I am spinning for the Tour de Fleece… 4 ounces of handpainted combed bamboo top by Moonwood Farm in the color “Tamara.”

The Tour was particularly exciting for a bit this morning when we thought for a second or two that Andy Schleck might actually win.  It was SO close, but then at the end he lost time. There is one more day, but apparently, Stage 20 must be mostly ceremonial as they said that pretty much the winners as they stand today will remain the overall winners as they enter Paris tomorrow.

Spinning time for Stage 19, day 22… about 2 hours this morning while watching the Tour. I actually spun about 3 out of 4 ounces of this bamboo fiber and since I’m just spinning a singles, I’m almost done!

I am thinking… I’m psyched for our vacation week next week (even though we are just staycating)!

I am thankful for… the farmer’s market

From the kitchen… making tabbouleh with tahini dressing today.  Dave bought all the good stuff to put in it at the farmer’s market and he bought me a container of gazpacho with avocado and shrimp for lunch.  So good!

I am creating… more yarn!

I am going… to spend this hot evening with a friend and her family

I am hoping… to be a better mom this week.  Every day I wake up and resolve to do better than the day before. One would think at some point I would at least reach the break even point, but it seems the challenges (peaks) are getting greater (higher) every day.

I am hearing… some sort of tv program

Around the house… Dave is bringing K to a friend’s house. B is waiting for the mail because her “letter” from school may come today and then she will know which team she will be on and can call all her friends to see who is on her team.

One of my favorite things… avocados.  I heart them SO much!

A few plans for the rest of the week… tomorrow we have a picnic  to attend and a few of our plans for our “staycation” include Lake Compounce, Harkness Memorial, a shaker village in Massachusetts, and outlet shopping.

I finished plying today…

Fairy Wings yarn is composed of one strand of By Rebekah with Love carded fiber plus a thin strand of firestar.  I haven’t set the twist yet, I’m a little nervous as it seems to be a very delicate yarn, but if it is going to grow up to be anything, it will eventually need to be washed.  It is very “little girly” so maybe it might want to me a dressy winter hat?  I do think my own girls are too old for this yarn though.

I am thinking… wow it is pretty hot, I can’t wait for at least the nights to start cooling

Today I watched...  the very end of Stage 4 Tour de  France.  I am still working on understanding the jerseys, but someone shared this link with me that helps.

I am thankful for… a few moments of quiet today and not having to cook

From the kitchen… absolutely nothing. It is way too hot for any cooking though my husband brought home some of my favorite humus and we still have fresh salsa that he bought at the Farmer’s Market last weekend.

I am wearing… PJs

I am going... to start spinning something new after I publish this post while I watch another episode of Big Love (which I think is the last one that is currently available on DVD).  I have sort of been procrastinating watching it because I don’t want it to end.

I am reading… I’m still reading A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore.  I have only been reading a few pages each night before falling asleep. I did bring new books home from the library tonight with the hope that I should be able to start something new tonight.  I also have  Yes, Your Teen is Crazy!: Loving Your Kid Without Losing Your Mind sitting on my bed stand.  I NEED to read this book because I’m sort of losing my mind, but I can’t read it at night because then I won’t be able to sleep.  I’m thinking I might just have to actually schedule it in because it really is either read it or lose my mind.

I am hoping... that I actually do not lose  my mind  (This is starting to sound like one of those ‘true confession blogs!”)

I am hearing… my fan

Around the house… a little tense. It is  hot and I’m not sure what else, but something apparently that I have yet to figure out

One of my favorite things… the sound of laughter

A few plans for the rest of the week… I’m going to try to not lose my mind and try to inspire some laughter.

Format by The Simple Woman’s Daybook

Things are waking up pretty quickly this year.  I can’t even believe the racket going on out my window so very early in the morning lately.  How many different kinds of birds?  There are three that I can identify – the omnipresent crows, the dueling woodpeckers, and the wacky Canada geese, and then all that uninterpretable songbird twittering.   I am sure they are up to something.  World domination possibly?  Everything is progressing so fast this year, I feel like the grass is greener and the trees are fuller with each trip I take back and forth to The School (which can often times be several trips in one afternoon).

This is all is such striking contrast to last year, the year of rain and gloom with rare occasions of sun.

And I love it!

You always hear this talk of the possibility of “an early spring.”  I thought it was a myth.  It hasn’t happened in so long.  Spring used to be my favorite season, a long time ago and lately, I could not remember why, but so far, I like this spring.  It is making me happy.  Busy, but happy.

Oh and I have been busy!  This is the year of what I’m calling our “decade quell*” of living in our “new” house.  I’ve been a bit behind in some of the home maintenance so I’m getting everything done, that needs doing. Ever.  The list includes such fun things as getting the septic pumped and the furnace and chimneys cleaned.  It also includes getting the house and windows washed and anything else serviced that could ever possibly need servicing.  Some of this has been easy, but others are taking a while, especially things that need estimates from more than one person.  I can never decide, but I know I have to choose just one.  I’ve also been doing things too. So far I have scrapped, primed, and  painted all the outdoor trim around the outside doors and window mantels.  I have to say, I think it is starting to look pretty nice.  I wish I had a before photo but I see below for the the after. Let’s just say it wasn’t so clean and white.

I’ve also done tons of yard work, which, of course, is never ending…  Last year we had a ton of stumps pulled and grass seed planted.  I wasn’t sure it would come back as that was in November directly preceding ice, cold, snow, and more ice but it is growing and it is green!  I added some lime and fertilizer today just in time for tomorrow’s April shower.

Next week is finally spring break. I think the girls are ready. They have been so busy lately with homework and sports, but there were a few more smiles tonight; I think in anticipation of at least a few evenings without homework.

We are going to be busy though.  J is off to Bermuda on a school science trip.  K and I are visiting friends in Michigan (travel knitting: Hedera, travel reading: Life of Pi) and Dave and B are going to be home. I hear that he has some fun plans for her (she mustn’t despair!).

I have put my Etsy shop in vacation mode to get ready for these trips and to get this house stuff done as quickly as possible. I have been missing some great dyeing weather, but I just know there will be more to come. My plan is that when I arrive home from Michigan, I will finish up my house stuff as quickly as possible and get back to dyeing. I have some new stuff I want to try and I just can’t wait to submerse myself again.

Thanks for reading and hope you are also having a great spring!

* Yes, I’m going to “ thoroughly overwhelm and reduce [my house] to submission or passivity.”

[Edited to add just for the record:  We had record high temps here in CT yesterday on 4/7/10.  It was 93 in Windsor Locks which was warmer than Florida!  It was in the 80's here and it was nicer than summer!]

It has been too long since I’ve been here and I just have way too much content slewing around in my brain trying to gush out in a not-so-becoming-manner.  How to even start…  What about a quick and to the point summation like maybe a bulleted list?

So dear blog readers, it has been 66 days since I have last blogged. In that time I have:

• read 3 books. My favorite was The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Murial Barbery.
• driven more carpools than I can count.
• scrapbooked 24 pages.
• completed knitting at least 3 items.
• reached a thousand hearts on Etsy.
• logged at least 99 hours on Facebook.
• started a Facebook Fan page for Spincerely yours.
• started a mailing list for Spincerely yours.
• met with 12 teachers during parent/teacher conferences.
• not yet seen New Moon.
• presented my first library program (yarn construction).
• seen a play (Avenue Q) with my husband for our 19th anniversary.
• had 3 children and a husband home sick for a week with the flu.
• cheered-on  my daughter through her never-ending field hockey season.
• watched a few disks of Mad Men.
• vended at my second fiber event.
• stuffed a bunch of envelopes for the Land Trust.
• driven back and forth to the school a million times.
• stacked a bit of wood (though not as much as my husband).
• urged my new baby grassies to start growing before winter comes.
• returned to the Great Escape with my whole family and rocked their water slides!
• sent out 60 some-odd samples to the November Phat Fiber box.
• wished for a year with better weather oh-way-too-many times to count.
• driven a bunch of carpools (did I mention that yet?)  So did my husband. He drove a lot too.
• been away from home for 3 weekends in a row.
• begun making holiday plans with my husband to try to find new things to do to keep it fresh.
• vowed to jump back on the blogging wagon.
• been thankful for my wonderful family, nice home, healthy children, and a wickedly excellent husband.

‘Til next time…  let’s hope this *confession* of sorts makes the way for it to be sooner, rather than later…

Oh my goodness, yes, I have a finished project! Socks even!

Here’s the scoop:

Pattern: Kai-Mei

From: Sock Innovation by Cookie A

Yarn: Spincerely yours, 80% superwash merino/20% bamboo in Narcissus

Needles: Size 1 double points

I started these socks on our vacation to Vermont this summer. I grabbed a pattern, some yarn, some needles and started knitting on the car ride up on Sunday.  It was probably sheer luck that it all worked out.  I finished the first sock in 4 days:

Here she is on our car ride back through Brattleboro after visiting King Arthur Flour, Quechee Gorge, and a couple of other touristy places.  That was a Thursday. I cast on for the next sock, and I have been knitting on it for quite a while, but what took 4 days on vacation, took 4 weeks at home.  Sigh…

Anyway – I love these socks. I love the pattern. It was easy to follow and I didn’t notice any errors (and I didn’t even look it up on Ravelry or anywhere beforehand).  The lace pattern is fun.  I love gathering up all the yarn-overs on round 7 and purling them together.  I also liked that it was just a strip of lace and therefore not overwhelming for my limited ability to concentrate in the summer.  My mom thinks I should enter these in a the fair, but I do have a couple of places in there were the stitches are bit uneven so I’m not sure they are good enough for the fair. I also have another pair that I can enter and only one can go. Perhaps I need to run a poll to see which pair to send?

I also started a new project this week. It is supposed to be for my car ride to Lake George next weekend (with Agent J’s Girl Scout troop), but it is a terribly easy and fun pattern to knit so I am going to have to control myself until Saturday!  More details to follow!

Hope you are all having a great Labor Day weekend.  The weather is pretty good here.  It has been overall sunny though it is not sunny at the moment.  No rain though!  I think this is the first time this summer that I have HAD to go out to water anything that wasn’t under cover.  Things are starting to grow even.  Well, things did grow this summer like weeds and grass and shrubs, but the flowers? Not so much. But now my marigolds are perking up and things are just starting to look a bit nicer–at least the things that are left, that is.  Sunshine is amazing stuff.

While I was sitting here waiting for the big yellow Twinkie (as Jenny says) to arrive at my house (yes, I realize I still have 5 days…), I discovered a slide show program that works with Flickr. I’ll just leave you with the slides for viewing right now as I’m in one of those moods where if I just let my fingers do the typing, all that would come out would be venting and complaining. These are photos that show some of the fun things we did while in Michigan.

Here is a fun game for you while I recover from 10 days of vacation and a 10-year-old birthday party (of which the sleepover part is currently occurring). We saw a lot of water on our voyage. I’m going to list them here in the order that we came to them, please feel free to guess in my comments if you know any or all. (Not a contest so please feel free to help each other out and ask for clues if you need them.) (eta 8/27: answers posted in comments)

1.) 36 miles long and 618 feet deep at the deepest point…

2.) Waterfall between Goat Island and Luna Island…

3.) The view from our hotel room on the 15th floor of the Marriott…

4.) This was a drive-by shot…

5.) This one we had to get off the highway and hunt for a good view…

6.) Waves just as high as the ocean, but warm with no jellyfish…

and another view of #6 from a distance…

7.) This one we saw on our way home; we had to go a bit off the beaten path to find a good view…

Good luck and have fun guessing!