I missed the Yarn Along with Ginny and Keep Calm and Craft On with Nicole yesterday. As usual, our house came down with the plague last week. I thought I was going to be spared but sure enough I was the last one to catch it and I was a miserable coughing and sneezing mess on the couch for four days straight. Luckily my parents were able to drive Sam to his gymnastics class and Gabe did his part by bringing take-out food home every night after work. I just despise being sick. I couldn’t even knit because my eyes kept watering and my head was pounding. Yes, it was that bad.

But…I’m better now and back to my old self. Which means knitting. Lots of knitting. I am working on my test knit (Wellington Worksock Shawl) by Sam Lamb and I hope to have it blocked by this weekend. I am having second thoughts about my color choices. I thought the cream body of the shawl would contrast nicely (but not too starkly) with the mustard colored border and the blue accent stripe, but now I think perhaps I should have chosen the blue as the border color and the mustard as the accent stripe. We shall see. It’s only ten or fifteen rows that I would have to rip out if I don’t like it but I would like to avoid ripping anything out as much as possible.

It’s been raining non-stop here for the past three days and I am looking forward to the sunny days that have appeared in our ten day forecast. Green shoots from my strawberry plants are starting to poke out from amongst the brown dead leaves of last year’s plants and I want to take some time this weekend to clear out the dead parts so the new growth can thrive and (hopefully) produce lots of strawberries this summer! My garlic shoots have sprouted and a few of my herbs, like my mint and chives are slowly starting to grow as the days become longer and a few degrees warmer.

I can’t believe how quickly this winter season has flown by. Gabe and I were talking about how surreal it is that we’re already planning our new orchard and determining the location of our new raised beds. I swear I just put my garden to bed last week! Pretty soon I’ll be in full gardening mode…right around the time our new baby arrives. I have a feeling that our garden won’t receive as much attention as it did last year. That’s okay. I’m going to take it one day at a time and do what I can. It might not be the garden I want but it will be better than nothing.