It's Monday, and It's Too Hot, and I'm Already Over It

Not that it matters, of course.  Summer weather is gonna do what it wants, no matter what I care.  It was a pretty awful weekend - heat, major humidity, and mosquito-fest.  In spite of the fact that I practically poured mosquito repellent on my entire person when heading out to water our flowers, those evil creatures feasted as if nothing was different.  Grrrrrrrr.

Which is why other than taking Hamlet out for walks, we both pretty much stayed put.  Things were done around the house, so it wasn't a complete loss, but no real garden time which was disappointing, since that had become a lovely way to spend the mornings.

In the continuing list of things that seem to make the world feel like it's working against us, our oven died a week ago.  The Tim thought that it just needed a part that he could likely install to work again - or at least to buy time - so he ordered it, and spent about an hour trying to install it before realizing that it would mean tearing out part of a wall.  And even then, as mentioned above, it would only be buying us time, since our stove is about 20 years old.  Since like most everyone, we have SO much extra money coming in while not being at work (one of us is laid off, one of us is getting paid 30% less of our salary), we bit the bullet and ordered a new one.  The good part here (and there is one) is that we ordered it from the manufacturer, so not only was it on sale for July 4th, but they had a payment plan where if you paid it off monthly in 12 months, there was no finance charge, so that at least will work out.  Supposedly it will be delivered sometime this week.  That would be nice.

I did finish knitting The Tim's shortie slipper socks, and though they look weird (yes, I did run out of the yarn I was using!) he is thrilled with them.   It's nice when someone goes with the flow like that.  It's also nice when yarn chicken happens on something that you are only going to wear around the house.  😌 I'll do an FO post this week so you can see how they turned out.

I also wound yarn for another project, and got started.  For reasons that even I can't really explain or understand, I decided to try the Stillness Shawl MKL.

Who am I???  I no longer know, apparently.  The first clue came out last Thursday, and yesterday I actually sat down and got going on it.  So far, I have learned the i-cord cast on, which is nice and pretty when it works, but meant that I started over about 8 times before I decided it was OK-looking and moved along.

Here are the yarns I've chosen:

Side view

Top view

Yesterday, while we were watching some things we had recorded, I finally got my cast on to be acceptable to me, and managed by the end of the day to knit ~70 rows.  So far, it's pretty reasonable, with a few rows where you have to pay attention, and then more rows where you just knit or purl, depending what side you are knitting.  

The Tim (when I was trying to get the cast-on to work):  Is that going to be a shawl?

Me:  Yep.  It's a Mystery Knit-Along, you get one clue a week.

The Tim (laughing):  Oh that sounds so exciting.

Half an hour later, after I had a nice amount done:

Me:  See, I'm about halfway through Clue #1, and this is what it looks like.

The Tim:  Oh cool, now I'm invested.

*****

So that's the news from here.  Summer is making itself known, mosquitoes are feasting on my person, I've not only joined a KAL, but have actually started knitting the project, and June is nearly over.  

BUT.

Something is getting ready to start again.

Stay tuned!