Beware the Ides of... April!!!

On the day before the Ides proper, the postman was guid to me yet again...

Hours of amusement! Oh, and for those who are enslaved by that wicked taskmistress, Lace - you would do very, very well to order the book to the right, Heirloom Knitting by Sharon Miller. There are already, I'm reluctant to tell you, some drool marks on it just from me perusing it on the tram on the way home. It looks an excellent instructions/ideas manual for every level (including my level, Idiot).

I got both books from the Needle Arts Book Shop, a mail order service located right here in the fair T.O. Close by though it is, I was still amazed by the service offered by Marsha. I mailed a money order on Wednesday (I'm not allowed to have a credit card, perhaps for obvious reasons!). She Emailed me Friday afternoon saying that she had received my order, and the books were with me by Monday morning! (And this via evil Canada Post. She is very clearly some kind of magician.)

In addition to the books, she enclosed all sorts of little extras:

Book plates! Such a nice touch. I haven't had book plates since I was a kid, and demanded some which read "Kristina's Library. Take this and DIE" or something along these lines.

(I won't tell you how many years ago that was. Suffice it to say that it was around the same time I conned my long-suffering mother into buying me a "Keep on Truckin' " bumper sticker at the Kingston Fair (on the sole basis that it was holographic)... then, much to her horror, affixed it to my closet door. I tried to take it off a few years later with no success.)

And stitch markers... goody. Now I don't have to clean underneath the chesterfield cushions for another...oh, month or so at least! Thanks, Marsha!!

Anyway, what with all this lace inspiration, it was inevitable I hit a yarn shop, really. This time, it was - the only yarn shop in Toronto that sells... (drumroll please)...

Blue Moon Designs Yarn!

I really, really wish I'd never discovered this line of products. I mean, check out the name of the yarn!!

Not to mention the colourway - Motley Hue! It is a mohair/mulberry silk (whatever that might be - but sounds mighty guid to me!)/nylon blend and soft soft soft. 910 metres of lusciousness.

Oh, and then of course I felt guilty for cheating on the Handmaiden, so had to pick up some raspberry Sea Silk:

Sigh.

But as if these riches weren't enough, some stuff I'd ordered on interlibrary loan came in en masse:

Swoon. Colours galore. Kaffe rawks! Also, a lovely book by Candace Bathouth:

And before you ask, no, I'm not taking up needlepoint again any time in the near future. I just like all the pretty pictures as well.

However, I do actually know how to read... and I found some reading materials while at the library well suited to my Mensa-like brain:

Given my hatred of most things television these days, also couldn't resist picking up this one:

And I scored two DVDs of one of my all-time favourite TV shows!

"I am not a number, I am a free man." Gotta love Patrick McGoohan, although his judgement has arguably been impaired in past - Sean Connery has him to thank for the James Bond role, because he turned it down first. Seriously.

(Speaking of Bond James Bond:

That's me on the left. Really. I cut my hair just before putting up this blog.)

Phew. Where was I? Oh yeah.

And finally, I lucked out in the Treasures from Trash department when arriving at my building last evening.

A much needed addition to help organize the spare room. You can probably tell from the rest of the photo that it needs it. I thwarted Mario the superintendent

in this acquisition, by the way. He appeared quite miffed, really. Hey, whose fault is it that the person who's out of the building all day scores the treasures while the person who's purportedly working in and around the building every day loses out, I ask you?!

(Mario did, however, endear himself to me by engaging in a round of "Bash the capital L-landlord" for about 10 minutes. I think he thought I'd hand over the bookcase. Wrong... he should know better, really, as I'm both a tenant and a lawyer. However, I did give him a couple of smokes, so don't feel too sorry for him).

And... the sun even shone all day!! All in all, a better Monday than I've had in a long time.

Here's wishing you all an equally fabulous Tuesday!