Monthly Archives: April 2011

stocktake

28 Thursday Apr 2011

Posted by in knitting, WIP

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so what have i been doing with my holiday i hear you ask? apart from whinging and railing against the world, that is. it mightnt look like it but i have been relaxing. ive finished season six of buffy. that last moment always makes me laugh, poor bastard. ive taken a dog for a walk every day. ive done a lot of washing, even though it pretty much hasnt stopped raining. ive done some knitting, although probably not as much as i’d like. its hard to tell because the greenfield cardigan is just garter stitch, and lots of it. lets just say it’s getting longer and i’ll spare you the photo. i am headed down the foot of the first conwy sock,

i had hoped to have this finished before knitcamp but looks like its coming with me. speaking of camp, ive been quite busy getting ready for that. one more sleep! on tuesday i drove up to visit yogaknitdra who lent me some saris and bindi powders to take (the sat night dinner theme is bollywood of course)

arent they lovely? the royal blue is mine. it goes with my eyes, ive been told. im going to do some baking to take (these) and ive already picked up a few essential camping supplies:

most importantly, ive been thinking about what knitting to take. the greenfield cardigan obviously, because garter stitch is easy when youre busy talking, or laughing, or eating, or drinking, but because the endless black is a bit boring i’ll take the stripe study shawl just to mix it up a bit. and because they’re both kind of large projects, and you cant be never not knitting at knit camp, socks are also essential. even though the conwy’s seem to have booked a ticket, i was hoping to start the second of the long evening stockings, but i have had a little stocktake on those. on tuesday, i saw alison’s version, knit in gorgeous red wollmeise. they are super long too, and mine are not.

i dont have as much yardage in this spud and chloe as the pattern calls for, or as much as there is in a skein of wollmeise. i do love how these have turned out, but when i saw alison put hers on, mine felt inadequate. for fear of making them too small around the calf, i have instead made them too big, and the pattern doesnt stretch out like hers. the foot is just a tiny bit too short. and they arent really long socks at all.

you know where im going dont you? i consulted the brains trust, and i decided to frog them. not right now, and i will reuse the yarn for unst, as originally intended, but im going to cast on another one this weekend in either of these wollmeise reds:

the wound up ball is ‘vamp’ reclaimed from the disaster that was ‘rick’. the skein is ‘ruby thursday’. i love them both, the ruby thursday is a bit darker so maybe a bit more ‘vintage’. the vamp seems to want to be something more modern. what do you think?

so all in all, its been a great week off so far, and im very excited about heading up the hill with most of the regulars this weekend. and its going to be cool too. the rain has stopped today, but the leaves are nearly all gone from the magnolia,

which means we might be in need of the big fire in the lodge. that would be just perfect.

kxx

on the fourth day…

27 Wednesday Apr 2011

Posted by in dogs, friends, knitting

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i went to the Show.

the flyball competitions were all over,

my ex team had already beaten all comers to win Division 2 making them the National Champions, and while i was a bit sad to not be there, i was really happy for them because it makes up for the nightmare that was the nationals in melbourne last year. i was also really happy for trent, because jem got to run in that team, and there have been people in flyball with an agenda against trent and jem, and he hung in there despite it all, and the 9 year old wombat ran great the whole time and finally got to win some silverware again. seriously, living well really is the best revenge (although i do still have fantasies involving screaming and lots of blood).

on easter monday, possum wouldnt get out of bed so we left her at home and just took the boys up to do the demonstrations throughout the day. jem ran again for the 4th day in a row (did i mention hes 9  years old?)

and ricco got to have a go and finally did his first full run!

not bad for a dog who doesnt get any regular training! that was really the highlight of the day, that and meeting up with some of my favourite knitting peeps to indulge in  some baked goods:

food on sticks:

and the critical evaluation of the knitting displays:

i have had a bit to say about this on ravelry and i feel too dispirited to bother saying much more. i will let the pictures do most of the talking. this particular cabinet contained the 8ply or over garments.

that THING in white took second prize. you tell me if that’s finishing of a high quality? the gorgeously perfect hipster cardigan that kris made earned nothing more than a staple in the arm. when you turned around from this cabinet you saw this:

yes thats my 150cm across CIRCULAR shawl with the sunflower pattern in the middle. the very same sunflower pattern that had been the central feature of the shawl, was now all bunched up, wound about with fishing wire and used as a hanging point.

one point was NAILED to the wall, while the other has had fishing wire threaded through the actual lacework and tied in a very tight knot that will need scissors to undo.

i pretty well nearly cried. not because i didnt win anything, that was a given for me, it had mistakes in it that any good judge would see. but i wanted it in there because it was big, circular and coloured, with a modern looking design. there was room in this cabinet for it be hung fully extended. there was not a single other circular shawl entered. there were hardly any other coloured shawls. it was a sea of cream and nupps. if i’d known the secret criteria for winning was to knit something from ‘estonian lace today’ i would have entered my ‘lily of the valley’ scarf. oh wait. it was red.

apart from the introduction of a long overdue accessories category (with some really excellent pieces by clever people i know),

the whole thing was just a big disappointment. luckily kris and i had some fun taking photos and tweeting about kids singing and dancing badly to beiber on the food court stage (glee has a LOT to answer for)

and ogling Fonzy, the tallest steer in australia.

‘oh my god that is a really big cow’  was possibly the funniest thing i heard all day.

so my emotional attachment to the show takes another beating, which is probably a good thing. i wont be entering knitting again, and i didnt miss the bad parts of the flyball. (the early mornings for one thing, the continued stupidity and immaturity of some of the competitors for another). so thats a plus.

time moves on, heals most wounds, opens new doors.

and brings us to within 2 sleeps of knitcamp2011. Bring. It. On.

kxx

the next ten days

22 Friday Apr 2011

Posted by in knitting, personal

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what a good good friday it is. being a godless heathen (my paternal grandmother was jewish but that doesnt count) i have no interest this weekend in all things religious (or anzac, which is a whole other blinding religion in this ridiculously sentimental nationalistic country). i dont mind the treats though:

i have a whole 10 days off work and i have plenty to do. normally i would be at the easter show with the flyball, but im not and i dont want to talk about that. i am home alone with ricco, and we have been a for a walk, and will go again, but right now hes busy eating yoghurt.

arent you sweetie?

ive opened the new coffee (i like south american coffees best):

i have some chores to do, washing, a bit of ‘spring’ cleaning, some social outings planned (thor tomorrow, the show on monday to see the travesty of the lace display, a knitting lunch on tuesday), some buffy to watch:

not all of them, just season six on the top. i think this is my favourite season: buffy and spike, ‘once more with feeling’, whats not to love?

i am not even going to think about work, and the paper i didnt get finished, even though its sitting here on my new little mini netbook (its red you know):

(ooh self-reflexive moment there). and then this time next week i will be packing for our annual LYS’s knitting retreat. can. not. wait. in the meantime i need to get a move on with some knitting. i want to knit these mittens to go with my cashmere hat but i think i will save them for camp. right now i need to finish at least one of this pair

and i still have a long way to go with greenfield:

but ive got 10 long luxurious days to do it in.

what will you be doing?

k xx

red head

18 Monday Apr 2011

Posted by in FO, knitting

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im a brunette actually, but, at the risk of perpetuating certain (gendered) stereotypes, i do sometimes feel like a fiery tempered blazing red haired demon. i have been feeling very ranty lately, im not sure what its about, just getting a bit sick and tired of the same old human stupidity, and i think the increase in social media and online life makes it harder to regulate what you let in. im a big believer in the power of anger for social and personal change, and i dont want to be one of those people who says ‘you cant do anything about it so whats the point of caring’, but i do need to find a way of not letting said human stupidity get to me (and my blogging!) so much.

i think being creative in my own life is one way i try and bring some balance. i dont mean creative like some great artist or anything, but i do mean finding ways to appreciate the beauty and small things in life, and maybe contribute to that in some way. knitting has been my main avenue for this over the last few years, and i really have become dependent on it as a form of meditation. when i was doing my phd i just couldnt read for pleasure anymore, and doing something with my hands was a great alternative. it gave my brain a break, the simple counting of rows and stitches and pattern repeats a blessed relief, and at the end of the day i had something new and pretty to show for it (unlike a phd which takes years for no immediate return and sucks the very soul out of you along the way).

i really needed some good old knitting therapy this weekend, so i set about finishing a couple of things. first was sock number one of the ‘evening stockings for a young lady‘ and i am pretty happy with this:

i wont give any more project details until i’ve finished the second one, but that wont be for a while now because im going to finish sock one of the conwy’s i started a while ago. (keeping things balanced see?!).

i also finished the spur of the moment beret i started.  i dont know what compelled me to knit a hat this weekend, i think maybe i just wanted to knit with the lovely string cashmere. it was so beautiful to knit with, and the finished product was lovely and supersoft

i thought about not blocking it, it being cashmere and all, but i really wanted the peaky bits to flatten out and for it to droop like a proper beret, so while i cooked cindy’s yummy pear and honey cake, i wet it and let it dry around a plate. i think it was a good idea:

(the cake was pretty good too):

it has become a fair bit drapier,

and is probably too loose around the rim, but it feels great to wear:

the pattern is hannah fettig’s early morning beret, really simple and easy and i knit exactly to the pattern (although i probably could have made it bigger in the head and more ribbing for the rim). i have about 45g of the second ball left, so im thinking some ribbed wrist warmers.  who wouldnt want to be draped in cashmere?!

and when knitting a hat doesnt quite restore your equanimity, there is always the thought of a 3 day week at work, followed by nearly 2 weeks off for easter and our annual local knit camp retreat.

i can not wait.

kxx

playing with string

14 Thursday Apr 2011

Posted by in knitting, rant

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there are a few sure signs in this part of the world that winter is on the way. all knitting type magazines originating in the northern hermisphere forget they have readers in the Opposite world and start with the cottons and pastel colours. a blanket at night doesnt cut it anymore and you switch to the doona (last night). and your feet are cold in the morning, mostly because the slippers youve had for the last 4 years have a hole in them. i always associate slippers with easter, as a kid, i got a new pair every year with a big chocolate egg inside them.

but as an adult, easter has mostly meant the sydney royal easter show, and the 3 or 4 days of flyball competition with the 5am starts and long treks from carpark to showground. that’s not part of my world anymore (except in a peripheral sense) but i have a different attachment to the easter show this year, which was the entering of a knitted item into the arts and craft competition (for the first time ever, in any show). i entered the girasole shawl. it was fun to enter and im glad ive done it, but i wont be doing it again, and not because i didnt win anything. i categorically did not expect to get a ribbon of any colour. it was non-traditional lace, in a non-traditional colour and design, and any good judge would have picked up the one mistake i couldnt hide. but i am sad beyond words to hear that that lovely big circle with the flower in the middle was displayed folded in half with points strung up by fishing wire. it will sound weird, but i am sad for my shawl. people passing those glass cabinets will just see this mess of dark red string, and wont know how really pretty it is. and im not the only one. even the absoutely gorgeous winning shawl by nikki was all bunched up and probably inside out. such a shame, and so unnecessary. im very glad to see some of my very clever friends like fee and zena get ribbons for their beautiful things, but the judging in some of the other categories just really makes you wonder.

actually, the whole show makes me wonder. on tv the other day there was a ‘news’ item advertising the start of the show and there was a guy in an akubra telling everyone how this was the ‘real australia’, the smell of the grass, fresh produce, animals etc. i wanted to add racist, bigotted, bogan, uneducated, homophobic, sexist, nationalistic, conservative, backward and less than 30% of the population, but hey what would i know? i got out of the ‘real australia’ and headed for the city as fast as i could, where i am obviously not a ‘real australian’ but some kind of phoney (let alone An Immigrant). on the weekend at herding, i sat through conversations that made my stomach turn. people (the same ones who make fun of me for having a phd) talking about homosexuality and immigration as though a) their opinions on this actually mattered and b) they knew what they were talking about. i wanted to remind the rednecks at the table that their idea for getting rid of all immigrants meant that they too should get on the first boat out, considering none of them are aboriginal and thus they are ergo, all immigrants.

the unfortunate thing is in australia we have dog whistle politicians, who play to this lowest common denominator and portray this way of thinking as ‘normal’ instead of setting a standard based on ethics,  humanity and compassion. we are so busy here knocking the heads off our tall poppies and wringing our hands over the pernicious evil that is the do-gooder chardonnay and latte sipping watermelon elite that the creaking wheels of the archaic ‘outback’ get portrayed as mainstream and normal. and sadly, it appears as though this is also the case with aspects of the arts and crafts competition at the easter show! i know its terribly post modern of me to eschew all normative definitions of ‘real’ (my real being no more real than anyone elses) but i will at least maintain that the Real (sorry Lacan) as presented by rural australia needs a good swift kick up the arse.

of course, none of that has any bearing on my knitting activity, which has never been driven by any need to display or win ribbons. i knit because i love knitting, and because i like to wear the stuff that i make. the chill in the air this last couple of days has made me more conscious of wanting to be wearing my own knitted things soon, and has upped the ante on the ‘red accessories’ project.  i have socks and a shawl, time for a hat. i am also trying to knit as much as i can with the amazing things i got in america, and so i have gone straight to the top of the pile, and last night pulled out this:

what can i say about string cashmere that wont sound like i need to be locked in an institution? such a great little shop, like a parisian boutique! and the yarn, oh swoon. i wish i could convey to you how soft this is. would it help if i said this cost me $40US a ball (with assistance from the gift voucher from jody!). i have not really thought of myself as a hat person, but last year when i went to bendigo i borrowed rosered’s ‘rosered’ and everyone said a hat really suited me, so i thought i would make myself one this year. i decided to keep it fairly simple and this is going to be hannah fettigs ‘early morning beret’.

its knitting up so beautifully, i cant wait to wear it.

as you can see the magnolia tree out the front of the house is losing its leaves quickly now, so i guess i will be whinging about the cold soon enough. perhaps that will make me a real australian?

k xx

return to form

11 Monday Apr 2011

Posted by in dogs, knitting

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since i stopped going to flyball, its been important to me to try and find other ways to stay bonded with my dogs and be responsible for their physical and mental well being. ive always preferred working dogs for their intelligence and personality, but its a big responsibility to have them in suburban backyards, and i take that pretty seriously. its not fair to take a dog like possum especially who was born on a farm from working dog lines and not expect her to go crazy if i dont let her work. apart from working keeping her calm, working with her helps build our relationship, and ive missed that part of flyball. you may remember we used to go sheep herding, but its been well over a year since ive been, a number of factors making it difficult including a broken arm, a broken car and a broken bank account!

but we finally managed to get back in the saddle, so to speak, this weekend and took off for a girls own adventure out to manildra. manildra is here:

that is, a long way from where i live! we took off after work friday and got there about 10pm (so a four and a half hour drive across the blue mountains through bathurst and orange, single lane highways in the dead of night with loud music playing. fun!). we stayed at the royal hotel:

there is one of these in every truck stop town in australia, with rooms above for a ridiculously cheap rate. nothing fancy, but clean and comfy. on saturday morning we got up early and headed off to the showground, the sun rise heralding a beautiful day:

at the showground, we mostly just concentrate on yard work because there are no secure fences to do full paddock work with, and the yards have been custom built to work on all the things you need to do for yard dog trialling.

i have done some actual competitive trials with possum in the past and even got a third place once, but i get so nervous and anxious that i stuff things up and its not much fun. im not that interested in trialling or competing for the sake of it, i just want to get to a good place of working calmly with my dog.

we took some major steps in that direction this weekend. the sheep we were working with are borrowed from a local farmer, these were merino wethers:

they seemed quite calm and not feral like some merinos you get on farms. and maybe the time off has been good for possum, because she didnt bark and run crazy and carry on like she used to. she listened to me most of the time, and while we still have some kinks to work out, we did some really nice work and i felt really comfortable out there with her:

even robert, our notoriously hard task master, said that he thought we had got our mojo back.

it was lovely to just hang out with my possum for the weekend. we took a little stroll around manildra on saturday evening, checking out the main street:

and the huge flour mill that is the reason for the towns existence:

everyone gathered for dinner and conversation at the pub saturday night (if you ignore the redneck element a great time was had, including a packet of tim tams for desert in jo’s room). jo and i used to do flyball together, and shes a knitter as well, so it was great to have her to talk to and watch her work her gorgeous little kelpie pup Zing,

who is going to be a champion one day.

sunday morning dawned ominously cloudy

but we tried to still work in the rain, just well rugged up:

this is george. she is also a knitter (do you see a theme here? crazy dog women who knit! Also, Knitters Are Everywhere). but then it turned cold as well, and the rain got a bit heavy and didnt look like clearing anytime soon,

so a final sniff of the paddock and we were done.

we packed up and headed home early, which didnt help with the sunday afternoon crawl of traffic back down the blue mountains. i got home about 7pm, exhausted and sore and wet and dirty but exhilarated and seriously bitten with the herding bug again. i have already sent my money off for the next workshop! and even though this was something that trent and i used to do together, it didnt make me sad at all. well, maybe a little bit in the car by myself (i drove for more than 10 hours!). mostly i was happy to be on my own, and enjoyed the feeling of having this particular dog sport to myself.

and lest you think all i did was run around a paddock after sheep, let me assure you there was plenty of knitting time. because it was hot on saturday i just stuck to socks but managed to turn the heel on the ‘evening stockings’

and then on sunday i worked on the greenfield cardigan and ended up using it for a hand muff, it got almost too cold to knit!

i might need to knit some mitts before i go out there again. the rain front has brought some cold air with it, and its starting to feel like winter is coming. i’m pre-empting it a bit by making a beef bourbignon for dinner tonight.

today, life is good!

k xx

a good yarn

07 Thursday Apr 2011

Posted by in knitting, yarn

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unlike hearts, a good yarn these days is not hard to find.* in fact we are spoiled for choice, especially with that interwebs thing. having said that, i am not a huge fan of most locally made product, BWM and ACS leave me cold these days with their poor colour choices and reliance on harsh fibres or novelty acrylic based products (and it makes me cross to say this, because we produce the best merino in the world and we get sold shit from local mills and have to buy the good stuff back from overseas). and it is sometimes frustrating that there arent more local stores stocking the top shelf international stuff – it is sometimes nicer to be able to smoosh in person – but ive never felt deprived in that way. like i said, there’s the internet. but that has changed since i went to america.

oh my god. the yarn stores. even the not so great ones (yarn company, downtown yarns, im looking at you), were still better than most of what we have here. and cheap! lordy. it’s made me a bit cross really, given we have complete dollar parity, to see koigu priced in the $20 range ($12 at purl) and mad tosh sock in the $30s ($24 at knitty city). but what i really loved was discovering WALLS of yarn that we just dont see here. the best place for this was a little store above a greek restaurant just up from dupont circle in washington DC called looped yarn works.

it was there that i encountered my current favourite yarn, berroco ultra alpaca light.

i’ve seen the ads for berroco in the magazines, and they always seem to have nice patterns, but ive just never thought of ordering any. most of the other big names someone’s bought back from somewhere, and we’ve fondled, so its safe to order online, but i didnt know anything about berroco until i saw it. at looped, there was a whole wall of it, all sorts of different kinds of fibre blends, in the most amazing spectrum of good vibrant solid colours. i zoomed straight in on the alpaca light. its perfect for our conditions, not quite a DK but light and lofty.

smooth with a slight halo, warm without weighing a tonne. its knitting up so beautifully, i divided greenfields for the arm holes on tuesday night and got to try it on. perfect (unlike this photo).

and did i mention the price?

yes that does say $5.80 a skein. they’re not long skeins, but i bought 10 on the spot and have since ordered 4 more, which is way more than i will need for greenfield (better to be safe than sorry right?), but im still looking at a $70 cardigan. For. The. Win. so far i have used less than 3 balls, and i wound up some more last night.

see that swift? that is my current knitting pride and joy. its  from Sweden, is so easy to put up and down, is beautifully made and an absolute joy to use. it was an amazingly generous christmas gift from knitabulous (well, she says she broke my blue plastic one i lent her, but she still didnt need to replace it with this beauty. of course, im glad she did!).

its so nice to have nice knitterly things. im a bit of a top shelf girl like that. maybe for americans berroco isnt all that top shelf, but i cant recommend this particular yarn highly enough. its almost enough to make you want to go live there. almost :)

k xx

*feargal sharkey ear worm anyone?

all my pretties

04 Monday Apr 2011

Posted by in dogs, knitting

≈ 11 Comments

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today is monday, work from home day. i have lots of stuff to read, and a paper to edit:

but first i went grocery shopping. when i came home, a package had arrived:

i tried to distract ricco from eating it with some basil that needed trimming:

but apparently dogs dont do basil.

i knew what was in the box and was excited, because ive wanted this book for ages and have been trying to knit something from it:

and then i got distracted taking photos of my first foray into the land of the cabled sock:

i am pretty happy with these. yesterday knitabulous showed me yet another way of doing the difficult ‘through the back loop’ left crossover and i think the ‘cable’ is right:

and if its not, im learning something new in the attempt! i showed them to trent, for whom they are intended. he thought they were ‘very pretty’. if hes ok with wearing pretty socks, im ok with making them. jem thought the wollmeise in ‘mitternacht’ was actually a bit annoying and flicked it out of the way

and then stood there till i took a picture of him:

well he is rather handsome. not to be outdone was the princess basking in the morning sunshine.

i think this is her favourite time of year for sun baking, not too hot, a slight breeze. and she is very pretty! i also couldnt resist taking a photo of the greenfield cardigan in progress:

ive done lots of it and its almost ready to be divided for the arm holes, but i need a break from the garter stitch for a day or two. not that i dont love it. like Lyn, i am pleasantly surprised at how the simplicity of the garter rows are creating an elegant fabric that looks like something’s happening, but isnt.

and the berocco ultra alpaca light. swoon. very pretty indeed.

all my reading? not so much….

k xx

knitter about town

02 Saturday Apr 2011

Posted by in friends, knitting, socks

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for a shy retiring type, i sure have been getting out a lot lately. its nice to be busy, but it can cut into precious knitting time. i’ve decided that i really need to make more of an effort to knit wherever i go. so what if i get funny looks or weird comments? (and i do. i especially love when people look at you and smile and make that weird hand motion, as though they are knitting too. i usually smile back and nod and say ‘yes….knitting’ very slowly).

it helps that a lot of my social engagements this week have been with knitters. it started a week ago with the monthly local ‘stitch and bitch’ with lunch first at diggies:

lunch mates this week were ailsa, zena, becky and our new friend catherine, who is canadian and working at the uni (yay for a knitter working at the uni!):

we missed randomknits this week, apparently a daughter turning 18 is more important! regardless, i worked on the evening stockings in the spud and chloe. drool:

then it was up to the novotel to join the rest of the gang:

and knitting of the stripe study shawl:

i hope they vacuum that floor regularly. later in the week i managed to catch up with catherine again on campus:

and wicked parity packages were planned (since acquired. more about that later). that day i was working on the greenfield cardigan. that night at home i tried to cast on the conwy socks in wollmeise, and i followed the instructions to the letter but i just knew it wasnt right. i have never done cables before, not ever (i know, what sort of knitter am i?) and i am more of a visual learner, and they just werent right, so i ripped them out. i started them again friday morning and took them to work that day, where i worked on the cuff at the friday afternoon work party (no occassion apart from free wine and an early mark).

its interesting to see the questions i get about knitting at work. socks? really, youre making socks? yes people, knitted socks. theyre not that weird. sheesh.

that night i had a dinner date. rosered happened to be in town so i took the opportunity to make a booking at one of my favourite places, michaels trattoria. even at a slightly fancy place, the knitting came out, mostly because i needed help with the whole cable thing, and rosered’s been trying to get me to do them for ages. we started with studying the pattern:

moved on to scallops:


then a demonstration of an alternative cabling method that was like a light bulb moment, followed by quail with pickled cherries:

veal for main was followed by my favourite thing in the whole world, proper tiramisu in a bowl, with the coffee and amaretto making a slurpy pool at the bottom:

yum. a most excellent dinner. pretty good company too. and the result (apart from a rather full belly)?

cabled socks. well, the start of them anyway. as well as a crazy week at work, cleaning the house for a property inspection, a car in the smash repairers, songs to learn for choir and knitting camp, its just been a pretty average week around here!

you?

k xx

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