Starting 2009 right

My parents came for a visit today - for like the first time in 7 years or something!  They live only 30 minutes away, but for my mother driving to "the big city" is a major deal!  They live in Monroe, which is pretty small, and she's just not very confident with going places she doesn't know well.  My dad decided this morning to come with her, which I think she was a little disappointed about since we'd planned a big day of shopping if she'd come alone.  I know she was pretty relieved to have him driving though!  I told myself I wouldn't freak out and try to clean like crazy - but as I was laying on my stomach over the toilet to wipe built up dust off the baseboards, I realized that I was indeed getting a little crazy!  And stupid - they were certainly not going to notice the yucky baseboards, but were surely going to notice the guitar case laying over the living room chair, and the blanket balled up on the ottoman and other crap that I'm just so used to looking at that it doesn't even seem like clutter to me!  But, just as I was trying to convince myself, they were just happy to visit and definitely weren't there to nitpick or compare my housekeeping to my mothers (which I'd never win anyway - she does things like wipe out the oven after dinner - give me a break!)  I think, if I'm being honest, another reason their visit to my place kind of freaked me out, was because when I go to their house I can maintain the regular me and present the me that I think they ought to see while I'm there.  I mean it's not like I'm cutting cocaine on my coffee table or something, but it's just comfortable privacy,  you know?  But anyway, My mom seemed to love looking at all the stuff sitting around - I'm a nick nack-y kind of person, and her house is much neater and less filled with little things everywhere you look.  For some reason I kind of thought she'd see it as a lot of crap everywhere, but I think she just though it was very "Chris".  I really don't know why I worry so much - I'm nearly 35 and I guess it's time to stop worrying about being who I think my parents want me to be (really, I'm the one who puts these rules on myself - my parents have never given me grief about anything!  I don't know why I do this to myself!)  Anyway, they also got to see my loom, and I warped it last night to show it to them in action - they were impressed.  I used some Cascade Sassy Stripes that I've had forever because I thought it might do some pretty cool things when woven, and I was right - it's neat looking:  I decided just to make a decent sized piece of fabric just for the sake of weaving it, and maybe if I do this several times I can sew them together into a crazy blanket.  Hmm, now that I see in in the picture, it's a little country-ish, eh?  it's really navy and light blue - not blue and white, but I don't guess that makes it any less country, does it?  Perhaps when it's all together with other stuff it'll be better.

 I took them to the North Dayton Garden center and, as I suspected, my mom loved it!  I got a couple new plants for my terrarium (i.e. replacements for things that have died in said terrarium) and this funny owl planter.  All in all, it was a really nice visit, and my mom says she'll come back up now that she sees it isn't such a bad drive.    It was a nice way to start the year!

Another thing I promised myself for this year is to always have a pair of socks on the needles, so on Friday I cast on for the Child's French Socks from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks - they aren't child-sized, but the original pattern was.  She updated all these vintage sock patterns and I really love a lot of them in this book. This will be my first pair, which is ridiculous considering how long ago I bought it. 

 I'm using some CTH that I got at the Busy Beaver - it's hard to capture the color in the picture, but it's very subtly shaded with bright aqua and then slightly darker and lighter variations of that color.  Lovely!  I've also been working on my Selbu Modern which is coming along pretty quickly!  I think it's going to be fantastic when it's done - honestly I haven't seen a bad one on Ravelry yet, so I think it's just a great pattern and a beautiful hat that can't be ruined!  I probably shouldn't have said that - now mine will somehow go south before it's finished!  

Aah - going to go relax and knit since my cleaning is all done and there are none of the usual Saturday chores!