I had such high hopes for this week. I was going to spend much of the time dyeing some new yarns and fibers that I’d received at the store. All my plans were dashed on Monday when I came home from work, because our littlest dog, Rusty, was acting oddly. The short version of the story is that she developed seizures which were uncontrollable and were most likely a symptom of a serious illness. She was too old and too ill otherwise to tolerate the treatment necessary to cure this illness, so we made the painful decision to have her put down. I snapped this picture of her in what turned out to be her last few good moments.

I had plenty of people to work at the store, so I took some time for myself this week. Spinning always has been therapeutic for me, but it ended up being the only meaningful thing I could do for a couple of days.

I am inordinately pleased with this project. As I mentioned previously, this is a batt of Romney wool that I’ve had for a number of years, blended with other, dyed wool and some soy silk. The challenge for me has been to spin this softly, and to a gauge of approximately 4.25 stitches to the inch. It’s destined to become this vest from Cheryl Oberle’s Folk Vests.

See how nicely this swatched up?

Yesterday, BJ Bass and I celebrated our 31st wedding anniversary.  We’ve long since passed the point of gift giving — we have all we need, and mostly all we want too.  Last year we decided to just take the day off and dedicate it to each other.  We could do anything we liked, as long as it wasn’t work related, or house care related.  We had so much fun we decided to do it again this year.  We didn’t do anything extraordinary, we went out for breakfast, shopped together for little things we needed, went to a movie (Mr. Brooks — not recommended) and had a nice dinner at our favorite special occasion place, Pauli’s in Madison.  This may not seem special to other folks, but since we are ships passing in the night most of the time, just setting aside special time for each other is precious to us.  We hope to have at least 31 more years together.