Memorial Day Goings On

This weekend was the first Memorial Day weekend that was as nice as the weather people said it would be and it didn't rain. It seems like every Memorial Day, it rains somewhere in there. Not being much of a fan of warm weather, Memorial Day weekend marks my final salute to guaranteed comfortability until mid September. On Saturday night, M and I met up with a former coworker of mine who was in town from the Windy City. Seeing him again was great and I'm crossing my fingers that he'll be able to do his residency in this neck of the woods. Last nights cajoling led to a slight dehydration induced headache this morning but that did not throw off my plans to head back to my former stomping grounds in Quincy to spend an afternoon at Wollaston Beach. M had band practice for his show tomorrow night and he hates the beach and the sunburns it brings, so I thought it would be a great opportunity to head down. I grabbed On Beauty, the latest book I'm reading, and spread out a beach towel and relaxed for a few hours. I was pleased to see that there's been some revitalization of the beach; there's lots of new seating areas along the beach and it's just generally cleaned up a bit. Another great thing is this little kite stand:

People were fully taking advantage of it, there had to have been at least 40 kites in the sky. It was really amusing to watch kids as young as two trying to figure out how to get their kites up into the sky, one little boy was handed a really high flying kite to guide through the sky and the adult handing it to him yelled, " Up, up, and away!" and with that, he threw the kite handle into the sky and the kite took off. I was reminded how nice of a city Quincy is, lots of great little neighborhoods. Too bad the commute up 93 is so hellacious, I don't think M and I would consider moving to the South Shore because of it. I'm off to watch Boigie sniff the plants on the back porch while the sun is still out!

Waiting for a Kennedy....any Kennedy

As promised, this is pic of the photogs outside the entrance I use to enter work, just waiting for their perfect shot of an SUV unloading various Kennedys. Luckily, I took this shot when I did. Ted went home about two hours later.

Knitting, School, and Finance (and in that order)

I've finished my pink hourglass sweater..I think I can actually wear it outside the home! I'm starting to wonder if any sweater I make for myself will ever turn out exactly the way I want it to. If I made this sweater for a third time, there are STILL things I would change about it. For example, I think I could give it a more fitted look and I would make the boatneck smaller. I made it even smaller than the pattern suggested for even the smallest size sweater and I can still see my bra straps which means I'll have to wear a tank under which means it's too casual/80's for the office. I went to pick up where I left off on the baby cardigan and realized that I need a set of size 7 dpns before I could continue. So instead, I started on the Little Star Sweater for E and for once I'm using the suggested colors. His parents like him in blue so why mess with a good thing. I haven't really knitted with multiple colors with the exception of one project so we'll see how it goes. Unlike all of my other sweaters lately, this is not knit in the round so it will be a huge pain in the A** at the end.

In other news, my semester ended last week although it seems as though my online professor is refusing to believe it. She has added yet another week of readings, and then posted that she recalls that classes are actually over but still recommends the reading. This would also be the professor that needed reminding that the university observes spring break. I think this is easily the worst class I've taken since starting grad school, I can't think of one thing I learned other than to never take a class being offered by someone that's taught a class in person for the past 20 years and isn't really that comfortable with computers. Big mistake. My summer class starts on Tuesday but I've heard it's not overly difficult (Mental Health of the Urban Family) and the bonus is that I have to make zero trips to campus until September and that it's one class.

Our other project for summer has begun...identifying what we spend our money on aka first step to knowing what we can afford for a mortgage. I've basically recreated my work life at home and made a gazillion spread sheets that break down our expenses. Two things learned already: I don't spend as much as I thought I did unless last week was atypical and I'm addicted to coffee. But then I guess we already knew that.

Mr. Boiglesworth Goes to the Vet

Ohhhhh poor Boigie! First of all, can I just say that when I have known people with pets, no really cats specifically as I always fancied myself more of a dog girl, when these cat people had sick kitties and got all emotional over it, I just didn't get it. Until this week. Spoiler alert: Boigie's fine. Now on with the story.

Earlier this week I noticed what appeared to be a slight limp favoring his front left paw. It seemed to pretty much disappear at times and other times it was more pronounced, usually after he had lessened his activity with one of his many naps. Then I thought maybe I was just thinking it was a limp and it wasn't so I decided to see if M noticed and said anything, but no. Then finally, last night there was some undeniable limping and I looked over at M and asked,"Did you just see that?" He agreed reluctantly, I personally think he had noticed it before too but neither one of us wanted to acknowledge something might be wrong with Boigles.

We concluded that he was still eating and drinking and purring like usual so we would just monitor things. Then M told me that Boigie was limping more severely this morning and that he was going to take him to the vet. Well, apparently (after nearly killing poor M while trying to get Boigie into his travel cage as M called it) the vet concluded there was nothing major going on. No clear signs of arthritis (or a tumor, that was me being pessimistic) or anything in his little pads. He had full range of motion; she thinks that maybe he sprained/strained a muscle (doing what I say, this cat only sleeps!) and that if it continues over the next week or gets worse, to bring him back for an Xray. I also asked M to ask why Young Kittlby is a virtual vomit vector so she drew some blood and will call with the results on Monday. Aside from that, he's been deemed officially obese tipping the scales at 18.5 pounds! He's to be put on special food for weight loss (the Iams we use is apparently only good for maintanence) but she advised waiting a bit since today's visit was fairly traumatic.

Right now, he's been put on the cat version of bed rest, as much as you can do that with a cat. She said that if we limit his activity we'll be able to better tell if it's a muscle strain so we put things on both of his perches so he can't go up there. The only thing left to jump on is the bed which we can't really disguise.

He seems fine now, the limp is still here occasionally but we've made it past his 9pm feeding with no puking yet, I was sure somehow I would end up paying for his trip to the vet.

Delightfully Debulked

Ahhh...I can breathe a sigh of relief. I finally was able to get my hair cut on Friday! I hadn't cut it since October in anticipation of the wedding. When I get it cut, they debulk (fancy layering) so I end up leaving with half the hair I had. I kept most of the length but its so much lighter now...

My appt wasn't until 6 so I had a few hours to kill in Harvard Square. What good fortune I had...I got an email from the good folks over at Woolcott that they were having a 20% off sale on all yarn. I went over and picked up some yarn to redo the Paton Cabled Yolk sweater with some changes I wanted to make. I got Cascade Yarns Sierra in a deep gray color. I wanted to get a pale blue gray but they didn't have enough skeins for me. They were really helpful this time..usually I avoid salespeople but I needed them to help me estimate the yardage for the sweater. Interestingly, she told me that she always calculates 20% more than you expect to use just in case. She said that I could keep the extra skeins on hold at the store and if I needed them later I could come back and get them (since the sale yarn is non returnable), but I told her that I can always find something to do with it, especially when it's washable.

Yesterday, we finished out our regstry at Pottery Barn and got our towels. Then I made massive amounts of chocolate chip cookies with our new Kitchen Aid Mixer (although the usage was limited because I made a double batch of cookies so we both could bring them to work) and it was too big for the mixing bowl.

Today, my wonderful husband has suggested we go to the Melting Pot! I mentioned around Valentine's Day that if the wedding wasn't so close I would suggest going to the Melting Pot for dessert as a belated Valentine's Day outing. Now that the wedding's done, we're going tonight. We have to head out to Macy's to return a pitcher that we got for a wedding gift. It was fine when it arrived, but M washed it and as he was merely holding the handle, the glass all around the upper part of the handle cracked into a series of really really small cracks. So we'll return it and home they have another one for us.

Ok, Time to go for a walk!