Friday? Seriously?

It can't be. Where did the week go?

I feel like I've been running in place, although I know that I can't be. I've put together something which might approximate a presentation for next weekend's conference, as well as a handout. My talk still goes solidly over time (it's not even a sort of talking-faster-towards-the-end kind of overage; this is more like I speed-talk for twenty minutes and then just keep going -- I have some editing to do, clearly), but it's a talk, and that's something. I've taken the car in to be serviced in preparation for all the driving it's going to do over the next couple of weeks, gotten presents for Older Daughter's birthday tomorrow, picked up pills for the old dog and made boarding reservations for the young dog, blah blah blah. But I still feel somehow like I'm missing a few days. I think part of it is that the list of things which must be done before I leave for the conference next Thursday is fairly long, and involves a few jobs which will take time; and I'm still not feeling entirely settled in my mind about this talk.

I'd almost decided not to post today, because I haven't yet taken pictures of the little lace scarf I'm working on. I think I'll call it my Wisteria Scarf -- you'll see why when I show you the pictures. I'm actually over halfway done, I think, and it's going faster now that I've gotten used to the stitch pattern, so I wanted to show that off, but that's for another day.

I've also been doing some small amounts of spinning on both of my spindles, so I wanted to show you that. You've seen what I'm spinning on the Turkish spindle, but here's what I'm working on with the Golding.
This is the merino/silk top I bought at Twist!, dyed by the owner in a colorway called Precious Metals. It really does look, in person, like gold and silver and an almost gunmetal blue all together, absolutely gorgeous. I'm aiming for something that's laceweight when plied, which is pushing this spindle to the max. But I'm working over thicker carpet now, so it's a lot less scary when I drop it.

Tomorrow is Older Daughter's eleventh birthday. I told her that last year at this time, I was in labor at home (after having gone for a long walk to kick-start things after my water broke and nothing further happened); by 3:46 this coming morning, she was born. It doesn't feel like it's been eleven years since then. I can still remember the whole thing so very clearly. It's an odd kind of telescoping feeling; there she is on the couch, large as life, entering into that interim stage between little girl and teenager, and yet here she also is, in my mind, just a tiny little 7 1/2 pound 21-inch baby girl. Weird...