The Great Staycation - Day 1

As I mentioned a few days ago, I'm finally taking some much needed vacation time. This is the first vacation I've had in two years. I had some time off last December, but that was only because I was laid out with my back... and I ended up in the hospital so it doesn't count. I'm not going anywhere because I don't have the cash, but I'm looking forward to some time at home. Since I have the time, I figured I'd chronicle my staycation adventures.

Day 1.

While I don't have a set schedule, I have a lot of things I want to accomplish during my time off. Things I'm just too tired to do when I get home from work. While I know I probably won't even get half of them done, I think it's still a good idea to have a tentative list.

Slated for today was cleaning out the studio and then getting in some good knitting time.

But that plan got thrown right out the window thanks to the love of my life.

A few weeks ago, Mom's laptop went down. Dave's been scouring the internet and Southern Ontario for a new motherboard at a reasonable price (we could replace her laptop for what they want for a new motherboard.) He finally found a guy on the far side of Toronto who is willing to repair it for a reasonable price.

And of course, since we were both off, he decided it was the perfect day for a road trip ... 114 km one way across some of the worst highway in Southern Ontario with a spaz of a driver who gets edgy if his speedometre drops below 110 km. Fun!

So, after keeping me up until almost 2:30 a.m. Wednesday night, he pulled me out of bed at 8 a.m. to head on down the road. I don't get out of bed at 8 a.m. on the days I actually go to work. I start around 11 a.m... I'm not usually up before 10 a.m. I also don't function well on anything less than nine hours sleep. Ask my Mom, I was always a cranky child if I didn't get my beauty sleep.

See that pic to the left. That's Dave heading out (and telling me to quit whining and hurry up)... notice how the light is predominately on the right... that's East... way too freakin' early.

We had to make a pit stop at his place in Mississauga to tend to Mopar.
Mopar has made appearances on the blog before. He's Dave's cat - half Maine Coon and half Siamese... you'd never know about the Siamese except for the yelling.

He is a lovely boy though. When I first met Dave, Mopar was pretty fat. Being Maine Coon, he was already large, but being a little hefty too he was about 25 lbs. About a year ago he was diagnosed as diabetic and now gets insulin shots twice a day. It's taken all the weight off him, but I guarantee you he's still close to 20lbs... he's just a big boy. He's about 15 years old, and it's starting to show, but he's still a great happy, healthy (except for the diabetes) cat.

After giving Mopar some food, some insulin and some lovin' we got back on the highway and continued to our destination. I did bring my fan shawl (despite Dave's protestations that I was going to get "fluffies" all over the interior of his car) but I didn't even take it out of the bag to work on it while we were driving.... one of us had to keep our eyes on the road (yay 401!).

Eventually we made it to the computer shop (amazingly alive) dropped off the motherboard and headed back (more highway... fun!)

Once back in Mississauga, Dave got off the highway and we meandered our way back through Oakville, Burlington, Hamilton, Stoney Creek and Grimsby, stopping at every computer place we found, looking for parts for Dave's computer. (If I never hear another word about CPUs, processors, RAM and video cards, I will be a very happy girl).

I did manage to scam a stop at Lens Mills in Stoney Creek where Dave bought me some fabric for our quilt (one of the projects I want to complete while I'm off)
The top piece is the part I've already pieced, and the two other fabrics are the ones he bought for the border. I didn't take a look at any of the yarn while I was there because there was no A/C in the store and Dave was beginning to melt.

We also made a stop at a pet store (it was beside one of the computer stores) and Dave bought Rocky a new catnip toy.
Which he promptly took upstairs to the bedroom to play with. It's his favourite place to play with his toys and it's not uncommon for me to wake up with a mouse up my butt! Once a week I have to clean all the toys out from under my pillow - it's where I stash them when he wake's me up at 6 a.m., shooting them across the floor in the bedroom.

Once Rocky settled back down - I went for a much needed nap. Rocky joined me.

When I surfaced again, I did manage to do some of the knitting I was hoping to do in the car. I finished up the fifth row of the Fan Shawl.
Two more rows to go then I start the half squares, then the border. As you can see it's pretty lumpy right now, so it's going to need a good blocking. The yarn is Regia Silk 6ply and it is lovely! So soft and silky! Makes me want to buy more, but I must resist!

Tomorrow: Stay tuned for (hopefully) studio cleaning, a trip to the post office and more