Pestilence and Wannabes

It's my turn this month to host our book discussion group, which has no name. We are reading Geraldine Brooks's "The Year of Wonders: a novel of the plague."

Coincidental with my reading of this uncomfortably graphic account of a year in a 17th century English village plagued with the Plague, was the introduction into our household of a nasty, vicious rhinovirus which has progressively felled us, one by one. First, Daughter got the fever, blahs and cough two weekends ago. Last weekend, Husband came down with it: fever, blahs and debilitating coughing. Two days ago, it was my turn: fever, blahs, and coughing. So on Superbowl Sunday, our domicile sounds like a pest-house, with three people coughing, blowing, retching, and throat-clearing.

Contrast this with the weather outside: sunny, 70s, and glorious! Little white daisies are blooming in the park; young people are strolling by in pairs or are riding their bikes through the green belt.

I went out for a few minutes today and sat in the sun. Felt good. Hope we get better soon.

Mystery Afghan - Solved!

I finished the Bernat Mystery Afghan I began in September in time to send it to Father-in-Law for Christmas. The beginning of my project doesn't give any clues as to the finished afghan AT ALL! And, like all the other crocheters, I had a problem with the corner squares - because they didn't work up square. Bernat invited us to submit photos of our completed projects, and you can see mine here and the other participants' afghans in Bernat's crochet-along Flickr set.

What I learned:

• When divided into weekly tasks, the finished project was easily achievable; having a goal of completion before Christmas helped, too.
• Even do-it-yourself afghans are not cheap.
• I really enjoyed working on this, and re-discovered my love of crochet after several years of knitting smaller projects.
• I now know how to work at the required gauge in order to make the squares the same size.
• One of the colors in my project yarns was much skinnier than the others, even though they were all Bernat's "Softee Chunky" - something to be aware of, if I use several colors of yarn in a future project.
• The other participants' comments were helpful in answering some of my questions. Their friendly and encouraging responses each week helped keep me on track. This is a great way to keep the momentum going when working on a big project.