in cities with a lot to do and see then they don't give us time to do either! We bugged out of some sessions just to eat real food and one thing I do know is that Chicago is a place with a lot of restaurants! We stayed at the Palmer House Hilton which was a stunning hotel. The "El" ran right outside the door and of course I staked out the Starbucks in the area. I was a little disappointed with this conference. Typically I leave these things really psyched up over all that I learned, but I must admit to being ambivalent about many of the sessions I attended. The children's choirs were spectacular which was a major highlight, but they sure looked different than the groups of kids that I work with. The guest choirs were all from the midwest and they were totally lacking in diversity. It looked so strange to me with my students being of so many nationalities. The Chicago Children's choir looked like the kids at my school. I guess this sort of opened my eyes to why middle America thinks the way it does--at least politically. I think this is one of the reasons I'm so much more comfortable in cities--I like the diversity. I find it incredibly enriching.

So to temper some of my ambivalence, I decided to go to a yarn store. PHD Knitter had told me about Loopy Yarns and I discovered that it was about 5 blocks from the hotel so I went to check it out. It was a lovely little shop with some very nice yarns. I stumbled across the most unusual scarf pattern which I bought.

One of the employees was making this up in mohair. I looked at the sport and fingering weight yarns but didn't see anything right off the bat. While looking for something else, however, I stumbled across this yarn that is 70% merino and 30% cashmere! It feels like absolute heaven. It is a dusty turquoise color and I bought a bag of strung beads that are iridescent black with bronze, green and gold that will look fabulous!

The other yarn that I got was merino sock yarn. This was a large skein which is hand dyed and an unusual mustard color. I believe the brand is Fleece Artist.

There was some other yarn that I was dying to get. It is a new yarn by Hand Maiden which is call Great Big Sea. It is a worsted weight with a nice twist and the content is 50% silk, 30% merino and 20% Sea Cell. The color was a subtly variegated orange color called Pumpkin. I kept thinking about the Sahara pattern by Stitch Diva. The Sexy Knitters Club is doing a KAL with this pattern. I had looked at the Tilli Tomas yarn recommended on the pattern, but I didn't love it. I LOVE this Great Big Sea stuff! The quandry is what to do with the beaded neck, sleeve and hem bands. I just found that Berroco has has a sequins yarn which is just a carrier thread with scattered sequins which I could use with this yarn on the neck or I could add some beads which is most likely what I would do. I didn't buy the yarn because I didn't have my pattern and I needed the details. I went back to the hotel and looked for the pattern info online which I found. I thought I would sneak off to the store again on Saturday but decided against it. Well, I couldn't stand it so I just called the store and they have 4 skeins left which is what I need. I guess it is meant to be. They are putting it in the mail tomorrow! The KAL starts on April 1 so I may get an early start after I finish that blasted Pop Up Paw!

The other purchase at Loopy Yarns was that of two pairs of children's needles. I love short needles! They actually had quite a selection of 7 - 8 inch birch needles but I got the kids' ones in sizes 5 and 6.


I guess you've figured out what attracted me to them!

I finished my first dishcloth on the plane! This is the mid month KAL from the Monthly Dishcloth Yahoo group.

This is knit in Tatamy Tweed worsted which is a blend of 40% cotton and 60% acrylic. It was nice yarn to knit with. I started a new, lacy one in Cotton Classic by Tahki. I really like that yarn.

No post is complete without kitty photos. The night before I left, Harley pulled my bath towel down and made a nest!



It's back to the old grind tomorrow. Tuesday is a professional day, so I get to be a grownup again and go out to lunch! WoW! That's twice in one week only to be followed by spring break next week! Goodie!

Lead me not into temptation!

That basically means that I cannot go into any more yarn shops--ever! Of course that won't happen so I have to start knitting like there's no tomorrow. I splurged a bit today. I went to All About Yarn after work today to get some cotton yarn for dishcloths. I am making some face cloths to go with handmade natural soaps for gifts. Anyway--as they always do--the lovely ladies there had rearranged things which means stuff that's probably been around forever looks new because you never noticed it there before. I had just received some patterns in the mail this afternoon and I walked by a basket of yarn that was absolutely perfect for one of them.


This yarn is gorgeous! It is Odyssey by Reynolds--100% merino. It knits to a subtle slight stripe. The color is more muted than in the photos--a light muted teal. I bought 9 skeins! That was a splurge. The pattern I'm making in this is Wicked in the long sleeved version.

I got a couple other patterns as well. One is a halter pattern by Karabella which I think I will either make in the Premier that I have or in Touche. Both are cotton/ microfiber blends that are very soft and comfy.

The other pattern was a Stitch Diva pattern for felted, beaded clogs! I've never seen clogs with beads! I thought they'd make great gifts! That same company puts out another felted clog pattern with crocheted flowers on them.

The next decision will be whether or not to participate in the Sexy Knitters' Club Knit Along. They are doing Sahara which I already have and love. I just don't know if I'm in the mood to make that one right now. If I see the right yarn, I may get turned on to it, but if not, then I'll pass.

I leave for Chicago tomorrow morning for my conference. I doubt I'll have time for anything other than attending the sessions. These things tend to run one ragged! I'm looking forward to it except that my shuttle leaves the hotel at 6 a.m. on Sunday! Yuck! The hour from hell! Fortunately I've already gotten the maps of O'Hare and the terminal I'll be in has 3, count 'em--3 Starbucks! All I could think of is getting into that security check-in line and having to dump my latte! There would most definitely be a terrorist incident if that were to happen! Fortunately the airport has caffeine near every gate!

Maybe I'll get another dishcoth done! It seems I'll do almost anything to avoid finishing that other pop up paw!

What goes up, must come down!

Mikey's glucose level was normal today! The vet said it was too good so we will check it in 2 weeks! Finally!

It made getting up at 6:00 a.m. to give him his shot worth it!

Sammy is still having her love affair with Elvis. She still insists on getting up on the tank to watch him!

Even funnier, is that he was staring back at her! At first I thought it may be out of fright, but usually he jumps in the water if he's scared. He just stayed on his dock staring up at her!



So my friend Pheelya told me that the Celtic Knot Yarn Shop was having a St. Pat's Day sale today! Of course with a name like that one could expect something to happen on St. Patrick's Day! Being the most Irish one in my family, I thought I would celebrate and hit the sale. Having just joined a dishcloth knit along group, the need for cotton yarn provided me with a perfect excuse to do so! I found some interesting tweedy cottons.


One of them is a blend, but that's okay! The knit along sounds fun. You receive about 9 rows a day to start knitting and you have to guess what the design will be. You're not aloud to tell the group! I figured that 9 rows is enough to give me a break from whatever else I'm working on--but not so much as to take a lot of time! Today is day 2 and I missed day 1. Fortunately someone in the group emailed me those rows!

I also decided to get some goodies for my secret pal. I got some things that I would love for myself which means that she is getting some pretty premo stuff! Of course I cannot divulge that information here. One never knows who may be lurking in cyberland! I found some luxurious hand painted sport yarn for socks made of 50/50 merino and silk! I decided that my feet needed a treat, so I bought it! The skeins are from the same dye lot but they look a bit different so I guess I'll have to alternate them when I knit.

My splurge was on a pair of Beadles! These are bamboo needles with lampworked glass beads on the ends. WoW! Now I know what to do with my stash of beads! Anyway there were some really intricate ones, but I had to get these!

They're kitties!


Of course my kids celebrated the day in a more traditional St. Pat's fashion--drinking! Ems IM'd me at noon and wanted to know if I wanted to come over for green beer. I politely declined that one. Bird called me after "Kegs and Eggs" and imformed me that they were having a party at his place. At least he won't have to drive anywhere! They have too much Italian in them to party so hard today. They have always referred to themselves as "McWops!"

So I got home too late to do the corned beef and cabbage, but we will definitely indulge in that tomorrow--complete with the Irish soda bread! Of course for me no holiday is complete without music so I was delighted to find a Celtic Woman special on PBS. I guess I'll start that first dishcloth and see how that goes!

I guess my new motto will be--"Conquering the stash--one dishcloth at a time!"

"Erin go Bragh!"