Still crocheting blankies and not much else, though I am in the planning stage of a crocheted felted bag.

I'm working a cat blanket in the round (yes, still in Homespun) and thinking about crocheting a round-bottomed striped felted tote. I'm thinking Cascade 220 in double crochet on a J-hook would be the ticket. I think that will be the next crocheted item after the critter blanket frenzy has subsided. I haven't felted anything in a long time, I'm feeling the urge.

I'm also thinking of a poncho. Not a wooly heavy poncho of course, but a light airy one, in an open pattern in a light cotton, to throw on over sleeveless in the a/c or the after-rainstorm chill breezes. I'm seeing them on young trendy things and wondering if the fashion police would arrest me for wearing one. I normally try to abide by the rule that if you were old enough to wear it the first time it was in style you are banned from wearing it now. I think in general that's a very wise and sensible rule, yet I've let it slide for a few things like low-rise boot-cut jeans because they're so much more flattering than "relaxed straight leg." I'm thinking a neutral-color, (say tan or cream) light poncho also should fall into the "it's a classic, not a trend" exception to the rule.

The siren song of ebay called me, and I bid on a lot of vintage crochet patterns and more of my beloved Softball cotton yarn - the yarn price was a steal. The patterns were a whimsical bidding moment and I suspect most of them will not be anything I really want to make, but it'll be fun to sort of cruise down my crocheting memory lane. In our many moves I jettisoned nearly all the now "vintage" crochet stuff I'd been toting around since the 70s and early 80s, and now I'm sort of regretting it.

Otherwise, I'm just working all day in the legal widget factory, and hemorrhaging money on the house in my spare time. Paul the Yard Angel says he'll take over backyard maintenance for me - mowing, edging, etc. - but because it's so small he can't get his commercial mower in there and will have to bring his small mower and manicure it, which is very time consuming and therefore a bit more costly. Of course. I'm pretty much numbed to hearing "I'm sorry, it's going to cost more because..." by now.

He's also going to bring me mulch by the cubic yard, so I can quit this tedious exercise of hauling a few bags in the trunk of the Altima. I really need an SUV again. Not a huge one, but something with a nice square shape that can hold the spoils of a trip to Lowe's garden center or a weekend of antiquing. When Girlchild graduates next May, her mother is getting the new car.

Great book for anyone contemplating going low carb:
How I Gave Up My Low Fat Diet and Lost 40 Pounds. Dana Carpender (who also writes great cookbooks) explains the science behind low carb in layman's terms, rather than the dry cardiologist- and endocrinologist-speak that makes up entire sections of the books by Drs. Agatston, Schwarzbein, et al. (My eyes glaze over.) It's like taking "low carb dieting for liberal arts majors." I was already a low-carb evangelist but now I will just hand this book to people who want to understand why. The recent news stories about obesity becoming a global problem just underlines that whatever we've been doing for the past two or three decades has been really, really wrong.