Leaves Are Being Very Distracting

  I know I've probably mentioned this before, but here is a picture of this cool branch.  It reacts to season changes before the rest of the tree.  The first time I saw it I thought the branch was having problems, since it was turning before the rest.  Then come next spring it was the first to grow buds and get leaves.  I just love how excited it is about season changes.  I feel the same way.

  Isn't this just the cutest sweater?  There was another one made using the same color for the whole thing, but I didn't like that one as much as this one.  I don't currently know the pattern, but I think I did hear her say it was on Ravelry.  If I find out any more details I will pass them on.

  I forgot to post this before.  These are some of the things that were made by the people at the Church and brought along.  Before we all left for the day they blessed the items.  I still think that is really cool, it never hurts to try and give these items some more positive vibes before sending them out into the world.

  I finished this on the Wednesday before I left to go to Ocean City.  Don't mind the little orange stitch marker, I didn't want to lose it between knit-night and home so I left it in for the picture.  It was half based on a pattern and half based on something I saw in town when we went to that cabin back in February.  Since I didn't buy one there, I have found a few patterns and am working from there.
  I'm even thinking about possibly trying to crochet one.  It would involve more increasing and decreasing since I don't know how to make crochet act as ribbing without having to change the direction I'm working.  It will be fun.

  This is sort of a swatch of my next project.  I thought I bought the book that had the shawl pattern in it that I made for my wedding.  I can't find it anywhere.  So now I'm trying to figure out how to do this leaf lace with some increases in it.
  The original had you increase the size of each leaf every time.  I think I want to have two or three leaves be the same size before I increase.  This is because I am going to combine this stitch pattern with the cute dress pattern my mom found in a book.  Everyone knows I'm not good at fully following directions.

  I am taking Tank to the vet on Monday morning.  It is time for his yearly checkup and he has been acting weird lately.  I caught him trying to spray the area under the small table he uses to look out the window.  He then tried to attack me as I was walking up the stairs and bit my leg hard enough to hurt.  It could be nothing, it could be something.  We will hopefully find out on Monday.

Vroom-Vroom Went the Weekend.

  I am tired and sunburnt, but I had a good time.  Bill had told me that he was going out of town for work stuff.  I asked where he was going and he told me there was nothing interesting about the area.  I guessed a few places that I had known he had been to before.  He said that I would not guess it and then said he couldn't tell me when I asked where he was going.  I figured he was going to Area 51.
  He was not going there.  He was going to Ocean City, MD for OC Bike week.  He didn't want me to get jealous of him.  I got to go because the guy he was rooming with before canceled.
  I had to meet Bill at his work since he was unable to take the whole day off.  I almost got into two accidents on the way there, so I was ready for some fun and less excitement.

  After all that to-do over where he was going, it makes sense that the first place we went to as a group was Seacrets.  It is kind of cool.  There is sand in the main eating area and there are even bar tables out in the water.  The food was good and there were various bands playing live.

  I had a bloody mary, so I'm not sure what they distilled.  I think their set-up is pretty cool looking.
  After this our group broke off into smaller groups.  Since we were staying about 45 minutes away, we just headed back to our hotel.

  The next day we all met up at one of the vendor locations and wondered around for a while.  Some of the guys got new LED headlights put on their bikes.  They were also letting people test ride some of the various models of the Indian motorcycles.  I know Bill likes the look of them, but he didn't want to take one for a spin.

  There was even a bikini competition and this little girl was there.  I first got to see her in Thunder in the Valley in PA.  She is so cute and loves posing for pictures.

  We can't take Chaz anywhere...or should take him everywhere, it is hard to tell sometimes.
  Some of the group didn't get in until the rest of us had been there for a bit, so we were there long than planned.  I was so hungry by the time we headed to lunch.  Someone said they wanted to go to Fish Tales, but since it was so close to the action, it was going to be crazy busy.  We ended up at Fager's Island.  It was hard to choose what to eat since so much looked good.  If you ever go, look at their kid's menu.

  Since we hadn't gotten enough vendors yet, we headed to another place to buy some stuff.  One of our group had needed to get her foot worked on, so she wasn't with us for the most part, but we met her here.  At Myrtle Beach I had helped her pick out a really cool skull ring.  Well, at one point when she was on her phone, the ring slipped off and she didn't notice.
  After Bill and I got some mugs and soda from Wild Bill's we caught up to her and we looked at some rings.  Though it isn't as cool as the first, we were able to find her a really cool new ring.  The last one had red eyes and fangs, and on the new one the band looks like bones.

  We even got to learn some fun facts about Jack Daniel.  I didn't know we were the same height!  You might need to click on the picture to read the card.

  To end the day, we stopped at Fishers to get popcorn.  I also had an adventure.  I needed to use the bathroom.  The building that Fisher's was in did not have one and neither did the one next to it.  Bill figured that Dunkin Donuts would have one.  Turns out they were only opened until 1pm every day.  I had to go past it and down the ramp to find one.  That took forever, but I finally got to feel better so I could pick out popcorn.  I had to get the Pumpkin Spice, it was a must.  The other I got was the Caramel and Old Bay.  I got some weird looks when I mentioned that, but it is really good.  Sweet and a bit spicy.  The Old Bay isn't too overpowering and it pretty subtle.

  Everyone wanted to head out pretty early, but we had to make one more stop at the Harley dealership before we left.  I got an event t-shirt and sat on a purple bike.  I also saved a praying mantis.  I saw him by one of the cones by the store and managed to wrangle him and put him by some trees.  He fought me the whole way, but I understand why he was doing it.  One of the guys who was directing traffic gave me a smile for going through all that and getting pinched a bunch of times to save the little guy.
  Instead of heading straight home, Bill and I went to go visit one of his old co-workers who had retired near where we were staying.  He and his wife had a cute dog who was really shy.  It was so funny.  She kept shying away until I had all my gear on, then she came over to me and said hello.
  I got exactly zero knitting done.  I even made sure that I had it with me at all times.  I would like to say it was because I was at the beginning and would have to pay a little attention to it, but we were just so busy that it slipped my mind.  I was also just too tired at the end of each day to count to any number.

How Can You Be Productive?

  One things I sometimes wonder about is how to tell if you have been productive in your day.  Everyone wants to think they were productive, but how can you tell if you have succeeded or not.  Because so many people have to get so many things done in any given day, it is hard to tell.  Does it count as being productive if you do the dishes and get a lot of knitting done?  Does it count if you pay some bills and get some exercise in for the day?  Who can tell?
  I personally feel like I'm less productive in a day if I spend a while getting work done.  Some people might think that I was being very productive since I was earning some money, but to me it means that I won't have as much time to work on stuff for charity and then have more things for the blog.  It also means that I probably won't be motivated to get my craft storage room together more.

Picture by Andrea.

  Here is something that does help me to feel like I have been productive.  This was one of my secret test knits.  Sweet Gale was a lot of fun to test and went really quickly.  Some people might not see it the same way because I was sitting around knitting when I could have been doing something else.

  Another secret test knit was Sandbar.  I even gave some suggestions on how to improve the pattern on this one.  Helping someone to make their pattern better, or even just make sure the numbers work, makes me feel productive.

  This is the back.  I wish it had blocked a bit flatter, but it can't be helped at this point.
  There are other things that help me to feel productive, but not to the same extent.  Doing a load of dishes helps me to feel productive for a bit, but since we just make some more dirty the feeling doesn't last as long.  Paying bills can also feel productive since I'm doing something responsible, but everyone has to do that, so it doesn't feel as impactful.
  Guess this is just one of those things that are both personal and a question that can never really be answered.

Food Filled Weekend.

  I had been waiting for this event for over a month.  I follow a few people who live on the west coast and had gone to the LA VegFest.  They were posting a bunch of amazing pictures of vegan food that just looked amazing and so good.  I was so jealous and wanted to eat all of it.  I knew I would get my chance when a friend told me about DC VegFest.


  I tried so many samples and the food we did buy was really good.  It was overcast the whole time and was randomly a bit rainy, but it didn't stop me from having fun.
  The black bean burger was a bit sweet, and I can even get it from grocery stores.  I'm so excited to be able to have them at home.  Another really good thing we tried was a mango lassi.  I'm not sure what all went into it, but on top of the mango flavor, there was a strong flavor of cardamom.  All the others I have had just tasted like mango and vanilla.  It was super nice for the chilly day.
  A few of the companies, like Miyoko, had some new products to let the public try before they hit shelves.  I made sure to take a picture of the name of the company before the samples, that way I would be able to try and find the things again later.
  There are a few reasons that there are so many pictures from Vegan Treats.  According to my phone, the shop is only about a 3.5 hour drive away.  While that is a bit of a hike for desserts, I think it is worth it.  The line for the place was also always stretching more than 2/3 the way across the event.  We waited in line for over an hour to get to the tent.  We kept hoping that the line would go down, but even though they were getting through people quickly, it never really got shorter.  When we got to the front they were at the point where they had everything out that was left.  So many things were sold out.  We even saw two things sell out while we were next in line.
  I got two of their Fried "Chicken" and Waffle donuts.  The faux chicken tasted so good, I want it on sandwiches.  The donut was so fluffy and had a faintly maple taste to the glaze.  I also got a cannoli which had chocolate chips through the whole thing.  There was also a Tres Leches that caught my eye.  The whipped topping was creamy and not very sweet, it offset the cake nicely.  The cake was moist and tasted like vanilla cookie batter.
  Not every vendor was food.  There were some apparel and accessory vendors and some information booths.  A few of the various vendors were even donating some of their sales to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey.  I thought that was pretty awesome of them.
  I had brought my knitting with me, but it was raining so randomly that it never got a chance to come out.  I was too excited to work on it during the ride in and I had too many bags to keep track of on the way home.  I can't wait for next year, I will make sure to go to certain places first because a few of them either had insane lines, or ran out before we got back around to them.