What I love about early spring

The house across the street has a beautiful cherry tree. I think it's a Japanese cherry tree. Anyway, it blooms in early spring as do quite a few different varieties of cherry and plum in my neighborhood. The larger cherry trees on campus don't come out until a little later, but this one is so gorgeous! This picture doesn't do it justice, but you get the idea of what I get to see each morning when I leave the house. She has daffodils planted under the tree -- probably I should have taken the picture outside of the gate but I was in my bathrobe. That blue sky you can see there was gone by the time I got out of the shower. We should have rain today and I hear that it's getting colder and snow is a possibility Thursday or Friday. That's spring in Seattle for you.

Today is the day I finally get to go to the gym and work out on the Precor! YAY! While it's not actually running it is close enough and I am psyched! If all goes well (meaning I don't over do it) I should be able to get back to running in six weeks. When will that be ..... 2nd week of April. Sweet. And it looks like Kelli has got a deal for her gallery and so we are planning on going to Hawaii, in her words, "in 90 days, baby!". That's 3 months where I come from. So sometime in late May or early June ... ahhhhhh Hawaii.

I sent Nonnahs a link to a pattern I found in Knitpicks for a two at once, toe-up sock pattern. I am certainly going to give it a try. I am almost done with my first sock and I'm going to make sure to cast on right away for the second one because I can see how easy it would be to put it off and then .... there you have one sock and no intention of making another. The casting on for this pattern sounded familiar to me but her directions are not very clear so I went through a ton of magazines last night looking for the article. I thought it was in IK but it turned out to be in Vogue and it's called the Turkish Cast-On. It's a very clever seamless cast on for making toes or pouches using two circular needles. I don't see why I can't do it twice and have two on there. I'll give it a try after ... AFTER I finish the second sock. The Addis are pricey, but definitely worth it. I'm glad I got them. I became a fan when I first started knitting and got a pair of size 8s to make hats that first Christmas. Oh I just wanted them in every size! But I got the Denise set of interchangeable needles and I really am glad I did.