Safe and Sound, Back on the Left Coast

Since we had been planning it for so long (since October 2006), the everything trip (deferred honeymoon, 50th birthday celebration, finishing law school) had every opportunity to fall short of expectations.


It didn't.


It was wonderful, with no travel glitches at all. And the only thing I forgot to pack was gambling money for the on-board casino, and that was easily rectified by a handy ATM machine on the high seas (okay, I would have preferred not to pay the hefty 5.5% service fee, but on the other hand, I got gambling cash while we were bobbing around the North Sea).




Teaser picture. That's the fog off our balcony the night we were sailing from Tallinn, Estonia, to Klaipeda, Lithuania. I know; it makes you hot to see more of our fabulous journey.


I think our brains have finally caught up with our bodies in the right timezone, and since our air conditioner has been fixed (yay!) we're not melting in the 100+ degree heat, we're really enjoying being back in our own home (and in our own bed - the one without the big gap in the middle!).

Deferred Panic

Strange... Packing is done. Meg's Alpha bag, Kelly's Alpha bag, the baby bag, and one carry-on each. We think everything we need on the trip is in one of those five bags, and it's just past midnight. We are both calm. I'm not used to that.

So now, of course - because worrying is what I do - I'm figuring that we won't actually discover what we've forgotten until we've gotten on the plane tomorrow, when it's too late to do anything about it. We'll have to buy whatever it is we're missing in Amsterdam and it will be outrageously expensive, and they will only have the Gargantua size when we will need just a PeeWee size.

But really... bug spray, sunscreen, binoculars, cameras, extra batteries, phone chargers, PDA chargers, hair clips, toothpaste, nightshirt, swimsuit & coverup, hat, travel journal, hotel vouchers, maps, undies, shoes, passports, all Rx in their original bottles, knitting projects, reading selections, all the administrative paperwork for the trip. If there's something missing, it's so big it's right in front of us.

Oh, and Ravelry... 5106 in fronta me. They're plunking along... yay!

That's it - bon voyage to us!

Mid-Panic (Sort of)

Things are piling up, but are not in official piles yet. Although right now should be prime panic time, I am surprisingly calm about the whole packing thing. There's a stack of undies, and a stack of socks, and a stack of reading materials near the Alpha suitcase. In the closet hang the 2 dresses, 9 tops, and 4 of the 5 pair of pants I plan to bring. Tomorrow I'll do the last load of laundry to catch the easiest-to-fasten bras and the last pair of pants... which will be after having gone to the chiropractor for a re-evaluation and having met Debbie to spend an hour or so knitting. And still I am not panicked. Odd. Maybe I've been taking Vicodin but don't remember it.

Tomorrow, I'll sit with Debbie to knit a bit. I plan to finish Kelly's JoJoLand socks (half done with the cuff - yay!) and will claim to help her seam up her tank top (beautiful, ribbed design in Cascade's lovely Luna). She doesn't really need my help, but she'll figure that out tomorrow. We will also swap a secret something-that-shall-not-be-named-yet. Shh...

Had construction workers in the house all day today, patching the many little cracks where the house has settled and fixing the living room fireplace. Nice thing about buying a new home from an established developer with a good reputation (Dividend Homes) - there's a warranty on the place! A little invasion of painters and patchers and fillers and sanders, and it looks just like new.

Okay, the question everyone is asking: What knitting projects will make the trans-Atlantic journey? Here's what's on deck so far... In the carry-on: the acrylic pillow (it's really not too bad, and I actually think I can finish it on the flight from San Jose to Chicago), and the shrug-in-process (Caron's Shadows). Yes, both are acrylic, but both are also on needles that I don't mind being taken from me. In the luggage: White Lies vest, Crystalline Lattice socks, Marble Arches socks, possibly the soon-to-be-Jaywalkers socks. I may also toss in my Windy Valley Musk Ox Suri Alpaca and some #3s to see if I can make something - anything - from it. It's luscious stuff, and I haven't yet found the perfect pattern for it. Maybe the Baltic will inspire me.

Oh, and there are 5247 people in front of me on Ravelry.

Not that I check it.

Daily.

Getting Close

A little over a year after the wedding, hubby and I are finally going to take our honeymoon. Last year we were so busy with buying the new house, moving into an apartment, cleaning up the condo, selling it, then moving into the brand spankin' new house, Kelly losing his old job, interviewing for his new job, with a wedding in the middle there somewhere, that by the time we thought about a honeymoon, we stopped... took a deep breath... and decided to defer gratification and plan for a big trip this year. Yes, it's really me writing this, and yes, I know - deferred gratification is a very odd concept for us.

But, in our own style (okay, it's my style to have a big planning thing), we booked the thing in October of last year, and have been counting down months, then weeks, and now days. We leave this weekend for a lovely cruise around the Baltic, and I am about to go into packing panic mode. I'm not there yet because we only got the suitcases out of the closet on Monday, so I've only tripped over them twice. By the time I trip over them the 4th time - which should be Thursday around 10:30 am - it will occur to me that my Alpha suitcase is still empty, and I will panic.

From there, things will happen predictably and quickly. First, I will throw everything I own into the Alpha suitcase, which is huge. Then, there will be an "I Love Lucy" moment where I will attempt to close it by sitting on it, which will not work, even with the expando zipper expando'd. I'll open it up and take out what I believe are "lots of things," but in reality will be only one pair of socks. I will rearrange everything and try to close it again, again unsuccessfully.

The next step will be to take everything out and make piles. Don't know yet what the piling system will be. Sometimes I make piles by day (Monday's outfit, Tuesday's outfit). Sometimes it's piles by type of clothing (3 capris, 2 dresses, 4 tops). Once I did piles by color (red things, blue things). Regardless, the piling system will expose the flaws in what I have chosen to pack, and I will throw out over half of whatever is in each pile. This will then leave me with a lot of space, which I will fill up with unneeded shoes.

At that point, Kelly will say the magic words, "Don't forget, we're going to have them do laundry service for us," and, because those are magic words, all the right clothing items will find themselves in the bag, ready to do travel battle.

Which knitting projects to take along will be a far more difficult process. I don't even want to think about that right now, primarily because I'm leaning towards a pillow kit with acrylic yarn and plastic needles. It has the charm of being expendable if one of the security personnel decides to confiscate it. That's a great criteria for deciding which knitting to take, don't you think? Yeah, me neither.

WIP Pix

Enough of the pain stuff... This one's going to show all the work-in-progress around the household.

First, knitting:

The modified Marble Arches pattern in JoJoLand's Melody:

The Crystalline Lattice pattern in Lorna's Laces Sunshine NS ("nearly solid"):

The soon-to-be-Jaywalkers in BMFA STR in Fire on the Mountain:

The soon-to-be-felted Booga-type bag in Herrschnerr's Lighthouse Sunset Ocean Ombre:

And now, for "The Ranch":

Our first raspberry!

A healthy-looking pumpkin blossom:

And finally, a Merlot grape cluster that the birds haven't gotten to yet:

That's it for now - will be teaching how to do a short-row heel at Madonna's tonight. That's always a challenge, but rewarding once the students get it.

New Math: Doctors = Lawyers

So, in the lawyer world, the standard answer to a legal question is, "It depends." As in: "How should I plead?" "It depends." Or: "Will the judge find for the plaintiff or the defendant?" "It depends."

Apparently, doctors have the same standard answer. The orthopedist (the one who believes surgery is the answer) says, "It's a frozen shoulder," the chiropractor (the one who believes that physical therapy can be the answer) says, "It depends." Actually, the chiropractor said flat-out, "No it's not." However, it could become frozen if we're not careful.

After the chiropractor taped it up on Friday (and after taking the anti-inflammatory meds and a day or two of vicodin over the weekend), I can move it without pain. So the general thought is that I slept on it bad Wednesday night causing the previous problem to get worse, so by Thursday night it was really really bad and needed the taping and the sling to get back to a relatively even keel. (And even though I probably didn't make it any better by preparing Saturday night's dinner on Thursday afternoon, I maintain I wasn't using the arm very much throughout the day because it already hurt too bad.)

Anyway, I'm almost done with the prednisone and I haven't taken any vicodin since Sunday evening (and even then it was only half a pill). The shoulder got re-taped today, which allows me to move it, but not move into - or past - the pain point.

Net-net:
1. I'm feeling much better after having talked to the chiropractor today.
2. I'm pretty okay about not having to have surgery.
3. Whether he was right or wrong about the diagnosis, I still didn't like the ortho's bedside manner.
4. With Mae over for knitting last night, I added 10 more rows on the modified Marble Arches sock (the ones in teal JoJoLand Melody yarn).
5. With Kathy over for craft morning today, I added another 10 inches to the about-to-be-felted purse (but found out that Herrschner's has the yarn on back order for delivery August 30 - so much for bringing the bag with me on the cruise!).
6. After I got bored with the bag this morning, I added another 5-ish rows to the soon-to-be-Jaywalkers socks.
7. I thought about doing more rows on the Crystalline Lattice socks, but that's about as far as I could go with it.