Too much of a good thing

I've had enough pumpkin for a while. I still have some cream of pumpkin soup, which is delicious, and that will just about finish the Thanksgiving leftovers. Except for a cheesecake that hasn't been touched. How many ways are there to use pumpkin? I've had soup, pie and bread. Am I missing anything?

The past couple of mornings at Skein have been very quiet but the afternoons have been insane. I guess not everyone was at Wal-Mart. And it's all about scarves, still. A few hats for good measure. Sometimes I feel like a recording when I'm giving the construction details of a garter stitch scarf.

I have been doing some teaching as well. It's good to see so many students who started knitting less than a year ago begin to move on to sweaters and socks and even making alterations to patterns.

So, I've finished the second holiday project and am started on the third. I'm going to go work on that now.

One down, two to go!

The holidays are upon us and it's time to really get going. I didn't get much knitting done yesterday. I made some pumpkin bread in the morning and played way too much Free Cell and took a short nap.

Dinner with Robert went about as I expected. I think it was just a little after nine when we sat down. But the wait was definitely worth it. And I'll be able to repeat the feast tonight when I get home from Skein.

I'd really like to stay home today and play with my stash. Yesterday I was looking for something to use in one of my holiday projects and stumbled across several in progress projects that I had forgotten about. And lots of odd lots of yarn. I want to rip out those projects and find some project to use up those stray skeins. But I won't stay home. We had lots of calls on Wednesday to see if we'd be open on Friday. Sounds like it will be a busy day.

TGI Thanksgiving!

Is that redundant? Anyway, I'm looking forward to this holiday more than usual. I don't know why. This year it just seems extra special. I'll be having dinner with my friend Robert. It'll be late I'm sure by the time he's ready to serve. Usually it's 9 or later.

That leaves me most of the day to be at home and enjoy the benefits and blessings of my life. I'll probably spend a lot of time knitting. Since we won't be having our regular Thrusday night knit together I plan to spend at least two hours on the poncho and some more on the holiday gifts.

It was a lot busier at Skein than Ann Mary expected. I went in early again. I began by picking up stitches for an out-of-town knitter on a botched cast off. One of those extra fuzzy Multi-Fizz yarns from S.R. Kertzer.

Where did the idea originate that it's okay to leave a mistake when you're working with fuzzy yarn? A dropped stitch is going to run eventually even if you can't see it right now. And accidental increases will make your scarf wider, and even wider if you keep doing it. This one started at 24 stiches and ended up at 41. So she's going to have a trapezoidal scarf because there was no way she was going to start over.

And the day just got busier from there. I think there were more people in the last hour though than there was the rest of the day. And they were buying! I guess some of them thought we'd be closed for the weekend. Are your kidding? Most of them were just getting stocked up for a four day knitting binge, scarves mostly. I was teaching a new knitter how to do the elongated (drop) stitch even after we closed. So, Ann Mary has plenty to be thankful for, and so do I.

Let me see...

Has anything blogworthy happened yet today? Not that I can remember. I got to Skein earlier than usual because it's been very busy the past couple of Tuesdays when I got there at 11. Well, today was an exception. Oh, well. But I did get a couple of rows on the shop sample shawl done before the first student showed up.

I think that's about it. Steady stream of customers once it started and I had several people stop in for hand holding. It's amazing to me that people expect you to remember their project from six months ago, or even longer. Even more amazing is that sometimes I do. I do have a problem with names though.

Off the diet

Yarn, that is. I've been pretty good lately and haven't spent a lot of money on yarn. Most of the time when I get something it's with a store credit for having made a shop sample. So I don't count those. Kind of like iceberg lettuce.

Today it was like having a banana split with real whipped cream. Mendy and I went to Velona's in Anaheim Hills. I've been there lots of times and each time I'm amazed at the sheer quantity of yarn they have amassed in one building. And on top of that, there's the tremendous variety. The needlepoint and crochet sections alone are staggering. And the prices are usually the lowest around. Their range is from Lion Brand and Patons up through Anny Blatt and Colinette. No Koigu, though.

I've been looking for same cotton blend ribbon yarn to make the Wave and Shell Shawl that a lot of people are making these days. I'm sure if I looked carefully I'd find something in my stash that would be okay. But I didn't want "okay".

So I came home with 16 skeins of Katia "Spray". There was another yarn that I also wanted but the tab was just too high because I also got 10 skeins of Takhi "Chat". And some sock yarn and a couple of pattern books. For the first time ever, I spent more than Mendy. Not by much, but still, it's a first for me. She did get a lot more variety than I did. Scarves and hats will be happening. I just have to show her how to get started with dpns and she'll be making socks soon. Actually, one of the scarves she's making is worked in the round on dpns. Too skinny for circulars.

I finished one Christmas gift and am started on another. And, thanks to Bess I'm off in another direction on the undecided scarf that I'm making with that leftover El Paso yarn from Interlacements. I can't find the colorway on their site but they have some nice stuff anyway.

Options or whatever


This guy whose name is either Francisco or Fernando came into Skein last week to get some yarn to make a shawl or a scarf for his sister's birthday, or maybe it was for her Christmas present. He wanted either very fine lace weight or maybe worsted. But he did know which pattern he was going to use.

The pattern is basically Y/O, K2tog and then purl back on the second row. I made a test swatch while I was at Skein using some scrap yarn. It looked pretty good. So when I got home I cast on for a scarf using the pattern and some leftover yarn. Well, at first I liked it and then I didn't. I still haven't decided. I'm probably going to rip it out and use the yarn for something else. Or I may rip it out and start over on a smaller size needle with fewer stitches. I want to use up the leftover yarn or else I'll just add it to the box of other scraps.

According to my computer today is Sunday. When I woke up I thought it was some other day. Like maybe Friday or Monday. It's like this a lot of the time. With the exception of Monday I'm at Skein either at 11 or at 1. Oh, and on Saturday I'm there at 10. So either way the odds of my being on time are pretty good.

I meant to work on holiday gifts last night but kept procrastinating until I gave up and went to bed. I wonder if I'll get everything done. Either I will have one thing or seven, or somewhere in between. I can hardly wait to find out.

An ordinary day

There's nothing quite so peaceful as an ordinary day. No surprises or upsets. Yesterday was one of those days. Skein was moderately busy and I had a few drop ins that just needed a little hand holding.

Knit together was relaxing as always. One of the missing returned after having been out due to hip replacement surgery. I did get to see my faux grandson for a few minutes. He's really getting tall!

Home late as usual on Thursday. Spent an hour or so with email and then some Free Cell. All in all, a satisfactory day.

I should be knitting on holiday stuff. The predicted cold spell has arrived. I think I'll take a nap instead.

Rush

I hate it when the phone rings late at night or early in the morning. Nothing can send me into such a panic like this does. Remember, I grew up in an era when the telephone was not ubiquitous and was pretty much reserved for emergency communications. Well, at our house anyway. So when the phone rang this morning before 8AM I immediately assumed something terrible had happened.

Actually it was something wonderful and amazing. My sister who lives in Arizona, forgetting that California is an hour behind them in the winter months, called to tell me she finally has a computer, email, the whole nine yards. She has been trying for years to talk her husband into getting a computer. So finally, realizing that she was going to buy one whether he wanted to or not, he agreed. But he balked at the price. They got one from a friend who was upgrading. So now she doesn't have to call me at some ungodly hour and scare the bejesus out of me.

I spent a couple of hours yesterday teaching a couple of returnee knitters. It was good for me. They're both semi-continental knitters. "Semi" because they each had their own bastardized version of how to do it. And good for me since I don't knit continental. Well, I can, but I don't. Except for Fair Isle. Anyway, the mother was very easy to work with and was soon sailing away on her five year afghan project. The daughter, who never learned to cast on because her mother always did it for her, was a different matter. She was like double-wrapping her needle when she purled. It was a mess. I think she's okay now but she's pretty one-way so may have slipped back into her old habits overnight. So she'll have something that looks like condo knitting.

And b/p knitter has a slowly growing scarf on the needles. I tried to show her how to loosen up her stitches so that she wouldn't have to work so hard. I know that something is going on and that she's understanding what she's doing because she was concerned that switching at this point would cause her knitting to look different. So I'm encouraged that she's getting it. I've taught her to purl but she doesn't remember it but maybe when we start the next project it will come back to her. I sorta dread ribbing.

Tonight is knit together night. I haven't seen any of the group since last week so that will be fun. More progress on the poncho is my planned knitting. I got a third circular needle so I can handle all those stitches. I've been using two needles, a la socks on two circulars, but it's still too cumbersome. I will use the third needle kinda like using dpns. I really need to finish the poncho. It's cold here, or it's supposed to be getting cold. A drop of 25 degress has been predicted for the end of the week.

If you're at all interested in pomegranates click here.

I could go on and on but...


It's hard to maintain the myth of a knitting blog when there's so little knitting to blog about. I have been doing a little knitting but it's mostly stuff I can't talk about right now or an inch or two more on existing, previously mentioned, stuff. So there you have it. Knitting goes on, much like life, creeping its petty pace from day to day.

Last night I went to another concert in the Southwest Chamber Orchestra series. Had an excellent time. They played four Cesar Chavez pieces, a Paul Hindemith and a Bela Bartok. I'd heard the Bartok before but the others were all new to me. Listening to this music live is so much easier than hearing it on the radio. I can almost begin to really like it, especially the Bartok.

We also took a little stroll over to the new Disney Concert Hall. It's very over the top and showy. Kinda like what I'd expect. Extensive use of expensive materials. And wine in the cafeteria for $14.00 a split. Too obviously elistist I'd say. They had a big plastic Christmas tree. Kinda fits.

Shopping

Last night I went to dinner with one of my students and her husband. A nice, pseudo-English pub place that's in a revitalized section of Arcadia, the town just to the east of Pasadena. Bodington's Cream Ale is very nice.

The street was very quiet since we didn't meet until almost 8:30. And it was cold. It felt like a scene from some sentimental Christmas movie. The shops were closed but the window displays were enticing.

I haven't done any serious browsing or shopping in a couple of years. Yarn shops excluded. Now I'm really ready for a couple of days of oh-ing and ah-ing in those clever little boutiques. I don't like malls particularly and only go to them when I'm in a hurry and know exactly what I want and where to find it. But boutiques are a whole other thing!

I'm also wanting to go antique-ing. This is a senseless activity since I'm definitely not in need of any more chairs or tables or footstools. But we drove by one of my former haunts a few nights ago and I haven't been able to get rid of the dream. I just have to go and see what's out there.

A lot of the places I want to go are closed on Monday which is sort of a mixed blessing. I need someone to come along with me and most people don't have Mondays off. Maybe I can convince Lisa that she needs to take a day off and join me.

This is not a good time for me to be shopping. It's property tax time and car insurance in addition to my mounting dental care assessments. And I really want some yarn from
The Spirit Trail and Mystical Creation Yarns. And if things work out I'm going to Velona's next Monday with Mendy.

But right now I'd better go get ready for Skein. I hope I have lots of students this week. It seems like I'm going to be needing some extra cash.

Hats off!

Just back from another bout of dental artistry. I hope this temporary crown doesn't give me the same problems I've had before. In two weeks I'll have a shining new porcelain one and then the real fun begins. Why didn't this stuff happen while my COBRA was still in effect?

My bi-polar student has sold a scarf. Albeit, it was her sister who bought it. But it looked cute on and they're both very happy. She started a hat in the round on Saturday and we ripped it out yesterday. She keeps switching directions when she picks it up. I need to convince her to only work on it when she's with me or else to learn to love its unique lopsidedness. She told me yesterday that she also has ADD. The list of things she's dealing with keeps growing.

I thought when I got her started on circular needles she would quit leaning sideways as she knits. Sometimes I think she's going to fall out of her chair. But the circulars didn't seem to make any difference. Good thing she's kinda broad beamed.

I spent two hours on the poncho last night. That's only four rounds. I have about another ten inches to go and then the fringe. And I finished the top for Lisa that was giving me fits with the armholes.

I also cleared out some of my hat inventory. I had forgotten most of them. My friend Dorris took them for her church's outreach program, along with three scarves that were just taking up space. Now to get started on some more. I like making hats but Lisa doesn't wear them so they usually just accumulate. I have a bunch of crocheted hats that I need to wash before I can donate them. Maybe I'll get to that sometime this week.

A few Christmases ago Lisa made a contribution in my name to the Heifer Foundation. Someone somewhere got a chance to improve his/her life. If you'd like to make a difference you can go here, here or here to do it. These are just the ones I know about. There are probably others. Thanks, Teresa, Wendy and Deb for getting this whole thing off the ground.

Dispelled

If you read Melissa's blog you'll know what I'm talking about. I've been following her progress through The Artist's Way and am enjoying discovering, vicariously, some of the hurdles and stumbling blocks that she finds as she goes through the process.

I found her entry today to be particularly interesting. I have been unofficially participating in NaNoWriMo and what Melissa has to say today is so true for me as well. I was surprised at how my "novel" develped, almost on its own. I've passed the requisite 50,000 words and have written the final chapter. I'm not going to do anything with my book, will probably not even save it. What surprised me was how each character came to life and how real they seemed to me.

I didn't have any plot line or even a clue as to where the story, as it developed, was going to go. About half way through I began to see how different events were related and how everything was going to come together. I'm pretty amazed that the whole thing just evolved.

When I was an undergraduate one of the literature classes I took was Popular Literature. We had to read several books that were from that year's list of blockbusters. One of the books was The Violated by Vance Bourjaily. I remember not wanting that book to end. When he finished writing the novel Boujaily said he wanted to give his characters more than he had but he couldn't give them anything but life.

Not that my book is anything or anywhere like his but I have that same feeling. I don't want it to be over. I'm still imagining what the people in my novel might be doing today. Oh, and there isn't one mention of knitting in the whole thing.

When it rains

you get snow. We had an enormouselectrical storm last night. Actually it had rained most of the afternoon, just as predicted. But the electrical storm was the high light. I'm sure one bolt passed right through my car as I drove home. And, although we didn't have any here in Pasadena, there was snow and hail on the other side of LA. Some of the hail was deep enough to stop traffic and was over the headlights of some cars.

And continuing the analogy, we were swamped today at Skein. Even during the downpour yesterday, people kept coming in, not just to get out of the rain. I had three people as soon as I sat down. Spent the next four hours just showing people how to do stuff but mostly how to pick up dropped stitches. I do wish beginning knitters would choose more user friendly yarns than they typically do. And that they wouldn't wait until they've totally botched it before coming in for help. Sixty stitches of wiggling railroad yarn is not a pretty sight when you're trying to pick up a dropped stitch six rows below. Let them knit Encore!

But I relaxed tonight with friends at the Thursday night knit together. Feeling restored after a nice shoulder rub and some pie and ice cream. And I made more progress on the poncho. I'm up to about sixty percent. As soon as my schedule and some daylight coincide I'll try to get a picture.

Time off

It's a very wintery day here. Well, by Southern California standards. The sky is a flat grey with a few bright spots along the horizon of mountains to the north of my house. Not very inspiring but it is supposed to bring some rain. We've been waiting for this rain for several days now. So far nothing though.

Yesterday was Veterans' Day. I usually forget that I'm a veteran. I wonder if I would remember it more if I had actually been in a war zone. I spent my years as a commissary store officer. Lived for two years in Korea. That's where my daughter was born. And I had a few months at the commissary in Long Beach. Sometimes when people ask me if I was in the Korean War I get a little irritated. That would make me about ten or twelve years older than I actually am. But I think I'd feel more like a veteran than I do if I could answer yes. Most of the guys I went to Officer Candidate School with were sent to Vietnam. I'm lucky I guess that I didn't get orders there. My older brother flew in and out of Vietnam a lot during that war. He was an air force pilot as well as flew for one of the airlines that transported people there. His stories of some of the action are pretty scary. Neither of my younger brothers spent any time in the military. So I read a lot of tributes to veterans on the blogs yesterday. It made me feel good, even if I did serve on the sidelines.

I took the day off from blogging yesterday. I haven't had much to report lately and I've been busy with other things. I worked on some socks while I was at Skein. I'm just starting the heel flap of the first one. (Try to contain yourself.) There was a vendor from Plymouth Yarns there. They're coming out with some new yarns for spring that are a big leap ahead for them. Nice novelty stuff mostly. Their biggest seller, at least for us, is Eros, one of the many railroad yarns out there. They have four new colors. They also have a new version. It's a railroad but has a zigzag of thin, very thin, gold thread twisted around the railroads. I think this will make the stuff a little easier to knit. And it adds a new look, more glittery, to the yarn. Look for it at your lys within the next month or so.

I'm meeting my friend Mendy for lunch at Shakey's today. We have lots of stuff to talk about and she's going to spend the afternoon at Skein. I see her at least once a week for the Thursday knit together but we always have more to talk about than we can fit in during that time. I've only known Mendy since last February but it's more like we've been friends forever.

So anyway, I may or may not be a little erratic in my posting for the next little while. You don't get peaks if you don't have some valleys.

the beat goes on

Today, between loads of laundry, I tried for the third time to get the armholes on a top I made for my daughter to look at least half way decent. The pattern says to do a single row of crochet. Looks terrible. Clunky and shabby. Then I tried picking up around the armhole and binding off immediately. It looked okay but it wanted to curl to the outside. Now I've just ripped an inch of 1/1 ribbing. Too many stitches but I think once I figure that ratio I will be okay. I kept saying to myself, "What would Becky do? I'm sure she wouldn't let something like this slow her down.

I wore my new Blogger sweat shirt Saturday night. No one asked what the logo was. I'm glad I ordered the extra large. It's the smallest extra large I've ever seen. I was planning on it shrinking when I was it. I hope it doesn't.

Catching up

Or trying to. I'm in that two steps forward, one step back place that sometimes happens to me. Seems like every project I have tried to work on recently has had something that needed to be redone.

Beginning with the sweater that I'm still thinking about starting over. The sleeve was not only too tight and too short but I think the whole sweater is too small. Trying to decide if I care enough to rip the whole thing and start over.

Then I started a new pair of socks. The first one had to be started over. I thought it looked too big. The yarn calls for size 3 needles and I got the gauge but the pattern I'm using seems to have too many stitches for the size I want to make. So I've started that over and am back past the point where I decided to rip it out. And it does look better.

Then I started a simple hat. I finished most of it this morning and have run out of yarn. I'm using Encore held together with a strand of Stars, a furry, glitzy yarn. Ann Mary said she make a hat with one skein of the Stars. No way would I be able to do that. So I have to decide how to reknit it so the Stars will be enough. There isn't anymore of the color I'm using. I'm thinking I'll just stripe it. At any rate I'll have to rip a large part of it.

It was a hectic day at Skein yesterday. I had students almost the whole day plus the floor was busy from the time the store opened. Today was a little calmer but still busy. I didn't have time to touch the shop sample shawl either day. But at least I didn't have to take it apart.

Comment on comments

First of all I want to thank everyone who left me a comment on my "She done your wrong" post. It's good to hear that so many agree that doing it yourself is the best way to learn.

I've mentioned my bi-polar student several times before. She's been coming in to see me almost everyday. She completed her second scarf project today. It would have been so much easier on me if I had done her bind off and a lot faster. But following my own advice I showed her how and sat with her as she did each arduous step. There were not a lot of ends to weave in but we did it the same way, slowly, with me pointing out where she should insert the crochet hook and reminding her to turn the hook sideways to pull the yarn through.

I'm pretty sure we'll have to go through the same process the next time but she will eventually get it. It took about two weeks for her to become fully confident in doing the knit stitch. We did purling today. She had a much easier time learning the purl stitch. I'll probably have to get her started again tomorrow but I think she's really making progress.

She cast on for another longways scarf today. Sixty five stitches is a lot for her to get entirely right but she did it. Well there were a couple of wobbly stitches but they worked well enough. What I'm really seeing is that she is beginning to identify where the errors are. Like most of us, she'd prefer to ignore the errors and just keep going but she stops and asks for help.

Ann Mary thinks I'm spending too much time with her. She'd be much happier if I just let her buy any novelty yarn that she liked and let her struggle with it. My own self-interest won't let me do that. I'm the one who has to work with her. Plus I don't think that's a very good way for her to learn.

Anyway, I'm happy with her progress and so is she. This may be an extreme example of hands on learning but I think it applies.

She done you wrong!

There used to be another knit shop in Arcadia or maybe it was Monrovia, but anyway it used to be just east of where Skein is presently located. I never went there. Didn't even know it was there.

From what I've been told, the owner, Catherine, was in her nineties before she decided to close up shop. I've talked to a few people who knew her and used to shop there frequently. One of the things they liked so much about her was that she would do their cast ons for them. And if they made a mistake she would rip or fix as needed.

I have a couple of students right now that used to get their yarn from Catherine. One of these students is quite proud of the fact that she never learned how to cast on or fix her errors.

I taught her to cast on a few weeks ago. She still fumes about it but does it fairly well now. Yesterday she came in with her current project. She had managed to add about four stitches that she shouldn't have. Hadn't a clue as to how it happened or what to do about it. She wanted me to fix it for her. Catherine always did.

So I explained how to rip or tink. "But I'm afraid I'll mess it up and I don't know how to get the stitches back on the needle in the right direction," she pleaded. So I said I'd show her how. I fixed a few stitches that were badly mutilated and eliminated a couple of the extra stitches. The other two were about two inches further down. So I handed the work back to her and told her she should do the rest herself. She decided to just knit a couple of stitches together at each end and keep going.

A little while later she was ready to bind off for the armholes, except she had worked about two inches beyond the bind off point. She asked me to rip it for her and I told her no. "But Catherine always did."

"Well, she didn't do you any favors, did she?" I replied. I went over the steps again and she got started. I think she's going to be much better now.

Oddly enough another of Catherine's mignons was in yesterday. She needed to know how to do a two color cast on. So I showed her, following the instructions in her pattern. I ended up doing the whole 140 stitches while she carried on about how hard it was.

She's been saying she wanted to learn fair isle, which she needs for this project. Spent some time showing her a couple of alternatives, carrying and weaving. So I got her started on the next row which required changing color every stitch passing the right hand yarn over to create the beginning of a herringbone border. I did maybe twenty stitches and handed her the needle.

She worked most of the rest of the round before she realized that something was wrong. Seems she had reversed the direction of her knitting. I told her she'd have to take it out one stitch at a time. "Could you do it for me? I have to go pick up my son. I could pick it up tomorrow."

I told her no. She could do it and she'd learn a lot from it. I was really cranky yesterday. And I'm not much better today.

Rats! Double rats!

I am really upset. I've been very good about sticking to just one project at a time. (Even though I've been urged and given permission by a number of people to start something else.) So I finished the first sleeve on my simple cotton sweater. I've been following a pattern I created using Sweater Wizard.

The sleeve is barely long enough and it's no where near wide enough. Rats! I decided to change the armhole depth after I started the sweater. I put the change into Sweater Wizard and it recalculated the number of stitches I needed to pick up. What I didn't notice was that the program did not recalculate the rate of decrease. So I have too many decreases. Rats!

I've had a few other problems with Sweater Wizard. I guess I'll just have to check the patterns more carefully. I use this program to rewrite patterns for customers. I haven't had anyone come back and complain.

So I'm going to rip the entire sleeve and start over. But I'm going to start a new pair of socks before I do that. I need a break.

Oops!

I really didn't mean to do it. And of course I apologized profusely. And I feel just terrible. I accidentally knocked over a cup of coffee onto a customer's little baby sweater project. I'm hoping that Ann Mary's intervention, washing it right away, will prevent any stains. If there are any Ann Mary will replace the yarn. I may reknit the portion that had already been done, if that's what the knitter wants.

Fortunately the customer is someone I've known for a long time. She was a customer at Mariposa when they were still in Pasadena so that's probably ten years. I know she knows it was an accident. But she said, I'm sure in jest, that I owe her the knitting of two sweaters. And that she has two grandsons that are lawyers.

Oh, well. As the dentist said this morning, sometimes there are complications and unintended things happen. Oops! The extraction was painless but in the process the porcelain crown on the adjacent tooth was damaged and part of it came off. Haven't been able to really examine the damage as I'm still sporting a huge wad of gauze where I used to have a tooth. I'll be getting a new crown, probably as part of a partial that will replace all those missing teeth. I don't have to go back for a couple of weeks. I'll really be happy when this is over.

In much happier news. Lisa came over last night. Hadn't seen her in a while. Can't tell you how good it feels to have her visit. We shared a bottle of wine and went to my local Mexican restaurant. What a good time I had! I showed her the poncho progress. She's really excited about it which makes me feel good. Now I feel more like pushing to get it done.

The weather is perfect for a heavy wool poncho. And it's raining on top of that. I'm cooking some pasta for lunch. It's supposed to be al dente but that seems a little ludicrous given the condition of my denti.

Rabbit! Rabbit!

Slump!

Seems like I just can't very excited about my knitting right now. Maybe it's because I'm trying really, really hard to stick to one project at a time and I'm beginning to feel like I'm being punished. Or maybe it's because working six days a week is beginning to pall. Whatever it is, it's tedious.

We had rain yesterday. The sky this morning is almost totally clear. The sun is bright and the air is crisp.

I didn't even see any trick or treaters last night. There was a Halloween event at the Four Square church at the end of my street. Looked a little pathetic when I drove by on my way home. I hope things picked up later. I don't know anyone at that church but I like the way they try to offer alternatives to people in the neighborhood. They have a weekend club called No Future for the teenagers that appears to be well attended.

Well, I'd better go work on those sleeves. I'd rather start something new but I won't. Rules, you know.