Whenever I’m going on a road trip, even if it’s a short one, I bring crocheting with me. I can’t read and be social at the same time, but it’s easy to crochet and talk. And if I have to put my crocheting down for a minute to help Annalie with something or look at the map for Troy, I don’t get annoyed like I do when I’m deep into a book.

When we left San Diego, I was actually close to finishing a big crochet project: a blanket for my friend Angela, whose baby girl is due to be born next month. I thought for sure I’d finish the blanket halfway through the trip, so I brought along a second bag of assorted yarn and some stuffing. I figured it didn’t hurt to be prepared in case I needed something else to do once I finished the blanket.

Funny thing is, though, I didn’t touch the blanket once we were on the road. Maybe because I’d been working on it nonstop for a few weeks, I just needed a break. Or maybe I just felt like making potholders.

I made whatever came to mind—headbands, potholders, balls, baskets—with whatever yarn I felt like using. I wasn’t even making anything with anyone specific in mind.

Except these three headbands, which I crocheted at Amanda’s request. (Amanda, I’ll get these in my Etsy shop for you soon, honest!)

And I made these hearts for Bex and Jo, so I’d have a little gift for them when we met up in Alabama.

These Easter baskest are similar to the ones I made a couple of years ago. If anyone out there wants them, let me know. I’d be happy to list them in my Etsy shop for you.

I guess I crocheted one more thing with a specific person in mind. I made the coffee-cup sleeve on the right for Troy, so he wouldn’t have to use one of my girly ones each time we stopped at Starbucks. I liked it so much I crocheted another brown and green one.

And then I crocheted a brown and pink one (which I’ve been using) and a brown and cream one. If anyone wants one of these, let me know, Etsy shop, etc.

In house news, I put up a bunch of photos on Flickr, mostly ones I took the day we moved in. Go have a look!

I painted this with Katrina when I was in Omaha, on Day 1 of 7 Days last month. I had hoped that the colors would be even more muted, but oh well. I still like it. Michelle saw the photo on Flickr and she liked it too, so we met her in Encinitas for lunch.

Michelle has been one of my best Etsy customers for a long time, and she happens to live in SoCal. I suggested that she could save on the cost of shipping if we met for lunch and I just brought the mug to her, so that’s what we did. It was great to finally meet her!

Heather painted this mug when we all went painting when Lauren was in town, and I love how it turned out. It fascinates me how everyone’s dottery is unique. We’re all using the wrong end of the paintbrush, yet each person’s patterns are slightly different. Very cool how that works.

Okay, my inner geek is showing. The story behind this mug is kind of long. You can read more about it here; it helps if you’re a Star Trek: The Next Generation fan.

Captain Picard on ST:TNG used to order tea from the replicator all the time by barking out, “Tea, Earl Grey. Hot.” Wil Wheaton, who played Wesley Crusher on the show, is a famous blogger now and is selling mugs with this on them to promote a podcast he’s doing with commentaries/reviews of early ST:TNG episodes. Lauren told me about all this, and said she wanted to paint her own version of the mug. I thought it was a brilliant idea and wanted one too, except I hate Earl Grey tea. So I changed the last word on mine to “not.”

Here is the mug Lauren painted. I especially love the little Star Trek symbol she drew above her signature on the bottom.

I just realized I never got a photo of the first two dishes Lauren painted. Something was weird about the bisque or the glaze, and they turned a strange green color in the kiln. The pottery studio gave her a credit for the cost of the dishes and she painted these three to replace them. The one in the middle is for Lauren’s Japanese sister-in-law; I believe that’s her name on there. The other two are for Lauren and her mum.

Lauren had the idea for a mug that said, “I knit so I don’t kill people,” but she was so busy with her Earl Grey mug and the dotty dishes that she hadn’t even started painting it by the time Brenda finished her plate and had nothing to do. When she asked if anyone had something for her to do, Lauren asked if she wanted to paint this mug for her. Brenda painted all of it except the last part of the scarf. Her hand got tired so I finished the scarf, including painting it into the inside of the mug and adding the tassels.

Good thing I enjoyed crocheting all those rainballs for Bug’s party, because Claire H. saw them, remembered that she’d intended to order some snowballs from me last year, and asked if would like to crochet her some of each. I said I’d love to, since it gave me a reason to watch a few episodes of Dr. Who on Netflix Instant, both of which I’m loving. Thanks for that, Claire! Your snowballs and rainballs are in my shop whenever you’re ready

I’ve been on a kick of painting these round little mugs lately, they feel really nice to hold. This one is in my Etsy shop for anyone who wants it.

This one, I painted for my friend Jen as a birthday gift.

Annalie and I were sitting outside on the patio today and Katy was sitting at the door, yowling to be let out. Poor cat. She really wants to be an outdoor cat, but when we got her from a shelter in Phoenix she was already declawed, so we don’t feel right letting her outdoors.

Took our Day 98 photo for Troy while we were out there. I keep accidentally taking these off-center self-portraits. I kinda like them.

Not long ago, Brenda introduced me to her favorite pen, the Uniball Signo DX 0.38mm. They’re Japanese gel pens with a really nice stroke and a fine-but-not-too-fine line, and they are awesome. Brenda had only ever been able to find them at a local Japanese bookstore for about $4 apiece. Then we found the fabulous Tokyo Pen Shop, where they sell our favorite pens for half the price we’d been paying at the Japanese bookstore.

We ordered a dozen to get free shipping, and then I noticed they had an offer on the homepage for a free orange pen if you ordered a certain amount of merchandise, which we had. So I wrote a quick email explaining that my friend and I loved the Uniball Signo DX pens, and we’d love a free orange one. I got a really nice email back from one of the website’s owners, saying that she probably would have included that brand, since that was all we’d ordered, but that since I’d written now she knew to include two orange pens. How cool is that!? I will definitely be patronizing their shop again.

More flower scarves! I keep making these because people keep asking me to crochet them. Whenever I start another one I groan a little bit because in my head these are a pain to make, but once I get started I remember, oh right, these are actually pretty fun!

I’ve been thinking about writing up a pattern for a flower scarf and putting it in my Etsy shop, along with the spiral squares and snowball crochet patterns. It wouldn’t be exactly the same as the scarves I make because I make up the patterns for the flowers as I go along, but it would be similar. What do you guys think, should I write up that pattern? Would you buy it for a couple of bucks? (Oh, and these particular scarves are in my shop waiting for OneScrappyGal to go buy them.)

I got a pretty exciting present earlier this week: a new lens for my D40! (Pardon me while I geek out just a little bit.) I’d been wanting a lens with a better zoom, so when my friend Joe (my camera teacher) saw a good deal on a 55-200mm VR lens he told Troy about it. Troy bought it for me, and told me he’d bought me a present that would be coming in the mail, but he didn’t tell me what it was. I truly had no clue this is what he was sending me. I might have actually squealed a bit when I opened the box. Today Annalie and I went to the park, where I tried the new lens out.

It’s much bigger than my other two lenses, but it’s not much heavier thanks to being made of plastic. It’s easy to use, thanks to the autofocus.

I love my new lens! Yay! Thank you so much, guys, for your conspiracy in making me a better photographer. Or at least an amateur with fun photography toys.

This park has a new, modern, colorful playground with deep mulch all around it. Annalie went down one of the plastic slides and then made a beeline for the 30-year-old slide and monkey bars sitting in hard-packed dirt.

These mystery fruits (nuts? seeds?) were on a tree in the park. They were about the size of walnut, maybe a little smaller. I have no idea what they are, but they’re a really pretty shade of reddish-orange.

This photo pretty much sums up Annalie’s attitude about the tall slide. It also makes me laugh.

Love that light, and the girl. And my pens and my new lens. To sum up, we’re all good around here, good and happy.