No Picture Needed

In the end, it's not going to matter how many breaths you took, but how many moments took your breath away


Crispy lettuce 
Spring greens
Chopped up Boca burger
Chunks of apple
A sliced leftover Easter egg
Sprinkle of homemade granola
Creamy Caesar dressing
Outside
Bird singing
Toes warmed by sun kissed deck
Breeze making windchime music
So simple
How can you not be head over heels in love with life?

Simplicity of Spring Fills the Senses

Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.  ~Rainer Maria Rilke


It happens every year.  I get this unbelievable ache at the miracle that is Spring.  Oh to be a poet, author or song writer and  be able to put into words what it is to watch the kids play outside without jackets on the first warm day, to sit quietly and watch the miracle of birth of a lamb, to see the smallest plants fight through the frozen earth and flower, 

the intense green of the new grass, the brightness of the yellow daffodil and forsythia, to listen to the raucous songs of the birds calling their mates, the tiniest seeds opening to what will be summers bounty, the warning of momma duck sitting on a nest of eggs, 

throwing open the windows and having the fresh scent of earths rebirth blow the stale winter air from the house.... It literally fills the senses.  It costs nothing but is worth far more than anything money could buy.  It will continue to happen every year and I hopefully I will continue to be amazed at it each and every time.  

Going Green

Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises. ~ Pedro Calderon de la Barca



I love the color green so much my living room is painted green.  So you know I am doing the happy dance with all the green showing up in every shade imaginable.

My eye and heart pick out even the tiniest bit of green of Spring.

Do you know what else Spring brings?  Frogs.  

I recently visited the frog pond....not the one I wanted to see either!

This WAS Brooklyn Tweed Juneberry.  I picked it up after a hiatus and realized it looked nothing like his.  I was on row 34 of Chart B at this point.  My mistake was  I had been reading each row from right to left when in fact each row alternates r-l then l-r.  It was making a pattern just not the one he intended so out it all came.  I am now on the last two rows of Chart B.  I have read ahead and see more changes which I will pay attention to.  I guess it pays to read instead of just rushing right in.  Live and learn....again and again and again.

Red Light Green Light

April prepares her green traffic light and the world thinks Go.  ~Christopher Morley, John Mistletoe

Remember red light, green light?  Supposedly April comes and everything turns green?  Not quite.  We did have a wonderful weekend but snow showers are still in the forecast.  I don't want to get too excited and then have my hopes dashed but the daffodils are starting to bloom.

And better late than never the seed starting has commenced. I have kept putting this off so I am a month behind.

And I have an (unblocked)  FO.

Back in February Cyndy sent me an invite to the We Love North American Alpaca group on Ravelry.  I joined and promised Cyndy to do the March S-KAL which was the stacked eyelet cowl.  Almost all the alpaca fiber I have I got from my cousin's at Kuhn's River Country Alpaca Farm.  When I knew I didn't have time to both spin and knit the cowl I grabbed a ball of previous spun alpaca and cast on.  It later dawned on me where I got it....lets just say I bought it in North America and leave it there.  Quick knit which I finished this morning...yeah I know it is April ignore that small fact. It could have been done earlier but I was baby knitting and #1 keeps calling with pregnancy questions and chitchat.  When I say I have got to hang up so I can get something done she gets annoyed.  I can clean house while on the phone but I can't knit for long or my neck starts hurting from holding the phone.  Wise guy that she is she sent me this...



Somehow,  I don't think I was on the phone while she was crafting that!

Momma always said "Patience is a virtue"

"Patience is waiting.  Not passively waiting.  That is laziness.  But to keep going when the going is hard and slow - that is patience."


I have been waiting....waiting to become a grandmother and for warmer weather.  Annoyingly enough I have control over neither of these so I pass the time preparing for them.

In babyville, #1 has reached the 35 week mark.  We had her baby shower last weekend so she didn't have to travel during the last month.

I did finish the baby afghan, some bibs, a hat and a stuffed toy.  The baby afghan I found in a magazine shortly after my mother died. I fell in love with it because the afghan was done in yellow (my mom's fav color) and the name was Angel Wings.  I promised myself that I would make it for my grandchild and think of my mom.  She would have loved to have been a great grandma.  Happily I did not have to wait long...even if these past couple of months have been dragging!  Can you see the angels?

When I was unable to concentrate on the afghan I decided to knit an umbilical cord hat in blue.  Years ago my mom had made #1 a whole purple layette to put away for this occasion but what if it was a boy?  So I got to the decrease part and #1 calls and says she saw a hat on Ravelry...the Munchkin hat.  I drug the decreases out, went back and picked up stitches to change from a rolled brim to a k2p2 and ended up with....

After receiving it she decided she wanted a girly version so we went thru stash and found some she was satisfied with and  I whipped out this one before she left....

Earlier in the week the weather forecast was calling for 8-14 inches of snow.  It would have been Mother Nature's April Fools joke, but we only got a sloppy 2-3 inches!  It melted away and today it is back to work out to the yard and garden.  I know what I am planting and approximately where in the garden I am going to plant it.  I am late getting some seeds started but last year I started early only to run out of room as they got moved into bigger planters.  My greenhouse is only 8x10 and the daily rotation of taking flat after flat outside so I had room to work and bringing them in was troublesome.  Each year we work to  fine tune this but each year we grow different plants with different requirements.  Of course if I had a bigger greenhouse....(was that a blatant hint to the man or what?)

So I continue to knit and plan because soon my waiting will be over.  So it must be true, good things come to those who wait!