8 in 72

The sun is shining! The sun is shining!

It's a good thing because we have 8 soccer games in the next 72 hours.

8 games. Crazy.

We should have only had 4, because Emma's team isn't playing in this tournament, but then a call was put out for girls her age to fill in on other teams.

4 games turns into 8 games.

Half of her team in playing the other half in our first game tonight. Funny how that worked out.

The bigger challenge will be staying mud free, as all of the fields are swampy from the non-stop rain.

The forecast is for pretty nice weather. I hope so.

FO-Baktus

One of my recent projects was this Baktus that I made for my friend Carolyn. She is my soccer car pool buddy, and while I was going through radiation treatments , she picked up a lot of slack for me. She also brought us dinner one night, and in general is a good listener. A true friend. True friends deserve handknits!

This is probably the easiest pattern in the world. You just knit and knit and knit. Add increases and decreases. Voila, you have a very cute little scarf! I loved the way this one worked up. I orginally started in some cotton based sock yarn and I hated the way the colors pooled. I ended up frogging the entire thing. This yarn is Mini Mochi, color 108. I bought some in a different colorway to make one for myself as well. It's just adorable.

My daughter has royal wedding fever and plans to wake up before 6:00 to see Kate's dress. I, for one, will catch it later at a more reasonable hour. Happy Thursday everyone!

five good things- April

I usually love the month of April. Spring break, my birthday, warmer weather...what's not to love? This year it's been wetter than average. Colder than average. Gloomier than average. Overall, it's sucked. I haven't blogged because I feel so negative all the time. If I hadn't had a getaway for my mandatory rest & recuperation, I think I'd be losing my mind right now. (note to self: book vacation next year for spring break!)

So I decided that I am going to focus on GOOD THINGS today, and put the rest of it on the back burner. Because I can.

Good Thing #1:

Cookie A's sock club. I have made 2 pair of socks this month, and one of her cookie recipes. I love her patterns. I love the yarn she chooses. I love everything about the club.

Good Thing #2

Max time! I've started watching my nephew once a week. I forgot how nice it is to have a little one around. I also forgot how tiring it is...good thing I have built in helpers :) I love to watch Emma and Max together. He follows her every move, and she is just enamored of him.

Good Thing #3

Koji Japanese Restaurant. We went there for my birthday dinner to have sushi. It was awesome. The only thing that would have made it better was if we could have watched them make the sushi. It was reasonably priced and fresh as can be. I will be returning often!

Good Thing #4

playing with the Celtics in Indianapolis. Taking Emma & 2 friends by myself was an interesting experience. They had a great time, girl time. We shopped at a SuperTarget (awesome!), I got to eat at places we don't have nearby, and of course there was plenty of soccer. The team went to the finals and lost 1-0, but each girl got a trophy to take home. Many awesome memories.

Good Thing #5

my iPhone. The love affair is still going strong. I love this silly thing. I carry it around in my hand all the time. I play games. I listen to music. I shop for apps. Do I ever shop for apps. I love it. I knew I would, but I thought that by now some of the newness would have faded. Nope.

Later, April. I may not remember you fondly, but at least we had these 5 good things!

FO-Ripple Leaf socks

I've been on a major spring cleaning tear the last few days. I have washed the windows inside & out, washed the screens, washed the kitchen floor, switched out the flannel sheets, and picked up a trash cans worth of dead plant material out of the garden. I even cleaned the gunk out of the pond filter. We have 4 toads already. Before long they will fill the pond with their strings of eggs.

Of course, it's just the tip of the iceberg; there is something to clean in every room. We want to paint the laundry room. Maybe our room too. I have a huge stack of items to price for a garage sale, date undetermined. I feel the need to purge and simplify. It's one thing I can control.

I have been knitting lots of socks lately! Last month I created my last item for the Baby Gardner. It was just too hard to balance knitting what I wanted to knit with what she needed me to knit. It also kept me from building up an inventory of things to sell in my etsy shop (which I'm not going to link because there isn't anything in it anyway!).

At the beginning of the year I joined a sock club, and not just any sock club, but one by the awesome sock designer Cookie A. It was my "I had cancer but I survived the treatments" prize to myself. Every other month we get one skein of fabulous yarn, 2 patterns, and 2 cookie recipes. This is one of the patterns.

This is made with Sundara sock in Raspberry. And because I am such an awesome friend, I made these for my BFF Heather. They fit, she loves me, end of story :)

ps. My left foot is not pointier than my right foot. I don't know why it looks like it is. Must be an optical illusion.

Maybe I'll blog again tomorrow with another pair!

Yeegads it's April already

Poor, neglected blog. It's not that I haven't meant to check in once in awhile with you, I just haven't had a lot to say. The weather has been crappy, the skies gloomy. It's hard to get excited about spring when it's dreary and gray everyday. Every day. I have had three massive headaches this week, rendering me about as interesting as buttered toast. But the sun is shining for 5 minutes and the weather report shows a day in our near future with the number 7 in the lead off position. Hells, yeah!

This week I started the couch to 5K program. I tried to find a link to iTunes but can't. Oh well. The gist of the program is that you can go from couch to running a 5K in 9 weeks. I intended to start Monday, but these damned headaches have gotten in the way of everything this week. I did my 30 minutes on Tuesday and fully intended to do workout #2 yesterday but... (insert headache here). So the good news is that I didn't die after the first workout. My calves burned like a mother, but I didn't die. And I didn't quit. I'm going to do workout #2 in just a little bit. Before you know it, I will be running. Shut the front door, I said RUNNING! Go me.

Aren't my new shoes full of the awesome?

Tomorrow I am driving Emma & 2 friends to Indianapolis for a soccer tournament. They are guest playing for the Canton Celtics, and since we don't have any tourneys lined up, we thought it would be a fun experience for them. Girls road trip! I should have my head examined :)