Week 26 - Dottie in Iowa

It was another yarny week with lots of yarn gone from my house. The best part of that was seeing my sister, Dottie.

I had gotten so many good deals on yarn lately that the pile of acrylic for my sister was enormous - way too much to think about shipping. That's when I came up with the idea to meet in the middle, which we'd done years ago, meeting in Davenport. This time we were meeting in Iowa City, which is just over 4 hours of driving for each of us. We weren't staying over so were going there and back in one day. Works for me.

It was blazing hot on Monday and Tuesday so I loaded all the yarn into my car first thing Tuesday when it was a bit cooler out. With the floor finally clear in my front room, I spent Tuesday evening cleaning, which all started when I vacuumed the newly cleared front room and then kept going. I swept and vacuumed all the floors and even vacuumed down the stairs to the basement. I then cleaned up the kitchen, washed the pots and pans then to finish up, cleaned the bathroom before my evening shower. Not only was my house emptier but now it was cleaner too. I went to bed feeling great about things.

We both left ~8:00 Wednesday morning and met in a HyVee parking lot just after noon. I left my yarn filled car and we headed out for lunch and thrifting in her car. We had yummy lunch at The Dandy Lion, which Siri failed on, sending us to The Dandelion Cafe instead. From there we hit an MCC (Menonite Central Committee) thrift shop called The Crowded Closet. The MCC thrift shops are a cut above if you're looking for a nice one. Anyway... they had a yarn wall that Dottie had seen online. I got a few skeins of nice yarn but not much else. We went to a local yarn shop, only to find a note on the door that it was closed for the day. We hit 2 more thrifts - Salvation Army (nothing - it was skanky and expensive) and hit pay dirt at the Goodwill across the street. They had cone yarn galore, which is Anne's favorite so I did a video chat with her and she picked out lots of yarn. I did manage to get a single skein of sock yarn for myself and Dottie bought me a fun new mug. All that was left was to go back to HyVee and head home.

We transferred the yarn (filled Dottie's trunk and back seat), gassed up and said our goodbyes. I got a frapuccino for the road (I'd picked a HyVee with a Starbuck's, of course) and headed out. We'd eaten a late, large lunch so I wasn't very hungry (I'd set out snacks but had left them and my coffee on my kitchen counter) but did stop at a McDonald's drive thru off I-80. I ordered a filet o' fish value meal and and apple pie and it was almost $12! I gasped when she told me the price and she apologized for it being so expensive when I paid. Yikes! I was home after after 8:00 so it was a long day but fun.

Thursday was a campus day so it was an early morning. Luckily it was another BBQ day so I didn't have lunch to pack but I did pack my swimming stuff. It started raining right after we got back from lunch and rained on and off all afternoon. Anne and I decided to bail on swimming so I stopped at HyVee, where I picked up a fried chicken dinner special, and headed home. I was tired, understandably.

Friday was an uneventful day working from home but in the spirit of gone is good, I mailed a big box of yarn out. Someone who has bought yarn from me before had bought 24 lots of my will trade or sell yarn on Ravelry, which I'd pulled a couple of weeks ago, but she had to delay paying until her payday. I happily dropped the box at the post office at lunch rather than scheduling a pick up for Saturday. I went into the weekend with so much less yarn in my house. Yay!

I had another weekend inside, doing lots of knitting and not many chores because I'd done so many on Tuesday. Holing up in the AC is pretty typical for my summers but this weekend it was after a fun week with some long overdue sister time. Life is good!