How can a week in which you only work three days seem so long?  I went back to work on Wednesday, and although the days were very busy, the week just seemed to drag!  Plus all of us felt really disoriented.  It’s bad enough coming back after 2 weeks on vacation, but coming back midweek is really confusing.  However, the end of the week brought some excitement.  Hubby’s brother is a professor at Washington State University.  He, his wife and daughters came over to visit and stayed with us.  They made a quick stop at the University to pick up this for me:

It’s starting to feel real!!  Graduation is May 3rd, which incidentally is Isobel’s third birthday. 

Since I now have all this free time, I did get a bit of knitting done.   However, I’m going to keep you in suspense.  I started this project and by the time I got around to thinking about posting about it, it’s impossible to get a good picture.  So I may just wait until it’s done and keep you all guessing.  Those of you on Ravelry can bop on over and get a clue; the rest of you will just have to stay tuned.  By the way, my sister-in-law, who is a new knitter, is on Ravelry.  Her id is "waitingtoknit".  I’d love it if you’d go on over and "friend" her.  She’d get a kick out of it (and wonder – who are all these people?). 

While we were sitting around waiting for them to arrive Friday night, we peeped out our front window and were greeted with this:

Yes, that is indeed snow.  In late April.  It’s kind of an odd juxtaposition next to our flowering cherry trees.  We ended up getting about two inches, which thankfully is now gone.

With so much studying to do, my quilting time has suffered over the past years.  So, I promised myself that when I was done with school, I would start a new quilt in celebration.  While the family was out visiting other family members, that’s exactly what I did.  Here’s what I have done so far:

I had originally planned on another design, but decided I wanted to utilize my embroidery machine, so switched gears.  I am loving this pattern.  I deliberately tried to go outside my usual color palette of pastels and blues.  All of these earthy colors are a real stretch for me.  They’re a real stretch for my fabric stash too.  Many of these pieces have been contributed by my friends, but I still need to go looking for some more brick reds.  I used up almost all I have on just these blocks.

Off to knit on my stealth project and watch "Law and Order" with hubby.  At last we have some new ones!  We’re addicts and are not above watching reruns, but it’s nice to have new material.  Sometimes we’ll just watch the reruns until we remember "who done it."  I know, our lives are exciting beyond belief!