We celebrated the nuptials of my niece, Anna and her groom, Thomas on Saturday. It was a small wedding (80 or so) and felt very intimate. Of course, my husband Lou sits at the back while I was in the Ladies room. I would have sat as close to the front as possible, just like at the cinema. My sister's friend form teenage-hood, delivered the service and did a spectacular job! Anna looked gorgeous with THE perfect dress on as did my sis. When I saw Liz (sis) watching her daughter come down the aisle and tearing up, my waterworks started.


After a quick nip downstairs to the pub, they rearrange the tables for dinner and dancing. I had so much fun dancing up a storm, I thought I would pay for it the next day. I think the wine must have loosened my muscles, as I was OK the next morning. What a workout!!! We had a blast and it was great to be boogying with all, especially my kids and my Mom!

Lou had his ankle surgery - finally  - and I have had a taste of single parenthood. You can dream about it when you're frustrated with your partner, but I now know how difficult and exhausting it is to do it all, without help from anyone over 13. He has been a fairly good patient; no complaining about the pain and not too demanding and I even get a thank you each night before lights-out....awwwww. He is not doing as the doc instructed him and keeping of the foot for 6 weeks (he does have crutches to use), so I have to nag him about that.

Suddenly, he is out of the picture for making dinner, garbage, groceries, laundry (not that he ever did much of that!), coffee in the AM (he makes it better than I do), make Elizabeth's lunchbag up and giving E. a lift to school. I am sure there is much, much more, but I am too knackered to think. I set him up on the sofa each day with his laptop, pills (those really send him flying...he just asked me if we're in 0-9....2009! Ya - you're only 9 months late, but enjoy the percacet, honey! Even funnier is seeing him use the laptop!), water, cell phone, home phone and book, kiss him good-bye and head off to my part-time job-that is full time for two months (don't even start me on how busy it is there. Lunch is a distant memory.)

I spend my evenings cooking, cleaning kitchen, keeping up with the mountainous loads of laundry (that don't seem to disappear), work on baby book (so excited I heard from the artist I want in the book today!!!!) and flop into bed. My only Hot Yoga class that I frequented before the summer, nearly killed me last Monday - it was only 2 months I missed! I 'm exhausted! I know...Waa-waa-waa!
Tomorrow no laptop...a basket of laundry instead!

I take my hat off to my sister (one of them), who raised 3 kids, most of the time without the dad around. I really miss my helper, partner in crime and I am only on Day 2 of 6 weeks!!!!!! YIKES!

Can't wait for the weekend to pick up my knitting and zone out! 



Rant over.

Fine time for summer to show up - and show up it did! To make the most of it, we had 3 teammates from E's basketball team up. Now most would shiver at the thought of 4 13 year olds in a small cottage, but I have to admit, I thoroughly enjoyed their company. We had a lot of laughs (who knew Annika was such a comedian?) and a lot of food! The weather couldn't have been better! Arrivaderci Summer Holidays!

Now and then, a package arrives from a nice yarn company, filled with new yarns for me to play with. Some such package arrived last week from Spinrite, filled with the latest from Bernat and Patons. Thank you Spinrite!!!!

Also, packed are the new shadecards with delicious new colours.

The most interesting in the group was the new Silk Bamboo and the Angora Bamboo. Both feel silky soft but the acid test for me, other than washing, is to rub the top of the ball for piling. The Silk Bamboo already showed signs of wear, but the Angora Bamboo was more resistant. So now to swatch.... 5mm, nice thick needles...let's try a crochet hook instead .....

OK, so maybe crochet wasn't such a great idea. It is quite a chunky yarn and feels wonderful, but I would love to see this in a KW weight. The colours are perfect for a new launch yarn; I can envision a design in each one. The one below is Laurel Leaf - great name.

The Silk Bamboo is KW and feels slippery. When I removed the ball band, it was elasticized. My guess of slippery may prove true.

Not much of a photo, I know, and the Orchid is too dark to pick up. The Silk was, well, silky. Quite easy to work with, though, slightly stringy. The colours are OK (not as good as the Angora Bamboo) and a little shiny. I probably wouldn't use this one in a design, but the Chunky Angora Bamboo has trigged my interest.

They also sent a kid's Bernat Baby Stretch (interesting) and Patons Pure (among others) - very reminiscent of Mission Falls Cotton - a gorgeous 100% Organic cotton chunky. But that's for another day's swatching.