Mysteries of the Universe

Foremost among these mysteries is where the time goes.  It seems like just yesterday that warm days were rare, and I was waiting impatiently for the first flowers to bloom, and then I turned around and -

These all grew from one bulb, which I received many years ago as a favor at a baby shower.  I planted the bulb after it finished blooming, and every year it's put out more blossoms.  (The same cannot be said of the friends for whom the shower was given.  They stopped after two lovely girls.)

And Cookie and Biscuit have been able to observe the always fascinating Out on a near daily basis:

I'm rather puzzled as to why there isn't more knitting.  Thinking back, there has been some.  For example:

• I think there may be some mittens that didn't get photographed.   
• The Wasabi hat was completed and gifted without pictures.  
• There have been bits of sweater knit, but it's not done.  
• The Herringbone socks are now officially the world's slowest socks (I'm on the second one, but glaciers may cover North America again before they're done, or at least that's what it seems like.)    
• There was a baby sweater that I got in a bin of free yarn that has been seamed up and had buttons and button loops put on it.  It needs some decoration, I think, but I haven't decided what. 

In an effort to figure out what else has been going on, I looked at the camera memory (though I have managed to leave it at home so often that's not an accurate record by any means).  But there have been various hiking excursions, part of my husband's and my annual quest to be less pathetically unfit.  A couple of weeks ago we climbed in the Holyoke range in western MA.   It was gorgeous day, and the tender new leaves were such a vivid green they practically glowed.

And of course my favorite thing about climbing is the views.

And as if that wasn't enough (which it clearly wasn't!), last weekend we hiked up on Mt. Monadnock in southern NH.  Another very nice hike, though I discovered some additional muscles that I somehow had missed recalling earlier.   I had once again forgotten the camera, but my husband took some pictures with his phone:

And I also liked this one- very dramatic:

Aside from that...well, there's been rather a lot of pool maintenance, and running around visiting people. and work, and.... dang it, I still think that I must have misplaced a week or so somewhere.  Like maybe it's under a pile of magazines up in the sewing room or something.  Hey, it could happen!

Signs of the Season

There are all sorts of springlike happenings around Chez Practicalcrafts.  For one, I conquered the third (and thankfully smaller!) skein of yarn and finished the crinkle-top baby afghan.

And amazingly, a full week before the baby shower.  It was like a spring miracle.  Biscuit helped me to wrap it.

"Yum, yum, curling ribbon!"

So long as we understand that by "help", I mean that he dove under the tissue paper to make sure there was nothing hiding there, pounced on the curling ribbon and tried to eat it.  I had to put it in the car for safekeeping to ensure that the present made it out of the house intact.  Which turned out to be fortunate, since in a state of extreme grogginess the following morning I would have forgotten to take it with me.

The weekend brought terrific weather with it.  There was a lot of watching of the out.

""Whoa!  There are birds out there!

And a certain amount of working off the natural excitement caused by watching the out. 

Cookie has a good deal of trouble rassling with Biscuit.  It's the fluff.  Where the heck do you bite him?  (Answer- it doesn't matter.  You'll get a mouthful of fluff no matter where you bite.)  Biscuit has a decided preference for munching on Cookie's ears.  All in good fun, of course. 

Sunday, Amtrak was offering some special fare deals to promote the Northeaster train service to Portland, and other Maine points.  Jonathan and I love traveling by train, and lured by the gorgeous sunshine we went up for the day.  We weren't the only passengers (despite the photo- the crowd waiting to board was behind us).   There were a number of families out for the day, and we watched the wild excitement of the under 3-foot set with some amusement.  (Some years ago, that would have been my husband and his indulgent mother, who took him to pretty much every steam train and train-themed attraction on the East coast.)

Amtrak Downeaster at Exeter Station

We walked into town and had lunch, and then set out to walk some more- Portland is a nice city, and has a number of pleasant walking trails.  Our route started out along the waterfront, and past the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum.  "Purely coincidental,"  my husband said.  "I didn't even know if they'd be running trains today."  (They were, but only diesel, not steam.)   The narrow gauge line has rails 2 feet apart, compared to standard, and the trains are really very cute- they look like models, compared to the larger gauge. 

From there our path took us on a long loop around the Back Cove- we saw a harbor seal, in addition to the more usual bird life- and back into town for ice cream at Beals before strolling through streets full of lovely Victorian homes on our way back to the train station.   It was a really gorgeous day, and the first one I've been able to walk around in short sleeves without getting chilly.   In addition to forgetting my camera (my husband took the train photo above on his phone), I also didn't think to bring sunscreen, so I wound up a bit crispy around the edges.  Not a real burn, but certainly a warning to me that I can't expect to get away without it much longer.

Naturally, there has been knitting.  I finally finished the Wasabi hat, which I still need to block, and I've done more mittens when needing something simple I could work on in bad light.  (Hint- a slip-stitch pattern in sock yarn is not that kind of project.)

 I finished the third pair on the train.  Have I mentioned how much we like traveling by train?  Comfy seats, electric outlets for electronics, light for reading and knitting, and you can stroll down to the cafe car if you need a snack.

And now I'm back to working on WIPs, checking my flowerbeds daily to see what survived the winter,  and resisting the restless spring urge to start something new.  Because mittens aside, it would be really nice to get one of the larger things done.  Not to mention block the darned Wasabi hat. 

Hallelujah! Two down.

I finally finished the second monster skein of baby yarn.  And I'm feeling just a tad relieved that skein #3 isn't quite as large as the first two!