The first Babcock peach blossom, opened today as expected, and the other two peach trees. All in a year’s growth.

I finished the aqua silk shawl, I finished the aqua silk shawl! With about two yards left on the cone while the last pattern repeat was over 5000 stitches. So close. I would have liked to have done at least an extra row knit plain at the bottom but I just didn’t dare chance it. Good thing I stopped.

And…I came into Purlescence late tonight.

I had made a blueberry cake (with a little fresh-squeezed Meyer lemon added) for Valentine’s breakfast tomorrow, and I’d been waiting for it to be done before I could go.

I pulled it out of the oven with one hand with a toothpick in the other to test it–and that’s when I found out the oven mitt I’d grabbed had a spot where the insulation had worn through, and in my sudden scramble to get Don and Cliff’s pan to the stove fast before I burned my hand any further, I tripped over my own foot.

Now, it’s a running joke here as to which of us is the klutzier, but I think I took the cake on this one. I called out to Richard to come and see, because it was funny if nothing else: a third had landed in a clean saute pan on the stove, safe! Some of course had landed on the stove, but most stayed more or less inside the pan, even if not quite arranged the same way.

Four cups was a lot of blueberries–it was supposed to be three. I goofed.

He came around the corner in a hurry, wanting to help–just as I, while trying to finally put that cake pan the rest of the way carefully down, managed to flip the handle on the saute pan, blueberry shrapnel suddenly firing right at him.

He said something about how he could only make it worse and backed out of there fast.

Tomorrow we shall beat a tasty re-treat on this thing.

I know the old name for these cakes was blueberry buckle but I don’t think that’s what they intended.

I’ve been debating saying it for awhile. Who likes a show-off? And yet, since saying oh wow I finally finished the 450th stitch on row 49! is kinda boring, here goes.

I got talked into signing up for one of these flash-sale sites because, should I ever actually buy something, the someone who referred me there would get $25 towards her next purchase. And I was actually in the market for a new purse.

I had been for quite some time, long enough for the zipper to break on one old purse and for the next also-old one to show its age badly in ways that were not repairable either. I had not bought a new one in easily a dozen years. The problem was that I knew exactly what I wanted and it did not seem to exist and I did not want to spend money on something that was so personal if it would be a disappointment.

I am spoiled as a fiber artist: I remember when we were car shopping in ’99, looking at the ugly tan minivan we ended up with– “Champagne” in Chrysler-speak–and wishing I could dunk it in a dyebath to get the color up to speed.

I wondered more recently if you could boil leather with some of my fiber dyes and not wreck a Chrysler-color purse. I’m not a many-handbags type (even if I do have a few old ones I’ve never let go to Goodwill. The one I bought with my grandmother Christmas money 30 years ago when I was a new mom? It stays. Forever.) I’m a buy-one-wear-it-out type.

It couldn’t have lots of dividers that take up good yarn-project space. It had to be able to hold the Ipad I don’t actually have yet, although we do have one between us. Wide enough, definitely, for the handicapped placard to slip into after finding that my small Grandmother purse is useless for that. Something soft, sturdy, leather, on the big side for knitting’s sake but not too heavy for when the arthritis is flaring.

So I was looking at that site one day, something I’d avoided doing because who wants to even go near the temptation over perfectly frivolous stuff?

That one! Richard, look! There it was. (One of my kids saw it too on her own computer and went Oh, that is so Mom.)

I gave myself a goodly while to think about it. Nope, still there however many days later, down to three left.

Charlotte Ronson was the brand (not a name I knew) but the price was actually as good as some at the leather-goods store at the outlet mall a long hike from here. And a whole lot prettier. Well huh. And I wouldn’t even have to brave the crowds.

The end result is that I told my husband that it could be birthday and Christmas and Mother’s Day for however long to come he might like, but after years and years I had at last found the one and only purse I actually really thought was ever so perfectly perfect and worth the splurge. And the color!

And he, sweetheart that he is, bought it for me. A week before we found out we were going to be forced to blow $13 grand on the heating system. I was quietly glad as I put the box away for the wait, and he, bless him, was too because it made me so happy. I skipped the birthday and waited till Christmas, and–it still surprises me every day how grateful I am for this thing. It still makes me happy every time I look at it. It is so soft. It is sturdy but it is surprisingly lightweight. The color is exquisite. It is tall, snapping shut at the top, and holds quite a bit of knitting if asked. It not only has an Ipad pocket that also snaps shut, it has knitted cables embossed into the leather on that large pocket. Knitted. While the lining is a light color that makes it easy to find everything.

Charlotte Ronson, whoever you may be out there, (oh look a link!) thank you.

Best of all, it represents far more than any material good has any right to that my husband loves me and looks out for me. It made me happy so it made him happy, and I’ve tried to respond in kind moment by every moment and to live up to his generosity.

It’s such an odd thing in this life to be perfectly satisfied, needing no more. I have all that I might ever want.

Thirty-three years, I think it’s been–that hat is OLD. That hat was knit before we were parents. That hat was knit in doubled worsted wool on straights and seamed (I had to look for it–I did a pretty good job, who knew.) Gauge swatch? What’s that? Decreases? That’s, like, knit two stitches at the same time, right? Circs? I’d never tried them.

And yet somehow I concocted this hat for my 6’8″ husband. It came out, um, even for him, a little big. As in he vanishes down to his shoulders if he puts it straight on.

I stumbled across it tonight and told him,  thinking out loud, You know–I could cut the top off, frog it back to where the ribbing starts, and we could have a thick warm cowl out of that thing.

He got this big goofy grin on his face and took it from my hands and pulled it down over his nose, a big poof in back.  “That’s MY hat!” he protested, and you could just make out the grin under the bottom of the wool. Did he want to model it, then? Nooooo, no he did not thankyouverymuch as he made silly half-faces at me.

Just in case there are any new knitters reading this: we all start out as beginners.

That thing makes for great peek-a-boo games with the grandsons.

It’s not just one or two blossoms anymore, it’s several branches. I’m beginning to be able to see just how gorgeous my yard is going to be in Spring in a few years as these trees grow up.

We were talking to Sam last night and I was marveling to her that we had flowers. On a peach tree. In January!

She did one of those shake-your-head-ruefully-while-laughing moments, and answered, Let me tell you: WE’VE got things in bloom. A type of shrub and a type of tree, dunno what they are yet, but, yes, they’ve got flowers on’em.

Me, stunned: In *ALASKA*?!!! In *JANUARY*?!!!

She affirmed: In Alaska. In January. We were warmer than Florida, so, I guess… But…yeah. They’re blooming. It’s the weirdest thing.

Nina’s birthday party. She loved her new silk cowl. We met new and old friends, had a great time…

And coming up our front walkway, Richard heard the beeping of the freezer alarm I made from a Heathkit kit for a college class my senior year at BYU.

Actually, he reminds me, ours was the second one I made, the class assignment one I gave to my folks. Oh right. It had seemed like a good thing to have, and all these years later ours is still working and I imagine theirs is too. He dashed into the garage from the house. (Hey, nobody uses garages to put cars in in California.)

Six hours bounced wide open.

But it actually didn’t appear too terrible. The chicken is now thawing the rest of the way in the fridge and the other things towards the front were berries and the like that could refreeze safely.

But Nina loved her cowl. Which balanced things nicely.

I now know what a zip gun is, and yes the kid who brought two weapons to school is in custody. I’ll let my teenage niece tell it, and I quote:

“2 incredibly ironic things about today:
1. after living in the middle east for four years, my high school in the US is where they find a “potential explosive device”
2. the most traumatic part of today was not the bomb threat at my high school but watching downton abbey”

Kid’s got spunk, that’s for sure.

And we all lived happily after.

(Blood test results so far: normal. Normal. Normal. Normal. Whoops, not that one, that one, nor that one, and we still have the Stanford test to go, but I think the things they were most worried about they aren’t now. I think.)

Hudson and Parker discover the idea of trampolines.

And a good time was had by all.

(Oh and: I got a message from Steve. He saw that sign I mentioned yesterday in a shop that sells fake ones relating to various eras and got a good laugh over it and put it high on the wall at Milk Pail just for fun.)

I have an appointment with a new doctor tomorrow. He had my oldest as a patient when she was in her late teens/early twenties.

Which is why (being a mom and all) I now have a printout tucked away in my bag waiting to show off with: her doctoral thesis in molecular immunology, with my thanks for his efforts towards her good health.

The after picture, then the before one again–just amazing.

The guy pushed the button, that home page popped up for him, then he turned it around to where I could see it to show me the work his hands had done today. He clearly had been looking forward to seeing the look on my face and it is safe to say he was not disappointed.

My knitting, meantime, had been stumbling for a few days over a puzzlement in a pattern I’d been creating.

After dropping the Ipad off for repairs, I went to deliver a project a half hour north I’d done in superfine Malabrigo Finito. I’d been waiting for Kathryn‘s vacation to be over; I knew there had been two funerals in her family since Thanksgiving, and making her something as soft as possible from yarn from her shop had felt absolutely compelling. And now after all that happened in our own family in the past month, finally I could get it to her!

She was disbelieving. Thrilled. She’d even put on an outfit this morning that totally matched it, and I went home and dove right into the next project. That’s all it took. After a good start on that I put it down, eyed the problematic piece, finally knew what it needed and got on with it. Kathryn did me a great favor that she had no way to know about.

The new project will be the carry-around mindless one that I knew I was going to be needing tomorrow and had been trying to push myself to begin. And now I have–with more Finito she gifted me right back with. It makes me happy to look at.

I waited for the call.

It took two and a half hours and the going rate of $129.95 plus tax for the parts. My sweetie was ecstatic to see how perfect his Ipad looked again so fast.

And we are good to go.

The bigger they are the harder they fall. He walked in the door upset with himself.

I thought it made a pretty pattern, actually–quite a useless one, but you look for beauty where you can find it, right? Turn it sideways, see that riff on Van Gogh’s Starry Night? (Says the daughter of an art dealer.)

I told him how glad I was that his Ipad 2 had taken the impact, not him.

Then I went and looked up repair places, giving him a break from dealing with it for a moment. $129.95 plus shipping time and two years’ warranty on the new screen? He uses it for work–you do what you gotta do, but those places are out of state. Anyone local who knows anyone local who’s good, let me know. Thanks.

Meantime, Happy Birthday to my sister Carolyn!

See how innocent it looks. Not a soupcon of suspicion. (Chicken noodle soup on the side for his foggybraining head cold.)

BPA-free package, the Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Soup box said. The flap was solid across, no indented dots, just, Squeeze in at the four corners to open. Odd.

My hands just plain weren’t big enough and clearly weren’t strong enough. I would just have gone and gotten the scissors and been done with it but curiosity got the better of me–was that really the right way to open such a thing? Thwarted, I didn’t see how it made sense.

My friend Lynda was talking about words that the English language needs to have.

He didn’t get up and come into the kitchen, he just helpfully took the package from my hands. He didn’t read the instructions, he just queried me and I helpfully parroted again what the thing said, so, okay: and my 6’8″ husband with his great big hands gave that little box a good short hard squish suddenly with the bottoms of both palms in the very instant that I knew too late to beg him to forget what I said and not, just, not.

English fails for when you’re suddenly helpless, crying, laughing, quite unable to stand upright, utterly dissolved–but at the same time also very sorry that you’re totally losing it in front of someone who’s paying for the source of that mirth and incurred it for your own sake and you know it though he would never say it and ohmygoodness.

Mentos and coke. Snowblowers hitting a row of jack o’lanterns. Think redhead with highlights, spaghetti sauce around toddlers, the shirt, the pants, the hair, the chair, the desk, the floor: nailed’em all.

Bless him, he thought it was funny, too, though honestly perhaps not quite so much. (Where do you want me to put these, dear? Washing machine, right? Yes please, I answered, trying to be meek and thanking him for helping me. There have been random snorts of laughter all evening since. Geysers! I’m sorry, honest I am. Butbutbutbut. !!)

I think that Amazon gift certificate from my brother might need to go to a new keyboard, maybe for insurance’s sake while we can still get the ergonomic ones cheap, but so far his still seems to be working after all.

After he got cleaned up he was even willing to eat some of that soup.  What fell back into the box was still left.

He remembered! The old miscommunication.

He was reading a good book and I was trying to redesign a pattern that had been almost good enough for way too long–Christmas knitting was over, it was time to get down to work.

At one point I announced into the quiet, just to get it out of my system, that I had just been counting stitches (and ripping) for an hour.  And then I got right back to it, glad to finally be on my way with the thing.

Till I got to–oooh. Oh that doesn’t work, does it, I mean you could, and I did last time, but, why? No way. The only thing to do was to go back almost to the beginning, and so I ripped and ripped yet again, the fifth time now, my determination to have that soft, gorgeous Tahitian Blue come out perfect being my one solace in all this.

And as the long waves of phone-corded baby alpaca/silk piled right back up in my lap my sweetie looked up from his page.

“But aren’t you using Frog Free yarn?”

Thank you all for the support; I’d been putting off saying anything but I really did want to be able to go back and remember when the Graves’ was diagnosed. Hey, if it distracts my immune system away from other stuff while being so treatable, good.

Meantime, we had someone drop by today and when he rang the doorbell, I asked the guy, You want to see something?

And so he stepped inside and followed to where I was pointing and there was the hawk on a post, framed by the sky, and I got to see the moment of wonder in his face.

He left and Coopernicus finished his meal–then flew not away but closer, landing at a nearby spot on the fence, shaking out his feathers a bit against the cold and basking in the last of the sun.

Then to the other side of the window, right there. I didn’t get anything done for a little while but just sat and enjoyed being with that beautiful bird. I had moved something out onto the patio and he had to explore every inch around it, gauging distances, hiding places. Hopping up on the metal seed can at the last and simply people watching me back.

I later came across some long-stashed possum/merino yarn I’d had no idea was still kicking around–thought I’d given that away. And yet, at last, it was just the thing: I’d wanted something with no dyes to crock that I could put on my hair when damp, having lost my white one, so when Richard asked what I wanted to do for New Year’s, feeling a bit under the weather, I answered simply, Knit a hat.

And so I did.

And without realizing it till I finished, I knitted the stripes in the tail and the beat of the wings.

A Happy New Year to you and may all of 2014 be a blessing.

(Oh, and, my New Year’s resolution? To finally get around to correcting that time stamp re Daylight Savings. The night is young.)

This is as close as we got to trying the digger sweater on him. Kim really wanted me to get to see him in it in person, but it’s okay. Note the flashlight in his hands: Parker is big on flashlights, he’d found one of Grampa’s super-duper ones, and no piece of clothing no matter how perfect was going to get in the way of holding on tight to it for every moment he was allowed to have it. Let there be light! And heavy!

All in good time. The sweater may well be better off washed and dried first anyway, with hopes that it might felt together a bit against inquisitive fingers; being superwash, it won’t shrink.

Hudson was back to happily snuggling into my shoulder today. (Grandma pro tip: wear a cashmere sweater for sensory bribery, handwashed a few times to increase the softness. A seven-dollar hand-me-down worked just fine.) He and Parker giggled at the antics of a finger puppet in their daddy’s hands at church–and then they all flew off for home.

And a good and far too brief time was had by all.

(Photo taken Friday.) One sick feverish normally-easygoing baby screaming nonstop from 9 pm last night, right after they left here, till at 2 am they headed to the ER, getting out of there with an ear infection diagnosis at 5 am.

We got a brief visit today. They were exhausted.