Catching Up: This Weekend Edition
I am waaaaaay behind in updating y'all about my life, and the post I need to make to do it just keeps getting longer and longer, and thus harder and harder to actually get done.
So, we're going to skip up to recent things, and hopefully I'll go back and fill in some later. Hopefully.
The short overview:
* 7V happened, and was awesome and not as exhausting as expected!
* Then my mom came to visit. House looked like a tornado had hit it, and then my cat had shed on everything. Thankfully mom is awesome, and helped me get things under control again. Which is good, because...
* I had a surprise houseguest in the form of one of my brother's business partners, Hans. He's awesome, and I love hosting him, but I got about 24 hours of notice, so I was VERY glad mom and I had gotten so much done earlier.
Then this weekend was so busy!
The Rose City Yarn Crawl was this weekend. I managed to go to a bunch of stores on Thursday night, and then had some time to kill before I joined Hans and Co for dinner in Portland. No point in going back up to Vancouver just to turn around, so I went to a few more. And then... then I was awfully close to having gone to all of them. Each store, aside from sales and a free-with-purchase pattern, and trunk shows, and demos, and hand massages, and tea and cookies, and all sorts of great things, also had a big gift basket that they were having a drawing for. Seriously, each one was "maaaaaybe you can put your arms around it" big. And if you went to all 19 stores, you got entered into a "bring an empty car" kind of big gift basket.
Sooo... so suddenly I was close. But, I told myself, I am going to see my parents on Saturday, and that is a 3 hour drive. I do not have time to drive all over to the remaining 6 stores. But, said my wonderful enabler Mendoza, you are so close. And instead of having a pit full of plastic balls to dive in, you could have it full of yarn. So, saturday morning found me driving all over western and southern Portland (quite west. Like, Forest Grove west). I turned in my completed, stamped passport, and the woman was so thrilled - no one else had finished at her store thus far. Apparently our photo is up on her company's facebook page.
So, I did it! I crawled all over, and there was yarn. I managed not to buy too much but it was really great - got a good lay of the land, saw what was available where, and figured out what yarn I want to order for a future project (and found another future project. And got more sock yarn. And some more roving. Which I need to get more of, because I love it and want to make it into a sweater, and need more).
Then, then I finally went to my parents' place. Where my dad tried very hard to get me to go car shopping with him (my car is dying, and he worries). I managed to not do that, though we did talk cars, and that was good. need to get serious about shopping in the near future.
We had dinner (Birthday dinner, even, which is very very late because everyone in my family has been insanely busy since, oh, Thanksgiving, so hey, what is a month and a half late?), and then got dolled up and went to see the local production of Phantom of the Opera. Which was... great. I was surprised at the spectacular voices they had, as the Aberdeen area is not especially large. They had rented the staging and the costumes, so that helped production quality, but the singing was fantastic, and the show was a lot of fun.
Then today we had birthday celebration, and I took a nap, and then drove back home, where I have been pinned down by my cat ever since.
So, we're going to skip up to recent things, and hopefully I'll go back and fill in some later. Hopefully.
The short overview:
* 7V happened, and was awesome and not as exhausting as expected!
* Then my mom came to visit. House looked like a tornado had hit it, and then my cat had shed on everything. Thankfully mom is awesome, and helped me get things under control again. Which is good, because...
* I had a surprise houseguest in the form of one of my brother's business partners, Hans. He's awesome, and I love hosting him, but I got about 24 hours of notice, so I was VERY glad mom and I had gotten so much done earlier.
Then this weekend was so busy!
The Rose City Yarn Crawl was this weekend. I managed to go to a bunch of stores on Thursday night, and then had some time to kill before I joined Hans and Co for dinner in Portland. No point in going back up to Vancouver just to turn around, so I went to a few more. And then... then I was awfully close to having gone to all of them. Each store, aside from sales and a free-with-purchase pattern, and trunk shows, and demos, and hand massages, and tea and cookies, and all sorts of great things, also had a big gift basket that they were having a drawing for. Seriously, each one was "maaaaaybe you can put your arms around it" big. And if you went to all 19 stores, you got entered into a "bring an empty car" kind of big gift basket.
Sooo... so suddenly I was close. But, I told myself, I am going to see my parents on Saturday, and that is a 3 hour drive. I do not have time to drive all over to the remaining 6 stores. But, said my wonderful enabler Mendoza, you are so close. And instead of having a pit full of plastic balls to dive in, you could have it full of yarn. So, saturday morning found me driving all over western and southern Portland (quite west. Like, Forest Grove west). I turned in my completed, stamped passport, and the woman was so thrilled - no one else had finished at her store thus far. Apparently our photo is up on her company's facebook page.
So, I did it! I crawled all over, and there was yarn. I managed not to buy too much but it was really great - got a good lay of the land, saw what was available where, and figured out what yarn I want to order for a future project (and found another future project. And got more sock yarn. And some more roving. Which I need to get more of, because I love it and want to make it into a sweater, and need more).
Then, then I finally went to my parents' place. Where my dad tried very hard to get me to go car shopping with him (my car is dying, and he worries). I managed to not do that, though we did talk cars, and that was good. need to get serious about shopping in the near future.
We had dinner (Birthday dinner, even, which is very very late because everyone in my family has been insanely busy since, oh, Thanksgiving, so hey, what is a month and a half late?), and then got dolled up and went to see the local production of Phantom of the Opera. Which was... great. I was surprised at the spectacular voices they had, as the Aberdeen area is not especially large. They had rented the staging and the costumes, so that helped production quality, but the singing was fantastic, and the show was a lot of fun.
Then today we had birthday celebration, and I took a nap, and then drove back home, where I have been pinned down by my cat ever since.