Today’s Fortune: In silence man can most readily preserve his integrity.

I’m not sure what that means. I think it probably means I should be quiet. Which I am, but it is hard to do, because I know a secret!!

Mom has a “Super Secret Swap” going on with some of her friends on Ravelry. Ravelry is an online community of people who knit and crochet, and they show pictures of the neat stuff they make and they also make good friends with each other in different groups. Mom is in several groups, but one of her very favorites is the John Deere Tractor Drivers group.  Mom calls the ladies in this group the “Tractor Girls.”

A lot of the Tractor Girls are in this swap, and each of them posted the kinds of things they like and don’t like, and three ideas that they wanted their packages to be about. We are very excited about the Tractor Girl we are sending goodies to. She is very fun, and we are having a good time coming up with stuff to put in her package. Mom has let me in on all the secrets, and I have to be careful not to give anything away.

Each package is supposed to have one skein of yarn, one hand-made item, and at least one themed item from the ideas that were listed.  Ours is very fun.  Mom is making a very nice present, and she knows exactly what yarn she plans to get for the package.  She has been buying cute stuff to put in it, too.  Our Tractor Girl will be very spoiled.

Mom is in two more swaps in that group, too.  One of them is for “stitch markers”.  Those are what you use to mark special spots when you are knitting.  You can buy plain plastic ones, but the fancy ones made with beads and stuff are much more fun to use.  We are going to make three sets of markers, and when the package gets to our house, we can choose three sets out of the box, and put ours in to send to the next person.

Mom is also in a dishcloth swap.  She will be knitting three different dishcloths, and the dishcloth swap works the same as the stitch marker swap, so she will be getting some fun dishcloths that somebody else made soon.  Mom let me pick out the yarn for the dishcloths, and I chose some very good colors.

The yarn for the dishcloths is cotton, so that they will be easy to wash and dry.  We have some fun patterns picked out for them, too.  Mom needs to get busy knitting, so she will have everything done in time for all of the swap deadlines.

Swaps are lots of fun, but keeping all these secrets is hard.   Maybe once all of the TSM monkeys get through traveling, I could start some swaps with them.  We could swap Pezzes and stuff.   Me and Dharma think that would be lots of fun!

Today’s Vocabulary Words: Super Secret Swap, Tractor Girls