An Afternoon Off

can feel like a whole day at times. The Girlchild is home for a couple of days - she leaves tomorrow to spend the rest of her break camping with friends before heading back to school - so I am working half days to spend some time with her in the afternoons. Yesterday we were wonderfully lazy and spent most of the afternoon just hanging out. I finished the first Koigu sock and got a couple of inches down the cuff of the second. She read "We're Just Like You, Only Prettier." We watched reruns on TNT (the only thing tolerable about daytime television, IMHO.) We finally moseyed out to Target late in the afternoon, where she scored the most wonderful pink purse, I'm so jealous because it was the only one they had - I will have to try another Target this weekend. We did end up with identical (but for the size - my Girlchild towers over me) wedge sandals. I thought they were cute, but when she tried them on and pronounced them insanely comfortable, I had to try them on too. She's right, they are insanely comfortable, and they'll be so cute with jeans and skirts. Today I'll work a half day again, today's plan is the bookstore and maybe scrounge up a couple of tank tops at Old Navy or someplace of that ilk (though we're having another cool spell, summer is right around the corner). This leads me to my personal crisis:

I have been sinfully lazy lately. Didn't make it to the gym in a week, I have a variety of reasons/excuses, between illness and work and such, but excuses are still just excuses. Last night we both had a craving for Chinese food and didn't eat dinner until past 7:30. I'm MSG bloated, unexercised, and far from in the mood to try on the spring clothing I desperately need. When Girlchild leaves tomorrow I am going on a 5x a week workout schedule and I will not let work or anything else get in my way.

I wound the Rayon Boucle for the simple shoulder scarf Monday night. From the Do As I Say, Not As I Did File: Unless you have a nice big wooden swift (and even then I'd be nervous) don't even try using a swift on this stuff. I have the Little Blue Plastic swift, you know the one I mean. I knew better than to try to use the ball winder, but thought I could wind it by hand off the swift. Fergit it. I got about halfway, moving slowly and carefully, but despite my caution the yarn slithered down the arms of the swift into a tangled puddle, and it took me ALL EVENING to untangle and wind it. I strongly recommend the knees method - wear jeans or sweats, something cotton with a grippy surface, and wind it from your bent knees, then put the ball in a plastic ziplock bag and work it from there. I have more of this and the Gelato for another shawl, and I'm glad I held off working with it until I had an "experimental" skein to mess around with. It's cool stuff but damn, it tangles if you breathe on it. Now I think I know how to handle it.

I think I want the book Pursenalities. Yeah, my obsession with knitted accessories is taking on fetish-like proportions, but what the hell. So if we make it to the bookstore, I will look for it.