Some real fiber content

According to Knitters Review the 2006 Year in Yarn calendar states that Saturday was Learn to Spin Day. But if one already knows how to spin a fairly (in my happy world) consistent skein of yarn, what are you to do?....You let the enabler in your life drag you miles away from home giving you time to finish your pair of mittens without feeling guilty that the laundry/dishes aren't getting done. Cyndy had bought this kit from http://www.countrywool.com/ for me at Christmas and I had spun and plied the wool angora blend but hadn’t had time to knit the mittens until now. Anyhow, where do you go on this trip....to go look at a spinning wheel that HE thinks is a good bargain even though you don't need another wheel as he just bought you two new wheels.

Yep, he saw an ad in the Paper Shop, called and got directions and for less than 1/2 of what a new Ashford Traditional unstained cost he bought a 10-15 year old one with the lazy kate and four bobbins, knitty knotty, and a set of carders and a bag of roving. The lady said she lived on an island in the Puget Sound and once a year the sheep of the island were gathered up and sheared and everyone sat around and spun. She had to do it!.....Fast forward and she is on the east coast now and no longer interested, fact is it doesn't look like she spent much time working on it at all. I pry could have got away with paying $50 less but didn't want to rape her, I got a deal and she got rid of something that she no longer wanted so we are all happy.

So Sunday was spent testing driving the wheel. I spun up about 1 oz of white angora and plyed that and then moved on to the merino top from Stoney Mountain Fibers that I got at Rhinebeck and I spun a full bobbin of that. Then duty called and I had to return to the doldrums of laundry and making dinner!

Monday I was able to ply the merino together and I knit up a hat from some yarn I had spun previously and the white angora. Cyndy had told me about this hat http://www.knitlist.com/95gift/ski.htm and I had tried it before but with just a knit stitch. This time I did the garter stitch and changed color on the body and blanket stitched etc. This hat actually fits me! I like this pattern because it is so versatile. Will have to do more if the kids like them. Sorry for the sideways pic but you get the idea!

What else I have done….oh illusion knitting. I found this site… http://www.knittingknonsense.com/index2.html. A friend does a lot of knitting/crochet for the Breast Cancer Awareness and this site had an illusion knit of the pink ribbon. So I decided to do it and give it to my friend so she could see it. I would be delusional if I told you I would do a lot of this type of knitting. It was very easy to do but I am not the type of knitter that likes every row changing and having to read directions constantly. I am a mindless knitter, give me a couple of rows that I can quickly memorize and I am fine. Here is a picture of illusion knit. I should have gotten down lower so it would have stood out more but you can see the ribbon.

I still haven’t finished that sock but I will eventually. I think I am going to start on another pair with Chevron Lace that I found a pattern to on the net. And I still have to finish that Lincoln roving that had been my Olympic challenge to myself. It doesn’t look like the weather is ready to change yet so I guess I will have the time.

Life

Picture is of the Snowdrops that are getting ready to open!!!!

Saw this poem on the internet....

Life can seem ungrateful and not always kind.
Life can pull at your heartstrings and play with your mind...
Life can be blissful and happy and free...
Life can put beauty in the things that you see...
Life can place challenges right at your feet...
Life can make good of the hardships we meet...
Life can overwhelm you and make your head spin...
Life can reward those determined to win...
Life can be hurtful and not always fair...
Life can surround you with people who care...
Life clearly does offer its Up and its Downs...
Life's days can bring you both smiles and frowns...
Life teaches us to take the good with the bad...
Life is a mixture of happy and sad...

and I started thinking about all the good and bad in my life recently....

GOOD----being part of a fire department
BAD-----when the pager goes off at 5 am and you realize the address they are suppose to respond to is your brother's house. Your nerves go into overdrive. Luckily they state if anyone is in the residence and it came thru that everyone was out so I was able to breath easier. Luckily it was a small smoldering fire caused by ambers falling thru the firebricks then thru a crack in the cement fireplace bottom onto one of the timbers. They are able to go back into the house and other than they can't use the fireplace and the house smelling of smoke all is well. They are able to use their oil heat and they only have to replace one inside electrical wire.

GOOD----# 1 daughter is home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BAD-------# 1 is going back on March 1 and it is going to be so hard to put her back on that plane. She has lost weight and she didn't have much to spare to begin with. She is in shopping heaven right now and pry won't have time to wear everything that she has bought before it is time to leave again but she is definitely enjoying the shopping. So much has changed in a year and spring stuff is coming out. Don't get me wrong she shopped off the internet while in Iraq but was unable to wear anything she bought and so had it sent home so when she got here it was like her own little Christmas to herself!

GOOD---- I am feeling 1,000 times better and off the meds
BAD------- They still don't know what it was. In my happy little world I say it was just a stomach virus gone really heywire. Going with this therory means I can continue to eat what I want. But I have seriously been paying more attention to what I eat just in case I start to feel sick again I know what I can blame it on!! Also to watch the cholesterol.

GOOD----Walmart is open 24 hours/day
BAD------found this out for sure when the blower motor went on our furnace on Sat. night
GOOD----After buying small heaters all was well until it was able to be repaired on Monday

GOOD----We got ne-used vehicles
BAD-------# 1 Sons car broke down and he has now put more miles on my vehicle than I have.
GOOD---- because I had a vehicle that he was able to borrow so that he was able to get to and from work and not have to give up his job, which would mean giving up his apartment which would mean him moving back home.

GOOD----The seed orders are coming in
BAD------ The wind ruined the covering on my greenhouse opening up everything inside to the elements and the weather is turning cold again
GOOD----The best guy in the world bought me another greenhouse and March is just around the corner

So...
Take the Life that you have and give it your best...
Think positive, be happy let God do the rest...
Take the challenges that life has laid at your feet...
Take pride and be thankful for each one you meet...
To yourself give forgiveness if you stumble and fall...
Take each day that is dealt you and give it your all...
Take the love that you're given and return it with care...
Have faith that when needed it will always be there...
Take time to find the beauty in the things that you see...
Take life's simple pleasures let them set your heart free...
The idea here is simply to even the score...
As you are met and faced with Life's Tug of War
http://www.storybin.com/builders/builders125.shtml

Pandora's Box

Seems I opened Pandora's Box by going to the Dr. in Januray. After being diagnosed as all is good in my world, I ended up sick this past week.

Tuesday I woke up with a back ache took some Tylenol and went to the eye doctor in this years endless quest to be healthy. Eye doctor wasn't as bad as the doctor as I had only put him off for 4 years! Seems my prescription got better though so she is not complaining. By the time I got home I had the chills and then couldn't cool down. Went to make bows for Jessica's homecoming and by the time I got home I had no thoughts other than bed.

Woke up Wednesday and made an appointment and was told it is diverticulitis, ulcer, or colitis. Ended up in the hospital that night but was released in the wee hours of the morn. Woke up Thursday morning to kiss the kids good bye and slept the whole day. On a daily regimen of 2500 mg of antibiotics.

By Friday I was feeling better and able to start eating semi solid foods. And then came Saturday...I over did it by trying to do Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday's work in one day. Sunday came and I am down again. Just woke up and I although I am feeling better I will NOT try doing a Saturday any time soon.

Needless to say my personal olympic challenge has not happen sofar. I have not spun, knit or read since Monday. I have no ambition to do so. Adding to this is the fact that #1 daughter has not called to say if she left Iraq yet. She was due to leave yesterday. I will be there to pick her up from the airport even if they roll they have to roll me in on a gurney.

The Seed Catalogs

The doctor called yesterday to tell me all the blood work/mammo results were in and everything was fine except the bad cholesterol. It was a little high, so she said to excercise more and watch what I eat. But it was raining and cold so.....

The winds may howl about the house;
I'll just burn another log--
I'll browse
And drowse
The nights away,
While perusing catalogs!

And so I did. I read, re-read, cross referenced and pared down the list until I had this years perfect seed order.

Seedsmen reckon that their stock in trade is not seeds at all ... it's optimism. - Geoff Hamilton

So today with visions of an unsurpassed bountiful garden due to the perfect amount of rain, the perfect amount of sun, the perfect temperatures and insects that eat only the weeds, I will place my seed order.

Now seeds are just dimes to the man in the store
And the dimes are the things that he needs,
And I've been to buy them in seasons before
But have thought of them merely as seeds;
But it flashed through my mind as I took them this time,
"You purchased a miracle here for a dime."- Edgar A. Guest, A Package of Seeds

Oh for the days of yore when seeds were only a dime! Now you just about have to mortgage the farm! But....

One of the healthiest ways to gamble is with a spade and a package of garden seeds.- Dan Bennett

And so one more thing off my to-do list, which by the way never seems to get any shorter. Now I just have to wait for the postman and weather to come together for this years miracle garden. Cyndy sent me this which explains it all to a tee.....

"It is the dead of winter. You have just stuffed logs into the woodstove for the seventeenth time today, and it is only nine o’clock in the morning. Outside the landscape is as exciting as a piece of yesterday’s butcher paper. With the wind chill factor it is forty-seven degrees below zero. Everything has frozen to death including the fence. You are seriously considering the logic of doing the same. Perhaps you will simply walk to the mailbox naked.But lo! What is this? A bright shining kaleidoscope beams out of the gloom and into your eye … What is this Fantasia of delight, this Xanadu of prose, this promised fairyland of spring?Why it is a garden catalog, of course. You shall open it now and, and read it cover to cover. You shall look at every glossy photograph … You shall read every word, believe every claim, desire every seed. You shall contemplate the quickening of your breath, the tingling of your veins, the thumping of your heart, the foreclosing of your mortgage. You shall, in other words, order every single plant in the catalogue. And you shall have absolutely no idea what any of them are by the time your head has cleared and UPS is trundling up your driveway. Not to mention the fact that that all the packaged plants will look exactly the same – like fettucini.It is early spring now. The UPS man has been to your home one hundred and twenty-five times since March first. He will no longer get out of the truck if you are nearby. Instead, he flings the packages out the door as if he were feeding lions at the zoo. He has a frightened look on his face. You do not blame him. You have a frightened look on your face, too. The garage no longer has room for cars. The local landfill exploded last week, spewing cardboard and excelsior over your tri-county area, and you are solely responsible. You have 9,725 plants to install before next winter, and you are not going to make it. The daylilies in box #316 have been grabbing at your ankles with their roots. Any moment now they will go for your throat. But you are still trying to figure out where to plant all the fettucini in box #65. The name on the label says it is "Eragrostis v. expensivosa as allgettoutti." But you have no idea what that means. You do not remember what any of these things are, or why you ordered them in the first place. … Some of these plants may kill you on contact. You no longer care.Outside, it will soon be ninety-seven degrees above zero and humid enough to turn wallpaper to oatmeal. It is out there that you must toil for your sins. You are doomed."From Susan Watkins, Garden Madness

She also sent me this about winter...

There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you ..... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself. - Ruth Stout

So now I am going to go hibernate like I want to. I didn't get to do much of that in January because of car shopping (hate it) and moving #1 son and shopping for him (hate it), doctors appointments etc. Good Night JohnBoy.