Ordinary-Ordinary

I just happen to like ordinary things. When I paint them, I don't try to make them extraordinary. I just try to paint them ordinary-ordinary. --Andy Warhol

It's weird how the week before a long weekend seems like the longest week ever with the shortest amount of time to get things done. It was one of those weeks when I felt like I'd gone hurtling head-first into Thursday afternoon, where I landed tired, weary, sore, and ready for a rest. In fact, all I remember about Thursday evening was going out for a bite to eat (and I can't even remember much of that), before I came home to put my pyjamas on (inside out) and went to bed.

I was ever so grateful to have Friday off. I feel like I haven't had a weekend to myself in ages... and as much as I like visiting and shopping and seeing new things from time to time, I need those quiet, unexciting weekends to myself, where nobody is looking for me and nothing really needs to get done. I had a rare morning where I could stay in bed for as long as I wanted: no gym, no morning run, no morning swim, no nothing. It was a wonderful treat.

We went out for a walk at Jack Point and Biggs Park. I kept seeing all sorts of pretty spring flowers, and I meant take photos of them on the way back... but there's a weird sorcery around the woods that makes the exact same trail look so different when going in the other direction, and I ended up totally missing them. I took a photo of these sweet little mushrooms at the halfway point, though:

On the way home, we stopped to pick up the first of our Community Supported Agriculture boxes (or CSA for short). It's the first time this farm has done an early spring session. At first, I thought it looked pretty meagre, but then I realized that I'm going to be getting one every week. It's quite a switch from supermarket shopping, where you load up on as much as you can and keep it for two weeks. It's going to be a nice spring, I think:

I've been working away on my bathroom mat, which looked like this yesterday morning. After making complicated sweaters, and after contemplating patterns for laceweight shawls, making such a mundane thing as a bathroom mat seemed dull and ordinary:

Unless you looked at the back of it, which shows all the intarsia panels I was using:

This morning, I tweaked my knee a bit during my run. It's a bit swollen now, which means I won't be doing any mad hikes for the rest of this weekend. I did venture out for a short walk, though. It's a beautiful day to be outside today:

When I got home, I decided to try making some dry-roasted chick peas, which were going well... until I burned them:

So, swollen knee or not, I was determined to redeem myself, and went off on a bit of a cooking spree. I made a batch of my standard banana oatmeal snacks:

And then a batch of blueberry scones:

And while I was at it, I roasted some sweet potatoes:

And used them to make a proper "West Coast Hippy" Buddha bowl, complete with spinach, cucumber, kidney beans, and quinoa:

So much for ordinary.

But at least my rather ordinary bathroom mat is finished: soft and squishy, and since I made it out of acrylic, easy to throw into the wash each week:

It's somewhat lopsided, due to the mixture of different stitch types, but I still love it:

Perhaps later, I will treat myself to a bubble bath, after which I will enjoy stepping onto my new bathroom mat. And after that, I will enjoy a dull, quiet evening on the couch, complete with a book and maybe some knitting.

Ahhh, ordinary... I missed you...