TGIF!

A bulleted post.

• My apologies.


• But it's succinct!


• We are in the middle of a big flippin' wet sloppy snow storm.


• Again.


• I am finie with my old job (and all the attending headaches).


• I already miss my old peeps.


• The old new job starts Monday.
• I am looking forward to seeing my old new peeps.


• I hope I can still wear jeans. (I forgot to ask.)


• Lunch with Grandbebe Girl today!


• An lys is closing up shop, and guess what I did?


• You are right.


• Photos to follow, along with BSJs for the new grandbebes.


• I am within spitting distance of being done with the singles spinning of the alpaca fleece. (Get it...spitting distance....ar ar ar!)
• I have been knitting knothing but dishclothes in an effort to focus on the spinning.
• Seven have been completed in the past 10 days.

That is all.

H is for...

...Hair.

And being done with it!

Dearest Sister and myself in our dancing regalia...yes, we danced...and regaled...after a fashion.

What it was way back.

Still blonde, but not so naturally.

What it used to be at much trouble and expense.

Solid silver...at least that is my term for it!

And now....au naturelle!

I have been growing out FOREVER! Or for a year and a half, at least.

I have a couple of stories about how slowly I believe my hair grows, about the growing out experience, and about my length judging-impaired hair stylist, in these various links.

About 10 days ago, when it was time for a trim, I told my old friend, the stylist, to layer it up, and get the rest of it off. No matter the pain of layers (and I believe them to be a pain), no matter the inconvenience of hair shorter than I like (and it is), no matter that I am helpless, clueless, and inept in any styling on my own beyond...basically what I know....I said 'take it off, take it all off.'

Since that fateful day, it has not looked like the above photo.

I have had many compliments. Alas, I do not feel deserving of them.

I feel my hair is flippy. I feel my pony tail is full of sticky up ends. I keep seeing, out of the corner of my eye, the short ends at my cheeks and think someone is there!

Ah well. A necessary process to the desired end. But I know how long it will take to grow out....

Ch-ch-changes

It's my last week at this job, and I have been handing off duties. Not difficult, nor tedious, but odd. I take pride in doing my job, and even doing it last week, ostensibly for the last time, it was very strange to think...it was the last time.

So now mostly after tomorrow, when we finish up, it will be someone else's task. However they do it, it will be theirs to do.

And come Monday, I will be back at my new place, with all it's changes since I left there four years ago. I have had no anxiety or apprehension about the new old job...until this week.

Now I am sort of freakin' out.

I think it is more about changing out the familiar for the unknown, even though I know alot about where I am going and what I am going to be doing.

Strange, huh? Not really.

I have had a pretty light load for quite a while. Really busy at times, but other times maybe needing to gauge my efforts so I didn't end up with nothing to do completely. Also, times have been very, very flexible. Really, when one isn't getting paid regularly, the motivation to be on time, or to stick around until 5...well, it wanes. Especially after promises of compensation are not held to.

I will be working as a temp, being paid hourly, and being paid very well hourly, and it will make a difference when I show up and when I leave. Also, while I look forward to getting my edge back in the lab, it will be a challenge. I hope I can meet it.

And I believe the time is right for this change. The old place...I don't think I can stick it out any longer.

In other news, Grandbebe Girl and her parents came over for Easter brunch. While she didn't bring her birthday hand knit Easter Eggs, she was wearing her Baby Surprise Jacket. Her momma tells me she wears it alot. What. A. Charge. Knitting something that gets used...wow. Also, I hear tell the baby bed has been unfolded and remade into her 'big girl', completely tricked out with the quilt handmade by Dearest Sister and myself.

She loves the things we make for her!

More Spring Doings

Yesterday I changed the bedroom to it's spring dress.

I know. I really can't believe it myself, but it's true. My bedroom has two sets of outfits, and I am pretty rigorous in my switching out of them in the fall and the spring.

I may be channeling Martha Stewart just a little.

Window swag, area rug, dust ruffle, quilt, and pillows in shams, all go from russets, browns, and blues, to lilacs, greens and ecrus. I don't know that I have ever really used the word ecru in a sentence. Or russet. Except with potato. And maybe not even then.

I do have more to say about these particular pillow shams. They are recycled from tied quilts that Deeply Missed and Dearest Sisters made for the Daughters one Christmas. Used well and well loved, I untied and ripped out the stitching. I quilted in a cross-hatch pattern and, following and adapting a pattern from the internet, I made the shams. I like that I have re-used them.

Anyway. Best Dog Ever sleeps next to the bed, and Phoebe, the cat, stays safe from the Grand-Pup and the pink medicine and many other scary things under the bed. Both of these things lead to a great amount of pet hair on the dust ruffle. A dust ruffle is a fearsome thing to iron after washing.

No more. This past winter, Wonderful Guy and I bought the wondrous, even magical!, steamer. He was all about clothes! No more ironing! I was thinking knitting and blocking...and dust ruffles and window swags and table clothes...and clothes, too, but I have my priorities.

Yesterday the dust ruffle was de-wrinkled in short order, and our boudoir is ready for the season in it's spring finery.

My mother would probably just choke. Except for the pillow shams.

Random Firings

I finally finished my latest book. A good read, a long read, but won't re-read. Down to the shelf to be re-cycled back to the FOL. What will I read next?!?

I am knitting dishclothes. I have three of them almost finished, all but the garter stitch grafting. Ahhhh...immediate gratification after the MLCB. All that new yarn, and I am knitting with dishclothe cotton. Go figure.

While carrying the dishclothes with me, I snapped a size seven needle. Into 3 pieces. Don't ask me how. That leaves me with...one 10 inch sz seven. I have probably 9 pair of size six, and 12 pair of size eight. And, now, one SINGLE size seven needle. I finished the last dishclothe with one seven and one six.

Quilting on the GBII quilt progresses nicely.

The baby alpaca fleece is washed. And teased. And all carded. I have a basket full of rolags to spin. One basket. Then I will have completely processed one whole raw fleece from start to finish.

Wonderful Guy and I have a three day weekend ahead.

The snow is mostly gone, and things are greening, and spring bulbs are popping. Not so much in my yard. I am enjoying others fall planning. I have very few spring bulbs. By fall, I am totally past thinking...hmmm....what shall I plant for next year? Then come spring, I am all thinking, why didn't I plant some bulbs last fall?

Every year I think that. And I will probably do the same this year.

The week I start my new job, we are getting a pergola built over our patio. I love stacking challenges!