MDS&W 2009 - Unusual is the Word

The best way to describe this weekend would be unexpected. I did go to Maryland Sheep and Wool but nothing went quite as I thought it would. No bad, not good exactly - just different.

In the past I attended MDS&W with my buddy Felicia but the addition of a certain nearly 2-year-old has changed her priorities a bit so she begged off this year. My daughter heard this and siezed the opportunity to join me. Yay! She played it down to her friends because admitting that you're going to a yarn festival with your mother by choice is just not cool but I know the truth. she came because she wanted to and I love that. Unfortunately her school work load has been really heavy lately so she spent the first part of the day in an off mood till I ordered her to go sit and take a quick nap. After that it was all good.



Before she left for her nap she accompanied me to the Ravelry meet up. Last year I passed on this due to the crowds. This year I found a spot to pull myself up on one of the walls and sit (which turns out not to have been a great idea - more later) and from my perch I observed all of the crazy. I chatted with my wall-sitting neighbor but I didn't mingle much which dismayed my daughter. She would have me do a full-on meet and greet but that's just not my style. DQ came face to face with parental dorkiness.



I did other things this year that I hadn't in the past. I got lost on the way to MDS&W because, in a thoroughly uncharacteristic move, I neglected to check a map and missed the exit twice. I never go anywhere without advance prep. Once we got to MDS&W I waited in the ridiculous line at The Fold and scored 2 skeins of STR. I'm still not sure why though because I usually laugh at the folks on that line. I even walked down to watch the sheep dog trials. That was fun.



Another thing that kept up occupied was watching the sock machine demonstration. it was way cool but not enough to convince me to buy a machine for myself. I suppose that could change if I watched a few more times.



At the end of the day I carried home a lot of stuff. More than I expected. I can (and will) blame a lot of it on DQ. She is quite the enabler. She carried a lot of it but even the stuff I was carrying became quite painful at some point. Even after we dumped it all in the car my left shoulder still hurt... a lot. And when I reached up to massage my shoulder it was hot and there was a lump where there shouldn't be one.

Hubbo took me to the ER where the doctors said that I had the case of the night because they don't see the type of lump I had all that often. It turns out that I had torn one of my shoulder muscles (lifting myself on to the wall maybe) and a hematoma had formed. Ugly and painful but after some really good drugs (Percoset! Vicodin!) I'm feeling much better.

It's a good thing that my injury wasn't more serious because I have lots of pretty new fiber and toys to play with.