Last week seemed to fly by! Like a lot of people, we had some wintry weather to deal with during the first part of the week. That horrible ice storm that hit Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri started in the Texas panhandle but got worse as it moved east. We just had a bit of ice and no real damage, unlike our neighbors. Back when Mr. Scooba worked for the power company, he was the foreman of a line crew. It takes a certain kind of person to be a lineman; they live for storms like those in the midwest. Lots of them think there's nothing more rewarding than putting the lines back up after a big storm. He loved working storm damage (I know he was missing his job last week).
Here's my knitting progress:
This is the Marshmallow Scarf for my D-I-L Tara. The specs are 2+ skeins of Sprinkles yarn from JoAnn's, knit on size 10 needles till you are bored to death or the scarf is around 70" long. I can't remember how many stitches I cast on - I probably posted that when I started the scarf - I'm thinking it was around 15 to 18 stitches.
As soon as I finished Marshmallow, I started this one: 
Its JoAnn's Sensations "Angel Hair" yarn, knit on size 13 needles in a variation of Classic Elite Yarn's "Sinful" Ribbed Scarf. For this one, I cast on 21 stitches. There's a link to the pattern above - its a PDF file. If for whatever reason you can't open it, this is the pattern:
Row 1: (K3, P3) repeat, ending with K3.
Row 2: (K1, P1) repeat, ending with K1.
continue to alternate rows, odd rows K3, P3 and even rows K1, P1. Cast off when the scarf is the desired length. I used 2 skeins of this yarn.
For finer yarns, increase your cast-on by increments of 6. The original pattern is written for a cashmere yarn, cast-on 27 stitches on size 10 needles, but I obviously decreased it for the bulky yarn I chose. 
This scarf came about after I fell in love with this yarn... the colors remind me of the tropics. I had to have this yarn, not knowing what it would become. I thought it might be pretty in a ribbed pattern, so I searched online for a scarf design and found "Sinful". The design was easy enough that I couldn't mess it up too badly (I thought). While I was playing with it, Joe saw it and asked if he could have this scarf. (wow, I was surprised and pleased that he wanted it!) So, I'm calling this one "Joe's Caribbean Soul Scarf". This one defies being photographed - it is really so much prettier than the pictures show.
I'm knitting the Sinful pattern again, in black Caron Simply Soft, for my son Kevin. If you're wondering why I don't knit with some nice wool, I'll remind you that I'm trying to make it easy for the kids - the last thing I want to burden them with is laundry/care instructions for scarves. With acrylic (very soft acrylic!) they can wash them without worry. If they do OK with these, I've got some lovely wool... :)
Yesterday, my quilting group got together for a sewing day. We worked on Christmas quilts and exchanged gifts. One of the things I gave my girlfriends was kitchen towels that I embroidered on my machine: 
I also gave them some pretty Fitz & Floyd Christmas serving dishes. We had a wonderful day... great food, wonderful gifts, beautiful quilt blocks.
But I got pretty tired. I had to get up at 6:30 am to go meet my friends, and by 3:00 pm I was totally Out Of Gas. I was to the point where I couldn't think, and I was yawning non-stop. My sweet Mr. Scooba drove me over to to Amarillo for my get-together because I didn't know how I'd be feeling (gosh, it was so early when I got up!) and I was so glad he did. I could not have stayed alert to drive home. I could have gone to my sister's house and napped before going home, but I didn't really want to do that. Anyway, we got home and ate some supper, and I went to bed a little bit earlier than usual. Agh! I didn't wake up till 11:00 am today! And I napped this afternoon! When am I going to start feeling like a normal person?!? This sucks.
Tomorrow I increase my thyroid med dosage to 200 mcg. I'll stay on that dose for the next 5 or 6 weeks, and have my bloodwork checked when I go back to the oncologist the end of January.
So there it is. I've spent the past week practicing counting to 3 (knit, knit, knit, purl, purl, purl) and trying to stay awake during the day. Its been challenging at times... so we'll see what next week brings.
