Mmmmm. Me want sheep. When come back, bring sheep.
Icelandic Sheep

Hey!! It's Rama, the cross between a camel and a llama!! And quite possibly the source of the most expensive fiber around!!
The ARI Journal - Spring 2000 Vol. V #1 - Camel/Lama Cross

check outLBEvans Hand Knit Bags

Scroll down to see the children's sweater inspired by this mosque

you must buy this so as to help support getting knitting needles back onto the planes!!!!!
Sublime Stitching | Powered by CafePress.com

Check this out! Masochistic knitting, unparalleled!
Insane Knitting

Read the Warning! (also the piece on Beatrix Potter is good)
Handweavers and Spinners Guild of Victoria Inc: Newsletter 2000

I would like to talk one of these classes.
Knitting Workshops

There is a picture of Mary Walker Phillips here.
Stitches West 98

Here is the editorial to a magazine whose Spring issue was about knitting!! Found while doing a google on Mary Walker Phillips.
Surface Design Publications Fall 2001

Lately I've started working on Christmas presents. Hat for brother-in-law, blanket for the little Guatamalen girl that my sister and brother in law are adopting, the cloche from Vogue's little book of hats (you know which one I mean, I can't remember the proper title). A loooong time ago I had started knitting Lily Chin's pattern from better homes and gardens Knit It magazine, the cardi, and I almost ripped it out to start the Knitty topsecret sweater, but I figured I should finish it.



Friends of ours went thrifting and at Bible study last night Steve gave me a bunch of old knitting patterns and Dan some tapes of Thomas Merton. Let me tell you, those old sweaters are hi lar i ous. Ok, I'll have to take pics to show you the cover where there are these three perfectly coiffed women smiling and one has a bag of peanuts and one is holding a peanut and there is a stuffed squirrel perched on a fake styrofoam wall in front of them. Whaa? You know, the old magazines where they still modeled the men with pipes and golf clubs.



I picked up a bunch of Stitch by Stitch books from the thrift store the other day and they have lots of good techniques illustrated and some neat patterns. So I've laid off on the yarn acquiring and now I started with pattern acquiring. I always check out the sale annex of the local barnes and noble but usually there's nothing.



I'm really into blankets for some reason. I knit essentially a large washcloth pattern to make a blanket with some acrylic and this fake mohair that changed shades called Bianca by Lion Brand I got at the thrift store. But it's too small. The cats love it. Maybe I can add on a huuuuge border to make it a little more decent of a size.



I'm making the Pi circle shawl for a blanket and doing invisible increases instead of yo's and instead of using lace patterns between the increase rounds I'm doing slip stitch patterns. So far it's okay, I hope it doesn't end up all bunchy because of the tight fabric.



I was looking through my copy of Knitting in America the other day and found the section about Mary Phillips Walker, whose Knitted Counterpanes book I had just checked out from the library. I dig that heart wall hanging they photographed and I looked at it and tried to decipher it but knew I didn't have the knowledge to really figure out how she did that. So then I picked up Creative Knitting from the library and she gives all these funky new stitch patterns in there so maybe I can figure it out now. Also, one of the knitting pattern books I got from my friends is a Macrame (?!macrame wtf!?) booklet and it's by her. Any macrame nuts out there who want a Mary Phillips Walker booklet? Why all this Mary Phillips Walker stuff suddenly in my life? She seems like a really cool lady. Very creative and I can't wait to try those new stitches. I wonder if she's still around...



I have this devilish desire to go cash in all my change and then take the resulting money and spend it on yarn at the thrift store if there's anything good there. Really I should be knitting. I started this wool/mohair hat with this brown Anny Blatt yarn I got from the thrift store (where else?) and then I was reading through my copy of The Knitting Goddess and inspired by the scarf she has in there decided to do the ribbing in two colors so I grabbed some wool mohair lamb's pride oatmeal yarn I had in the stash and held that in the right hand to do two handed color work and boy did I have a hard time remembering how to throw with the right hand and keep the yarn tensioned. I have been knitting like how Anne Modestitt(?sp?) I know I'm spelling that wrong, sorry anne, but ANYWAY I knit how she knits if you want to see clicky on her linky I think it says Continental Uncrossed BTW the Creative Knitting book also has a very nicely inclusive illustrated bunch of pages showing the myriad of ways to throw and hold the yarn. When I was throwing with my right hand I was like, boy this sure is tedious.



I was trying trying trying to hold the yarn loosely and not pull it too tight when carrying the yarn in back, we'll see. It was supposed to be for my brother in law as mentioned above, but it may end up too small. He works as a gravedigger and I was thinking that the double layer around his ears would be nice for those frigid Wisconsin winter days. They have to set up this big 7x2 heater on the plot where they're going to dig and melt the permafrost. Another bit of trivia while I'm at it; did you know that granaries used to and some times still do, explode? The corn/grain is very insulative and the air is saturated with dust particles and the organic material starts to decompose and if the heat level reaches the ignition point it will explode and apparently they were big catastrophes because lots of people could be killed. Wow. I did not know that. When's the last time you heard of that? Same thing with hay and this one guy (protecting myself if it's a doobie (dubious) fact) told me that farmers sprinkle salt in the hay to keep down the moisture and rotting. And the animals need salt anyway so it's all hunky dorey.


Okay, I'm done now.

Oh, and speaking of Target (were we?) you must, must, must go there now! Jejune was complaining about the high cost of yarn and the relatively low cost of scarves at clothing stores... well, just so you know how much of a yarn geek I really am, I bought a scarf at Target and deconstructed it just for the yarn. And I do think I came out on the better part of the deal. Yay! It did not end up being a bunch of short little pieces, but rather 2 long pieces, slightly different dye lots, knitted every other row. Gah, I know this stinks because really I should document this with pics to make it interesting at all, but, oh well. I did go to Target's website to see if I could find a pic of the scarf there, but no dice. Nrr.

Hey, didja see the free pattern from Bagatell'slink?

Oh yes, this rules!
knitty.com
Congrats to everyone on a beautiful job well done!!!!

I
like
all
these
patterns!

Check out this Aussie's fabulously colored and textured knitting!
Women of Fibre

here is a cool shrug...

an article on Norwegian knitting!!!Car Problems and Knitting Injuries: Interview with a Norwegian Knitter - Suite101.com

Wasn't someone looking for these?...
Pattern - Toilet Roll Covers

And here's a purse, and you don't have to ?!?!?!?email for the pattern?!?!

Look! It's a free pattern for a book warmer!
Olavia’s Craft Kits

Play the
SheepGame

How to spin wolf hair...
Wolf Tales/Making Yarn - Part 1

make your own spinning wheel! (like Bagatell's dad did!)
craftdesigns.co.uk

Wooly Dogs - Member's Show and Tell Gallery - All Fiber Arts

An article about sheep!
ArtLoft2000.com - Sheep & Shepherd

Found some nice tutorials...
Love2Knit Tutorials

The Coffee Jokes
Too Much Coffee Man

In case you always forget to say 'rabbit rabbit'... (I can't recall who does that, only that her website has purple and black aaaaaagh! Oh yes, Hobby Whore)
harrumph! rabbit rabbit

Have you seen the
klein_bottle_hats
I especially like the rainbow one (scroll down) with the Moebius scarf!! Only $70! What a steal!!

Now you can get your very own
CrashBonsai Gallery

Any leftover tulle? Knit your own potscrubber!!
Untitled

If you sew, you can make your own sumo doll
handworks index

Here are some cloud animals. I especially like the ones entitled 'Backend of Sheep' and 'Squirrel Sitting on Africa'
The Animal Clouds

Make a Knitting Box
Knitting box

Look! it's the
The Ashford Mini Niddy Noddy - portable for skeining yarn from Crystal Palace Yarns - Straw Into Gold, Richmond California

Hey!! A (new to me) fiber animal-- a Pygora!! The fiber was used to crochet (ahem!) a shawl/scarf
handspun - handknit crocheted shawl  - Sally McCarrick - The Black Sheep Gathering -  Eugene, Oregon

More bags.

I want an
alpaca

Ok y'all, thank your lucky start that somehow I was able to include all the 'necessaries' like the blogring button, else this template change would have ended in tragedy. Don't forget to read my (now seeming veeeery long) post !scroll down!scroll down! about what I'm working on these days. I'd try to figure out why the wanderlust button is floating away up there, but I fear that I'd lose my archives and blogring button!!! Maybe I'll feel braver tomorrow. Ta!

I'm reading Bill Holm's "Eccentric Islands" right now so I thought I'd offer you a sample of this MN native...
Holm

KNITTING UPDATE!!!!

Yes, finally some content to this here blog, for any of you that still come to look at my same-old, same-old template with no pictures posted. I know, how boring can I be? Inspired by Sarah's posting of the picture of plouf? I decided to tell you all about what I'm working on these days. No, I am not ambitious enough to get pics posted which is why my blog will never rate... Maybe when it's done? So, when Dan and I went to southern MN to do our century (2 weekends ago, it seems like eons) I of course had to go to Woolworks website and see if there were any yarn shops in the area. SCORE! In a little town there (Harmony, MN) there was Austin's Goat Farm. Mohair goats, that is. Oh, I walked around the shop after we had seen the goats (they'd been dipped so thier soon to be sheared fleeces could be sent overseas) and saw all the beautiful things (handknitted shawls to die for, jackets made from thrifted felted sweaters etc. etc.) calmly not rushing immediately to the yarn section. The picture online did not give me hope, so I took my time, only casually stumbling upon the SHELVES AND SHELVES OF GORGEOUS HANDSPUN FIBER!!!!!
So, it took me a looooooooong time to finally decide. But here's the thing, the yarn is actually waaaay cooler than I even knew when I bought it! You know how people spin yarn and then dye it, right? Well, (excuse me while I hyperventilate on and on about this if you've already become familiar) this woman actually changes the colors by changing the fibers!!
I imagine this magician-like woman, at her spinning wheel, with piles of fiber at her feet, moving as a conductor as she picks from pile after pile. So the yarn has a base of grey and garnet/burgundy wool and she adds some pink mohair here and there, letting some of the curls just pop out of the yarn, sometimes letting the grey wool 'bloop' (that's the only word I can think of) out so you see a thick piece of ?roving? ?fleece?. Ahh, words do not do justice. Gol ding it, nothing before has grabbed me like this! I swear I want to hunt this woman down (she lives in Waseca, MN) and sit at her feet and learn to spin RIGHT NOW! Juaquetta Holcomb, if you're out there email me at ihatespammclaughlin@attbi.net!!!! I did a little internet search and got her address and phone no. so maybe when I am done knitting this sweater I'll send her a pic of it.

I'm using a pattern from Tricoter's Simply Beautiful Sweaters. It's the cardi they knitted using Colinette. So I'm using that handspun yarn with Brown Sheep's Lamb's Pride I had in my stash that's grey and it's just gorgeous. Had to share. Thank you.

Yes, pummelling brings me peace of mind as well.
wrap 1

Have you seen these children's books? I haven't but I think I'll check them out...
Scary Stories Inc.

ooookaaaay. I told my husband that if I die then this is what he should do. Then he could wear me on a ring and someone would say, "Oh, was that your wife's ring?" and he'd say, "No, it IS my wife.".LifeGem Prices

Reduce, reuse, recycle
Mouse Pad Couch

The last game I tried to post didn't work...
See if you really are as fast with the left mouse button as you think you are...
Fly The Copter - South Coast Diaries - Seethru Zine

More SUV pranks...
Park Slope Public Works resents sport utility vehicles

Maybe Bagatell has already blogged about this, but here's another boo hiss story about McDonald's
McAfrica burger launched in Norway

More bags

Here is a poem I found on the Jean Moss website;

"The Prayse of the Needle"

To all dispersed sorts of arts and trades
I write the needles prayse (that never fades).
So long as children shall be got or borne,
So long as garments shall be made or worne,
So long as hemp or flax, or sheep shall bear
Their linen woolen fleeces yeare by yeare,
So long as silk-wormes, with exhausted spoile,
Of their own entrails for man's gaine shall toyle,
Yea till the world be quite dissolv'd and past,
So long at least, the needles' use shall last.

- by John Taylor, the Water Poet, (1580-1653)

Here is a hedgehog rucksack produced using car innertubes... reduce reuse recycle
The Inner Tube

A terrible game. Use your mouse to throw up and down.

Does Dangerous Chunky know about this?
Big Things, Community Monuments in Canada

Check out the
humanclock.com - Submissions Gallery

If you ever think about having sheep as I do sometimes, read about
Washing Wool

I keep thinking that someday I would like to have sheep or rabbits or goats for fiber. See if you qualify...
The Angst of Custom Millspun Yarn

More of these braids.
????

Here are some good pictures of the finished product.
Kumihimo

It's some sort of new fiberart...
Hatchtown - Marudai for Kumihimo

I know some of you are addicted to bags...
oggi e domani --- evening bags

Look!! It's the AlpacaCam!!
Blue Moon Ranch Web Cam

Here is something new I learned. Lamb's tails are docked when they are little. Is nothing sacred?!?!?! I'm sure there's some good (hygeine) reason, but still. Here is a
Glenquarry -"Sheep with Tail"

Then of course there's always Teva Durham. I like the
loop-d-loop.com online store: Braided Neckpiece

Whoa...
Here's
an interesting article for any of you vegetarians or vegans to read about the BK veggie burger. Reduce animal suffering by eating it despite the butter on the bun. Hmm. I never thought of it that way. I don't think that that's how I am a vegetarian.

Here is a cotton chunky sweater in ladder stitch

Here is another take on lace...
lace sweater for Fall

This
is a nice way to use lace in a sweater. Recognize those stitch patterns, anyone? Must go check my Barbara Walker...

Here is a sweater they say is an ultra hip rendition of the old Fair Isle style. Can we say, 'no'?
bouclz

This sweater is cute, can we say, boobies?
Boobie sweater

Wow, check out this space-dyed short sleeve sweater. Way to take advantage of the way space dyed yarn sort of 'blobs'
space dyed sweater

Hmmm... it's getting to be Fall. I like this
sweater...
I guess I'd have to buy some kind of a big 'ol grommet gun, though, if I were to try and make it. Bwah ha ha.

Try solar dyeing... before the summer ends.
dyeing

AHHHHHHHH! Nooooo! Say it isn't so!!!! A McDonald's Hotel.
The Globe and Mail: Series

Hit the randomizer for a new pseudoword.
pseudodictionary - the dictionary for words that wouldn't make it into dictionaries :: v2.0

If you have a pretty fast connection and computer, then you can take some time and see an aerial view of your neighborhood. Creepy.
TerraFly

The Simpsons: sell out or sold out? you decide...
Panderers in Japan

If you have some time...
Nobody Here

Now you can relive your childhood...
Lite-Brite

check out Kartoo... It's a search engine that displays it's results in a map format.
kartoo

Just in case you ever wanted your own, personal font...
Go Font Yourself!

Don't you just love Elrond's crown?!?!
Gem.net: Lord Of The Rings Jewelry

See some fishies!!
Giant Ocean Tank Web Cam

Here is a link to something sort of similar to a found objects site; Bill Keaggy has collected and put up found grocery lists.
/ keaggy.com :: The Grocery List Collection /

yes, so now you know, I spend all my time digging up links like this for you. especially for all you cat lovers out there...
nav

Check out...
weebl and bob

And now you can play with a black ribbon. Don't panic if your cursor freezes for a minute.SURFACE.YUGOP.COM || MONO*crafts 3.0

More eyehand candy for you...
floccus

Yes, it's really true. I found the third audio recording especially nice...
Dialtones (A Telesymphony) - Mobile Phone Concert

If you are interested in motion, You can tell your friends you went to the
sodazoo.

Here is a fun site for you, especially if you like pixels.
I especially liked the link to David with the long arm which does have an option to play it in English if you'd like.
Flip Flop Flyin'

you know the stuff you used in college to hang posters? the stuff thats sitting uselessly in a little wad somewhere in your office drawer? bring it to new, unthought of heights...
Worsley Institute of Blu-Tack Art

Hello Kitty as psychologist...
hellokitty

Top 10 rules to making a good espresso...

I found this this morning while I was searching for some info on my espresso machine, Buon Caffe Model 310. Apparently the company is not in business anymore, wah.

Well, during the 6 hour drive to visit my parents I got out "Knitter's Workshop" and cast on for the Baby Surprise Jacket. I figured I should start with the more simple, original pattern. AND GUESS WHAT!! I figured out what I was doing wrong with the sl1, k2tog, psso decreases!!! I'm so excited, because I was really starting to worry that there was something inherently wrong with how I knit that made them curve. No, no, no. It's just that I was stacking them one atop another. Duh. You know, like if you're decreasing around for a hat as you get to the top, and it makes a spiral? Well, I was making the spiral. But if you want a straight line, you have to offset them, consistantly moving one stitch to the left/right so that they don't curve!! Some of you more wise knitters may have known that, but I usually have to slog through the hard way to figure stuff out. At least I (probably) won't forget now. So that was good. I think I'll work on the Baby Suprise Jacket for a while now because both my friend and my SIL are having babies soon (my SIL is adopting) so I'll need stuff like that in the works. Then I can decide what to do with the mess/adult surprise cardigan I was working on before. I am slowly working my way up to a Hanne Falkenberg design.

We're going up to Duluth for wed. through Sun. so I'll be near one of my favorite yarn stores, Playing With Yarn in Knife River, MN. Last year for our 1st anniversary Dan and I went up to Duluth and he bought me a bunch of reeeeeeally thick yarn (2 sts/inch) for my first sweater, supposedly. Well, that never came to fruition, especially when I realized that I'd look like a (fat) bear in a big, black bulky sweater. So now I'm in the dilemma of whether I should try to return it (I don't think he'd be offended?!?) let alone if she takes 6 mo. old returns (they're still in the skeins with the bands around them). Otherwise it's felting time. As I was driving back yesterday I was trying to brainstorm all the things I could make and felt out of that wool and who I could give/pawn them off on. I could knit a huge black diaper bag and felt it. I could knit huge shapeless shoulder sling bags. I could make everyone I know felted woolen hats (although my hats always turn out too small). A giant blanket (not felted). Well, we'll see. Part of me just really wants to get rid of it all. Anyone up for some Cascade something or other yarn? (can't remember the name offhand).

I'm on vacation! and I'm debating whether to venture outside to do some thrifting in the 88degree weather (there's a heat index warning today- it got up to over 100 degrees apparently this weekend! hooray for AC). Maybe I'll entertain myself by surfing around the ring. Ta.

We're going to visit my folks in upper Wisconsin (a 6 hr. drive!!!) so no posts probably. < >
Still ruminating on that sweater dilemma. To frog or not to frog. I thought I had the solution; I'd just knit and knit and knit a collar and make it sort of fold over and back, but then I realized that to fill in the corners I'd have to short row or something and that's just too complicated. We'll see. Then I thought just knit wider bands and then it will fit, but that still doesn't fix the funky sleeves. Waaah. Ok, ok, I could undo the sleeve part where it messes up (I tried to 3needle bind off a mitered corner into a straight seam- nrrr). Dang I wish posting pics wasn't such a huge hassle. Someday...< >
There's this cool store called ArtSmart that takes overstock items like paper and fabric and all sorts of wierd stuff and sells it for people to buy to make crafts with kids. So I got a bunch of beads and I'm taking them in to have the kids glue them onto something to decorate. Hoooray for kitchy summer crafts. I get a kick out of sending these things home and knowing the parents are like, um, what do I do with this now? I never thought I'd stoop to crap crafts, but here I am. It's hard to find things for kids to make that they can handle and enjoy that are beautiful, useful and inexpensive. So. Yesterday we laid 10 popsicle sticks flat next to each other and drew pictures on them with markers and then mixed them up and called it a puzzle. Today; tacky bead gluing.< >
ta.

The Friday Five

When was the last time you...
1. Sent a handwritten letter? Gee, probably a month ago. One of my girlfriends in Milwaukee doesn't have email and writes lots of letters, so I usually owe her one at any given moment.

2. Baked something from scratch or made something by hand. No baking; what with riding this summer every afternoon lunch and supper are fast, easy to cook things. But, being a knitter, I have made something by hand!! Woo hoo!! Makin' a sweater.

3. Camped in a tent? Well, last winter my husband and another couple went winter camping here in Minnesota, and it turned out it was one of the coldest weekends all winter (our winter was really mild)! I wussed out though, becuase I was sick and that would have launched me right into pneumonia or something. So the last time was last summer when we hiked the Sunshine Coast Trail in B.C.

4. Volunteered your time to church, school or community? Um, I stay late at work? (a Montessori school). I taught Sunday School this past year every other Sunday.

5. Helped a stranger? We stopped and helped these people who got a flat and didn't have a spare and let them call on our cell phone a bunch to find someone to come get them. They had been standing on the side of the highway for 20 min. and they had a kid. We were going to give them a ride into town but then the State Patrol came by.

I got up early to blog. Y'all should be proud of me. Not that there's anyone out there, as I haven't been posting regularly so the slight few who ever did read this have probably dropped off now, off to bigger and better blogs...

Ah me. I'd google myself to see if I come up high, but I think that would be self-destructive. There are 2 areas in my life right now where I am consciously avoiding 'checking' myself because if it were a)negative I'd be all bummed and then my efforts would drop off or b)positive I would be all self-satisfied and, you guessed it, my efforts would drop off. So now you know how crazy I really am. That's why I don't have a counter on this yet, because I would be obsessively checking it every day, and after what I thought was a particularly good post, I'd be disappointed when the numbers didn't spike. Oh, the other area is how much I weigh. I am contenting myself with simply noticing the bones and muscles arising from the depths.

On the biking note, Saturday we went to visit my Dan's folks and his dad trounced us on our 34 mile ride. Agh. I am a wussy wuss. I was dying. I'm just proud that I made it through the whole ride, although I couldn't keep up for the last 8 miles. I just didn't have anything left to push with. Yesterday was our 'going hard' day- on our training schedule Wednesdays are the push hard day, and so using our slick heart-rate monitors (especially mine which reads out a percentage of current heart rate/maximum heart rate) we pushed hard. Man, it's amazing how you can sort of happen to get up to 80% but you could never accidentally fall into that 85% zone. Puff pant. This weekend hopefully we're going to my parents and we'll have to find a route there for our Saturday 39 mile ride. My dad will be like, you never visit and now you're out on your bikes the whole time!

Progress on the EZ sweater- miserable. Blah. Who knows, I may frog it all! To a knitter this is like standing on a bridge saying "It's not worth it anymore! I'm going to end it all!!". If I were a clever EZ heroine I would magically add some creative solution and salvage it all, but I don't know... See, this is why I knew I should never try to make a sweater- I'm too much of a perfectionist and by the time I can tell if I like it, it's done, and then it's too late. Boo hoo. I really like the colors, the wierdly curving decreases actually make it sort of form fitting but the sleeves! the sleeves! they are too wonky. No really. Besides it's 85 degrees out so I'm not really inclined to put it on and look in the mirror and ponder escape routes. It's really too small and for some people this would be fine, but I don't like restrictive clothing, let alone clothing which has sleeves that have wierd bumps in the seam. I should just do it over, maybe in the 21" width instead of the 18" width and not do the tricky changes that make the seam lay behind your shoulder line but just leave it so there's big sleeves and THIS TIME I will not have funky curving decreases. Man, I knew those things would be the death of me.

Oh, and here's something I've been thinking about- you know how everyone is freaking out about copyright issues and how there's that something something Media Act they're trying to push (Hollywood, that is) and how The head of Turner Broadcasting calls it ``theft'' when you, the viewer, decline to watch the ads he wants you to view.? Anyway, copyright is a big issue these days. But some have pointed out that this sort of strains the creative process. There is no public domain in which much grist for the mill, so to speak, lays dormant and accessible for others to springboard off of. This is why I enjoy knitting. Because you are always free to alter the pattern. I suppose some would say that then you could 'copyright' that new design. Hm. Well, I am pretty confident that most of us would not go that far, because, as a knitter, we are part of something bigger than just ourselves. I think that most knitters realize that somewhere, sometime in the past, another woman or man, when faced with the same problem in knitting, has practically and creatively invented a solution. Now, I won't argue that there is innovation, and that some really creative people have looked at something other knitters have used one way for years and years and applied it in a new way for a different purpose, and I those designs should be credited. Agh, I guess I am just worried that what has been for so long a wonderful sharing and creative boomeranging field will become stagnant if we all hug our 'inventions' to ourselves. That's why the internet is so cool, becuase we can share solutions and new ideas amongst ourselves. Anyway, I found a website that addresses this issue in part; Creative Commons. Whoops- just looked at the clock. More on this later.

Jumpin' on the bandwagon here...
Type "Your name is" into Google (don't forget the quotation marks) and see what you come up with.
These are a few of the funnier ones from the first few pages.


Miss Elizabeth" is still milking close to 100 pounds per day and enjoying
life on the farm. She will be bred soon to calve again next year.

Elizabeth is known worldwide for accurate life readings.

Elizabeth is presented as a glamorously stressed-out
modern woman who must cope with a super-intense case of having it all.

"Elizabeth is a
wonderfully compassionate and effective teacher and therapist."

The population of Elizabeth
is approximately 818.

Elizabeth is renowned for her garden and you can enjoy
home-made elderflower cordial and obtain free cuttings.

Elizabeth is among those few
women that really make our blood boil (in a good way).

Elizabeth is most fortunate to have Thurisaz, the gateway, in her name, which provides her a place in her mind to gather strength and contemplate hidden aspects of the self.

Elizabeth is fed up of taking her clothes off on the big screen.

A thoughtful twist on the Elves' role in Middle Earth...
gTexts

Hey y'all. We biked 30 miles yesterday!! Woo hoo!! If we had been able to do it 3x more that would be a century! Not far now...
We cycled on the beautiful Sakatah Singing Hills Trail which was formerly an old train bed. So it was nice and long and straight. Perfect. And there were some suicidal chipmunks, squirrels, rabbits, dragonflies and birds. One little tiny bird actually kept flanking me and then zooming off and then back and then off until she finally angled off into a field. We saw cows and horses and a blue heron- we had stopped to go to the bathroom by this lake and it seemed like the only access to that side of the lake was the trail so it was kind of deserted- just the place a heron would like. And it was huge! I'd never seen one up that close and when it flew (it was flying low over the lake ?to catch bugs?) it's head was jammed down toward it's body so it looked like it had this huge adam's apple because thier necks are so long you know.
And I've been knitting like a demon on Elizabeth Zimmermann's Suprise Jacket for an adult. I'm trying the instructions included for the more cardi proportioned version. Fortunately I had less issues with the increases than I did with the decreases. So we'll see how it turns out. As I said, it will be wonky because when I started I did the decreases too tight and made a curving line instead of a diagonal.

A cyclist (funny) story. Hasn't happened to me yet...
Squirrels

How Yoda Became An Action Star
from my husband via Slashdot.
An interesting article about the process of accepting new technology, I think. I especially like the quote, "Coleman found himself 'waking up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night,' imagining he'd be 'dragged through the mud' by website critics who'd say 'the guy who did Jar-Jar has now f---ed up Yoda. Burn him!'." Bwah ha ha...

Sorry I've been so absent. Hey, I started the Elizabeth Zimmermann Surprise Jacket (adult size). It's all garter stitch with miters. I ripped once because something was wrong with the miters and they were curling. I thought I was slipping my sts wrong (like purling and not like a knit stitch) so I changed that. Well, lo and behold, yesterday I realized to my dismay that the miters were still messed up (the were curling in a swoop instead of a straight diagonal). Did I rip? No, and I hope it all works out ok. Keep your fingers crossed for me. But I did figure out what I was doing wrong; it was all too tight. So now I've loosened up when I hit the double decreases (sl1, k2tog, psso) and we shall see.

Yo! Knit Hello Kitty!!
Hello Kitty Knitting Pattern

A cat toy for you. Look, it's the
Critterbug!

Now I could have sworn that that is just a laser pointer that you can buy at Office Max.

But take care! These are daaaangerous toys, children.The FDA has issued a warning!!

But if you must, and you want to be the coolest, you have to get a green one.

Good morning! Well, we're back. You know, I'd never really been in the 'deep South' before. We drove through Wisconsin, Illinois, Kentucky and finally got to Tennessee. It was neat watching the landscape change from prairie to low mountains. It was really amazing to see the Appalachians and think that they had started out as a range of mountains similar to the Rockies, and this is what they had worn down to. That's oooold. We went up to Roan Mountain, which is bald on top, I still don't know why (my guess is that the rock is too close to the top and no trees can get enough roots down). It was beautiful and quiet (except for those people who feel it necessary somehow to shout at the top of their lungs at the top of a mountain). So we stayed up there for quite a while, and it was much cooler than back at the bottom where it was supposed to be topping out at ninety degrees, they said. Watched a storm come in and headed down just as a few sprinkles started. People were still hiking up and I felt like saying "Don't get hit by lightning!". But I suppose you could just run back down to the trees. I have never seen a rhododenderon bush before and some of the flowers were blooming! I really enjoyed seeing all the different flora and fauna- although it wasn't much, really. Little sparrow like birds, possum roadkill on the side of the road, some big trees I couldn't identify. I still have yet to find out what a laurel tree is.

Tennessee is a slow place. I kept thinking about how much maybe the weather has a part in shaping how people are. Here, we're all hyper (and that's nothing compared to the speed of life in other places), but there everything had a slow, unending feel to it. Like, things just neverendingly grow on and on there. The whole way down we were passing through farmland and so there were always old barns to look at. But as we went south more and more the barns would be covered with vines- just covered! Not so in MN. It was very lush there. Things know how to get old there and not worry about the time in between too much it seems. It was nice to get that perspective.

Our friends pointed out the rectangular barns that were wider in the front and said that that is where they would hang the tobacco to dry. Man, it sounds like he is living the life! He works odd jobs and rents a house for !cheap! and goes off adventuring every now and again. Exploring caverns, climbing mountains, trying to find little cafes where they serve the local quisine. My husband has some Scotch in him (the people, not the drink) and our friends said that many of the people who live there are descended from Irish and Scottish families who settled there. So he said that you can see some of that in the culture- family ties are strong and fierce. What an adventure. It was good to get away for a few days.

So I knit and knit away on my shawl and we listened to Lord of the Rings- which really helped pass the time, I must say. I got a few more inches (inches!) done and stopped increasing with the yarn overs. There are two lines of YO, K, YO pattern up the sides of the shawl and I didn't want to lose that line, so now I 'eat up' the stitch I make by my YO by K2TOG thusly- K2TOG, K, YO, K, YO, K, K2TOG. It looks a little different, but that's to be expected, I guess. I've decided that I'll try and knit and knit until almost all the yarn is gone and then do an edging right onto the edge (without binding off beforehand). Hopefully I won't underestimate how much yarn is needed for the edging. We'll see. But I'm not even near that yet! :). 'K. Gotta go grocery shopping now. Bye.

I was thinking about ritual this morning. I used to smoke, and I think one of the strong attractions to doing it (besides addiction) was that so much of the behavior was ritualistic. The new pack of smokes, pounding them against your palm with the rhythmic 'thwak, thwak, thwak', and the regularity of it, the unvarying insistence of it. And of course, now I have my morning ritual of making coffee, a caffe latte, actually. It's something I do every morning and I enjoy doing all the steps in order (fill the resevoir with water, fill and tamp the grounds while the wand starts to steam, froth the milk). I enjoy the feeling that it is a necessary part of my day- something that I choose to do- that I need to do (or suffer the caffeine withdrawal headache). Ah well, it must fill some deep inner need. What rituals do you have?

Anyway, I've been reading "Moby Dick" and last week I read Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejuidice". While I was reading P and P I kept thinking in that sort of way they speak-- can't do it now, of course, but it was all proper and polite. What a crazy book. It's all about vanity- I think it's Elizabeth in the novel who makes the distinction between pride and vanity- pride is how we feel about ourselves, and vanity is how we are concerned with how others perceive us. Maybe this is a 'no duh' kind of thing for you, but I always think of vanity as someone looking at themselves in a mirror, thinking how beautiful they are. But if you think of it as impression management, then it's a whole 'nother thing. And I've never read "Moby Dick". I like his style of writing, very storyteller-like. But the whole 'native as exemplar' thing I don't buy, so that wears a little thin (like man in his natural state is naturally moral and 'gets life right').

I've been cleaning, cleaning, cleaning these past few days. Whoever cleaned the apt. before us did a terrible job, I must say. Not to mention that it was neglected for a month or so. So I've been taking pride in my hard work, but we'll see how long that lasts. After the first blush wears off, then I'll probably just hate having to vaccuum all the time and consider it drudgery. Maria Montessori really emphasized what she called 'practical life' in her method for the education of the young child- all the children in my classroom know how to sweep up a spill, dust the shelves and wash the tables. We have child-size brooms and cloths and brushes and everything. When I took the training (3 years ago) we read about how she always cleaned her house herself, even in situations where she could have had others do it for her, because she felt that it was an intensely human (and good) thing to do. So I've been trying to have that outlook on it. Cleaning is good.

Now I have to go clean the car for our long road trip to Tennessee. The windows get all scummed over with this film- really wierd. So last Spring and now this one, I get out the Windex. Makes me wonder what I'm inhaling into my lungs... Freon leak, anyone?

So I'll be back Tues. or so. Maybe I'll have the neverending shawl done by the time we get back. We've got the "Lord of the Rings" on CD (it's the BBC version, something like 60+ hours long!!) and the shawl is all I'm allowing myself to take so we're set.

Oh ya- and I'll be sending out my 7 things so be checking your mail, ladies. Woo hoo! Fun things in the mail. I can't wait.

So I thought I'd log on and blog on :) this morning while I'm drinking my coffee and before the day starts. This weekend was pretty nice-- very relaxing. We went to DQ yesterday and it was in the 80's. We took this job as caretakers of our apartment so I've got to clean clean clean this morning before I head out for work. And tonight we have our school picnic with all the parents so I'll be there late tonight. I am so AR that I cleaned the cleaning closet before I even cleaned anything else. And guess what I found? A millipede, mouse poop, spiders. Yea me. Actually, I had my husband come down and trap and throw outside the millipede. They're fast little buggers, aren't they.


Anyway, I was all set to redo this blog- move it to my own space, new template, install Tagboard, put up everyone's buttons, but of course it didn't happen. I'm reading Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejuidice" (I should underline that, I guess, but I'm too lazy to find how to, and I know that somehow I misspelled prejuidice, I think).


On Friday we're going to see friends down southish. I keep thinking it's Kentucky or Georgia but I know it's neither of those. Duh. 18 hr. drive. I WILL be bringing my knitting along. I may try and get Tues. off too.


Whoah, that ear infection last week was really nasty. Ear infection=nasty. So now I'm on antibiotics and I have, of course, gotten women's most dreaded side-effect of taking antibiotics. Can I hear you say, yea acidophilus? Yah, that's about it. So I should do the Monday thing-y. Be right back.

PromoGuy's Monday Mission 2.21

1. What happened this weekend that made you smile?

Hmm, it's gotta be something my cat(s) did. Gah, I'm that boring. Let's see... Penelope was trying to jump up to the window and totally fell. Sorry, that's about as good as it gets, folks.


2. Did you make someone smile today? If not, will you try?

Not yet-- my husband and I usually find ways to make each other grin, so at some point later tonight I will probably try and make him laugh. I do not forsee myself telling a funny anecdote in front of a group of parents at the picnic our school is having. Mine is more of the wry, dry type of humor. Heh, I made a rhyme.


3. Have you any clothes or accessories you love to wear but just totally embarrass the person you are being seen with?

My cat.

4. What was the catch phrase you said the most in High School?

Oh ack, I know there were some... Probably some morbid inside joke I had with my best friend Rebekah. Something sarcastic.

5. Who are you remembering this Memorial Day? (or for those not celebrating it, tell me about someone worth remembering)

Umm... all the people who gave their lives to make this country free? No one I could say I really knew personally.

6. Do you think you are a good friend?

Yes, I am loyal and faithful and truthful. I am a good listener.

7. (continued from MM 2.20) That outing tonight was a blast ... but that was last call. I totally over did it and shouldn't drive, anything we can do while I try to "dry out?"

Play dice. Play hangman. Play war (a card game).

BONUS: Do ya love me, now that I can dance?

Aaah, what?

More Minnesota news!! I didn't hear about this when it happened, but it's interesting to see how it all turned out...
Mall of America couple 'doing marvelously' 02/24/01

Wow, yet another reason I'm glad I'm a vegetarian!
Thanks for the link Celtic Fox!
Veggies unite!
Is the meat, poultry and fish you buy as fresh as you think?

The Friday Five!!

1. What's the last vivid dream that you remember having?
Something about giving my kitten away and then having to buy it back for $300-- and I did it!! No, wait, that was my husband's... I don't often remember my dreams.

2. Do you have any recurring dreams?
I've had a dream in which I'm up in the crabapple trees in our yard when I was a kid and the monsters from Sendak's book "Where the Wild Things Are" were helping me get away from some of the more scary monsters in the book.

3. What's the scariest nightmare you've ever had?
Probably that one.

4. Have you ever written your dreams down or considered it? Why or why not?
I have thought about it, but I'm not sure how it would aid me except when answering questions like these...
I think that my mind will remember if my mind is trying to tell me something. Mostly I just think that dreams are a way of working out unresolved stuff from the day and I figure if I'm not remembering them, the dreams must be doing their job pretty well.

5. Have you ever had a lucid dream? What did you do in it?
Lucid dream means that you are up and about and dreaming, right? No, I haven't.

Oh, how rude of me-- sorry. I forgot to add that the questions came from Theresa . And, SHE was the baby who was colicky ?sp?. Yea crabby babies.

1. Where were you born? What do you know about your own birth? (time, circumstance, etc...)
I was born in Racine, WI. I was shortly thereafter transferred to a hospital in the big city, Milwaukee (where I later went to college and lived for some years after as well). I don't know the time, I do know it was C-section (ugh) and I was a itty bitty preemie. I'd have to go hunting about in my dad's basement to tell you any more...

2. Do you have a baby picture you can put onto your weblog? If not, tell us what you looked like as a baby.
Yah, I do have pics, but I probably won't put them up onto my site at blogspot because it is such a huge hairy deal to do so. I had this crazy red bump up on top of my head, about the size of a half-dollar, I think and raised approx. one quarter inch. So that was wierd. I think I was born with hair.

3. What kind of a baby or toddler were you according to the people who were around when you were young?
I cried and cried, with colic, like another knitblogger who I now inconveniently cannot remember...
I think as a toddler I was pretty happy and easy going.

4. Know any cute baby-related quotes?
I think I ate cat food once, but everyone does that, right?
I will just answer this question by a few tidbits.
I had curly curly hair. And once in a walker in our garage, I fell down the stairs and gave myself a big 'ol scar on the chin which looks like this +++ because I scratched the stitches out. Silly baby.

Wow! Crazy Japanese toys!! I was looking for Domo Kun and found this! Doesn't Squib like Kogepan (scroll down) or something? Oooh, ooh! I found a link for the reward, I suppose I should hold onto this one, but nah...

Do you like Muffins? I know I do!! I especially like 4,5 and 7 . Number 11 is a French Muffin Film. Who knew?

Whoops!! Scratch that last post, people! My bad-- it's pixel squares...
I mean, maybe you'd be into that, too! But it's not *real* quilting, so sorry...

Hey, Kate and all you quilters out there, here's a quilting site that you might be interested in...
t h e * q u i l t i n g * b e e

Evil Cats!!

Bad,
bad kitties.

Just in case you have a hard time waking up...
No, it's no joke and maybe I should get some for my husband .
ThinkGeek :: Shower Shock Caffeinated Soap

So, knitting. Well, I finished the headkercheif and used a yellow ribbon woven through the eyelets to be the ties. My friend said it looked Swedish or something. Hm.
I guess I really am a geek. This here blog is just turning into a load of my favorite dippy links and really less of a journal let alone about knitting. Ah well. I would aspire to be as some of the greats here in this ring but I just don't have the patience to document my projects or offer up tutorials or whatever. That would be great, but I'm not sure it's really going to happen. Can I be the geek of the ring, please, please, please?!?! And I promise I will try to tell you all about any knitting I do. There, that's all I can offer, I guess... some amusing, perhaps interesting links and once in a while a post about my life and/or knitting.

My best friend (one of three) called to tell me she's pregnant!!! They're not telling anyone much until the 3mo. spot but I figure there's not much chance of anyone knowing and (duh) esp. if I don't really give out any details, huh? Of course, it was sort of hard. Again, I think that because I am an only child, I didn't learn at an early age that SOMETIMES OTHER PEOPLE ARE GOING TO DO MAJOR LIFE EVENTS FIRST. I was jealous when she got married and now I'm jealous because she is having a baby first. That sounds terrible, so please remember that I am as happy for her as I am jealous and we human beings can have complicated feelings all jumbled up at once. I'm still not really sure what the reason is, perhaps it is at base selfishness and not trusting God to provide and take care of me. I had a talk Sunday with Steve, a friend of my husband's and mine and he is possibly (hopefully, I think) going to get engaged to a woman who has a ?5? year old. The little girl is jealous and her mom tells her that when she has that attitude, it shows that she really isn't trusting God to take care of her and provide for her. So I need to apply that to my life. Hopefully I can come to some sort of peaceful place with this (it's not SO huge and horrible, but I do know that something's askew in my heart here) before I go to visit said friend. Anyway, I just need to be patient both with myself and the situation. Just as before when I was single and I wondered and prayed about if I would ever be married I felt like the uncertainty was so hard, so it is again now. Sometimes we just have to live with uncertainty and make friends with it somehow.

As I was surfing around the ring, I noticed some of you Blogspot people are down...
Here is the official deal and a suggestion to get yourselves back online...
Status.Blogger.Com

just for old memories sake...
did any of you ever play those computer games before they had graphics? well here
DNA/HHGG Infocom Adventure you go. It's the HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy game on thier webpage. Good luck getting out of the bedroom-- I sure couldn't.

A ha! Now we know...How GoogleTM really does it.
Google Technology

More for you twitchy people...
Pentix - The Art of Pen Spinning (updated 05/18/2002)

Here's a neat trick to show all your friends...
$20 Bill Commemoration of 9/11

What's big and pink and rhymes with rock?
Culled from frankgumola.

Blah... I'm sick.
I will lamely now post some other people's Star Wars reviews;
Richard's Dish regarding how 'the kiss' comes too early in the movie and how a scene could be rewritten...
and
Day Old Bread Store
in which it is proposed that it is not unlikely or even unreal that Senator Padme should love Ani (I only disagree with her statement that what's her face needs a boob job, myself being small in the boob area as well as well as a vegetarian)
and finally,
The Weekly Standard in which it is argued that the Empire is not evil (scroll down)- kind of a long one, but interesting...
methinks some people take this somewhat seriously.

It's the amazing singing Eugene!!!!eugenemirman.com

Is this you?

backupbrain has 7/8ths of the Hugo nominated stories linked at their site. This one's pretty good;
"Old MacDonald Had a Farm" by Mike Resnick

Any smokers out there? Any twitchy, can't keep your hands still smokers? Here you go...
Zippo Tricks Bound To Impress And Amaze

And just to get you in the mood if you haven's seen the new Star Wars yet...
TheForce.net - Star Wars Humor Caption #35

Maybe I was wrong about Jar Jar...
Take some time to rethink his role.

via Creative Soul ConfessionsCheck out these hats!!!

...what I meant to say was
I just ran around the ring and found great encouragement in Fillyjonk's FO! It was a shawl for her mother and it sounds like she too was at that point where the end rows just seem to take forever. Let's hear it for the knitblogs ring-- it's great to hear about and get ideas from one another's projects.

Just ran around some more of the ring and it sounds like

Wednesday, May 15, 2002

Hey,
well, last night and Monday I did get some knitting done. Working on the shawl I've switched to garter st and the new sts are sort of pooking and being all wavy like because garter st is wider than stockinette. So I could go down in needle size (ha) or I guess just live with it. What I'll end up with is a lace pattern that starts at the neck and goes down to around my elbows and then starts pouffing a bit and stretching waaaay more and I'll see how long I can plug away at this and that will be the length of said shawl. It's the Elizabeth Zimmermann Pi Are Square shawl which means it's a half circle with two triangles on each half that start thin and get wider and when worn sort of make lapels. So that's good. It was fun to knit and talk- if I'm home here I just tend to surf and surf on the internet crazily collecting odd links and such until the wee hours. We don't have a TV so this is sort of my entertainment.

The lime green washcloth I was making for a friend turned was frogged and started again, but this time with a garter edging and stockinette on the inside, started diagonally, and will be a headkerchief so said friend can keep her unruly locks tamed. Have I told you my cat fetches?
I have yet to figure out how I am going to make the ties for it. I-cord, I suppose. Doesn't that seem bulky, though?

And about all these links, well, I'll get it all out of my system eventually. I think I'm 'finding my voice' on this here blog so you may have to put up with wierd links to civet cat poop coffee for a bit. Kate has generously emailed me with tips on how to move my blog (woo hoo! no more ads at the top!) and we'll see about that on the weekend. Oh yeah, gotta go see "Attack of the Clones" or whatever it's called, the new Star Wars. We'll see, I'm not holding my breath. I know Jar Jar is still going to be in it somewhere.

I'm Peony Hamwich of Buckleberry Fern
Thanks The Hobbit Name Generator
squib is also a Peony. Hoorah!

Ummm, this is scary...
Simulaids - Life/form® KERi Complete Nursing Skills Manikin

My Hair Is So Crazy - By Jamie Allen

Just so you can stay on top of the lastest in textile trends
Thinking Putty, Fabric of the Future!

The Life of Flax
The Flax

Accommodation: 4 – 6-bedded flats in the farm, or in the mediaeval villages of Anversa and Cocullo.
I WANNA GO NOW!!!
Facilities: laundry, independent heating, kitchenette - crockery, fireplace in every flat.

Camping, recreational and free-time activities: 5 tent beds, 5 camper caravans, animal watching, agricultural activity guide, herbalist courses, cheese-making courses, walks in the mountains, woods, Park, 1 km from the Natural Reserve, 1 km from riding school, 8 km from lake, 8 km from fishing grounds, 15 km from skiing grounds, 60 km from the sea. BIOAGRITURISMO LA PORTA DEI PARCHI - Anversa degli Abruzzi - Aq - Italy

And, you can go there!! and learn how to dye and weave! Aaaah, can you imagine, to be there when they are lambing and to be able to eat and relax and live on a beautiful Italian farm...
BIOAGRITURISMO LA PORTA DEI PARCHI - Anversa degli Abruzzi - Aq - Italy

Just in case you were wanting to adopt a sheep
BIOAGRITURISMO LA PORTA DEI PARCHI - Anversa - Aq - Italia

And, in a cautionary vein, I bring you...
The Deadly Follies of Stick Figure Warning-Man and Family

In case you had a hankering to go to a library with a cat, here you go.
Library Cats Map

- - - > PromoGuy.net Presents: Monday Mission 2.19
And, even though it's a little late...
here's my first Monday Mission 2.19

1. Have you ever given someone a present you just KNEW would be "da bomb" and when they opened it you could tell they just hated it? What's the story there?
I don't know if I'd say 'hated', but I have had the experience where I built up how wonderful something would be for someone and then it was, of course, anti-climactic. Can't think of any specifics, though.

2. What do you do that you would prefer that Mother never finds out about?
Well, my mother won't find out, I don't think. Sometimes in the past I have smoked.

3. Ever get in any arguments with your mother? What was one of the worst?
I have vague memories of an argument I had with my mother shortly before she died. I had been to Eastern Europe and I didn't get some gifts for relatives and I, of course, didn't care, but she was being thoughtful and I, being a teenager, thought it was a fake keeping up with the Joneses kind of thing, anyway, that was the last thing we fought about. I was a terrible teenager.

4. When was the last time someone special hurt your feelings? Did you tell them or keep it to yourself?
I am usually pretty good now about telling someone if they hurt my feelings, especially since most of my relationships I would say are pretty healthy. But, I guess I probably wouldn't really tell my dad, because I'm not sure what good it would do. Maybe I would.

5. Has your mother ever laid any guilt trips on you or made you feel like you can't do something good enough?
I always felt that my mom wanted me to be the best I could be, even if that meant that it came across as disapproving or that she wanted me to be different. I think that personality wise we were pretty different. I bet that if she still were alive, if we had been able to work through all that, that we would be much closer now that I am an adult. (aagh, I can't believe I just said I'm an adult!!!)

6. Looking back on your life, was there ever a point you see as the "crossroads" where you made a decisions that changed the course of your life? A path you did not take? What was that path, and do you ever daydream about what your life would have been like on the "road not taken?" Tell me about that.
I came to a point when I could have chosen a life of bitterness or I could forgive. I had just embraced my faith in God in a whole new way and I was presented with the choice to forgive someone who had hurt me very much (an ex) or move on in forgiveness and I can clearly recall a point when, as I was thinking about it, that I saw two roads lying ahead of me and I knew (we all know people who live their lives in bitterness, right?) that I wanted to take the road of forgiveness. Even though the other person didn't (and probably hasn't) said "I'm sorry" etc. It took the Lord's help for me to walk on that road and stay on it and I thank Him for it.

7. That was an awesome picnic basket you put together, let's stroll out by the lake as the sun sets. A cool breeze blows off the lake as the orange and red reflects off the ripples in the water. I can tell something is on your mind and I ask you. You think about how to reply but finally you say ...
It's important to grapple with where you stand before God.

BONUS: What do you think will come of that? The above? Hopefully only good. I'm assuming #7 is asking said blogger to talk about what they consider one of the most crucial issues in life (that's how I'm interpreting it, at least) and so I do believe that only good can come of grappling with these big questions. It's been good for me, at least.

Last night I went to the knitting club- it's a bunch of moms who know each other from somewhere else and I just go for the knitting. It's really fun and stuff- it makes me sort of want a house, I just live in an apartment. And kids, even thought they are like, wow, kids are a lot of work etc. etc.

We will be the caretakers of our apartment real soon. That means we get to vacuum.

So the knitting club thing-y has been the only place I've been knitting at lately. It's nice to have that one time in the week that I will for sure knit during. There is talk of doing it every other week, though. But I guess that would be fine. It's a good time of girl talk and the women there hold various and sundry opinions about everything, mostly different than what I think, so it's been broadening. After a year of settling into marriage with Dan, a year in which we mostly saw each other, it's good to start making girlfriends and such. That is another reason I enjoy the Knitblogs webring- it's a chance to make friends and hear about other's lives. I really think girlfriends are important, and mine are all in Milwaukee, WI, about 6 hours away, so that stinks.

I subscribed to 'wanderlust' but I haven't put the link up on my page yet!! Will the wanderlust police come and get me?!?! I am a bad blogger.

Aaaaand, in the coffee vein again (I am going to get around to joining that coffee clique) here is today's Too Much Coffee Man cartoon. Check out the archives if you get a chance!

It's This or That Tuesday!!
Here are my answers for your perusal...
1. Chihuahua or Great Dane?
Great Dane- small dogs suck.

2. Skyline or countryside?Countryside.
Gotta have lots of room for that Great Dane to roam. Plus the sheep, goats, llamas etc. I'd love to have someday...

3. Wrestle or box?
Wrestle- pain freaks me out.
Wrestling seems like there's some skill to it. Bear in mind that I'm talking about the kind of wrestling you did in high school, so it's not wrestiling ala WWE.

4. Monkey bars or slide? Slide.
I always stunk at the monkey bars; not enough upper arm strength.

5. Stars or stripes? Stars.

6. Ashley, Wynonna, or Naomi Judd?
Uuum. I really don't know much about any of them. Isn't Naomi the oldest?

7. "The Cosby Show" or "Growing Pains"? Growing Pains.
I thought the Cosby Show was sort of fake-y.

8. Giggle or chuckle? Chuckle.
I will on occasion give even a good guffaw.

9. Would you rather: walk in front of a crowd in your birthday suit, or eat worms?
Hard one, probably walk in front of a crowd. Hey, I do have a blog that complete strangers can read, right?

10. Charismatic or gregarious?
Gregarious to me sounds like friendly, and charismatic has connotations of cult leader etc. etc. so I'll go with gregarious.

And here's another coffee link to get your monday started right...
INeedCoffee - Coffee Enema. I didn't think this was for real, either, especially when I read that Janet Jackson uses them for depression, but hey, there it is. So if you believe everything you read on the internet...
Actually, I can buy someone doing this, somehow...

Now, just so you won't think from the past 2 links that I hate coffee, no, I don't hate coffee. I have an espresso maker at home and make myself one every morning without fail and if we're out of milk I get upset. So there. I also drink chai after work when I get home, but I think it interferes with my sleep patterns (i.e. I can't get to sleep) so I'm trying to cut that back.

Just in case you thought that civet cat coffee poop was a joke...
Kopi Luwak is the world's rarest gourmet coffee beverage and it's available from Raven's Brew Coffee.

Friday we went geocaching!!!. But we did not get the cache (pronounced 'cash').
Not yet. It got tooo dark. And from the look of things, our final destination was/is going to be the river, so we decided to call it
a night and go back later.
Have you ever knit an egg cozy? Well I did, and if I were ambitious, I would go and find the link for you... hold on...
chicken egg cozy
anyway, one of the cache items is a wind up bunny ala Easter findings at your local Walgreen's
and the egg cozy fits perfectly over it! So it is a chibbit and into the cache it will go...
So any of you in the MN area going to Minnehaha Falls, the challenge is on! Go and get the Chibbit!
For the rest of you, maybe I will post pictures later. Ta.

Happy Mother's Day!
I hopefully will become a mother some day.
Mother's Day is kind of bittersweet for me as my mother died when I was 17.
I was going to wear the velvet rust blazer I wore to the funeral to church this morning, but I found
that I had, in a fit of industrious simplifiying, simplified it out of (my) existence.

I took the last three days off of cycling (we've just been cycling indoors on the trainers) because
I was tired. Maybe I am 'overtraining'. I slept a ton on Saturday.

Friday we went The UnMuseum - The Mystery Pit of Oak Island aka How Human Curiosity Sometimes Leads to Human Suffering.

Here is a link to a Slashdot story commenting on a Salon story. You know all the talk lately about putting all the nuclear waste in Nevada at Yucca Mountain? Well, the PDF file linked here has lots of info about how we might go about marking the site for 10,000 years so that no one in the future will drill there. At the bottom of the article are the reports by 'team a' and 'team b' which I skimmed. Team A has a bunch of appendixes detailing how to make this area stand as a warning and look foreboding and unhospitable. Things like 'field of thorns' and 'ring of rubble' 'leaning spikes' and 'black hole'. Wow. This all reads like a sci fi novel and raises the question, how do we guarantee that future generations will not disturb this area?
Lots to read if you click on the PDF file!!

Sheep are not stupid!!
the not-so-stupid-sheep-Sheeptales.com

Here is a game for you...
SheepGame

Culture jamming, anyone? Fight Global Warming Big Game SUV Hunting

Did you know that WD-40 stands for Water Displacement (formula)- 40th try? More than you ever wanted to know about WD-40.
Welcome to WD-40 * About Us: Our History

Here is the story of
Hiroo Onoda.

My attempt to sort of involve some kind of knitting/weaving link hereabouts...
You probably have heard this (unless you've been living in a cave on a remote Phillipine island ha ha) BUT Did you know he wove his own clothes? (Scroll down)

If the beautiful people are getting you down...
Are You Smarter Than Miss America?
I got 4 out of 8. Waaaaah.

Here is a story for you...
Monsters by Kristen: The Birthday Goober, an Illustrated Story

Have some fun with these Faces 420 (set2)

Bwah ha ha...
Fact or fallacy: Sexy tree too much for some Westside neighbors By DAN WHITE SENTINEL STAFF WRITER May 8, 2002

Just in case you were inspired by the previous post...
How to Dance Gothic

I found this article to ring true to my experiences in high school and it was pretty amazing to see it all laid out neat and clean. Makes me long for the good old days (grin)...
Spatial Boundaries, Etiquette and Interpersonal Interactions at a Gothic Club

I want one!! If you want a cool credit card, you might want to take a look at this

Do most movie reviews make you just feel like "It's just a movie, jeez, could you summarize more and less with the philosophizing?" Well, these reviews get my thumbs up.

And here is a monster for you. A new one every day! Rawr!

Apparently, I should have patented my, now theirMethod of exercising a cat (US5443036). What happens when you make patenting too easy. Easy enough for a 7 year old?. Let's hear it for Minnesota.

Do you want to hear about my wonderful honeymoon?!? We went to Banff, CA to a castle there and it was like a dream...
No, you don't? you want to write a beatnik ramble?
oh, well. What am I going to do with you people?

Oh, also...
went to knitting group tonight, so I got about !3! rows of garter stitch done on my shawl. Did I mention it's killing me?
I'll have to take a picture soon so you all can see what I'm talking about.
Note to self; move on up to bigger needles.

Finally fixed the time zone thingy so now you can truly see what actual time it is that I'm posting. It's late.

I found an article about this parrot that Douglas Adams wrote about that's making it's way off the endangered species list.
aaaaand,,,

the world's stinkiest (and biggest) flower is blooming. Ah, spring.

Monday, May 06, 2002

Aaaaaw! I always like these kind of things. Previously
I have found sites like this documenting the travels of a gnome, now it's a teddy bear! See where he's been.

It's late...
I cannot sleep.
Nothing much to say. Lots of thoughts running through my mind, though.
'night.

Hello,
well, we did go and see Spiderman and it was quite fun. Kind of a boobie-centric film, but maybe the teenage boy demographic is what they were aiming at.
maybe it was just me. I'd ask you all to comment, but after visiting YACCS I can't seem to get it going. Yet. I will persevere.

It is storming here, there was a little hail a minute ago and now the sun is blazing this crazy intense yellow as it sets and there is no sunset, just grey clouds all around it so it looks very freaky. You know how sometimes when it's storming all the light turns this wierd yellow...

No knitting news, I'm afraid. I think that shawl is killing me. That and I'm lazy. Did a lot of surfing yesterday. I'll go look up some links.

I changed my links color so that now you can find them. Good job, huh? Yes, I am here to please.
here is a new extreme New Zealand sport. I would like to go to NZ if anything to just Zorb and see the sheep. (I want a sheep, did I mention?). I was in NZ once, the summer before last, in fact, but alas and alack, it was only in the airport, so all I got to see of NZ was some jade and a lot of little kiwi keyrings.

Here are some more poem words for you;
Sherlock,
hemlock,
shamrock.

Pomander,
colander.

Ta.

Hey,
I am surfin' the web and I just found this link. Probably someone on the ring has found it first, but maybe not. I have not trolled the ring yet.
Fans of the band Slipknot are emailing the British knitting group, Slipknot and telling them to get off the web. ha.
The knitters basically said they'd ignore it. Double ha. here's the article. Found via pith and vinegar.

oh, ps
we are going to see Spiderman tonight. Ha, I am such a geek, and so is my husband.
Oh, and last night we went to Babani's which is the ONLY Kurdish restaurant in America or so they say
and they catered our wedding and it was so good so now I have yummy leftovers for lunch. Yum yum.

Hello again-

another post after an extended period. You know, after I posted my last post I was sort of mortified about myself
and so I think that's why I haven't posted. Plus, when you write something, it makes it real. And while, if say, I write
something quite personal in my hardcover journal I don't have to care about how giddy/silly/odd I sound, I DO care if I
know other's are reading this because I like to seem like a consistent, true-to-my-word kind of person. for example, if I say
"I want a baby." then I had better well not just go gallavanting off and never think about it again. Oh well, who can fathom...

Wheee! We are going to be the 'caretakers' of our apartment. So we get to clean a lot.
And today is show and tell. I will try hard to remember if any of the children say/show something funny. I try not
to laugh at the children, however, because I'm all about respecting children. Plus, I think that plays into why they like
show and tell, because it really is a platform for them to express themselves. You wouldn't want to express yourself
if all the other adults in the room started laughing, now would you. So.

I did a momentous thing- here's the deal, I have 2 projects going, a simple garter st eyelet bordered lime green washcloth
and this shawl I was working on all last summer when my husband and I did the Sunshine Coast
Trailin Canada. Well, I was stuck, stuck, stuck. The shawl I had figured out all the lace patterns and wrote out the pattern and everything, but
at this point, it's at about 300+ sts on a #5 i think needle (small, anyway) with laceweight yarn. So I took it off the needles after mulling it over for a long time
because I was just going to frog it completely and use the yarn for something else, like socks. But then I laid it over my shoulders and it looked
so pretty and light and warm and after talking about it with my husband, I decided to plug on. So I'm going to go garter all the way and just try to plug away
at it until it's a decent length and maybe even move up a few needle sizes so it won't take so long. Yay me. Must go make shawl.

my other project is this cute little frog bag that i will post the link to later- i just have to sew on it's eyes and it's done. pics to come later.
dude, getting the sts onto the needles again from that shawl was like doing brain surgery. I've never done brain surgery, but I'm sure it's like that.

Did you know Lance Armstrong's muscles do not start to burn (that's from lactic acid) like the rest of us mere mortal's do? He has some kind of higher
threshhold with that AND with the amount of oxygen he can take in. VO2 if I understand correctly, which I may not. I'm reading "It's Not About the Bike".

ta.

hey, g'day--
la la la! well, twas so wonderfull to get back from visiting with the folks and have a emails and a post at knitblogs re; how to post links.
Thank you thank you thank you.
guess what?!?! my SIL (sister-in-law) is going to be adopting a baby!!!! a baby girl from Guatemala hopefully.
ok, let me give you the lowdown, and here is where all the posting some members of the knitblog have been doing about not caring if
perfect strangers read your blog vs. family and friends takes on a personal cast...
the lowdown is that I am jealous. I was jealous (admittedly- although not able to realize it until afterwards) when one of my best friends
got married before I did and now I am jealous not to be the first to have a baby. Nrr.
That is so dumb but it was good to get it out there.
I suppose that this blog is turning into a journal of sorts. Hm.
I went to the knitting night thing last Monday and it was the second place that I had to confessed to other women that I want to have a baby.
The first was my Bible study group (we split into men/women groups to pray at the end which is handy for this sort of confession). So when
I said it the first time one of the women said that she had had intense longing/desire for a baby about a year after she and her husband were married
and then it went away and then she was just terrified and scared of it in a way, but they were trying at that point (a later point, after the year out bit).

And then one of the women at this knitting thing was like, oh, my gosh, isn't it just so crazy, it's like a CRAVING!! So greeting my SIL's announcement
was sort of wierd on my part except I am a fairly expressionless person facially (that sounds terrible, doesn't it... hm) so I'm wondering if even my
husband picked up on it. I hope i hope i hope he did not give my MIL this address... hi Lee! Thanks for this weekend! yes i am craving babies.

So it comes and it goes and I'm not really sure I know how to deal with this yet.

Moving right along...
My MIL loved the scarf and it was admired and stroked (Chinchilla and the ?Fantastica? eyelash novelty yarn sooooo soft in stripes). Not much knitting.
I can still think when I knit so I was trying to not brood so I was reading my FIL's copy of Steven King's "Everything's Eventual" quite good or playing the computer
game "Black and White" where you get to be god and that was fun too except for the learning curve part.

Must...tell...husband...want....baby.
Better go up to the top of the post and typeDONT READ THIS IF YOU ARE MY FAMILY...

Biking was hard after 2 days not doing it but I muddled (and sweat, boy howdy) through.
The kitties missed us.
Must go now to the template and jam in my email addy.

clicky here if you are interested in finding secret treasure in your neck of
the woods and you have a GPS.

Hey,
well, we're heading off for the weekend, so I won't be posting again until Monday. Finished finishing the fluffy scarf (aieee- no picture ever because I'm giving it to the recipient this weekend) so just imagine a Chinchilla you could wear around your neck. Oh- update on the cat-- someone who just moved in came to ask (again) if it was ours and said that they asked the supposed neighbor who was taking it and they said no and the other side neighbor was gone, so they are going to take it for now. We hooked them up with a litter box, cat treats, catnip, cat food and cat food and water dishes. That felt great. Good to know it won't be randomly roaming the hall/outside this weekend!! Have a good one!

Hey, wow,
I guess that biking is paying off...
First I weighed myself and I weighed more, then I was all like, ok, well, it's just muscle, ya, gotta be muscle
and then I put on these pants that are sort of tight and my thighs were HUGE ha ha, that makes me happy.

Well, now I am eating this wierd goop I made with mashed up bananas and some graham cracker crumbs and it's pretty good!
Not much news on the knitting front- I'm going over to my friends house to knit with her this morning.
Did I tell you about that other cat that keeps being in our apt. hall? Well, we found the owner and she's moving out and so we bought her cat tower/tree/perch whatever you want to call it thingy so that's cool. Vacuummed it all up and carpet foamed it (now I'm worried that my cats will get cancer) and it's all good. I am so tricky- I put catnip on the perches to get them onto it.

I think that other cat's new owner is not down with it or something because last night we put out food and water for it because it was in the hall again.

Ok, have a good day.
-e.

oh ho-
tricky blogspot-- ?you can only link? to something within your site? I did the code for a link to my other website, and then when you rollover it, it stuck "www.centrepullball.blogspot.com" in front of it. Hmm. Well, don't click on that. So now at least I know how to jam code in where I want it. We're moving on up. Oh, do go and see my other website because I tire of all this dinking around here. At least if I do something poorly at the other one it will be my own fault and not because of trying to work in this interface. http:/home.attbi.com/~dwmclaughlin/

Good morning-

Well, I had thought that I would visit my friend who is now confined to bed rest (she's pregnant) to knit this morning, but I have a little bit of a sore throat and whether it's from allergies or strep (strep has been going around my work) I thought I should play it safe.
I should be sewing in the ends of that scarf...
My husband and I have been jokingly identifying our kitten-cat Penelope as a Norweigian Forest Cat. She does have the tail!! They sound like cool creatures. They get this really furry coat in the winter and then shed it in the summer. Except for the tail. We always were joking about how Penelope's mom must have gotten involved with a squirrel or something. IF I COULD FIGURE OUT HOW TO POST PICS and if I could get her to sit still long enough for me to take a pic, I'd post one.
Now she is trying to eat a shell from the peanut I just ate. Silly Penelope. I suppose if I were a good cat owner I'd stop her. Mostly she's just licking them.

I read this article about how you shouldn't put 2 spaces between the period and the beginning of your next sentence. How hard of a habit would that be to break? Now of course I can't find the link...
Ok, well, I guess I'll leave you with that. I'll try now to include a link to my other website.

Good evening---
when i wrote that I suddenly thought of that guy from, what was it, Masterpiece Theatre. Remember when they did a send-up of that on Sesame Street? Was it Grover? Someone in a wine colored leather chair.
Okay, so I made it around the Knitblogs ring- wow, that took some time!!
I'm sitting here watching the sun go down- the sky is all pinkish orange and the tree's bare branches look black and beautiful against it... my older kitty is in the window and the kitten-ish littler one, Penelope, is on the carpet here. So nice.
I finished my MIL's b-day present last night- it's a scarf which isn't really a springy gift, now is it? But it is soooooo silky soft and touchable and I put a slit in it ala Not Martha so she can cinch it up around her neck. Given that Friday it was freezing and this weekend it snowed, and then today was in the 70's, who knows?!? maybe she will get to wear it!!
What else, what else. I am working on a washcloth, woo hoo! a lime green one for a friend who likes that color. It has eyelets around the edges and is worked diagonally. Somehow, one would think that sort of garter stitch thing would be pretty obvious, but I spent a good while trying to figure out how to a) not increase too fast and b) not have it get all puckery in the middle. I used up some wierd non-identifiable yarn I (sort of) dyed a blechy red color and made a similar washcloth but not on the diagonal and with the eyelets every other row.
Working a few full days full time has led me to the verge of a headache. I know I get small sympathy from people who work full time all the time, so I will not whine or whinge. Maybe I need new contacts.
Okay, maybe I will go putz around and try to get up a new template. Putting the knitblogs 'button' in a sort-of right place has inspired me. Sorry about that whole hassle.
-e.

Oh, I AM a bad blogger. Shame on me. Well, what has been going on in this life of mine... Well, last night I went through all my knitting projects and put away a bunch so that in the Fall or whenever I need more to work on, I can go to my big 'ol Tupperware bin and they'll be just like bran' spankin' new! See, this is because I have waaaaaay too much yarn, and very nice yarn, and waaaaaaay too many projects that need working on for me to GET any yarn or START any new patterns. I think I have startitis.
Let's review. I got out a shawl that I was working on last summer using Lorna's Laces laceweight. It's a wool silk blend in very pretty greys and pinks. It's the EZ pi are square shawl and it is taking FOREVER. Now that I'm at the end part where it's like 100+ sts at a time. So I am leaving it out to finish. Trying to decide if I should just give up on the lace patterns at the end and just do garter ho! all the way to the end or what.
Then I have out a washcloth for nice simple mindless knitting and a cotton/silk tee I'm making for my MIL. I think that's it. I have all this nice Shetland wool and I just read "Alice Starmore's Book of Fair Isle Knitting" about her take on how Fair Isle knitting began. Very interesting. I'm thinking about making the Fair Isle socks from Vogue's "Socks, Socks, Socks". When I went to Milwaukee to visit my friends, my best friend Carmen gave me free reign in a yarn store there down in Whitefish Bay (can't think of the name off hand) and I TELL YOU it took me, like HOURS to finally decide. So I got many shades of turquoise. And I just found some old Bernat Shetland yarn at the thrift store- 3 skeins of a light grey SSHHHHHHHHH!! I swear it will be my last purchase of yarn.
We went to the zoo on Friday (my school) and that was fun. I got lost at the end and that wasn't fun. I felt kind of stupid. But I did the Boy Scout thing and went back to the last place I had seen my group but that didn't do any good as I found out later- they had already moved on... So me and a 3 year old walked a hundred miles at least that day and finally we met up with everyone at the bus. Lame. Rule #1: if someone leaves the group, the group does not move or at least leaves one person behind until that said 1st person comes back. Then I felt all stupid and didn't tell my husband who I usually tell everything to and then I brooded on it because we didn't end up watching a DVD and so I got all sulky and then finally told him amidst tears. Sometimes I amaze myself. Oh well, TMI?
Back to the yarn stash. For example, yarn that I feel guilty about not having used yet; yarn my MIL got me for Christmas which is handspun. All the handspun I scored at the thrift store that is enough to make a sweater (I envision an boxy cardigan in garter with seed stitch borders and cuffs). 2 skeins of Regia in purples and blues. One skein of Mountain Colors sportweight to hopefully become socks. All this angora I want to dye. Oh, and I bought this stuff called 'Touch' by a ?German? company- it is GORGEOUS, like buttah. Like really nice velvet. Okay, that's all I can think of for now.
Put away the KNIT IT cardi as well as the second sock of my first pair of socks, plus my interpretation of Loop-d-loop's capelet...
Ah well, how I do go on... but it's a knitblog so there.
I've been busy looking at other people's blogs and I put up my other blog at http://home.attbi.com/~dwmclaughlin/ if you want to go and look at some pics of my thrift store yarn or my cat (the little one I didn't get her pic because she is so squirmy and white it makes any pic of her with our digital camera look weird).
Ciao!