55 and On the Upswing

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me,
Happy birthday, dear Lynnie-poo, happy birthday to me!

Ha! It's amazing what the thought of vacation has done for my mind-set. It's still appalling weather, I'm still a size Large, and the paint is still peeling off every surface in the house, but hey! It's my birthday and I'm happy! Let's go with it while we can, OK? (No, I'm not going to eat this much chocolate every day even if it does improve my mood. I was happy today pre-chocolate, I'll have you know. I think it was because I had a peaceful weekend and I'm almost done with six months of hard slogging at work.)

Last night I was snuggled up in bed with a stack of old Interweave Knits - since my Swallowtail Shawl is yarn-overing right along again, after a bout of tink-ering, I want to knit more lace, of course. (See my reaction to weaving a rug.) In the course of my studies, I came upon Cat Bordhi's Streaming Leaves Shawl. Aha! I said, I want that NOW! I lept out of bed, pulled down the bin labeled "laceweight," and started pawing through in search of 1620 yards of something sportweightish. I know, I know, I said it was the laceweight bin, but we're being ecumenical here and I'm on a roll, don't stop me now or I'll go back to being cranky.

I found this. This is six skeins - about 9 ounces - of merino/angora, that I bought at Rhinebeck last year for $4 a skein. It's soft. It would make a wonderful shawl. It's truly laceweight, but I'll swatch (I swear upon my grandmother's knitting needles I'll swatch) until I find the right needles to give me just the right kind of gauzy, but not sleazy, fabric.

However, the color leaves something to be desired. Aha! I thought, for the second or third time in one post but actually on my way into work this morning, I'll stop on my way home and get some Kool-Aid. I carefully researched Kool-Aid colors over my lunch break and stocked up on 25 packets of Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade - a grand total of 5 bucks worth. I thought I had six skeins of 4 ounces each, and hence needed a packet of Kool-Aid for each ounce, but in fact I only had about 9 ounces of yarn. Thus, I mixed up a potion of 12 packets of Kool-Aid.

Not quite enough dye.

I mixed up the remaining vile blue potion and gently poured it into the pot. A gentle stir. A minute or two's wait.

Better, but still not enough dye. I see I'll be getting yet more Kool-Aid tomorrow. Hmm, as long as Kool-Aid's on sale, maybe I should see what else I should dye.

No matter. I'm still happy tonight. I'm swilling my wine and I'm about to go spin on the porch. Life is good.

And you know what else makes me happy? We all raised $32,548 for Claudia's and Michele's ride. We're just astounding, aren't we?