So this morning I spent some time online, hanging out at Ravelry while Plurking…  but didn’t stay long for once.  I got going on Whomping Willow while having coffee.  ;)

Once the young man-lets woke up, I decided to get their butts moving – though the oldest does a damn fine job of getting in his workouts…  and sure enough, he started hitting the weights just as I announced we were heading to the park for a workout.  So, I left him behind & dragged the youngest with me.  We went 4 miles at the park, me running & him on his Ripstick.  I’d have been happier if he’d run some of it, but trust me – 4 miles on a Ripstick is a pretty darn good workout, too!  We were both covered in sweat when we got done.  I decided to round out my workout by hitting the rope for a solid 10 minutes of jumping.  Whew!  All in all, it was a good workout, though my gosh darn right shin started to feel a bit twingy towards the end.  That was the main reason we only went 4 – we WERE shooting for 6.

Got done with the workout, hit the showers, ate some lunch…  then back to Whomping Willow!  I’ve made great progress today, YAY!  And along the way, I had one of those major league Ah-HA! moments.  I really prefer the short row heels over the heel flap, it looks “neater” to me.  Anyway, slowly my short row heels have been getting better & better – it’s something that really does take practice!  So my ah-ha moment today was just as I was on the last row of the heel – it dawned on me that if I wrap the first stitch on the other needle (the instep side of the sock) on either side, I won’t have any holes at all AND I won’t have to fudge picking up a stitch & doing a k2tog to keep the stitch count right…  so I gave it a try.  Check it out, it’s a thing of beauty (ROFL)…

NO holes & what a nice, neat heel! ;)

Oh, and yes, I took some progress shots, though I’ve gotten a lot more done on them by now – hopefully in another day or two will be able to write up & post the new pattern!  YAY!

LOL - yeah, yeah, I have blue polish on my toenails!

I had hopes of catching the stitch details a bit better, but the lighting just wasn’t cooperating with the rainstorms outside my window, but you can get the idea here…

Close up details, the beginning of the tree!

So there’s the update – now I’m back at it since I’m so excited to be making such excellent progress today!  ;)