Today marked a milestone of sorts.

Fourteen years ago my youngest son was born, and his birth was the precipitating event and catalyst for my interest in crochet. As far as my older children are concerned that is where my normal life ended.

At the time, I did not (and could not) foresee the adventure on which I was about to embark.

To mark his birthday we spent yesterday afternoon and evening celebrating so that he could stay up past 9:30.

As a result, today was uneventful. He was busy working on a history assignment that is due tomorrow and practicing trumpet for an upcoming lesson, so he did not seem to mind (or notice) that I was attending to various crochet matters.

One of the first things I did was try out the Clover Reflections Crochet Hook Gift Set that I bought recently. The set I purchased included the 4.0 mm G hook, the 5.0 mm H hook, and the 6.0 mm J hook seen here:

I was attracted by the color and had read several laudatory comments in a product review that made me curious to know if these hooks were truly “all that.”

While in my test run the yarn did not glide as smoothly off the hook as it does with the corresponding Etimos, it is a very nice hook, and I have no regrets regarding the purchase. It might be particularly useful with more slippery yarns that need a hook with a little bit of bite.

The other thing I did today was make more squares for the next step of my 2011 North Carolina State Fair project.

With my comings and goings of the past week, I did not make as much progress as I would have liked, but I also would not have liked missing out on the Annual Chain Link Conference either, so here is what I had finished by the time the sun began to set:

Life, like crochet, is comprised of a series of planned and unplanned adventures (both normal and not), and while I can look back on the past fourteen years and see where I have traveled, I don’t know that it gives me any insight as to what lies ahead. I do know this: if the next fourteen years are half as much fun as the past fourteen years have been, that will be more than enough.