Utah

is where I flew to, to help out my Mom for a few weeks.  Despite my unhappiness with my current job,  on the plus side they are super wonderfully OK with me working remotely. Mom is getting ankle surgery, and won't be able to drive for some time. She'll be having a hard enough time hobbling.

(What are those weird black and white squares in the middle of the Nevada/Utah desert? Alien invasion? Secret government plant? I have no idea.)

So I'm not really all that happy to be back in Utah, because it's always sort of a culture shock, and there's also a long history I'd rather not go into. Also March in Utah is more or less Brown, with a side of weather inversion smog if you're near the city. With the occasional White when it dumps snow. On say, Easter.

But that's beside the point. It's just late right now, and I'm missing my Love Monkey. Mom and I will have a good time.  She is a huge doily knitter, and has promised to show me the nifty cast-on start for tiny centers of doilies, as I have become just a teency bit obsessed with some Herbert Niebling patterns lately.

Other obsessions: indigo dyed silk organzine, linen, and lace bamboo from Habu. Laos naturally dyed handspun silk and cotton gima (look at that navy!)  Yes, the current color obsessions is all blues. I have to keep reminding myself, I am trying to divest my yarn, not acquire more yardage.

I leave you with a picture of one of the ads from The Workbasket, a magazine to which my grandmother subscribed. (Grandma was a huge doily knitter too, back when it wasn't so easy to get knitted doily patterns. This is from her Big Binder o' Doilies). August 1963.

Cookie, you do the eye boggle so much better than me.

March.

I seem to have skipped the bulk of February. No, really, I don't even much remember what happened. Work during the week, knit, post yarn for sale on Rav, send packages, sleep. Weekends we try to get out and explore, at least a little.

Seagulls down at the pier by Fisherman's Wharf.

And looking forward to this:

I just got back from a week in Hawaii. We took my Mom this time. She'd never been before.

(I have a lot of these. I seem to have a weakness for sunsets).

The condo we stayed in looked right out over the (relatively shallow) water between Maui and 2 other islands, and there were SO many whales. It was hard to look out the window and NOT see whales. One memorable sunset, right as the sun went down, a calf and a full size humpback took turns breeching right outside. I think the adult was teaching the little one.

It looked like this in the mornings.

Hawaii wasn't quite the shock to the system it's been before (a good shock), since SF's winter weather isn't dark, rainy, and cold like Portland. It was still wonderful. I spent the week mostly unplugged. We went snorkeling, and hiking, and also just swimming and paddling about in the water, in between breaks to knit and read for hours. Lovely.

Black sand beach. A little harder on the toes and foots than regular sand, but interesting.

Now, back to reality. You'd think it'd be easier to do things you don't want to do, after a week off, but no, it's the opposite.