I haz been bad

This was “my” weekend, you know, the every-other-month-I-don’t-gotta-deal-with-no-children weekend, right? It arrived not a moment too soon, because I was on a collision course with the train of Crazy.

So I went camping! Which conjures up all kinds of rugged images, don’t it? Yes, just Woman v. Nature, roughing it! Out there! In the wilderness! With only my WITS to protect me!!!!

Yeah, well, wits…and 24 hour security patrols…and hot showers…and a ‘kamping kitchen’…and a full-stocked onsite store in case I forgot anything…and a food court in case I couldn’t get my camping stove working…yeah, I was at a KOA.

So there I was, camping near the beach, having a wonderful !and also cheap! weekend. Because camping, even with all the luxuries of the KOA (and this is a particularly nice KOA – Manchester Beach, check them out if you’re heading to the Mendocino area – they’re about 30 miles south of Mendocino itself and you save big $$$ by being in a less precious area), is less expensive than a hotel room. And if you stick to the campsite and don’t head into town for meals and such, well. It’s positively downright inexpensive.

Sunday morning, I packed up all my stuff and headed toward home. Congratulating myself, by the way, because this trip had to be the absolute cheapest trip EVER. I had been soooo good. I resisted everything from buying a burrito instead of eating what I’d brought to loading up my weekend with fun (but expensive, and stressful) “events”.

Time to head home!

By way of Mendocino!

Where the Mendocino Yarn Shop is!

I thought I was safe because it is a Sunday. Sunday, the Holy Day of No Yarn P0rn, during which yarn stores are closed so that we may meditate on our eternal salvation – lead me not into hoarding, for that way lies madness…

But purely for the sake of science, I decided to glance in the windows to see what kind of yarn store this was. You know, so that I could report back if anyone were to ask. “Oh yes, I saw that they had a bunch of {whatever}, but they were closed, it being Sunday and all…”

They were technically not open until 11; but I walked up at 10:15 and they said, “C’mon in!” and I said don’t mind if I do and well, there was a birthday sale for the owner (who is a doll) (curse her) and…well…

I haz been baaaaaaaad.

BUT THEY WERE ON SALE!!!

**sigh**

Behold…the yarn p0rn…and on a Sunday! …I am so ashamed…



Nashua Handknits 75% wool / 25% alpaca, in a beautiful aubergine. This is divinely soft, with a great blend of “sturdy” from the wool and “soft” from the alpaca.



A bag of Needful Yarns London Tweed (95% wool / 5% viscose), in a passionate red tweed.



Five balls of Rowan Tapestry (70% wool / 30% soybean protein fiber), misty gray variegated.



Two bags (what? don’t look at me like that, there’s only five balls per bag) of Classic Elite Skye Tweed, 100% wool in a brown tweed (duh, ya think it might be ‘tweed’, considering it’s called “Skye TWEED”?)



I have no idea why I felt the need to buy four balls of sock yarn. Maybe it was because about the first thing I did at the beach was get soaked to my knees by a rogue wave (unintentionally, and while wearing the only pair of shoes I brought because I am a dunce) and all my socks were damp and subconsciously I was thinking, “I need more wool socks.” Anyway – here are two pairs of good wool socks, some assembly required.



Books were also on sale. These are two that I’ve circled like a vulture for a while but always ended up walking away from: Knitting Over the Edge, and The Green Mountain Spinnery Knitting Book. Now I own them, and don’t need to worry about them getting away like some other knitting books have done.



And this…this is just plain random. This is one crummy ball of Trendsetter Tonalita. I think it was the sudden splash of fuchsia that did me in. Otherwise this is a very plain and sensible “autumn” kind of colorway – and then there is this big old splash of fuchsia. Everywhere I drove up and down the coast this weekend, there were these little splashes of that same color. I have no idea what flower it was (some kind of lily?), but they were beautiful, surprising !very! !bright! !pink! gems.

I saw that same splash in this yarn and grabbed the ball off the shelf like a starving person seizing the last loaf of bread off the shelf.

Sooooo, the weekend went from being Super Cheap to Super Not So Cheap…but there are a lot of hours of knitting pleasure in there, so I’m not sad. I also console myself with the (insane) idea that Christmas is coming, and that I could so totally make groovy things out of all of this for Christmas presents, thereby turning what might be perceived by the uninformed as a ‘wild-eyed random yarn purchase’ into a ‘proactive holiday purchasing event’.

Really, I ought to go into marketing, don’t you think?