Lately.

The longer you go without writing a blog post, the harder it is to write one, apparently! There has been knitting, and there have been things I want to talk about, but I always find an excuse. I haven't made enough progress on this project, the lighting is too bad for photos, I'm not really enjoying what I'm reading at the moment, etc. But two weeks without a post is too long, so please excuse the not-great photos and the rambling nature of this one. :)

I feel like I've been knitting the same projects since the beginning of the year. It's the same thing I did last year: after months of craft fair and Christmas knitting, I'm so excited to make something for myself that I go overboard and start too much, and then those projects linger for a little too long. I did finish my Marion cardigan, but I'm waiting for the buttons I ordered. I found those two vintage navy buttons in my stash and got obsessed with the thought of using them for the sweater. I'm usually not picky about buttons, but I really wanted these. I needed five and only had two, so I searched online until I found some on eBay. I'm waiting for them to arrive now, and hoping that they will be the correct size. Then I'll be able to get pictures of the finished sweater!

I'm still knitting on my Germinate shawl. I've enjoyed knitting this shawl, and I think I'll love the end result, but the lace sections make my brain hurt. They're not that difficult, but for some reason they don't feel intuitive at all and there are so many repeats, and repeats within repeats. I couldn't print the charts so I'm having to use the written instructions and it's mind-boggling. I can't listen to conversation or watch TV while working on it. Yesterday I knocked out several rows of the last section, until I made the same mistake twice and had to redo almost an entire row. (Frogging lace is not my favorite. After that I decided to put it aside for the rest of the day.) I'm hoping to finish it in the next few days.

(And in the midst of all that, I cast on a new pair of socks with some lovely yarn that Monica kindly sent me. I need some mindless knitting!)

I'm reading Cold Comfort Farm, a book that I've owned for a while, and I'm not enjoying it very much. It's supposed to be a hilarious parody, but I'm not really seeing that. It's such a short book that I would feel bad about not finishing it, so I'm trying to push through. I've also started reading more of the Sherlock Holmes stories, just one or two a week, and of course I'm enjoying those.

Kenny and I have started watching Doc Martin recently. It started with getting drawn into random episodes on PBS, but now we've started at the beginning, getting the series through Netflix. I'm a huge fan of British TV anyway, and even better if the story features a town full of kooky characters. :) I'd heard of the show before but wasn't really interested because I thought it was a medical show. But other than the main character being a doctor, there isn't much of that, and it's so funny!