Time to Breathe

John's beginning to feel a little more like himself again. The eye has a lot of healing to do, but we've gotten through the seven days of 18 hours of lying down. Obviously, he still needs to rest a lot and do nothing that would put strain on that retina, but at least he can begin to do a few things again. He cooked dinner last night; that was nice. Today, we're going out for a while, ostensibly to pick up a few groceries, but mainly because he's feeling more than a little housebound.

It's been a busy couple of days since I last posted. At the store, we got a shipment of yarn (9 boxes) that we've been plowing through, pricing and trying to make room for. For any of you who've been to the store, you'll know that's not an easy feat. It's not a large store. Because it's been busy, I haven't had much time, or energy, to post. I haven't even done much knitting that I can tell you about. I do, however, have one thing to tell you about.

This arrived in my mailbox on Wednesday. I knew it was coming, but had no idea when it would arrive. It's a lovely feeling, isn't it, when you get something in the mail that isn't a bill? Email and all this electronic stuff is wonderful, but it certainly can't match the feeling of opening your mailbox and finding something that someone sent via snail mail. It's something you can touch, something that the sender had in their hands before it got to your hands. And the anticipation of opening the package, is there anything that can match it in the electronic world?

I opened it (I almost didn't want to open it; I was truly savouring this package) and found this...

The blue tissue paper was such a wonderful visual treat; it's hard to explain it but, again, I almost didn't want to unwrap it. It was so bright and cheerful and the weather here that day was rainy and gray. But, you know I did, and when I unwrapped it, here's what I found...

It's a gorgeous, soft, cheerful skein of hand-dyed sock yarn from Kirsten at Through the Loops! I won it! I almost never win things. This yarn is absolutely stunning; Kirsten, I love it! Thank you so much!

Now, I have to decide which pattern I'm going to use for the socks I plan on making. I have a couple of ideas floating around the old gray cells, but nothing has been decided yet. In the meantime, the yarn is sitting at the top of my yarn basket, where I can see it and where I can listen for it to tell me what pattern it wants to become.

It's time to do some preening, some knitting, and then some shopping. Enjoy your weekend and don't forget to get your "entry" in. Tell me about your favourite kind of sock to knit... 2 posts back from this one. There's just over one more week to the deadline.