Hm, weekend.

It's only 2 days later, and I'm having a hard time remembering what we did on Saturday.

Friday night, we settled in for a casual night of video watching and casual dinner (leftover mac & cheese and broccoli salad from Costco, if I'm not mistaken). Knitted up a scarf I'd ripped out (big needles ROCK) in just a couple hours. Woke up late Saturday, got us both up & dressed and headed on over to Sami's for a yarn trip, prudently preceded by a yummy brunch at FatApple's, which is conveniently across the street from the yarn shop. I had brought a subset of Magnetix for G to play with and he only lost one of the shiny balls (suitable for tripping on, ugh) in the restaurant. (Next time, non-rolling toys.)

We spent way too long in the yarn shop, feeling up countless skeins of soft stuff (and some really NOT soft stuff, ack, why??), and then got the call that boydog Wyatt had been thrown in the clink. Quickly made my purchase, and dropped a somewhat steaming Sami off to rescue her pup, and headed home. Well, we almost made it. Our path to the freeway took us by Blick, a terrible name for a pretty neat art shop. I wanted to find a spiral-bound book of plain sheets (no lines) for G to pack in his crayon box for easy transport. (btw, G was awesome at the yarn shop. So quiet and amused himself in non-destructive ways. He got a gold star for that!)

Well, their bound books were non-spiral and super pricey ($6 for a tiny book?), so I abandoned that. But then we found a printing aisle and I looked for screen printing stuff. When I was younger, we screen-printed our Christmas cards for several years in a row. You cut your design out of this gel-like paper on waxed paper backing, peeled off the parts you didn't want, affixed the gel stuff to the silk screen, then squeegeed silk-screen ink across. I've been able to find the silk screens and squeegees, but never the film stuff.

The gal behind the counter ominously said that the stuff used to adhere the film to the screen itself is highly toxic, and that she even passed out once because of the fumes. "Right, OK," I said. "So do you sell it?" She said no, but there is a photographic emulsion that is much better. Went back to the aisle, looked everywhere, never found it. (sigh)

Then G wanted a set of modeling clay that you can fire in the oven. Wonderful colors, but the whole set was like $16. OK, not till he can master not getting PlayDoh in the rug.

In the same aisle were fabric dyes, including Procion dyes that I'd heard make great tie-dye. I'd wanted to do tie-dye for several summers now. I bought red, blue, yellow, and hope to make green, orange, and purple from these as well. Ominous warnings about handling the powder. I may ask Mom to send down her WWII-looking mask to wear when I mix these up. Should be fun, though!

Finally got home and collapsed. Decided, after G went to bed, to rip out and re-knit a scarf I've been trying to create. Intent on using up the yarn that had been in the previous scarf, I knit till 1AM. Ah, we didn't get to church that morning. I was actually up in time but both of us were moving so blasted slow.

At 1:30, my babysitter arrived (as I was stepping out of the shower, so as G was opening the door, I was running back to my bedroom to throw my clothes on), and by 1:39, I was on my way to a stamping workshop. I know, I know: stamping! It seems to be in the same league as scrapbooking, which I've seen and doesn't interest me in the slightest. (My method is: throw them in the album, scribble something underneath, done.)

Stamping is really quite creative now. Following the leader's examples, we all created some really cute thank-you cards using the paper, stampers, and other tools set out. I was really nervous, not the least because I had to be done by 3:05 to get back by the time when my babysitter would be picked up. I got 3 of 5 cards done and my wonderful friend said she'd finish the other 2 for me.

Got out of there promptly and was home for a whole 2 minutes before her mom came. (Phew!) Spent more time cleaning the house and preparing for dinner.

At 5PM, right on time (smile--this was an issue between us when we were dating), my ex and her sweetie arrived. Dinner went off without a hitch (SO easy), and by having them come at 5, I had enough time to get ready for hockey without rushing. So of course I ran a little late, sigh, but did get to the rink in time to get 1 skate around the ice before the game. Better than Susan, who was looking at baby pictures and didn't even realize we were starting!

And I got to see Viv! who I haven't seen for, phew, a long time. Almost didn't recognize her from the back, as her hair had colors found in nature. So great to see her again.

I played D the whole game, except for the part where I was thinking in Forward mode and found myself way out of my position. I think Andrea saved my bacon for that one. I did take some shots from D, something I thought one couldn't do, and scored with one, although it was the crap de la crap of crap goals. My team was gracious enough not to cheer, wisely coached by Liz. It did make me realize I really need to work on my shots. They were very often wide (Look up!) and not that hard. I did lift at least one, yay! I also tussled with Sue G a lot, which was fun. She is a solid player and can seem quite serious out on the ice, but she's really having a good time. We won 4-0 but it was a very even game and everyone played well, including Wendy, who I had always thought was a little timid before, and even in this game, didn't take her seriously, which was a big mistake.

I also saw an opening for the move Barb taught us at the last practice, where you dive down to prevent the shot. I saw it, but my body screamed "NOOOOO!" so I didn't do it. But I did think about it, so I'm taking 1/2 credit on that one.

Had to pass on the IHOC trip after the game, as the ex gets up hella early and I didn't want to wear out my welcome on that one. Got home about 9:45, as I had predicted, but to my dismay, heard a little voice say, "Yay! It's Mommy!" The ex looked quite sheepish to have the little one still awake. (Like I've never done that.)

Once I got him settled, he was asleep in 10 minutes (after the requisite wail of "I can't fall asleep!"). Dang, me too. A little sore today.

But I think I'd forgotten just how incredibly, fabulously fun hockey is.

Oh! I forgot the funniest part! So as I was leaving the stamping workshop, my friend offered to have me pick up my cards in the evening. I said, "Well, I have hockey tonight, so let's hook up during the week." "Oh, you play hockey?" the leader said. I said, "Yes," getting all set to hear "Oh my gosh/so violent/have you skated forever" etc. Instead, she said she used to play hockey and is thinking of starting up again! How cool is that? I love when my presuppositions are challenged, Lesbian-processy as that may sound.

Does one invite former players to GHATD? I'm thinking not. But I could start her in on Spring/Summer season!

(I guess I do remember what I did last weekend.)