trying to break out of the laziness slump

...which in this case, starts with a bit of overdue blogging. I know I've not been posting for a while - so I'll try to do a recap of what's been going on with us here in SC.

First off - Happy Mother's Day to all the mom's out there, and mothers-to-be (Amy and Kristin - my SIL's included!!) May your day be joyous and .. simply wonderful! Mike and I are quietly celebrating our 6-yr anniversary as well today :) And he has started his own blog to write about his plaster adventures.

What I've been up to...the main thing that's been going on, is we've been trying to work Mike's internship for the summer. As part of his schooling, Mike is supposed to work for a company, in his trade, for the summer to gain experience. It can be anywhere in the world, it's just supposed to be at least 8 wks and paid. He's been working on finding one since December, and due to one thing after another - nothing was working out. Finally after writing to a company he was thoroughly impressed with, Mike was offered a 12 wk part-time internship in NYC! And, of course, the next day his school presented him with an opportunity for an internship in England. Now what to do!?

So then, a 6wk England/6wk NY internship was suggested, but didn't fit well with the NYC parameters and so, upon their suggestion, he focused on the England opportunity - only to have it fall through due to the company not being prepared for an international student and not having a work visa ready. Luckily, the company in NY, Foster-Reeve generously extended their offer again and Mike has accepted for 8wks. YEah!! The stress of not-knowing and waiting to hear back was almost worse than not having one.

Now Mike is trying to find some temporary housing in the lower Manhattan/Upper Brooklyn area for the summer months of June and July. (Email me if you know of anything!!) Once that is settled, we'll decide for what extent of time I'll be joining him. This will be the first time in the 6 years (as of today- Happy Anniversary Honey!) we've been apart where I'll be living by myself. The previous two times we were apart, I was either staying with family or had roommates move in for the interim. It'll be interesting - especially with my current developments (to be discussed in a future post - and I promise it won't be too long before I post and it'll include an explanation of another reason for the lack of blogging lately). We've got a couple things in the works and we'll just have to wait and see what works out.

In other 'happenings', I did get to see the Cirque du Soleil a few weeks ago here in Charleston - it was really amazing. There were just so many people doing things you would have thought were not doable! There were trapeze artists, jugglers, pole climbers, flippers, people doing all sorts of acrobatics on top of one another - it was really neat. The arena was also small enough that there really wasn't a bad seat in the house. I didn't quite understand the storyline, but it kept me engaged anyway.

In knitting news, I haven't been doing much knitting. More so the equivalent of pushing your peas around your plate but not really eating them - you know - looking at lots of patterns, and sorting through my stash, but not coming up with much. I'm in a bit of a knitting slump, but here are some pictures of a couple of projects.

My finished cable hat called Clamber or the Lilac Cable hat:



I am very pleased with how it came out, and it'll go perfectly with my Evangeline hand-warmers - although it may be a while before I'm able to wear either of them with summer being here but that's what I get for taking so long to get things done.

I have gotten a bit farther with my Dotty chicken thanks to the ladies at Knit-nite the other night. It was looking a bit phallic and I wasn't happy with the way it was turning out, so it had been put on hold, but with a bit of encouragement, it's looking a bit more like a chicken:


I really like the way the beak came out, but I'm not really thrilled with the crown, I may redo it. Now I need to fix up the tail feathers and add some spots!

So that's enough for today - I'll be back to write more soon - promise. No 3 week hiatus this time. And pictures and news next time. Just have to finalize a few things at work first....