A Stitch In Time

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I talk about my various and sundry hobbies here as well as my life in general. The primary focus of this blog is my spinning and my knitting but you can find just about anything covered if you hang out long enough.

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Thanksgiving Day was wonderful.  And as for my list on my previous post, here’s how I made out…

  Done!

Done!

3. Do some much needed knitting on Bramble Berry’s back.  Well, sort of.  About 14 rows got knitted…
4. Put my Christmas Tree up on Friday.  (Umm, maybe… We’ll see…) Also put up holiday decorations.  (Yeah, we’ll see about that one too.) - Nope

- Yes, but sans tree…
6. Get some reading done.  I currently have 4 books that I am reading right now.  I would like to finish one.  The books, in case you are wondering are:

, Yarn Harlot The Secret Life of a Knitter by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova and Sourcery by Terry Pratchett. - Yes!  I finished Eldest!

I also got back to fleece washing.  I only have 6 fleeces left to wash and 3 samples.  (Less than half a pound)  Hard core relaxation day was Friday, with some fleece washing and reading done on Saturday.  Sunday was more fleece washing at the customary laundry activities that normally take up my Sundays. 

Hmmm, Snow’s suggestion of a hap shawl for my jacob yarn sounds really good.  Hmmm…. 

And the other thing I did was block my Charlotte from vacation! 

Tonight was fleece washing fun…  No knitting or spinning for me this evening… 

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody!  For those of us in the US, this is a pretty wonderful holiday.  It’s all about the food, and giving thanks for the things that we have.  Family, friends, a home, and food to share.  For the last 7 years, with the exception of last year, Kirk and I have cooked both Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner at our home.  We enjoy doing this because we invite our single friends as well as those who do not have family in this area (MD), and those whose family has passed away.  While many don’t accept the invitations, they know our home and table are always open and welcome to them. 

I was instilled with this desire to share my table when we lived overseas and my Dad was in the Air Force.  Being in Europe and not being able to see our families for sometimes years at a time, our bonds with fellow service people were strong.  We would always have our own feast with many of my dad’s single airmen, and then afterwards we would go to the NCO club, (Non-Commissioned Officer) and serve Thanksgiving dinner to the troops that lived in the barracks.  It was a warm and comforting feeling sharing family and breaking bread with people in our same situation and many times we were thanked for making these airmen’s holidays just a little more like home. 

This is my favorite holiday of the year, for that reason.  No matter what our political, religious, or social viewpoints, we can all come together at the table and break bread celebrating the harvest of another year’s bounty.  It’s the calm before the storm here right now.  Kirk is snoring in bed curled up with Max, Calvin is snuggled at my feet while I type, as is Ivan.  When I finish this post it will be time to ramp into action.  The turkey will go into the oven and we’ll be rolling right along.  We got all of our cleaning done last night so we are very much ahead of the game today, 

I thought I would take this opportunity to post the pictures I keep telling you all that exist. 

Here are the 2 skeins of the lavender angora/merino blend, from Kim at the Woolen Rabbit.  It’s a 60/40 blend and one of the most luxurious things in the world to be able to touch.  I can’t wait to knit with it.  The close up picture is more true to color than the top one.

Next up we have a photo of the 4 completed Jacob yarns and the 1 ball of the moorit left to spin.  I’ve since begun spinning it and am almost done.  I may be able to finish the spinning on this in between cooking and basting and start plying tonight!  The bottom photo is the 2 tweeded yarns.  The dark plied with the moorit and the moorit plied with the cream.  I can’t wait to use these 5 in a shawl.  I’m thinking Kiri right now…

Enjoy the holiday, be thankful for all that you have, and spare a thought or prayer for those who have little, or nothing.  May you all have a Blessed day.

I shudder to think how much needs to be done at home before my guests arrive for dinner tomorrow.  Tonight will be cleaning night, whether I want to or not.  The short list:

1. Sweep all floors
2. Swiffer all floors
3. Mop all floors

4. Dust.  (This could take a lifetime just on its own…)
5. Pull out all China and table linens needed for Thanksgiving. 
6. Plan out which food goes in which serving dishes.  (I tend to get this one too rushed at the last minute which makes me a bit frantic) 
7. Iron table cloth and napkins
8. Try to remember to get jellied cranberry sauce lest I cry tomorrow without it…

9. Figure out what time we have to have the turkey in the oven so it will get done by 2:30 or so. 

At this point, if it isn’t midnight, I’ll relax for a little bit and enjoy having a clean house for a change…  (There’s daily clean and holiday clean folks.  The sparkly clean only happens sporadically.) 

Goals for this weekend:
1. Make it through Thursday with everyone smiling and tummys full and happy.  (This one shouldn’t be too hard as we have yet to have a holiday meal disaster.  There have been disasters, just not food related…)
2. Find some time to finish the last 25% of the moorit Jacob Roving, ply it to itself, and wash all of the finished Jacob skeins.
3. Do some much needed knitting on Bramble Berry’s back. 
4. Put my Christmas Tree up on Friday.  (Umm, maybe…  We’ll see…)  Also put up holiday decorations.  (Yeah, we’ll see about that one too.)
5. Hard core relaxation with tree lights on, tea in hand and a pup to curl up with.  (Knitting is optional, pup is essential.)
6. Get some reading done.  I currently have 4 books that I am reading right now.  I would like to finish one.  The books, in case you are wondering are: Eldest by Christopher Paolini, Yarn Harlot The Secret Life of a Knitter by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova and Sourcery by Terry Pratchett.  I’m not the fast reader that Deb is….  I envy fast readers, I really do.

Have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  May you be as full as you want to be and as happy as you can imagine.  And may you drop no stitches while stirring the gravy and waiting for it to thicken… 

What a GREAT weekend!  I was invited to spend “a few hours” with Shelley and Marley on Saturday, and I was really looking forward to it.  I packed up my Bramble Berry, completed sleeves and back in progress, my Joy and the Angora Merino I’ve been spinning on it forever, some treats for Max (he’s really funny about most treats), a little something for Shelley and had a lovely drive down to Alexandria.  What a beautiful place Old Town is.  I usually have a rigid agenda when I go to Alexandria so it was nice to be able to look around and enjoy it this time.  Shelley has the most BEAUTIFUL house!!!  I want her to come and decorate my house!  I love all of the colors in her home.  Like me, she’s not afraid of bright and bold.  I felt at home immediately and so did Max.  Marley is lucky enough to have a fenced in yard, something that Max doesn’t have or else he’d be outside a heck of a lot more! 

The pups got along like they’d known each other for years.

And Shelley and I did too!!!  Shelley gave me some really fabulous edible presents which should be taked care of in short order at my house!!!!  I swear it was like we had known each other for years.  It was totally comfortable.  No awkward silences or anything like that.  And I SO wanted to take Marley home with me. 

We had so much fun watching the pups play and “guard” us that we never even talked about knitting except to briefly look at each other’s projects and gush.    Gushing is mandatory.    I wore the Rhubarb lace sweater over since it was chilly outside in the shade and pleasantly warm in the sun.  It made a great jacket for our walk to Nirvana for Knitters, AKA Knit Happens.  I had briefly been in to Knit Happens once.  I was looking for a skein of Koigu in a particular colorway.  Yeah, like looking for a needle in a haystack, I know.    Anyway, it was a brief visit, but Shelley took me for the real deal visit.  First off, it’s within WALKING distance from her house!  Dude, the damage I could do if I was within walking distance to a knitting store is staggering.  What a comfy and cozy place!  I could totally see myself curled up with a mug of tea, and a spot of knitting on my lap.  I picked up a couple of things.  This was the first yarn store I had been to that I saw Rowan “magazines” in.  I had a nice time perusing them…    I picked up one Rowan magazine as it has a lot of pretty traditional and classic shaped sweaters which I will probably be able to knit using my handspun.  (Yes, it’s all about my handspun these days, but the Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk nearly had me swooning….)  I also got the Ella Rae Pattern book #1 which will also yield a few wonderful handspun projects.  I bought 2 other items, one I will tell you about, the other I won’t.  It’s a small present for a certain blogger who reads this site…  It’s an addition to a collection I am aware of…  so my last item was a set of double pointed needles, all metal, 5 of each size all packaged together.  The sizes are 1 (silver), 0 (gold), 00 (blue), and 000 (red) that completes my Double pointed sets from sizes 0000 through 11.  I was really excited by this acquisition as I had been casually looking for metal teeny double points.   

We had such a great time together.  I can’t wait to have Shelley and Marley over to play, I mean visit soon!    Sunday I was supposed to do a whole list of things, but what I managed to get done was grocery shopping for our Thanksgiving dinner, laundry, some cleaning and some spinning.  I finished all of the dark brown Jacob and plied it on itself.  I’m working on the last of the Moorit now.  I also finally plied some of the Lavendar Angora/Merino that I got from Kim a while back.  I need to really get that fiber spun up since it has been in my stash unspun longer than anything else. 

Shelley has some of the most gorgeous roving and fiber that I have ever seen.  I really wanted to abscond with the corriedale, but she let me spin some up and we both loved it!  It will make a really lovely sweater.    I might have to get Shelley to let me borrow it!   

Anyway, I do have pictures, I am just a total slacker though.    I’ll get to them, honest!  But go read Shelley’s post! 

I’ll sign off with a picture of Marley, Shelley, Max and myself taken at about 11:00pm. 

Much to say…

I have been knitting and spinning!  I finished the dark and medium plied Jacob yarn, but I haven’t taken a photo yet.  I’ve also made progress on the back of Bramble Berry.  Thank you all so much for your kind words about its progress. 

Thank you all for your kind wishes to my baby pup on his 2nd year anniversary with us.  And a special thank you to Rebekah, Abner and Basil!  They sent this to Max to celebrate his find-a-versary!

It was such a sweet thing to do and Max is really enjoying his treats!

My 2 favorites are these:

Max actually was a little worried about eatingthe kitty shaped one.  He looked around first to see if Ivan was around.  He didn’t want kitty retribution! 

Thank you so much Rebekah! 

It’s been a hard few months and I have been pretty bad about staying in touch with my friends and my blog buddies too.  I told some of my readers via personal e-mails about this, but I felt it was time to put it out here.  The folks I told are people who have asked me about how Hobbes, our kitty had been doing.

I’m sorry to say that we had Hobbes put to sleep on September 9, 2005.  He had been with us for 9 years, and had been ill off and on for about 5 years.  The illness varied in severity but had gotten much worse in the last 6 months.  It was a heart wrenching decision that I have been struggling with since it hapened.  But you may wonder why I brought it up now?  Well, this past Monday I had to take Max to the vet.  He has a hard red lump on his leg that just appeared and didn’t go away for over a week,  Turns out it is a Histiosis Cytoma.  A benign tumor that should go away on its own and is common on the limbs of younger dogs.  Anyway, I had Hobbes cremated, and picked up his ashes that day also.  I was shattered by the finality.  While not having him greet me each day has been final enough, holding the box in my hands hammered it home.  My vet & I came to the decision togther that it was time, and since it has become clear that much more was wrong than we realized.  My vet could not have been more compassionate through this ordeal.  In fact, the next morning she sent us a Peace Lily plant in Hobbes’ honor.  I’ve managed to keep it alive despite the fact that Hobbes’ brother Calvin wants to eat it. 

Here are some photos of Hobbes, and how well he got along with his brothers, and one of the lovely box that his ashes are held in.  I was struck by the beauty of this box. 

I still see Hobbes in the corner of my eye trotting past me, and on his favorite chair.  I wake up in the night and pet the kitty under my arm knowing it’s him, then at the feel of the fur I know that it isn’t my baby Hobbers, but one of his brothers.  This has been so terribly hard on Kirk and I, and so many of you have said wonderful things to comfort me and ease the loss.  I appreciate them all, and I’m so sorry it has taken me so long to write about it.  I can only now type about him without sobbing.  I love my animals more than I could describe and it has been such a hard decision to live with, but I think it was for the best.  The other kitties are settling in to a new routine, and things are so much less tense among the animals.  Truly there had been more going on than we realized.  Please forgive me for not going into more detail and for taking so long to discuss it, but thank you for your patience with me.  I’m still mourning the loss of my baby and while some don’t believe that animals have souls, I know that they live on in us and in our memories and stories and pictures.  I know Hobbes is whole now and playing in fields of catnip, eating his fill of lettuce, broccoli and cheese.  He’s purring loudly at the sight of someone who might pet him, and he’s watching over Kirk, Max, Ivan, Calvin and me.  One day we’ll join him and be a family once more, but until then, you are still in my heart Hobbers, and I miss you and love you. 

Make sure you give your pets extra love and snuggles today for me. 

Well, in my zeal to get my post out, I forgot 2 photos.  I actually did do some knitting while I was visiting with Anne.  I worked on my Bramble Berry sweater and got the second sleeve finished and started the back of the sweater.

I also forgot post my favorite statue from the Missouri Botanical Gardens.  I’m sure you will know why. 

Other than that I’ve been working and doing a little bit of spinning.  I’ve finished up half of the medium color of Jacob and I am currently spinning up half of the dark Jacob to ply with the medium so that I can finish up the medium roving…

I feel pretty run down now so I’m going to go and have some spinning therapy. 

Yes, Bad, bad title…  Thank you all so much for the kind and sweet comments about my homage to my beloved pup.  He means the world to me. 

But I had an absolute BLAST visiting with Anne over this past weekend!

The morning started with some lovely and leisurely coffee and breakfast with Anne’s mom and then we went to the art museum and saw the Treasures from the Temples of Ur, Sumerian exhibit in the morning on Friday, and right outside of the museum I took this photo of Saint Louis himself.

Next we went to the famous Gateway Arch.  It was gorgeous!  I took this first photo while walking up to it and the second photo is from inside the arch at the top looking out over the Mississippi River.

Friday night found us having a wonderful dinner at Shlafley’s Bottle Works.  The beer bread and Bison stew were to die for.  As was the wonderful company of Anne and her mom.  What a fun day filled with laughter and easy company.

The next day, on Saturday morning, Anne and I ate a quick breakfast, packed lunch, did a little cleaning up and headed off for the real reason for my visit.  For my Christmas present, Anne got us both enrolled in a natural dyeing class at the Missouri Botanical Gardens in St Louis.  It was AMAZING!  And SO fun!!!  We tried 30 recipes in class, and each student did at least 6 preparations using various mordants, ammonia dips and additives like rusty nails.  Here’s a picture of the instructor’s yarn samples, and our sample page from class…

It was an amazing experience and I’m so excited to do some dyeing and get my dye garden going!!!!!!  It was such an amazing process and to share everyone’s work with them and to really enjoy the camaraderie of a shared passion was so much fun.  We got done with class early, and were given over 100 dye pot recipes to take home…  So, since we got out of class early, we took advantage of the time to walk the gardens.

Here are some photos:

Toad Lily

Fall color surrounding the Mausoleum in the Victorian Garden

A great shot of a group of 3 Coi under the surface of the water.  This was taken from the zig zag bridge in the Japanese Gardens.

A wonderful shot of the bridge leading to the Tea House in the Japanese Gardens

It was such a wonderful walk.  Anne and I really enjoyed ourselves and had some fun in the gift shop too!   

But, we had to get home since we were having a VERY special visitor.  You see, Rebekah was coming over to Anne’s house to meet up with us for dinner.  Anne and I talked about it and we decided that in lieu of going out to dinner, we would make a meal at the house to enjoy instead.  It was a great plan since we all got along famously and sat and drank tea, talked, ate and laughed for many hours.  We sat in front of the fire and talked like we had all known each other for years.  I hope I feel such a comfortable connection with all of the bloggers I meet in the future.  Rebekah, it was wonderful to meet you finally, and so sweet and thoughtful of you to give me such a wonderful and useful present. 

You see, I got 8oz of white alpaca roving that will be perfect for dyeing using my principles from class.  I am SO looking forward to trying it.    Thank you Rebekah!

And since Rebekah forgot her camera, and my hubby indulged me when i called him back in MD to ask how to use the camera’s timer, i got photographic proof of our meet-up! 

From Left to right are Anne, Rebekah, Jeeves, on Rebekah’s lap, and me.

I hope that next time I come to visit that I get to meet up with Rebekah again.  And maybe this time we’ll all actually get some knitting in during the laughter and fireside chatting. 

Thank you so much Anne for my wonderful present and for setting up Rebekah’s visit.  And thank you for driving al the way down to Anne’s house Rebekah!

I’m blessed to know so many wonderful people and I count my lucky stars each day for it.  Maybe next time I can meet Abner and Basil too!

Once upon a time, ok, actually two years ago today, fate or providence intervened and changed my life forever.  But anyway, 2 years ago I was afraid of dogs and did not want one under any circumstances.  You see, two years ago today was when my office was going through an expansion and remodeling.  My actual office was being turned into a hallway, so I had to work from home for 4 days.  I wasn’t too upset about this since my old office, while having a door, did not have any windows and felt rather cave-like.  My new office has one wall which is almost entirely one window, and I got to pick the color for one of my walls, and I chose my absolute favorite “happy” color, yellow!

So, about 5 days prior to 11/6/03, our friends W&P who I have written of before, asked uus to car-sit for them while they went on vacation in Florida.  We of course said yes since our house is only about 7 miles from BWI airport and we have a large driveway. 

Ok, so I was working from home, and anyone who knows me well, knows I am TERRIBLE about having my cell phone on me.  This was bad because I gave the office my cell number for people to reach me, and it would help if I was available…  It was also miserable weather outside.  About 50 degrees Fahrenheit and raining steadily.  Blech.  I had left my cell in my car and had to go get it.  On my way to the garage I thought I noticed omething white under W&P’s car, (to be referred to as The Taurus), I ignored it thinking it was a plastic bag blown across the yard.  (Unfortunately we have a stop light at the end of our property and we have an endless stream of litter to contend with…)  As I was walking back to the house, it moved.  The white thing moved.  I was a little surprised by that, so I put the cell in the house, got on my raincoat and went to investigate.  It was a dog.  A very thin dog.  I had no idea what to do and couldn’t get a hold of my hubby so i called a number of friends and co-workers to ask their opinion, and eventually called my vet.  They told me to come by and they gave me a slip-lead and some moist food to lure the pup with.  Ok, remember, it’s cold and raining.  I cut some trash bags and spread them on the ground while I tried to coax the pup out from under the car.  He would not budge, and being afraid of dogs i wasn’t about to crawl under for him.  Besides, he looked like a pit bull and there was NO way this cat lover and dog dis-liker was going to risk a pit bull bite…  Eventually, (2 HOURS later) I got the slip lead around its neck and pulled it out from under the car.  I scooped him up and carried him into the house when I saw how skinny he was.  He sank into me and shivered violently.  He was cold to the touch and being the mean person i was, I put him on the floor in my bathroom and closed the door.  Then A called me, and told me I ought to make a little bed for the little thing, so I got a paper-box lid, put some towels in the bottom and a blanket ontop and tucked the pup in it.  He didn’t look good, wouldn’t touch water or food and his eyes were blood red, not to mention he was so skinny you could see through his legs and see al of his ribs and spine bones.  He had scabs on his paw pads too.  I called the vet and made an appointment for later in the evening, after Kirk got home.  We took him to the vet, and I held him and tried to soothe him the whole way there.  He didn’t stop shivering and feeling frozen until we turned into the vet’s parking lot about 20 minutes later.  We had put the heater on full blast to help raise the car temperature and it eventually helped.

When our vet saw him she told us it was a good thing we brought him because he looked ill.  It wasn’t until they took his temperature that it became clear just how ill he was.  as they pulled the thermometer out of his butt, he had explosive diarrhea.  The vet immediately took a sample and had it tested.  In a few minutes it was clear that this pup had Parvo.  This is an 85% fatal disease and the pup’s prognosis was not good.  he was given antibiotics and fluids, and our instructions were for him to get treated twice a day every day until he stopped being dehydrated, or he had to be hospitalized.  Parvo is horribly contagious, so they had to disinfect everything that he touched and we had to have him treated in the car outside the office!

This is what he looked like the next day after 3 vet treatments (by this time he was able to walk again slowly)

He had already started to improved a lot by the end of 5 days of 2 treatments a day.  Our vet surmised that he was 12 weeks old and had weighed only 11 pounds when we brought him in.  6 days later, he was 20 pounds, and given a clean bill of health!  Here’s a photo of him playing in A’s old back yard.  He sure had plumped out!  By the third day of treatments, as he started to have more energy and a personality was emerging, I had fallen in love.  I couldn’t allow this baby to leave my home, and he was given the name Maximillian Augustus.  I felt he needed a noble name to compensate for a humble beginning.  Sadly, it was then that we started to realize that he had been abused, as he was terribly head shy and would whimper and run away when you picked up a stick or branch in the yard.  Happily though, today he isn’t head shy at all anymore, and loves to play with sticks. 

After he got all his shots, we put Max to work in school, he went through puppy basic, and intermediate classes and is pretty reasonably well behaved, although he is quite exhuberant.   

Here’s the difference between then:

And March of 2004:

(Yes, that is his tongue slurping his mommy’s face.  And yes, I was afraid of dogs now I let them all lick my face…)

And today:

Happy Find-a-versary Max!  I’m so glad you are in our life, and I will always try to make sure you have a happy and healthy time full of love and adoration as long as you are with me.  Kirk says I was a closet dog-lover and that Max outed me.  I think he’s right.  Some people who knew me pre-Max, still shake their head in amusement at the complete turnaround Max caused in me.

I’ll tell you about my trip later.  Today was Max’s day to shine.  He’s been with us 2 years and I love him more now than I ever thought possible.  Thank you for changing my life for the better Max.  Your Mommy and Daddy love you and the kitties think of you as one of them.  They even let you groom them. 

What a fun and busy weekend I had!  Friday night I got to do a little knitting, and probably some futzing around the house…  The plans I had to finish the second sleeve of Bramble Berry and start on the front and back of the sweater (which I may knit in the round), did not in fact pan out. 

Saturday I got a much needed hair cut, came home and then drove up to visit with Vicki for a while.  Well, time, as usual got away from us and eventually we realized it was dinner time!  So I called my hubby and Vicki and Mark and I drove down to pick up Kirk and then we all went to Sushi King, our favorite Sushi place.  We had to pick Kirk up because while I was out having fun, the clutch on the 96 Acura Integra (which used to be my car before I got the Bimmer) died.  So we all went out to dinner and had a GREAT time!  I got almost an entire ounce of merino/angora spun up in the midst of talking, laughing and relaxing with Vicki.  I was also the lucky recipient of some cotton rovings from Vicki’s stash, which I really appreciated and am eager to get spinning…    But, I must confess that the only spinning I have done since my cotton spinning class was the angora/merino I spun at Vicki’s house over the weekend.  I got NO knitting done at all! 

Sunday I was up and running from morning till night, and only about 3 rows got knitted.  We did some shopping, ran errands, worked on the Acura’s clutch, and took Max over to our friends W&P’s house to visit with them.  Max and Dutch, their Labradoodle are good buddies so the 2 of them romped around for hours together.  We took a ride in the Kawasaki Mule (an all terrain cargo vehicle of sorts) around the 200+ acres of forest behind their house and the pups ran the whole time.  They really love the opportunity to get out and run and the best part is that they are calm when they get back!    We had a wonderful meal of steak, baked potatoes, salad and wine, and P’s mom who was visiting from FL (she stayed on a few extra days due to Wilma) made a wonderful home made cherry cobbler for dessert.  YUM!  But again, no knitting…  With the time change, we went to bed somewhat early. 

Monday evening we took Max to the dog park for about half an hour until it got dark and then brought him home where he slept for the rest of the evening…  I made stuffed shells for dinner and we thankfully did not watch the Ravens lose to the Steelers.  We did watch my second most favorite sport however.  World Rally!  This was the Rally of Catalunya, and the last rally of the season is coming up in 2 weeks.  This time of year is always exciting due to driver changes, new team assignments, drivers retiring etc…  The last rally of the year is the Rally Australia, and Colin McRae and Nicky Grist will be teaming up again in a Skoda!  I can’t wait!  Things just really haven’t been the same since Richard Burns left the WRC in 2003 due to a brain tumor. Unfortunately, he had to undergo surgery this April for it, which makes me worry about his recovery.  I really enjoyed rooting against Richard Burns when he was in the WRC, and I don’t really have anyone to actively root against anymore.  I certainly never wished Richard any harm, and in fact quite the opposite.  I really hope he recovers fully and comes back even stronger than he was before.  He is really missed in the sport and I think World Rally could use a boost after the recent death of Marko Martin’s co-driver Michael Park during the rally of Great Britain.  Ah well, enough of that…  Next season should be quite interesting anyway…  Ok, I’m sure that most of you have no interest in the WRC, but it is one of my passions, so there you go… 

Ok, so tonight I am hoping to get some knitting done…  No, really…