No Hearts No Flowers

 

The "new normal" Valentine's Day looks like this around here. I got a grocery pickup and managed to get two boxes of chocolate for The Mister. He made a mad dash into Walmart and came out with...a variety bag of chips for me. He said the candy aisle was too crowded....lol. I actually like chips and rarely have any since the Pandemic so there will be no complaints from me. 

Yesterday, Superbowl Sunday, was more interesting. After a week of warm temps we got a very pretty dusting of snow, I won $100 in a football pool.....

...and I made crockpot lasagna which is ridiculously easy and good. I'll never make it any other way even if I do have a working oven. Today we are getting another visit from the technician. Let's hope that the third time is the charm. 

And....Daughter's little baby sprinkle for her friend looks like it was a big success yesterday. I did the invitations and Daughter put it all together but we didn't actually attend. Sadly, her family is made up of a lot of anti-vaxers and anti maskers so we sat this one out. The mom to be who is vaxed is just getting over Covid herself so she more than understood. What a weird world. Nothing makes much sense anymore. 

More Olympic Knitting

 

Althea got a bath yesterday morning. She's in the kitchen drying now. I sure didn't need her yesterday. It was 60 degrees and sunny again. 

Now I've got two empty knitting stands. I sure don't need another sweater but looking at those stands sitting here all empty makes me sad. I need to take a look in my Ravelry queue. 

I've still got the Holm mitt to work on. It's been my daytime Olympic knitting project. I got up at 6 am yesterday to watch the ice dancing and got another section done. I think there's only one more before the decreases.

For some reason all I want to do is knit while I am watching all the skating, skiing, jumping and sliding. I've got two Lofotens now. I tried working on some stitching while I watch but it didn't feel right. It's got to be yarn.

That's not altogether a bad thing I suppose. I've made a lot of progress on little sweater Number 7 already. I am sure once spring gets here all that lovely mojo will disappear with the warm weather. It always does.

Two More FOs

 

As I mentioned yesterday the first pair of Lofotens are off the needles.

That meant I had to raid the sock yarn drawer since I had NO socks on the needles and that would never do. Don't confuse the sock yarn drawer with the sock yarn bin.This is just the overflow of fairly recent purchases. It's where I keep the big bag of the Arne and Carlos Lofoten sock yarn I bought last summer. It was hard to decide which skein to pick next. They are all so pretty.

I finally decided on this one. It was warm and sunny yesterday and I was definitely thinking spring even though they are calling for some snow and a return to cold temps this weekend. 

Advent sweater Number 6 is also a done deal. Today I am going to go dig out the yarn for Number 7 which I believe is in the browns again. That's another big bin of yarn I wish I could use up. The more I use, the more I seem to get. 

Re-Check

 

Well, hello everybody. Pup and I spent a long time in the car yesterday waiting for her ear re-check. 

Once the tech took her in I got some knitting done. The Lofotens are actually a done deal now. I'll show them off tomorrow. 

Her ear is still not as clear as the vet would like so it's 5 more days on the drops. She also now has a shampoo and a mousse for her itch. She also got her annual shots so she was one sleepy Pup for the rest of the day which was nice. I've been up too late watching the Olympics and needed a long nap when we got home. 

That's The Mister in the little green tent they put up so you can pay your bill without going in. Last week it was $350 and this week it was $250. Pups sure don't come cheap these days. 

A February FO

 

Toddy dah.........Althea is done. It looks a little short. I thought about ripping out the hem and adding more length like I did with Festive Doodle but with that unspun Lopi it's not happening. 

When I tried it on it wasn't that bad. I still have to weave in ends and block it which I think is going to relax it a lot so I might just get a bit more length out of it then. We'll see. Even if it doesn't it's a nice sweater. I like it. 

There hasn't been a lot of crafty stuff going on this week because it's been spring cleaning weather but I did get Number 6 nearly finished. We did a deep clean of the downstairs yesterday-windows and everything. I know it's early to be thinking about spring after what the groundhog saw but we've got buds on the trees already. Something is happening out there. You can just feel it. 

On the Road

 

We've really hit the ground running with this new freedom thing. We've got so much to catch up on like getting rid of all the stuff I had piled up in the downstairs craft room. I couldn't even get in the door. It was sunny and in the 40's yesterday so we loaded it all up and headed out to Annapolis to Goodwill.

We stopped on the way to let Pup stretch her legs. It's been a while since we've been out and about. It felt good. As you can see there wasn't anyone around which was was odd on such a nice day.

It's about a 40 minute ride to Annapolis and when we got there..........Goodwill was NOT taking donations. Thank goodness for smart phones because I found another one that was but it was a long ways away. We hit the road again and drove another 30 minutes. It was good to unload it all. 

The long day of driving wasn't all bad. We got donuts for the long ride home. We also stopped at a park and walked Pup around a big pond. 

I can finally get to my art stuff again but the room is a mess. It's been the cat's playground for months now. I guess today it will get a good cleaning. 

While I am doing that The Mister will most likely be fighting the battle of the stove with the Frigidaire people since we are able to let a technician in again. Since we would be gone all day yesterday we gave it another burn off before we left and once again the house filled up with terrible fumes. 

And I need to make another correction with the new little Grand. I didn't mean that he got 16 shots that day. What I meant to say was that infants get a total of 16 shots now to complete their immunization schedule and on Monday he continued the process with the second one for HepB. He got the first one in the hospital when he was born-which is all new to me. Babies really do end up being pin cushions these days. 

Freedom!

 

Well, sorta freedom. We just finished two back to back 10 day isolation periods so we could get to see the new Grand and yesterday morning The Mister made his return back to the new normal. That's means masking up and dashing in and out of the grocery store. I really didn't need anything but he came back with two cakes, some heirloom tomatoes, avocados and whisky. Interesting. 

Daughter never reads my blog (she says) but yesterday morning I got a text taking offence to this photo I posted. It seems I didn't mention that the very last pair, that you can hardly see, are from Hermes. For shoe aficionados that's important to note. So consider it noted...lol.

She also sent me a photo of the poor bebe being comforted under the quilt I just gifted him. He had a miserable day yesterday. Daughter and SIL had some serious issues with their HVAC system over the weekend and the workmen were making a racket all day. To make matters worse he had a late afternoon check up and received the first of his immunizations of which I was surprised to learn there are now 16, many of which I have never even heard of. I don't understand half of what these new mothers talk about. It's amazing that any of my kids made it out alive.