A Soggy End to the Week

TGIF! It's been a long, wet week. We've had some pretty extensive flooding in the area, including at the Point (the tip of the triangle where the Allegheny and the Monongahela converge to form the Ohio River). This video from one of our local stations shows how the water is covering the entirety of the fountain. Yesterday we had a brief break in the rain and even a bit of sun, allowing me to get out for a walk, but the rain soon returned and we even had some hail/graupel in the afternoon! It's been cold again and I'm back to wearing sweaters and hand-knit socks. It's not unusual for us to have multiple "false springs" in this part of the world, but after having several days in the 70s in February, it feels rather cruel.

I am making the best of the situation. I haven't been able to get outside to work out other than my walk yesterday, but given that I just donated blood on Tuesday, any run I would have taken likely would have been extra hard. And being stuck in the house means I'm getting things done in between work tasks -- and getting a fair amount of knitting done. My Bereket is moving along at a good clip; I think being more familiar with the stitch pattern and the decreases are combining to make the second pattern section go a lot faster than the first.

I'm really trying to stay focused on this project, but I've already pulled out some yarns for my next cast-on. Do these colors say chicken to you?

What about these?

By chicken, I'm of course referring to the hot knitting pattern of the moment, the Emotional Support Chicken. I had already bought the pattern for myself as a birthday present but then learned that my youngest nephew is currently obsessed with chickens. His first birthday is coming up on May 1 and I wasn't sure what to make him as a gift, but now I know exactly what to make. I'm going to be using the yarns in the first photo, all of them Blue Sky Alpacas Organic Cotton leftover from the doll I made for Mo many years ago. I figured cotton was a good choice for a baby gift, and it always makes me happy to use up leftovers, particularly leftovers that have been in my stash for a decade. The yarns I've selected for mine are a skein of Fibernymph Dye Works Cozy OOAK that I recently won and some HipStrings Buoy DK leftover from a sweater. Apparently knitting one of these chickens often leads to knitting many of them, but I'll start with these two.

This weekend should be a quieter/calmer one than last. We're having dinner with my parents tonight; they came home from Florida earlier in the week and are babysitting my nephew this weekend while my brother and sister-in-law are taking a quick trip. I'm planning on a trip to Costco and will have the usual cleaning to do but otherwise hope to catch up on sleep and reading. I'll leave you with a photo of my permanent veneer, which was installed (is that the right term for it?) on Tuesday morning and looks so much more like my actual tooth that I ever expected!

Have a great weekend!