Oral Surgery and other distractions

Hi Cindy,

Since we don't have snow banks melting or kids playing to post I thought I'd include a picture of our cholla blooming. It's got a couple of other blooms about to open although they're hard to see in the picture.

I've also included two shots of the cactus at the front of our house to show how much they've grown in about a year's time. You may remember the first picture from my last post of June last year. It is hard to see the difference on the large cactus in the center but you can really tell the difference by the two outer cactus. Both were well below the roofline but now they've grown up above it. The big rains we got November through January really made them happy. Of course we now haven't had any rain since mid-February and wildfires are starting to pop up.

I've been recovering from lots of dental fun and not knitting very much. You'd think I'd have lots of time for it, and I have, but I just haven't felt like it. The root canals actually weren't as bad as I feared. It took less time for both procedures than I spent waiting for the novacaine to kick in; I spent just about an hour in the chair. By contrast, the lengthening for the crown took longer. They actually wanted to do it for both teeth and had to start the crown prep first. After one of the regular dentists shaped both teeth for the crowns the periodontist decided that only one of the teeth actually needed the gum cut. I had planned to go back to work after all that fun but two hours in the dental chair and 5 shots of novacaine sent me home instead. I go back tomorrow to have the stitches removed and then it will be a couple of weeks before they can take the crown impressions. At least I have temporaries covering the teeth now.

Two final pictures before I close this up. The first is of our silly

Margi cat. All three cats have taken to drinking from the bamboo water. They love that the vase is the perfect height for them to stand or sit next to and drink from. Abby and Ted will only drink from it if it is high enough not to expose the marbles but Margi will stand there and try to move them around, exposing more water below. Just before I took this picture she stood patiently by while I brought more water in to fill it up so she could drink. She spent several minutes sampling the fresh water.

The final picture is the one project that I've actually made progress on. It is a bag for my yoga mats. I use them together in class and keep them rolled together so the bag is bigger in diameter than most yoga mat bag patters. I also started from the middle and worked out increasing until I got the diameter I thought I'd need and then started going up. Most other patterns have you knit the sides as a rectangle, seam them and then knit the end. This one has a shell pattern although it is difficult to see in the picture. The bottom (top in picture) is a cotton/acrylic yarn I got at Tuesday Morning. The blue portion is actually a ball of blue and a ball of tan held together. Both are hemp yarn that I got on clearance. I'll change to another cotton yarn, perhaps one of the cones you sent me for my birthday my first year knitting.

I guess I'd better close this up. I promise that I'll do better with posting in the next few weeks. The worst of the dental issues are over and my dad's doing better so I shouldn't have the distractions of the last 2 months.

Take Care, Alene