Midwest Knit Girl - dropping her stitches to type up the tale

I’m participating in Sock Wars III and have changed my mind 3 times, 3 times I said, on the yarn I’m going to use. Hated one, couldn’t get gauge on the other so settled on a third. This makes me very far behind. The pattern came out on Friday and only today have I successfully finished the ribbing and the first 4 rows. Fortunately, it’s a short sock so it shouldn’t (??) take me too long. The pattern is I believe, a chevron stitch. We’ll find out as I get further along in the sock.

How does it work? Well, my assignment is to get my socks mailed off to my target, then my target has to send me their socks wherever they are in process whereupon I finish those socks and send them to their assassin who becomes ‘dead’, and on and on. However, if I receive socks before finishing mine for my target, that makes me ‘dead’ and I have to send my socks to my assassin who will finish them and send to my target…get it? I’m just in it to have a little fun in my ever so stressful life. I’ll be thrilled if I finish ONE sock before being killed.

Back to the deck to keep on knitting!

From our short vacation in Wisconsin last weekend: a couple of pictures of our view from the cabin. The first is from the little table looking west to the Minnesota side and the second is standing outside the door to the cabin.

I started my Saucy Sock over, I had done it on circulars but I didn’t like it so I frogged it and started over on dpn’s. I love my dpn’s. I’ve actually turned the heel and am cruising on the decreases on the gusset. Very cool pattern, good choice CP!

That’s it for tonight. I’m done. (It was titled A Quickie, remember?)

Wednesday

I got home from work all frazzled and freaked out having screwed up on some things (it was just hitting 8 pm so I’d worked 12 hours that day and the two previous were fairly ugly as well - kind of getting scared about some things) and I just know there will be fallout next week from this. But walking in the door I was floored. My husband had bought me this HUGE (3 feet tall!) Happy Birthday balloon, shaped like a heart that has a bright PINK boa - no lie - attached on its entire perimeter!! Cheered me right up - even if only temporarily (throughout the weekend he did a lot of things to help me not think about work, this is why we’re still together after so many years, right? Support each other through the ups and downs and the uglies). He also gave me a very funny card - no pictures, sorry I didn’t bring the memory stick down to the office but I’ll share them next time I post. Oh, he also had everything ready to go except our personal stuff for Thursday. Thank God because I had not give ONE iota of a thought on what to bring yet and thankfully, I only had to think about my clothes and my knitting.

Thursday

Took off from MN and headed to WI to a little cabin I found online to spend a couple of days away from home and to celebrate my milestone birthday (the big 45 on Friday). It was a cute cabin, down in Nelson, WI, overlooking the river (Mississippi, that is). If it hadn’t been misty and cloudy, it would have been a much better travel day but it was misty and it was cloudy. Though the good thing was the temp got nearly to 70 degrees so it didn’t seem as damp as it could have.

We unpacked the truck which took a while having brought more than we needed, as usual. The cabin had two bedrooms, a little kitchen, a bathroom and a living room/eating area. We met the owner, Wes, shortly after arriving and he reminded me of my brother, B. Slim, suntan/burn complexion from being outside a lot, chatty, good for a joke or two, no kids and prefers having a girlfriend to being married. Even with bringing everything but the kitchen sink we still needed a few other things so Wes gave us a couple of ideas on where to shop so we headed out to get those last items and came back, had some dinner and then had happy hour sitting outside (it wasn’t raining) watching the trains go by down by the river. Loudly. But infrequently, thankfully. 

At one point during said cocktail hour, my husband was laughing at me and the fact I was using a small Mason jar to drink my drink from - hey, I didn’t to want to break anything from there that was worth anything and these jars you can find anywhere if you need to replace it. He said, with a humorous look in his eyes, that I looked real classy in my zippered hoodie, knitting and drinking from the Mason jar sitting in my camping chair. I thought I looked pretty darn cute. He agreed. He’s smart.

Eventually, we went inside and played some cribbage, played the boombox and had a rockin’ time. Hubby won both games, the first one he totally creamed me.

That night there was a big storm, it rained like hell and hailed. And it rained all day Friday except for MAYBE about 2 minutes. My birthday.

Friday

We got up and I’m pissed because it’s raining cats, dogs, flying pigs and walleye (we were in fish country, afterall) on my birthday. It’s May - no rain allowed, dang it. We went into town and had breakfast and then decided to check out some of the garage sales that were happening. It was the annual 100 miles of garages sales that happens along the river there. I found a chair for the stained glass studio, picture to follow in next post. I paid $5 bucks!! The man who was selling it was much older, like a granpa age and asked me what I wanted  - I said I’d like to buy that chair, here’s the $5 bucks. He said to me, hey, I thought it was $15 (with a twinkle in his eye) and hubby piped up and no, actually it said 50 cents. Oh, he said, then I better take the $5 shouldn’t I? I guess you had to be there.

From there we checked out a couple of other garage sales and I picked up 7 hardcover books for $5 and 3 paperbacks for $3. If you added up the actual cost of those books it would be $185 - I paid $8. I’m good.

Then back to the cabin to hang out until later in the afternoon when we went over to the MN side to Wabasha and had a late lunch at the Anderson House. Came back and I took a nap (it’s my birthday, I can do what I want!), then got up (it’s still raining critters at this point) and did a little bit of knitting near the window - the lighting was terrible. Next time I’m bringing my craftlight. I finally gave up on my sock and started to crochet a washcloth because the yarn color is a very light green. Then it was time for a walk and then some dinner and happy hour. We played another game of cribbage and I played solitare (he can only handle so much cribbage, if it even looks like he MIGHT lose he gets whiney, I figure the cards are what they are and could play all night long).

Saturday

Headed out of Nelson around 11, stopped in Stockholm and had a lovely lunch at the Bogus Creek Cafe (fresh food made so beautiful you almost don’t want to eat what’s on your plate, you don’t want to disturb how it was plated, she’s a genious). The chef is also the owner and we always say hello while we’re there. Got home about 2:30 and it’s time to convince hubby that since it’s my birthday weekend he gets to play a game of cribbage with me!! Bye bye.