I am right back to the grind at work this morning and it’s started out just about as it always does right now. Predictably unpredictable and irritating! I realized at some point that I was feeling full of rage actually, but then remembered that we didn’t have enough breakfast foods in the house this morning for Mr. Ink to get up and make me breakfast as usual. So, I hadn’t eaten yet. I headed out to our little convenience shop, they were severely under stocked due to the holiday, but I was able to find something that would work and the rage portion of the irritating morning dissipated. That being said, I got one of our grants off my plate already this morning, which sets me up nicely over the next few weeks of insanity.

I managed to ply and dry both skeins of loop cloud yarn last evening.

I got 285 yards of this lovely grey. I am seriously completely head over heels for it.

And then this one is fantastic as well.

320 yards in this skein, and it’s so rich and beautiful!

Now that I am back at work I’ve vowed to put away the wheel for a bit, spin on support spindles, and work on some knitting. Though a particularly nice evening might change all that, there’s something about spinning on the patio this time of year when it’s not miserably hot that calls to me and I feel I should take as much advantage as possible.

Mr. Ink? Well, he dug a hole. Please don’t mind those rocks there, they aren’t all the actual retaining wall. Mr. Ink realized he was lacking in a certain size of rock, and the rock place was not open yesterday. So, he decided to dig out the bank instead. Now, he’d sprayed that bank with weed killer early in the season, and he’s decided it was the best decision he’s ever made. Much easier to remove than sod.

Another set of neighbors were over yesterday to take a look at what was going on. They were having a holiday picnic in their yard, and all they could see what that Mr. Ink was standing in a hole. So, they came to check out what he was doing and admire it, despite the fact that it looks like almost nothing at the moment. He sure is getting quite a lot of cheering on for all his hard work. He’s hoping to head to the rock place tonight as we’ve got tonight and tomorrow without rain, then we are in for a storm, which is going to cause an epic mess for this project.

I’ve been working on my joji mystery knit along project, I am almost done with clue 3. I am hoping to be done tonight, if time allows. I am also itching to get something out of handspun cast on, it’s such a struggle to use all commercial yarn even if I did dye some of it myself. I clearly have a preference at this point. I really am also toying with the idea of doing an entire month of knitting again. Maybe June? I guess that’s coming right up!

I do hope everyone had a lovely long weekend, providing it was a long weekend for you!

Last week’s list:

• Finish current wheel project
• Finish clue 2 of mystery stole, start clue 3. (Last week it came out on a Thursday midday,  which is right at the point where I start vacation.)
• Finish spinning current batt on support spindles and get an additional batt spun
  • Well, I finished the current batt and got halfway through the next, but I focused on the wheel while on vacation.
• Work on scraping garage door frame, sand and paint if weather and time allows
  • Weather and time allowed, but I didn’t do it. My current excuse is that there are too many large plants waiting to be planted in front of that garage window. It’s true, but I could have moved them.
• Work on the never ending weeding situation
• Go on a long bike ride with friends!
  • It was pouring at the start of the ride, and we didn’t go.
• Renew car registration (Why is this type of simple task always SO difficult to remember to get done?)
• And just a lot of yard work in general, whatever I can help with in the yard should be pretty exciting.

Yesterday Mr. Ink said that he had to go back to the rock place to get more rocks. I decided to tag along because even though he doesn’t say he needs my help, he says he appreciates it once we get home. We picked out large boulders this time, as well as much smaller filler rocks.

This is where he’d gotten to last evening with placing the rocks. However, late in the evening he came inside and said he’d messed up and needed to start over. So, this is not the final placement of the rocks.

Our across the busy street neighbor who is a lovely little old lady who went to school with the previous owner of the house came across the street to see what Mr. Ink was up to. She really likes Mr. Ink, even though I have never met her. She brings him fresh veggies from her garden, and comes over to talk to him fairly regularly. Since Mr. Ink is the one to work out front, I rarely do, I am sure she tries to figure out what he’s doing, and this project really has been a large and time intensive one. He explained his vision, and her big comment was that it was just wonderful to see someone taking such an interest in their house and yard.

I took on a large project of my own. My iris bed has some sort of ground cover in it that is just absolutely overwhelming. I have not been able to get rid of it, and picking up the small new sprouts was doing nothing to stop it. So, over the past two days I’ve taken out every iris, dug 2 feet down in the bed, yanked out all the offending root systems (as much as I can find anyhow) replaced all the dirt, replanted all the irises, and mulched it all. I had to remove rocks from the little garden rock wall to get at some of the roots. The roots had so entangled themselves with the irises that I had to pick through every iris root and tuber in order to remove the offending roots from them. They would grow through the tuber even! So, I’d break off that part of the tuber and discard it. The bed looks pretty good now, and I am very pleased with the work I did.

I also got quite a lot of spinning done yesterday.

The rest of the grey is done and I am about halfway through the second bobbin of burgundy.

This week:

• Ply the two skeins of loop cloud yarn
• Finish clue 3 of the mystery knit, start clue 4
• Bike ride with friends on Thursday evening? We really gotta get out and socialize.
• Keep up on the household chores, with the addition of cleaning the outside of the fridge and microwave! (Outdoor work has the fridge looking pretty gross since dirty hands keep coming in for ice and water.)
• Summer clothing shopping for Miss Butterfly. She needs boots for camp, shorts, and a new bathing suit.

That’s about it, I’ve got quite a lot of other stuff going on and a good portion of next weekend is already shot. So, I am thinking this provides a decent amount of stuff to do, manageable, keeps me on track, but I won’t feel like I cannot get it done.

There was a burning bush. Now there is none. Mr. Ink spent another day on it, tracing root systems 4 feet down and then following them back up again. It’s out now, at least the most major roots. There are thinner roots under the driveway still, and we can just hope they’ll never find a purchase as we cannot get to them. This morning Mr. Ink is working on fixing his truck, then we are going to head out to the rock place again and get some larger boulders for the bottom of the retaining wall.

Meanwhile, I have been working on my own root system issues. My iris bed is also full of this ground cover that I hate. I don’t even know what it is, but I haven’t been able to eradicate it because the roots are all tangled in with the iris roots and so I end up leaving the ground cover roots behind, and then I get to do the whole thing over again the next year. This year I’ve had it. I am digging up every iris, and removing the roots from between the iris roots, and digging way down to get to the heart of the root systems. It’ll probably take years to get the job done, but I am going to give it a big head start this year.

I did some spinning yesterday, of course. I worked on another loop cloud. I figured since I have 2 loop clouds, and 4 bobbins, I could switch between the two colors and then ply two projects one right after the other.

So I worked on this burgundy colored cloud yesterday. I got halfway through it. Today I am hoping to get the other half of the grey done, Monday I’ll try for the other half of the burgundy. And then I can ply during the week.

And that’s it from here. Hopefully we’ll have retaining wall progress pictures to show off tomorrow. But, now I am off to work on that nasty root system eradication project. Have a good one!

We started our day yesterday with a trip to the local botanical garden in hopes to see a corpse flower in bloom. It didn’t work out, it still wasn’t blooming. They were hoping for that evening. I will have to try again on Sunday. In any case, I got this photo of Mr. Ink humoring me.

We have a membership there, so we go whenever we can. But, due to the corpse flower, admission is free so it was quite busy. We did spend time wandering around outdoors anyhow, and found that the other end of the gardens were quite a lot less busy than the entrance. The rose garden was completely in bloom, and the peony garden still had some blooms, and we had a great time as usual.

Once home we mowed and trimmed, since Mr. Ink’s hands are still torn up from his hours and hours of stump removal. Then, we headed out to the rock store to pick up rocks for the retaining wall he’ll be building in place of the leaning one near that burning bush stump. That was quite a chore, I haven’t picked rocks since last season and forgot what a dirty sweaty mess it is. But, I am glad I went along, since that was one less load that Mr. Ink had to pull.

We got home from that and did quite a lot of “puttering.” I did some cleaning and laundry and weeding. Mr. Ink did some planting and watering and a bit more stump removal. We didn’t concentrate on anything particularly long, and I interspersed my time with some spinning.

Remember how I said I needed to spin less? Maybe I need to start that next week. Because I got halfway through another loop cloud.

I decided it would be particularly sad to not enjoy the exceedingly pleasant weather on the patio. It’s not likely to be this gorgeous all summer. Indeed it isn’t, since this morning it’s raining like crazy again. There’ll be no patio sitting this morning, nor any puttering around my plants and weeding, and a bike ride is even unlikely. (Though I am genuinely not complaining, I do love a good rainstorm and the downtime it brings.)

With that, I’ve got a few garden shots. My poppies are looking stunning. I took this photo yesterday. Looked out the window this morning to see another orange bloom and a yellow bloom on there. But, with the rain, a photo wasn’t in the cards.

I also grabbed a quick shot of my lady’s mantle.

I love flowers, but I love good greenery just was much and lady’s mantle really has greenery to show off! I also repotted one of my geraniums yesterday. It had done so well at work over the winter, but when I brought it home and attempted to acclimate it to being outdoors, as well as trim some of its legginess, it started to look really rough. Upon further investigation, it was totally and completely root bound in the pot it was in. I lifted it out by the stem and all the dirt came with it leaving a clean pot. So, I put it in a much bigger container, and it already looks much better. I am sure it’s enjoying the current rain quite a bit.

Miss Butterfly is off with her dad’s side of the family. That kid is becoming so responsible! She’s currently at her grandmother’s house taking care of her toddler aged second cousin. Her grandmother has been taking care of Butterfly’s great grandmother who is currently in the hospital quite a bit, and that’s severely cut into the time that the baby is cared for. So Miss Butterfly is there and on call for that sort of thing. In fact, her grandmother has just asked if she could come over for 3 days next week now that she’s out of school in order to help out and be on call as a sitter when needed. I love that they feel she’s responsible enough for the job, and that they want her over because she’s helpful, rather than being yet another burden on her grandmother. So, apparently Miss Butterfly’s first summer vacation activity is babysitting, and I suspect it’s a role she’ll be very happy in.

That’s about it from here! Not sure what today will bring in way of photos and projects but I look forward to whatever the day brings.

After a full day of this:

We are still left with this:

Blisters are forming on Mr. Ink’s hands and his back is, as usual, a royal mess. We’ve decided he needs two days off from the project. The root system goes all the way under the driveway, and that’s still a sizable chunk left to remove. We tried to use the truck a second time, but nowhere on the remaining stump pieces was a place which wouldn’t break when we tried to pull it. So, we really have been stuck resorting to manual labor. And by we, I mean he. I did wander through that garden digging up more bulbs and weeds while he was on stump removal duty, but in the end, my major job was making sure he was hydrated.

I started yesterday morning with fresh singles.

This is another loop cloud project, the colorway was kimono I believe. I got the plying done yesterday and the drying done overnight.

So now I’ve got another 300 yards of 2 ply. I am actually thinking I need to slow down on my spinning, or do another month of knitting exclusively or something. My fiber stash is disturbingly low at the moment. That being said, I do have lots of dyed fiber and add ins I can create on the drum carder still. But, my fiber cabinet which is typically full to bursting is only half full at the moment.

The third clue came out on the starting point mystery knit so I got started on that last evening. I am not very far in really, downtime was quite limited.

Plan for Mr. Ink’s days off from the stump include the local botanical gardens where a corpse flower is almost in bloom, and mowing. We also should be traveling to a bike ride tomorrow, and that should be an all day social experience. That is, providing it doesn’t rain all day.

That’s it from here, on day 2 of a nice long weekend.

Last week’s list:

• More scraping around garage window frame
  • This did not get done due to having only 2 days of non rainy weather. One of them was spent desperately trying to get a handle on the mowing, and the next nice day the yard waste, full of rotting grass clippings, was so rancid smelling that I couldn’t stand to be anywhere near the garage.
• One bike commute if weather holds
  • I got that done the day we mowed, it was a very busy day. The woodland phlox are blooming along the trail and at one point I got pretty close to a deer standing in them. Such a pretty morning sight.
• Back on track for extra indoor work, especially if it really does rain all week
  • Yep, this got done, in part due to having unexpected company on Friday.
• Finish weeding/mulching the rose of sharon garden bed
  • I am not sure this garden bed will ever be done! I did spend many hours weeding it throughout the week, but there’s no done about it.
• Finish spinning current wheel project
• Finish clue 1 of mystery stole

One of the things I find the most fun about Mr. Ink being at home during the day is just how much gets done. I mean, I go home and I get to wander around the yard to see what happened while I was gone. It should be a pretty good week actually, since his tree/plant purchasing habits resemble my old yarn purchasing habits. More show up than can possibly be planted. Yesterday we came home with a tree and another rose bush, only the tree made it into the ground. And there are at least 4 more trees hanging about waiting for their place as well.

The big burning bush stump project will get done shortly. We have to move our mailbox before pulling the stump. I am hoping the mailbox move happens today, as the hole is already drilled through the stump and I am hoping to get a bunch of photos and video of that stump coming out.

I did get a bit of spinning done this weekend, about half of the singles for another loop cloud.

This one is turning out so differently than I expected. It’s quite a bit more black, I’d anticipated a lot more of the colored bits. It’ll be another 2 ply, so I am eager to see the finished product. There’s really no controlling the color in loop clouds, and the end result is always quite a surprise.

Miss Butterfly has two half days and one full day of school left this year, that’s it! And in fact, she is off school today. Her favorite teacher passed away unexpectedly last week, and she’s going to the funeral rather than going to school for the half day of locker clean out and so on. I think it’s a valuable trade off.

I have two extra days off this week as well, and I cannot wait! It’s been very busy at work again, there’s quite a lot going on and I need the break. I’ve arranged my work very carefully and handed it off to a very competent coworker and I know in her hands that’ll work out just fine.

On that note, my list can be slightly longer due to the extra time off!

• Finish current wheel project
• Finish clue 2 of mystery stole, start clue 3. (Last week it came out on a Thursday midday,  which is right at the point where I start vacation.)
• Finish spinning current batt on support spindles and get an additional batt spun
• Work on scraping garage door frame, sand and paint if weather and time allows
• Work on the never ending weeding situation
• Go on a long bike ride with friends!
• Renew car registration (Why is this type of simple task always SO difficult to remember to get done?)
• And just a lot of yard work in general, whatever I can help with in the yard should be pretty exciting.

That’s all from here, hope everyone has a great week!

We are just getting so much rain the past few days. It’s been dark and dreary. When I woke up this morning it was, again, pouring so hard. It’s pretty cold too, overall. The amount of rain is so heavy in fact, that our small tree limbs are so soaked that they are quite dramatically hanging low. Mr. Ink has begun propping up limbs with bamboo sticks in order to hold everything together.

Mr. Ink started vacation on Friday after work. We started off well, in my opinion, as we had a friend come visit who recently moved to Florida. It was great to see her, and Mr. Ink made her dinner, then made sure she had extra food to take home for the remainder of her visit.

I finished my big waffle shawl, though I haven’t gotten photos yet. And, I finished my spinning.

This is loop cloud fiber colorway amber agate. I have 310 yards of this, and I think it’s just gorgeous.

Miss Butterfly and I have been hanging out all morning, listening to podcasts, and I’ve been cleaning or crafting, as has she. She even made chocolate chip cookies, much to our chagrin, it doesn’t fit our diet at all. But she rarely asks to cook or bake, so we figured she should be able to. We are off to see a movie next, since the rain won’t quit. After today things are looking up, weather wise. I am hoping for a bike ride tomorrow, and then I am truly hoping that we can get that burning bush stump out of the ground. With it as soaked as it is today, it should be at the easiest point. And with minimal rain in the forecast, Mr. Ink will have time to redo that area without me having a mud pit at my garage door.

I guess that’s about it from here today, the rain has us moving very slowly, and I find myself without too much to say!

I didn’t feel too well yesterday morning, my back was really bothering me and I took it very slow all morning. I made arrangements though with Miss Marja, as we wanted to get to a furniture store to pick out some new furniture for her. Or rather, get some ideas for new furniture. I did finally perk up a bit at lunchtime, and once at the furniture store I was very happy to be there. We had an excellent time wandering about, looking at furniture, trying out beds, and taking photos of stuff we liked.

I even found what *I* want for a new set. I’ve had my current set since before Miss Butterfly was born, and it’s definitely looking and feeling the wear and tear. Plus, I don’t love it for the space, I think we could certainly do better. So, we’ll see, I want to get Mr. Ink back in there to take a look at it shortly. This time I plan to forego the loveseat option entirely, leaving space for two chairs instead of one, and a stand for all Mr. Ink’s indoor plants.

The other thing that happened yesterday was that my new vacuum was delivered! I had for years a vacuum I adored. I brought it with me to the new place 2 years ago, even though the bottom base had broken. I found that I could order a new base online, and I did so. Mr. Ink then spent an evening of time and foul language putting the new base on it. It then died less than 6 months later, it’s last gasp occurring in the last room to be cleaned of Mr. Ink’s family home during the epic clean out to put it on the market. It just went in the dumpster along with everything else that needed to go.

Due to our extreme time constraints, I had to run to a shop and grab another vacuum cleaner without doing much research. I didn’t spend much money on it at all, and I have HATED it with a passion these past 2 years. In fact, I would say that I’ve left 90% of the vacuuming up to Miss Butterfly due to this hatred. Clean floors are very important to me, it really makes a difference in my comfort level in my home. And a month or two ago, I had absolutely HAD it with the vacuum cleaner. I told Mr. Ink in no uncertain terms I would be purchasing a new one.

He seemed completely unsurprised, saying “You have said right from the start that this vacuum cleaner was a temporary solution.” I did a bunch of research, and picked out something I thought would work for us. It arrived yesterday and I took extreme delight in using it, cleaning all the floors thoroughly and relegating the old vacuum cleaner to the basement for clean up of the car or the unfinished basement floor. Since we have mostly hard floors, with only area rugs and one installed carpet in one room, I picked something that works fairly seamlessly on both, and that was such a joy. I also have a hardwood floor vac that may go in a future garage sale at this point, so easy is it to use the new one.

Miss Butterfly just wants to know if it means she doesn’t have to do that chore quite so often.

The cleaning of the floors did set off a string of indoor chores, so despite a really tough and slow start to the morning, the evening was wonderful in it’s productivity. Mr. Ink managed to finally finish working through his truck load of compost, so we’ve even got an empty truck bed again, useful in removing hard to deal with stumps, and, you know, MAYBE even for bringing a new couch home. HAH!

I worked hard yesterday morning on my Joji mystery shawl, I am almost done with the second section (Of clue one, the pattern instructs us to make two) so I am going to wait to show that off tomorrow. But, I also started another spinning project on the wheel. This one is a Loop! cloud, colorway agate.

I am not sitting at the wheel all that much right now, but the work I’ve done on it has been pleasant.

Yesterday’s weather was warm and windy, and we had a surprise rain storm this morning fairly early. I think I got up at around 6 as Mr. Ink was already up and about. It was nice not to have to be bothered with a morning watering of plants.

My huge line of peonies are beginning to bloom! I may even pick a bouquet today. My family hates this due to the ants, but I leave it outside for a bit, picking the ants off before bringing it indoors, and that seems to help immensely.

And in other pink news, my Wine and Roses Weigela is blooming. Mr. Ink helped it along a bit last year and while it looks a bit scruffy, it has doubled in size. This was already in when we arrived, but I was annoyed it didn’t resemble the lovely kind of drooping weigelas I see elsewhere. Now? Well, it looks like in a few years it may begin to fill in and droop nicely.

If we get the higher heats that are expected today and at the beginning of the week as well as all the rain in the upcoming week, things should be taking off even more dramatically than they already are.

Happy Mother’s day out there!

They may be called support spindles for a reason, but this week I am taking a new meaning to that word. These spindles are supporting me through a crazy week. They are making my evenings relaxing and bearable after some crazy days.

I am now onto the second batt and third spindle.

The fiber is one of my own creation that I drum carded recently.

It is, quite frankly, a LOT of fiber, especially for support spindles. But, I am also approaching it as if there’s no rush, just for relaxation purposes. So, while it may take some time to get through all that fiber, I don’t feel like I need an end in sight either.

I mentioned that I’d be taking more pictures of the current blooming peony. Yesterday I came home to take a look around the yard. The peony has so many more flowers open!

Looks like I’ve got another plant encroaching on that peony, I’ll have to take care of that. I have noticed that particular peony is powdery mildew prone when it’s stuffed in with other plants.

We are headed to a members only plant sale at our local botanical garden tonight, and we are quite excited about it. They gave us a list of what they’d have in stock, and there’s quite a few of the things that we plan to have on it, so we are excited to pick up some of the plants on the long term perennial list.

Mr. Ink got a rhododendron in last night, it’s another of the plants on my personal wish list and I am very excited about it. We keep having this argument about rhododendron. He’ll tell me he sees them in the neighborhood, he’ll point them out, and I’ll say “That doesn’t look like a rhododendron.” Now, it may be. But, it’s not what I personally picture when I think rhododendron. Then, he bought me what he called a rhododendron. A red one. And, while it was very nice of him, it wasn’t what I wanted, and it certainly did NOT look like a rhododendron. To me. He then started calling it a red azalea, and he returned it to the store. So, we finally had a discussion as to what *I* envision when I say rhododendron. I said “Woody plant, HUGE shiny green oval leaves. Preferably purple or magenta flowers.” So, Mr. Ink set out to find the perfect rhododendron with the biggest shiniest oval leaves, in the perfect color. He got me a Pearce’s American Beauty, it showed up yesterday, and it is amazing. Ridiculously dramatic. It’s about to bloom, so there may be photos. Though, the rich magenta color is going to be very hard to photograph with my phone camera.

That’s about it from me! I’ve been working on my huge big waffle shawl at work, and I realized that I haven’t photographed it at all recently. So, I am going to do that today. I have come a very long way from when I last took a photo so hopefully that’ll be interesting. Happy Friday!

I am hitting my midweek wall. Work is insane again, so many tasks in the air and I am just trying to pluck at each one here and there, hoping that nothing slips. It’s all too important to miss, so I can only keep going and hope for the best. A quick nap after I get home, 10 minutes or so, seems to help refresh me, reboots my brain, and I can enjoy the evening. But early bedtimes prevail at the moment.

We were to go visit a friend, bring her dinner, and plant some plants for her. She’d wanted some of my cast off plants, but knowing that she’s been in chemo treatments for more than 6 months made us feel that we’d prefer to do the planting for her. She’s back at work for the first time, and I got a text from her saying she was headed home to sleep and wanted to cancel. I admit, I couldn’t have been more relieved. I was going to do it anyhow, but with the rain all day it would have been muddy and work was kicking my butt.

It ended up being a good thing, because Miss Butterfly also had like 5 hours of homework. Now, I don’t quite understand how she can go with so little homework for so long, and then end up bogged down by big projects all at once. She has more than a day to complete this work, but she’s got plans with her dad this evening and didn’t want to be burdened with all that work. So, she spent 5 hours, minus two walks around the block for a breather, on those projects, and didn’t get them completed. One project due Friday and the other due Monday and she was determined to get as far as possible with both.

I did get a photo of my handspun though. This is the yarn wench braid that I added to the leftovers from the 3 braid combo.

I ended up with 670 yards of 2 ply yarn. It might have been one of my best plying jobs yet. It hangs beautifully straight after finishing, and the fiber had such a lovely bounce to it that just came back beautifully as soon as I put it in the water and hung it out to dry.

I seem to be mostly knitting with commercial yarn at the moment, and all I WANT to do is cast on these handspuns I’ve been creating. I think once I finish my current commercial yarn projects I need some serious handspun knitting time again. It’s great to use up commercial yarn stash, and it’s not like the handspuns with disappear without me knitting them, but maybe I need to make sure I don’t cast on all commercial yarn all at once at this point!

That’s about it from here, I MIGHT have something handspunish to show off again tomorrow. Due to being totally exhausted and wanting to put my feet up and do something mindless last evening, I pulled out my support spindles.

Good morning all! Last week’s list.

• Commute by bike two more times this week. (I did so this morning, it was glorious.)
  • Total and utter failure. Just didn’t do it. I was very tired and chose the extra sleep, breakfasts with Mr. Ink, and waking Miss Butterfly up instead.
• Get to the yarn shop, get more yarn for Mr. Ink’s socks, and complete them. (I am tired of looking at them, I want them off the needles.)
• Get all the plants that are waiting to be planted into the ground. (Pretty sure we just finished the final cold snap of the season.)
  • Not QUITE done here. All the bulbs are in the ground including a new garden area with sod dug up for my canna garden. But, there are still a few things that need to be put into the ground.
• Start scraping paint around garage door.
  • I did this. I scraped, I sanded, I caulked, and I got the first coat of paint on the garage door frame. If the rain doesn’t show, I’ll get the second coat on tonight.
• MOW!
  • Done, and of course it needs to be done again.
• Commit to half hour of house chores in the evenings. Set timer for it.
  • SORTA? I sorta did this? Meaning, every day I didn’t work on a large outdoor project, I did this. But, with the scraping/sanding/caulking/painting project going on, I simply did the normal house chores to keep us an operational house the past 3 days.

It’s been one BUSY weekend! On Friday, I started scraping paint in earnest. Then, Mr. Ink made dinner and we went to see William Elliott Whitmore, one of my absolute favorite musicians to see live. I am never sure if Mr. Ink is going to enjoy himself attending a show by this artists, but he always seems to, in the end. I asked him about that, and he said “When I see him live, I am not sure I am buying what he’s selling. But, by the end of the show, I am ALWAYS buying it. So, a very good time was had by all.

Saturday morning Mr. Ink had to work, so I got right back in the groove with scraping and sanding. Before Mr. Ink came home, I had that door frame wiped down and ready for caulk. Miss Butterfly and I went out to do some grocery shopping and stopped to pick up caulk. I got the door frame caulked, and then put everything away for the day, knowing it would be 24 hours before painting. After that, it was digging up sod, putting bulbs in the ground, getting areas mulched and weeded, all around a good time.

I did get some spinning done too. I pulled out my second braid of Yarn Wench fiber, almost the same colorway as the one I used in the 3 braid combo. The new braid had a little more yellow. Since I’d had a considerable amount leftover from the 3 braid combo, I figured I could spin the singles from braid two, and use that and the leftovers for a 2 ply yarn.

Leftovers are in the middle.

On Sunday, I had told Mr. Ink that I wanted to go on a training ride with my bike group. I haven’t been at the training rides much in the past few years, Mr. Ink and I have concentrated more on mountain biking. But, I decided this year I’d like to get back into it. Mr. Ink’s bike is out of commission, so he rode the pink fatbike again, while I rode my more streamlined yellow bike.  Now, these training rides are long. And they are punctuated by what we call the 3 “H’s.”  Heat, high winds, and hills. Now, we really only had 2 out of the 3 “h’s” going for us yesterday, it was only 84F so we wouldn’t consider that particularly hot here. But we had the high winds/head winds/cross winds that felt as if you might be blown off your bike and made you concentrate as much on balance as you were on riding, and, we had the hills as the area of Iowa we train in is incredibly hilly.

Quite frankly, a fatbike for a training ride was an unwise choice, but Mr. Ink did fine with it. And got much adulation about trying it, as no one else would have attempted that, no matter how strong a rider. He’s been contemplating getting a fat bike sized for him as his all around normal ride, so trying this training ride on one was a great idea. He’s still not completely sold, but at least he also knows he can do it.

There’s one incredibly steep hill out of the town we have brunch in that I worry every time I’ll have to walk. It’s at the top of a long 2 mile hill climb, so riders are already exhausted from that long climb when you have to switch into your easiest gears and reach down deep inside yourself to give that steep portion of the hill everything you’ve got left. I’ve seen riders, GOOD riders, fall on that hill from being unable to pedal fast enough to keep going, and being suddenly unable to get their foot unclipped and onto the ground. Since I wasn’t using a road bike this time, I worried that this would be the time I couldn’t make that hill. I made the hill! I was dead last, but I made that hill.

We rode 30 miles of hills and high winds. It felt great. These rides take up most of the day, but I always find them deeply satisfying as well. It’s not just the exercise, and pushing myself to the limit, it’s the social aspect. The fact that we are all in it together, all pushing equally hard. It’s a lovely camaraderie that I have missed.

After those 30 miles of hills and high winds, we got home, I changed, and immediately headed back out to pick up paint for the garage door frame. I remember my mom saying something about how a good paint brush made a big difference when painting. I got a good brush. And I also got the best exterior paint I could find, spending a bit of extra cash to make sure I was working with something that would stick around. It worked so well! I could actually free hand the garage door frame, rather than spending a bunch of time taping everything. I am really hoping it doesn’t rain this evening so I can get the second coat on, and then be done with it.

I also inspected the garage windows a little better yesterday. I’d noticed the two on the front needed scraping and painting. But, the two on the sides I hadn’t paid attention to. I was surprised, and genuinely pleased, to see that the two side windows have siding around them, rather than wood frames. No need to paint! So, that cuts the misery down by 2 windows. (I don’t like scraping and painting, not even a little.)

In any case, once the paint was on, I did a little more weeding, and then sat back at my wheel to get the tiniest bit of plying done ever.

It may not be much, but it was satisfying to know I am headed in the right direction.

In the garden, the irises are making their appearance.

This is the iris color in the main iris bed. I am hoping for a new color as well, as I had planted a new color last year. IF they managed to survive, it should be lovely to see a variety in that bed. In fact, I plan to see what colors I get this year, and add to them in the future.

List for this week:

• Second coat of paint around garage door frame
• Finish plying current spinning project
• Commute by bike once this week
• If it rains, set the timer for the extra half hour of house chores
• Finish planting
• Remove creeping buttercup (Pretty, but apparently invasive.)
• Schedule a service appointment for the AC

I think that’s all I am going to list out. There’ll be plenty to get done, and I am sure knitting will get done as well. I am not going to plan on starting to work on the garage window frames yet, I think I need a scraping and painting break in between times. In any case, I am thrilled with the highly productive weekend that was had, it does feel like it’s setting us in the right direction for the year. Energy tends to wane, but this is prime forward moving energy weather!

I blame the rain for the ability to finish my 3 braid combo spin. Even though I was out of the house for most of the day on Saturday.

Here’s my in progress photo from the weekend:

This is the third braid, Iris You Were Here from Dyeabolical Yarns. So, all together:

And I plied and plied and plied on Saturday evening and all day Sunday.

Shall we take a closer look?

I genuinely believe that the best of all three braids shows through. I cannot believe the number of different color combos I got on this spin, and the way the colors played together was just amazing. I am sorry I didn’t have an opportunity to count yardage yet, but I am so ridiculously happy with this spin, I hope it makes something amazing!

This was one of those weekends that it rained so hard that there was some serious boredom and wandering going on around our house. Sometimes chores were done out of boredom, meaning I just couldn’t sit at the wheel or with knitting anymore. Our grass has grown by leaps and bounds with no ability to do anything about it because it never dries out. This week is likely to be a bit busy in the evenings. Mostly, I’d just like our outdoor plants to go back outdoors!! Thankfully that looks hopeful after today.