Scotty beamed up to the great beyond

Scotty can rest in peace now. I'm so sad to hear that he's gone and even more astonished at his age. He was the same age as my grandmother. While I wasn't an official Trekkie, I spent many years watching the reruns afterschool. Scotty was one of my favorites. I bid you a fond adieu, Mr. Doohan.

Now, I'm sure that you've been wondering where the hell I've been. I'm in la la land right now and am finally recuperating from all of my time off. The extreme heat coupled with outright laziness has made it difficult for me to get motivated to do but so much. I started reduced hours last week (15) and shhhh don't tell anyone I.Love.It!

So what did I do while away from Bloglandia? Well, after my dear friends from Cali left, we shipped Thing 1 and Thing 2 off to camp for an entire week. King Thing and I haven't had this much time alone in YEARS. King Thing pampered me last week by taking me to out to dinner every night. We had brazilian, seafood, yummy salads, decadent desserts - and I didn't have to cook any of it. In fact, I didn't cook a single meal while the boys were away. Yippie! Every night we also snuggled up with a different movie and stayed up way too late pretending that we were in college again (nudge nudge wink wink say no more). By the end of the week, we were beyond exhausted. I pampered myself with lots of shopping, a trip to the spa and of course, plenty of knitting and spinning. But all good things must come to an end and we picked up the boys on Friday. They had a great time at camp with only one minor injury to Thing 2. It was so great seeing them again after so long. I can't believe that my babies can function without their mom. It makes me kinda sad.

So this week, I'm trying to get back into a routine. We're doing some homeschooling with Thing 1 and Thing 2 for the summer so there has been lots of reading, writing and math (yippie - NOT!) in addition to LOTS of whining. But we don't want them to be ignant so we're learnin' them some new stuff for the upcoming school year.

I HAVE been knitting quite a bit. I decided to join the lace craze and cast on last week for Annie Modesitt's lace corset. I'm using a cotton/rayon (gasp) hand-dyed yarn in a really pretty purplish colorway. While I love, love, love silk, the recommended yarn (which is worsted) felt way too heavy for my tastes. I'm half way finished with it and might wrap it up sometime next week. It would be a quicker knit if people wouldn't talk to me when I'm knitting - grumble grumble. Yes, there has been much frogging as a result. I seriously can't follow charted patterns and talk at the same time. Otherwise, this project would go much faster. I attempted to try it on yesterday only to find that the boobalage has expanded an entire cup size thanks to PMS (does this happen to anyone else besides me?). Yikes! I guess I'll only be able to wear it during certain times of the month.

I bought the most beautiful variegated skein of blue Feza kid mohair as a small yarn treat (my stash does not really need anymore enhancement). I love mohair in tiny doses and this is just enough for a quick lace project. I've searched high and low for that "special" pattern but haven't come up with anything. It would look really nice knit up in Branching Out so I may just settle with that one with an added lacy border.

As far as spinning, I'm slowly working my way through 3 pounds of Finnsheep. This stuff really poofs up after I wash all of the lanolin out of it so it takes a long time to spin even an ounce of it. 2 oz nets me about 180 yards of worsted weight yarn which means that I should have more than fleece enough in this batch to make the White Lies Angelina sweater (which requires 1200 yards - yikes) in the next few weeks (my next big project). My knees are still on the mend so I only allow myself 20-30 minutes of spinning at a time. (((sigh)))

I'll get some pictures up tomorrow as said camera has run out of memory and I need to do some photo purging. I also have some other news for ya.

I also went back on Weight Watchers Core last week. I'm way bigger than I'm happy with and want to slim down by the fall. eI just love to eat but I also love to live so I'd better whip into shape. I've lost two pounds already and hope to force myself to exercise more once the unhappy knees cooperate.

On the surface, the past few weeks don't look very exciting, do they? So why do I have a smile the size of the Cheshire Cat on my face? I can honestly say that I've learned the true meaning of "into each life, some rain must fall." Sure as of late, I've felt so very alone and lost. And then Heaven showers me with the manna of friendship, laughter and an over abundance of love. I have had the opportunity to visit with nearly every single important person in my life in just the past month. Heaz, Ei and Lauren; My brother, nephew and parents over father's day weekend; my dear friends from college and their beautiful children; my grandma; King Thing for an entire week; my boys after camp; our good friends M and K who recently moved away to NC; my Suppa club buddies last night over a delicious dinner and on Friday, my bud E will be in town. Wow what blessings and I don't think I would have appreciated them as much if I hadn't experienced the "dark times". Oh yeah, Life.Is.Good!