project 365

Today I went to town and had tea with a friend whom I only see once a year or so. We met at a marvelous little café that I have loved for years. Once upon a time I lived right around the corner.

We had very tasty breakfast there with huge bowls of fresh fruit and yoghurt (not pictured; I usually forget to take pictures of food until it’s too late). But look at the nice Chinese tea sets.

This is what I looked at, and the following is a look at the weather:

(My friend isn’t a blogger so she was a bit surprised by me pulling out the camera. I only said, “I’m taking a picture a day at the moment.” and when I took the one through the window she said, “What are you taking a picture of?” “The rain.” I replied.)

It was a real treat to meet a friend and chat for hours, and afterwards I went and bought five different kinds of licorice. What could be better?

So, on Tuesday my husband decided to do some spontaneous renovation work and replace the lights in my studio. (Don’t worry, I did help.)

The lamps directly above my piano and desk where broken, and the lights made a low electrical buzzing sound all the time that came through my stereo speakers. After a day of teetering on a high ladder and another of changing the switches I have functioning lights again:

On Wednesday we rode our bikes to the Andechs monastery. This was the first time ever that our son rode along us on his own bike. We do this about once or twice a year but the years before he had either sat in the bike trailer or for the last two years we took the train and only walked a couple of kilometers. That bike ride takes about two hours, and I’m really proud to say that he made it. This year we took a different route than we had before which turned out to be a good choice. We mostly went on bike paths and dirt roads not like last year when we had to dodge trucks all the way. It’s quite a workout getting there but then you get this:

And also some pork roast but I was too hungry to take a picture.

Today was yet another rain day, and the big thing for today was this:

A piece of empty floor where there used to be a sea of toys. Our son actually picked up some of his things. We’re very hopeful that some time this month we might be able to actually vacuum in his room. Rejoice!

We had planned to go camping this week but since the weather is that bad we decided not to. Better to sit in your home high and dry than sleeping in a tent in the rain.

This is where I spent most of my time today:

I should have taught a student but she never showed and so I spent the whole afternoon sitting in front of the computer doing nothing in particular. Only when I got up from my desk did I realize that a part of me was still somewhat waiting three hours later. I hadn’t even switched on the lights I had needed because of the rain.

There were things I had wanted to work on today but I never got around to it.

and with my family. Still spinning samples, though. This is the big maple behind our house:

I was sitting in its shadow, my son playing.

I almost made this my picture of the day.

In the evening I had yet another small skein of yarn.

Sorry, still spinning. First day of summer break and I spent the whole afternoon spinning samples for my big cardigan project. And managed to do a real one-handed long draw for the first time ever. Now I know there’ll be a lot of you who don’t know anything about spinning technique, and that’s totally fine, but what I basically did was let go of control and spin with only one hand. Which – of course – gave me the idea of trying to spin and take a picture at the same time. Which then looked like this:

Beer is really essential to this, Abby said so. (And here’s a video of it.) To show you a bit more than speed I fiddled a bit and got this:

Apart from my new (to me) Majacraft Little Gem that I totally love you can also see the beer cup holder I got myself. It was a dire necessity because I kept knocking over my drink while spinning. I would always put it on the floor and then accidentally bump into it. Not good. We also tried a new brand of beer…

The weather was actually beautiful today for a change but I stayed inside mostly. Shame on me.

Since I’m wearing both make-up and my new handspun cardigan today I thought it might be a good day to take a self-portrait:

The slightly crazy look on my face comes from me trying to smile at the right time. While getting the picture real quick. Also, my glasses are dirty. (I can’t be expected to have everything under control, can’t I?)

For those of you who are interested in things like that you can read about the making of the cardigan on my project page, and a bit about the motivation for making it in “The Want“.

To celebrate the last day of school we made lactose-free pizza together. It’s really rare to meet all of us in the kitchen for cooking, and so that felt very special to me.

I’ve also come to realize that lunch feels special to me very often. My husband’s cooking is that good. – Mine’s not that bad either. And pizza is one of my very favorite things in the world. Homemade pizza with my family? Very, very good thing.