Shameful Socks and Mother's Day

I have a problem regarding some of my handknit socks and it's time I owned up to it.  I can knit a pair of socks in a matter of days if I have to.  Days.  This is not mentioned to boast, it is mentioned to show just how ridiculous this problem of mine really is.  When I am designing multiple patterns at a time, especially socks, I find that I will often move onto the next pattern without actually finishing the pair resulting in a slew of single socks.  In the past, I have been known to make "pairs" out of the mismatched socks but I didn't want to do that with these 4.  Not my Harry Potter socks!  Want to meet the culprits?  Left to right: Neville Socks (CO January 2010), Dumbledore Stockings (CO January 2010), Hermione Socks (CO May 2011), Snape Socks (CO July 2009).

Years people.  I CO for these socks YEARS ago.  They have been staring out at me from my sock drawer, taunting me, for YEARS!!!!!  I really don't know why these 4 socks have been languishing this long.  Well, there's a handful of possible reasons - (e.g., socks are typically my go-to mindless travel knitting project so if I have to look at a chart or actually think about what I'm doing it's not really a mindless travel project so I'll CO for a St st sock or take along something else instead, or I'll work on something for someone else instead of working on a sock for me....).  While my other pairs of socks have been wearing out over the years, these four singles have been sitting there patiently waiting for their time to shine....

 One of my goals for the year was to remedy this little problem of mine and I am happy to announce that I now have 1 completed pair with 3 to go...

 

I'm pretty sure the only reason the Hermione socks were finished is because they fit the travel project requirements: no pattern needed/don't have to think about what I'm doing.  The others, well, we'll see.  I have one other single sock that I haven't photographed yet because it's a pattern for one of Jen's current Clubs but the second sock IS ON THE NEEDLES and has been for months now, sitting there untouched, hogging a pair of my needles....  I figure, if I can work on a sock and maybe finish one single sock per month or so, I'll be in good shape for Fall.  Once I finish a different wee pair (that's right, a full PAIR), I am CO for Snape - he's been waiting for so very very long....

In other fiber-y news, I am still nearing completion on a few other projects.  Last week/weekend wasn't a stellar week for knitting.  This week though...  I have big plans for this week in the FO category!  I'm almost sad to be nearing the finish line on one project, the yarn is just divine.  More on that later though.

I hope all you Moms out there had a fantastic day yesterday.  Let's face it though, every day should be Mother's Day, right?  ;)  The hubby was MIA for most of the weekend due to an out-of-town ball tournament (his teams took second place) but the Minions and I had a good time of it.  I took them to Cottonwood which is a place I thought they would enjoy and a place I visited often when I was younger.  I must say that I miss the olden days - Cottonwood used to be surrounded by nothing, now there are outcrops of too-big houses everywhere around it which is too bad.  That and they switched out the playground equipment and it's all geared to much smaller kids now.

The minions and I had a nice picnic lunch in the shade of a birch tree and played on some playgrounds and kicked the soccer ball around for a while and then I took them to the fishing pier so they could check out the river and any wildlife that happened to be around.

 

Turns out that it is a hot spot for Blue Herons.  Love Blue Herons.  I was all excited to see this guy (look at the branches)

 

and then I looked around and saw another one with yet another one behind him (her?) on the bank.

I took some pictures of yet another one flying but those are on little man's camera and I haven't looked at them yet.

Little man's favorite part of yesterday, by far, was checking out the dam (once I got to it - the plethora of too-big houses was screwing me up because my old landmarks are gone now).

This was the first time the minions had seen the dam.  Little miss was tired by that point and wasn't all that impressed but little man "definitely needs to go back there!"  Watching the way the water moves is just hypnotic.