This weekend included wrestling with my grandmother’s ancient Eureka vacuum to figure out how to get the brush roll out to replace the belt. I thought I’d broken it when I accidentally released the first wire that held it in place, but luck was on my side.

I made it to the tabling section of the urban gardening conference yesterday, even if I didn’t make it to any of the sessions, so I came home with several bulbs and a bunch of seed packets. Now I just need to get myself back down to the garden to wake my plot up for the season.

I did a lot of reading and some knitting and I’m now feeling more confident than I was that I’m actually following the pattern correctly. Sometimes you just need to trust the pattern and give it time to develop.

How was your weekend?

(Taken last Sunday.)

Today we had a significant wind storm, which knocked over trees and out power all over the area. My power lines are below ground, a luxury that means I’ve only rarely lost power in the 15 years I’ve lived here, so I just got a day off from work to hang out at home all day. It was quite excellent.

In addition to “Take a three-day weekend,” which wasn’t originally in my plans, I’m hoping my weekend includes:

• Heading to the library to pick up holds.
• Stopping in at the local urban gardening conference.
• Shopping at the member sale of my favorite bookstore.
• Doing laundry.
• Playing my ukulele.
• Making cookies.
• Going to the farmers market.
• Planting my peas. (I may put that off until next weekend…)
• Working on my Sock Madness sock. (I’d like to be through the gusset decreases by Sunday night.)
• Vacuuming.

What do you hope your weekend includes?

I know they say cats can’t taste sweet, but I think science just hasn’t figured out how they do.

(And, no, I didn’t let Jer have the Oreo.)

Here’s what I’m hoping my final weekend in February might include:

• Watch the Closing Ceremonies of the Olympics.
• Complete the edging on my shawl.
• Finish listening to American Street.
• Go to the farmers market.
• Take down the Christmas cards.
• Purchase our tea supply for the year.
• Sign up for a different volleyball league. (The one that was supposed to start this weekend fell through due to lack of sign-ups.)
• Pick up my holds at the library.
• Wash my woolens.
• Check out an interactive art installation.
• Clean the kitchen.
• Dance to ’80s music. (Because otherwise those cleaning chores just won’t get done.)
• Catch up on some sleep.

How about you? What are you hoping to do this weekend?

It was a weird weekend. I woke up Saturday with a migraine, which refused to be placated by caffeine, food, ibuprofen, or sheer will, and so lost most of the day sleeping it off on the couch. I awoke in the evening feeling significantly better, which was good because the cats were out of wet food and there may have been a mutiny if I’d forced them to eat dry food for supper just because I wasn’t feeling up to going shopping for them. I finished knitting the first sleeve of my sweater and reading Wonder Woman: Warbringer, watched some Olympics, and called it a day.

Yesterday, I hit up the farmers market, caught the tail end of the Lunar New Year parade downtown, and attended an impromptu birthday dinner for a friend. I got in a lot of bike riding and walking, since the weather was so nice, and also spent some time sitting in the sun knitting and listening to my audiobook. I checked out a pop-up bookstore (one that pops up in another shop, as opposed to one selling only pop-up books, but I’d shop at that one, too), looked at picture frames, and had a nice phone conversation with my brother (who also celebrated a birthday last week). It was a full and lovely day. And then…

I wanted to cast on the second sleeve of the sweater, but to do that, I needed to move the first sleeve off that needle. So I went hunting for something to put it on. I couldn’t find a second 4.5 mm needle at first, so I pulled out a 5 mm needle, but that looked so big next to what I’d been knitting on. I knew I had another 4.5 mm needle hiding somewhere, so promptly tore through all my knitting bags (for the second time in four days; I’d needed more interlocking stitch markers and they’d been lurking in a bag, too) and came up with it. I could just cast the second sleeve on with it, I thought, but then I worried this needle might be more likely to catch on the fragile yarn and decided to just transfer it. It was a tight fit getting the stitches onto the new needle, but I made it work. The experienced knitters among you right now may be feeling slightly queasy right now, already sensing where this story is going…

Turns out I knit the first sleeve on a 3.5 mm needle (a US 5), rather than a 4.5 mm (US 7) needle. I had started this project six years ago, had swatched (and gotten gauge after washing it), had made notes in Ravelry, and then had put the needle and yarn aside. When I pulled the ribbing off the needles earlier this month, it hadn’t occurred to me to check to make sure everything was okay. Now, it should be noted that I had cast the sweater on twice. The first time, it was gigantically wide. The second time, which is what I’d found, it was with this needle, and that waist is more in common with my own. However, I don’t think I’d swatched with this needle and I have absolutely no idea how the yarn will behave once I’ve given it a soak. So I guess I’ll do that with the first sleeve and make sure it doesn’t do anything weird before continuing. But I do feel much better about how long that 20″ sleeve took me, given the needles were two sizes smaller than I thought I was knitting on!

(TL;DR: I will not finish a sweater by next weekend.)

Today just got off on the wrong foot, having been awakened at my normal weekday hour by Jeremiah throwing up. I turned down friends’ invitation to go to a movie because I was going to the play at the library, but then I didn’t get there in time. My weather forecast assured me it would be a nice day, if cloudy, so the sweatshirt I was wearing proved inadequate for the afternoon of mist we had. I did get to the library and I took myself out for hot chocolate afterwards. I got dockblocked, I missed buses, there are no women’s volleyball sneakers to be tried on in the local area… Today, I just was Alexander. So I came home, thinking maybe to try salvaging the day by baking something, and fell asleep on the couch with a Jeremiah parked on me to make sure I stayed put, which was probably the right answer all along. I am still trying to decide whether I keep plodding away on the sweater for the next week (knowing it’s not going to give me a medal) or if I try knitting something small and new (likely my Valentine’s Day hat) or attempt to get a few lingering WIPs finished (probably the smartest decision, but really not a satisfying one) as I shift my Ravellenic hopes from one event to another.