ILONA ANDREWS

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Vacation Report, Snippets, and All the Yarn

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Sunset over the ocean with a view of the sand.,

The 3 day vacation was lovely.

Florida smiled on us with quick rains that blew in just long enough to cool things off and melted into the sky. The ocean was warm, the water like thick green bottle glass, clear enough to see the outline of your feet but opaque enough to hide the fish. The waves had built a sandbar about 50 yards from the shore. We’d swim in it, walk around in shallow water, and hop over the waves.

Another angle of the sunset.

In the evening, the sky turned pink and gold, and clouds built magic cities with towers and castles on the horizon. We watched them from our balcony until cloud beasts came and swallowed them whole.

Clouds forming a city on the horizon.
A large cloud resembling some strange beast
Hotel towers 1 against evening sky.
Another hotel tower

At night, it stormed, pink lightning strobing far off shore.

It was lovely.

On day 3 I decided that I missed the dogs, the cats, my bed, and my computer. So the vacation did exactly what it was supposed to do – refreshed us enough to want to go home.

As you probably read on this blog, HEB is a popular grocery store chain in Texas. Not only it’s clean and well-run, but whenever there is a disaster, HEB is there with water and supplies. It is beloved by Texans. The saying goes, “Be grateful for the HEB because one day you might find yourself in a Florida Wal-Mart.”

While there are some nice Wal-Marts in Florida, the one we went to was not one of those. We bought some hoodies – Gordon and Kid 2 purchase clothes wherever we go and even I bought a hoodie, because it was so soft – and we needed backpacks to split our new load for the plane. The backpacks were locked with a cable. We had to buy them on the spot, the receipt was stapled to them, and we had to completely unzip them at the door to be allowed out of the store.

Next trip is to Raleigh, NC, probably in July. We are still looking for the summer escape from Texas. I know you want to tell me that Raleigh is hot and humid. As I type this, Raleigh is enjoying 76 degrees and 72% humidity, while we are sitting at 81 degrees with 87% humidity. Texas, not all of it is dry heat, heh. Raleigh would be good for Kid 2’s boyfriend, who will be looking for a job once he graduates. I hope I can actually grow things.

Although I am so tempted by the summers in Midwest. They sent us on a book tour some place, possibly Wisconsin, and I remember summer being just glorious.

In other news, I am almost finished with Willow Cowl. Big thanks to the people who linked it and mentioned it in the comments. It was a great one skein project to take with me on vacation. I just grabbed a random ball of Malabrigo from the stash. I did not do the picot edge. I might just crochet-finish it.

A knitted cowl in red, green, and brown variegated yarn.

Now, of course, I have to pick something else. Also, for reasons of normal life and stress, I have spent too much money. Some of it was on yarn. I hadn’t bought yarn for several months, I was so good, and then I fell off the wagon.

I blame Wendy’s Wonders. You know what you don’t see that often? Well-dyed gradient yarn. There are a ton of variegated colorways, but gradients are usually found on cottons. Wendy dyes gradients on wool and silk. They are pretty.

Image of a beautiful teal and orange gradient yarn.
Wise owl by Wendy

I don’t like Wendy or her pretty yarn. It’s bad for my bank account. Now I have to find something to do with beautiful gradients.

I cannot buy yarn anymore. I need to make money to make up for all the money I spent on the damn yarn. Maybe we will do a short story collection and instead of calling it Small Magics 2, we will name it Magic Bought Too Much Yarn And Is Sorry.

On that note, I might have something short for you on Friday. Can you guess who is talking?

German Shepherds were the best dogs ever. Period.

Of all the German Shepherds in existence, none were better than Ophelia.  She was smart, brave, loyal, and awesome in every regard.

Except when she conned Leon into giving her a slice of his pizza.

My cousin had a pathological need to be liked by everyone. It’s not that Fel didn’t like him.  It’s that he had a tendency to barge into my house without warning, usually agitated because some injustice or an exciting event had occurred, and my dog took exception to that. Fel liked things to be calm and orderly. She never attacked him.  She just smiled until he calmed down.

Leon had resorted to bribery. His own dog, Gus, a massive boxer, was extremely food-motivated. His real name was Augustus, which meant majestic and venerable, and if you caught Gus at the right moment, for example when he dramatically stared in the direction of a weird noise, he actually embodied the name. Unfortunately for everyone involved, that lasted exactly two and a half seconds, after which Gus reverted to his normal state of being a hyperactive goofball with the attention span of a squirrel on crack.

Happy Monday!

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Comments

  1. Finger lakes in NY, wineries breweries cool water and lots of parks , hiking and yarn stores

  2. As I type, I am wearing gradient merino wool socks on my feet. They go from a light gray to light blue to darker blue to dark blue. I love them. I wear dark blue pants that fade away under my light blue shirt.

  3. I think Catalina or maybe Matilda for the snippet. (Magic Bought Too Much Yarn And Is Sorry.) This screams for a short story! Who is most likely to try to pick up a hobby for stress relief and either buy too much yarn or have too much yarn dumped on them by everyone who is hopeful that the stress relief works!! I can picture them in the chair with snarled piles of yarn all around, and their sweetie passing another over, here I know this one will work for you! While side-whispering to the next person over – hey sneak out and buy more yarn!! Okay, yes, I have such a vivid imagination, LOL

  5. I have the same problem with fabric. My stash has enough quilting cotton for two lifetimes.

  7. That sounds like Arabella. She’s more snarky that Catalina and while Nevada might have dogs, she doesn’t live close enough for Leon to regularly barge in.

  8. I’m shattered! I live in Australia on a small pension and you dangle Wendy’s Wonders in front of me!! My caravan is 15′ long with a small annexe and is already overflowing with yarn. I am heroically resisting the hyperlink …. for now. Otherwise, it was great hearing about your vacation, especially as it was -2C this morning (28.4F) – Australia is not always hot :). Nevermind, next summer we will have 40C with 90+% humidity. In the meantime, I am returning to my knitting and rereading in expectation. Can’t wait for Friday.

  9. The cowl is *gorgeous*! (I may or may not be biased by the fact that I’m pretty sure I have the same colorway in my stash.)

    Glad the vacation was so awesome!

  10. Careful about those hobbies,where you buy a lot of stuff…you could end up like me when I said “I don’t have enough books, I’ll have to buy a bookstore!” 😂😂😂😛

  11. It’s good to hear ya’ll are refreshed and ready to earn more ‘yarn money’! I took a peek at Wendy’s Wonders website to see the pretties (I don’t do much with yarn, but admire the artistry that goes into creating the yarn as well as the completed projects). Wendy’s colors are gorgeous and so is the way she presents the yarn. Does she really send it to you knit into a beautiful accordian of colors or does it arrive in the traditional skein like you see in the stores? Just curious…
    ps Thank you for the snippet.

  12. Glad the vacation was refreshing. I love The Willow Cowl and have made three so far. Perfect one skein project. I’ve made the picot edge despite not being a picot kind of girl and really like it. Love your books.

  13. I’m going with Arabella too. Thanks for the snippet! Love it!

    I am learning how to crochet and I have been inspired by everyone on here. I went to Ravelry and found a simple scarf pattern (I know it is a scarf, how difficult can it be! But I am a beginner, beginner!)

    Then yesterday I bought yarn at our local store! What fun!

    Looking forward to Friday!

  15. While y’all were enjoying Florida, I got to take my first ever trip to Texas for a family wedding. It was fun, but ridiculously hot. I also discovered the Mexican Hot Chocolate ice cream at the HEB, and had to fight off kids 1 and 4 to actually get some.

  21. My baby sister has lived outside of Lansing, MI for the last few years and loves it. Neighbors are involved with each other; they all seem to be possessed to plant large beautifully colored beds of tulips. Good shopping, the weather is great compared for down South or over here with the Dakotas where I am.
    She’s a Texas transplant and is loving every minute of it.

  22. Wendy’s yarn is fantastic! She’s wonderfully creative & I would also like to buy way more of her yarn than I can afford. Every time she releases a new colorway, I have to remind myself that I have to actually finish something before buying more.

    I currently have a few Wendy’s Wonders in my stash that will eventually become something, but right now they’re just being squishy & beautiful! 🧶

    As a person who was born & raised in the Midwest (On the lakes of SE Michigan), moved elsewhere for (for not enough years), & am now living in SE Iowa…

    I DO NOT recommend Midwest Winter! It’s COLD. 🥶 Your BONES get & stay cold. The lake effect snow & windchill are not friendly, especially if you’ve lived in the South for many years. Wisconsin & Minnesota are beautiful, but they are even colder than my current (& old home) locations.

    I highly recommend picking somewhere more South (Kentucky, East Tennessee, Carolinas, Virginias) or even possibly on the NW Coast (Oregon or Washington), which all have seasons, but much more mild winters (depending on location).

    We lived in Central Tennessee (Nashville Metro area) for 5 years & winter was very mild (compared to our previous homes in the Midwest & Germany). I can’t recommend moving to Nashville though, as it’s horribly overcrowded, grossly overpriced, & there is a horrendous lack of infrastructure improvement. When we first moved there, we planned to make it our forever home… when we left (as did many of our friends), we don’t ever plan on going back (congestion gets worse every year).

  23. what? most of the time gradients are on wool which ticks me off because it makes my skin develop welts. At least they aren’t alpaca which makes my hands red while feeling like they are on fire.

  25. I would 100% buy a copy of ‘Magic Bought Too Much Yarn And Is Sorry’ and display it with pride.

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