What's Goin' On?

I have Marvin Gaye in my head, singing that song for some reason.

It's Saturday, and the Church Ladies are coming over to knit this afternoon. I've already gone to Pearson's Bakery to get some cookies (OMG they are the best bakery in the entire Southland), and to the Jewel to grocery shop. It's going to be a busy weekend. Tomorrow, C and her sister and niece are coming to spend a couple nights with me - there will be grilling. And Calico Beans. Yum!!!

There is happy news all the way around, and quite frankly, I was due for some. :-) I got a great review at work yesterday, and my job continues to grow and change and become more challenging and interesting. I really am the luckiest woman in the world. I'm not kidding!

Oh - and We. Have. A. Closing. Monday - 10 a.m. I'm so very grateful and I know that everything is going to fall into place with that.

Here is the baby afghan I have mentioned a few times.

In February, I wrote:

. . . I'm working steadily on the baby afghan I promised to finish for a friend of my cousin's. I don't normally take on projects from someone else, but there is a story here - the friend's mom made baby afghans for each of her daughters as they had children. The youngest daughter hadn't had any children when the mom was diagnosed with cancer. I guess the mom knew that her prognosis was not good, so she started on an afghan for this daughter, even though she didn't have any children yet. The mom passed away, and the daughter eventually had a baby girl - and asked my cousin if she knew anyone who might be able to finish the afghan that the mom had started. That's where I came in.

I did my best to capture the mom's gauge, and the afghan is a simple ripple. I wasn't able to duplicate her exact stitch pattern, but I'm close enough (I think) that only I and a crochet expert could tell. It is crochet, so it goes a lot faster than knitting - thankfully. I've been working on it first each time I sit down to knit to get a little more done each time. I've had it since last fall, and they weren't in too much of a hurry - still, they've waited long enough, so I'm working on it as I go with all the the other projects. I tried taking it on the train the other day, but it's getting to be too bulky and large for train knitting, so it's relegated to comfy chair knitting at home.

It took me quite a bit longer to finish than I anticipated. I guess I forgot why I don't crochet as often as I knit - it was not fast at all, really. . . and you can see where my stitches started (the yellow at the bottom is the mom's (she got about three color bands in), and mine are the ones with the loops at the peaks of the ripples), but I thought it might be nice that the daughter could actually see which stitches were her mom's :-)

It left here on Thursday, and I hope that the daughter likes it.

Summer's finally here in Chicagoland - I know this not because it was 92 degrees at least one day this week, but because Taste of Chicago started yesterday. :-D

In other wacky news of the week - I got a notice from the village because my grass is too long. Well - thank you. Tell me something I don't know. :-S I canceled my old lawn service because they weren't doing a good job and I had to have a trench dug in the yard for some electrical work. Well, one thing led to another, and I was trying to patch the grass, and fill in the trench, and waiting for it to rain (which it did - for two weeks), and then the new lawn guys were supposed to come last Saturday.

There was a language barrier, and they didn't come, and of course then I got the friendly reminder notice, with two days to correct it.

Right.

I don't even own a lawn mower - I have asthma was told in no uncertain terms that I'm not supposed to be doing any yard work like mowing the lawn. So. I don't. Mow the lawn. I don't even really do any outside gardening any longer, and I used to be pretty good at it (thanks to my my mom, who was a champion gardener).

But the village was quite nice about it and gave me until today.

So, the Church Ladies are coming over to knit, and I actually got the house pretty much straightened out, and they'll have cookies from Pearson's, so I don't think anyone's going to be unhappy - but my lawn looks horrid and the lawn guys are scheduled to arrive about an hour AFTER the Church Ladies. So it goes. If by some bad chance they do not arrive, I'm going to have to borrow a lawn mower and put a mask on and hope for the best :-D

And finally - I've made the decision to frog the brown boatneck sweater that has been languishing for two years now. It's now too big for me (Wahoo!!), and so, whoosh! It's going to be gone this afternoon!