Slipper-o-rama

Greetings, and Dear Cynthia,

I love your idea of posting shorter posts more frequently! Fun to see what you're up to, and I hope you enjoy your stay in Wisconsin (though seeing as it is "God's country," how can you not?)

My clinical finished up yesterday. I was "working" in a hospital for four weeks, and similar to my hospital clinical in January, I was reminded that smoking does really, really bad things to your body (not just in the lungs), and if you're going to drink excessively, then don't try ascending/descending stairs, or you may fall and break your neck, quite literally. It's always sobering for me to spend time in a hospital, and it makes me thankful for my relatively good health, and also gives me ammunition to use when I'm trying to teach my kids about making good choices.

I received a $25 gift card from Barnes and Noble, and so I purchased a book I've had my eye on for months:I don't spin (yet, and really, I won't until my kids are out of high school, really!), but the book offers manufactured yarn alternatives, and I loved so many of the designs in the book.

In a moment of insanity, I decided I was going to make slippers for my nieces and nephew for a "cousins birthday party" which has become my family's tradition in August. Instead of holding six separate parties for all of our kids during the year, my mom invites all of us over for one big party which is more about being together as a family than it is about giving big gifts to each of the kids. And so, I'm making some little gifts out of stash yarn (Cascade 220). I'm using this cute pattern for the girls: ...though I don't know which pattern I'll use for the one boy. (Any ideas out there?) I'm sort of "winging" the size on these (note that these are really the same size, but due to my "trick photography, they look different):I will go ahead and felt the first two pairs as soon as they are knitted just to make sure I'm in the ball park.And, still plugging away on the socks: I love it when I get past the heel on a toe-up sock, because then it's just about mindlessly knitting around and around, which I actually like.

That's about it for the knitting news. I have next week **off**, and plan to do two big things with my time:
1.) figure out what I have "on the needles" in the recesses of the house, and make myself a "schedule" to finish it -- I always do better when I create a little urgency on something, and I know there are at least two or three sweaters sitting around which are very "close" to being finished
2.) clean the house! (yeah, right, like that will happen, but if I don't at least put it on a list of things to do, then there's even a smaller chance that it will happen...)

Have a great weekend!
Laura (YarnThrower)