Updates & The Olympics

I'm a little more than half done with the sontag, I think... No problems to report except that I've run out of the dark green yarn that I was using and will be forced to switch over to a rose pink... They go... kinda... in a loud, no-one-would-mix-them-except-in-upholstery-fabric-these-days kind of way... It's all good - just a practice run anyway. It's worked up fairly quickly and I'm learning a lot about the pattern.

I'm feeling a bit better. I've still got a painful cough, am very hoarse, and my throat is still a bit sore, but at least I can talk today... Yesterday, I lost my voice completely. I'd try to speak normally and only a very quiet whisper came out. Never had laryngitis before... not pleasant.

I've also spun all of my Corriedale roving. Still, don't know what I'm going to do with it... ::shrugs:: It's only 6 oz. of laceweight yarn... I liked the Corriedale. Not as fussy as merino, and seemed very versatile, but still soft... At least, I thought so... Not soft enough to wear next to the skin, but much nicer than the Cotswold. I'm working on my black merino roving now. I had 8 oz. when I started with it, but have spun at least 3 or 4, I'd say, on my drop spindle. And I have a pound of Shetland for cobweb laceweight.

Also, Joe has been invaluable in helping me get the garden space ready for planting, despite my illness. With this cold, obviously I can't go out and till and put weeding fabric down... I'd end up with pneumonia, I'm sure, if I tried. So I've just been doing little things, like starting seeds inside, for about a week now. Joe came over this morning and went out to Home Depot for me to get more peat pellets and then he came back to the house and tilled everything again. Probably won't need to be tilled again, unless some of the patches of grass that's still in there tries to come back from the near-dead again.

The local news is warning of possible freezes tomorrow night. Unless something drastically changes for the warmer in the next 24 hours, I'll have to go out when it warms up for about an hour tomorrow afternoon and cover all the newly planted trees, berries and grapes... We don't need them freezing! If I weren't sick, I could stay up on Freeze Watch and monitor the temperature and turn on the sprinklers when the temperature reached 32 degrees. That's what the strawberry farmers in Plant City do. They say that it coats the plant with a thin layer of ice and prevents the inside of the plant tissues from dropping below 32 degrees. It wouldn't work if it got down to say 20 degrees outside, but in Florida, where if it goes below 32, it pretty much never gets down below 30, it works even better than putting plastic or cloth over plants apparently. I'll be using the "cover-up and pray" method though... Best I can manage.

Been watching the Olympics since the opening ceremonies last night. Pretty cool so far. Can't believe that cowboy guy from Texas won gold in speed skating and he's only been skating since he watched the speed skating competition in Salt Lake on tv while sitting at a Black Jack table in Las Vegas 4 years ago... I guess he saw it and said, "I could do that," and actually backed it up with action. Craziness! I hope Michelle Kwan is feeling better and doesn't have to drop out of the competition. I've been rooting for her to get gold since her first Olympics when I was in the 5th grade and this is her last chance. Also, not sure what I think of this new scoring method for figure skating... I'm not sure if I get it.