How to enjoy V-Day if you're cheerfully single

Leave the house at 6:36am and drop a valentine at a friend’s doorstep. Take daughter’s heart stuffies over to the chapel and leave them in her car. Drive to another friend’s house and leave a valentine. Repeat at a third house. Get on the feeder road that leads to the freeway and drive like a bat out of Houston until you reach the detour that leads to La Madeleine. Pick up an order of Strawberries Romanoff...



and get back on the freeway. Eat the strawberries slowly and delicately between phone calls, all morning long. Dab your eyes when the last strawberry leaps off your fork and onto the carpet. Clean the carpet. Say “Happy Valentine's Day” to anyone who will stand still long enough to hear it.

Create an e-card for the office.



Fire up a new scarf, just for yourself, out of this yarn.



100% silk, a gift from a friend who bought it in New Mexico and wouldn’t take no for an answer when you admired it.

Scarf in its current incarnation: Cast on two stitches using a lark’s head knot [AKA clove hitch]. Knit two stitches. Turn, slip first stitch, M1, K1. Repeat until there are 17 stitches on the needle. I am using an Addi Natura 5.0mm or US8. Gauge is wonderfully loosey-goosey. I originally thought of doing a bias garter-stitch scarf, but my K2tog is always a little tighter than my S1 on the other side. So I frogged back to where I had 17 stitches on the needle, and it looks about right. I am still slipping the first stitch and knitting across. I might eventually throw in some eyelets or some drop stitches. In the meantime, it’s enough just to be working with fat yarn and fat needles on something that will be done in a day or two, after spending two months on Firestarter.



Water aerobics last night was pure joy. I couldn’t decide what I wanted for dinner, other than “not TexMex” and “yes, mashed potatoes”. I stopped at Boston Market and got the meatloaf with the red sauce, and potatoes with gravy, and steamed vegetables. I really miss their glazed carrots. I wish they’d bring them back.

And their cornbread is so sweet and light-handed that it makes a perfect dessert. I ate half of everything except the cornbread and have saved the rest for dinner tonight.

Lunch will be something grabbed on the road, because one of the attorneys and I are taking a long lunch to check out the perfume outlet. We each need a new bottle of our signature scents. Mine is 17 years old and down to the last whisper of fragrance.

I’m so proud of myself. The LYS was having a V-Day sale yesterday, and while I was sorely tempted to spend money I did not have, I aimed the car at the Natatorium after work, and not toward knitting nirvana.

I’m undecided about signing up for another two months of Wardrobe Refashion. On the one hand, I could use the encouragement not to buy new clothing while I'm saving for the move. On the other hand, I seem to have permanently be-splotched my dark brown T-shirt, and thus far I haven’t found lace in the right shade of brown for an overlay, and I don’t want to use my get-out-of-jail-free card. And my birthday is coming up. And I might be dating before the year is up, which of course requires at least one new outfit. Probably in a smaller size, if I keep having workouts like I did last night.

I pulled all the photos from last year’s Twin Peaks Shawl and threw them onto Flickr and posted them on Ravelry, linked to their blog posts. I am such a process knitter. I had a blast knitting it, and I’ve never even worn it. And it’s really pretty.

I wonder how many rows I can knit on the Red Scarf while the tub fills?