Cruise Recap and other catch up shtuff



St Maarten port from my stateroom's balcony
 (I upgraded - totally worth it!)

It's been a month since I was on my cruise and I'm just now getting around to write about it. The cliffs notes version: I had a blast. It was my first cruise and will definitely not be the last.  I loved everything about it. I loved being able to get chicken fingers at all hours of the day/night. I loved upgrading my room to a balcony and sitting out there, watching the world go by. I loved the heated tile lounge chairs in the spa. I loved being in the warm sun of the Caribbean.

I definitely recommend Norwegian Cruise Lines. Of course, it's the only cruise line I've been on so far, but the ship was gorgeous. It was well taken care of, clean, spacious, interesting. I could be social when I wanted to be and had my "me-time" when I needed it.  The staff was wonderful.  I got to see the Blue Man Group, Second City, St. Maarten/St Martin, St Thomas, St John and waved at the port of Nassau as we passed it by. The customer service was awesome. I accidentally left some clothes on board when I got distracted during packing. I got them back in the mail last week, clean and in one piece!



Cruise shawl



The only thing missing was any kind of lap pool. I LOVE to swim and wish I had the opportunity to really swim some laps. The only pools they had were wading pools and the hydrotherapy pool, nothing where you could really swim.  I was able to go snorkling in St. John - a last minute decision and one I'm very happy I made. It was a gorgeous day aboard the catamaran from St. Thomas to St John's Honeymoon Beach. The water was warm and the sand was white and fine. I would've loved to have spent more time snorkling, but they do two sailings a day!!! I'm also glad I did it because our port of call in Nassau was cancelled due to wind. I had a snorkeling trip planned for the Bahamas and would have been incredibly disappointed had I not been able to snorkel at all!



I was able to do some knitting on board. I started a shawl - the Sea Foam shawl in my "Caribbean Blue" linen lace. It was the perfect project for a cruise - nice and light and inspired by the sea. I'm still not done with it, but it's getting there. I was working on it during the plane ride from Miami to DCA and the flight attendants were so impressed, they let me move into an empty row so I could have more room to maneuver. They were so sweet.

Spiral-y!

I haven't finished any projects lately. I've had a severe loss of what we call my "knitting mojo." My motivation to knit had left me for a while. I'm just now starting to get it back.  I have put a few more inches on the Cruise Shawl. I finally turned the heel on the first Ribbelmuster/Spiraleta socks in the Plymouth Sockotta self-patterning yarn. A few more inches down the foot, decreases on the toes, and one more sock to go! I'm going to teach myself how to knit two socks at a time so that I never have to suffer from "second sock syndrome" (knitting socks one at a time and getting bored after the first one, thereby never knitting the second). It hasn't plagued me as yet, but the way my mojo has been going in and out, it wouldn't surprise me if it does.

I missed one of my big New Year's resolutions. Opening day of baseball was last week and I'm no closer to finishing the World Champion sweater than I was in January.  Oh well. I might see if I can pay someone to knit the sleeves for me.  Or rip out the first one and do two at a time.  It's just a lot of boring stockinette in sock yarn - so it takes forever to even do an inch.
I'm still fairly good on my other resolutions, though. I've only had three Starbucks coffees since January. And I've only been to fibre space twice - one of the times, I didn't even buy the yarn!!! I did falter last week, but it was for good reason. Miss Babs Ausherman was in town and I attended her color workshop. Her yarns are wonderful and I got four skeins of sock yarn. I can't wait to knit them up!