Waiting for Godot, I mean, Sears

Greetings from rainy, starting-to-get-icy Ellicott City, Merlin.  I am sitting in the kitchen, surrounded by the furniture that normally is in the living room/dining room/den, waiting for the carpet cleaning guy from Sears to show up.  Again.  The poor fellow arrived, got things started, only to find out one of his hoses had frozen and then burst.  So I am stuck here, with 1.8 gazillion things to do NOT at my house until they get back or until one of our adult kids gets home from work, whichever is earlier.

aarrggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Of course, the weather is so encouraging.  I have visits to do all around the Bawlmer Beltway this afternoon and a stop at the courthouse - all to be done before 7 if we have the bell make-up practice this evening.  (If we don't, that means I shouldn't be on the roads anyway). As you can see from the picture of the view from the back of the house, it's wet rather than snow, but the bits of white on the tops of the evergreens is not a happy sign. Hopefully, it'll warm up in the next hour or so and I can be on my merry way.

Since last I left you, dear 3.5 readers, I was at the tail end of the holidays, anxious to get back to the piles of work awaiting me. And now it's hurry up and wait - so frustrating.  Well, at least I'm employed, so I have cause to be grateful!  And I do enjoy my work.  Monday I did get a number of visits set up and was able to get my first walk around the lake done in months! It hurt like  hell, but I figured I ought to keep going or I'd stiffen up.  I still think that was wise, but boy have I been stiff in the two days since, LOL!  That's OK - I really reallly need the exercise and if Nancy is willing to go slowly, I am happy for all the help I can get:)

Knitting

I finally did it - I FROGGED THE FLAK! (whoa boy - that sounds   weird, doesn't it?).  I was doing ok with what I had, but the FLAK is one of those things that you have to stick with. Although I could have probably figured out where I was, I checked for fit and it just was not to be,

so I frogged the entire thing, losing only a small amount of yarn and started the Spring Forward cardigan [correction: test knitted] by Wannietta Prescod and designed by Janet Szabo (sorry about that, Janet - I had it wrong way around before!!) out of the Spring 2004 issue of Janet Szabo's Twists and Turns. Right now I am at the very beginning - have finished one shoulder saddle and am about 1/3 of  the way through the second. I've made some adjustments to the pattern in accordance with my own sizing, shaping and gauge, and I'm knitting this is the same wool - Cascade 220 - I was going to use for the FLAK, so technically it's more of a Winter Huddle than a Spring Forward, but I think it'll be alright. More to come as I get through this pattern - a second sweater for me this year.  I have another two or three that have been snoozing on the needles, but they are going to wait for the Daily Sweater and the Spring Forward for now.

Back to work for now.  Hopefully I'll have more on this pretty aran sweater tomorrow.  Until then, God be with you 'til we meet again.

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PS forgot to mention, I gave Nancy her sweater on Sunday.  She seemed really really happy with it and when we went walking the next day, she was wearing it and I have to say it looked MAHvelous on her:)  It always does my heart good to see something I've knit actually look good on someone:) OK, now I've really gotta go....