Drumroll Please

Ta da! New training room photos!
The view from the door.
A closer inspection of the hydro area, and entrance to the "private" bathroom!
The wall of cabinetry (that you will note does not have locks, I'll have to do something about that, or they might as well take them away).
Do you see what that one is??!! A storage closet! That locks! And the walls go all the way up to the ceiling! So no one can climb up and over and steal boxes of tape! Oh rapture!
My office. Very nice, almost too nice, I won't know what to do with all that space and storage.
The view from the bathroom (it's at the other end of the room is all). Maybe from that vantage point you'll see my dilemma. Where do I put the tables? Hmmm. They might end up being free standing in the middle - which is weird. That's not how training rooms are set up. I'm not really complaining - I mean, look at it. It's gorgeous and wonderful, just wish they had maybe asked me what I wanted.

You'll also see that they have a fondness for glass in the new building. I'll try to work on getting more photos of the rest of the new building when it's more done, just so you see how much work they have added to the poor janitors line-up. Glass is E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E. The kids are still enjoying the gym, but antsy to play an actual game in it. Or anywhere. The boys first game isn't until tomorrow - that's the first game that they play at all. And it's away. The girls play tomorrow too (away) and then not again until Christmas or something like that.

Alright, enough of the boring stuff. I went out to visit Liz on Wednesday night. Coldstone therapy was needed (I highly recommend the Cookie Mintster - it's fantastic). And I got to meet her new roommates:
Mork (left) and Mindy (right). Don't roll your eyes at me for the names - she did that all by herself, even though I rolled my eyes at her. Aren't they cute? Very playful, they remind me of Bailey. But here's the cutest thing:
See that? Mindy has mittens for paws! I couldn't get over how cute they were. They really look like little paw mittens. I would have enjoyed them even more had they not had claws embedded in them, but whatevs.

In knitting news, I finished a Christmas project yesterday. So as a treat, I let myself cast on something quick and easy for me, with handspun.
Yay squishy! This is the "Brave Woodsman" BFL I spun up in my new wheel excitement last year. Which is now on it's way to becoming a cowl. Using the Stonehenge pattern, from a blog I read.
I'm liking it. It's at the halfway point now, see what I mean about quick? A close up on the pattern detail.
Easy, but I have to think just enough to keep me focused. I should be able to finish it this weekend. And hopefully get a bunch of other crafty things done too. I'm hoping we get the tree this weekend as well. That's always good for a blog post.

Done at Last

Yay - the ribbed socks are done. And on time too. I finished them last night on the bus ride to the girl's basketball tourney game. Sadly, the game did not go well, even though I wore my school spirit socks. We'll see if these can bring better luck to the boys tonight. Here's a pic where the colors are just about right. The 2-at-a-time thing went fine. I'm not going to stop using my DPN's or 2 circ's anytime soon though. But, I think, for socks like these, that are boring and pretty uninspiring, it works really well. Not to mention, easier to get them to come out the same length. So for all my plain stockinette socks (like I ever do those) and easy ribbed socks, this may be the method of choice. And I really like some of the patterns in the book, I think I'll just choose to use yarn that comes in two hanks rather than one ball, it got a bit fiddly now and then.


On to new stuff. I knew that I'd get the ribbed socks done with relative quickness, and so packed the next sock. And lo and behold, we had to sit through a whole game before ours started, so...

Say hello to the "Merino Lace Sock" from Favorite Socks in the oh so pretty "Lava Lipstick" Smooshy yarn. I couldn't help myself. There was so much talk of Smooshy this week at SnB, and people showing off the gorgeous colors that they had bought at KotS, I needed a fix. And as I cannot buy any yarn until the end of March, this was the only way. All my SnB buddies applaud me for my Lenten sacrifice, and asked if maybe I should've made an exception for sock yarn.

But I digress. The Smooshy. Is. So. Beautiful. And I'm not normally a red kinda girl. But everyone needs a little red in their life now and then.

As for the neverending saga of the ND sweater - the collar is attached!. Most of the ends are sewn in. I just have to lay it out so I can attach the sleeves and then sew them on. I say that like it's so easy, when in reality, I'm really horrible at this bit. It usually takes me 4 or 5 tries before I give up and just accept that the sleeves are going to look horrible. So I'm hoping that this time goes a little smoother.It's this fear of the finishing that is the reason this sweater has been languishing for a month in my knitting box. My goal is to finish it this weekend (no, really) so that I can wear it to SnB on Tuesday. Keep your fingers crossed for me.


And to end with some cute photos. Miss Maddie has taken to a new lounge spot. I witnessed the discovery of this new ideal spot late the other night.
Can you guess where it is? It's on top of the TV stand in the family room. Why there you ask? Why is it so new? Normally, you know when the family room isn't being painted, it's pushed back into the corner and there isn't an 8 foot ladder next to it for easy access, and it's covered with picture frames and therefore has no lounge room. She didn't adjust well at first to the re-arranged family room, now I wonder what she'll do now that it's close to being done.