Yesterday was our 25th wedding anniversary and to celebrate we spent a long weekend in Nebraska. Our hotel was in Omaha, which is where we spent Saturday and Sunday. On Monday we drove to Lincoln for a few hours. We went to so many bookstores and record stores and yarn stores, plus several other fun little shops. We got confused with Omaha road signage and had several mostly mediocre meals, with a couple of exceptions (mostly the breakfast places). We turned off notifications and spent the days just enjoying the time together, and I felt very refreshed and relaxed afterward.

Now, I did not take photos of the yarn I bought. I kind of forgot but I’m also kind of embarrassed to show you the extent. I’ll just say, my stash is VERY well-fed this month. I went to four yarn stores. Five if you count the one that had a note on the door that said ‘We will be closed August 8th. We apologize for the inconvenience.’ Okay, fine, things happen, except this is the second time this has happened at this same shop. I won’t try them again. Thankfully there was a fantastic yarn store five minutes away that WAS open and was very happy to sell me lots of yarn!

My favorite yarn store was Wooly Mammoth in Omaha. She dyes yarn herself, lots of gorgeous rich solids and tonals, plus she carries indie dyers like A Whimsical Wood Yarn Co. and Cornbread and Honey. PLUS! She has a HEDGEHOG. Yes, a real live hedgehog, named Hank, and I got to meet him and pet him! He was prickly (shocker, I know). She offered to let me hold him but I was afraid I’d drop him.

Also in Omaha was Imagiknit, and that was a delightful store too. She had Emma’s Yarn plus other indie dyers plus some good bigger names too. It was a charming shop with great variety and fun little extras. I did go to one other store in Omaha but the vibes were off at that one. They had a lot of Koigu, Malabrigo, Madelinetosh, and Noro, and not much else. It was on the second floor of an art gallery, just tucked away on one side. It felt…strange. It felt like someone had decided to jump on the “knitting is trendy” bandwagon without really knowing the community. Anyway, I did find two skeins there but it didn’t inspire me so I didn’t take any photos.

Of course I found other things besides yarn — books mostly. I found fun things that made me laugh. The husband wants to get into leatherwork a little bit so we went to a leather store that smelled delightful and had so much gorgeous leather. I tried to convince him he could make project bags as good as Joji’s but I’m not sure we’re there yet. I’ll keep working on it!

We came home late Monday afternoon and spent our actual anniversary enjoying the peace and quiet at home. We marked the occasion by planting a Japanese maple and a purple hibiscus, and the husband cooked us a delicious dinner. I’m hoping we can do these short getaways more often now that we’re empty nesters — as long as I’ve got the boy to dog-sit for us!