Another Day in Paradise

The boss went to Cabo for a week.  This morning there was an email from him telling me that it was going to be another hot day in paradise — and he included a photo showing the view from his room.  Hmmmph.  So I had this photo taken and emailed to him with the caption YOU THINK YOU’RE IN PARADISE!!!!

The bottle of Wildcat wine was on the table in his office.  I have my lunchtime knitting — the baby cardi — and chocolates from Cocoa Dolce on my lap.  LOL. A bit of humor to spice up the day.

The weather here lately has been up and down — rain, sleet, snow, then warm, then cold again.  It is nearly March, though!  I am ready for spring.

I have been thinking lately about getting back to more gardening this year.  I have been looking online at how to do raised garden beds and I think I will try to build myself some raised beds for vegetables this year.  I always have herbs and a few veggies, but I really would like to grow more of what I eat this summer instead of buying most of it at the farmers market. Several years ago I had a large vegetable garden, but in the past few summers I have not wanted to spend the time with it.  I am thinking that I might enjoy it more if I do raised beds.

Yesterday it was cold and we had some ice and snow on the ground, so we had planned a soup day at the office.  We had crockpots of chili, baked potato soup, broccoli cheese soup, and I provided a crockpot of minestrone. I don’t eat meat, anyway, and I gave up cheese for Lent, so I went with minestrone.  Our office runner brought in homemade eggrolls, but they were chicken and pork, so none for me.  Last night I made myself a big bowl of pasta with pesto and capers — yummy!

It is supposed to be back up in the 40s by the weekend after another round of snow Thursday, so I am hoping to get the pug out to the park.

Early End to the Week

Tomorrow the boss is off to a small town in the southeast corner of the state, so I am taking a vacation day.  Nothing planned.  Not going anywhere.  Planning a quiet day at home.  And if the snow melts some, and the temps rise above 40, I may put a sweater on the pug and go for a walk in the park.

On Sunday afternoon, I was playing around in my bins of yarn — sorting and moving around and reorganizing, and I found a lovely dark red cotton silk heavy worsted that I bought with the plan of knitting myself a particular sweater.  I don’t care much for the pattern now, but I am thinking that I would love to knit something for myself with this yarn.  So one of the things I hope to do is to browse through my pattern and knitting mag bin and find something to knit up with this yarn.  It is not as if I need any additional projects, but I would like to knit myself a sweater that I will actually wear.  I did knit myself a cardigan once, but I didn’t like it when it was finally finished, and I gave it away.  I will wear socks and scarves that I knit for myself, but I want a sweater.

I spoke to the fashionista yesterday.  She was in the blizzard on the east coast.  Much much snow there.  But the house still had power and she has plenty to keep herself and her young charges busy.  So all is well — as well as can be expected.  And I hear they are expecting more snow on Sunday/Monday!

Saturday morning I have a breakfast to attend.  And I am hoping that it will be sunny and warm on Saturday — hope springs eternal! I would love to get out to the park.  I understand that by Sunday the temps will drop again. Boo.

This Sunday is the annual women of the family Valentine lunch.  I have all my gifts.  Just need to wrap and/or bag them, and address the cards.  I am looking forward to a nice Italian lunch on Sunday.

Not much to write about.  I will be heading to the library tomorrow.  There are two Amelia Peabody mysteries waiting for me that I have not yet read.  The newest and the one just prior to that. 

I am still knitting away on the organic cotton baby sweater and the hunting socks.  The baby sweater is a cream color, and I know the expected infant is a girl, so in addition to pink buttons, I am thinking about embroidering some pink flowers on it to dress it up a bit.  I have not done much embroidery, but surely I can do a few flowers.

Wintry Wonderland and New Knitting

I woke up this morning to a wintry wonderland.  And more shoveling — sigh.  I tried to take a couple of photos, but they didn’t turn out well.  I think we got about 5 inches of heavy wet snow overnight.  And it snowed off and on all day.  And now COLD COLD and windy for the rest of the week.

Hunting socks

This is a photo of one of my current projects.  Brown Wooleased and tan alpaca.  I have 5 inches done on the cuff of the first sock.  I am knitting these on a US size 4.

The weekend went by fairly quickly.  Saturday I picked up a few groceries and went to the library.  I couldn’t get into Anne Tyler’s new book, Noah’s Compass, so I took it back.  Maybe I will finish it at a later date.  I have done that before with books.  I picked up some new reads — Classic Knits by Erika Knight, Italian Shoes by Henning Mankell, The Recipe Club by Andrea Israel and Nancy Garfinkel, and The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl.

I got the family room re-organized for the first time after getting new carpet.  I got my laundry and ironing caught up. I re-organized my bins of yarn.  Listened to music.  Did some cooking.  I made a spicy cauliflower soup, eggplant parmesan, black bean salsa to eat with tortilla chips, potato soup, and walnut date muffins.  I won’t starve this week!