Out of Yarn
But, really, the dog comes first
10 on Tuesday: the Thankful Edition
Nov 22nd
1. yarn (without which, I might hurt someone; with which I make wonderful things and my feet are warm.)
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Garthenor Organic Pure Wool, 100% Organic Wensleydale, 50 g, D.K. from Wales.
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2. Knitter’s Review Retreat (without which, I might hurt someone; with which I make wonderful things and my feet are warm)*
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New from Spirit Trail Fiberworks: Holda; 80% lambswool, 10% cashmere, 10% angora (dehaired); 100 g/295 yds in the Toadstool colorway.
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3. The awesome** inspiring, fabulous and (uhm, wow, I need a thesaurus!) wonderful teachers at The Retreat
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The Painted Sheep, Painted Sock too; 75% superwash wool, 25% nylon; 100g/435 yds in the Wildflower Honey colorway. It looked like autumn to me.
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4. The awesome friends of The Retreat and Life (without which, I might hurt someone; with which I make wonderful things and my feet are warm)***
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Dirty Water DyeWorks, Bertha; 80% merino, 10% cashmere, 10% nylon; 100 g/435 yds in the Storm colorway
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5. Goody bags (with which to make wonderful things)
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It is so wonderful to go somewhere and get this fabulous bag filled with fabulous yarns and books and needles and such.
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6. Planes that do not lose my luggage.
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People, I have not checked luggage since … I don’t know. I am a firm believer in the one bag thing. I buy yarn and earrings as souvenirs (and not a whole lot of “stuff” for others. I’m not a big “stuff” person. if I see something someone ‘must’ have, I get it. I’m into simplifying, less clutter, sustainable.) So it dawns on me that in order to bring stash for swapping, I need to check baggage. (Or send the yarn, cans of pumpkin, and books ahead. But that would require some level of organization that does not exist in this house.)
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And then, because it is a knitting retreat, I’ve got to bring something I’ve knit (aside from socks). The lightest thing I can think of is a series of scarves. Don’t tell the one bag guy, but I packed one sweater (for the plane) and six different scarves for four days. (Details are coming, I swear. I’m having trouble getting pictures.)
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And I hand my bag over to the airline people. As it rolls away I suddenly panic: 'Wait! Wait! What about my precious handknits????'
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8. Spirit Trail Fiberworks door prizes (with which to make wonderful things)
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Decima, 80% Superfine Merino, 20% Bombyx Silk Lace Weight; 50 g/550 yds in the chalcedony colorway
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9. Room delivery on emergency yarn purchases****
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FoxFire Fiber, 90% Cormo, 5% Camel, 5% Tussah Silk; fingering weight, 1.3 ou/180 yds in the Lupine colorway
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10. home and all that this means***** (and rain — yay! I don’t have to water new plants!)
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I'm going the next time. Just you wait and see ...
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*No, that is not a typo.
** If I may steal a good line I heard: this woman has forgotten more about knitting than I will ever know.
***No, still not a typo.
****Yes, yes, I did. We can thank Rosi for this one.)
*****Even cleaning out the fridge before it walked off with the turkey.
My brain is leaking out my ears.
Nov 21st
No time to write – I have not yet processed the awesomeness that was the last few days. And I’ve still got to do some (more) BrainTraining* today – to make up for time lost at The Retreat.
I will leave you with two pix (because, a) either I can’t show you the pix (secrets!) b) camnesia or c) I didn’t take Treasure Pix because the fridge was about to up and walk away on its own. And I didn’t want it to take the turkey with it.)
Pic 1
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Our illustrious leader, Clara Parkes, knitting (by a fire). She's holding "stunt knitting" because what she was really working on is a secret.
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Pic 2
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The skies at this place were amazing. I'm sure that it's because of latitude and angles of the sun. Stunning. And having an actual horizon (rather than buildings) probably doesn't hurt.
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*Braintraining: I joined a study to evaluate the effects of computer games and cognitive tasks. (Yes, I play computer games for pay, and hopefully an improved memory and “thinking” – although this part remains to be seen.) There are two games. The first game is for practicing concentration and it bores me to tears and distraction because it doesn’t move fast enough and I have time to think about and write down the grocery list. As this game gets harder/faster/more distractions it is less boring and more fun. Except I have to pay attention through the boring parts to get there.
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The second game is called an n-back game (variation here.) I hate this test. I can’t do it. My brain doesn’t get it. This test sucks and I spend the entire time cursing** how much I hate it and counting on my fingers (of which, I run out of and besides, some fingers are needed to manipulate the keys.) And I don’t really care if I can remember if the current letter is the same as the letter 8 back. I don’t care if I am getting better. I just want it to be over. Or easier. I’d like some positive feedback rather than leveling up and being miserable.
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So, on the first test, it pays to do well because the test gets more interesting (and I’ve got (literally) 37million points.)
On the second test it pays to clean Dude’s chili out of the microwave because the game lets me level down.
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I’m pretty sure this logic wasn’t part of the test.
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** Please note: I have removed much (all?) of the cursing from this description. Just sayin’
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p.s. I am now procrastinating. In case you hadn’t noticed.
Unbalanced
Nov 16th
So much to say; so little time /sigh
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For those of you who don’t twitter, let me repeat myself:
Dude came wandering into the kitchen, rummaging through drawers and asked: ”Do we have any long skinny straight skewer-y thing?”
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gee, I don't know. Let me look...
Too Much Time on My Hands
Nov 13th
Do you ever wonder what the world would be like, what humans would be like, if our eyes were different
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The world in black and white
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Or if we could see like an owl …
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Not that an owl sees red and neon green, mind you. But what if you saw heat?
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Zebras are striped to blend into the grass. Lions don’t see color. How would the human species have evolved if we saw heat or movement more than color?
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That's a seal out there on the rock. The water was choppy due to the wind. And I have too many filter options in this new photo editing app.
Housekeeping
Nov 12th
As in, I really need to do some:
1. At some point your comments stopped arriving in my email. I’m horrible at responding to comments anyway (so sorry about that – I love hearing from you and greatly appreciate your reading). However, It is darn near impossible to correct my bad manners when I don’t realize you are reading.
2. I’m working on an iPad. (Just figured out the photo editing, yay!) I’m blogging from here so I can do that while traveling.
3. My hover text doesn’t work on an iPad. /so sad
That means that you may or may not have realized I write “comments” on the pix that you can only read when hovering with your mouse.
I’m going to try to remember to use only captions. But that’s not nearly as much fun.
4. For Rosi: yes, I’m keeping knitting something to block during the Retreat. It’s a tradition after all.
10 on Tuesday: The Cold Edition
Nov 8th
10 Things I do to care for myself when I get a cold
1. Don’t get it. My method:
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The following are what to do when stressed, over busy, not sleeping and hanging out with 85 high school students
(and I won’t even link to any new-age, wacky herbal, non-scientific, folk lore sites; each of these is listed somewhere in WebMD‘s list):
2. Fluids (personally, I like lemon-ginger-honey tea)
3. Tylenol
4. Rest
5. A warm shower/aromatic steam (I like tea tree oil) will help with decongesting nasal passages
6. Switch up the fluids to chicken broth (home made, of course), red pepper flakes, ginger and tons of garlic.
7. Horseradish – I wouldn’t normally recommend this, nor have I used it, but I’m about to dig up the plant (it has finally frosted) and see what the harvest looks like. I know horseradish is a good decongestant.
8. snuggle a cat, by a fire
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or a heating vent
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10. with a good book
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11. or knitting
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12. or Dude. (But, you know, not you, you only get to number 11.)
p.s. I like it cold in the house, so he’s like a cat – except with a nice comfy seat, and he doesn’t try to hold the yarn.
I love the morning light!
Nov 7th
As a dedicated morning person, I’ll take my daylight hours. Thankyouverymuch.
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Yesterday was Yellow Day in the Woods:
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It was also pileated woodpecker day:
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He did not deign to let me take a proper picture, but I think you can see his little red head. There were 2 of them.
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Prioritization
Oct 31st
We took The Robot and a bunch of high school kids to the local Halloween Costume Contest and Parade. We made them decorate the robot and get all dressed up and give away candy (oh the hardship!)
And Dude was busy getting pix of ginormous bees and wee stegosauruses (stegosauri?) and I run over to interrupt him: Did you get those hats??
Dude: What hats?
Me: The matching black and yellow hats – there were three: mom, dad and a baby. Did you get it?
Dude: /blank face
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Of course you would take pictures of random strangers in matching hand knit hats. Right?
They were all from Cascade 220, given away at one of the Stitches events, after the Steeler win. (Mr Google tells me that this would be October 2009, Stitches was in Hartford CT so that would be Stitches East.)
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Really - there must be more trick-or-treaters. There's too much candy left.
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p.s. Also – the 15 year old who painted that sign? Free hand. With a three inch brush.
