Big Sur Marathon

My team: My friend, Kathy has run in the Boston Marathon, and ran the leg of our race that was pretty much seven miles of up-hill running. Thanks to her I had a lot of downhill.Most of my run was in-land, but I did get a couple of nice views of the ocean. My friends, Dave and Pete took this pic from the bus as they were being taken back to the finish line. They're usually pretty dignified, but they both hung out the window of the bus yelling at me.The mile before the finish line was great with crowds cheering and bands playing...and lots of people walking, ha, ha.Travis describing his hand-off to me.

So...this pretty much has nothing to do with knitting except that I knit in the car on the way to Monterey and back last weekend. Why? Because I ran in the Big Sur Marathon....four miles of it, that is. I was in a relay with some friends from work and an ex-student, who now lives in Monterey. It was great fun....really, except for the part where I got up at five and waited an hour for a school bus to take me up to the beginning of my leg, so I could wait another THREE hours for my part of the marathon, which was the last four miles of it. It really was a great weekend with a quick visit to the Monterey Aquarium and a walk down Cannary Row with Russ and Kai since Paige was at home at a swim meet. We placed 57th out of a 137 teams in the Mixed Relay, but that was because of Travis, my twenty-eight-year-old, ex-student who prevented us from running in the Master's relay. We would have been fifth if we had done that. I'm thinking we'll ditch Travis next year. I'm kidding. He was a great kid who has not surprisingly become a fun adult, complete with a beautiful wife who works as an oceanographer. It was a wonderful "outside the box" time.

Bunny, Number ???

I've had a nice Spring Break with lots of accomplishments; a garden bed dug, a living room cleaned, re-arranged and painted, a couple of books read, and, of course hours of knitting enjoyed. I finished the little bunny I plan to send to my sister for her new baby.I used the egg cozy pattern from Little Cotton Rabbits for his head and my old pattern altered from Fuzzy Mittenfor the rest of him. I stuffed him with some cotton stuffing this time, which is more malleable; but it's a little difficult to stick a darning needle through it when I sew the facial features. Maybe I'll try wool stuffing next.

Spring Has Sprung!

Spring doesn't last too long in Central California. The wildflowers last a couple of weeks, and then the hills turn brown. In the meantime, the flowers start to bloom in our yards, and then "Pow!" it's hot, and we have to water all of the time to keep anything alive. I can feel the days getting warmer every day, but it's still very mild, and I'm enjoying working in the garden, pretending that I'll be able to keep my flowers beautiful for more than a few more weeks.I love ladybugs. I'm sure a lot of people do. My family used to be so tickled by my niece when she could barely talk because she'd look for ladybugs in our yard and exclaim, "lay lay bug" whenever she'd find one. When I was out looking at my garden this morning, there were tons of them.I'm not very conservative, but, especially having a job surrounded by teenagers, who turn everything into a sexual reference, I think sexual jokes are sophomoric; HOWEVER, I did laugh when I discovered these two busy ladybugs....Hey, I thought the spotted ones were the ladies and the plain ones were the guys...not that I'm judging.

.I have been busy, and busy knitting. I knit my new nephew a little
feather and fan blanket. I used some pale yellow Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece that I bought on sale last fall. I have special feelings for Brown Sheep yarn. It was some of the first wool yarn I ever used when I was learning to knit. I'm just not crazy about the cotton though. I like this blanket though, and I'm satisfied with the finished result. I also started a little bunny to put in the baby basket along with some Mrs. Meyer's Baby Products.I haven't decided what color to make his outfit. I ordered this Rowan 4-ply cotton yarn from Webster's, but I think I'll probably end up using yellow.