The following paragraphs were originally posted on 31 March and 19 May 2008:

Spring is arriving little by little, and that means, for one thing, more sunny days for my dogs to enjoy outdoors.

Gabby especially is a sun bather; I think that’s a definite characteristic of pit bulls. Every pit bull I’ve been lucky enough to share my life with has shown an absolute genius for locating the most comfortable spot in the yard for lounging and soaking up as much sun as possible.

Sometimes it seems the only thing that gets a bull dog through the shivery cold winter is a stubborn hope that the sun will come back, just for her. On cloudy days Gabby will stare at me as if to say, “Well? What did you do with my sunshine?”

The first even-slightly-warm day of the year is her opportunity to find her spot and stay there until she’s overheated and panting. And then nothing pleases her more than trudging back inside the house for a nice, long, cold drink of water — and right back out the door to do it all again.

19/5/08: I keep seeing images of the Eiffel Tower today! I’m watching part of Project Runway (third season), and of course I watched part of the Giro d’Italia on Versus yesterday, so I’m very much in mind of the Tour de France coming up oh so soon and the possibility of my attempting to knit Eiffel for my KAL project.

As to the yarn, I haven’t washed it yet, I’m still in the midst of my gauge swatch, which I will then measure, wash, and remeasure, hoping that the yarn will “bloom” once the oil is out of it. I must remember to be careful what I choose to wash it with; I read some info on one of my forums a few days ago about Woolite and shampoo, etc, regarding the alkalinity versus acidity of various products and what effect they have on wool.

There’s also the issue of the complexity of the pattern, which I haven’t studied yet. I’d hate to get partway through −− or one or two inches in, like with my recent attempt at the Razor Cami −− and realize I’m over my head.

And yet another potential problem occurred to me this morning. I intend to knit every project I do from here on out in Continental unless there’s some reason I just can’t do it. And my proficiency in conti knitting is quite fair, I believe. I have no trouble whatsoever with knitting or with purling, and even though my technique may not be completely perfect it’s smooth and reasonably fast.

BUT −− I haven’t yet gotten to the point where I can form my stitches by feel and without looking at what I’m doing. I’m able to do this very easily when I knit English, since I’ve been doing that technique for so much longer. But since I have to, for the most part, keep my eyes on my work while knitting/purling conti, that means less time with my eyes on the TV screen . . . which means I’ll actually see less of the race this year than I would expect. And that to me is not a happy thought.

I have been trying to practice to some extent while I work on my current projects, but I have a feeling this is a feat which takes time and repetition to master, and I’m not sure I’ll be fully prepared by the first week of July.

NOTE: I’m working on getting all caught up with my old blog, which I’m not using anymore, and I only have a couple more entries to go. I’ve got plenty of other stuff to write about, just not much time right now!  I also have a special item to share; it was forwarded to me a few days ago and I liked it so much I decided to share it on my blog.  I’ll try to get that up here in the next day or so . . .