OK - Break Over

Here's a tip for bloggers: If you take a really long break from blogging, you'll have a lot to say when you come back. In all truthfulness, the break didn't start out to be a break, but then - life happened. First things first, there was a contest in the last post to guess the projects I worked on during our winter retreat. Since no one guessed all of them correctly, Monica from "Monica Knits ...A LOT!!" was randomly selected, by my able canine assistant, as the winner. She'll be receiving a terrific prize package in a much more timely manner than this notification. For the record, the projects were, the KISS bag from Sally Melville's third Knitting Experience book, Cookie A's Monkey Socks, and the Swallowtail Shawl from Interweave Knits, Fall 2006. The KISS bag is 95% complete at this point, 1.5 Monkey socks are complete. Swallowtail is finished and was given to a friend for her birthday.

But so much else has happened. Jon and I went to Mexico for 5 days. Most of the time it rained; when there was sun, we took plenty of advantage of it. When there wasn't sun, we took plenty of advantage of that time too.

We celebrated Valentine's Day in our usual manner complete with the homemade, heart-shaped pizzas. The tiny one in the middle is Holli's. Valentine's Day is a big deal around here..

Jon's company announced it was being sold to it's fiercest competitor. When you're in telecom, everyone is you fiercest competition.You never want to be purchased. We have no idea what this will bring for us but we're looking forward to the adventure. After four years at the yarn store in town, I decided to take a break and am now a full-time stay-at-home mom. Lots of closets have been cleaned, refrigerator has been scrubbed, laundry is clean, dinners are planned and balanced. Kathryn and Jon are hiding for fear that will be scrubbed or thrown out with the old clothes. It's an adjustment around here for all.

Also on my mind is my dear friend and neighbor. She survived Hodgkin's Disease 12 years ago only to discover she had breast cancer last fall. A routine scan last week, followed by a needle biopsy, confirmed the presence of breast cancer cells in her liver. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

There's a lot more but not that I really want to bore you with or blab about here. Suffice it to say that our spring trip to Sanibel, Florida was a treasure this year. Ten days - 85 degrees, sunny, old friends and new ones - it really was something I needed this year.