I hope those of you in the northeast were able to get outside and enjoy the first really nice weekend we’ve had in far too long! The weather was gorgeous: 60-ish degrees and sunny. On Sunday, the Fiasco and I went for our first little hike of the season. It was really just a stroll through old farmlands that have been converted to a wildlife refuge, but it was fun to get out and stretch our legs, see some shorebirds (ospreys! herons!), and watch fat tadpoles wriggling in the pond. (My apologies for the lack of photos, I took many but have not yet had a chance to upload them.)

#MegaSAL spinning!

I also had lots of time for spinning this weekend, which felt like a luxury. Saturday was the monthly meeting of the Rhode Island Spinner’s Guild and it was great to catch up with friends and twirl away on my Discworld-themed #MegaSAL spinning. The season of sheep and wool festivals is upon us and I am eagerly anticipating more group spinning in the near future. For those of you in the area, this weekend is the Great Rhody Yarn Crawl which culminates in a great little vendor marketplace on Sunday at Mt. Hope Farm in Bristol, RI. Grab a passport, get it stamped at some yarn stores, and enter raffles full of yummy prizes. The RISG spinners will be there hanging out, so stop by and say hello. (Unfortunately, the venue was too small for Sweet Sheep to grab vendor space, but I will be selling at the Mt. Hope Farmer’s Market the day before! Come check us out on Saturday 4/18 between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m.)

Drinking the kool-aid.

The prettiest sock drawer in all the land.

Never gonna let it go.

In other news, I’ve been sucked in to the #KonMarie cleaning craze. Do I believe that folding my clothes carefully will impart them with an energized ‘sheen’ of love and respect (to paraphrase)? No. However, her system for folding such that each item is visible makes a good bit of a sense and I can honestly say that my sock drawer has never looked prettier. My clothing storage was due for an overhaul anyway since I’ve been focused on weight loss this last year and a half. I’m wary of throwing out all of my larger clothes since obesity is a lifelong disease and while weight can be managed and forced into ‘remission’ of sorts, it often comes back and I’ve been bitten before. However, since I’ve maintained a 60-lb weight loss for over 6 months now, I feel safe in donating some of the largest sizes. (Although I’ve discovered an unnatural affection for t-shirts from my college days. So what if I have a dozen of them, most of them holey and stained and too big? Keeping.) Six hours and three trash bags later, I feel happy with the state of things and look forward to tackling additional categories (books, yarn, papers, miscellany). I was inspired to give this all a try by reading more detailed thoughts on the process on the Nearly There and With Pointed Sticks blogs, you should check out their posts!

Last but not least, I was featured on Sherrill’s blog as a spotlight spinner! If you’re not familiar with her, Sherrill began the popular #spin15in15 hashtag on Instagram in order to encourage us all to spin for 15 minutes a day, and share it with others. She makes beautiful tags for handspun yarns and sends many out as prizes. I’ll be sending her some sample sized lotion bars to give out as prizes, as well, since I just love admiring all the pretty #spin15in15 projects. Follow her on Instagram (@baabonnybelle) and be sure to tag your own spinning posts!

And that was my weekend in a nutshell. How about yours? What kind of spring cleaning routines do you have?