Flying Solo

Tom has started training for MMT, even though he's way down on the wait list (his lottery number was not a winner). So this weekend he's off running the hills and rocks of the Massanutten Mountains, leaving me at home with the cats. Ordinarily, I would have gone with him and helped at the aid stations but both of our cat sitters are out of town this weekend. So, I'm a single woman this weekend.

Whenever Tom is gone, I've got all sorts of ideas about what I want to accomplish, and the weekend stretches before me, seemingly endless. By the time he returns home, I haven't accomplished half of what I wanted to. Today, however, was rather productive.

I ran this morning, only six miles, and as has been the case lately, I struggled to keep my heart rate down. I ended up running by myself, which I don't enjoy, but instead of grumping about it and berating myself for being an old, fat, slow runner, I looked around and noticed things--the dun color of the fields, the way the wind sculpted the snow on the side of the road and how it glittered in the sunlight, the blue of the mountains in the distance. While I didn't get to my happy running place (my heart rate was still too high and I was still struggling), noticing did get me out of that negative frame of mind.

Later in the day, a friend came over for some joint career counseling. We've been in our careers for decades and for the last year or so have been toying with the idea of doing something different. The problem is we don't know what we want to do. Today we tried to figure it out. After wracking our brains for several hours (and not finding any answers), we went to Market Table Bistro. The food was good, reasonably priced, and at the early hour of 5:30, the service was fast (perhaps a little too fast).

So what's in store for the rest of the weekend (which sadly is not a long weekend)? A wee bit of housecleaning, perhaps. Some grocery shopping and cooking, maybe start planning a sweater, maybe figure out what to do with design for Shauna's mittens (the stitch count isn't working out for the patterns I want to use)...the possibilities are endless.

Knitting Progress
I've made some headway on the second Cloning Anemone Rib sock. But I noticed a mistake near the top that's bugging me more than it should, given that no one is going to see it. I might end up ripping it out once again.

In better news, I'm going to be attending the Squam Art Workshops in June. I've signed up for two all-day classes with Cat Bordhi--Personal Footprints and Moebius Knitting. I have a suspicion that my head will explode by the end of the second day. On the third day, I'll take a drop spindling class with Denny McMillan. I know how to use a drop spindle (or at least I used to know how), but recently all my attempts at spindling fail. I don't know if it's me or the spindle, but I can't get the spindle to spin for any length of time. Could it be the roving I'm using? At any rate, it's very frustrating. Anyway, I'll be taking a road trip to New Hampshire in June and it will be a lot of fun. Two days up (I really don't want to drive for 11 hours) and two days back. Squam will provide a much-needed vacation, even more so since work from now until then will be intense, to say the least.

Well, it's getting late and I still have things I want to do...read, knit, dream a sweater...

Happy Knitting!