Suddenly summer

What a lovely, gorgeous, amazingly beautiful day! It's suddenly summer. I drove around with the windows down and the moonroof open, and actually considered the air conditioner, it was so warm. I'm home now, with the house opened up and a breeze blowing through. The cats are running from the back door to the front windows, trying to smell everything at the same time.

I'm glad I thought to check--there was one daffodil blooming. I'm not sure if it will be the only one, but it may. They usually come up too early and freeze. This one's stem was bent, and wouldn't have lasted much longer, so I cut it and brought it in, and put the short little stem in a green sandwich glass juice glass. Brought a little bit of Spring inside.

I know it won't last, I'm sure we'll have some cold days still, but it was an intoxicating teaser. I wore shorts and a t-shirt and took a light cotton sweater with me, but shed the sweater right away. I hope it lasts through tomorrow at least; Bob's playing golf early tomorrow morning with Cello and Dave, and I hope they have a good day for it.

I thought about driving out to Lawrence for a road trip, but decided I didn't really need to. While I love to go out there to the yarn store, they don't really carry what I want there, and so I've been ordering by mail.

I'm on a sock knitting kick right now. The Lawrence store carries about two colors of sock yarn at any one time, so it's not really worth the drive out there, although it always is fun, and I could have looked at patterns for awhile. But I always end up buying too much stuff, and mostly stuff that once I get it home I regret, so it's better if I just don't go, and order by mail, where I can think about it for awhile before I press the button.

Socks are the perfect thing for me right now. They're small and portable, and while they're expensive for socks (around $10-12 for the yarn to make a pair), they don't take a lot of yarn, so I can afford to buy good stuff. As opposed to the yarn for a sweater, which could easily run over a hundred dollars. As one of Bob's friends pointed out, you can get socks for $1.50 at Target, but as I pointed out, not handknit ones. And really, for me the joy is in the process more than the product. Knitting is calming and soothing and enjoyable, and if I have a sock at the end of it, so much the better!

I have one purple fairisle sock finished, and about two inches of the second one. Bob doubts that I'll ever have a pair, and while it is hard to do the second one when there is other yarn waiting, I'm forcing myself. I don't have a picture of the finished one, but here it is in progress:

I'll take another picture when I've finished the second one and washed and blocked them, and can prove I knit two!

I just did my regular stuff today: post office, bank, library, grocery store. I'm reading a book of short stories by Walter Mosley, Six Easy Pieces, starring his protagonist Easy Rawlins. I had never ready any of his books, but I love this one, so I got a couple more at the library today. I'd never read them because they're set in the 50's, and I tend not to read fiction that isn't set in present day or the future. Mr. Mosley's writing reminds me of James Lee Burke's, one of my favorite writers.