Oy - out all day today.  But it was a beautiful, intensely sunny day and it was so nice to be out in the fresh air for a while.  We were doing most of our monthly shopping and I decided to drive home along the river, rather than taking the highway.  The highway’s faster, but the river road is much prettier.  Despite temps in the low 40s the last couple of days, there’s still a lot of snow around.  And yet…

Dad is returning from his trip through the Panama canal tonight - he’ll be in around midnight.  I had been thinking I’d get some fresh flowers and leave them on his kitchen table with a big, colorful “Welcome Home!” sign.  But you know, dad isn’t really a flower person.  Still, I was pretty much decided on that until Myria pointed out a soft drink in the market.

“Doesn’t your father like that stuff?”

Do you guys know about Moxie?  I’ll be the first to admit that it has a fairly odd taste, but I like it.  Dad likes it too, but he won’t buy it for himself because he feels the price is ridiculous.  Heh - but he can’t keep me from buying it for him once in a while :)  So I picked up a 12-pack in the market and left it on the table for him.  He’ll fuss that I shouldn’t have spent the money - but I know he will enjoy it.  The regular version, of course - dad doesn’t do diet anything :)

When I came out of the house, I noticed that the neighborhood seemed to be full of bird song.  There was a russety-gold fellow singing at the top of the maple tree in the front yarn.  He was robin sized and had a buff breast.  I’m fairly familiar with the local avian life, but I have no idea who this guy was.  He was singing his head off though!  There were Canada geese in the apple orchard out back and every bush in every yard on the street was full of sparrows, chattering away for all they were worth.

Spring’s coming - the birds think so!

This is the sock yarn I dyed last week.  I must say it dyed beautifully and pretty evenly too - even though it was a lot of yarn to throw in the crock - about 8 oz.  I haven’t wound it yet because I’m not sure I’m quite satisfied with the color.  I was hoping for more blue tones than I got and I keep wondering if I should chuck it back in the pot with some blue dye.  The color as it is, is a little drab to my eye.  What do you think?

I also made another hat - one to go with a skinny scarf I already have.

This is Ruthie Nussbaum’s Owl Hat.  It’s a really nice little pattern and worked up quickly and easily.  I dunno - I guess I was just feeling whimsical - and I really like how it came out.  I also like the way the decreases are handled.  Because the owls take up so much vertical space on the body, the decreases are worked on every round rather than on every other round.  This makes the decrease spiral stand up a little from the surface of the top of the hat.  Very cool looking, I think :)

And I love the owls!  They are entirely formed by a clever cable pattern.  Just look at this little guy!

Perhaps wearing it will help me to acquire a little wisdom?  A girl can hope :)

I have decided to go on with the drop-shoulder sweater rather than restart it as a top-down.  One should increase one’s boundaries, when possible and within reason.  I expect to be working on this as my big project for a while now.  The blanket will wait - I’m not going to finish it for this winter anyway.  So I’ll pick it up again later to work on for next winter.

I also would like to think about another afghan for Myria.  In fact I worked a square from this pattern, the Bed of Roses Blanket.  I’d show you, but the color was horrible - practice yarn, you know - and every picture I took was overexposed.  Bleah…  The piece came out beautifully though and is very clever in its construction.  You wind up with a square that’s about 8” on a side, with a flower in the middle and a ruffle inside the last round.  It was really pretty, I thought.

Myria didn’t like it :(

Onwards!