Mission Creep

Mission creep is the expansion of a project or mission beyond its original goals, often after initial successes. The term often implies a certain disapproval of newly adopted goals by the user of the term. Mission creep is usually considered undesirable due to the dangerous path of each success breeding more ambitious attempts, only stopping when a final, often catastrophic, failure occurs.

I am perpetually guilty of Domestic Mission Creep at the cottage. Its actually something I've embraced over the years as my perennial desire is family and guests alike will come to the cottage and enjoy having the best food and the nicest atmosphere and be able to do what they want while everything else just seems effortless.  (In other words, do it all myself to let them enjoy it.)

That's the "Mission" part of it.  The "Creep" comes in because every year I want to maintain what we've always done and add something new too! So every season the list has grown and grown to where its now at the breaking point and last summer I didn't have time to knit at all!

Here's a great example of the ridiculous lengths I can go. Last summer, Number One Son and a friend up for a few days so every morning I baked a different recipe of cinnamon roll...yeast raised...baking powder style...some with raisins/nut filling, others without...iced and plain, baked in glass vs. cast iron.  Every morning they'd sit down after water skiing and eat them and I'd ask them all kinds of questions about them...taste, texture, sweetness, overall impression.  It was interesting for me and kind of pushed the friend to think of food in way he'd never considered before BUT...seriously? I spent all that time for cinnamon rolls? Then I started thinking about what I'd make as a comparison study this summer when the the kid visits while also making the cinnamon rolls he liked best every morning he's there!

I need to get a grip and I'm going to really try to do just that.  We'll see how it goes.

At least Mission Creep isn't a problem for me in terms of Dog Grooming. This is the doggie we took to the cottage last weekend...

And this is the one that will be heading up with us tonight. (Don't mistake his rather serious expression for displeasure with his new "do". That's just the look of exhaustion from the bath/blowdry/clipping/scissoring process!)

Have a great holiday weekend everyone!

June

Things may have been quiet here on my wee knitblog but such has definitely not been the case here in my wee life!

June is a perennial scramble, both literally, in terms of my "perennial" and vegetable gardens and generally in terms of demands both domestic and social as summer approaches, the cottage opens up and the school year winds down.

Such great colours...so motivational to cook when everything looks so great!

Martha Stewart "Summer Pudding Terrine"

Martha Stewart's "Mustard Rubbed Port with Blackberry Mustard Sauce"

I've been baking and cooking a lot, and hosted a birthday dinner in the garden in mid June for My Beloved.

I love how my Mother In Law's china looks in the garden with its sweet floral motif!

We took delivery of new beds.

Uncertainty is so disconcerting for a dog! "Where'd all the furniture go?"

This prompted a cascade of shifting furniture and lighting affecting numerous rooms in the house. One aspect of this was the dissolution of Number One Son's "childhood" room into something more befitting and literally "fitting" the lanky, sprawling six footer than the little blond Lego loving boy for which the room had been set up.

I dedicated a week of mornings to the school's used uniform sale and wrote upwards of 60 thank you notes on behalf of the parent community to the teaching staff good enough to voluntarily dedicate hours and hours of their time to providing extracurricular opportunities for the lucky students at Number One Son's school.

I also worked a weekend at my Obedience Club's annual Obedience Trials as a newbie Ring Steward. About 100 dogs were judged in our ring (one of 4 at the show) over the course of my assigned shifts. It was great experience for me as I sort out how to proceed with Hudson's training over the summer and towards Trials next autumn and the following spring.

On top of it all this year my mom has not been well and is requiring quite a bit of support (This has actually been going on since January)

And my new "Trainer" (pictured below) has been madly driving my ever older body miraculously towards ever greater fitness (For example I've lost no weight but I'm down 2 1/3 inches around the hips since this time last year!)

The "Hey its time for a walk!" look. What a task master...all he needs is a whistle around his neck!

To return the "favour" I spent a marathon 9 1/2 hours over two days washing, drying and sheering off his voluminous coat to produce something more fitting the warming weather.

Most evenings though I have managed to find time for a few rows of knitting to work away on the most miraculously enjoyable project I think Ive ever cast on!

Its the Ginko Shoulder Shawlette by Maggie at Fragrant Heart Creations and I'm working it in the gorgeous Viola yarn I bought at the DKC Frolic in May.

I grabbed this project at 5:00 a.m. the day we left for Bermuda, wound the ball and cast on during our flight then mindlessly enjoyed the stockinette portion of the knit over our lovely long weekend on the Pink Island.

Once home I started on the charted lace border...one repeat of an easy 34 row chart.

While watching baseball and the hockey playoffs and "The Killing" on AMC I worked away, had the odd missed yarn over, tinked back, fixed things up and started off again.

Through it all I have never stopped really enjoying the project. I've frequently imagined I should rip right back to add more stitches for a bigger shawl using more of the yarn.

The yarn is so wonderful. The subtle colour variation between brown, grey and blue is so sophisticated, easy to look at and wonderful at enhancing the stitching. It also feels great on the hands and is wonderful yarn to work!

This morning I was a bit sad as I worked the last row of the chart. "I will miss this chart", I thought. Then I took it off the needle just to open it up and really check everything before casting off and realized in my happy, yarn blinded knitting I have utterly misread the chart, adding huge chunks of stitches where none are intended to be. I've counted the spaces indicating "no stitch" as "Sure! put a stitch in here!"

All the stitches between the column in the centre and the start of the lacework aren't supposed to be there!

The stitches between my fingers aren't supposed to be there either!

Rip, rip, rip...'looks like I won't be missing that chart any time soon! but while I'm at it, I think I'll add a few a  more repeats across the width because I now I'm sure I have enough yarn for it!

Thanks for dropping by!

Better Late Than Never

We opened up the cottage yesterday.

Its weeks overdue compared to our usual schedule but at least its done.

The boat is launched. Water is running.Grass around the cottaged was "whippered" into submission

Unlike when we arrived yesterday morning the kitchen is now stocked with the basic dry goods. This means all I have to add now is fresh food as we need it.

It was a perfect day for it with sunny blue skies and a breeze that kept the black flies at bay.

Hudson had a ton of fun - especially in the boat!

Our original plan had been to go Saturday but heavy rain, thunderstorms and high winds made that seem like a less than good idea. The weather also meant my Saturday gardening plans were shelved sooooo....

....knitting instead!

I got almost half way into the lace chart for my little Bermuda shawlette.

And then finished up the knitting on my Grown Up Booties.

Saturday night we even watched television! We're sporadic TV viewers at best but Darling Daughter, My Beloved and I have been enjoying following the latest(?) AMC series "The Killing" Sunday evenings at 10:00. Our weekend travels have had us miss the last couple of episodes ('typical and one of the main reasons we don't watch very often!) but after an early dinner and dropping Number One Son off at his Saturday "social engagement", Darling Daughter organized things so we could catch up. We watched two week's worth back to back Saturday and then the second Vancouver/Boston Hockey Game.

A lazy Saturday followed by a productive Sunday - a great weekend.

Mind you, some of "us" have been left feeling in need of some serious nap time just to catch up after all the "excitement"!

Thanks for dropping by!

A Lovely Long Weekend

In the wee hours of last Thursday morning My Beloved and I hopped on a plane and headed off for a long weekend together.

Our destination was beautiful Bermuda...

...We "scootered" around the island.

We saw lots of men clad in real live Bermuda Shorts.

We stayed at a Bermuda Pink Hotel.

And marvelled at the wonderful colours of the architecture all over the island.

We saw some "Whales" ;)

'Sat by a pool (or two!)

...Oh and I did a bit of knitting!

It felt like a perfect little break. Now, looking back on it, happy to be home, with a lingering sense of that pastel locale and its gracious people, "perfect" is what is must have been because what more can you ask of a getaway vacation than that?

Thanks for dropping by!