12 Oakdale

I counted the time: at  40 minutes/4-row pattern and with 97 repeats, it took me about 65 hours to knit Hazel’s blanket. It certainly seemed longer, but mostly because I did it in 4-8 rows at a time. My hands and shoulders just are too old for marathon knitting sessions anymore. One can only take so much ibuprofen. To have continuity of color,  I efficiently used the blue, white and taupe yarn left from Teddy’s blanket and added “rhubarb” in the same baby-weight washable wool. One could say an homage in red, white, and blue to our country’s 250th birthday this year. That is, if one were not absolutely livid about our dear leader’s ineptness and his ridiculous war. Maybe we the people will wise up. The waffle pattern, Baby Fern Lake from Berroco, was an easy 1, 2 repeat, but I had to watch every stitch so I didn’t miscount. Very different from the stockinette stitch of Teddy’s, the Easy Striped Baby Blanket by Dabbles & Baubles. That one I could read or watch tv while I kni...

Kicked off with a group bus trip by Windermere Garden Club to Art in Bloom at the Orlando Museum of Art. An annual fundraiser, local floral designers interpreted pieces of art in flowers. Some seemed to take it literally, others more relaxed. Lovely day, lunch (chicken salad either on mixed greens or a croissant), then bus trip home. Of course a bag of snacks on the bus to tide us over. Then 2 days of Spring Fever in the Garden, Bloom and Grow Garden Society’s major fundraiser: $140k this year. I got up at 4:00 AM Saturday to be at my zone leader post by 5:30. This year, an easy zone with only 6 vendors, 1 of which didn’t show and 1 was 8 Waves, an after school group that only had a tent and 2 tables for their information. Co-zone leader Lavina and I were done by 8:30, which meant we could scout the show before the crowds. We headed to Andy’s space where she bought a duck (old outboard motor cover) and a rooster (garden rakes). I loved his owl with feathers made of table knives, but ...

We had cabin reservations for 2 nights at Jonathan Dickenson State Park. I decided to throw caution to the wind and just take coffee. We would eat out, not cook. I had GPT-Chat find restaurants and things to do. I have used free AI for trip planning, so I knew to check that sites were actually open and reservations were needed. We started with the Rembrandt and Friends show at the Norton Art Gallery, catching it on the last day of the run, with timed tickets from 11:00-1:00. Which I thought was entry time, but was actually our allowed viewing slot. We got there about 1:00, and I was surprised when the guard gave us a 10-minute times-up warning. Truth be told, we’d about exhausted ourselves peering at the 75+ paintings, including Young Woman Seated at a Virginal , the only Vermeer in a private collection. Time to check into our cabin, then an early dinner. (My Chat pal had recommended lunch at a nearby shop which was closed on Sundays. We ate homemade sandwiches before going to the muse...