Visiting

I went to visit my cousin Andrea last night. She's been asking about me and my knitting for a couple of weeks so I thought I should go. Besides, I had a captive audience to whom to talk about knitting. It was a pleasant visit but difficult. Andrea still can't talk very well so I got about one word in every sentence and had to ask her to repeat herself. The up-side is that I could use that one word for a context clue and figure out the other words most of the time when she repeated herself. Being ever hopeful, I took the large knitting needles with me on the off chance that she might be able to manipulate them. It would be good for her, but she doesn't have that level dexterity yet. She couldn't even hold onto a skein of yarn yet. She also can't see well enough to read anything or see small things, like the charms on my watch. It's got to be frustrating! However, she is able to sit up and eat if someone feeds her--which means she's swallowing easily. I've attached mom's note from last week below.

I took a bunch of different projects, books, patterns, and yarns to show her. I wanted her to be able to feel the different fibers. She has a large collection of yarns but not high end stuff. So I took the cashmere and cashmere/merino blend as well as the alpaca and wool/silk blends. She seemed to enjoy feeling them, even though she really couldn't hold them well. She has so many ideas of things she wants to do but her body just won't allow it.

I need to find a blanket pattern with spiders on it. She wants to do that for a friend. I know there is a sock pattern so I'll take a look at the Ravelry patterns.

She was curious about color work. I took my sweetheart hat that is in progress and showed her how I worked on it. I didn't actually make any progress on anything. Too many distractions to work on complicated patterns. I did read a bit from a couple of Yarn Harlot books to her. She laughed out loud a couple of times.

It was difficult to assess her level of interest because her eyes won't stay open. Her right eye wouldn't open at all while I was there and her left drooped a lot as the night went on. I asked her several times if she wanted me to continue and she always said yes.

I left about 10:00 after introducing Mike and Marilyn to Two Lumps. It was a two hour drive home and I was so sleepy. I'm glad there were no cops because I was swerving all over the road. I never fell asleep but I wasn't very good at keeping the car going straight forward. I made it home safely and crashed into my bed immediately.

( Mom's note )

When it's too hot to cook....

I love a good pasta salad. Tonight's entree is a mixed cheese tortellini salad containing artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, basil and tomato feta, kalamata olives and, of course mixed cheese tortellini. It is marinating in Bernstein's Light Cheese Fantastico dressing. If I could eat raw tomatoes those would probably be good too. I am wishing for some good sun dried tomatoes but I didn't want to go back to the store. It is lovely (I taste tested, of course) but now I need to let it soak up some of the italian seasonings before I eat.