Playing Catch-Up

I'm sorry to have waited as long as I have to do a real post. It's just been one of those weeks. I find other things to do instead of everything I should. Like vacuum. Let us not discuss the size of some of the dust bunnies in the house. If I don't get the Dyson moving today I think one of my dogs may lose a dominance battle with one of the dust bunnies.

So, on the note of trying to get it together, I'm writing a post while enjoying my morning tea. The dogs and I already met a couple friends and went up the mountain for a walk. We worked up a sweat and wore off the morning's calories while tuckering out the kids so I could clean house quick before going to the yarn shop for spinning day.

On the note of spinning, the Tour de Fleece is officially over. I need to wrap up this last yarn I had going so I can come up with a final yardage count. I am sad to see it be over for the year, but on the other hand it's a bit of a relief not having that item on every days list hanging over my head. Not only did I need to spin but then I needed to catch up with my teams spinning. I log onto the iPad and feel that I'm at loose ends now without all that having to be done on a daily basis.

Speaking of things being done, the Mens Rocky Mountain Retreat is over for another year. It is so much fun every year, and it's a bit of a downer when it's complete. I only get to see most of these guys in person once a year and though I love the retreat, it's saddening at the end of it. I am hoping this year to get down to Denver for some knit nights.

Once again we made it home with some wonderful new items to add to the stash. Here is a shot of the new stash items which is mostly made up of swag from the retreat.

Though there is always swag, when we go to the yarn stores I feel the need to support the business's that sponsor us. I behaved myself wonderfully this year though and bought very little despite us going down early and hitting a few yarn stores this time.

This is some lovely sock yarn that I can't wait to dive into for myself after I get my current sock project done. I bought this at the Loopy Ewe. Hi Cathy!

I had never been to My Sister Knits in the Fort Collins are either. What a lovely cozy little yarn shop! I could easily spend my days there in fiber bliss. The shop itself is set up in a guest house of a residence surrounded by her beautiful flower gardens.

I picked up some lovely Madeline Tosh yarn in Vanilla Bean. I don't know quite yet what this will be but it will be lovely I'm sure. I think I will look for a pattern for the annual Montessori School fund raiser for my friend Debbi. We'll see...

At the Stitchin Den in Estes I snagged some sock yarn for the Guy to have a new set of socks. We won't discuss his last pair, but the issue was with me. He didn't destroy them, otherwise he wouldn't be getting new ones... Which I can't locate the picture for, so perhaps you'll see them when they're done.

Then there's the usual swag yarns we get, such as this years colorway from Skeindalous. She does such a wonderful job every year and her yarns are great to work with.

Coats and Clark always donates some yarn to us. The sad thing is, the yarns they donate are wonderful yarns as Red Heart attempts to remake themselves and recover their quality. Last year was some wonderful Alpaca Love and this years is Red Heart with Wool. Both are wonderful feeling bouncy yarns that unfortunately didn't make it on the market and were discontinued. What can I say, little old lady's want to knit their granny square afghans from recycled plastic bags and they do not go to Walmart to spend a buck a skein more on a decent yarn. It's sad truly. I have last years blacks and grays set aside for a sweater. There was that much, a sweater's worth. This year, though an atrocious fuchsia, I have enough for a baby blanket that will make some little girl quite happy.

And finally, the Trekking XXL. Great sock yarn, but just not my color. I'm sure it will make it's way either knit or still in a skein to someone who will love this color.

Every year Frank and Brady who arrange the retreat seem worried about the swag. They do such an amazing job and there are so many other things to worry about in my mind that I don't understand why they always seem to worry about this piece of the puzzle. I say the same thing every year. I pay the fee and come for them. For the other guys. For the atmosphere and wonderful time I will have. I do not expect swag and in no way is it part of my decision to come. It's a great little bonus but if it didn't happen, I wouldn't think about it one way or another.

As you can see, I behaved admirably on the yarn expenditures, but I have another item I bought to confess to. It only cost me about $35.00. I bought a fleece. An entire fleece that was at one time attached to a Jacob Sheep Ewe named Regina.

If I got it right, that is her in the far back. It's a lovely fleece and soon you will see more pics regarding wool as I scour and sort her fleece for spinning. I'm excited! I did buy those wool combs after all, now I need to learn how to use them.

We again had a great hike the third day of the retreat, despite going down the wrong trail.

Don't blame Bob guys! We all had a hand in that little event. Well, except me, I led us back up to the real trail. And by up, I mean up.

Okay, so I just followed the trail up, it's not as though I found the trail, and I could have noticed that I didn't recognize the trail too. In 0.3 miles we probably gained something close to 800 feet if not more. I snapped this picture of a little toad stool growing from the base of one of the trails stepping stones as an excuse to take a few deep breaths and not look like I was wimping out. I was surprised I wasn't more sore after that excursion at 9000 feet. Though Mark, I still wonder why you didn't come along on the hike...

As someone has already pointed out, I have few pictures on this retreat of people with faces. I in fact have many face shots, but as many of you may recall, I have privacy issues. These cover not only me, but others as well and I don't feel that it is my place to post other peoples face shots without their permission. It is the internet after all. I also don't snap surreptitious phone pics to post either. But then, I'm not sly and if i wanted to I will just blatantly take the picture. Screw being slick about it.

So, there you go. Retreat done, Check. Tour done, check. Sleep getting caught up on, half a check. Blog update, check. Hopefully you will see a bit more of me here soon, but for now that's it. Now I need to go remove the dusty threat to my dogs pecking order!

I'll leave you with a shot of the sheep farm dogs.