so, there is this cool blog, you all know it, you’ve been there, schmeebot and last week i got the chance to work with it’s creator, Thuy, on her “easy beanie”. It is a cool hat and a cool concept: all knitting, short-rows, and a bit of grafting. and you end up with a beanie like this:

except you probably won’t have doodling on the whiteboard behind you.
i made it out of the same yarn as my fingerless gloves, which i finished while volunteering for my local public radio station’s pledge drive this weekend: elsebeth lavold’s angora (60% angora, 20% wool, 20% polyamide). oh, i am also really happy with the gloves and made some changes to the pattern, basically devising a pattern of my own to combat the dreaded pinky-finger web. i’m going to do more work on my pattern and post it one day. really.

i finally bought a book. i have bought, maybe, two books for myself since Rich died. but, i finally bought a book, American Gods, that i am excited about reading. let me try to explain. Since Rich’s suicide, the only book i have devoured, torn through, dove into, was the latest Harry Potter, although the DaVinci code came close. i borrow books from the library and, 9 times out of 10, i do not finish them before they are due. i have gone from reading several books a week, to maybe one every couple of months. i have no focus. (in any are really, i am still very foggy much of the time). with rich’s death, books lost their ability to distract me, to absorb me. so did music actually; i listen mostly to news now. my road trip was the first i have really listened to music for enjoyment. i always listen to the lyrics too much.
anyway, i am excited about american gods. after listening to neil gaiman’s plays for the voice, i needed more. there was a depth to his stories that intrigued me. we’ll see. i decided that, at my present rate, i was better off buying it than getting it from the library: i am getting too many fines.

well, at least of the digital ones.

after driving through wyoming, i came down the mirror lake highway through the Uinta National Forest. it had been raining and snowing and was generally gorgeous out. Then i saw a little sign that i am surprised i hadn’t noticed before. Right at the turnout for Lily lake was this sign:

so, i flipped a U-ie and pulled off.
The lake is about 10, maybe 15 feet from the road, so quite a hike. the sun was starting to set and the clouds were full. lucky me.
here’s what i got:

little leprechaun, rock on!

last friday, i took B to the grocery store and to pick up his mail. he caught typhoi fever while in cambodia (because he left as a child he is not immune) and had spent 10 days in the hospital in london. he passed out at a restaurant there in front of about 1,000 people. anyway, we ended up going to lunch after the post office and groceries to one of my favorite places, koko kitchen. koko’s is a small, family-run japanese restaurant and we had miso soup and kimchi rolls (sushi). turns out miso soup was what he was supposed to have had at the resdtaurant in london before he fell flat on his face.
anyway, B gave me a beautiful gift: a scarf, and chopsticks and chopstick rests. so fabulous!

then, on sunday i met my sister and her family for dinner and my sister gave me a gift from her trip to new york:

5 skiens of denim silk! 4 dark and one slightly lighter! i can’t wait to make a spring top out of it! it will be gorgeous!

thank you!!!