the weekend was good to me. well, mostly. I got home from work friday to find these guys waiting eagerly for me. what a great way to start the weekend! I had ordered my new coffee grinder and the yarn harlot's book earlier in the week and definitely did not expect them to come so quickly! and I also didn't think the fall interweave knits would come before july ended either. such a wonderful surprise. and that yarn harlot! such a hoot!

my southern california knit buddy was up for the week to visit her folks. sadly, she had baby in tow and didn't actually bring any knitting. but we did manage to squeeze in some time after the little ones were in bed to camp out in the knitting section at borders and sip coffee and flip through books and dream of swimming in pools of yarn. it was a great way to end a crazy crazy day.

we, along with three other mommies and some grandparents and aunties, plus the five kiddos between the ages of 11 and 21 months hauled ourselves up to habitot in berkeley. the kids had a blast, but were tired and hungry by the time we managed to get out of there and down the street for lunch. super tasty food (quite possibly the best peking duck I've had this side of the pacific), but the staff there had to seat us on the third floor (no elevator, of course) because our party was so big. imagine dragging five cranky kids and five strollers up two very narrow flights of stairs in a crowded restaurant... thank goodness it was nice and cool that day.
the weekend activities ended early, with a picnic lunch on sunday afternoon at the park. the rest of the day was spent recuperating and relaxing. I'm about one third of the way done with the ponchette. it really is super fast and brainless to knit. but I guess I have been being a bit too brainless about it and have, on multiple occasions, knit rows and rows without realizing that I'd forgotten to do the pattern rows. oops. needless to say, I've done a fair amount of tinking.
oh, one more thing I did. sorry, no pictures of the actual process... I had been wondering where I could buy some lavender sachets to put in my yarn stash. I noticed they sold fresh lavender at trader joe's for only $2.79 for a good sized bunch. I laid it out in the sun and, once it was dry, shook and rubbed off the lavender buds and put them in these little envelope things that are made for the spices you throw in for making those chinese stewed eggs - they're kind of like big tea bags. I filled up 10 of them and still had quite a bit left over. so cheap! so easy! and so much better smelling than my bedroom normally is.