Off again

This is my least favorite part about really busy periods of life; when I have to head off into the next thing without having had any time (or, at least, sufficient time) to recover from the last thing. My parents left on Friday, after a very nice visit. They took us all out to dinner on Thursday, Older Daughter's choice. She chose the Stone Brewery (Rick was so proud). She likes the outdoor beer garden, which is extremely architectural, with huge granite boulders everywhere (stones, get it?), and a fountain with a fire pit in the middle. I like the gargoyles. Rick likes the beer. The yummy macaroni and cheese does not, I think, hurt anything. We had good fun, and I got to have a delicious hard cider, nice and dry (they are more difficult to find here in the States than you might think, alas).
Also, since I didn't post any pictures last time, here's one of the proud graduate.
After my parents left on Friday, we had the rest of the day and yesterday to get ready for me to leave today for the rest of the week. So, in that time, we had a peaceful family dinner on Friday night (homemade pizza) followed by peach/apricot/blueberry crumble and a game of Ticket to Ride (love that game). On Saturday, Rick took the girls mountain biking (National Trails Day), while I went to the farmer's market (the fiber lady was not there, alas; there's someone who I think really needs an uplifting fiber package right about now, and I wanted to get some roving). They had a great time, even though Older Daughter fell down, breaking her brand-new binoculars and bruising her hip quite spectacularly in the process. She was reportedly very game, though, and hopped back up and kept riding. (Rick says that they've been blogged about in the mountain biking blogosphere -- who knew such a thing existed? -- but I don't have the link.)
I stayed home and cooked. This is what I feel compelled to do before leaving everyone for any length of time. Maybe I want them to remember why they'd like me to come back? So I made a batch of yogurt, three baguettes, a pot of soup, granola, a rhubarb crumble, and some rhubarb compote (for reasons which are unclear to me at this time, we appeared to have an excess of rhubarb lying around). Then I took the girls to a birthday party for a little while, before coming home early so we could all have dinner together (Rick begged off the party).

Knitting content? You want knitting content? There's really not been much in the way of knitting around here, what with visiting and all. And what knitting there has been, up until last night, has been on the skirt, which is starting to look like a giant blue octopus, rather than anything more interesting.

However, last night I had a few moments (while watching BBC's Robin Hood; I'm a sucker for men in tights, apparently)(this might explain the attraction to my mountain-biking husband, come to think of it) to cast on Anne's latest mitts, which I'm knitting for Older Daughter in my lovely handspun from the Linguistic roving. I made it through the cuff. What do you think?
Want a closer look?
I am pleasantly surprised by how well the yarn is knitting up. And the colors work very nicely with the pattern!

I also forgot to show you what I did the other weekend while Rick was busy building cubbies for the girls.
Yup. Stash organization. It's not all there; there's still some in my usual baskets, but I'm feeling much more in control of it (the basket holds my roving stash, such as it is). I also absconded with a bookshelf from the playroom that the girls no longer needed and repurposed it to hold my knitting books. I don't have a picture, but it's good to have them all visible and in one place.

This morning is all about packing. I'm leaving today for a week-long workshop in Berkeley. I don't know how much posting I'll be able to do, although I've been told that, so long as I have a cable, I should be able to access the internet in the dorms. What posting I do manage will probably be fairly linguistic in nature -- fair warning. Meanwhile, I need to get ready to go. If I'm packed in time, we'll be able to have dim sum on the way to the airport. How's that for incentive?