good things (beer, books, strangers, lace)

Saturday was a prickly grizzly sort of day despite beautiful weather.  One of those days where you miss the bus by mere seconds, the trains aren't running properly, and every little thing seems overwhelming and stressful and aggravating.  (Poor Evan had to bear the brunt of my prickly day.  Luckily for both of us he is a man of great patience.)

Sunday, and since, have been happy fuzzy sorts of days despite some rain and sleet and almost-snow.

Sunday morning I turned on the computer and discovered that I'd made my first stranger-sale.  (This is my newly minted word, in which someone not a relative or a Barnard faculty member or an ex-boyfriend's mother -- someone, in fact, wholly unknown to me -- purchases something I've made.)  I couldn't stop smiling about this all day Sunday and all the way to the post office yesterday morning where I shipped off a priority mail envelope to Virginia.  Stuffed with this.

Sunday afternoon we ate and drank our way through the wonderful Get Real New York Craft Beer & Food Festival.  There's nothing quite like getting a little buzz on by mid-afternoon, complemented by being happily satiated from tons of delicious food (alas, largely pork based -- poor pescatarian Evan had to grab a slice of pizza on our way home).  In the beautiful Altman Building, no less.  Home by 4:30, and a long lazy slow evening of napping, reading, Chinese take-out, and watching Big Bang Theory and Down From the Mountain.

Yesterday I not only finally finished book five of the never-ending Dark Tower series, but also started a new knitting project (because what's one more work in progress when you've got close to a dozen or so going already anyway?):

Vernal Equinox Shawl: lacy leaf pattern in this gorgeous pale green with bluish/silvery undertones, knit from incredibly soft silk/camel/merino yarn, with silver beads.

And this, my friends, is a great way to start a new week.