And The Sun Will Come Out .... Tomorrow?

Or will it? The sun finally came out this afternoon so I snapped some pictures of the campus I'm staying on. The big question is whether or not the nice weather we had today will last until Friday. According to all the weather reports I've seen, the odds aren't in our favor.

We were given the afternoon off from our classes since Thursday's schedule is super busy. I took advantage of the nice weather and decided to take a walk into the downtown area. It's a very cute town with quaint houses and green lawns everywhere. It looks much different from the houses on the West Coast, brick building everywhere and almost no back yard fences. I love the open look of all the backyards merging into one another. I opted to eat at a local German restaurant instead of the cafeteria food they've been giving us and had a wonderful lunch.

Of course, I had also done my research and learned that there were not only one, but two yarn stores within walking distance. I figured I would go and enjoy myself since I had the free time and who knows when I'll be in Maine again. First, I visited The Knitting Experience Cafe. It's a small shop that also has a little cafe with coffee, cookies, and other snacks. I was too full from lunch for any more food, but I did pick up a couple of skeins of Araucania Yarns Ranco Multi in color 310. It is a beautiful mix of reds, purples, blues, and greens.

After the first store, I went to check out Purl Diva. This store was fairly large and had a nice selection of yarns. The owner was very friendly and helpful. I was talking to her about all the different store samples she had hanging up, most of which she knit herself. I had to have a souvenir from this shop, so I purchased two skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sport Multi in the Gold Hill colorway. I like to think that the browns, oranges, and greens will resemble the trees in Maine during Autumn when all the leaves change color.


Tomorrow night is the last night of the class and they've planned a big lobster dinner for everyone. I hope it's good :)

Next stop, home sweet home!!

It's Raining In Maine

Sorry about the lack of post last week folks. I was just too busy preparing for my trip to Maine this week. It took an unusually long time to arrive in Maine, but I am finally here and sitting in the dorm room that is my home until I fly back to SFO on Friday. Look at how gray the sky is here! The trip was quite eventful, but I'll get to that story later.

First, let's talk about what I was up to last week. I had gotten some free tickets to the A's vs. Yankees game on Wednesday from my boss at work. Normally, I'm a Giant's fans, but these were pretty good seats and came with a VIP parking pass, so my boyfriend and I were excited to go check it out. It was even $1 hot dog night :) I didn't realize how good the seats were until we got there, right behind home plate about thirty rows up. Our view was awesome! The game turned out to be a blowout for the A's. When we left after the seventh-inning stretch, it was 8-1 A's.


I also submitted my "Let it Snow" cross-stitch piece to the Marin County Fair. It will be on display at the fair over the Fourth of July weekend. I've entered it into the Holiday category; I just love having snowmen around during Christmas. I'm not quite sure how it will do compared to the other pieces that are entered, but I guess I'll find out soon enough. I will let you all know how I do.


That bring us to my trip to Maine. I'm here, with two colleagues, to attend a Flow Cytometry course for work. I left my house at 4:45 AM Saturday morning to catch my flight (which had a connection in Washington D.C.) with the intention of arriving in time to register for the course and attend the welcome reception. Well, things didn't exactly go as planned. Our flight was originally going to arrive about a half hour early, but when we tried to land in Washington D.C. the airport closed due to some thunderstorms. We were starting to run low on fuel so the airline decided to have us stop in Richmond, Virginia to refuel while the bad weather passed.

We landed in Virginia and were told that we would arrive at our original destination as soon as possible. After we landed, we learned that the airport was not equipped to handle an airplane as large as the 747 we were on. They couldn't let us off the plane and they didn't even have anyone equipped to refuel the plane. We had to sit in the crowded, stuffy plane without any food for over 4 hours! They were finally able to get us off the ground again and on our way to Washington D.C. On the bright side, I did get a lot, and I mean a lot, of work done on my Silk Shrug. I will probably be done with the body of the sweater soon :)

Of course, by the time we arrived, we had missed our connecting flight and had to line up with the other 370 passengers to get re-booked on the next flight. But, they didn't have any room on the last flight that night, or on the one the next morning, or the one during the day. The airline wasn't able to put us on another flight for over 24 hours! This meant we were going to miss the first day of our course, had nowhere to stay for the night, and had no baggage.

We finally settled into a nearby hotel and made the best of our bad situation. Since we had all day before our flight left, we explored our nation's capitol. I was able to see the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court building, the Capitol Building, the White House, the Vietnam War Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the Pentagon. I'm sure there were a couple of other things too, but I can't remember them right now. We did so much walking around the city that I got a blister on my foot.


It feels good to have finally made it here, but I'm dreading the flight back home. There better not be any delays because next week I'm going on vacation to San Diego with my boyfriend. I can't wait, I'm sooooo excited!!

P.S. I think I found two yarn shops here in Maine that I can visit on our free afternoon. I may have a full suitcase on my way home :)

Fuzzy Shaved Kitty

Look at this little guy! Isn't he cute? This kitty lives by my boyfriend's house and seems to always be outside or hanging out on his third story balcony. His hair is always shaved, except for the head, feet, and tail. When he looks down at you from his balcony all you can see is this big head of fluff meowing at you. When I saw him the other day, he even climbed inside my car and explored for a little while before jumping out to see what else was going on in his neighborhood. I'm sure he's well taken care of, but doesn't he look like a cat in need of a nice warm snuggle during winter.

This week certainly has been a little crazy. Aside from my sunshine duties for the Marin Golden Threads, I've really only been working on my grocery bags. I have finished the front and back of one bag. They look slightly different from each other. One of them is rectangular in shape and the other one is sort of wavy. I must have made some mistakes when I was working through the pattern the first time and figured out the right way to do it on the second one. See, don't they look different?


I've started crocheting the gusset and base out of the Coconut Lily Sugar' n Cream Confectionary Colors yarn. I will also be making the handles with the same color of yarn as the gusset and base. After that, I'll just have to put the pieces together and then I'll have a completed bag! It may be a little funny looking on one side, but I don't think the groceries will mind :)