Early Birthday Bliss

Friday was an amazing day. It started off with the usual attempt to wake up at 6 am and the habitual dash for the train only 45 minutes later. I went to work and did loads of cataloging even though I was excited about heading out to Newbury Yarns for my lunch break. Birthday yarn!
Yes, I know, my birthday technically isn't until Tuesday, but I wanted yarn, and my birthday is coming up, so I bought some.

And here it is, red sock yarn. Louet gems in a bright red that will make amazing socks. Very in your face, nothing subtle about it, just the way I like it.


That was supposed to be it, but then I saw this. It's CTH laceweight in teals and purples, with black bits here and there. It's incredible, as is the yardage: 2400 yards! That's enough for a whole triangle shawl and a stole. Who could say no to that? Two projects for the price of one, or so I keep telling myself.
Yarn diet? What yarn diet?


On my way home, I sat next to a woman who was knitting. She saw my yarn, which was sticking out of my bag. We had the greatest yarn and knitting chat. We were clearly having too much fun because the poor guy next to us decided to change seats when he got the chance. Oh, well, he doesn't know what he's missing. She gave me her card so we can get together and knit sometime. Yay for knitters on trains!

When I got home, I showed my yarn to Mr. Batty. I was all excited and so was he, because he wanted to know if I'd like my birthday present early. And then he came up the basement stairs with a box. This box.


I'm not often lost for words, but this time, he really did it. Add this to the other 999 999 999 reasons I love my sweetie. He saw me oooh and aaah over this wheel after I tried it out at Mind's Eye a while ago. So he went and bought it for me. Figured out a place to get it all by himself, ordered it, and managed to hide it from me. I was just going to take a picture of the box before my birthday, but suddenly, it was all put together, and I was ogling the pretty roving that came with it. Wonder how that happened.


And speaking of my wonderful sweetie, here he is entertaining the cats. The green fuzzy teaser is Morgana's favorite toy, but as you can see, Merlin is not averse to the occasional stalk and pounce either.


Morgana, on the other hand, goes spastic. Not sure if she's actually airborne in this picture or if she's just on her hind legs. These kittens can jump, though. She can make it through our entire living room and reach the stairs without touching the floor once, bounding from couch to couch.


They're both taking a nap as I type this. I'm finally getting ready to knit around them. Depending on how that goes, I may take a chance on trying out the big wooden spinning cat toy, I mean, my brand new spinning wheel.