5.31.2006

It's quite hot here - well, ok, not so hot. But, unlike the California dry heat I grew up in, where one could run around and play and climb trees in 102 degree weather, here, 80 degrees with a high humidity just zaps the energy right out of you. I alternately feel like a delicate swooning Victorian blossom, or an old, overweight woman. And I guess that's where the rub is. Last year at this time, I had started exercising five days a week and doing something quite radical - eating regular meals. I used to forget to eat, usually having just one meal a day, which made me keep weight on because my body thought it was starving to death. But, last May, I decided I didn't want to die - not that I had any indication, it was just becoming aware that not exercising regularly and being overweight made me more at risk for heart disease - the number one killer of women. By doing yoga, riding that damned exercise bike and lifting weights along with eating 1200 calories a day, I dropped 28 pounds in 4 months and was feeling pretty damned good. I dropped two jean sizes! But, I also suspected I was getting sick again, so when I could no longer ignore that I was starting to hemorrhage again, I found the best doctor around and she immediately confirmed that the tumor had grown back again, quite large. Between the side effects of the three months of medication I had to take to shrink the tumor so they could operate and continuing to hemorrhage, I had to stop exercising. And, for the first time in my life, a debilitating, severe depression set in. After the surgery, I was forbidden to exercise for two months, and the severe depression I experienced kept me from exercising or eating for another several months, so now, I am right back where I started last year. I hate the $#@&ing bike, I don't want to exercise, even though I know I will feel better, and I could care less about eating most days. I just, well, it's very hard - I am so accustomed to keeping things to myself, to sucking it up and forging on, not letting anyone know that anything negative is going on or that I am in any way weak - that this is just hard, letting it out, admitting that I am not as strong as I want to be. And, there's that shame that all those years, when my MIL, or a girlfriend complained about being depressed when she had what appeared to be a perfect life, and I nodded and was sympathetic, but inside thought "Just suck it up. Stop whining and live your life. Can't you be happy that you are alive?" and here is the ultimate irony - I get whumped upside the head and knocked down real good. I guess there's justice in the universe - each of us smug fucks get smacked down into the mud where we belong - it matters not that nobody knew we were smug fucks.

05.27.2006

Voila! Project Grace Squares. Washed, blocked and drying.



Why is it that no matter whether you wash wool in baby shampoo, Woolite, dish detergent or expensive wool wash, it still smells like wet dog?


And, why is it that even though the squares were 5 inches before washing, some of them just won't block into a 5 inch square after washing? Five-and-one-half or six? Why, Yarn Gods, why?

05.26.2006

Work. Work. Work. That's what has been happening this week.

It would be nice if the clients would pay their bills, but that's just me being bitchy. Yup.

There's a new girl in the office. She's driving me nuts. She flip flops from being quiet and shy to unbelievably loud. She's only loud when I am on the phone with a client, or the Court, or the banking commission. Never when I am off the phone. And she's in the next room, but it's like she's yelling right next to you. How so much noise could possibly come out of someone so . . . petite . . . is beyond me. I just wish that she would chill the hell out. I mean, it's not terribly professional to be shrieking in a law office.

5.24.2006

We must have about twenty Eastern Hemlock trees on our property. They are very tall trees with delicate little needles which look almost like leaves and dainty little pine cones which the squirrels, chickadees and titmice love to eat. They smell great pretty much all the time. And, until I moved out to this section of New England, I had never seen anything produce the quantity of pollen that these trees produce. I'm sure you've seen a rainstorm so bad that the rain came down in sheets. Just keep that image in your head because on Saturday and Sunday our hemlock trees were having sex. Lots of it. The pollen was falling from the trees in sheets, sheets of pollen moving across our property. It coated everything. My green car and my husband's blue car were yellow. Our red stained deck was yellow. The pets - and us - walked in lovely yellow footprints into the house. I always forget this is going to happen and every year it takes me by surprise - the sheer quantity of pollen. I have never seen this much pollen, ever, in all the states I have been in.

It rained Monday and Tuesday, oftimes torrentially. All the rain we got could not wash away the pollen. I took these pictures this morning after the rain clouds moved away because I could not believe that there was still this much pollen left. Everywhere.

Stash!

Well, I've been meaning to post my stash for some time, and not having been able to knit much this week, this is the most knitting content I can come up with. So here goes.

Most of my yarn I keep in these two baskets. They're pretty big - I can't quite get my arms around them. I have a third basket - one of those folding ones for yarn. I fell in love with it because it had Snoopy on it, it was my first yarn holding purchase and I quickly discovered that it was not big enough. Not nearly.

On top of the right had basket is a folded object. It is this beautiful sweater I found at Salvation Army for $1.00 a couple of months ago. I'm certain that it is hand made, it is in perfect shape and appears to be made out of angora. Unfortunately, it is tunic style, and I stopped wearing tunic style sweaters around 1991 or 1992. But, I plan to frog it and reknit it into some thing very nice. I just don't know what, yet. But I will. It will speak to me.


On to what the right hand basket contains: at the back left is some Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran in a holly green color. Mmm - so soft! This is the stuff I knit Neighbor's scarf and hat out of. Back right, Debbie Bliss Soho - someday it will become a poncho for me. On the right are a number of skeins of Brown Sheep that the children gave me for Christmas. I have been making mittens out of it - it's my favorite for mittens!

Middle back - Crystal Palace Tweed, next to it on the left - Crystal Palace Sierra. Front left a skein of Crystal Palace Iceland, some Berrocco Plush (good for baby blankets) in the middle and some Dazzle sock yarn I got on Ebay for that day I learn to make socks.

Also in that basket, but I didn't think it would fit into that picture (but Tombo kindly modeled with the yarn) near to twenty skeins of Drops Ice and the beginnings of DH's sweater. Yes, that is the sweater which was to be his birthday present last year. Yes, I am procrastinating getting started on it again. Yes, I am a wee bit intimidated by actually knitting a sweater. Silliness, I know. Tombo feels that the shade of the yarn nicely offsets his silky greyness. And he likes checking out the yarn, but he's a good cat - he never goes after either the yarn or knitted objects.

Next would be the left hand basket. Most of the left hand side is composed of a variety of (eek!) Lion Brand - Homespun, WoolEase. Stuff I knitted with when I first picked knitting back up. Made some swell shawls for my daughters out of it - and Tombo really likes those shawls. Lion Brand was the best one could find out here before a new yarn store opened up (because all we had was Walmart and JoAnne's) and then I discovered wool! and cotton! and cashmere! and linen! Middle back would be my baby cotton that I make dishcloths/washcloths out of. Back right is all that turkish wool -around eight skeins of it that I bought to make DH a sweater back in 1993. It's a long story - one I am sure you don't want to hear. Lets see - what else? Well, a hodge-podge of odds and ends of Crystal Palace Iceland and Labrador, Brown Sheep, Debbie Bliss Cashmerino, Lana Grossa (both wool and linen-cotton blend), some more Berrocco Plush, some unkown wool I bought in 1986 when I did not know that you needed more than one skein of yarn to make a scarf for a husband, no matter what size needle you used, some Fumo, some Eyelash, some lovely Egyptian cotton for Project Grace squares (the brown sheep I just remembered is downstairs) and some Colinette I am making a shawl for me out of. And I think that's about it.

05.16.2006

Just knitting Project Grace squares. Finished one and began a new one while watching DH's, Boy's and Bubba's martial arts class. My Jesse Girl came along, so I got to snuggle with her on the couch while we watched those guys work out and spar. Very nice family night.

Pearl Jam, cowboys and rain

Today started out slow as last night was a late night. I had managed to save up several months ago and get tickets (only lawn) to the Pearl Jam concert and last night was the night. It was an absolutely %#*$ing great concert. And we were so lucky - the Nor'easter which had been sitting over New England much of the week paused for nearly eight hours. It is so rare to find a band that sounds even better live than recorded, and these guys put on such an awesome show. I spent over two-and-one-half hours dancing, screaming and singing my lungs out - along with at least half the crowd. I so wish I could go to more of their concerts!

When I got up around tennish, Bubba and I proceeded to negotiate a visitation with her best friend (and our 'adopted' daughter), Miss Julia. We got permission to drive out to her private school and drive her back here to the sticks so the girls could go to the rodeo and see cowboys. Yes, a real live rodeo came to our little New England backwater and 'tho' the cowboys got terribly rained out Friday, and half of Saturday, the rain more or less held off most of the day today. There was a great deal of mud everywhere and the poor California cowboys looked particularly miserable - I am not sure they had ever encountered mud like our mud - boot sucking mud. We did get to see three completed bull rides, so that was good. The girls ate, saw and kissed Jake the quarterhorse and then came back home and painted their nails. And, then it was time to return Miss J. to her boarding school. So, no knitting this weekend, but it was a peaceful and happy weekend.

Oh! I almost forgot - when we were heading back to the house for the girls to indulge in their nail polish fix, we saw this beautiful guy walking alongside the road.

Life vs Death, Gratitude and the Desperate Need for Chocolate

Well, it's been a difficult week-plus. Daughter #1, sometimes called First Baby is doing OK. She's pretty sore still, but she's been back working since last Saturday. She says she hurts less if she works than if she lies around (You go, girl! No pity-seeking wooses here) All the aches and glory that comes with mucking stalls, cleaning barns, leading horses, training horses, teaching children and adults to ride horses and providing customer service to (what are sometimes, persnickety) horse people. She's still without a vehicle and has been cobbling rides from friends and occasionally her parents as the insurance company moves its slow way toward property settlement. She drove, for the first time, today, since the accident, and she drove my car in what turned out to be a bloody nasty day for driving. We were beset by torrential downpours and much flooding. Both she and I saw several accidents as we drove our separate ways today. I don't know who was more stressed about her driving today - her or me. I watched the clock, barely daring to breathe, praying rather frantically from 6:30 this morning until 7:20, straining my ears to see if the phone would ring. I am certain my ulcer has come back - I know - it sounds like I'm such a hypochondriac. It was all I could do to not call her at work this morning to make sure she (and my car) got there unharmed.

It's 6:40 PM and she just got in from work, tired and nearly on the verge of tears. She had to battle for the right of way on the road with an enormous beaver - no, I am not joking here, that's how bad the roads are flooded - the beaver are swimming in the road. I shit you not. Gas is up to $3.20 a gallon and everyone is driving like they left their brains at home. The rodeo visiting our town is being drowned - and she's bumming because she was so looking forward to seeing cowboys.

What else has gone on in the last week? Well, Daughter #2 got sick Friday night, but as she was staying the night at a friend's house, I did not find out until she came home Saturday morning to collapse in bed. And she couldn't figure out why I would want her to call me and let me know such a thing. I mean, come on, Mom! She seemed to be better Monday, and then was much worse Tuesday night. Then Boy got sick Tuesday night. So, I've been working in the office, nursing sick children, and pumping DH full of fluids and echinacea/goldenseal in the vain hope that he does not get sick. And, after starting to get sick, I've been pumping me full of fluids and echinacea/goldenseal in the vain hope that I do not succomb to the vile bug.

This week also I somehow managed to get behind with the laundry. Would you believe it? The towel hamper is overflowing, there are bedsheets on the floor in the laundry room, so like the Quintessential Mom, I can reach the ceiling by standing on the sheets (I'm barely 5'2" and the ceilings are the typical 8 or so feet high).

On the knitting front, I have not done much. The few times I was able to concentrate at all, I worked on squares for Project Grace. I have finished three and am nearly done with the fourth. I haven't been able to get Bubba (Daughter#2) started on hers, but perhaps being sick had something to do with that. Although, she felt well enough today to have me take her to the art store so she could buy a pallette, an assortment of brushes and some acrylic paints with her own hard-earned babysitting money. After a half-hour of fretting about the size of the tubes, the cost and the selection. Artists. Hmmph.

So, it's Friday. I am immensely grateful because all my babies (so they're not such babies anymore, but they'll always be my babies) are alive and relatively healthy. I am rather depressed, it has rained most of the week and then there's that small matter of almost losing one child. I am going to go tear the house apart looking for some chocolate and, although I don't often drink, I am toying with the idea of, if not getting quite inebriated, possibly just having enough to get buzzed. Because I need to stop my brain. And sleeping would be nice. Ever so nice.

Being a parent sucks. Bigtime.

My first baby, daughter #1 got her first new car on her own about eight months ago. She came up with the deposit and lined up the financing with very little help from DH, and she's been making her payments promptly and vigilantly following the maintenance schedule. I though this was pretty impressive for a nineteen-year-old.

Today, she has no car anymore, but she is alive. She's walking around today. I'm not sleeping and all I can see are pictures like these when I close my eyes.

Yesterday was a nasty, cold, rainy day. About 6:20 I got a call from daughter #1 who we knew was on her way home from work. "Mom, I've been hit!" I handed the phone to DH (because he's ex-military and a volunteer fireman and always awesome at crisis-management) and threw my shoes on. She sounded so scared, my stomach felt as if it had been rolled in ground glass and knotted. We rushed out the door and drove the few miles to the scene. She had pulled her car off the highway, turned the flashers on and was standing out of the way on the side of the road. The woman who had hit her was standing in the middle of the highway, talking to a bystander. She came over and tried to make small talk as we waited for the police. DH and I made daughter #1 sit on the hood of the car and suggested the other woman sit as well. Our girl had some cuts, there was blood on her face, she had glass in her mouth, her left side was in a lot of pain and she had an awful bruise across her collarbone from the seatbelt. I walked around to the driver's side to see where the impact was as I could see the airbag had deployed. I can't begin to describe the fear, the anguish and the intense anxiety which rushed through me and threatened to spill out when I saw that side of the car. I've seen some pretty bad accidents. She shouldn't have lived. I walked back to her while the fire department arrived and we waited for the ambulance. It was then that I saw her hat lying in the middle of the road about thirty feet behind us. She got hit so hard her hat came flying off out into the road as her windows shattered. I rode with her in the ambulance and she got checked out at the hospital, where DH met us after he had the car towed. We brought her home and medicated and iced her up, and spent the entire night thanking God.

The woman that hit her was going at least 55 mph. The only damage to her car was a crumpled left front quarterpanel.

I don't know how my daughter lived. All I can think about is how close she came to death, how she looked when we got there, how her car looked, how everytime she started to shake she'd make herself stop. I think I freaked a bunch of people out on my way home from work today because I couldn't stop crying. God, I hate loving anything this much. I hate being a parent. I can't handle the thought of losing one of them. Why don't kids come with a manual, and with a big yellow warning label that says it's really really going to suck?

SP8 Questionnaire

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?

Hmm, natural fibers like wool, silk, soft cotton. I've been knitting a lot lately with Debbie Bliss, Lana Grossa, Koigu, Brown Sheep, Crystal Palace. I really don't like very rough wool and most synthetic fibers - especially acrylic.

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in?

A big cracked mug. I've loved it for years because it has a dashing medieval knight on a horse, but I can't use it anymore because the crack, though not readily visible, makes it leak something awful. My circulars and double-pointeds I keep all together on a shelf with my knitting books, where my daughter's cat has ready access, to bring her a 'gift' every now and then.

3. How long have you been knitting? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced?

Off and on for 20 years. I guess I am just past beginner and into intermediate (?). I can follow patterns pretty well, knit hats, mittens, blankets, scarves, ponchos, shawls and capelets. I am working on a sweater. You tell me - what does that make me?

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?

I have an Amazon wishlist - I don't know of any others :P

5. What's your favorite scent? (for candles, bath products etc.)

Freesia, carnation, rose, lily-of-the-valley, sandalwood

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy?

Sadly, yes. I love Green & Black's chocolate, Dagoba Chai chocolate and Reed's Ginger Chews. And oh, my - have you ever had a Godiva truffle? I just discovered them!

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin?

I draw, I watercolor, I cook and bake and I like gardening when I can. I also (when I have time) like to refinish furniture and make jewelry. I used to embroider and cross stitch and plan to pick it up again - just not now! I wish I did spin - I plan to learn.

8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD)

I have very eclectic tastes - classical, old blues and jazz, 'classic' rock, new wave, alternative, country (more of the old stuff than the new) and so much more. Some of my favorites are Johnny Cash, Pearl Jam, Beethoven, Samuel Barber, Billy Holiday, Bob Marley. Yes, we play MP3s all the time.

9. What's your favorite color? Or--do you have a color family/season/palette you prefer? Any colors you just can't stand?

I love blues and purples, but I wear dark greens and browns and quite a bit of black because that is what looks best on me.

10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets?

Married going on 21 years (!), three children, all at home. We have two cats, one dog, and lots of fish.

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos?

Yes, yes (mostly berets), yes(like mittens better than gloves!) yes.

12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit?

Oooh - that's hard! I go through cycles, sometimes it's shawls, sometimes mittens, sometimes hats, sometimes scarves. I imagine once I learn how to knit socks - that'll be my next favorite.

13. What are you knitting right now?

Blanket squares for Project Grace, a capelet, a sweater, and a shawl.

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts?

Yes

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic?

I guess it depends on the project, but maybe straight - I certainly have more of those that circular. I do prefer bamboo/wood over any other type of needle.

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift

No, sigh.

17. How did you learn to knit?

I taught myself

18. How old is your oldest UFO?

Well, since I ripped out the sweater I had been trying to knit my husband for thirteen or so years last year, it would have to be the shawl I am making for myself - and that is a year old.

19. What is your favorite holiday?

Hmmm, I don't know, maybe Christmas. Or Halloween. Hmmm.

20. Is there anything that you collect?

Antique miniature tea sets and tea cups, Couroc trays, and small porcelain and wooden boxes.

21. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have?

Knitting Without Tears, Last Minute Knitted Gifts . . . I do not have any subscriptions to knitting magazines.

22. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn?

Intarsia, crochet

23. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements?

No, not yet. I will be, though, some day! Um, I think they're 9 1/2" long. (Size 8)

24. When is your birthday?

07/06