Whew!

I can't believe that it has been almost a month since my last posting. Too much going on and most of it just isn't that interesting, I guess. It's true, there isn't much excitement in spring cleaning and yard work. How great is it though to see those tiny shoots finally popping up out of the ground in the gardens? I don't know why, but every year it's like some great surprise that winter ends and spring coaxes out this fresh growth. My neighbors probably think I'm a nut when I take my daily stroll around my vegetable and flower beds to see their progress.

One big project that we are finally getting behind us--at least partially--is getting some flooring replaced in our house. We decided to start with the rooms that were most desperate. For a few days we had quite a disaster on our hands--and a great excuse not to cook, but once the guys got the work done, and I had a couple days of top-to-bottom cleaning, it looks so much better.

The painter is in today. How lazy am I to hire someone to paint a 5'X5' bathroom? I so despise painting that it's worth every penny. Once he's on his way, we'll have the plumber by to put back our fixtures, and we'll be done. It's so classy having a toilet sitting in the middle of our garage!

It might be awhile before we get to the rest of the house. It will be hard to psyche ourselves up to go through this again.

Since my days have been somewhat exhausting, any knitting progress in the evenings has been fairly slow. I have cast on a cardigan called Bobbled Braids from the Arans & Celtics book in the Best of Knitter's Series. It is the second or third sweater I've knit from this book, and it's the first time I've ever knit anything with Cascade 220. It seems to be a good basic wool. It does ply out a little, so I have to be careful and watch for loops.

Besides one small error on one of the charts, this pattern is well written. I've done some adjusting in body and sleeve length, but that's nothing new for me. I especially like the method used for making the bobbles on this design. They are made entirely on the right side of the fabric--no turning. I'm almost finished with the piece for the back. Maybe by the end of the week.

Since we were in the mood to spend money last week, we splurged and got a Blu-ray player. Actually, we considered it incentive to get the electronics guru who set up our home theatre system out to our house to repair a problem we were having with the television, and it worked. Now we're back in the movie business, and are Blu-ray movies awesome! We had a great picture before with HD, and this is even better, but the biggest improvement is in the sound quality. You hear everything! We watched Let the Right One In--a Swedish vampire movie--and Doubt over the weekend, and wondered why we ever go to the theatre to see a show.