run ragged but happy

I've been silent, but frenzied, the past days, as my spring break wound down. My friend Leah came to visit, and while it was great to see her, she ran me a bit ragged. Leah's an ardent tourist, who travels a lot, and doesn't take easily to sitting around doing little while I knit and do housework. So we ran around Oahu, tasting the rainbow in great big bites, with helicopter rides and hikes and drives to the far reaches of the rock, and funny umbrella drinks and lots of shopping, and the sighting of sea turtles up close and personal. Nice, but I was so pleased with my weeks of silence and solitude prior to her visit that it was a bit of a shock to me to have all that followed with nonstop action. It's feast or famine around here at the Knitted Brow, and who's to say what's what? We also devoted inordinate amounts of time watching season 1 of Battlestar Galactica, thanks to my recent Netflix join. I got Leah hooked, and her parting shot to me at the airport was "I'm updating my queue..." to feed her own need for the cylon vs human struggle. Yum.

Such geeks we are. After Leah departed, I devoted some time to making a container herb garden. I planted basils, sage and cherry tomatoes in pots to live along our rock walls. Our actual soil is very thin and rocky here, and we have so many plant-eating creepy crawlies around that I am trying a container approach to growing things I actually want to eat. I'm trying not to get carried away with visions of my summery pesto just yet, but so far, everything's doing fine. I repotted the euphorbia, too, as it had nearly died away in its sad little rootbound pot. I'm feeling very much the gardener these days, though with spring break's end, my time is not my own again.

Spring break did result in the completed blue socks; not entirely matching, due to Trekking's rambling rippling colorways. I was calling them fraternal twins, but now decided that sock #2, the left one, is the Brother from Another Mother to sock #1. Thanks to Blogless Michelle (Ms Frogstreet? hint?) for that phrase, which I've taken every opportunity to use since I heard it a week ago.

Thanks to Cricket, for being the tolerant model for the perfect sock contrast. The colors are pretty true, and I'm happy with my work. I'll be making more socks from Sensational Knitted Socks, after a digression into Knitting Vintage Socks for a KAL of the Child's First Sock.


In other news, on Saturday, I went out thrifting at the Salvation Army. I don't particularly care for the thrift stores in Hawaii, but I tend to only shop at Salvation Army and Goodwill, so there may be better, smaller ones out there that I don't know about? Still, I had a good day, and $7.69 got me quite a haul of groovy booty. (I shudder to think of how the use of the phrase 'groovy booty' is going to repercuss on google and site hits)


The Haul:


A swanky green sarong for the beach and my hippie moods:



An incredible buy of some of my favorite soaps, including the much-loved olive oil and chamomile flavor that is so hard to find:


Not shown very well was a stunning white t-shirt, suitable for work and showing off my tan, should I ever acquire one.

Now, I'm back at work again, feeling tired and put-upon already. I need a spring tonic, I think.