I've been absent; but here I am. Please enjoy the tales I have to tell! ......................
I have a skunk living underneath my house. (Hyperlinked because it's fun to read about skunks!) I have seen it wander through the yard once and my partner has nearly been fired upon while out on the porch, and other than that it had kept to itself. This weekend, our luck ran out. Saturday evening, Partner and I woke to an absolutely suffocating stench. The resident skunk had apparently been spooked and let one rip while hanging out below. The spray was not only smelly skunk spray, but it was gaining entrance through our heating system, ergo, the smelly skunk spray was burning smelly skunk spray and would not leave our olfactory orifices. I mean the stuff was so thick in the air I was eating it! It was impossible to continue sleeping because it was so powerful.
I got up and turned the heat off, turned on some fans, did not opt to open a window because the storm windows are all still on for wintertimes, and joined Beau back in bed to whine and laugh about how absurd the situation was. It really was good luck that it did not happen sooner as we had some friends over for a night of games and brews and that would have really stunk. ^_^ We were also lucky that we had a warm Sunday the following day to open things up and air out the house. It is still lingering in closets as I get a whiff when I open a few of them, and I guess we don't smell or we have extremely understanding people around us at work. Beau is on the platform for telling our landlord about it but I fear an exterminator will be called and they would kill it. And that makes me sad. I wonder if it's a mother in her "den" with kits. I'll write up more as it unfolds.
More things are coming into bloom and I now know what the trees in our yard are now. I knew there was a small apple tree and pomegranate tree, which is more like a bush, but now I know that there's a larger apple and several dogwood trees.
The apple blossoms.
Apple tree
No mistaking a dogwood.
Those photography skills...
Book Review:
I checked out Knitting Tips & Trade Secrets, Expanded from my local library branch about 3 weeks ago and I am ready to give you guys a review. It was very difficult to continue picking up this book. I give it a thumbs down and I don't recommend seeking it out. This book was put out by The Taunton Press in 2006 and is not put together very well at all. Taunton is the publisher for "Threads" magazine and compiled reader advice and insights for Knitting Tips & Trade Secrets. There are only nine chapters and the "tips" are individually titled and squished together when refer to the same technique. In fact, many of them just repeat themselves using different words. The organization is such that the reader isn't given information in a format for which it can be easily recalled. I liken it to what a podcast's transcript would look like. The tips are good ones, and some I might try some day, but the book itself is a chore to get through.
That was brutal, but I'm wasting my time on bad knitting books, so you don't have to!
I recently joined a couple of pen-pal groups on Ravelry. One is called Just Because Greeting Cards and the other is For the Love of Letters. I started picking up notecards at antique stores and yard sales a few years ago and have a large collection of postcards from when I traveled around Europe. They go to the lovelies in my life when I need them, but my lovelies just don't have birthdays and graduations often enough to sat my appetite for sending them. I got paired up and sent this one out to my Pal this week:
I found several of these cross-stitched ones one time and they have the messages of the original sender in them. They're not that old though; they range from 1971-1978 as the author dated them. Totally awesome way of saying hello! I sent out another card but it's a secret swap and even though she is almost undoubtedly in the dark about this most lovely blog, I'll post it later.
Knitting:
Finished Objects:
I finished up some knitting! I finished my Boneyard Shawl!
This is it blocking on my craft room floor. I really like it and I have sported it around the house in the evening when it gets chilly. Spring has sprung and we've had 70 degree days all week so it'll probably be in the Fall when I get to take it out on the town. :) Wearing the Boneyard is literally like wearing a blanket afterall. My mystery yarn is light but very insulating.
Fun fact: this is the project that showed me that I was purling all wrong. The first four bands of knitting are spaced and twisted while the last four are uniform . I was knitting on this at my knitting group when a friend pointed out my flawed wrapping technique. I feel like such a dunce! I have been purling thw "wrong" way for years! She was as nice as can be about it and explained how the stitches twist when a purl is wrapped counter-clockwise as opposed to clockwise as it should be.
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I have taken to knitting up my languishing projects. That pile will always exist but shrinking it one item less feels great. I have picked up my Seamless Salomas once again and knit them when I am out somewhere that I can't take my Full of Heart Scarf along with me.
I have been working a lot lately and have been most thankful that I get to wear pajamas, I mean scrubs, to work. While it's very tiring, I am looking forward to that pay check so I can buy all the yarn! And a badly needed new car. When I get a chance to write more and take more amateur photos of my flowers, I'll see you next time! Ciao!
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