Spring has sprung!

Kind of a trite title, but I don't care. It was a gorgeous 57 degrees today (apparently the norm is 42). To celebrate, I have a photographic update of the tulips in our yard. As of five minutes ago, they looked like this:

Swoon.

The Awesome Fiance earns his superlative moniker(s) every day. This weekend in particular, though, he went all out: he installed a bathroom exhaust fan to replace the anemic and useless one that came with the house. I don't have a picture -- let's face it, it's a white grate on a white ceiling: nothing much to look at -- but take my word for it when I sat it's a vast improvement. His dad helped, mostly for moral support and to run down to the circuit breaker box in the basement, but The Awesome Fiance did all the important work.

In the next few weeks, weather permitting, we'll be tackling the set-up of a rain barrel (water for the garden! doing our part to reduce run-off pollution!), which involves as a prerequisite the installation of gutters on the house. I'll help (instead of reading and knitting like I did during the fan installation...) but I suspect the lion's share of the effort will be his. Because he's awesome.

An Injury-Free Ski Adventure is a Good Ski Adventure

So I haven't posted in almost a week because... we were on vacation! It was me, Mr. Terrific, and the Terrific Family, and we went skiing. At this point, I should note that the same group went on a similar vacation last year, and I took a snowboarding lesson that proved to be the ultimate example of my coordination failures. I had a nice time, but I spent 2 hours on the slopes, at most. This year, in contrast, I made the very wise decision to ditch the snowboarding concept and take a ski lesson instead.

You know what? It wasn't horrible! I only fell twice over the course of the two days we had lift tickets. And, most surprising of all, I spent most of my descents with my skis relatively parallel to one another: no excessive snowplowing to slow myself down! Granted, I wasn't blazing down the trails at breakneck speed, but I was staying in (relative) control by skiing across the mountain like you're supposed to. I even rode the chair lift *by myself* without forgetting to lift the safety bar before attempting to disembark (can't you just picture it?) -- hurrah!

And as a bonus, we had only the best spring weather for the whole trip. As you can see, it was very sunny:

zen and the art of wedding planning

All the wedding-y decisions we've made so far have been surprisingly, blissfully, almost oddly easy. We look at our options, we let ourselves ruminate for a bit (if we have to at all), and without fail one option presents itself very clearly as the one that feels right for us. Our venue? We walked in and promptly forgot all about the list of seven other places we'd considered. We went back and forth on whether we should do favors and ended up getting really psyched about what we've decided to give to everyone, once we thought of it. And don't even get me started on how I found my dress (which I should totally tell you if I haven't already -- 97% off retail, bay-bee!)

The big decision that was making me nervous, though (and of course that means "the decison I was trying to postpone as long as possible"), was the invitations. SuperFiance kept suggesting that we start thinking about them, and while I agree with him that deciding these things now will make our lives easier in a few months, my tendency toward indecision put me in flight, rather than fight mode. There are a LOT of different types of invitations out there. Elegant, whimsical, vintage, modern, professionally printed, DIY. Gah!

I bit the bullet and agreed to sit down and look at some possibilities last night. By the time I reached my thoroughly-overwhelmed threshold, we had a few possibilities flagged for future inspiration at the very least, and one design that we liked more than the others.

About an hour later, the solution became apparent, and in this case the answer wasn't a vendor or a location but a frame of mind. I looked at SuperFiance and said "hey, if we look at those invitations again on Saturday and still like the same ones, you wanna just buy them?" No rethinking, no hassling with fonts and graphics and paper cutters and dimensions in a quest to make every last element of the day as "us" as it can possibly be.* They'll be "us" enough because we like them. And we'll be much, much happier making a decision and moving on.

I wonder how long we can put off deciding what to use for reception decorations before the it'll-all-fall-into-place approach works for that, too?



*We're picking our battles and playing to our strengths when it comes to projects (hello, home-grown flowers). We're ok as garderners, but graphic designers, not so much.

I knit like I cook.

As I think I may have mentioned, oh, every time I talk about cooking, I'm not the best at following recipes. Measuring is time-consuming (and it results in more dishes to wash, I would say unnecessarily), so I usually don't do it. I often don't have every suggested ingredient on hand, and depending on what the missing element is, I forge ahead anyway. Even when I do have all the right ingredients, I'm likely to use less of some (oil, for instance) and more of others (recipes never call for enough cinnamon, ever).

And yes, I approach knitting in much the same way. I'm about as incapable of following a pattern as I am at adhering to a recipe. Right now, I'm working on the Mirabella Cardigan from the spring 2008 issue of Interweave Knits (clearly I conquered the what-to-knit-next decision that had me stumped last week). I'm making a rough approximation of it, anyway.

First, I decided to use a finer gauge than the pattern calls for and knit a larger size to arrive at the dimensions I'll need. Next, as I always do, I opted for knitting in the round rather than knitting flat. At that point, I figured I might as well knit it as a pullover instead of a cardigan, and lengthen the short sleeves to full length. The jury's still out on whether I'll change the neckline.

Here's what I've got so far:

ouch (and yay)

I've already mentioned that I've had to take an extended, infuriating, grump-inducing hiatus from running. I've been going to physical therapy and doing exercises to get my knee back up to snuff. The decline of fitness has been inevitable, though.

Over the weekend, I decided to put a toe back in the shallow end of running. As much as I don't want the progress I've made to be destroyed by overuse too soon, I'm also wary of being too inactive by way of paranoia. If I don't get back to training, I'll never get back to my former capacity (such as it was). So I ran, a very little bit. Very little. I did six minutes total, broken into three two-minute segments, separated by walking. I didn't listen to music, lest I be tempted to keep going through a particularly high energy song. And I didn't push myself with speed or hills.

It was lovely. But now I really, really hurt.

too many options = overwhelming

So I'm about halfway through that massive, super-secret knitting project at this point, and I have plenty of time to do the second half. (Remind me I said that when I'm clamoring to meet my deadline later, ok?)

Anyway, I feel like I can take a break and choose a new project for a bit of a change of pace. Which is great, except... I'm paralyzed with indecision as to what I should make. I have two types of new yarn calling out to me, a sweater's worth of yarn I just reclaimed from an ill-fitting jacket I made last year, and about three still-intact sweaters that I don't wear, never will wear, and need to rip out.

That gives me maybe five or six types of yarn I could potentially use. For each type of yarn, there are seemingly limitless (thanks, Ravelry) patterns that would be fun to try. I'm not a math person, but I suspect the resulting number of options has something to do with the word "factorial." I'm fully overwhelmed by the possibilities.

Maybe I should list out all my favorites and choose via blindfolded dart-throwing (or finger-pointing, to be safe). Maybe I'll let Mr. Terrific decide. Maybe I'll hold off on starting a new sweater and tackle other pressing issues instead. No, who am I kidding, that last one is foolishness.