Greetings from far off places

On Monday it snowed. Not the winter snow that looks permanent and makes you feel cold; it was a wet snow that won't last but is still disappointing at this late date in the spring. Not that I noticed it much. I was very busy doing many important things. Like laundry. And cleaning. And more laundry. And then some packing.

And now morning looks like this:





The day goes on to look like this:







And this:



Or, if you're feeling nostalgic, like this:




We're staying on the boardwalk at Hollywood Beach (well, not directly on the boardwalk; we do have a hotel room you know). The boardwalk extends for two miles, which means that the round trip walk is four miles. An ideal morning walk with an ocean view the entire way and an outstanding way to start the day. The only conceivable drawback is that everything looks the same at first, so that it is -- and I speak strictly hypothetically here and not from any personal experience I might have had on my second walk -- possible to continue walking right past the street your hotel is on and go a good way down the board walk again before you realize that the walk is getting very long and that you are no longer sure whether the hotel is ahead of you or behind you. I do not recommend this.

Life hasn't been all beaches and laundry his week. For starters, I seem to have broken one of my lesser toes. It looks nasty, but as long as I keep my shoes on, it doesn't hurt too much.

Vacation knitting has been productive and I managed to get half way through an extremely cute baby sweater before my luck gave out. On row 41, just as I was thinking about finishing the sleeves and dividing them off from the body of the cardi, the tip of my size three circular needle pulled right off of the cable. "Shhhhhhhhhhhoes and stockings" I said (my kids were in the room; they had seen part of a Jerry Springer show earlier and I really couldn't subject them to more profanity, no matter how thoroughly justified) as 30 stitches made a bid for freedom. I pulled a size four circular from my bag, recaptured the errant stitches, and on row 42 watched in amazement as the size four needle tip separated from the cable entirely, liberating a whole new set of stitches.

Here is the stalled sweater, now held together by two failed needles, with the offending needle tips and naked cable ends clearly visible. Please take a moment to express your disapproval of this dreadful state of affairs.





I tracked down the address of a reasonably local yarn shop and we intend to remedy the problem this morning. Right after a restorative trip to the beach.

One last bit of eye candy. I won the door prize at the knitting guilt meeting a few weeks ago. 660 yards of worsted weight alpaca. It is marvelously large and soft Yum. If only I knew what to do with so much brown.