I hope you all had a lovely weekend.  Bill and I went camping at Pinnacles National Monument.  It’s our second visit to this park, and it was a tad bit more pleasant in April than in August.  Being twenty-five degrees cooler can make life more comfortable. Also, the park was in bloom and lush from all the winter and early spring rain.  And there were frogs!  Lots of ribbiting going on.

This was definitely the best camping trip that Bill and I have taken.  It was my ideal version of how camping should be.  Lots of noise, but good noise. People having fun and laughing, children playing, frogs ribbiting, occasional yells of excitement or trying to get someone’s attention, the subtle hum of miscellaneous conversations, fires crackling, birds chirping, guitars being strummed. And most importantly, no radios.  I can tolerate almost any other noise in the outdoors except for a radio, even if it’s my kind of music.

We bought a new tent for this trip. We call it the Taj. It is huge. In fact, we can fit our old tent inside the new tent with lots of room to spare.  Actually, our air mattress doesn’t even fit inside our old tent. Well, it might but you’d have to put it in the tent uninflated  and then once it was inflated, you’d be about a foot from the top of the tent. The photo above is my favorite from the weekend, and it shows how dorky we are. That’s us in our old tent on top of our air mattress inside the new tent.

It was a relatively quiet and relaxing weekend.  We set up camp on Friday, made dinner, and went to bed. Boy did I sleep well, especially with a decent air mattress. The temperature did drop at night and at one point I woke up and my face was freezing!  So I flipped my sleeping back around so that my hood covered my face.  Problem solved.  It also made it very dark and I slept soundly until 8am.

Saturday, we hiked.  We almost didn’t hike as I started to pull out my clothes and realized that I never packed my pants.  I had the pants I wore the day before and my jeans.  Ack!  There are definitely worse things I could have forgotten, and it wasn’t a big deal, just about five seconds of panic.  After breakfast, we started on our  relaxing 8.9 mile jaunt, with a 1200 foot elevation gain in the first three miles.  It kicked my butt, but it was fun.  The view was beautiful and it was nice to see a lot of green and to admire the different wildflowers.  We took our time, tried to have fun and ignore the profuse amounts of sweat, heavy breathing, burning legs and unrelenting sun.  We had a nice break for lunch around the five mile mark and gave our legs a much needed rest. Then we continued on to the caves where the “excitement” began.

We’ve done the caves before, but it was more treacherous in the spring.  There’s water running in all the springs, and there’s a spring that runs through the caves.  Water tends to make rocks slippery.  Very slippery.  I took those sections on my butt and it still required a lot of concentration.  We were almost out of the caves when we heard this horrible crashing noise.  At the time, we didn’t realize what it was, until we saw the man sliding down the rocks.  He was able to stop himself so that Bill didn’t have to break his fall, but the man was in a lot of pain.  I’ve always wondered how I would react under pressure, and I’m pleased to report that both Bill and I were calm and efficient.  I have carried around first aid supplies for the three years I’ve been hiking and until now, I have never needed them.  We were able to give him a cold compress, clean his wounds, apply antiseptic, give him some ibuprofen, keep him company, and help him out of the cave.  It wasn’t the best first aid as there were a lot of things I didn’t do that I probably should have done, but he was ambulatory and most of his wounds appeared to be superficial. Our other “issue” was that there was no cell service, we were at least 1.5 miles from the ranger station, and his car and friends were in the opposite direction of our car.  I didn’t feel comfortable leaving him to walk back by himself, but I wasn’t sure that we could add an extra three miles to our hike.  At the trailhead where we would have parted ways, we tried to find some people that were heading back in his direction so they could keep an eye on him, but no such luck.  I was concerned about him going into shock or getting disoriented, even though the man thought he would be okay, but he was in pain.  We decided that I would wait at the trailhead with our packs, and Bill would start back with the wounded hiker and hopefully, we could find someone to take over for Bill.  If not, Bill felt confident that without his pack, he could make it all the way to the ranger station and back and still be able to make it back to our car.  My first thought  was “Damn, why did I leave my book in the tent.” As it turns out, Bill was back in twenty minutes after they had been overtaken by another couple who agreed to help. I’m sure there are plenty of things we could have or should have done differently, but I think we provided that man with some comfort in a scary situation.

I wish I could say the rest of the trip was uneventful.  The remainder of our hike was, except for the five itty bitty snakes we saw.  The rest of the excitement came the following morning when we went to start the car and the battery was dead.  We should have realized the potential for a problem when Bill had trouble starting the car after our hike, but we were too tired to notice.  With all the opening and closing and in and out of the car that evening, that was all it took. We had been planning on another hike before heading home, but those plans changed. Thankfully, a family across from us had jumper cables and was able to help us out.  How quickly the tables can turn, from helping to needing help.

While more “exciting” than we expected, it was a beautiful weekend.

I’m super good at starting projects.  Lately, my desire / momentum / ability to finish projects has been in question.  I’ve slowly finished some projects that have been languishing.  Last week, I finished knitting my lacy baktus shawl.  But it took me another week to weave in the ends, wash and block it.  Lacy Baktus:  truly finished yesterday!

I started a sweater in January and knit about 80% of it in two weeks.  The sleeves were giving me trouble, I went to London, lost all will to work on projects in February and most of March, and then finally picked it up at the beginning of April.  I was able to get a sleeve done to my satisfaction.  (The problem was the pattern didn’t call for any decreasing so the part around my forearm was huge.)  I ripped out the first sleeve and redid it to match the other sleeve and wove in the ends, sewed on the buttons and then realized I was short two buttons!  It didn’t stop me from washing and blocking although I’m having trouble tracking down the last two buttons.  As I’m typing this my husband has walked in and handed me two buttons from the Joann near his office!!  Valentine Sweater:  to be finished tonight once I sew in those last buttons!

I started some pajama bottoms in November and just finished them last night.  One pair is flannel.  Not sure how helpful those will be in April, but oh well.    I do my pj bottoms with french seams which look great, but are a pain.  They essentially take twice as long to sew and the ironing is not so fun, but once they are done they look great!  3 Pairs PJ bottoms:  done last night!

I cleaned out my knitting basket on Tuesday and finished a couple of baby hats I started in November of 2007 when a friend was pregnant.  I finished the hats for her twins but had the idea to make a couple for my etsy store.  It only took 30 months, but they are done.  Not listed in the store, but done.  2 Baby Hats:  done Tuesday night!

I’ve also started a few more projects.  On Tuesday night I casted on a new top down sweater to be knit in cotton.  I’ve cut fabric to make Bill two pairs of cotton PJ bottoms.  The ones he has are all flannel.  I cut fabric for two tops, one of which I’m going to start in tonight’s sewing class.   My zig zag quilt which I started about a week and a half ago is coming along nicely.

Anyhoo, tonight is my sewing class.  I’m an experienced sewist, but am mostly self taught.  I’ve watched my mom and read lots of stuff on the internets, but I’ve never had any real training.  I decided to take a class to unlearn my bad habits and get tips, hints, tricks, etc.  Last week was the first class and it was fun!  We started with the basics and once our fabric was cut, the instructor let me go at my own pace since I have sewn before.  I was able to ask questions as I went along and I learned a few things.  It was also nice to be out with other women and makes me realize I do need to get out of the house more.  This week starts a three session class and because I got so much done on my first project last week, I was told I could bring in a new project.  This class is set up as a sort of independent study where you can work on your own but you have a resource available for questions.  I think this is perfect for me.  So tonight I am bringing a tunic style top that has darts.  I’ve never sewn darts and now I can get some help.

Between finishing projects, updating things on ravelry, starting new projects, I’m feeling quite energized!  Now if only I could get my craft room under control, life would be near perfect!

I’m all about the zig zags these days.  Zig zag patterns are very popular these days.  As a beginner quilter, I found this tutorial that achieves the zig zags without using triangles.  Yay!  I had a bunch of Heather Bailey Pop Garden fabric and I added to my collection and found a great green to break up the prints.  I’m making this quilt for my living room, and green is my accent color in that room.  I love to have a quilt on my lap while I watch tv or nap on the couch.

I started cutting the fabric last week and finally finished it up the cutting and piecing Wednesday night.  Yesterday I washed the floor in my craft room so that I could lay out the quilt.  When will Margaret wash the floor in her craft room?  Once she needs to lay fabric on it.

Bill came home from work to this.

See my helper?  Doesn’t she look all innocent?  She got bored and hopped up into her chair.  Bill and I headed out for a bite to eat.  We came home to this.

I think she’s saying “don’t you like this better, Mom?”

I’m starting to put the quilt together and am very pleased with it!

Sunday was my sweetie’s birthday. Poor guy didn’t quite get the celebration he deserved. I got sick last Monday and it knocked me out. I had been hoping to be better in time for his birthday, but six days later I was still pretty sick. I did get out of my sick bed last Friday night to go see the Black Eyed Peas in concert. This was Bill’s big present so I tried to rally. It was a great show, but not as fun as it could have been. Part of the problem was that we had general admission floor tickets. We didn’t exactly realize that it meant standing for three plus hours while holding our coats. Normally, not a big deal, but for someone who’s sick, it was exhausting. On the positive side, they put on a great show! It was high energy and visually appealing. We were less than 20 feet from the end of a catwalk that extended from the stage. I swear I made eye contact with Taboo at least twice. Bill enjoyed himself. He had a nice view of Fergie.

I called the doctor and got antibiotics on Monday. It has really, really helped. On Tuesday, I resumed my daily walks and then made Bill his birthday cake. I think maybe I should have napped first, because it was not my best cake. I made Martha Stewart’s Pineapple Mango Upside Down Cake. I’ve made it before with great success, but this time I left out a step and doubled the amount of butter I was supposed to put in. Oy! The cake still tasted good, but I was disappointed it wasn’t perfect.

Bill’s birthday signifies another important anniversary. It’s the one year anniversary of me being a Californian! One year ago I worked my last day, hopped on a plane, and landed at 1am on Bill’s birthday. It was such a relief to be with him, on a permanent basis once again. I probably shouldn’t make his special day about me, huh?

Happy belated birthday to my sweetie! You’re the bestest.