Can you say "rapid cycling"?

Felt fairly good this morning; mood dropped as the day went on; bottomed out after a tiff with the other secretary in the office; cold, windy, rainy day. Came home feeling like I wanted to go to bed and never, ever get up.

Timber, god bless him, helped. As soon as I sat down on the couch, he came up with me--I wiggled down so I was half lying down and had my feet up, and he flipped over on his back and put his head in the crook of my shoulder and let me love on him for a full 45 minutes, and still didn't want to move. By then I was remembering that a friend at work had brought me a book of Aran patterns from Ireland because she remembered I like to knit, and another friend brought me a cluster of flowers from her viburnum plant (how it escaped freezing, I don't know, but it smelled wonderful), and another friend brought her little terrier-mix in to meet me, and another friend just came and sat in the chair by my desk and chatted. Don't know what I would do without my sweet, sweet Timber boy.

Taenzer is a little too high-strung herself to be a good calmer-downer, but she has the knack of making me laugh. She's a bit depressed right now, though, I think, because she hasn't been able to get the kind of exercise she needs, and I know athletes and dancers can feel the loss of "edge" if they can't work out for just a couple of days. And she's 100% athlete. It's going to be a little while longer, too, I'm afraid, because I want to put more grass seed down.

My yard is a disgrace, esp. compared with the guy across the street--he's mowed four times already to my none. Add to that weeds and winterkill, and you've got pretty much of a mess. I'd give a lot to get a shot of energy and motivation.

I got into my laceweight stash last night. I've had this gorgeous stuff for a long time--it's a mohair/silk blend with a metallic copper thread. The yarn is a kind of copper/olive/rose. There's quite a bit of it--I've spent about 4 days winding it from the swift onto the ball winder and now have this massive cake.

Again, the color reproduction isn't the best--in fact, it looks pretty ugly, and it's emphatically not in person-- but you can really see the sparkly bits in it. I've been waiting for exactly the right pattern for it. I can kind of see it in my head--a square or triangular shawl with a loose, simple, clustery lace (in other words, not Shetland or Orenberg). Something like Sangria, from Lavish Lace; I might try it out and see how it looks.

I also pulled a few other things:

These are an angora yarn and a filament silk yarn. I have such small amounts of them--about 100 yards of the angora and about 200 yards of the silk--but I thought the textures would make a nice contrast for something--the soft fuzzy angora and the very shiny silvery silk.

That's the angora again in the center. The three little balls of blue (teal, really) are silk/merino mixes, as you can probably tell from the lovely sheen. They don't match exactly--bought at two different times and places--the shinier ones in the bottom right are supposed to have filament silk, so maybe that's part of the difference.

The orange is not quite so, erm, assertive. It's a superwash wool, and closer to fingering/sock weight than laceweight, and I think I'm going to make the Bayerishe socks with it. http://www.eunnyjang.com/knit/2006/09/bayerische.html I think I've got enough--close to 500 yards--and they should be pretty stunning, don't you think? One of the great things about the internet is that amazing patterns like this can be made widely available, and it's easy for the word about them to spread. I can't wait to have my amazing orange socks flashing out from under my jeans. I'm going to have to order some size 0 dpns, though--I'm all out! I must have more pairs of socks under way than I thought. I have several sets of size1s available, and even a set of 00s, but no 0s. I'll order a couple of sets tonight.

I'm hanging onto Taenzer with one hand while I type with the other. I gave them each a big chewie as a treat. Taenzer must have swallowed hers in big chunks, because she's done with hers and Timber's still working on his, and i can tell she'll go beat him up and take his chewy away if I let go of her. Or try to--I think Timber might assert one of the Ten Rules of Dogdom: If I have it, it belongs to me. And as with humans, possession is 9/10ths of the law with dogs. Still. I think I'll keep hold of Taenzer a little while more.

Well, with Timber's help I've talked myself into a better mood, though I have a killer headache. But I still wish I didn't have to go to work tomorrow.