Yesterday was our fourth anniversary. It seems a little odd, when I think about it, that we�ve been married for four years, because for some reason it does not feel as if it has been that long. I can mark the date in April when we moved into this house and say �yes, we�ve been here four years�, and that feels right, but when it comes to other dates that indicate the passage of time, nope, it doesn�t work. It�s like my oldest nephew�s birthday, which was this past weekend. He turned seven. Seven! He�s starting second grade this fall. How can he possibly that old? Worse yet, the two little tow-headed twin boys who served as ring bearers at his mom and dad�s wedding (who were, now that I think about it, younger than him) graduated from high school in June and this fall are going off to college. How did this happen? I think sometimes time moves faster in pockets of space, and slower in others, and somehow we move through them without ever knowing it, until suddenly poof, toddlers are going to college and babies are going to second grade and newlyweds are having their fourth anniversary and so on. I feel old.

It was a nice anniversary, though. We went out to a fondue place and had cheese fondue with pesto, and chocolate fondue with caramel and pecans, and a whole lot of other food in between. And because we are both nerds and we love our gadgets, we decided that our joint anniversary present to each other would be a Roomba. So we put in our order and soon, oh yes, very soon, our very own little robotic vacuum cleaner will arrive. Maybe this isn�t everyone�s version of romance, but it works for us.

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They send us our vacation balance at work once every three months and when I got mine recently I was a little bowled over by how much I�ve got saved up. We�re both trying to be a little miserly with the vacation hours in preparation for the trip to Ireland (and we are actually, finally going to go next year � we�ve both talked to our respective bosses so maybe this might actually happen), but still, I realized if I didn�t start using up some of those accumulated hours I was going to lose them. So I decided to take today off from work and my knitting mom and I drove down to Oakland for the TKGA convention. Or rather, we drove down there because they were having a convention, which meant they also were sponsoring a great big room filled with vendors selling yarn and needles and pretty, pretty things to make all us fiber addicts very happy.

I bought yarn, because one of my favorite vendors was there and I simply could not just walk by without purchasing something. And this time I even bought yarn with a pattern and a specific purpose! Of course then I succumbed to the lure of 50% off sale at another booth, and in a weak moment bought every skein available of a gorgeous cotton slub yarn in beautiful shades of copper and silver and brown, and I did this knowing full well that knitting with cotton makes my hands hurt, but sometimes you just have to ignore common sense and indulge.