spring's promise delivered

I've been feeling a bit prickly, the past few days, disappointed in Spring's wimpy weather so far. Things seem to be turning around, though, and it's supposed to be unseasonably warm - even in the 80's, the rest of the week. I'm looking forward to it; I've got some new little shade plants to put out. Today I planted some new hellebores, which I don't expect to do much, as I got them out late. Tomorrow, hostas, lungworts and cyclamen bulbs. All this perennial planting and bulb growing is sort of a distraction to me from my real mission, which is figuring out to do with 1/2 an acre of dirt and shade. I think I need to subdivide it into bedded areas which I'll fence off from the dogs, at least temporarily, and try and establish some shade-tolerant groundcover. It feels overwhelming.

We had some tequila, limes and oranges leftover from a tequila-lime chicken dish that P. made last week. I made a drink, using the 3-2-1 Formula: 3 parts tequila, (1.5oz) 2 parts lime juice,(1 oz) and one part (1/2 oz) Cointreau. A sort of margarita, though I didn't salt the glass. Extremely yummy and sippable. I'm going to make another one, this weekend, adding in fresh squeezed orange juice in addition to the limes. Gotta figure out the proportions for this new drink, though.


On Ravelry, I'm in a group for soap and dishcloth swapping. I like the idea of swapping yarn and knitted things, but most swaps I've checked out have impossibly high spending requirements, and too many rules. This group runs a periodic swap that involves sending someone a knitted washcloth, and a bar of soap. Nothing more, nothing less...a $10 maximum spending limit. I knitted this cloth for my partner:
My swappee sent me this: I love the butterflies and the soap, a deliciously grapefruit-lily scented one, is handmade from a North Carolina Cherokee Indian village. It's currently scenting my stash of laceweight yarn, til my current shower soap runs out. The swappiness was a thrill. It's been just a drop in the bucket of cool stuff that's been coming in the mail, lately; a wheelwarming gift of some blue-faced leicester roving from Opal, my Stitches South registration... not to mention the spinning fibers I've been ordering. Here's a peek at the last of the lilac n' lemon romney drafted up and ready to spin: and a look at some of the singles on the bobbin. I spun it all up and plied it. Seems to be a light worsted weight. I think it looks like marshmallow peeps. So seasonal.

Is anyone else as ridiculously happy as I am about the upcoming remake of Clash of the Titans? "Release the krakon" is our new household phrase for letting Cricket outside in the mornings.