Not as Much Knitting as I'd Like

I can't help but feel grateful for the welcome back to blogging that I have received from you, my dear friends. Thank you so much! And I'm so glad most of you are still blogging so I can share your lives.

Early in June, I went to town on our yard -- after 17 years of neglecting this deep-shade yard. Some friends donated plants and advice, and the back yard is beginning to look good:

We've tried growing shade grass on our terrace but always ended up with a weed patch. In early June, I spent hours weeding with a hand spade and planting  that most aggressive of ground covers: Snow on the Mountain, also known as Bishop's weed. So far, it's pretty bare, but I'm confident the "weed" will fill in by fall.

However, I spent far too much time twisting my right hand and wrist and ended up with a serious repetitive motion injury in my right hand and arm. Thus, I've had to limit my knitting time, which isn't helping with my goal of knitting a big dent into my stash.

I was able to finished my "pandemic shawl." It started as an Olive Pink Shawl, but I made a lot of changes in the pattern based on my own preferences. It is a huge, cuddly shawl that will spend a lot of time on my shoulders come winter.

And I've made slow progress on Kate's Poncho. I'm using gorgeous raspberry Miss Babs yarn that I bought at a Knit-In a decade ago. It's supposed to be for Rachel, but raspberry is my favorite color:

We'll have to see how it fits me before I decide!

Quiet Saturday: Cleaning and Knitting

I know there were only five days in my work week, but it felt like 10. Usually I feel settled into the school year by mid-October but this year feels twitchy. I know that one factor is the continuing stream of new students we are getting from Milwaukee and Chicago. I got a new student this week, but he seems like an awesome kid. Still, every new special ed student needs a boatload of paperwork completed!

At least I'm not alone in feeling like this is a tough school year. Friday morning one of my co-teachers walked in the door of our classroom and asked, "Who needs chocolate?" as she held out a bag of mini 3 Muskateers candy bars.

So, I was ready for a quiet weekend. And my house is more than ready for a decluttering. I started the day by heading out for coffee with a friend. She wanted to go to The Sow's Ear, a coffee shop/yarn store in a nearby town. It was a beautiful drive. The sugar maples are showing their richest scarlet color, and the fields are a lovely fall gold. And, I managed not to buy anything!

Then it was time to get down to work. I started with kitchen and then moved onto the bedroom. Then it was time for a knitting break:

I've begun to call this "My Big Dumb Shawl." It really is beautiful, thanks to the unspun Icelandic yarn, but it is a LOT of garter stitch. And now the rows are really long!

Then it was time to start on the really hard room, my craft room:

 

Can you believe I'm even showing this in public? I'm a bit surprised myself! It really is awful. I just have so many projects going at once. And it is so much more fun to create than clean up, so every 6 months or so I have to do a major decluttering and reorganizing. This time I'm going to try to get rid of some stuff, too. Maybe a lot of stuff. 

This may take a while ...