More driving, The same 250 miles up and then my husband wants to drive right back. I hope to change his mind on this and come back tomorrow, but we shall see.

We are going to #2 daughter's senior recital, and I am very excited about that. Her junior recital was very good, and the senior recital is a bigger deal. I am taking her a really beautiful dress, and lots of good wishes from her old friends here, and I think she will knock 'em dead.

The driving is another matter. While I am not feeling as bad about it as in the past -- I am, for example, quite sure that I will be able to get there and back, and will not have to look for a job in Joplin because I cannot drive over the freeway off ramp -- I am still rather stressed.

Here is what I have done as a result of that stress: eaten ice cream, snapped at my kids, awakened in the middle of the night in a panic, worried at length over numerous improbable dangers to myself and family members (I don't recommend any of these responses to stress), prayed, reminded myself that I have actually timed the scary bits of the road and even the dread Exit 11A in Joplin only lasts 57 seconds, and gotten well prepared. Partygirl offered me a St. Christopher medal, and assured me that angels will be with me.

#2 daughter thinks I will get over the stress by constantly driving over long distances with scary roads. "Immersion!" she cackled last weekend as she drove over entirely unnecessary bridges, while I held the map up and said crossly that there were no bridges between us and our destination. But she could be right.

With any luck, my husband will do most of the driving, and I can just keep my eyes on my knitting.

This book is a Victorian travel guide. My all-time favorite travel guides -- Three Men in a Boat and Three Men on the Bummel -- are also examples of this genre. In fact, the Victorian era was in many ways the heyday of the travel guide. It was a time when you could expect, if you wrote a travel guide, that many people would be able to buy and read your book, but few would be able to go to the places you were describing. Nor would they have cameras or TV to see those places with, so you had better make it thorough and interesting.

However, this is not the usual Victorian record of adventures and exotic sights. Rather, it was written for children, with the evident intention of making them as insular and xenophobic as possible.  As the introduction says, "No matter where your ancestors had the misfortune of living... Mrs. Mortimer had something nasty to say about them." I have only read a few pages of this book so far, but I did check out the Welsh, and found that they were musical and knitted on their way to the market, and the French, who are apparently clever and witty and fond of company, so I am feeling okay about my ancestors so far. Well, she doesn't approve of the way the French bring up their children, and she says the Welsh are stout, but I will not let this bother me. In fact, I expect to enjoy this book a great deal.

I am also prepared to enjoy my knitting. I have completed the ribbing, and switched to my #2s, and now have 15 inches of unbroken stockinette to do while traveling. #2 daughter remembers -- and so do I now that she reminds me -- reading about a woman who was knitting with metal needles in a car and they exploded from a build-up of static electricity.

I do not intend to worry about that.

Mrs. Mortimer says that my husband's people are cruel, cowardly, deceitful, and ugly, but points out in their favor that they do not kill their infants or shut up their wives. It appears that, as an Englishwoman, she disapproved of people in inverse proportion to their proximity to England.

Calendars have been coming up a lot in my conversations lately.

I started it by talking about the Franklin Covey store. This is a store that sells planning calendars, the kind you carry with you. I have been using these since I was 12 years old. Normally, I buy them right after Christmas. This year, though, I was thinking I could use my PDA, or my weightlifting record book. I thought that maybe my life is so simple and calm now that I don't really need one of those planning calendars any more.  

I was wrong. So, when I was in a city where they have a planner store, I went thinking I would get a July-start one. It turns out that they have begun issuing April-start ones. I do not have to wait until July, but can have my calendar beginning next week.

Thus it is that I have one week during which I am strongly reminded of the difference between life with a calendar, and life without.

Here's what happens if you don't have a calendar. You sit down, as it might be to drink your tea and write your daily blog post. You remember that Partygirl asked you to order her some books and run to find the scrap of paper you wrote them on and take it out to the car so as not to forget to take it to work.

You return to the computer. You remember that you need to mark that you have shipped a frugalreader book, and do that. You return to the blog. Then you remember that you have a booksfree order to return, so you go find the books and pack them up and take them out to the car.

You return to the computer. You remember that you need to pick up the cleaning, go find the ticket, and carry that out to the car. Then it occurs to you that you have company coming for Easter and the house is a mess. You look around the house, remember that you will be out of town again this weekend, and despair.

You return to the blog. You remember that you need to make a phone call, look up the number, sign off, and make the call. You return to the blog. You remember that your blouse lost a button and it needs to be sewn on, that your son asked for something from the natural foods store and you said you would get it, that you need to make a bank deposit, and that you are two days behind on your Lenten study. You think once more about the housework, and remind yourself again not to forget to pick up that dress. You think of the music you should be practicing, the upcoming workshops you need to prepare for, the tax papers that need to be sent to your college kid for doing the already-late FAFSA, the doctor's appointment you were supposed to make for your other kid, the Easter meal that needs planning and preparing, graduation announcements, the Book Club book you must read for next week (where did you put it?), the CAPS conference you need to schedule, the writing contest, and the thank-you notes you should have written to your weekend hosts several days ago. At this point, it hardly seems worth going on. Life seems overwhelming. Whither, you find yourself thinking? How did life become so burdensome? Where did I go wrong?

When you have a calendar, you just write things down when they occur to you, on the day where you ought to do them. Then, at a convenient and suitable time, you are reminded of them, and you do them.

Life is sweet.

This book contains patterns for pretty fitted sweaters with a lot of texture and interesting detail. There are pullovers, cardigans, and a twinset, with cables, lace, texture stitches, and lots of special things going on with collars and cuffs and hems. Pretty well all the patterns have waist shaping, set-in sleeves, and what my grandmother would have called "dressmaker" details.

Not, probably, a book for the beginning knitter. However, if you have made a few drop-sleeve or raglan things and are ready for a really pretty sweater, this could be a very good choice.

Most of the patterns have finished measurements from 34" to 42". None requires novelty yarn. And when they say "feminine," they could even have said "ladylike." If you need a summer top that will cover your bra straps, you can find one in this book.

This was a "free" book from my crafts book club. I say "free" because there is no such thing, really, but I am still glad to have it. In some far-off distant future, I will enjoy making some of these.

It will have to be the far-distant future, though, because this is all the further I got yesterday with the Regal Orchid Jasmine sweater.

There was work, and class, and errands, and the gym -- things like that really cut into your knitting time.

I am still in the playing-around-with-the-new-equipment stage at the gym. Today I have plenty of sore muscles, which is good. What is not so good is that I also have livid bruises on my shoulders. I will have to figure out which machine was the culprit there and find out how to use it properly. Evan the trainer was there yestersday, and I can always ask him how to use the machines, but he was helping a serious grunter. You know, the guys who make painful bellowing noises whenever they lift. I couldn't interrupt.

Do you notice the needles in the picture of that little frill of ribbing? These are the famed Addi Turbos, beloved of knitting bloggers all over. I had never tried them before, but now have used them for a couple of weeks. They do not seem to make me knit faster, but they do get bent out of shape -- literally. They are all crooked now. I have never had this happen before with a needle, and some of my needles are antiques.

Today there is work and choir practice and the gym, errands (including the taking to the cleaners of a beautiful fairy princess dress which #2 daughter needs for her recital on Friday), and housework. I may get the ribbing finished, though.

Ah, yes, the Jasmine sweater.

Here it is -- a fetching raglan from Elsebeth Lavold's Summer Breeze Collection. I got the book and the yarn before spring break, and was prepared to make one for me in the color Silken Damask -- pink -- and one for a friend in Regal Orchid,

 which is purple.

The required gauge is 22 stitches over 4".

I swatched on 3s and the fabric was just too loose, so I went down to 1s. It looked great, but I had 23 stitches to 4". So I went on this mad quest to find #0 needles.

Have you seen the problem yet?

I went ahead and knitted with the Silken Damask (figuring it would be better to mess up my own than the one I am making for M) throughout spring break, finishing the front -- except for the ribbing, which I figured I would add when I got the 0 needles -- and about 6" of the back.

I used a smaller size, since my gauge was off. Once the front was complete, I measured it and found that it was too small.

Well, yes, of course. 23 stitches to 4" is smaller than 22 stitches to 4". I needed #2 needles, of which I have several, not #0 needles, for which I had to scour two states (I exaggerate, but I am in an extreme emotional state here).

I can't believe I made this elementary mistake. I can't believe that it didn't strike me for almost two weeks that I was doing it wrong. It was only when I began the calculations for the Regal Orchid sweater that it hit me. I can't believe that Pokey didn't catch it either.

It does mean that my spring break knitting -- 4 balls of Luna -- was just extended swatching. It will all have to be frogged.

However, I will begin today on the Regal Orchid sweater. I couldn't begin last night, because I was in shock.

And I will be frogging all the Silken Damask.

I think this is a situation in which "Uff da!" can be used. Even without Lutefisk.

Sunday was a matter of driving 250 miles with a single, 10-minute break. Therefore, I do not include it in Spring Break.

We will be doing it again this coming weekend.

Today, everyone goes back to school and work, and I hope (after work -- before work I have to take one of the boys to the dentist) to get the house cleaned and things generally back in order.

Today is also the day to begin the Regal Orchid Jasmine sweater. I will have to do some math first.

Saturday was a day for urban pleasures. #2 son had us start out at his favorite bakery, which is at Crown Center, across from Union Station. I love Union Station, and I also love The Link, pictured here. It is a metal-and-glass structure to walk through from Union Station to Crown Center. We were not able to persuade #1 son to make another visit to Science City, but we did roam around admiring the ornamentation.

We also went to the bakery, the bookstore (no David Hume), the Franklin Covey store, and the toy store. The people at the Franklin Covey store are so helpful, it is amazing. I guess it is not amazing. Where I work, we care deeply about education and are pretty well educated. So I suppose at the Franklin Covey store they care deeply about organization and are predictably organized. But they will find you exactly what you need for your personal situation and work out how to get the best results from all the current sales and specials, before you have had time to think about it. And they will be right, too.

We also had lunch at Fritz's. I'll tell you frankly that the food was not a thrill for me, although the kids liked it, but the place itself is fascinating. You sit in a booth made to look like a train booth, with a window through which a model train sometimes runs, and call on a telephone to give the kitchen your order. Then it comes on a train around the ceiling, and is lowered by a sort of elevator or dumbwaiter to your table. #2 son loved this, and is determined to put such an arrangement into his house when he grows up.

We went next to the Nelson Atkins, which I love. We went to look at our favorite artworks (20th century European paintings for me, Henry Moore and Romantic landscapes for #2 son, the Oriental Hall for #2 daughter; #1 son was undecided, but it was his first visit). We also tried to look at things we hadn't seen before, though we kept getting drawn to other wonderful things we remembered.

If I lived in that city, which I often think I would like to when I visit, I would volunteer there.

I also would find out about that ancient Japanese zither which appears to be strung with -- string. I don't think it would sound like anything at all if you played it. However, since the guard was beginning to look perturbed by the close scrutiny we were giving it, and the depth of our fascination with it, none of us did so.

Our next stop was the Plaza. The Nelson Atkins is a temple of art, but the Plaza is a temple of commerce. It is filled with wonderful statues, mosaics, and architectural details. It has fountains and other wondrous things. And it is filled with people trundling around with shopping bags entirely ignoring the beauty of it.

Maybe they are used to it.

I have to admit that I was tired of all shopping places by then, and while I was glad to find the needed David Hume (and happy to show #2 daughter the honorable and courteous way to ask for a discount on a book with a damaged spine), I had absolutely no interest in the things in the stores.

So I was glad to return to the home of our kind host and hostess. She had a gig that night, so we gathered up BBQ and a gateau and took it back to her place so she could practice rather than cook.

Over dinner, the kids amused her with stories of just how scared I was on the freeways. "We ridiculed her mercilessly," #2 son crowed. It was true, all true.

The first stop on our roadtrip was the George Washington Carver National Monument.

We had eaten a hearty breakfast and then been in the car for a couple of hours, so we were ready to hike the Carver Trail.

This trail takes you from Carver's birthplace around to other family sites, with the idea of giving a sense of what the Carver farm was like.

 

It is a mile, if you take the Contemplative Loop, as we did. I don't know why this section of the trail would be more contemplative than any other. There are sensible and thought-provoking quotes from Carver at intervals all along the trail, giving one plenty to contemplate, but I guess this bit is supposed to be even more contemplative.

This quarter mile loop takes you around a nice little pond. We heard woodpeckers, which I think we do not have at home, and much screaming from a school group that was coming around behind us. Also, my boys kept threatening to push each other in, even though I pointed out that it was called the Contemplative Loop, not the Fratricide Loop.

So perhaps we did not approach it in the right spirit to get the full sense of its special contemplativeness.

Here is the Carver house. It is twice the size of the birthplace, but still very small.

We might be better off with a little house like this and 210 acres to run around in, than with our big houses and little land.

 

 

Climbing trees seems like a better use of a kid's time than playing violent video games.

Not that those are the only choices, but so much of the modern kid's time is spent in front of one screen or another.

When my children were small and we lived in a little place on five acres, they ran around a lot. Now it is rare for them to climb trees, as they did at the Carver farm.

 

 

One way things were definitely worse was clearly shown in the family graveyard. Here is the grave of an old man, Moses Carver, who had a good, full life. But most of the rest were children -- 10 months, 11 months, two years, 7 years... it went on and on. I cannot imagine seeing so many of your children die. And I am thankful that I cannot imagine it. Sights like this put an end to romanticization of the past.

Unfortunately, the Science Center was closed, so I still don't know what chemurgy is. Some day I will look it up.

Next we went to Independence. We admired the log cabin and Pioneer Spring, but did not return to the museums there. Instead, we found #0 needles in the knitting shop and prowled around the square. We saw the ice cream parlor where President Truman had his first job, and a statue of him, and other such mementos of the 1940s. This taxidermy shop with antlers all over it was more interesting on the outside than on the inside.

In the course of this prowling, we learned the meaning of "Uff da!" and bought mysterious foreign chocolates.

The buying of mysterious foreign chocolates is an important part of road trips, it seems to me.

 

Here are the ones that have not yet been eaten. And our postcard. We did not ride in the wagon, but we did get to admire the furry legs of some Clydesdales.

We then went to dinner with my aunt and uncle, which was great fun, and then to the home of our hosts for the night, friends of #2 daughter.

They have a charming little house with arch-shaped doors and a very nice piano. They were charming, too, and made us very welcome. The wife and #2 daughter are having their recitals one after the other on Friday, so I may get to hear her then.

They have flowers and music all over the house, and we played Catchphrase until my bedtime. It was a lot of fun. Nowadays, I have houseguests more often that I am a houseguest, so I had sort of forgotten how much fun it is to join in another family for awhile. Admittedly, we outnumbered them, but we still joined in.

In the morning, I snuck out and made a cup of tea and took it out into the yard. There I was, in jeans and a thin cotton shirt, sitting on the porch swing and enjoying my tea, when I decided that 33 degrees is a bit chilly for that sort of thing. It was at that point that I found that I had locked myself out of the house, with everyone else likely to sleep for several more hours.

I tapped on the window by #2 son's head until he rescued me, and had a second cuppa to warm back up.

The snow day was very pleasant and relaxing,and I got a good bit of knitting done The back of the Damask Jasmine is done, but for the ribbing, and I did a few rows on Erin.

#2 daughter picked up her invitations and finished her work obligations. We did laundry, packed up the car, and negotiated about the weekend's food choices. We printed out directions to all our destinations. We went to bed early so as to be rested for this morning's early start.

At 1:25 a.m., the phone rang. Middle-of-the-night phone calls are a bit stressful. You have to disentangle the ringing from your dreams, and then plunge half-awake through the darkened house in search of the phone, mentally reviewing all the family members not on the premises.

People with cell phones don't do this, of course, but people like me do. I had gotten as far as #1 daughter and her husband -- due home tomorrow from his submarine -- by the time I reached the telephone.

The call was in a foreign language. At one point the speaker said something about "Steve Brown" but otherwise it was indistinguishable. Perhaps "Steve Brown" is all the English he knew. I said "Just a minute," and put down the phone, which continued squawking, "just a minute" not being in the speaker's English vocabulary.

I went and got my husband, who swore in a colorful manner and took the call. I tried to go back to sleep, but was summoned within minutes to help make a transatlantic phone call.

It is good when middle-of-the-night calls are transatlantic calls. Emergencies are the first thing you think of, and the last thing you want to hear. Drunken "I love you" calls are no longer a feature of my life. But calls from overseas are just because no one can remember what time it is in other countries. I have this problem myself.

We got back to bed by about 2:00 a.m., but my husband spent the rest of the night kicking off the blankets and then swearing because the blankets had been kicked off. When the alarm went off at 6:00, I was somewhat cross and very tired.

My husband began immediately to tell me what to do if the car overheated. This is not because it is likely that the car will overheat, but in lieu of saying "I love you guys. Have a good trip." Last night, he wanted to rotate the tires.

The children have gotten up, I am drinking tea in hopes that caffeine will make up for the lack of rest, and we have a beautiful, sunny day ahead of us.

Here is where the mid-point of my spring break took place: the library.

I was doing my volunteer lookups. There is an organization called RAOGK (Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness) which hooks people up with folks who live in the area that they are trying to research. It is so much easier to find data locally that it makes an enormous difference to have someone on the spot. So RAOGK is like Frugalreader in using the internet to extend neighborliness beyond its usual physical confines.

I was looking for a marriage record and two obituaries, and found only one obit. That is about the usual rate of success. I am always sorry to report failure on lookups. Naturally, in any research there is frustration in not finding what  you're looking for. But in family history research, there can also be an emotional aspect. Your ancestor was not important enough for an obituary? They lied about when and where they were married -- and perhaps about being married at all?

I try not to get too speculative, and also not to get too emotionally involved.

Following the library visit, I went to pick up #2 daughter and take her to lunch. She could not leave. The girl who normally works in the office is down with pneumonia. Like all students who end up working during spring break, she is torn between the call of duty and the lure of having more spondulicks for the summer trip on the one hand, and the desire to spend some time with family and friends on the other.

She got a sack lunch. I returned to the fire, knitting, and novels. This is the lace section of Jasmine. Oh, yes, the curly shrimpy thing I have shown you a couple of times is in fact going to be Jasmine. The sweater in the picture on the right, from Elsebeth Lavold's Summer Breeze Collection. I am just knitting along while waiting for the right needles and the rest of the yarn to arrive, but it seems I will have finished the back by the time that happens.

Now unblocked lace, as we all know, doesn't look like much. However, I would expect three repeats of a pattern to have more definition than mine shows. I did not swatch it -- a serious error on my part, but one which follows naturally from the idea that I am just doing a little provisional knitting while I wait. This is a very simple lace knitting pattern, just 16 inches and 10 rows, so I didn't feel any need to swatch it, but I think that I will do so now and make sure that I am doing it right. If not, I will pull out yesterday's knitting and begin it again. I would like to have this bit finished today so I can start on the front and have plenty of plain stockinette to do in the car while other people are driving. But I am not in such a hurry that I want a lace bit full of errors.

If it is in fact full of errors, I intend to blame it on the fact that I knitted it to a steady background of violent video games.

The next thing we did was choir practice -- always fun. It is so enjoyable to sing with #2 daughter. The director tried to persuade her to come down early to sing in the Tennebrae service -- that may or may not be possible. But I am hoping she will be down for Easter.

We had intended to prowl through bookstores after the rehearsal, but ended up coming straight home and building the quilting frame.

I have wanted a quilting frame for years -- what quilter does not? And I had a 40% off coupon from Hobby Lobby. But I freely admit that this was a very inexpensive quilt frame. #2 son said that the pieces looked as though they had been made in shop class. The directions were apparently written in English class in some other country, and not one where they usually speak English. They kept referring to a "pattern,"  by which we realized at last they meant a quilt.

We got it put together. Then my husband, who had been watching us with a sardonic expression the entire time, made us take it all apart. You can see his foot in this picture. Imagine the rest of him, standing over us like Yul Brynner in "The King and I." Arms crossed, eyebrow raised. Hair, but otherwise that image captures the effect.

It bothered him that it was not, as you can see here, properly rectangular.

We put it back together again, and he made us take it back apart and put it back together once more. It was at this point that #2 daughter punked out on us.

She is out of practice with dealing with her daddy. There is no one like him up at her college. They are fresh out of Oriental Potentates up there.

My husband went and got tools. He is always using tools on things that you or I (I mean, if you are a woman) would not bother getting tools for.

We were through with it at that point, #2 son and I. It seemed finished. But my husband wanted it taken apart again and put back together with tools.

I have said before that there is only one reason to work with perfectionists: the finished results are good. Otherwise, perfectionists are difficult to work with, for those of us who are more slapdash in our approach to life. He made us measure things.

Anyway, the frame was finished at last, and I went to get my quilt to put on it. It was at that point, once all other family members had been driven off by Daddy's insistence on Doing it Right, that it became clear that this was not a magic quilt frame, but just a really small frame for really small quilts. My quilt is absolutely not going to fit on it.

My husband pointed out that the dimensions were on the box, and I should have foreseen that it would be too small. I did not point out to him, but I will do so here, that he looked at the box before I opened it, and did not suggest that it would be too small and should be exchanged for a larger one.

I have a secret plan. The width of the frame is all about the length of the dowels and one piece of wood. I am going to get longer dowels, and a long piece of wood. I am going to take it all apart and put in the longer wood. But I will have to recover from last night's building project first.

In the meantime, I have put the quilt into my old quilting hoop and attached it to the frame. This will allow me to quilt without having to hold the quilt in my lap.

That will do for the nonce. It has been almost a year since I started this quilt, so I suppose there is no great hurry to get the framing settled.

 

As for today, there is little decision making required. #2 daughter has to work. My husband has to work. And this is what we woke up to this morning: snow.

In defiance of the dogwoods, violets, daffodils, and redbuds, all of which are just out there blooming their heads off, we have snow.

The spots in the picture are not ghostly orbs, but snowflakes. Falling from the sky. We are glad that we aren't camping out.

The roses are here, their lovely new leaves buried under snow.

Fire, knitting, novels. Check. Fuzzy Feet slippers and hot water bottles with wooly jumpers. Check. Strong possibility of homemade brownies. No visits to the gym. Bookstores if the roads stay clear.

#2 daughter tumbled out of bed just in time for us to get to the gym, if not to do a whole lot of exercising before she had to get ready for work. This is the current entrance to the gym, which is in the process of remodeling. Yes, this is a strange painted-on facade of a village. I could tell you how it came about, but it is not an interesting story. Through this door, there is a graveyard of old fitness machinery, bench presses and pec decs and rowing machines and treadmills.

We made a complete tour of the new equipment. It is from a company called TuffStuff. You know I am not making that up. I like it because it has diagrams and instructions and tells you the muscles the machine works, many of which I have never before heard of.

Last week, our gym contained three girlie weights machines, pink and teal things for abs and thighs, which had instructions on them. The other stuff was HammerStrength, looked like farm machinery, and could only be used by those in the know. Now, I don't want to make too much of this. I am sure that the folks at the gym never even considered the names of their machinery. But I will not be surprised if more women end up using the strength training equipment. There is something daunting about stepping into a black and yellow thing that looks like a combine harvester. Silver and blue stuff with instructions is just friendlier.

The pullover machine, just to give you a heads up here, has nothing to do with knitting. And I have to admit that we sort of scampered about trying out the machines and chirped girlie stuff to each other like "Ooh! This one is really hard!" And read out the muscles we were strengthening with doubtless execrable pronunciation (how do you say erector spinae, after all? Just like "spiny," I suppose, but that does sound funny, doesn't it?). Never mind. We had the place almost entirely to ourselves.

The boys went later, and did the same tour approach that we had done. We'll go back today for a more thorough workout. #1 son and I actually bought new workout pants. Inspired, I guess, by the sleek new machinery. Mine were hand-me-downs ten years ago and now have a hole in them. #1 son had merely grown out of his. They seem too scruffy for the new equipment.

We also bought #2 daughter a suitcase for her UK tour. And a quilt frame. This is an amazing amount of shopping for me to have done in one day. I actually also did an online yarn order, in order to have enough yarn for the lovely Jasmine sweaters. I included the book Poetry in Stitches, an expensive knitting book which I have been coveting for about a year. I obviously do not need such a book, but as I say, I have wanted it for a long time, and you begin to feel entitled to a thing on that basis after a while, don't you? Well, I pushed the button and got a message "While you were shopping, the inventory of Poetry in Stitches was ordered by another customer." While I was shopping. I have to imagine someone in some other part of the world entirely, reaching for this hard-to-find book at the same moment I did. And pushing the button sooner than I, presumably because he or she did not stop to calculate as much as I did, or was faster at it. Sigh. It is clear that I am not meant to have that book.

Then I returned to my rigorous program of lolling around. Here is the current knitting.

It is, at least in theory, the sweater Jasmine. But it is holding-pattern knitting. You know how you sometimes begin a piece without having the right needles, or without enough yarn, or in some other state of uncertainty. You say to yourself that you are just swatching, kind of, and may take it all out. That is how I have been working on this piece, because I am waiting for the #0 needles to appear -- either by magic, or in some yet-to-be-discovered yarn shop. And since we are not leaving on our road trip this morning as planned, chances are good that no needles will appear before Friday, when we will actually go to another town where they might have yarn shops. So this has no ribbing -- I guess I will do it upside down later. Or do some other sort of edging. I don't know. I've just sort of been knitting along on this because it is Spring Break and I am reading or talking while I knit, not paying attention, and this is all stockinette. So here I am, one inch away from the decreases for the raglan sleeve, still thinking of it as sort of temporary.

Here is Nadia, who is really good at lolling around.

She is an inspiration to us all.

It is actually a good thing that we are not heading out on a camping trip today, because it is 33 degrees and snowing slightly. Like, if it were rain, we would say it was drizzling. It would not add to the pleasures of a camping trip, though. Today is a day to stay in front of the fire, with cups of hot tea and a nice stack of novels.