The Good, and the Not so Good

Things are trying to get back to normal here.... whatever "normal" is. Finished up payroll taxes (yay!), and the next big deadline is not-for-profits on May 15, and those will probably go on extension. At least that takes the work pressure off for a little bit. Bob and I have renewed our tax and accounting software for the year, so the big cash outflows are finished (and boy, are they big.. I about had heart failure when I renewed the tax software -- and they don't even give us any kind of break for paying early, which I think sucks).

On Friday, my friend Kaye came down, and we had a belated birthday lunch for her. I met Kaye in Rome through the cross stitch store that used to be there (the store has now closed and sadly, the former owner was killed in an auto accident). We've kept in touch and have gotten to be good friends. We went to Tea Leaves and Thyme, a nice little tea room in Woodstock. They have a wonderful salad sampler platter, and I tried cream of artichoke soup (I know DF Andy would be ever so proud of me for actually eating something resembling a vegetable). Most interesting was the flowering tea that I tried. It came all neatly bound in the shape of a teapot, like this:When you put the tea into the hot water, it expands into a very neat looking little flower like this:How does it taste?? Well, frankly, like...tea. There's not much of a distinctive flavor. The big deal with this stuff is the presentation, which was very kewl. Kaye enjoyed some blackberry tea that she said was very good. And since we were celebrating her birthday, we got the dessert sampler afterwards that was just the right amount of sweet.

From there, we went to The Whole Nine Yarns for a class with Lucy Neatby. What a wonderful teacher with a delightful personality! Lucy lives in Nova Scotia, and she was covetous of my iPhone, since they don't have service up there yet.
Yes, she made that incredible sweater she has on. Her first class was on color work, and I'm now kinda wishing I'd taken it. The class we signed up for was on double knitting, where you get two different fabrics at the same time on one needle. You can either use it to make a tube or to do color work. The class did not disappoint.Lucy has a series of DVDs on knitting techniques, and she used the one on double knitting to help in teaching the class. I suggest you go to her website now and purchase it. And I'm not getting any kickbacks either.

Unfortunately, the rest of the weekend hasn't gone as well. On Saturday I had to make an emergency trip to Rome after I met with a client. My mom isn't doing well again. I'm not sure what's up, and I ask that you keep us in your prayers. I have a hunch that we're about to be in for some very difficult decisions in the near future. Thanks.