In Case You Were Wondering ...

... blog friends matter. Thank all of you so much for your kind words and support. Your messages mean a lot to me.

My "loved one" (for lack of a better word) is not doing very well, at least not yet. It is going to take weeks, possibly months.  The doctors in the hospital were not at all helpful, but I was able to find a private practitioner who has gotten treatment going.

I have found that knitting is essential during family illnesses. What else can you do at the hospital? It's hard to read because there are so many interuptions. But the right knitting project can save your sanity. In that vein, I finished knitting my Quicksilver. I just have to weave in the ends and block it:

I am really happy with the pattern and my color choice. So there's one little mood booster!

Miles And Miles of Garter

Yep, I'm still slogging away on my Quicksilver Shawl.

It seems like I've been knitting this forever. I want to point out that it takes three skeins of fingering-weight yarn, so there's a reason why it seems so endless! I'm going to try to catch up on American Crime (an ABC series) this evening while I get some knitting done.

We are in the middle of standardized testing at my school -- and that seems endless, too! I think that the teachers will be as happy as the students when we get to the end. As a special ed teacher, I'm really looking forward to finishing up all my meetings and paperwork. I try to be done by the end of April, but I'm not going to make it this year. I think I can be done in mid-May, and I'm OK with that.

I'm joining Nicole to Keep Calm and Craft On.

Not Tired of It Yet

I've been nibbling away at the Quicksilver shawl I started back in January at the Sun Valley retreat and I am enjoying every stitich:

I love how the ivory sections contrast with the pink stripes. When I started this project, the directions seemed so complicated, but they are well-written and now the entire pattern makes sense to me. I think it will be great as a summer shawl -- one for air conditioning and evenings.

 

I decided against going to Knitting Guild last night, even though it's always good. In my own reading and on NPR, I've been encountering a lot of information about how harmful a lack of sleep is. Too little sleep contributes to weight gain, irritability, inflexibily -- all things I want to avoid!  As someone who has to start work by 7:20 a.m. (at the latest!), I struggle to get enough sleep. I really need to be in bed by 8 or 8:30, but it's hard to do that and also have a social life!

 

So, I went home, had a bowl of soup, and got into bed with a novel I've been wanting to read, The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt. Before long I was drifting off. I must do this more often.

 

Join me in Keep Calm Craft On with Nicole.