Leaves, water and relaxation

It has been awhile since I did an official knitting update and I know you are all on the edges of your seats with anticipation, so I thought I better not hold off any longer. I have made very poor progress with Forest Floor (aka my Birch). I am done with the first repeat and you can see the life line I ran *just in case*. I was feeling like the life line wasn't really necessary, but I am still finding my stitches (and the pattern for that matter) very difficult to see through the "haze". As not wanting to temp fate, I opted for the life line.

I have mostly been distracted from Forest Floor because of Oceania. I suppose that should mean that Oceania should get the next point in their little competition, but I'm reserving judgement until after I take a gander at the fine poetry they are in the process of whipping up. I have been distracted because I was ever so steadily inching along on the back of Oceania. The goal being to finally combine the two halves into a round ribby whole. It was starting to seem like I was NEVER going to finish, but apparently the relaxation provided to me by Glen Ivy on Tuesday was all I needed. After knitting what only seemed to be another couple of rows, all of a sudden I was a repeat too long! When I got home, I got the two tops evened out and have been knitting round and round ever since.

I would say that I have about an inch and a half of the ribbing right now and when I hold it up to me, I think the length will turn out perfect. I ended up deciding to knit the smallest size widthwise and the next size up lengthwise to account for my *longish* torso.

Oh, and about that spa day...soooo nice. It only cost us $35 to enter for the whole day, which included all the pools, hot springs, jacuzzis, saunas, lounge chairs, water, towels, showers and locker room facilities you could possible want to use. It also included the very fun Red Mud Extravaganza (aka Club Mud, but I like my name better). I have always loved to play in the mud as a kid, so I was in hog heaven. I was lucky enough to find a decent looking (and very cheap - thank you Old Navy) black swimsuit last Sunday, which was perfect anti-stain protection for the red mud. Since this was my mom's birthday present, my brother and I also treated her to the Grotto. You pay another $25 to go in there and to be honest, I didn't think it was worth it. We were alone, which I can image the experience can only be lessened if you are stuck down there with a lot of people, but they brush you with a sea kelp mud, you hang out for a bit, then wash it off and then hang out in the final room for another bit. It wasn't that it was bad, I just felt that $25 was a little steep compaired to all the stuff you get just for paying the admission rate. Plus, I decided that I like the mud stuff better when it dries versus the kind that stays wet. I know they do different things, but I enjoyed the Red Mud Extravaganza much more.

We stayed until about 5:00 on Friday, had dinner in Temecula and then headed back to North County just in time to see this amazing sunset:

A perfect end to a great day I would say.