Fiber Fool

Excuse the phone photo, but DH was wanting a garden update and it is easiest to send them via the phone.

Much of the previous weeks have been spent in the garden. It has not only given me something to fill all the extra time I have now that DH is gone, but it has given me a great dose of sunshine - both balms for the soul. So, the first thing I’m grateful for this week is the garden and all the goodies that I have to look forward to. So far all I’ve harvested is arugula. But friends have contributed to this year’s garden with baby and thinned plants so it is truly a celebration of friendship.

While I’m settling into somewhat of a routine with the gym, knit night, gardening, lawn mowing, etc. with DH gone, I’m sooooo thankful for Skype! My cell reception is kind of dodgy at home so not only does Skype allow us to see each other, but the connection is much clearer and more reliable and I can be anywhere in the house, not just in one of the three magic spots. I also don’t need to worry about cell minutes and can talk to mom to my heart’s content. And, now that I’m all set up on Skype I’m going to have an international knitting lunch today with Mrs. Pao! How exciting is that?!?

Organized volunteer opportunities like the trail maintenance work I did on Saturday that not only allowed me to get out and meet people (and reconnect with some former coworkers), but also get exercise and do something good for the community. I’ll share more about this on Fit Friday.

Streaming radio saves my sanity while doing repetitive work in my basement studio where regular radio just isn’t going to happen. I have a nice speaker to hook my phone up to that charges it while it streams that makes it really quite pleasant.

So, how about you? What are you grateful for this week?

I hope all of you who celebrated the holidays this weekend enjoyed lots of good food and quality time with friends and family! As usual around these parts lately we played it pretty low key, though we went for a nice 3+ mile walk to the grocery store and back.

This week I’m grateful for:

1. Good coffee and the accoutrement to brew it well. More specifically, the burr grinder DH gave me for our anniversary several years ago and my french press. Because you can’t get through a Monday morning (especially an overcast one like today) without a good cup of coffee!
2. DH who puts up with me and my PMS. Emma and Brandon too. I think they sense it because Emma uncharacteristically cuddled with me this morning and Brandon is pretty easily coaxed to act as a heating pad.



3. Nice, well kept and well equipped outdoor spaces. This week I took a run around the lake and then interval trained on an outdoor fitness course Fort Collins has at City Park. It was a fantastic way to get in some different exercise and enjoy the outdoors at the same time!
4. My homemade granola. It just elevates yogurt and fruit to have that bit of crunch. And right now, anything ready made and not requiring extra energy is especially wonderful.
5. Amanda, for helping me save a bit extra on some new compression workout wear. My old compression wear is now baggy and thus no longer compressing.

What are you grateful for this first week of April? Sunshine? Flowers? Green grass? We don’t have those last two quite yet.

Now, April is my birthday month and I want to celebrate! So, for the entire month of April you can save 15% on any of my patterns on Ravelry! Just use the code HAPPY37 on the code redemption page. No minimum purchase necessary and you may use it as many times are you wish. This discount also applies to Nourishing Knits!

As an added bonus, one lucky person who makes a purchase on Ravelry this month will get their purchase refunded. I’ll assign each purchase a number and let Random.org pick the winner on May 1st and issue a refund for the total of your purchase. If you make multiple purchases, you’ll be entered multiple times, but only the purchase that corresponds to winning number will be refunded.

Well, the forecast for the weekend - both weather and activity-wise did not pan out as expected. I didn’t even finish the Longmire book let alone start something else. We only got maybe 3″ of snow and it is pretty much all gone already. We did hibernate and watched a handful of movies and enjoyed some yummy, leisurely breakfasts.

I did get about three 24-row repeats in on my current DIP which means I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am getting more excited about sourcing a better yarn for it and I have some other ideas spinning off from this one. Perhaps a collection? I’m also working on reformatting some of the more popular older patterns as well as some of the ones I did for My Sister Knits that are not currently up on their web site.

How about you? What did you do this weekend? What are you grateful for as we start out the week?

This week, I’m thankful for:

• The plethora of locally owned coffee shops around town so I can support the local economy while getting a much needed change of scenery to spark my creativity and boost my productivity. So many of them are also roasters or buy from regional/local roasters who buy fair trade and shade grown beans too! I’m lucky!
• My coffee press! When I feel like being a homebody and not in need of a change of scenery my French press gets a lot of love and is essential to my day. Of course, it is filled with locally roasted beans :-)
• Moisture! While the snow was less than forecasted and hoped for, I think we got a bit more moisture in the form of rain than they were predicting and moisture is a good thing in whatever form it falls.
• High speed Internet which makes work so much easier, but also entertainment in the form of streaming movies and television shows. Much of the weekend was filled with streaming and surprisingly we enjoyed much of what we watched. If you’d ask my sister I have a horrible track record for choosing movies and DH and I don’t always agree on movie genres or time periods.

My weekend was very interesting in that it was highly out of the norm. Well, Friday evening and Saturday were out of the norm and Sunday was pretty typical I guess. Friday night Amanda and I braved a crazed Old Town (they were so busy with the kick-off of Great Plates and First Friday Art Walk that the parking garage was full) to attend Mama Said Sew’s monthly Crafty Party. This month they were doing a fabric swap and a raffle to support one of the elementary school’s in town. Then we had coffee and shared a slice of awesome cake at a local coffee shop and stopped back into Mama Said Sew to see if we had won anything in the raffle. I won 3 free fat quarters! I’m not sure what I’ll do with them, though I chose three that all coordinate together. I haven’t been terribly moved by small sewing projects lately. Mostly I’m drawn to garments - especially dresses. If you’ve seen any fun projects appropriate for my fat quarters, let me know!

Saturday I spent nearly 14 hours alone in the house with the dogs. DH attended a conference in Denver for work that had him on the road by about 6:30am and he didn’t get home until about 8:30pm. DH is hardly ever away from the house without me on the weekends and I think this is the first it has happened for an entire day. It was kind of odd. But I got a ton of reading done, drank a fair bit of coffee and the dogs kept me company. I missed DH though and I’ll soon have 10 entire weeks without him in the house and I’m not looking forward to it :-(

So, what am I grateful for this Monday?

1. DH! I’m going to miss him terribly this summer. Saturday was nice because it was different, but he came home at the end of the day with a hug and stories to tell.
2. The pups, of course. Patting them or snuggling or rough housing with them always brings a smile to my face, no matter how low I’m feeling!
3. My kitchen skills. I have cooked and eaten some amazing food this week that was even really healthy! Sharing that slice of cake with Amanda on Friday did not even make me feel guilty because I ate so clean otherwise. Most days I had 7-10 different types of fruits and vegetables. In February/March people! Not high produce season.
4. Our local food coop! They make it easier to buy fresher foods grown closer to home and to buy in bulk only what we need and can use before it degrades in quality. This morning I made granola with some of their goodies!

How about you? Did you do anything out of the norm this weekend? And what are you grateful for at the start of this week?

Phew, last week was a bit of blur. Sorry for disappearing! I hope you all had a lovely Valentine’s Day if you celebrate it. We kept it low key here.

This week, I’m grateful for:

1. Brandon, my new four legged running partner. Granted, there is a bit of a learning curve. I don’t think I’ll take him on every run at this point. I kept the first run on Saturday shorter than my normal, but I maintained my usual pace so that is saying something I guess. I see corgi’s out and about in our neighborhood frequently, but I’ve never seen one running. I wonder how unusual it is to have a corgi running partner? Hmmm…
2. I can’t be grateful for Brandon and not Emma. While she may not be up to going for a run with me, she is always there to greet me with a wag (and sometimes a shoe) when I return.
3. DH’s humoring me on Friday evening by going on the Friday Foodie Walk in Old Town. It wasn’t quite what I had imagined, but it was a fairly fun, low-cost way to take in Old Town on the last weekend of winter lights. And, we brought home a new ingredient to play with in the kitchen which will no doubt provide hours more entertainment in the coming months!

How about you? What are you grateful for this week?

Oh, and Carole, the brains behind the ongoing Ten on Tuesday, is on a blog break this week so there is no official 10 on Tuesday. But if you have a theme you’d love to hear my take on, leave your suggestion in the comments and I’ll pick one for tomorrow’s post! If there are no suggestions I’ll probably be on a blog break tomorrow as well.