summer edition: hello red kayak

Greetings from the other side! As in summer. Oh the solstice hasn't arrived, but summer's most significant indicator: school's out, came a week ago, though I was swimming in paperwork and workshops, so Friday was my first real summer day.

I celebrated by going kayaking early Saturday morning, with my friend Angela, who has a new boat she needed to break in. My own red kayak sees so little action, and I plan to change that this summer.

We put in at a local park with a lake, and paddled around in the flat cool water for a couple of hours. Relaxing and a great way to kick off the weekend. Promising each other we'd scout out other likely urban waterways for paddling fun, after it was over. Angela is also a knitter, and I'm thinking next time that I'm going to bring a sock to work on, though she doesn't seem convinced that this is a good idea. 

Nothing new on the needles, or rather nothing much that I've photographed; I'm making the Forest Canopy Shawl in some pretty handspun. I wanted easy lace that could go somewhere and be semi public knitting without too much drama. I am desperately trying to find my knitting mojo out there. 

P's retirement is imminent, and I'm looking forward to having him here again, while being acutely aware that we haven't lived together without him being on a regular travel schedule since 1995. So having someone around every day will be an adjustment. I'm quite used to being the unquestioned chatelaine of the Atomic Lodge, and I'm hoping to somehow maintain my zen when we encounter this huge domestic shift. P doesn't seem nearly as worried about it as I am, which is typical of his optimism, and usually it's contagious. Sometimes I think we should think about getting a completely different place together, so we could start on a more equal footing...but really, in my world, I want to stop flipping houses everytime someone needs a change. 

 Spinning continues to be my main fiber pursuit these days: 

I spun up this beautiful dark gray shetland over the past couple of weeks. It was a Christmas gift from my mom. Rather, it spun itself, into a light worsted. 8oz =405 yards of the pretty stuff. Two washings in Eucalan, and it still smells sheepy. I'm hoping that tones down a little over time. Our humidity is so intense right now that it didn't dry out completely when I hung it in the bathroom. So I put it in the truck, on the dashboard, and parked the truck in the sun. Now the truck smells faintly sheepy. I was actually spinning for a project, Lisa Lloyd's Tilly scarf. I love her book "A Fine Fleece," which is knitting for spinners, and I would love to spin for one of her sweaters, but for now, a scarf will do. I got the suggested 400 yards, so this is actually dedicated yarn. So nice to have a plan. To the someday goal of spinning for a sweater, I'm continuing to spin up mixed gray BFL, at roughly a dk weight, and just keeping it in my stash. At some point (4 oz at a time) I'll have a sweater's quantity of more-or-less uniform yarn, then I'll get serious. 

Today's project is continuing the deep cleanse of the kitchen. I cleaned the fridge yesterday; it was unbelievably filthy, and now it's pristine. This makes me incredibly happy, and in the mood to keep pushing with the scouring of the house.