Rising Signs

I think I am at about the zenith of my energy, judged by what I managed to pack into this week (and by what missed the cut). There was work (!), gardening, wool washing, spinning, visiting and dogwalking... sometimes all at the same time. I want to overload my schedule something fierce, but am trying the best I can to only make committments that I can actually keep.Today Fran and I carpooled to the Freeway Lace Guild lace meeting. We stayed for a little bit and then hit the road, stopping by Garden Gate in Covina, Needles and Niceties in Upland and then Michael's to top it all off. Temptation was great (really great) but somehow I managed to resist and came home with nothing but some free cross stitch magazines from the lace meeting trade table and some kumquats. mmmm kumquats. GG is mostly a needlepoint / tapestry store and is just adorable. Fran found her fabric straight away and I admired all the beautiful work. NN is mostly a cross stitch store with a decent yarn selection and getting me out of there was not an easy task. Cross stitch has come a long way and I was dizzy with all the beautiful things there were to see and to create. All in all it was a good day with a good friend. "Detour Days" can go either way, but this was a pleasant one. It sure beat going from car parts store to car parts store. YMMV.Knitting progress is being made on the "Uncloudy Day" socks. #2 is about 3/4 done and I am getting antsy to wear them before it gets any warmer! Great progress was made in the car on our way to the lace guild meeting today. I thought I had a picture of them but it must be on another disk. Cross stitch, quilting, reading and WOW-playing have been sidetracked by production spinning (I dream in brown romney), but I know they will be there when the energy shifts again.I have been washing wool like a madwoman in order to get it shipped to the processor and out of storage. It is slow going but I am trying to keep the quality high as they have a new "WYSIWYG" policy. I figure the fiber is not making me any money (or sweaters) by hiding in the garage. I also like to entertain the neighbors by sorting and picking fleece in the front yard. No way am I bringing that mohair fleece inside. You can smell it from 20 paces (I counted).On Friday I joined Denise at her booth at the Farmers' Market in Riverside (8-12 in the Sears parking lot on Arlington) and helped her demo spinning and fiber arts. There is still time to submit handspun / knitted / lace items to the upcoming fair, so I will get on that in the next month or so. I carved out a little time between *cough cough* midnight and 2am this week to watch "Ring of Bright Water". It is a movie about a man and his otter that I saw once when I was small. Only bits remained in memory, but the story was the same and it was still a pleasure. Except for one part. But we won't talk about that. DestashingThe Flickr folder has been updated. Thank you for your interest! I will add fiber and fleece as I unearth and evaluate it.Time to wrap it up for the day. I highly recommend the link to Desked over in the sidebar. If I started a "link of the week" feature, that would be the current one.