Talk about an interesting and busy weekend!  It started out of Friday, as I went to help a certain someone (my mom!) with this:

Blech.... a broken leg.  That pesky last step on a dimly lit stairway!  I went to the grocery store for her, got her a napsack and cooked dinner for her.  She is on the mend, although it's very understandably difficult and annoying to get around with that clunker.

As I got up early Saturday morning to get back to Altamont to teach two knitting classes, I was confronted with this:

More blech.  Luckily it didn't last long and the trip back was uneventful.  Finished up teaching the 2-socks-on-1-circular-needle class (only had 3 for the second class since 2 people decided they really didn't like the technique!  Ah, the casualties of knitting classes...) and the Baby Kimono class (very cute almost-finished projects from the participants!).

Sunday, Paul and I headed out to Massachusetts to visit our friends Pam and Tyler.  Tyler reads the blog faithfully and then tells Pam about it.  (Hi Tyler!  Say hi to Pam for me!)  Tyler is a talented carpenter and not a knitter, but gleans information from the blog anyway.  I was shocked when he told me he really related to my post about second sock syndrome.  What?  Really? When he has a task that involves many repetitions of the same thing (such as putting the moulding/casing on windows), he feels the same way as a knitter who has finished just one sock and feels the doom and gloom of needing to do a whole other sock in order to have a finished product and to wear them.  So when he read the part of my blog that had the solution to second sock syndrome (getting two sets of double points and working a little on one sock, then a little on the other, in order to have a complete pair done at the same time), he had a revelation and changed his whole process for doing the windows!  And it's much better now!  HOW GREAT IS THAT?  I have influence, people!

In Knitting News:
I finished the Summer Flies shawl:

This picture shows it unblocked.  I think it will grow a little and the ruffle will flatten out a little when I block it.  It does need to grow in order to comfortable fit around my shoulders.  I showed it to some friends at the shop and they convinced me that a class would be a good idea.  I think it will have to be a few short (1 hour) sessions, which is why I was originally waffling on the class idea.  I wasn't sure if people would want to have just an hour class on 3 consecutive weeks.  But, there seemed to be some interest, so we'll try it out!

Remember how I was supposed to be working on a work-in-progress (the Umaro blanket, specifically) before I started that Summer Flies shawl and how I didn't?  Well, I did it again.  But I have a good the same excuse.  It's for a class.....

I started the Cascade Luna - Top Down Summer Lace Cardigan Shrug, (I'm feeling like Cascade really needs to work on more inventive names for their patterns) a really cute short sleeved cardi knit with cotton yarn.  Perfect for spring/summer! Click on that link to see a picture of the finished product.  Here is my started version, made with Cascade Luna:

Hopefully I can get it knit this week so we can schedule a class for early-mid-late (that's specific huh?) May.

In Gardening News:
My Beekman 1802 newsletter told me that I can plant my tomato and pepper seeds indoors the second week of April!  Yay!  Can't wait.  All I need is some seed starting soil and I'm all set.  Also, Paul and I went to Home Depot on the weekend (see, I told you it was a busy weekend....oh and the trip to HD ended with ice cream...) to price up garden bed supplies and it looks like we can do it for about $200.  Not too bad for a start-up garden.

In Book News:
I finished reading Saving CeeCee Honeycutt: A Novel by Beth Hoffman, and enjoyed it.  It was a nice story of a 12 year old girl coming to terms with her mother's mental illness while going to live in Savannah with a great aunt.  Definitely not the exciting, suspenseful and mysterious books I've been reading lately, but it was a nice change from that.

Now, I'm trying for the final time to pick up The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Just giving it one last chance since so many have said that it really does get better once Lisbeth's character becomes more prominent (later in the book).  Not sure why I'm trying again.  Probably because I'm afraid I'm missing something good.