And the dishwasher lives

It's been a busy time around here. I've been knitting. Yep, really. I'm up to square 133 on The Everlasting Blanket. I've bought yarn for it from Yarn Expressions and Robyn's Nest :: Kits :: Mini Skein Club and I'm happy with both purchases. The mill ends and the mini skeins are perfect for this project and I won't need any yarn for it for a while. I can get two squares out of each of the mini skeins and way more than that from the mill ends that I bought.

I've also completed five pair of Eleanor socks by Gigi Silva. One for me and four pink pair for the granddaughters. (6 skeins down)

I'm officially tired of the pattern now. Five pair of the same pattern is too much. I've started a pair of plain socks in a nice bright green for my grandson. On the upside, it's stash yarn so I'll be down another skein.

In the middle of all this knitting my dishwasher just stopped working in the middle of a cycle. I thought the Yarn Harlot might have jinxed me when she blogged about hers going down. I left it be that night, mostly because I was afraid that I'd start beating on it and I knew that wouldn't help at all. The next day I started it with a little prayer and it's been working ever since. I'm taking the view that it was a warning and it could go at any time. It is, after all, 15 years old. In that 15 years we raised kids (6 of them) and that means a lot of dishes. I don't know how many loads, but I do know we got our money's worth out of it and now we're getting bonus time.

The scarf I started is sitting beside my chair waiting for me to find time to play with it. The alpaca tickles my nose and that causes me to sneeze so it's just sitting there waiting it's turn to be the top project. Of course, it's in the seventies here so I don't really need an alpaca scarf at the moment. I plan to finish it before winter. Winter 09.

I need to finish my granddaughter's sweater. It needs sewing up and bands. That will be finished sometime in April. Or at least I hope so.

In the meantime, I'm playing in the garden. I have been picking lettuce, broccoli, and cabbage. The onion sets are up and looking pretty as is the garlic. The tomatoes are in the garden bed, although not very big yet and the cucumbers are putting on blossoms. I haven't put the bell peppers into the garden yet because I need to pick some more cabbage before they have a spot to go in. It won't be long. We have four of those Topsy Turvy tomato growing bags and last year they worked well so I'm going to put some cherry and grape tomatoes in them again. (We eat a lot of tomatoes and fresh salsa around here during growing season.) I put in some green onions the other day and some squash and zucchini went in yesterday. I'm looking forward to a bountiful harvest this year.

Hopefully, things will slow down a bit so that I can post a little more frequently. It seems that my life is hectic even when I don't accomplish anything.