Today Updates, With Knitting and Hockey

Today, April ninth, is my half-birthday!

Isn't it funny how as adults we don't tend to notice things like that? These days/years, I have to stop and do math just to figure out how many years old I am*. And yet I remember when I was aware of being "thirteen and three-quarters".
*43. And a half. I literally counted on my fingers to be sure I had it right. And the only reason I thought it was 43 was that I know I'm past, but not long past, 42, the Douglas Adams year as Adrienne Martini called it.

My other accomplishment was that today I finally hung up a Christmas present. Yup. April. That's me, whizzing along on the to-do list, taking advantage of the free time unemployment brings .... un-huh.

My dear friend gave me for Christmas a beautiful glass flower, pink and yellow and lovely. I'm very fond of glass things, and yet very wary in my natural clumsiness of keeping them within range of my awesome powers of whoops. So I knew I wanted to hang this up high and safe, and that it should be in the office, with its pink walls and yellow curtain. And, then, I ... didn't get it done.

Eventually, a month or more ago, I found a bracket-type-thing in the basement (which, as basements are wont to be in old houses, is full of such random oddments)(and since it's all just sitting down there, belonging to none of us specifically, getting dusty, I felt no compunction in taking for myself). And finally, today, I got around to digging out some random screws, and actually putting the thing up.

The pictures are, well, not my best work. I blame the uneven lighting today, and for that matter the proximity to the window making exposures difficult. Still, pretty!

Isn't it?

Trying to get the curtain color in without totally losing the wall color was challenging; this was the best of the lot. I think I will have to invite you over to see the colors for real.
(Doesn't it look like the curtain is about to fall down? What an angle!)

So that was satisfying, and easy, and way overdue. Well, better late than never? I know I'm going to enjoy having it where I can see it now.

Also today, and the last couple of days, I've been working on knitting for Grandma's birthday. I do like to knit for her birthday, as she's the one who taught me to knit, and since I have often over the years brought her flowers, and many times tulips, the choice of pattern seemed obvious. Two done, one almost.
It's the Spring Tulip pattern from KnitPicks, using scraps of yarn left over, over the years. It's pretty simple: you start with the stem, change to the flower color...
Close off the petal-tops...
Then add the leaves, one by one...
Until you have four, when it will stand up.
The face is optional, but I will probably do it on all of them, as I think Grandma would be amused by that. I'll show you when they're all done; I have a fun idea for presentation.

The cats continue to be cute and decorative. Lately they've taken to sleeping on the edge of the bed, in what I call the "One stretch away from the floor" pose. Bookends:
And synchronized "sleeping" (with alert ears):
This morning I finally nabbed Miri for her latest overdue claw trimming, since she was sticking to the bedding again. It baffles her when I kiss the top of her head; her expression suggests that my already-inexplicable behavior has veered into insanity. I wish you could see her face.

The Bruins are getting ready for the playoffs; their series does indeed start Thursday. Sunday's Globe had a lot of the statistics summaries for the league, and there are very few Bruins in them. This doesn't bother me, as it's a sign that the team, instead of featuring one or two superstars, is more balanced. In fact, if I recall correctly*, they were the first team in the league this year to have six 20-goal scorers, which is pretty nifty.
*And I'm too lazy to look it up, so I'm assuming that I do.

One category that the Bruins dominated, though, was plus/minus. It's a stat that can be misleading, but really, when six of the top seven are on one team, it's a pretty good team.
That's what I think, anyway.

I'm off to the dentist tonight, so cross fingers they won't find anything wrong. The appointment time, selected six months ago not to interfere with my work schedule (sigh), conflicts with my regular stitch and bitch, so I won't be going to that tonight. But there's another group in a nearby town which runs later, so I'm going to head over there after, assuming my mouth is up to it. If that makes any sense outside my head (sometimes it's hard to tell).