What can I say?

This week has been madness. On top of teaching lessons and shipping for Tweet Tees I've been packing and getting ready to go to Moldova to do missions work for two weeks. I leave on Saturday so I've been rushing around doing all the last minute things that need doing for a trip of this size. The hardest part is that I'm going by myself so there's no one to call and ask, "Did you remember toothpaste?" "Have you got an extra set of batteries I can use?" "Would you like me to bring the laundry detergent?" I have to do it all. And for the first part of the week I kept thinking of things that I might need. But today I picked up (hopefully) the last few items. Everything seems to be in order. I'm even getting a cell phone that I can use for the 2 weeks that I'll be gone.

However, my poor little apartment is seriously suffering from this craziness. Right now on one side of my room I have all the boxes full of tee shirts for Tweet Tees.

And on the other side I have all the stuff that I have to take with me to Moldova.
All those things laying about in bags have to be packed into my little black backpack (barely visible in the bottom left corner) or in the big blue hiking backpack. There is also stuff on the dresser that you can't see that has to be packed as well. And the giant yellow and white box in the top right corner is going as well. That's an infant car seat that I'm taking to a friend who lives over there. He and his wife are expecting a baby in about a month. It's also stuffed with various goodies so it's quite large and bulky.

I also picked up one of the most important items for the trip today.
Yeah, you better believe I was taking some yarn with me! Granted, I'm not taking it all. My original plan for travel knitting was to take some Artyarns sock yarn that I bought back in January and knit some Jaywalkers. However, to find a pair of knitting needles in the size I wanted I was going to have to drive all the way across town. I have done so much driving in the past 3 days that I don't want to see the inside of a car for a long while. So, I decided to go down the street to the local Joanne's and pick up some bamboo needles and yarn for Warm Woolies sock knitting. I thought I might only find bamboo circs but I found some bamboo DPNs in size 10 1/2 which is exactly what I needed. Of course I really like Paton's Classic Wool so I picked up some. The multicolored skeins will go for the socks and the orange skeins will be used for when I get back to make a sweater. Which reminds me, some of the ladies on Ravelry asked me to write up my pattern for the last sweater I knit for Warm Woolies because I had made it in the round. I want to get on that before I leave or else they may have to wait awhile.

Also on the Warm Woolies note... My serial knitting habits have paid off big time with the Arctic blanket.

I'm using leftover scraps of Bernat Softee Chunky yarn for a baby blanket for Warm Woolies (sensing a charity knitting trend here?). I only cast on 69 stitches so there are 8 repeats of the pattern as opposed to the 17 in the original. I really like this project. Since it uses large needles (size 13) it goes really quickly and the lace pattern in easy to memorize. I could see myself doing a full size version of this as an heirloom piece one day. I just randomly interspersed the changes in yarn and I love how it is turning out. I've just got a very little bit of each of the yarns left so I'm hoping to wrap this up before I leave on Saturday.