The biggest thank you.

Ever just have a really bad day? I mean really, really, bad.

It starts with the younger kids waking the baby up from her nap when she's only been down for forty-five minutes.

Then you're getting ready to bind off the final alpaca scarf and return to fun knitting, when you realize that this



while beautiful is entirely too think and not stretchy enough for what you need and the entire thing must be frogged and begun anew with a different stitch. Oh, yeah, and you returned the stitch encyclopedia to the library on Saturday.

Then you try to dry some laundry, and the dryer smells strange and keeps setting of the fire alarm even though there's no smoke anywhere, subsequently waking the baby, again.

And that was just the beginning of my bad, bad, bad, bad day yesterday. Believe it or not things got worse, much worse.

Then I got the mail.

I know I had my doubts about joining the Knitty SP 6. I've never had a good experience with these secret exhange thingies. I usually get forgotten two weeks into the process. I can think of two where I never found out who my secret person was. They just vanished from the face of the earth. So I was unsure about the Knitty exhange. I told The Greatest I didn't know why I was bothering. These things never turn out well for me.

I take it back, all of it.

I got the most amazing package in the mail yesterday.

It had this



And this



The children got little bags with candy and stickers too that I took pictures of, then I realized you could clearly see their real names, so instead of pictures of the bags I present them enjoying the peeps (gratitude, plus I fill my Grandmother requirement of one cute picture per post).



And best of all I got these


A hank of Cherry Tree Hill Mini Twister in Blues/Greens. A Hank of Malabrigo Kettle Dyed Pure Merino in Lime Blue. And a skein of Noro Silk Garden, color 8. You sure know how to treat a girl! I can't decide which I love the best. They all have such good points, with no down side that I can see. The Malabrigo is uncomparably soft. Bird tried to run off with it for her new lovie, it's that soft. The Greatest must have spent three minutes rubbing it against his face. The colors are so deep and rich. I had a dream last night about the Noro. I dreampt I was making a clapotis with it, and it was, for lack of a better word, dreamy. The colors are so bright and vibrant. The Mini Twister might just be my favorite. I've already wound it into a ball and I'm just loving all the sublte shade variations. It's dark blues, and greens, and even a bit of periwinkle-grey. I'm in love. I'm officially out of my pink/purple knitting phase and will in the future only be knitting exclusively in shades of blue and green (and maybe brown for The Greatest).

Thank You so much Secret Pal. You have gone above and beyond in thinking of me, and collecting things that are so perfect for me. I am truly thankful for your kindness on such a very very bad day. You will never know what this meant to me yesterday. Thank You.

I told The Greatest that Karma must just hate me to present me with such an embarassment of yarn riches that I can't play with until I finish the final Nefarious Scarf.

I never thought I'd see the day where I'd whine about "having" to play with alpaca. Why don't I have more hours in the day to play with my yarn? What do you mean the children "must" be fed three meals a day? The dog lives just fine on one meal. What do you mean you must wash the children with "soap" atleast every other day? What do you mean CPS is coming to collect my children? I swear this is just a big misunderstanding. It's the Malabrigo's fault, it's all the soft Malabrigo's fault. It plotted with the Noro. THE NORO I TELL YOU.