Thursday, March 18, 2010

Dinner on the Porch

Ahh, the sweetness of a beautiful spring day. Actually this is the second perfect spring day in a row and the forecasters are predicting more for tomorrow. When I got home from school today, I opened the door to the porch (the Mexican Room) and was blasted with a wave of hot air, so I left the door opened to let some of the free heat into the house! By dinner time it was still a lovely temp out there so we carried our dinner plates out there and ate off of tray tables! It was delightful!


Yesterday and today I rode my bike to and from school. It has been a bit cool in the morning, but by the return ride, I didn't need to wear my jacket. I may try to ride again tomorrow.

The progress on my newest shawl is coming nicely. Here is an in-progress photo:

March Madness has started and so far it has been great basketball. I can easily knit and watch the games, so that is a good thing. Syracuse plays tomorrow night, so we will be cheering for them even though we won't be at the game.

Our sympathies go out to the Grivetti family as they mourn the death of one of their dogs, Jazz. Jazz got in a tussle with a coyote and lost that battle.

Hope all is well.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Monday Musings

March Madness! I love March Madness, or as one of my colleagues calls it, Marge Madness, and now that the teams have been announced I have to give serious consideration to my picks in the bracket. I will be in 2 pools, one at school and another through a friend in DC. My track record in these pools is pitiful, but that doesn't deter me from throwing down $5 and entering a pool. I love to watch any of the games and love to circle the winners on my bracket. My heart would love to pick Syracuse to win the whole thing, but my brain questions that decision, especially since one of the SU players has been injured and will probably miss the first 2 games of the tournament.

We have tickets to see some regional NCAA games at Syracuse next week and it should be fun. Syracuse won't be playing there, but I believe we may get to see Kentucky play. It should be good basketball.

Enough about basketball, and on to my knitting. I took a few days off from knitting once my shawl was completed, but I was itching to start another shawl of a different pattern. I found a pattern that I liked in a book I borrowed from the Knitting Guild library so I bought some beautiful Kidsilk Haze yarn, a 70 % mohair and 30% silk blend. It is so incredibly soft and fluffy. Instead of being a triangular shawl, this will be a stole- styled shawl, like a really wide scarf. The color is a pale pink and I think it will be lovely. I'll take some photos in the near future, but I can tell you that I have knit about 3 inches and I already love it!

In other knitting news, nephew Zach asked me to knit him one of the Olympic hats so I will have to get just a bit more yarn for that. I have quite a bit left over from the first Olympic hat I made, but not quite enough of the blue.

We had a nice visit with Corey. He took Jim's car back to school so he could go out to some local dairy farms to film a documentary that he is working on for a school project.

We talked to Tucker over the weekend and he had a great trip on the Salt River. And with Alison's help, his aquaponics experiment survived his absence.

This week has all the usual evening activities, with the added bonus of dinner with Grandma at the Villages.

Tomorrow is a big day for our dear friend, Liz. Little Elizabeth turns 30 (that is the last time I will announce your age in the blog, Liz!)! We have had the honor and pleasure of being part of her life for these 30 years and have loved every minute (well, with the exception of a couple, but we won't get into that right now)! So Happy Birthday Liz! We love ya! Also, tomorrow is Andrew J's birthday, but I don't know how old he is! But I'm sure it is older than I think he should be. So Happy Birthday to Andrew too.

Since I have no photos of current happenings around here, I will leave you with a photo from Tucker's time in Mexico. He looks like he is ready for the north shore of Oahu!

Hope all is well.