An Ending... and a New Beginning

It's been a pretty crazy week of ups and downs. St. Patrick's day was celebrated over the span of three days at the pub. What can I say? We really like all things Irish. Several of my family members play in an Irish folk group, so this is our favourite time of year to go out and see them play. The place was packed, and though many beers were consumed, fortunately none of them were green. Who thought that up anyway?

I also celebrated my birthday last week, on the same day as my mother-in-law. In what is now a bit of a tradition, we celebrated with a big family dinner and two birthday cakes. You can't have too many options when it comes to cake, I always say. I received several great knitting books, including Cookie A's new sock book (well, actually, I received a printed copy of the Amazon order for that one, as the book hasn't actually been released yet!). I also received a new GPS, which will inevitably lead to more geocaching during hikes this summer.

The sad news last week was the passing of Molly, the hedgehog mascot of this blog. We have had Molly since 2003, so she had a pretty good shake of it, for a hedgie. Over the last year or so she had been really showing her age, getting slower, rather wobbly on her feet, and crankier all the time. She was never as sociable or friendly as our first hedgehog, Pokey, was, but she had her own personality, and nobody can dispute that she was impossibly adorable! We'll miss hearing her wheel squeaking as she ran late into the night.

The new beginning that's getting very close is the new niece or nephew who should be arriving within the next couple of weeks. The whole family is pretty excited, as this is only the second grandchild for my parents. I also can't wait to see how the big-brother-to-be is going to react to the new addition. He has been the centre of our world for the last four years, so I'm afraid he may be in for a bit of a shock.

So this cardigan is in reserve in case it's a girl:

JoJo cardigan pattern by Holli Yeoh. Knit in GarnStudio Fabel (stripes) and Sandnes Garn Sisu, on 2.5 and 3 mm circs. Size 6-12 months.

This is the second time that I've knit this pattern, and it is becoming my go-to baby sweater pattern. I love that it's machine washable, and the self-striping sock yarn keeps me entertained. There are so many possible yarn combinations, that I'll probably start another one soon. I am also quite smitten with the little floral buttons that I found at Fabricville.


And if it's a boy? Well, let's just say that I've gotten a bit behind in my knitting and need to get moving on that!

With almost every bit of snow gone by last week (foiling my plans to take the Guides out on an overnight snowshoe trip), we were rather depressed to wake up to another dumping of snow on Saturday morning (causing the cancellation of the backpacking trip that we had scheduled to make up for the lack of a snowshoeing trip!). Sometimes you just can't win.

Even Lassy is tired of the white stuff. Come on spring!