WolfWeave

Well, lost a couple of weeks there. Went down to Sarasota to visit my parents, ostensibly for a little vacation and relaxation. But my dad fell ill and had to go into the hospital and my week turned into two and I swear the entire time (despite brilliant sunny 8o+ degree days) I saw nothing but the inside of the hospital and the the inside of the urologist’s waiting room. Day after day. With perhaps some grocery store side trips. The whole thing was a terrible stressed out mess for all of us and then I HAD to get back home and now the focus is on flying my folks back up here to Chicago where my dad can get in to see his own doctors at the UofC and figure out what’s going on, as even the hotshot surgeon in Sarasota seems to have given up. Thank goodness they’ve finally agreed to come home and I just booked their flight for Wed., so I’ll wrangle some doctor appointments on Monday when the offices open.

I didn’t want to drag my heavy wool Noro Lucy sweater down to hot Florida with me so left it at home and took the new Filatura di Crosa book and balls of Ananas to knit a shell from the book—simple with ribbing at the bottom and neckline. I love Ananas, it’s one of my favorite yarns; but I’ve never knit with it in any quantity before (or under such stressful conditions) and it snags on everything, even my pointier-than-pointy Knitpick Options needles that were the only ones I brought with. In retrospect a nice rounded set of bamboos might have worked better. However, snags, dropped stitches (oooh—love those new light-up crochet hooks for picking up dropped stitches!) and all, I did manage to finish the back of the shell. Now for the front…. I’ll take photos if it ever stops raining here (flying from Sarasota to Chicago last Wed. was like going from a hi-definition color television to a 9″ b&w tv set—I left sunny 85 degree bright blue skies to return to a low cloud cover, rain and 40 degree weather).

Example, Sarasota:

Tired and stressed out still (and not likely to relax any time soon with Passover and lots of cooking—which I’ve been avoiding like the plague–coming up next week, along with bringing my parents home and all that involves)…more later when I can emerge from the pile of magazines and newspapers (and bills?) covering my desk.

It’s just been one visit after another the past 10 days, with our nephew Sam, his beatific wife Pam, and their 14-month-old baby Zev (OH SO CUTE!!) from Canada (it’s too long between visits as they live so far away and now there’s never enough time to just sit quietly and chat the way we used to—I’d almost forgotten the total chaos that life with a toddler involves).

Jake and Miriam (we were very happy to meet her!) also came for the weekend from New York so it was quite a full house with all of us visiting at our house or at Grandma Mary’s. And then Aaron bopped in from San Francisco, as he had tickets to see “This American Life” live on stage. He arrived just in time to catch Sam, Pam, Zev, and Jake. He had a haircut (which turned out too short) and he also had seemed to constantly come and go, visiting his friends in the city, but managed to stay home Saturday evening which enabled us to have dinner with Avery and Amy for the first time since Christmas (Avery has sprouted up yet again and is video game crazy in that way only a 6 year old can be!). And then there are rumors of Noah coming home next weekend. Bob is off to Boston this week and I am flying down to Sarasota next week to visit my parents.

As a result, knitting has progressed very slowly—so many interruptions, so many other things to do (Last week we had our college counseling meeting for Ben and this week I have to register him for the ACT test, attend the Tennis Team informational meeting and show up at the 11th grade Parent Dialogue! Not to mention waking him up for 6am tennis practice and washing his sweats every other day!)—bills to pay, papers to file, tax information to organize (yes, it’s that time again). And HEY!—what happened to February??

So, here is it MARCH already and I’m still knitting on my first winter sweater project! But I have finished the back and 30+ rows of the front of my Noro Lucy sweater (the cozy kind that would have been just wonderful to wrap up in these past few weeks—sigh).

So now I want to rush to finish it (before I go to Florida?) so I might as well just forget about the other 5 or 6 winter sweater projects waiting in the wings I was planning on knitting and throw myself into the summer sweater project pile (you know–all those summer sweaters I barely started LAST summer!). Well, just to prove I had one completed winter project, here is that Noro Silk Garden hat I had been working on back in January from The Yarn Harlot‘s pattern. Unfortunately, I cleverly thought I would take a shortcut with the decreases at the end and it turned out to be too small…

Man, time just flies by! And do not even ask me about my postcards because I am really bogged down with those, which should have been in the mail by now! And I have to come up with some scrumbles I promised to do for a Freeform crochet project being organized by Myra Wood, destined for Chain Link in July. And I definitely would like to finish the silver Viking Knit bracelet I plan on giving my mother next week in Florida…at least that’s completed and just waiting for the clasp (which should arrive from Rio Grande tomorrow), some pickling in Liver of Sulfur and then some rubbing with steel wool and a polishing cloth. And I sure would like to do some beading again. I’ve given up reading the newspapers but have some books out from the library and have some tv shows TIVO’d that I’ll watch while knitting I suppose. Life is full, maybe too full sometimes. It’s hard when there’s so much one wants to accomplish. Maybe if we didn’t need to sleep?