The never-ending cold

I seem to have lost a week somewhere. I remember coming home from our trip but then it's been a haze of tissues, stuffed sinuses, coughing, and feeling just yucky while still managing to work (from home), get the laundry done, take the cat to the vet, cook some meals, and keep on top of the dishes (thank goodness for dishwashers!). My husband has caught the cold too so there's no one but the cats to take care of us and they only seem interested in their own food bowls getting filled. We are better but I seem to be suffering a relapse or else I've caught another cold. Bleh.

When I'm healthy I sometimes hope for a sick day to do a bit of knitting or whittle away at the stack of magazines I haven't read yet. But the reality is that when you're sick you feel like doing nothing at all. I watched a lot of TV but did manage to read a magazine. I also finished the mate to the socks I was knitting. This pair came out a bit bigger than the first pair - same yarn but different sock patterns - but I still like them. Unfortunately I couldn't spend my days knitting or reading magazines. My vacation and sick days come from the same pool of time off so if we hope to take more trips this year I can't use up my days being sick. Last week I took one day off from work and then worked from home for two days and went into the office on Friday when I felt well enough and figured I was not contagious anymore. I suppose I could have given up 3 more days of vacation but I'd rather have those 3 days to spend touring museums, visiting historical sites, or relaxing at a sidewalk cafe.

And speaking of vacations, I had good intentions of posting some pictures from the trip but we only yesterday viewed them ourselves. Our DVD player also accepts memory cards so we just popped the 2Gb card in and sat back with a box of tissues, numerous blankets and a cat or two and watched the slide show of our trip on our TV. Digital cameras are a wondrous invention. No more film to deal with. No more rationing of photo opportunities. No more lead bags at airport security. No more developing costs. No more blurry pictures you hesitate to throw away because you paid to have them developed and printed. The downside to digital is that you can take so many photos. It took a few hours just to view our pictures so I know it's not going to be a quick job to select ones to post. And of course I'll want to do a bit of touching up. I don't do much. Sometimes I do a bit of cropping or see what Photoshop Elements recommends to enhance the color or lighting. Often I like the original photo and stick with it.

Now that my socks are done I can turn my attention to new projects. I cast on and began knitting socks for my husband but after four inches it became clear that they were going to be much, much too big in diameter. The sock was looking more like a sleeve. I wanted to just do a simple stockinette stitch sock with a short row heel and thought I'd just use the pattern in the Sensation Knitted Socks book for the Fair Isle socks. This did not work. The gauge was correct but perhaps the Fair Isle sock pattern takes into account the double thickness of working in Fair Isle because it just was not compatible with the Regia yarn in stockinette. I'm still learning! I picked a different pattern from the book but this one is "toe up", which I've never done before and it's slow-going. I gave up on their directions for the short-row toe. I couldn't wrap my sinus-headachey-head around it right now and decided to use their "easy toe" method instead. We'll see how it goes.

I also want to start a second knitting project but there are many possibilities. Will it be a Clapotis? How about something out of my ArtFibers yarn (I have enough for 3 sweaters)? Or perhaps I will make a sweater as a gift for someone. Decisions, decisions.

And of course there's still the Burda jacket sitting on my dress form.