Adventures in Paradise

A Sunset Walk Through Cascais

I've been to the Lisbon area three times now, and have never had the time to do anything other than work. But this time we finished early intentionally and there was no way for me to get home that day, so I had the evening to see some things.

My first stop was a lovely little craft store recommended by Ana Sofia at S is for Sewing.

The Craft Company is definitely a must-see if you're in the area (it's about 30 minutes outside Lisbon, on the coast).  I wandered the streets because it was way too early to find dinner in Portugal. It was February, but just warm enough to take my shoes off and walk on the beach. 

Along the sea wall were a series of nautical themed sculptures, including this beautiful mermaid.

And a former king outside a fort that was much older than the early 20th century king. The fort has been turned into an art gallery, but it was closed by the time I arrived.

Portugal's thing is cork. They make everything out of cork.

Everything. I did not buy this yarn.

I did buy a few things at the shop...the yarn is made in Portugal from Portuguese wool. This is a pretty rare find in Europe...most of what I've found, even at the little shops, is the same stuff I'd find in the US. Once in a while I find something dyed locally, but even  Scotland was limited when it came to sheepy stuff, at least in Aberdeen, Stirling, and Glasgow. 

The stitch markers were a gift for the Nanny, who I hired in part because she knits. I figured a knitter who loves animals (she and her dog live with us during the week) has to be a good person. I was right, at least in this case.

Lisbon

Did I mention my current job entails a lot of travel? This week I'm in Lisbon, or rather just outside Lisbon. It's my third trip here and the first where (1) I am not sick and (2) where I have free time to explore. That comes tomorrow...we started at a civilized hour today but my past midnight arrival meant sleeping in so that I could be coherent during the workday.

The view from my hotel is nice...

A Few Things

Time has certainly been rolling along, and my life has changed dramatically. There will be a lot fewer posts about Navy life as I get more senior and things I say start to matter more. I'm still loving it, though I'll admit that at 25 years, I'm starting to get tired of the moves and the long hours. One of my mentors mentioned to me after she retired that she didn't realize how physically TIRED she was after 30 years of service. I told her that I figured it out when I was on maternity leave (12 weeks, because for once the military is more progressive than American society in general...see, that's the stuff I have to be careful about saying. But it's true here.) The enforced slow down made me come to a complete halt...it was an emergency C-section, on the 4th of July, and I had post-delivery complications. When you've stopped running for the first time in 23 years, you realize how hard you'd been working. And then I got back on the treadmill, with a little added (welcome) baggage.

 

Anyway, we are doing great, and I'm still knitting and sewing. The advantage of traveling as often as I do is that I get uninterrupted knitting time on many flights. That offsets the no knitting I do at home.

The first things I knit for her were leg warmers. My first two trimesters I was working 18 hour days, coming home and crashing, then getting up at 4am to run with the dogs. So...that's all that got made. And I was working on the pink and greens ones while waiting for the c-section. The little sweater had been intended for someone else's kid (long since aged out of a tiny sweater) and only needed to be seamed. I have no idea why I didn't finish the darn thing.

When I first went back to work, I pumped in the awesome lactation rooms at the Pentagon (seriously, haven't found better ones yet, plus a tight community of mothers who all know the challenges of working stupid hours while getting through new mom life.)

These two sweaters were knit entirely while pumping...sadly, my Italian nanny managed to felt both of them within two weeks of starting work. At least she was about to grow out of them. The pink one is Garter Babe (on Ravelry) and is a rarely knit sweater that is really quite awesome. I need to make a second one as soon as I figure out how to size up correctly. 

I did make a cute kid, didn't I? (Not quite current photo...Thanksgiving in Prague at a playground we found thanks to the Rick Steves walking tour of the city.)

Hi! It's been a long, long time. Since my last post I've run three more marathons, fostered dozens of dogs, had a baby, and moved all of us (cat, dog, kid) to Italy. We launched some Tomahawk missiles into Syria and shot down a bunch of targets while dodging the first hurricane to transit the west coast of the UK in 50 years. The human puppy has chased pigeons in nine cities (in four countries on two continents) and is working on being bilingual as she has an Italian nanny and goes to an Italian school. Life remains an adventure and Italy is a paradise of it's own kind.