March is almost gone. Already. I told some clerk the other day that the older I get the shorter the time seems, and it’s true. The hours and days just fly by, and I don’t get done half what I’d like to. So what have I been doing lately?
Needlework
Well, for one thing, this. I am so tired of doing the Baltic Sea Stole. Every repeat is the same, and there are thirty-two rows in every repeat, so it is dragging me down. I’m nearly through with it, though. I have less than one repeat left and the edging on that end, and I’m done. The pattern is easy, and it’s good pickup work when you don’t want to concentrate too much. I don’t fault the pattern as much as I fault myself. I’ve been too antsy lately to settle down and knit it. It’s a beautiful pattern. I am getting a somewhat argyle look with my yarn, though, and that’s better than pooling. So I’m going with it. This yarn has been a pain in the neck, though. It’s alpaca and wool from Knit Picks, and while I love the feel of it–it’s heavenly soft, somehow when I wound the balls, the second ball managed to tangle into a super puzzle when I began to use it. I spent a lot of time untangling. That’s one reason I’ve been antsy knitting this stole. It’s maddening to have to stop and untangle after every row or half row.
So I abandoned it for days on end while I crocheted. Several items I started, I ripped. Either the pattern had so many mistakes in it that I got tired of straightening them out, or I didn’t like the pattern when I got it going. This is one I liked and kept going on.
I saw this doily on Ebay from someone who didn’t have a name for it. So I searched the internet for the pattern, and I eventually found it. Go here. You will have to register, and under crochet/doilies/elegant & delicate, you should find it. It’s called the Blue Rose Doily. It was originally made in a light blue thread. I thought it was a lot of fun to crochet. It makes a small doily, but it’s very different and interesting to do.
I’ve forgotten who did it now, but I did see it made up in pastel colors, and it was quite charming. I think colors work well, but I was in a mood for all white, so that’s what I did.
Weather
Last Saturday we had a terrible storm rip through here. There were warnings about a tornado and golf ball sized hail, but we got only wind and torrents of rain. The rain slashed at the house sideways in big sheets of water. My husband had gone out to run and got back a little after it began, but Peaches got caught out in the rain somewhere. She came straggling in about two hours later, very wet, and put out as only a cat can be. She was brought inside and dried off, and by that time the electricity had gone out. It was out four hours just as the sun was going down. So we brought out our lanterns, etc., and for a while I could read, but that hurt my eyes too much, and I gave it up. When the lights came back on, Lucky went racing around the house, going in every room, checking to be sure everything was as it should be. He was a happy kitty. Charming just staggered back into the den and crawled in her basket and went back to sleep.
Unfortunately, our cable and our internet access was still out, and it stayed off for 26 hours. So in that time, I watched some old movies on DVD and knitted and crocheted, glad at least that we had electricity. We were fortunate; my daughter said that her area weather station reported some small melon sized hail, although she only had pea sized hail. I’m glad we didn’t have that.
Cycling
I’m having a lot of problems getting into watching any cycling these days. The Discovery team is no more. They dissolved, and the team members went here and there. Contador, the winner of the Tour de France last year, went to Astana, and so did Johan Bruyneel the sports director of the Discovery team. Levi Leipheimer and Klöden did also. George Hincapie went to High Roads.
Then it was announced that Astana would not be allowed to compete in the Tour de France this year based on the drug problems that the old team had last year. Never mind that many new members of the team were brought in by Bruyneel and that the team started top flight drug enforcement for the Astana team. So unless something drastic happens, Contador won’t be allowed to defend his Tour win last year, and the whole team is in never-never land. There has been a big dispute in cycling between some of the main bodies that rule the cycling world–it’s all very confusing, and cycling is suffering tremendously because of it.
In addition, the drug hounds in cycling have gone crazy. There was one woman investigator at the Tour of California who went to collect a specimen from a Quick Step team member, and when she got there, he wasn’t ready–the team was showering, so she stayed and WATCHED! I can’t imagine the furor that would have arisen if a man had watched women showering. Then there was the reprehensible conduct of one investigator who showed up when a Belgian Quick Step team member was trying to make funeral arrangements for his premature baby who had lived only a short while and insisted that he give a specimen right then or face a two year suspension. Where are the morals of these investigators? I agree that drug testing ought to be done, but show some sense, folks. Have some human compassion.
So, as a result, when the cable was out this past weekend and I couldn’t see the end of the Paris-Nice race, fine. It really didn’t bother me that much. I don’t know that I’m going to worry about watching any more races.
Well, enough of that.
Reading
I’ve been reading a lot of books lately that I don’t care for, and I’m not going to publicize them by mentioning their titles. I did like Mary Higgins Clark’s mystery, I Heard that Song Before. I promptly went out and got another book by her.
Genealogy
I’ve been doing a lot of genealogy. I have had some family members express a desire for copies of what I’ve got so far, so I’ve been organizing and dispersing some of it. I’ve recently been doing some scrapbooks with my genealogy program, and I’ve been enjoying that. The scrapbooks are published as .pdf files in my older program, and they look quite nice when they’re done. Nothing fancy, but it works. It’s a good way to distribute copies of documents as well as photos.
Well, until another day….
I’m glad the worst of the bad weather missed y’all!
I ended up with all my dad’s genealogy stuff, so I may have to get into some of that myself. His records need to be put into a modern format.