Unplanned and Forsaken

Nothing is going as planned at the moment.  Absolutely nothing.

Saturday night I spent a few hours organizing, rearranging, and generally moving stuff around in my room until I finally had everything situated so that I didn't have to get up and dig through 1,000 boxes and/or drawers to find my stapler, or a paper clip, the proper size knitting needle, or the next ball of yarn in line to be used.  Life was good and I was going to spend Sunday being productive at my desk and with the camera.

But...

Sunday morning, I woke up to water pouring all over my desk, computer, my to-do list notebook, the file cabinet, two knitting bags and of course, my old fashioned Roladex (because a wet computer wasn't bad enough...)  Somehow, the window frame had sprung a leak and the rain was pouring in. 

So now, everything that was on that side of the room, everything salvageable that is, is in the middle of the room, the stuff in the middle of the room is encroaching on my bed on the other side of the room and I'm just praying I don't break another toe tripping over everything.

Colorburst shawl

All of that to say, instead of photographing the hats I finished recently, I threw myself a good pity party, cast on a new shawl and spent the afternoon and evening engrossed in a good book and knitting while dumping the leak bucket every few hours.

I am absolutely loving the shawl.  There's no official pattern, just a triangular shaped piece of fabric forming by increasing on each side and in the center every other row.  A very simple shawl, but the yarn... the yarn is So not simple.  It's gorgeous!  The yarn is Universal Yarn's Colorburst  in the Horizon colorway.  I picked it up at my weekly Sit and Stitch meeting this past week.  (Shhh - don't tell anyone.  I broke my 'no yarn in' rule the very first week.  Yikes!)  The shawl is supposed to be a Christmas gift but... I'm not so sure I'll be able to part with it.  But then.... Maybe I can.  Did you follow the yarn link?  Did you see Earth and Sky?  OMG!  That is SO me!  My LYS wasn't offering that colorway.  I just may have to break the rules again.

The book I had my nose stuck in (Can you have your nose stuck in a book if you're reading on a Kindle?) was Forsaken by J. D. Barker.  Even if I hadn't been throwing myself a pity party and hiding out in my room, I'd have had a hard time putting this one down.  I loved that Stephen King allowed Mr. Barker to borrow a character and a location from one of his own books.  

The whole time I was reading Forsaken, I was wondering if Barker was a pseudonym of Mr. King's.  The writing style wasn't King's but the topic sure was and the familiar location....  Turns out, Mr. King read an early draft and liked the story enough to share according to Google.  Anyway, I loved the book and was quite surprised by the ending.  I did not see that coming!

And now, it's raining again.  I have to go dump my bucket.