Notice: Stash Acquisition!

What a great day! Yesterday morning The Man of the House suggested Santa Fe for breakfast. I'm always beyond glad to go to Santa Fe, so I was ready to go in nanoseconds. The Man wanted chocolate croissants, and they are scarce in ABQ, even scarcer on Sundays. So, chocolate croissant = Santa Fe. Fine with me! What's a 57 mile drive for breakfast? What $3.00 and gallon gasoline. The Man felt like chocolate for breakfast. (To be fair, his car gets some 40 miles to the gallon.) We got to Santa Fe, found a parking place near the Plaza and walked to our favorite French cafe. We ordered drinks and I went to check out the pastry cases. They had my favorite almond tart thing so I ordered it. Then The Man went to look for his chocolate. 57 miles and ...shhh...very quietly now...they were already sold out... Not a good thing. Nothing else would do. Oh, well, I enjoyed my almond tart and we went down the street to the ice cream store where they did, actually, have a chocolate croissant. Two, in fact...eaten in the cool of the morning on a park bench in the plaza in Santa Fe. Such a life.
All this, to lead up to Stash Aquisition. Breakfast over, soaking up the morning peace over, The Man of the House asked if I wanted to shop for the sock yarn I'd been looking for. There are several delightful yarn shops in The City Different, but New Mexico is not an open on Sunday kind of place. The only shop available doesn't carry the sacred Opal. Thank the chocolate, The Man offered Taos. Wow! What a morning! Another hour north and we were in Taos and a few minutes later I was in my favorite LYS, Taos Sunflower. Taos Sunflower, despite it's name is actually in Arroyo Seco. Somehow I don't think the average tourist has a passing acquaintance with Arroyo Seco, and I guess the people at Taos Sunflower don't think so, either. Thus, the name. And, anyway, Arroyo Seco Sunflower doesn't have quite the same ring.
The shop is in between the village of Taos (pop. around 7000) and Taos Ski Valley. It's in its own building behind the Gypsy Cafe. The outside of the building only hints at the delightfulness within, even with the wide porch (with comfortable rockers for all of the Spouses Who Must Wait and the romantic tin roof.
Inside, the ceiling soars. There is light colored wood every where and a wide open spaces kind of feeling. There is room for everything, plenty of everything and no sensory overload due to clutter. The fixtures are sleek and neatly feature the yarn while making petting and selection easy. It just feels like a comfortable kind of place.
The yarn...well, those people who work there, who select the colors and fibers and manufacturers must be my long lost cousins or something. Somehow, they just know the yarns I love, and those are the ones they have. They don't have everything on the market, but they have what I like, including the beloved Opal. The DH knows to just settle in on the rocker and get out his cell phone. He'll have plenty of time to catch up with his family while I drool inside.
So, to make the circle complete (see title and picture above), I was a very good girl. Very disciplined and restrained. See the small, small bag? I bought Mary Thomas Knitting Book (after all, it's a revered reference book), the Knitting Pattern A Day for 2006 (I know it's almost May, but I missed it in December waiting for a coupon at Border's and it was on sale for half price and what do dates have to do with knitting patterns anyway?) and, dum, dum, de dahhh.... Opal Flamingo! The Opal I've been looking at (lusting after) at many, many places on the net. Oh, how I've wanted that yarn! And here it was, where I could actually touch it. And it was a gorgeous as I imagined it would be. I know, I have just a couple of sock yarns in the basket by the bed and several patterns more or less designed for those yarns, I just had to have this yarn. And so I do.

NAYY, by the way.