Weekending

Hello All,


Sunday afternoon here...hoping you are all relaxing, knitting, reading, whatever makes you happy.  It has been a lovely weekend.


Friday I arrived home and the first thing I saw when I pulled in the driveway was this:

Our hibiscus is FINALLY blooming!  It is gorgeous and there are more buds on it.  This plant is at the edge of our vegetable (raised bed) garden and we can see if when sitting on the patio.


Fletch was already over at Colin & Mailing's, so I changed and drove over there.  Major downpour on the way there...wipers on the highest speed, lots of vehicles pulled over to the side of roads, and plenty of water on the roads.  My 40 minute drive to their place took over an hour!  And we ended up with almost 4" of rain!!


Dinner was wonderful.  Colin made squid ink pasta.  Here is a shot of him rolling it out.

You can see two more pieces of dough on the cutting board.  The sauce he made was puttanesca which, although quite salty (capers, anchovies, kalamata olives) was so tasty.  A Cesar salad to go with the pasta and lemon pound cake for dessert.  I was stuffed!


Saturday I was up bright and early to head up to Dee's house.  I went in to say hi to Steve and Giroux (of course) and then Dee drove us over to the NJ Sheep & Wool Festival where we met up with Bonny!!

Bonny's on the left and then Dee and me (if my sweatshirt were a darker green, Dee and I could have been dressing for Christmas - lol). The "random" person we charmed into taking out picture did a less than stellar job, but it was just so nice to finally meet Bonny in REAL LIFE.  Y'all out there who know her through her blog can all be jealous.  She is so nice, so funny...and I'm already dreaming of Dee and me taking a road trip down to Chesapeake City to meet up with Bonny at Vulcan's Rest and then go to one of the restaurants by the water to have lunch!


Meanwhile, back at the fiber festival.  There were some adorable creatures around:

The alpaca who would not look forward toward me unless I put my phone in my pocket.

A sheep getting some final touches in the grooming department before going into the ring to be shown.

Lots of major horn action going on.

One last cutie.  And then.....what I bought:

Two beautiful skeins of (naturally) sock yarn.  The one on the left is "Haunted Hayride" by the girls from Toad Hollow.  I have not knit with their yarn yet, but I couldn't resist this.  The skein on the right is "Café Au Lait" by Youghiogheny Yarns.  It is a subtle tweed with bits of read and blue throughout it.  Just lovely.  I bought the festival color in Allentown by this vendor (but haven't used it yet...).


There was so much more I could have bought, but I kept reminding myself that I go on vacation in 2 weeks and there are already 2-3 shops that I am planning to visit then.  Just trying to pace myself a bit.


Bonny had to leave before Dee and I were finished wandering around, but when we were ready to leave, we headed to Peddlar's Village and had a wonderful lunch in a small, cute café in town called "Chives."


All-in-all, a wonderful day despite the less than stellar weather.  I'm just thankful it wasn't 90 degrees.  I think all the animals were thankful as well.


Today I'm doing laundry and cooking.  I have red beans with hot and sweet sausage simmering away on the stove.  The week ahead will be a fast one...I work Mon through Wed and then fly out early Thursday morning for Providence, RI and my annual "Sisters' Weekend."  I've got gifts to wrap for that weekend and a bit of packing to do (looks like we might have rain the entire time I'm there...nothing new...).


Oh - the "knitting" part of this post.  No picture, but the sweater body is done on my Juniper Top!!  I'm not sure I will have time to cast on a sleeve tonight, but soon!


Also, I know some of you read "Our Souls at Night" during Summer Bingo - a wonderful book and I discovered the other day that it is now a movie on Netflix.  Fletch and I watched last night and really enjoyed it.  Robert Redford and Jane Fonda star in it.  Definitely recommend it.


Wishing you all the best week ahead!!