A Beautiful Day

What a beautiful day today. I managed to get up this morning and take a walk. The area where I live is near some great trails and I decided I needed to do a little more. Right before I was laid off, I was getting into the weather and getting up early and taking a walk before going into work and just enjoying the outdoors. And trust me this is about as outdoorsy as I get. I love Colorado and it's a beautiful place to live, but I'm not into camping or any other (what I term) extreme stuff.

After I was laid off, I was understandably bummed and kind of fell out of my workout/exercise routine and no longer. It's time to enjoy myself, that's what summer is all about. I enjoy walks because it clears your head and it's completely alone time. Knitting sometimes gives me that clarity of thought, especially if I'm by myself, but if I'm watching t.v. with my honey, it's not the same. And I thought it best to get outdoors before our 3 digit temperatures, as of late, came beating down. What I love about any type of exercise are the endorphins afterward, you feel so good, you wonder why you don't do it all the time?

Nonetheless, I'm a bit undecided on the what I'm knitting next. It's so hot and I can only imagine August being worse, that I can't contemplate knitting with wool right now. Yesterday the temps hit 102 or 103. It sucks being inside a house with no air-conditioning and then the front blind decided to die, so we have to buy a new blind as well, but we have the oddest size windows, so finding a perfect fit for blinds is a challenge as we went back to Lowe's yesterday twice and once to Wal-Mart. But we did come home with a mobile evaporative cooler, which is like a mini-swamp cooler that is portable. It sits on a stand, but you can take it off the stand and put it on a tabletop or flat surface. So I'm hoping that will help relieve the heat.

Okay, off of the tangent, now back to what I'm knitting next. I'm not that excited about working this blue tank, but I will be happy once it's done and I know I can finish it fairly quickly, so just need to do it. Although I already made a mistake and I don't want to rip back (only about 6 rows of stockinette, even), but I will and suck it up. However, I thought about knitting this tank:






The only problem is that it's a bulky-weight cotton ribbon yarn. I have enough to do this top in either green that is pictured on in white. Originally when I bought this yarn, I thought of doing a 3/4 length V-neck sweater in stripes of green and white. Now I keep thinking it's hot and a bulky cotton sweater or even tank will be hot and cotton is heavy, so maybe not. And I may still go with my original thought of a sweater for early spring and easing into fall-type garment instead.

Or as Cynthia suggested, I might just start Soleil instead. Cynthia keeps telling me it's a quick knit and I might be swayed by it. Or even possibly making the Tivoli, like Michelle. So many decisions . . .

And still with the indecision is what pattern I will use to start my sockpal-twoza socks. I did decide on yarn:






I'm using some Lang Jawoll cotton sock yarn that is a pinky-green variegated colorway. I bought it some time ago and always thought it would be nice but never used it. Based on emails with my secret sock pal, I thought she might like these colors. Still not sure on the pattern, but since she likes most things, I may go with some sort of ribbed pattern, we shall see.

And in stash enhancement news, last week, I succumbed to more Cotton-Ease. At least this time, my local Hancock's had it on sale. 4 of the Vanilla and 4 of the Ice Blue. Only the Vanilla is pictured as the Ice Blue was safely tucked away in the stash.






So it's back to the job search. Talk to you all later . .