Well, I had a very nice Mother's Day weekend. It's so wonderful when everyone takes a moment to say, "Hey, yeah, thanks for all you do, mom." So I tried to do that for my mom, too, because she still does so much even though I'm in my high 30's. Thanks, Mom! Thanks for worrying whether I pay my bills, and for listening when I complain about having a preteen, and helping me decide when to plant the pumpkins. You rock.

My daughter and I were in a play at church Sunday, time set in the 70's. I'm on her about wearing some dress, she calls me mean, I sing "You are my sunshine" to her. *Ahem* I must say, for the record, that I sounded great in the car on the way over to church. But the place was packed, and I had to struggle through that tight voice thing you get when you realize you only get one shot not to sound stupid in front of everyone you know. Then my daughter grows up (still in the play), the scene changes to now time, and my best friend and her daughter play the next generation, with my grown-up daughter singing the song to her daughter. On that one, mind, the whole church joined in for a very moving, teary, aren't-mothers-great rendition of "You are my sunshine." It is hereby noted that I played the mother to my best friend, and had to sing solo to boot. Yeah, my friend laughed and laughed. I have to say, I was just proud I did it without my voice breaking like a 14-yr-old boy's in the middle of puberty.



I promised knitting content, so here 'tis. Of course, after the dishcloth contest, I got cloths on the brain, and knit four of them. Here's three. They came out huge! 45 stitches cast on with size 7's is really too big for swiping out a glass. But they were fun to do, and I think I'm on the other side of the dishcloth urge. (Hey, see how I did that cool cloth with the pattern I was drooling over? Thanks, everyone, for steering me in the right direction) Then I pulled out the husband's sweater, cuz I hate to be a quitter. After all, all I've got to do is pick up 109 stitches around the neck, including the 12 sts on a holder, and knit for a bit, and it will be done! I worked on it for an hour, and this is what it looks like now:



Apparently I can't count to 109, minus 12, and figure out how to pick up to that number. I tried three times, knit many rows before I figured out that I was just going to be wrong, and finally had to lay it back in its box. I can't figure out for the life of me what's wrong with my brain. Let's see. I picked up all the stitches I could on the back of the neck, and that's 49. 49 plus 12 is 61. If you take 61 from 109, you get 48. That's 24 stitches picked up on each side of the 12 stitches on the front holder. Now, that looks just right, and it's what I did the first time. Somehow, though, I ended up with 119 stitches, and how could that be? No, I didn't mess up (though it looks like I must have). I'm sure I did just what I figured out. (Yeah, okay, so I must have messed up, but it didn't feel that way, y'know?) So I picked up again, and redid the math, which told me that I actually had to pick up 29 stitches on each side of the stitch holder. So I did, and knit happily away until I figured out I had 119 stitches. Waaaaah! So I redid the math, got the number 24, ground my teeth a bit, and started doing the whole bloomin thing again. For heaven's sake, there are people out there knitting intarsia and steeking and what was my problem??? So I tucked it back into its box (yay! didn't swear once!) and left it for when my brain was working. Sorry, husband's sweater. I haven't given up. After this, though, I'm knitting a baby sweater, just for a jolt of quick satisfaction.

I hope you all had a great M.D. weekend, whether you are a mother or have a mother (or both)!