Big day today. Mark and the Hondurans started to clear out and clean up the back yard and the gutters. Yeah!!!! I love these guys. I am proud that I limited myself to only a few rows of the lace shawl today. It is looking nice. I love that with lace you have to wait for quite a few rows to really see anything except some random knitting and a what looks like a bunch of knots. But at the magical point you start to see the patterns emerge. Knitting is so zen.

My second batch of Leland Blue came out of the tumbler today. They are AWESOME! I'm not sure what I did differently this time, but this batch came out really shiny. Maybe I left them in longer or putting in more Beanie Baby pellets did the trick. Several of the pieces have big blobs of metal in them that came to the surface. Really cool. Hopefully I will find a more efficient and less expensive way to drill holes in my rocks. Mark says he knows what to get but I'm not holding my breath. Maybe the rock hounds up north will be able to hook me into some cheap drilling places.

I really have to get back to practicing the viola. I have to play the Bach Chaconne in about 2 weeks, so it is imperative that I get off my ass and start practicing like yesterday! I'm just having too much fun being a lump -- call that a "crafting lump."