I can feel it coming on.....

Yes, folks, one very real side-effect of the "Back to School" time of year is that mom always gets sick. First, it starts with Sylvain getting a little sluggish, then congested, and the coughing kicks in. Next, it's Chuck's turn to come home from work complaining. Now, as I went to bed last night, I could just feel this thick throb of a head and neck-ache come on. Hoping that proper sleep and a comfortable arranging of pillows will make it all go away, I tried to sleep, but get getting hot/cold flashes, to the point where I slept buried deep in blankets and with the window open. There are times when the reward for being mom isn't much of a reward at all....

So, with Sylvain being down with a cold this week, the one up-swing to that is that he hardly argues over his 8:30 bedtime (yes, he's 13, and I still make him go to bed at 8:30). This gives me plenty of time to get the kitchen back in order, and spend the rest of my night on my projects. I finished with the Feather and Fan shawl, but haven't taken a photo of the completed work b/c I need to find some way to block it. It's about 8' long now, which should be long enough for a good stole. I was going to work the stole until the yarn was gone, but using Interlacement's Ric Rac II, and at 1,400 yards, I started to realize that the stole would end up being twice the length I have (!). And I'm already at the point where I was ready to stab myself in the eye with my needles over the boring, boring pattern!!



I started two more projects: one is a hat for the Spartan vs. Wolverine charity drive which is worked from the top down. The pattern is called Foliage and is a free download from Knitty. I *may* have linked to this already in my post about Knitterpalooza, I'm not entirely sure at the moment [see! the effects of a cold coming on!].



The second project is my second Christmas shawl, which is going to be worked out of one of the hanks won at Stitches Midwest. It is being crocheted and the pattern is from Daikeito and is simply called "Shell Crochet Shawl". I already needed ask around for help to get started b/c I'm not really a crocheter, but now that it's going, I think it'll be a good, quick project. The only problem that I can forsee for now is the same one I had with the Feather and Fan -- there's no way that this shawl will use up 1,400 yards of yarn.


In addition to all of that, I have the other random UFOs hanging out: putting the finishing embroidery on the Daphne bag, getting back to wet-felting my Super Mario Brothers bag, and piecing together my Great American Aran Afghan.

This weekend will hopefully be a fun and relaxing one for us -- now that we're in for a dry spell, we can get back to scraping and painting the house; I'm hoping to catch up with Carolyn and Sue Saturday morning at Beaners for coffee; Sylvain's going to Hunter's Safety; and we have another home football game (vs Grand Ledge) on Sunday, so I'll be at the concession stand there most of the day.

Well, wish me good health and luck in not getting it as bad as the guys have it....