Happy Mom's Day and more

Hope all you Moms and GrandMoms and Great GrandMoms and Moms-to-be had a lovely day today. Mine was nice. But you see, it was my birthday too. I wasn't all that excited about this birthday and completely expected it to be all about Mother's Day. But it was definitely more all about surprises.

Woke up to a wonderful breakfast (I trained him well) presented with a large scrumptious rose from our front yard.



Yesterday an old, eccentric friend of the family had awakened us at dawn, bringing a box of birthday groceries. The older I get the more groceries the old dear brings. :o) And last week another old dear, a 93 year old schoolteacher who's garden Alex takes care of, sent a yummy lemon bundt cake and a sweet card. Um, no picture. The cake barely survived until Saturday. But the cake came in a beautiful hatbox!



After breakfast there appeared on the table a gorgeous bowl of my favorite sugar free pecan turtles. But the bowl! It is a hat, hand blown glass, white with pink in-the-glass decoration, a green hatband and a pink rose. Absolutely sublime addition to my glass collection.



The bowl is empty because I put all the turtles in a safe box and took the hat/bowl over to show my Mom.



Isn't that beautiful!? Oh, there was a bottle of Wisteria toilette water from Crabtree & Evelyn too.

Then we packed up some groceries for Mom and a special loaf of whole wheat raisin cinnamon walnut bread I baked last night, a couple of my turtles, put the glass hat in my new hatbox and headed over to Mom's. She loved the hat and the hatbox, and said she would have some of the bread with a cup of coffee later. She gave me a card with $20 for a "fun" haircut. And my sister, who had visited from Oregon last weekend, left behind a sweet card with a couple of silly pens. She said they looked like they were wearing stripedy socks, a nod to my knitting.



Home again after doing some chores for Mom, we collapsed in front of a fan for a nap. Very hot today. After dark I was busy recording mysteries etc., Alex was about to start dinner, and his sister and our 2 nephews are at the door. This is the first time in 32 years she has actually gotten here ON my birthday! Usually it's a few days later (but just as fun). And oh boy, bearing goodies! One of her yummy, very chocolate cakes. Which we sat down and ate with the ice cream from the birthday groceries. Before dinner!!!



I had asked Mary if she would start lap swimming with me now and then. She gave me these beautiful beach towels. They are huge! Even bigger than the bath sheets we use in the bathroom. I can't wait to use them!



The nephews gave me the movie Narnia, which I have wanted very much to see. And a quirky "Half Baked" cookbook illustrated with wonderful cartoons by Charles Addams.



Much later we had a midnight steak dinner. Oh yes, and the cards. The black and white one on the right is a kitten sleeping in a hammock. So sweet!



So, a wonderful day, full of truly unexpected surprises. Boy! If this is what happens when I make light of turning 58, what's next year going to be like?

Must end this before the blog police get after me for so many pictures in one post. :o) Time to go nighty night. Love to all, and to all a good night!

Where have I been?

Hi Folks! It has been a very busy time around here since my last post. My Mom had another fall. This one assisted by a 4 year old neighbor who leaped off the stairs and into her arms for a hug. Wasn't very funny at the time but in hindsight someone should have been there yelling "timber!". Mom went over backwards like a felled tree and wrenched the living daylights out of her back. Took a couple of days to convince her that she needed to go to the ER. The fact that she couldn't move at all and was in immense pain might have had something to do with it.

So after a day and a night in the ER zonked out on morphine and muscle relaxants she was transferred to a convalescent hospital for a week or so. Last year's fall put her in a convalescent hospital that was about 15 minutes away. This time it was waaay out of town, about 40 minutes. So DH and I took turns going to see her everyday. Got her home and tucked in last Wednesday and she is getting better every day.

Then my younger sister decided she needed to come down from Oregon on the train and stay with Mom for a few days. I guess she needed to see for herself that Mom didn't really have one foot in the grave and was as well off as I and Mom had been telling her. That visit went well enough and we loaded her back on the train tonight. Now, hopefully, life will begin to get back to some semblance of order. (Knock on wood!)

I received the next round robin to work on. Not sure yet what I am going to do, but I have a couple of ideas. Here is what it looks like now.



And for L&L here are some pics of the sleeve of a new shrug I am working on. In the first pic I thought I'd be clever and put the cuff over my lamp to show the "lace" off better. Not real successful in my opinion.



Here's one of the sleeve "laid out" so to speak.



The lace swirls around the sleeve because all of the decreases are done exactly the same, all in one direction. And the colors swirl around and climb up the sleeve. Gradually, every 16 rows, I am replacing some of the lace with stockinette, until there is no lace left. I've just changed to a larger needle and will knit the last of the sleeve and the back in plain stockinette. The next 2 pics show the gradual changes.



If you look closely you can see the stockinette beginning to be introduced.



And here you can see the stockinette is almost solid at the top. After another 20 or so rows of plain stockinette I will start knitting back and forth for the back. Wonder what the colors will do?

So there you have it. Love to have some comments on the sleeve so far. I am off to bed now and a deep, healing sleep. "Sleep knits up the raveled sleeve of time..." Good old Shakespeare!

Round Robin 3 pics

Here are a couple of pics. The darker one shows the fabrics better. The one with the light shining through it is kind of pretty too. Enjoy!

I'm gonna dash off and show it to Mom. Then mail it on the way back. Then I'm gonna come home and crash!

Very Brief Report

Just a quick note to my two dear blog-greedy Ls up north... it is nearly 6am and I am still sewing. Just be a little more patient. Today is the day!