Weekending

 Good Morning All,

My brain feels a bit foggy this morning.  And it's grey outside which doesn't help matters.  Our next door neighbors are getting a new roof and the workers have started.  Luckily my home office is at the opposite end of the house.  Did you all have a nice weekend?  Ours was good.

We did not go to Colin & Mailing's as planned on Saturday.  Mailing had gotten her 2nd jab (Pfizer) on Thursday and had been feverish and then very fatigued.  So, they pushed our get together to Sunday which was fine with me.  Saturday I did a bunch of errands and Fletch and I did a grocery run in the late afternoon.

Sunday morning Fletch and I went out to breakfast.  The first time in I don't know how long.  The diner was fairly empty and the food was really good.  So that was a win!  When we got back I made a strawberry rhubarb pie to take over to Colin and Mailing's.

Yum!  It turned out well and I made some whipped cream to go with it.

Colin grilled chicken thighs (marinated in a habanero sauce and more marinated in a chile adobe sauce) and romain.  Mailing made some roasted potatoes and asparagus wrapped in proscuitto.  It was a lot of food...and so good!

Even Marcel tried to snack a bit:

Or else he was looking for some wine....

Anna (Mailing's sister) was also there and she did bring Otto.  He mostly stayed in the sunroom with the door to the main house shut...he could not be trusted to just stay in one room.  Colin is the only one in the group not vaccinated, but he is getting his first shot (Pfizer) this afternoon - thank God!

All in all, a lovely weekend.  I even managed to pick up my knitting needles and start a new sock!  I didn't get too far, but hopefully will show some progress on Unraveled Wednesday.  Meanwhile, work is calling...it will be another busy week (or 3-4 really).  Kind of like being off to the races!

Have a good one!

Weekending

Good Morning!

How was your weekend?  I hope it was good.  Ours was nice and thankfully did NOT include snow!!  Though I know it was all around us.  Definitely a weird Spring, but the weather has been weird for so long (my opinion).

Friday ended up being very busy work-wise and I never shut the computer down until some time in the evening...and then was back doing work Saturday morning.  But, that's ok (happy to be employed).  I (finally) took a turkey breast out of the freezer and cooked that on Saturday.  The house smelled like Thanksgiving!!  I ended up making a huge pot of turkey soup with the carcass and some of the meat and now we have good sized containers of home-made turkey soup in the freezer.

Yesterday, Mother's Day, was a much nicer day.  It turned out to be beautiful.  We met Colin & Mailing, Zhongren & Bonny (Mailing's parents) and Anna (her sister) at the trail I walk alongside the canal and river.  Huge turtles were out in amazing numbers, but no sign of the heron and (thankfully) no sign of serpents!!  It was just so nice to see everyone and get out in the fresh air.  After our walk we all stopped at Zhongren & Bonny's house.  They had made dumplings earlier in the day and had large containers for everyone.  YAY!!!

When Fletch and I got home, I noticed something high in our crepe myrtle tree.  It has not leafed out yet and I believe what I spotted is a hummingbird's nest!!

(Look at how blue our sky was yesterday!!).  It is roughly the size of a golf ball.  Not sure if this is a current nest or one from last year.  Fletch did see a hummingbird one day last week and our feeders are now out, but we have not seen one since.

There was a small amount of knitting over the weekend.  First, I finished the socks for my sister-in-law on Saturday morning.

I smile each time I see them - they are just happy socks!!  I decided I needed to pick out yarn for socks for my brother in CO and I also wanted to wind the yarn from Vicki for a Hitchhiker.  The yarn I picked out for Phil's socks I'm positive I bought at a fiber bestival (probably Allentown).  It is by Cape May Fiber Co. and the colorway is Janthina.  So pretty:

So pretty, but notice the way it is wound?  This yarn would not behave and ended up looking like this at one point:

Yup - yarn barf!  It took ALL Saturday afternoon and part of the evening to straighten out this mess.  Weird how some skeins just fit on the spindle and wind up beautifully and others are a horrible mess.

The Make-Do yarn from Vicki DID wind up beautifully.  While the sock yarn for Phil was put in time out for misbehaving, the Hellebore Hitchhiker was started yesterday.

This is going to be one gorgeous Hitchhiker.

I also managed to make one Granny Square over the weekend.

If you click to enlarge, you should be able to see that the yarn in the outer rows has some deep red in it.  Soon I'm going to have to spread out all the squares and see what they look like together.  Not enough for any one thing, but it should be fun to see them all together.

It is grey and overcast (again) outside and I think rain (again) is in our forecast.  I hope to run out to the garden this a.m. and cut some rhubarb to make a strawberry rhubarb pie later today.

Here's to a great week ahead!

Ahhhh, The Weekend

Hi Everyone,


Hope you all had as nice a weekend as we did.  True, the weather could have been better (rain ALL day on Saturday), but we still had a nice time.


On Saturday we met Colin and Mailing for brunch/lunch at Stove & Tap in Lansdale.  Excellent food (Fletch had a cheesesteak which may be the best ever, I had a fried catfish po boy [Fletch and I shared our orders], Mailing had biscuits & gravy, Colin had waffles & chicken) and the Bloody Mary's were superb!  Good food, good conversation and then home for naps - lol.


Fletch and I went out for breakfast on Sunday which was very nice too. 


Also, some knitting was accomplished!  After numerous false starts (you know the yarn always knows what it wants to be....despite what you think), the gradient yarn is finally starting to turn into a shawl:

I tried a couple of other patterns and then discovered the yarn really wanted to be Elevations - the pattern I was given (free on Ravelry) when I bought this yarn at the Steel City Fiber Festival.  I was hoping for a shawl that would be a little deeper on my back, but not this time.  So far I am loving this.  The pattern is an easy 12 row repeat - a quick one to memorize.  The light color (pulling from the center) is more like a very pale mint green rather than a pale blue. 


A number of you recommended The Shell Seekers and I was finally able to get it on my Kindle from the library.  I started it Sunday morning and am loving it so far.  A nice change from The Year of Living Danishly which is just way over-done (too many facts/figures/statistics/etc.) in my opinion.  I also managed to print out my Summer Book Bingo card! 

If you want to join in the summer book fun, details are on Mary's Blog
This week will be a short one for me at work - only working through Thursday.  But, it is budget season and I have a bunch of folks coming in for budget reviews (pleading, begging, etc.).  I'm also booked for a massage Thursday right after work - yay!!  Friday we are driving down to Virginia for a wedding on Saturday.


Hoping everyone has a fabulous week!