Pardon Me While I Hose Myself Down

For those of you who live in Atlanta, you know that March is a very special time of year. Spring comes early here. We already have green grass, leaves on the trees, the daffodills have already done their thing....and THE OAK TREES ARE ATTACKING US ALL. No lie. The trees are trying to kill us. Maybe it's revenge for cutting them all down to build McMansion neighborhoods, or, even worse, those little cardboard box houses with 5 feet of "yard" around them.

Let me explain -

I walk outside on my lunch break thinking I might eat my lunch in the park or something. It's nice out - unseasonably warm, sunny, all that - when I am BLOWN IN THE FACE BY A GIANT YELLOW DUST CLOUD. Pollen. And lots of it. I now have gross yellow crud all in my eyes, all over my clothes, and my black car is kind of a weird greenish color.

So I check the pollen count for today. The pollen scale is this:















And today's pollen count is........5,499!

They seriously need to rethink their scale.

Oolong, Take Me Away

Knitting has completely taken over my life. There is yarn everywhere. I buy books about knitting, I read magazines about knitting, a significant portion of my income goes towards yarn and knitting-related accessories. No lie, I spent 15 hours straight making a stuffed turtle. Hey Brit - does Pingpong need a buddy? Knitty.com rules.

Here are a few of my completed and not-quite completed projects:

This is the cutest bunny pattern I've ever seen, courtsey of "Last Minute Knitted Gifts"

Sheldon!

The yarn used to make this purse is handspun in Nepal from the snipped ends of saris. This picture doesn't really do the yarn justice. It's really gorgeous.

This is a prayer shawl I crocheted for the prayer blanket ministry at church. We pray over these and send them to people who need to wrap up in a little love.

This is the first half of a pinafore I'm making for my cousin's baby. So much better than pink, don't you agree?

I have also discovered Corinne Bailey Rae and Oolong tea. I swear, someone should pay me to hang out and knit. I could be a study on ultimate relaxation! There's got to be some money in that somewhere...

Tea is relatively new to me. I started with chai and moved on to green. The word oolong was a big intimidating initially, but, oh yeah, I handled it. I think Mate will be next. I've been feeling....polluted lately. I'm so sick of being addicted to manufactured, refined, high-fructose, dextrosebenzoatedilithiumwhatevers. Today breakfast was a banana and lunch was an avocado on Wasa crackers with my sweet jasmine oolong tea. I hate vegetables, but I bought ALL OF EM today at the grocery store. There's got to be SOME way to make those nutrient-rich buggers taste good. Any suggestions are more than welcome!

A lot has changed since I last posted. I quit teaching outside of my home. My hours were increased at the church and I'm only teaching 2 days out of the week from the house. Woohoo! That was supposed to leave time for errands, Bible study, exercise....somehow (knit purl knit purl) that's not been the case. The house is a bit cleaner though. My baby sister is getting married, I turned 28 (sigh), my chef-ie brother has decided to move from his fancy-pants restaurant here in Atlanta to a fancy-pants restaurant in New York, I discovered Grey's Anatomy, my mom had a cancer scare (benign, thank God) and my cousin was, true story, miraculously healed from cancer. One day it's there, the next it's not. Life is wacky.

Unfortunately, I'm so stuck in a routine rut it's almost unbearable. Have you ever gotten so comfortable being miserable that you resist changing the routine that you loathe? I haven't had a real vacation in .... 5 years? Yep. 5 years. That's pathetic.

Travelocity.com here I come.