I am alive, well and I still knit. Every person is given challenges at various times in their life that must take priority over their normal routine. I was just too exhausted to do anything more than go to work, take care of personal business and sleep. I accept my challenges and will overcome.

One small thing I did was break one of my fingers in two places. Yep, my ring finger on my right hand broke in two places and a little piece of the bone chipped off. It was painful for a while because I am right handed. You would be surprised just how much you use that finger. Typing definitely hurt, so no blogging or personal e-mails, only work e-mail got done with a broken finger! I twisted it in my bowling ball. Yep, pretty silly. Couldn’t knit much either. My finger is now almost healed so my knitting is picking up. Woohoo.

I recently went to Virginia for a week and had a wonderful time visiting my son, grandson and daughter-in-law. My grandson wanted to see where the “President” lives so I ended up in Washington DC for one day. Looks like he lives in a nice big jail.

Secret Service everywhere, bars all around…. I am not easily impressed but my little guy was and that is all that matters.

Above – Son and Grandon admiring the view from park next to the Washington Monument.

Saw the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Capitol, museums, theaters; the works. I was impressed by the history of DC. I went the weekend end after the Cherry Blossom Festival. I missed the festival but still got to see the Cherry blossoms.

I did end up with a $100.00 parking ticket for a souvenir. Funny story about that. Not ”ha ha” funny, just “funny.” We found the greatest parking spot right in front of the Washington Monument. We were thrilled. it was right in the middle of everything. I read the green sign, DH, DS, DD read the green sign, we all read the green sign. The green sign by the great parking spot read “3 Hour Parking from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm.”  Great! To us hicks from Denver, that also means unlimited free parking after 4:00 pm. It was around 2:00 pm. So we went sight seeing, went to dinner and then did some more sight seeing, until 7:30 pm. We thought we were so smart to wait for the rush hour traffic to clear before leaving the area. The traffic was horrendous but not a problem for us. We had it all figured out. We were walking camly back to the car after dinner when we all got a strange eerie feeling when we spotted the area where the car was parked. There were only 3 cars parked on the entire long block. Ours and 2 other vehicles. The other 2 vehicles were just sitting there, with men inside, watching our vehicle. All of a sudden, with horror, we realized what had happened. We missed reading the red sign, down the street, the one that was not close to the green 3 hour parking sign. The one that said No Parking after 4:00 pm. How are we supposed to know that where we parked turns into a turn lane during rush hour. I think it should have said so on the same sign. At the very least the 2 signs should be together or at least near each other. In our city, you can park free downtown after hours so that is how we interpreted the green sign. I do apologize to the DC rush hour drivers that must have cursed at our car that day. On the other hand I am grateful that we did not get arrested and/or the car did not get towed away. I believe it was minutes from being towed.  Yes, I feel like a big goof ball. It was just too easy getting that prime parking spot. We should have known from the beginning that it was not a good sign. We had heard how hard it is to find parking in the city and here we are first timers scoring a great parking spot. Next time I guess we should try the Metro.

The good side is that we had a nice drive and saw much of the city. I am pretty sure the neighborhood I spotted that I would so live in, on”Princess” Street is a bit out of my price range this year so maybe I’ll check it out next year! I can see the Purple Princess living on Princess Street. 417 Princess Street to be exact.

I got to visit The Knitting Cottage in Fredericksburg, VA where I acquired this;

Apparently you can knit directly from this fabric to make some socks. Very interesting. 

I visited Knit Happens in Alexandria. What a cute store.

I bought some yarn dyed by local dyers. This first one is from the Neighborhood Fiber Co. and the colors of the yarn are named for different neighborhoods in the area. Of course I had to get the one with purple in it called Brookland.

This one is from Yarn Love in the color Red Delicious.

Life is good and I love yarn. 

If a man does his best, what else is there?
–General George S. Patton

I have no idea. All I know right now is that it is Friday and I am happy that it is; ecstatic, actually. I also have no idea where I have been or what I have been up to lately. Working and resting up to go back to work is all I have. Maybe a couple of knitting projects are in progress and one finished item but overall my knitting has been going in very slow motion.

Do you ever have times in your life where you just want to curl up in a corner, by yourself, shut the world out and do absolutely nothing? I wanted to but couldn’t, I have just been so busy since my wonderful trip to Hawaii that I just have had no time to myself. In addition, Spring must be getting close because I also have a strong urge to clean and organize my home, office, yarn and life but lately the harder I work the less I seem to accomplish. I was feeling under the weather with that stupid flu and I think it messed with my brain so I was unable to get much accomplished even though I kept trying. I feel much better now and ready to get out of my little funk, set myself some goals, streamline my processes and move forward.

Never under estimate the power of realistic goal setting. If you write it, it will happen or so I tell myself as I get back on the kick of setting goals for myself. I have decided that weekly goals are too much for me to worry about; I procrastinate too much to set yearly goals, so what is left?? Monthly goals of course. The only requirement I am making is that at least one of my monthly goals has to have the word finish in it. After all that is what this is all about. Knitting projects aren’t realized until they are completed. Actually this is true for all the goals I am setting for myself. Finish is the magic word.

2008 March Goals

1. Read some everyday. I started reading the Harry Potter series again. I finished the 1st book and have started the 2nd. I love to curl up in comfy chair and just read.

2. Finish the “Vickie” Cardigan. I am taking a class from Marilyn Kingfor this sweater and so far I have the back and one front completed. Really nice pattern and fun to knit, btw.

3. Knit a swatch and be ready to start a vest for the Tailored Knitting workshop given by Jean Wong on March 16. 

4. Spend more time at home and allow one day a week to organize and clean

5. Knit a sock. Just because I want to!

That is it for now. Pretty realistic don’t you think?

 I did finish one fabulous felted hat in February. Pictures later, meanwhile please enjoy some more photos from Maui.

The place with a great beach

Large exotic flowers

Beautiful Sunsets

 and a restaurant called Cheeseburgers in Paradise.

(photo taken from my private cabana on the beach at Grand Wailea Resort in Maui) 

TGIF and that is all I can say. It has been a rough week and I think I am still on Maui time. Who wouldn’t still wish they were there, so when it come time to go to bed, I am tired but I can’t get to sleep. I have been knitting, reading, tossing, turning and pacing until about 3 in the morning, when I finally seem to be able to doze off. I get up at 5 am so I am really feeling it today and I am so happy it is Friday.  I am pretty sure I am going to sleep all weekend! (yea, right just some wishful positive thinking.)

(photo was taken by the side of the road as we were driving from the airport to the resort on the first day.)

I am also pretty sure you will be seeing pictures and hearing about my trip to Maui for some time to come. It was quite a memorable trip and I had no idea Hawaii was so beautiful.

The flowers are beautiful and HUGE! Try growing this in Colorado.

Okay enough about my trip already. Here is the progress I have made on my “Vickie”. I first cast on when I boarded the plane to Maui on February 10, 2008. There was no knitting once I got to Maui but I have been back at it this week. It is going a bit more slowly than I would like but work and other obligations have gotten in the way.

So this ……

will grow up to become this …

This pattern was designed by Marilyn King with Black Water Abbey.

Why did I start yet another sweater? Well it is very demented simple, really. Remember the Cables 101 Vest I started?

and re-started then revised a cable and so on and so on. (So, basically I was getting no where on it anyway.)Well after a long helpful lunch bitch session pow wow with my friend Kathy, it became very clear that this project was not for me. I complained fessed up that I really just did not like working this project, and after being the recipient of her very wise advice, off to the frog pond it went. My knitting life is just too short to not enjoy knitting every project. I love doing cables and I love the BWA yarn but I did not like using a US5 needle and knitting tight little cables with the BWA yarn. As I struggled along knitting the vest with its tight gauge I realized, with confirmation from Kathy, that I would never wear the vest because is will turn out to be just to warm and stiff for my liking. I love the BWA yarn and I love knitting cables but not this pattern, yarn, gauge combination. I went back to the drawing board, reviewed all of my patterns, picked out the Vickie Cardigan, changed to the Haw (red) color in the BWA and oh what a difference. I absolutely love working on this project. I love the pattern, it is well written, it flows well and the gauge is 4 1/2 sts to the inch instead of 5 so I am using a US7 and enjoying my knitting once again.

You are probably still wondering why I started a new sweater, when I have two others already started. Well, I am taking a class taught by Marilyn King and this is my class project. See I can justify almost anything when it comes to knitting!

Excuse me, I must go knit now.  I have lots of knitting to catch up on since I have fallen way behind because of all this project drama and vacation time. Is there a class to teach you how to choose the best project for yourself in the first place? If so sign me up!