What the....?

Know what this is?:

One clue:

I absolutely didn't see the ice that was covered by the snow on our driveway and was shocked to find myself on the ground.  Of course, then I realized that is the spot in the driveway that always has a puddle and it would follow that when it got really cold, it would turn to ice.  Der.  I hate that.  I was on my way to the yarn shop for the knit-a-long --- needless to say, that plan got abandoned.  I limped back into the house, covered in snow and spent 10 minutes trying to walk around and see if I could still go to the knit-a-long.  All the while, Paul is following me around, rolling his eyes at me because he thinks I should just stay home and put ice on it.  In then end I realized he was right. Went to the doctor yesterday and it is just a bad sprain.  Foot up.  Lots of ice (aha! so, ice can be helpful after it trips you up.....).  Lots of TLC from Paul!

On the knitting front:
I've been working on a knitting commission project for a customer at the shop.  An entrelac scarf made with Noro Silk Garden:

Oh great - this sideways picture thing again...

I have known how to do entrelac but had abandoned a scarf I had been making a couple of years ago since it was very tedious to me.  I just couldn't seem to remember the pattern and had to constantly refer to it, and it just went so slowly.  Well, this commissioned project has cured me of that!  I have the pattern committed to memory and it is going along nicely.  The customer wanted me to use 5 balls of yarn which equals 550 yards and an approximately 70" scarf.  Almost done and should be able to give it to her this weekend.  By the way, aren't those colors so pretty?????

And here is the progress I'm making on the knit-a-long socks:

I'm just about to the heels.  I decided to knit both socks at the same time on two sets of double pointed needles, in order to decrease the likelihood of Second Sock Syndrome.  For those who don't know, Second Sock Syndrome is the inability to knit the second sock of a pair, because after you finish the first one, it feels like you should be done with your project and moving on to the next thing, but you can't because you have a whole 'nother sock to make.  And socks take a loooooong time to knit.
Skinny yarn + skinny needles =  a looooong time
So, to combat this, I'm knitting a little on one, then a little on the other and it's working like a charm.  I feel like I'm making good progress and know they will be done almost at the same time.

I mentioned the Umaro blanket in a recent post but didn't have a picture, so I'm putting it here:

Haven't worked on it recently but it will soon be in rotation.  I've also gotten another knitting commission from a customer at the yarn shop so I'll have to work that in too.

In other news, I got this from Amazon recently:

It's an acupressure neck pillow.  I saw it on another blog and the person had great success with it.  It's used to help reduce stress and tension in your neck.  I've used it a couple of times so far and it's a little strange but definitely relaxing --- which might also be because you are laying there for 10 minutes not doing anything else. The jury is still out as to if the acupressure things are what's doing the trick.  They are supposed to help release endorphins.

This came in the same box:

Hopefully this will help me with my picture taking.   Haven't had a chance to look at it yet.  First I have to figure out this thing with Blogger turning my pictures sideways (even the ones I didn't purposely turn).

On the home improvement front --- refinishing the stairs....

Lots of adventures, staining every other step and having to go up the stairs two at a time for a few days while all the clear coats dried/cured (which has been especially fun with a sprained ankle); sticky notes to remind us what stairs were ok to step on; keeping the cat and the dog off of them; sitting on the cat in the middle of the night because we thought we had kept her from coming upstairs but apparently not.  Next up is painting the risers, but that should be fairly adventure-less.  We hope.