Spring Cleaning

I have been cleaning a lot lately. My spree started last week when Mari pulled our bedroom curtains down (rods attached). In her defense, they were not affixed to the wall very well. I bought and assembled the curtain rods and hung the curtains without Daniel's knowledge (as a surprise), so I didn't use anchors or look for studs... Daniel rehung the curtain rods a few days ago.  "Why in the world didn't I hang these in the first place," he yelled when he saw the couple dozen screw holes in the wall. In my defense, I don't remember making all those mistakes, so some of those holes were probably already there. I'm glad the rods are firmly attached now.  =-) If it wouldn't encourage bad behavior, I'd have Mari try swinging on our newly hung curtains. Daniel's work inspires that much confidence.
Since the curtains were already down, I washed and ironed them. That was a big chore, not having a big ironing board. I'm not complaining, since we hardly ever need a big ironing board. It was just a little tricky to maneuver on our mini one. Piled on the floor, our curtains picked up some dust, so that motivated me to wash all the floors and vacuum the rugs.  Then I washed our bedding and our pillows. I LOVE how our bedroom feels when it's perfectly clean and tidy. Every evening after Mari goes to sleep we've been relaxing in there, reading side by side on the bed and drinking mugs of hot tea. It's so nice to have a clean bedroom.

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Another reason I love this room is it's brightness. During the day, I can leave the shades pulled halfway down and lots of light still streams in. After living in an apartment with only three windows (north facing), I really appreciate sunlit rooms. Upgrading from a three window apartment to a 20 window house meant we needed lots of window treatments, but that's another post.

Knitting

Stuff I've always wanted to do but never thought that I could:

Drive a standard

Shuffle cards and do that cool bridge thing with them

Run over a mile

Knit

Happily for me, now I can do all those thing! This week I learned how to knit.  Several how-to videos and many hours later, the beginnings of a scarf were created. My yarn is a not very attractive teal color that we already had. Combined with uneven and missed stitches, this scarf may never see the outdoors. Trying a new hobby is fun though, and I'd like to improve enough to knit a hat or mittens. Once a month our library has a knit night where patrons take their projects and  knit together. If I can work up enough confidence, I may go next month.



I saw these Provincial Garden Mittens on Ravelry and think they are so pretty! Last week at my favorite thrift store I found some lovely, handmade, tan children's sized mittens for 50¢. After seeing these, I'm considering embroidering them.


Here's some other stuff on my list that hasn't been done yet:

Cook a delicious souffle (I tried this once - with expensive, disastrous results)

Ski down black diamond slopes, and like it