Let Me Say This About That

Branching out

2012-01-05T13:22:00.000-05:00

One of my resolutions for 2012 was to light a fire under my butt and do something with what I've been calling my "mom book." I started writing it years (and years) ago, but somehow life just seemed to keep getting in the way:

Changed jobs
Started knitting again
Said goodbye to one of our dogs (*sniff*)
Began learning kenpo karate
Welcomed a new dog into my heart
Visited my mother and stepfather in California
Was laid off
Took up spinning (spinning fiber, that is)
Started freelance writing and editing
Provided a variety of support to

My big bruddah, who went through a painful divorce
My husband, who had major surgery
My father, who had a stroke
My sons, who continued to be a source of delight -- and frustration (of course)

And while all this was going on, I worked on my mom book off and on. Three years ago, on a whim, I decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write a 50,000 novel in 30 days. It doesn't have to be perfect -- hell, it doesn't even have to be coherent. The purpose of this insane endeavor (insane because it's held in November, always a busy month) is so that you can prove to yourself that you can string together that number of words, relatively painlessly, by getting into a daily writing habit. So far, I've participated in NaNoWriMo in 2009, 2010, and 2011 ... and I won each of those years. Boo-yah!

Early this last December, while I was preening over my most recent NaNo win, my older son said, "Yeah, mom, but how many books have you finished writing?" I sputtered and squirmed, but the fact is that I hadn't finished any of the four ... no, wait, make that six ... books I'd started writing. Whoa.

During the last week of December, I decided that I'd try blogging my mom book. I have bits and pieces of it written, so those posts would be easy. I had chapter heads and subheads, so I had a road map of what still needed to be written. And it wasn't like I'd have to post something every day, right?

So on January 1, 2012, I clicked Publish on my first post on The Blog of Mom. The year stretched ahead of me, and I'm pretty excited to see where it will lead me.

Looking for affordable yarn? Try unraveling!

2011-12-07T16:42:00.001-05:00

NOTE: Yes, the header is a mess, but I do plan to get to it ... sometime ... and make it both legible and lovely.

Since money is extremely tight and yet I still have the need to spin and knit, I've found a new source of extremely inexpensive yarn: Goodwill. My name is Laurel, and I'm an unraveler. I have become an avid troller of the wonderful world of Goodwill for more than just new-to-me clothes. Where else can you buy a sweater's worth of cashmere for $3.50? How about 100% merino wool for $3.50? Maybe some silk for ... you guessed it, $3.50.

This past trip, I snagged a cashmere cardigan in my favorite green that fit. That baby is now mine, all mine, to have and to hold and to wear. Bwahaha!

There's an art and a science to unraveling sweaters, and I've become fairly proficient at it. At the risk of enabling local fiber aficionados to cut into my turf, I thought it might be fun to try posting a how-to. There are many, many excellent how-to's out there on the intertubes, and I am well aware of them -- seek them out if you'd like more info than I have here.

So, what do you look for? These are the basics:

It's gotta have knit seams. No matter how much you love the fiber, a sweater that has serged seams will break your heart if you have said heart set on unraveling it. A sweater with knit seams will (usually but not always) magically unzip, leaving you with opened up sleeves, a front, and a back. Sometimes you'll end up with the turtleneck or collar portion, too.
It's gotta be in good shape. A sweater that looks tired and felted will look tired when unraveled and knit up ... if you're able to unravel it at all. Believe me, I've tried unraveling semi-felted sweaters, and it's been the opposite of fun and satisfying.
It's gotta be fiber that you love. If you love working with acrylic, then by all means snag that sweater for your stash. If you prefer wool, then only buy sweaters that are 100% or mainly wool. The same rule applies to whatever fiber(s) you're drawn to.

It's important that you check labels. Touch will tell you a lot, but it's not absolutely reliable. Even cotton can sometimes successfully masquerade as silk. Equally important is the sweater's construction. Your best bets are pullover sweaters. A cardigan is going to be frustrating, because that right front (in women's sweaters) is going to have buttonholes breaking up the yarn. Sure, you can pick out the sewed edges, but the yarn is still cut. It's up to you. If you love the fiber and are willing to have lots of short runs, then go for it.

A mild-mannered sweater I found
that's super-soft, but w-a-y too tight

So, here's my donor sweater. I loved the way it felt, all soft, warm, and smooshy. Even though it didn't fit (and I wasn't really shopping for clothes that day, just yarn), I can use the yarn to make a sweater that will fit. As an added bonus, it is a turtleneck, meaning that I'll have extra yardage to fit my extra bustage once I decide what kind of top to make myself.

Excellent! A lovely blend of wool for warmth
and acrylic for less-temperamental laundering

I don't really care who makes my donor sweaters; however, I do have to say that the better-known labels tend to be attached to items with better-quality yarn. And as an aside, I don't know who The Limited is kidding. This particular sweater could be considered large only if the prospective buyer was a child. Harrumph!

Check those seams!
This is an example of a knit seam.

I liked the feel of the fabric. I liked the fiber it was made with. The next step is always to check that the seams are knitted. You can be sure you have a winner if you gently pull apart the two edges and see what looks like a ladder running up the middle. Sorry, but that's one shot I forgot to take. Experiment with sweaters you already own, and you'll see what I mean.

A seam ripper is the best tool for unraveling.
The pointy end will let you gently tease the yarn (as shown here)
without cutting it. Scissors are not nearly as forgiving.

To begin your unraveling, look at the seam, One side will be like what's pictured above. A line of V's will run up or down the seam. In this case, the Vs run from left to right. The key to remember here is "the points of the V point the way," meaning that you should be able to unzip this seam from left to right. Cut just one of those V's, then tease up a loop or two, just enough for you to be able to grab the yarn between your forefinger and thumb.

Let the unzipping of the seam begin!
As long as the sweater hasn't felted, you should be able
to just pull the thread (looks like this one is actually two,
or maybe it's two-ply?) and go.

This is the same seam, but I've pulled a couple of the stitches out. You can just see the largish holes there between the thread and where the seam picks up again. You can also see that the first V in line there is pulled kind of tight. It's about to come undone. (It was very difficult to stop and take pictures. I love ripping the seams out ... too much, maybe.)

Sometimes the pieces will pull apart, leaving loops of yarn like this.

Sometimes you don't even need to pull the yarn more than just a little bit. The pieces will just come apart, like this one did. In this case, you'll have the loopy bits that were just a moment ago chained together to make the seam.

Goodbye seam!

You'll want to hang on to bits like this, the yarn that formed the seam. Just throw it in a Ziploc bag, along with the tag (for future care reference). You never know when those bits will come in handy.

This seam, which attaches the turtleneck to the sweater body, will
unzip from right to left. Think of the Vs as arrows that point the way.

Just go along and separate the sweater into its component pieces, one at a time.

Off with its head!

This sweater couldn't have been easier to disassemble.

The tricky bit where the underarm meets the body

Often you'll find that the intersection of the underarm seam where the sleeve meets the body is kind of tricky. Just take your time and figure it out. I've found that sometimes the seaming is reinforced, which isn't a problem for the seam ripper, which is slender enough for pinpoint cutting.

Can you spot the knotted bit on the left?

In this case, I tugged on the knot that you can see on the lower left piece, just at about the 8:00 position. By pulling it out, I found that the ends had been kind of braided together. If you want you can fiddle around and unbraid these bits. Me? I just snip the knot off.

Unraveled seam thread and label: save it all

Again, save the unraveled bits and the label. Your future self will thank your present self for doing it, trust me.

Zzzzzzip!

Pick a piece, find the beginning, cut one thread (maybe two), and unzip.

The top of one of the sleeves. See the braided knot?

This sweater was perfect for a tutorial. Here's the top of one of the sleeves. The little braided bit (i.e., the beginning) was neatly tucked into the little line of Vs that forms the top of the curve.

This is a bit that you don't really need to keep.

I amputated the knot, and that released the sleeve for unraveling.

Be free!

And that's all there is to unraveling. If your pieces are very cooperative, you might be able to use a ballwinder to unravel. I prefer to wind a loose ball, then wind that with the ballwinder to take some of the tension off the yarn. Then I use my niddy-noddy to make skeins, then wash the fiber.

And that's it! From thrift store find to usable yarn. As a side note, it was all too apparent that the economy is brutal right now. Usually Goodwill has one rack full of sweaters. On this last trip, it was extremely difficult to find them. Here's hoping that things turn around. I don't really need more sweaters to unravel, but with winter setting in, many people in these parts can use affordable cold-weather clothing. All of us -- yes, I mean me, too -- need to donate things that we don't like, aren't using, don't fit, etc. Even though I may not wear the sweaters I purchase, the money I spend at Goodwill is put to good use.

My Nerd Wars dissertation: silk and fun with indigo

2011-06-21T15:21:00.000-04:00

A couple weekends ago on Worldwide Knit in Public Day I went to Greenbank Mill. Of course I'll knit anytime, anywhere; however, I was compelled to go because of one thing: an indigo dyepot.

That greenish tinge and surface scum let you know that it's good to go.

A fellow Raveler named Pallas sent an envelope of Japanese indigo seeds to me last fall. I did as instructed and put them in the fridge for the winter. Wonder of wonders, they weren't thrown out and weren't lost. What are the odds? (Hint: not good).

Here are some of the seedlings I grew and donated to Greenbank Mill's dye garden.

One of the attendees was a lovely young woman who'd brought along her wedding shawl for a dip in the dyepot. Since I'm terrible with names, I can't remember hers. I do, however, know that she's a friend of Heather, who was in charge of the day's dyeing. (For a bride-to-be, she was remarkably calm for being just 7 days away from the big event.)

Here is the before shot of her shawl (unblocked, naturally).

After a dunk in some hot water, it's ready for dyeing.

After just a few minutes, dyemaster Heather pulled the shawl out of the pot and made sure that every bit of the knitting had a chance to be exposed to the air. With indigo, you have to go on a bit of faith that the blue will magically appear. When you pull the item from the dyepot, the color is initially yellow. It's only as oxygen permeates the dye that the blue develops.

And voila, a lovely blue shawl for the bride. Everyone oohed and ahhed. Dyeing with indigo never gets old.

I hope that Heather posts pictures of her friend wearing the shawl. I'm not a girly girl and so don't get all squee-rific about weddings; however, there's just something about a handmade shawl hand-dyed with a natural plant one week before the wedding makes me just melt.

Here's my "stuff," waiting to be dyed. For this second tournament in Nerd Wars (over at Ravelry), I'm on the Supernatural Team. My project is a "dissertation," meaning that it will take me three months to complete.

So, here's the first part of my entry: nearly 1,000 yards of hand-spun unbleached Tussah silk from this year's Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival. I'm telling you, spinning that silk is just about a close to a drug-like state as I can get these days. The way it handles, the way it shines, the way it plies -- it's all just a fabulous dream. Happy happy, joy joy!

Here goes my pre-wetted silk into the hot pot.

And here it goes into the dyepot. Just look at that beautiful dark-blue scum -- mmm! (Not quite sure why the Rit dye box was there ... maybe Heather brought it along as a backup?)

Just look at that! You can see that the yarn is primarily yellow. If you look at about the 11:00 position, though, you can see where the yarn is turning blue. It must have been just above the top of the dye.

And here we go. The yellow gradually gives way to a faint blue, then a teal-ish blue.

The blue just keeps developing. Now it's more of a Wedgewood blue. We had quite a time with the skeins -- they tangled a bit and I'd tied each off just a tad too tightly. I only discovered the latter when I wound one of the dried skeins into a "cake." Oh, well. If I wanted absolute uniformity in my yarn, I'd just buy it, right?

The first dip left the yarn a bit lighter than I wanted, so it went back in for a second dip. And here it is, in all its glory.

See what I mean about the tangles? But this picture is really accurate when it comes to both the color and sheen of the yarn.

I just now took this picture, and Im not exactly happy with it. The day is overcast, and I just don't have the time or patience to futz around with settings, lighting, etc.

So there's the indigo silk yarn and the shawl I'll be making with it. The project has to relate to Supernatural, and my take on it is pretty much that shawls make me think of hugs, and those Winchester boys sure could use 'em (hugs, that is) as they hunt demons. Since I am my father's daughter, I also related Dean and Sam constantly having to leave one town for the next one to the leaf motif (get it? leaf / leave -- awful, I know).

And just another shot -- going for artsy here. Again, without changing the lighting. I do just love that macro setting, though. Up close and personal!

There you have it. Indigo dyeing and my awesome silk. I'll do my best to post progress pictures. I have through the end of August to complete my project. Guess I need to "man up" and cast on already!

Spinning thin

2011-01-23T19:30:00.000-05:00

Christmas was warm and lovely and filled with lots of fibery gifts.

This is the first fiber I decided to spin up. It's a 75%/25% blue face Leicester/Tussah silk top and it's just the softest, most wonderful fiber ... mmm!

Now when I sit down to spin, I don't make any decisions in advance. When I want to spin, I spin. I take a zen approach to it and just live in the now, loving every minute.

I've had discussions with my father, an engineer, about spinning. In his mind, I should always spin with a particular project in mind. In my mind ... well ... is nothing. I spin without a care in the world. Once I'm done, I ply to match my mood (2-ply or Navajo ply [3-ply]). After plying, I skein, tie off, and wash the finished yarn. Only when it's all dry do I discover how many yards I have. With that information and the WPI (wraps per inch) of the finished yarn in hand, I sashay over to Ravelry and use the advanced search function to see what patterns match my two specs.

My father and I will never see eye to eye on the whole issue, and that's OK.

One of my tendencies is to spin thin -- really thin. This picture shows the thickness of a single ply of the luscious BFL/silk fiber.

I'm always kind of amazed at how consistent my yarn is. I'm self-taught, so I don't know how I'm able to do this. Interestingly, I spin fast -- really fast. It's like I'm in a race. Whatever the reason, it makes me happy.

When I was demonstrating at the Hale-Byrnes House in December, one of the other spinners commented on my speedy treadling. She then added that she spins slowly so that her yarn will be consistent. (I wish I had the exact phrasing, because it was one of those pointed remarks some women are skilled at making. There's a hidden sting, but if you comment on it, you just end up looking thin skinned. I once worked with a woman who had a black-belt in this kind of verbal combat. Let's just say that she and I weren't the best of friends.) But I digress...

So here is the finished yarn. I decided to Navajo ply this because it was just so thin that I thought that a two ply wouldn't be sturdy enough for whatever it will end up being used for. Besides, I find it hard to wait until I have two bobbins. Working from both ends of a cake (i.e., a puck-shaped "ball" of yarn) is fraught with danger. I can't tell you how many times I've tried plying using this technique and had it blow up in my face.

I'm not looking for any applause here. I'm as mystified as the next person how I'm able to 1) spin so fine a single and 2) end up with such a beautifully plied yarn. Whatever the reason -- and there really doesn't need to be one, right? -- I'm perfectly content to spin thin. (I predict, though, that I'll find spinning fat to be quite a challenge.)

Playing Rev War Dress Up

2010-12-19T18:13:00.000-05:00

On Saturday, December 4, I spent the day spinning at the historic Hale-Byrnes house. I'm a native Delawarean, but I'd barely even noticed this house before I googled it. In fact, I had many, many doctor appointments at each of the medical offices that flank this house, and even so, I never saw it.

I'm not sure if this will be legible once it's posted, so here you go:

Hale-Byrnes House

Stanton, Delaware

George Washington's "General Staff Headquarters" on September 6, 1777. Here Generals Washington, Lafayette, Wayne, Maxwell, Sullivan, and Greene planned defense of Wilmington. House built circa 1750 by Samuel Hale. Owner 1776 -- Daniel Byrnes -- a miller and preacher. Restored by Delaware Society for Preservation of Antiquities. Donated to State in 1971.

A friend very kindly lent me a selection of period clothes to wear while I spun. I'm no purist, so I wasn't period-correct from the skin out. It was quite cold that day, and old houses are notorious for being marginally warmer than the outside temperature.

I'm putting aside what little vanity I have to show you, from the unmentionables out, what a woman might wear during the Revolutionary War. I did have serious thoughts about decapitating myself in these pictures but figured that looking wan and tired was also probably period-correct and so should stay.

Note, please, that any errors in description or naming are mine. My friend, K.B., who loaned me these clothes, is period-correct and knows everything ... I don't.

Here we have the shift. A woman wore this next to her skin -- no underwear, no bra. She might wear a corset or stays over her shift, but that's it. I chose not to go the period-correct route primarily because I knew there wouldn't be any "costume checkers," but also because it was pretty cold that day.

Over the shift goes the petticoat. Now I'm not sure if this is actually a petticoat or if it's a skirt. I think it's the latter, but who am I to argue? The waistband of this baby is twill tape, which means one size fit most women, regardless of girth.

Next is the "modesty." It's basically a square of fabric that's folded once to make a triangle. The small pointed ends are tucked inside the shift, and the large point is outside the shift in the back. I pinned the front ends to my bra so that I wouldn't have to worry about it creeping out of place. For a piece of cotton, it did a really good job of keeping my neck and decolletage warm.

The dog is optional.

The short jacket comes next. K.B. made this with fabric that came from Williamsburg -- pretty zippy, eh? And speaking of zips, this jacket has neither a zipper nor buttons. During the Revolutionary War era, the buttons went on the men's clothing; women's clothing was secured with pins.

Remember the song in the musical 1776, when John Adams's wife asks him to remember "pins, John ... pins"? Well, this is one of the reasons why she wanted them. It would be pretty hard to get things done if your clothes were flapping open in the breeze.

The next layer is the apron. Notice how my figure is looking more and more like a packing case? Well, a woman's silhouette was pretty much a rectangle with a head and two arms sticking out.

And the piece de resistance (sp?) is the cap. This one was a tight fit -- I don't know what I would have done if my hair were any longer than it is (about 3 inches all over). If it were a better fit and I did have long hair, the hair would be stuffed into the back part of the cap. Women wore these caps to keep their hair clean and to keep it from falling into the fire or whatever else they might have been working on. This was a practical and functional article, not (as some may think) a symbol of women's oppression by men. I don't know about you, but I sure wouldn't be happy if my hair fell into the soap vat, the fireplace, the baby's dirty diaper, or whatever else I'd have been attending to in the 1700s.

So, that was my outfit. Underneath I wore black tights, a pair of SpecialEd's black socks, and a pair of black ankle boots. Everything worked out great.

So, the next time someone asks me if I'd be willing to come demonstrate spinning somewhere, I'll know what to wear for the Rev War era. If I don't need to dress in period-appropriate clothing, then I'm good to go.

We have a winner!

2010-12-01T07:57:00.000-05:00

Wow! It's hard to believe it, but I actually churned out 50,000+ words in 30 days. Not only that, but I did it while dealing with my everyday life, which is chaotic at best. And, on top of it all, I had two rather intense freelance jobs arrive right in the middle of the whole thing.

Well, it just goes to show [me] that if I can write that much while dealing with all that, then I guess I really am a writer.

Yeah, I know. I've been earning my living for the past mumblemumble years as a writer, but I've always had to qualify the "I'm a writer" statement by adding "but not that kind of writer." Now that I've won National Novel Writing Month two years in a row, I can hold my head up and say that, yes, I am that kind of writer.

I hope that you consider NaNo'ing along next November ... or just write whenever you feel like it. I really think that we're all writers -- yes, that kind of writer.

NaNo statistics

2010-11-18T21:02:00.000-05:00

Here's how things look on Day 18 of NaNoWriMo. I'm making steady progress, true, but I'm still lagging behind in terms of per-day word count.

For reasons that are valid but won't be enumerated here, I've been NaNoing in the late [relatively] evenings, when my brain isn't usually firing on all cylinders. Somehow I need to do my "thang" earlier in the day or, as a second-best solution, earlier in the evening. I suppose I could always tape The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, but I like the idea of watching them at 7 p.m. (a repeat of the previous day's shows). Oh, well.

I'm thinking that this weekend I'll first do a broad-brush outline of the climactic scene, then grit my teeth and grind out maybe 3,000 words at one shot. That would be a serious shot in the arm, statistics-wise.

Anyway, I've included a capture of my NaNo statistics page. It's actually pretty neat. Love the graph. The numbers under the Total heading, specifically those for "at this rate you will finish on" and "words per day to finish on time" are the ones I pay attention to. Today my rate dropped from finishing on December 3 to finishing on December 4 -- one day too many, as far as I'm concerned (for some reason, I've always liked "3" -- weird). My goal from here on out is to reach 2,000/day (aside from the previously mentioned 3,000).

Onward and upward!

(Interesting note ... Today I was fascinated when a great big whack of humor showed up all on its own. I'd been sticking to fairly grim and gloomy, but maybe my so-called muse is telling me to lighten up and have some fun.)

The halfway mark

2010-11-15T22:31:00.000-05:00

I've just finished my 15th day of NaNo, and I'm only at 22,767. That's not bad, but it means that I'm going to have to get my skates on if I want to win this year. Yeah, I know -- it's not all about winning. Uh ... wait ... yes, it is all about winning.

So I've killed some characters, I've introduced some menace and mystery. I've even thrown in some romance. What to do, what to do ...

I guess what I need to do now is break out the climactic (or is that "climatic" -- har har) scene. I don't know who's going to save whom, but I sure know who's going to die. And, knowing me, the death will probably be gruesome. The worse, the better, as far as my word count goes.

Overall, I have to say that the whole NaNo experience is worth it. Putting the pressure on yourself to apply your butt to the chair and just write, day after day, is great for strengthening that discipline muscle. And who doesn't need a bit more discipline? Or a bit more muscle, for that matter?

National Novel Writing Month

2010-11-03T12:53:00.000-04:00

Day 3 = 4,504 words

It's that time of year again -- National Novel Writing Month -- and for the second year, I'm taking the plunge. Last year's entry centered around a wool mill, and, keeping with that theme, this year's entry will feature a spice mill.

Now the mills I'm basing these stories on actually exist (Greenbank Mill) or existed (the Fell Spice Mill). However, I'm taking liberties with all sorts of things, not the least of which are time and space. It's nice being master of the universe, you know?

I did learn a lesson last year, and that is to keep each day's writing in a separate file. That should make cobbling them all together into a coherent whole so much easier. I've been flailing about with the wool mill story and haven't settled on how I'm going to beat it into submission. I'm under some pressure here because two people have asked to read it. I've chosen to set aside the worries about "this is just so much crap" and instead focus on dealing with what is and quickly turning it into something I might not be thrilled about others reading but at least won't die of embarrassment after I hand it over to them.

NaNoWriMo turns out not to be scary at all. In fact, I'm entranced by the whole experience. I've heard that writers have had characters just show up and take over the story or found the story shooting off in weird, but unplanned, tangents. I'd never experienced either myself until NaNoWriMo.

The whole point is to just write. The pressure of coming up with 50,000 words in just 30 days is supposed to turn off your internal editor, who thinks that everything you write must be deathless prose. It works. Each day when I sit down to "NaNo," I just close my eyes and start writing. This morning I wrote about a thrilling robbery. Yesterday featured an unexpected comedic bit. Of course, on the first day I killed three people and sent one to an asylum.

See how much fun you can have?

It's not to late to set out on your own NaNo adventure...

From Raw to Rawr: My Silk-Spinning Adventure

2010-09-13T18:32:00.000-04:00

One of the things I bought at this year's Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival was silk.

I bought two bags of natural (i.e., not bleached) Tussah silk. Not having heard that silk is "so hard to spin," I just sat down at my wheel and gave it a whirl. I spun that silk obsessively (hmm ... seems to be the case anymore for anything I spin), including at this year's Highland Games.

Yes, I like to spin without shoes -- sue me. I'd applied a lovely shimmery gold nail polish the night before, so my toes were rockin'.

So, once I was done, I had about enough two-ply silk yarn to knit the Clementine Shawlette (pattern: Interweave Knits).

When I say about enough, I mean that it was going to be touch and go. But I do love to live life on the wild side.

So here's a closeup of my shawl. The color is a kind of really old, slightly dirty ivory -- not my best color.

The last weekend of August I attended an all-day workshop on dyeing with indigo and other natural plants. The program was held at the University of Delaware, and one of my FiberGuild buddies was there, too, so I felt a bit more comfortable. Having her there helped me avoid either of my two default settings for social nervousness: either silence or nearly nonstop talking.

I'd thought I might like to dye the shawl blue (i.e., with the indigo), but when I saw the results of the black walnut hull dyebath on another participant's silk fabric, I knew that this was the color for me.

I took this picture on a really sunny day, so the green is really way too vibrant compared to the shawl's real-life appearance.

Take a look at this. This is more what you see when you look at the finished product. There's that true silk shine!

And here's a shot of the whole shawl and the tiny ball of leftover silk. (Excuse the crappy "styling" in this photo. I was trying to get pictures as quickly as possible to keep Loki from suffering a nervous breakdown. He's such a momma's boy, and he didn't like being left inside.)

I can't wait until the next opportunity to spin myself some silk. If you haven't tried it yourself, why not give it a whirl?

You realize, of course, this means war

2010-06-02T08:08:00.001-04:00

The day started like any other. It was a beautiful, early-summer morning, and sunlight streamed into the yard. I sauntered from the back deck out into the grass, heading for my little garden.

I could see the beans working their way up the white trellis and the newly planted tomatoes squatting near the ground, gaining the strength for their explosive growth.

Gaa! What the hell was that?! The telltale hole leading under the shed ... he's back ... oh, the horror! Our elusive groundhog, Fat Bastard, was back, and he obviously was making himself at home.

I don't know that I've planted enough to be able to share.

Bugs Bunny, one of our household heroes, rarely instigated fights; however, when forced to fight, he invariably won. It remains to be seen which of us -- the novice gardener or Fat Bastard -- will be playing the role of Bugs.

Growing things

2010-05-27T11:45:00.000-04:00

This year I'm trying to grow things ... on purpose.

This is my newly claimed garden. This spot in the back left corner of our yard has always been a problem child. The ground, while fairly good, is full of rocks. The previous owners apparently used this area as a dumping ground for said rocks, shingles, pull tabs (remember those?), and other stuff they didn't feel like dealing with.

So, after I dug up the dirt and Skimbleshanks and I took turns sifting out most of the rocks and other junk, my big bruddah installed those posts and the lattice. (Very cool: the lattice is plastic ... no painting! However, once the gate is installed, that will have to be painted. Oh, well.)

This is the inside of the lattice, where my first growing thing is being very obliging and actually growing. Green beans -- mmm! I've planted them on both sides of the lattice, hoping that they'll creep their way all over it both to look pretty and to make it easier to harvest the beans.

Grow, beans, grow!

So far, I've planted lettuce, carrots, and, green peppers (seedlings).

I've planted some peas, pumpkins, and cantaloupes in a different spot, again hoping 1) that they actually grow and 2) that they'll send their vines up, over, and around a preexisting structure (swing set/fort combo). If they cooperate with my plan, the result should be pretty cool. I believe that the squirrels have been raiding the pea spot, but that's OK. What they haven't figured out is that there's another row of peas planted on the other side of the structure. We shall have to see who wins this battle of wits. Stay tuned.

On the other side of the shed I've planted some herbs. (Yeah, yeah, I know it's messy; I don't have the "tidy" gene, so sue me.)

Let's see, obviously, that's a hosta in front. Behind it is a lavender plant, and it already has one flower spike. Such excitement! I have three other lavender plants, but they didn't produce any flowers last year, the ingrates. OK, beyond the lavender is nasturtium...

... and two scented geraniums ...

The geraniums are still a bit "weedy," but I'm sure they'll fill in ... if they survive. I also have tarragon, sage, rosemary, basil (this one's a goner, sadly), thyme, and marjoram. I think that's it. It's enough, anyway.

Time to share one of my favorite growing-thing secrets. It may not be a secret at all, but when I was a kid, I just thought it was the neatest things around. So, here we have your basic honeysuckle.

At our house, this stuff is all over our fence, and it smells wonderful. So, pick a flower or two, making sure that you keep the, uh, end caps in place, like this:

Very carefully, use your thumbnail to cut the flower stem on the top side, being very careful not to cut through the ... pistil (I think that's what it's called -- the thing that grows from the cap end and extends beyond the trumpet end). Very slowly, pull the bloom and pistil apart ...

(The white flowers weren't cooperating with my little demonstration, so I had to try again with a more-cooperative yellow flower.) See that little drop of liquid? It's sugary sweet and wonderful. Yummy! Of course, you get just the barest hint of the sweetness and floral scent, but it's oh, so worth it. Another flower that will share it's nectar is the tulip poplar.

(Source: http://image48.webshots.com/48/2/11/23/2154211230089814797LGEFrk_fs.jpg)

The flower shown here is a bit too open, but you'll get the idea. Anyway, once it's open, you hope for rain. After the rain, you have to climb the tree and make it out to a blossom. Look inside and you'll find a very small puddle of sweet, sweet nectar. Climbing the tree, shinnying along its branches to the flowers, and sipping that sweet liquid is one of my favorite childhood memories. Of course, as an adult, I feel a bit queasy at the thought of just how high I climbed and how far out on those branches I went. Oh, well. Isn't there a saying about God watching out for kids and idiots? Buddha must have been exhausted every night when I was a fearless little tomboy.

Oh, one more flower. Here's a rose. This little guy just keeps hanging on by the skin of its teeth from year to year. I've decided that the kindest thing I can do for it is to just keep my distance.

And no selection of yard pictures would be complete with my constant companion, Loki.

I wanted to get a head-on shot of him, but he kept getting in my face every time I squatted down. "Me ... and my sha-dow!"

Fair Hill Scottish Games

2010-05-16T20:14:00.002-04:00

Saturday was the 50th Annual Fair Hill (Maryland) Scottish Games. The day was -- glorious!

Everywhere you looked there were men in kilts.

Nicely turned calves were in abundance.

As were nicely knitted kilt hose. My, my!

Nice socks, fella! Um, someone needs to take these lovely lads aside and explain to them that proper laddies always sit with their knees together.

I mean, seriously. The judging table for the pipe and drum bands was sitting right across from where our fiber guild was set up. So after watching each band perform, I and everyone else on that side of the field saw more manly thigh than some might deem seemly. All I can say is, thank goodness these guys were fully kitted up with their sporrans.

It was great to see so many women participating.

And girls, too.

The boys were fairly represented, too.

Hard work builds character!

Hey ... knees together, buddy.

Lots and lots of dogs attended, including this little heartbreaker. His owner very graciously allowed me to kiss his forehead and fondle his silky ears.

This is Corky, a highlands cow (I think that's the right name). He's a very sweet, placid guy, and his haircut reminds me of the one that Skimbleshanks sports. Well, to be fair, most of the 15-year-old boys wear their hair like this.

So, our fiber guild attended the games to demonstrate spinning and weaving. The loom was already prestrung as you see here. The small bobbins of grayish thread were spun by four of us throughout the day.

The finished piece, a shawl, was to be auctioned off to the highest bidder at 3:00 p.m.

Almost done!

And here it is. What a beautiful piece of fabric! Linda (holding it) was the highest bidder -- lucky her!

This is me, late in the day, spinning silk. (Photo credit: my big bruddah)

So, to recap, nice legs.

Drummers of all ages.

But all with the same intensity.

Except this guy. He was about the same size and shape as his drum, and he was rocking and rolling and having a grand time.

Pipers, too, were into the day. The guy second from the right was completely absorbed and paced throughout the tune.

So, as I wrap this up and say goodbye to the Scottish Games, I leave you with this image ...

Men in kilts ... le sigh!

MDS&W Festival Goodies

2010-05-10T11:06:00.012-04:00

Let me preface this by saying that my shopping at MDS&W was underwritten by my guilt-free money. All year long, I put my pocket change into a jar. Periodically I'll wrap the coins, then set them aside. Once a year I take everything to the bank and exchange metal for paper. I can tell you that you'll be surprised by how much accumulates in one year. Oh, it also helps if your spouse puts his money in the jar, too. So, thanks to the money jar and a wonderful surprise gift from Ed, I was able to feed my fiber need.

Wonderful tussah silk -- I'm spinning this up right now, and it's absolutely wonderful. I thought that silk would have a fairly short staple (don't ask me why), but it's long, lustrous, and, well, silky.

Cotton -- This I'll be spinning on my charka. The cool thing about cotton is that you set the twist (or finish it or whatever it's called) by boiling your skeins. The cotton Ed gave me with my charka turned from a kind of light mildewy ivory to a beautiful olive color as I watched. Cool!

Blueface Leicester -- I bought a bag of this to see what all the fuss is about. Some people talk about BFL as if it were a miracle or the be-all end-all. Well, I've spun all this up (~525 yards, 2 ply), and it was wonderful to spin. I'm looking forward to my next encounter with this fiber.

4-pitch English wool combs -- A woman on Ravelry was offering this set for sale, pickup to be at the festival. I've wanted wool combs for a while now. In fact, I made a set myself, based on instructions I found on the interwebz. I used nails, and they worked fairly well, except I had to hold both of the combs and wound up straining muscles in my forearms. Not good. I've used these new combs (which were available at less than half the current going rate for a set like this), and I'm ecstatic. They do what they're meant to do. And I haven't impaled myself yet!

Duster, niddy noddy, needle/project tubes, and hand-comb cleaner -- Since we live between two major highways, the dirt is a constant presence. And since I don't have the necessary housekeeping gene to keep things from getting out of hand, we need all the help we can get. So far I've been really happy with my little duster -- this is not to say that I like dusting, though. The mini niddy noddy (say that 10 times fast) will be a great addition to my spinning tools. The needle/project tubes should help keep me from tearing my hair out over missing needles and socks that have tried to escape their needles before they're done. The tiny hand-comb cleaner (touted to me by the Mr. Strauch himself, no less) will be so much more efficient than using a junk needle to pick out the leftover bits from my combs.

WPI tool and shawl pin -- I've been trying to make my own WPI (wraps per inch) tool, and it just wasn't working for me. Bill Hardy, who has the most wonderful wood products imaginable, solved that problem nicely. The shawl pin will be a wonderful addition to the black one I have. These little things are unbelievably useful.

Soap, The Complete Guide to Natural Dyeing, measurement cards, earrings -- I just love the smell and feel of handmade soap, so Leslie's Garden was my first stop after the Little Barn. The book and cards I bought at The Mannings and should be interesting and helpful, each in their own way. The earrings were a happy find. They're old typewriter keys -- one is the ;/: key and the other is the @/[cent symbol] key. Since I'm a writer, I did a happy dance right in that vendor's booth.

And that's it. A year's worth of fiber-related goodies, all purchased with my guilt-free money. Hmm ... I was at the store this morning. Time to start filling that jar again!

More MDS&W Festival

2010-05-10T10:20:00.020-04:00

I'm trying something new and uploading all my pictures first, then adding text. We shall see if this way works better (i.e., makes me feel less like chewing off my own hands).

For me, the highlight of the festival is always -- always -- the animals. I don't know why, but this part never gets old. Here's some sort of long wool (I think) getting a touch up. I finally got up the nerve to ask this woman why the sheep didn't just kick her through the wall, especially since she was working around his ... um ... tender bits. She told me that sheep don't kick. Really? No, seriously ... really? Wow!

This guy is going incognito to keep clean. I felt so bad for him (or her) because it was so hot.

I worked up the courage to ask the man tending these sheep why they were wearing clothes. I figured it was to keep them clean, and it was. However, they wear these sweaters or jammies to keep their skin taut, which is, the man said, a good thing. Huh. Learning new things all the time.

Just look at that black wool. Yummy...

Hello to you two, too!

At about 3:00, I headed to where the sheep dog demonstration would be held. Unfortunately, I had to schlep there from the opposite end of the fairgrounds. Between the heat and the crowds, I was fairly tired by this point.

This woman had a microphone clipped to her shirt and told us everything she was going to do and why. This was a great part of my day, both because I was able to sit on the cool grass in some shade, and also because a little boy of about 1 or 2 decided to plonk himself down on my lap to watch the demonstration. The father was a bit anxious that his son was bothering me, but I told him that, since my "babies" are now 12 and 15, having such a little guy want to spend time with me was a treat.

Once the demonstration was over, I turned around to see this. Ugh. A sea of people, and many, many more in all the buildings. Still, this is a once-a-year deal, so I set out to take a look at the main exhibition hall again. (I'd missed seeing a lot when I was hurrying to get to the Little Barn.)

This exhibitor was just inside the main door. They were from some sort of coverlet museum in Pennsylvania. What stopped me in my tracks is that my father has two of these coverlets, which have been in his family for umpteen years. I'll have to have him haul them out so that I can photograph them. I sure can't actually use them, not in this house!

Here's a yurt. Those panels are felted wool, thick and heavy.

Inside the yurt, you can see the way the thing goes together. Don't ask me how they get the panels up onto the roof.

Even though it was very hot, it was quite cool in the yurt, and there was a wonderful breeze coming in through the doorway and up and out the top. I think I want a yurt of my own. I know that Ed wants one, too. Maybe we can get a yurt for ourselves and leave the boys and dogs to take care of themselves.

By this point, I had to sit down and take my shoes off. Yes, I was wearing hand-knit socks of wool. I felt less like a bum sitting there with my shoes off since I had my Kai-Mei (pattern by Cookie A.) socks on.

Where I was sitting (back where that woman is with the red tank top, I was able to admire the alpacas, including this guy.

And this one, too.

The pen next to the alpacas had llamas. I kept my distance, though, since our family history includes an incident of llama spitting on my brother. No spit for me, thanks.

And this is my haul. Man, were my shoulders aching by the end of the day. Once I resize the pictures, I'll do another post to show off my goodies.

I'm starting to really hate Blogger

2010-05-04T12:15:00.006-04:00

Cranky alpaca is not amused.

I am not a patient person when it comes to technological issues. Blogger has been belching and farting and generally being nasty and uncooperative. I'm working on posting about my ... um ... "fascinating" adventures at this year's Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival and will keep trying.

If you hear a keening on the wind, that'll be me.

2010 Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival

2010-05-04T11:41:00.028-04:00

This past weekend was the annual Sheep & Wool Festival in Maryland. If you're not into sheep, wool, or festivals, then you'll probably want to move along.

Saturday morning, I traveled to the springtime mecca for fiber enthusiasts: the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival. With my new friend, Pam, driving, Brenda in the shotgun position, and Linda in the back with me, we drove for about an hour and a half to the fairground.

We took the exit and got in the slow-moving line with the rest of cars inching toward the fairgrounds entrance. The Jeep in front of us sported a few gun-loving bumperstickers, including one that said something like, “I’ll keep my money, my Bible, and my guns, and you can keep your change.” Not an Obama lover, then.

After about 15 minutes or so, we turned into the hilly field where dozens – hundreds? – of cars were already parked. Once we parked, I took a couple of pictures of the view from our spot toward the fair proper in case we’d need help finding it again when we were ready to leave.

Now I’m an impatient walker. At an event like this, I’m not in the mood for strolling along right out of the gate. So as soon as we passed the front gate (no admission charge – yippee!), I made right for the second tent, where the festival booklets were laid out. Smart people that they are, the festival organizers include in their booklets a postcard that you can send in, requesting that they mail you next year’s booklet as soon as it’s available. This time I’ll try to remember to do that.

Right at the top of my list this year was cotton for spinning on the charka WonderfulEd gave me for my birthday this year. The one vendor that I know who carries bags of carded cotton is the Little Barn. That’s good. What’s bad is that they’re in the Main Exhibition Hall, right at the end of the main drag. And they’re right at the far end of the hall, too.

So, saying that I’d catch up with them later, I left Pam, Linda, and Brenda, and kicked it into high gear for the Main Exhibition Hall. On the way, I made a pit stop, having downed my usual two diet Cokes (with caffeine) on the drive down. The wait wasn’t too bad, and the bathroom was wonderfully clean. (The staff at the fairgrounds does a superb job of keeping the facilities clean – kudos!)

A woman who walks like she means business is one who gets where she wants to go. I made it to and through the hall in good time. I made my selections pretty quickly (cotton, silk, and some bluefaced Leicester, just to see what the fuss is all about) and went to pay.

Interestingly, a line snaked out of the booth and nearly all the way to the other side of the hall, where the exhibition fleeces were laid out. Yep, that was the line to pay.

Note: It’s been my experience – so far – that fiber people are among the friendliest and most honest people you’re going to meet. It would have been so easy to have just lost myself in the crowd with my stuff before I’d paid for it. Heck, we *all* could have made off with things from any of a number of vendors’ booths. But that sort of thing just isn’t done. I don’t know about you, but I like being able to sleep at night with a clean conscience.

So, I had a nice conversation about socks with the woman in front of me and showed off my Kai-Mei socks (Sock Innovation by Cookie A) and then paid cash for a 10% discount. Even though I’d dropped my camera (no damage, thank Bob), I was very happy with my visit to the Little Barn.

Saturday was h-o-t, and even though the fans in the hall were huge and working hard, everyone was sweating by 11. Since my personal thermostat seems to be broken, I did more than my fair share. I’m sure that’s more than you care to know about that part of the festival.

So, I wandered over to the fleece display, whose entrance and exit were each guarded by two volunteers.

Bags and bags and bags of wonderful fleece, just begging to be taken home. I fondled and groped, along with everyone else.

Fortunately for my back, I remembered that whatever I bought would have to be schlepped around the fairgrounds until we left, sometime after 6. So I squeezed out the exit (they were quite serious about making sure no one left with something they shouldn’t) and headed back through the hall.

Fiber ready to be spun, yarn, accoutrements, books, baskets, buttons, wheels, spindles, looms – it’s all a bit much to take in at one go. I left the hall with a little difficulty, squirting out through the mass of humanity like a wet bar of soap. This is one of the very few instances where I’ll make an exception to my overall avoidance of crowds. Hate ‘em. They make me muy cranky.

I went next door and began admiring the sheep. So many different sizes and appearances. I know next to nothing about sheep, so this part of the festival is one I particularly love. And if the sheep are interesting, they’re owners are even more so.

This man, who's giving his sleepy sheep a touch up, had driven with his flock (note I didn’t say “had driven his flock”) all the way from California. Dang!

One man, seeing how much I was enjoying the breeze from the jet-sized fan, struck up a conversation with me. He started by telling me all about Jacob sheep and their biblical origins. (These guys were fairly "busy," and since I didn't want to blind them with a flash, we've got that crappy blurred snapshot thing going here. Sorry!) Then he told me how his ancestor had been given the deed to his property by William Penn himself. Dang, again!

Since it was getting close to time for me to meet my wool combs connection from Ravelry, I stood in line to buy a gyro. After 5 minutes and no sign of movement in that line, I gave up and hustled over to the Dining Hall.

Linda (from Ohio) told me that she was one of a group that would be wearing “I’m with Hotpants” tee shirts, and there she was, standing right near the door. Um, OK, so that wasn’t her, but the woman sitting on the bench *was.* (That's Linda on the left, Mr. Hotpants in the center, and Linda's friend on the right -- pic is from Ravelry.)

She was very nice and wanted me to check the combs to be sure I was happy with their condition. Believe me, at $70 for the whole shebang, I would have been thrilled with them, even if they’d had their own little colony of cockroaches (a la my very first treadle sewing machine – fortunately, I found the little buggers before I brought the machine in the house and smashed each of those suckers flat).

Combs in hand and a smile on my face, I went into the blessed air conditioning of the Dining Hall to listen to Jackie Bland talk about “the 40 manifestations of fleece.” One hour and one power bar later, I felt refreshed and a bit more knowledgeable than I had before listening to Jackie.

Fiber fans: the best gift you can give yourself or someone else is Jackie’s fleece study. You’ll receive 40 one-ounce samples of different fleece. They’re raw, so you get to/have to wash them before you either spin them yourself or have a friend of yours do it for you. By the time you’re done, you’ll have filled your notebook (provided) with insight about what you like and what you don’t like about the different fleeces. Go. Now. Buy it. WonderfulEd loves me and gave it to me two Christmases ago. I love him, too.

More to come ...

The magic of spinning

2009-12-30T13:50:00.004-05:00

"Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."

--Forrest Gump

"It would be terrific if life were like a box of chocolates. You'd know that you'd always get ... chocolate."

--Me

One of the things I love the most about spinning is that I never know quite what I'm going to get. In this picture, you can see the original fibers (left), then the singles as spun (center), and then the final product (right), Navajo-plied yarn. I really wasn't sure what the final product was going to look like. Was it going to be orange-y? Was it going to be dominated by that rather drab tan? Was the burgundy going to overwhelm everything else?

Who knows? Not me, that's for sure.

As is usual for me, I spun a very fine single. Don't ask me why -- it may be my anal-retentive nature to squeeze every last inch of fiber out of the original roving. (Sorry about that analogy. Moving right along ...)

Edited to add: This roving was from Louet, but this particular colorway (Thunderstorms) is no longer available, apparently.

So I thought about making a two-ply yarn but realized that if I did, it would be fairly "meh." Then I decided to try Navajo plying. It would give me a three-ply yarn, which would be nice and sturdy. However, I was a bit nervous about what the final product would look like.

No worries, it turns out. The yarn is a wonderful earthy blend of green, brown, red, and blue. I don't know if the photo really does it justice. (That's natural light, folks, but I guess way too much of it.)

I'm now working on spinning up some pin-drafted roving I received back from Fibers4Ewe on Christmas Eve, appropriately enough.

And even though I don't know what I'll get, it'll all be chocolate for me!

Google's got the spirit

2009-12-21T11:52:00.003-05:00

You'll have to click to embiggen the picture.

Google is donating millions to charity -- for me, and for you, too.

Love the Google.

Snow!

2009-12-19T16:14:00.006-05:00

It's been snowing nonstop since the wee hours of the morning, and we have about 10 inches. Now, at just after 4 in the afternoon, it's murky outside, and snow just keeps coming.

I bought shovels (yes, plural) at Costco yesterday, along with two pairs of boots for the boys. This winter I won't be shoveling alone. We now have 3 good shovels instead of 1 good one and 1 or 2 crappy ones.

But I can't really complain too much about the snow. At about 2 this afternoon we got a call from our neighbor. She'd fallen and thought she'd broken her wrist. She's already somewhat frail and is using oxygen. The worst part? She was upset because she didn't want to be a bother. It makes me teary just thinking about it. I would do anything for her, and she would do the same for us. There's just something about being a strong individual and having to ask for help that's so demoralizing, somehow.
If I could have, I would have driven her to the ER myself. Instead, two of her friends arrived, one in a Jeep. We bundled my neighbor into her own all-wheel-drive car with one friend, and the other followed in his Jeep. And while the cars were being sorted out, down our street came a "cowboy." I refer to those idiots who have nothing better to do on dangerously snowy days than to drive way too fast on the dangerous neighborhood streets in their 4x4s, usually alone, often without their lights on. And you know what the friend with the Jeep had been doing all day? He'd been a real cowboy: he'd been driving around helping people who had become stuck in the snow. That's the difference between a "cowboy" and a cowboy. The former is in it for himself (I've yet to see a woman "cowboy," although I'm sure they're out there). The true cowboy is all about helping other people.

So now I'm going to make some hot chocolate for the boys, set up my spinning wheel, and listen to a good book. It's a nice feeling to be safe and warm. I hope that you're staying safe and warm, too.

Criminal mind

2009-12-11T14:44:00.003-05:00

I just love me some Captain Tightpants!

This picture amuses me because Nathan Fillion looks like he means business. I thought it would be an appropriate image to go along with a quick post to say that I, too, mean business.

My novel is still deep in the throes of the climax, but then again, the action is being described on three fronts, four if you count the baddie. I don't want to get too much into his head, though, because it's a scary place to be.

Anyway, I'm now up to 59,347 words.

I'm also feeling less of a poser when I say, "I'm writing a novel." Even if it never sees the light of day, what I'm writing truly is a novel.

And I've finished today's writing a mere 10 minutes before da boyz come bursting through the door and the weekend officially begins.

Life is good!

Just keep writing

2009-12-03T21:19:00.003-05:00

Having spent a month working toward a 50,000-word goal, I'm finding it hard to stop.

Rather than fighting it, I'm giving in to what seems to be common sense and setting a new goal: 100,000 words in however many days it takes for me to get there.

I'm still trying to get all my characters to their proper spots for the climax, and they're coming along. However, it's taking some words and some time to get them from their respective point A to point B.

The weather, however, is cooperating beautifully. If there's one thing the weather around here can do, it's whip itself into a frenzy of a thunderstorm. I've lived through quite a few and there were one or two that I wasn't sure I would. So let's just say that I'm going to pull out all the stops and gleefully rain on my own parade.

It feels good to be a winner

2009-11-30T15:35:00.005-05:00

We've done the impossible, and that makes us mighty.

--Captain Malcolm Reynolds, "Firefly"

I've climbed the 50,000-word mountain (50,932 ... and I haven't even finished the story yet).

What an awesome experience. And to think, just 30 days ago I had neither plot nor characters. All I had was an idea that involved a local historical mill and a gruesome murder or two. Now, 30 days later, I have characters, scenes, dialogue, way too much description, and three murders.

Even though the prospect of writing 1,600+ words each day for 30 days was intimidating, I found it to be actually fairly easy. Once I'd trained the boys, dogs, and spouse that "I'm NaNo-ing" meant that I'd be busy for the next half hour to 45 minutes, it was so easy to just close my eyes and type what floated into my head.

Of course, now I need to finish the story (I stopped before the most exciting part, which is guaranteed to keep me writing), then go back and flesh everything out. I mean, I have two male leads and two female leads, and the villain is about as easy to spot as a chocolate stain on your favorite white shirt.

From what I understand, a so-called average novel is about 100,000 words, so I'm a little more than half-way there. I'll be using what I learned from taking Holly Lisle's "How to Think Sideways" course (thank you, Holly!). I'll also be using Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake Pro software (both easy and fun to use -- thanks, Randy!).

Most of all, I'll be using the self-confidence that accrued during the last 30 days.

Now when I tell people that I'm a writer and they ask what I write, I can tell them that, in addition to the business, technical, and marketing writing, I'm also a novelist. Life is good!

NaNoWriMo: I may have to kill someone

2009-11-25T19:25:00.004-05:00

I'm up to 42,278 words. Only five more days to go.

Things in my story have become a bit placid, so I'm thinking it may be time for someone else to die. It has been a while since there's been any blood and/or gore, and it's a sure way to get things moving.

Hmm.

Of course, a kidnapping would work just as well, as would a love scene. I don't know, though. Blood and gore don't really faze me, but writing a love scene might cause problems. Did young people in the 1800s have sex? Well, obviously they did, or we wouldn't be here, right? What I mean is, did they really roll in the hay or was their world more like that of Twilight -- all deep, soulful glances and no action?

Maybe I'll just start writing and see what happens. I'm finding that what the NaNo founder said is absolutely true: Your writing will take you places you had no idea you'd go. I'm finding this whole process is much less onerous that I was afraid it would be. Turns out I can bang out 1,600+ words in less than an hour, easy.

I write at the super-awesome built-in desk my brother built for me. Sitting in my $25 wheelie chair from IKEA, I just lean forward, rest my forehead against the bottom of the first shelf, close my eyes, and put the pedal to the metal. (I'll say it again: Learning to touch type was the single most valuable skill I gained in high school. Bar none.) I just let the characters talk and it's almost like taking dictation. Naturally, I don't worry about spelling, punctuation, or any of that; that all waits for phase 2.

News you can use: If you ever want to stomp your muse flat, then try writing and editing at the same time. Trust me. You'll be blocked worse than if you ate a chunk of cheese as big as your head.

Time to go start making pumpkin pie. I also need to give that turkey a poke. I have a feeling that it's not thawing at all. Maybe I should have moved it from the freezer to the fridge last month.

Happy thanksgiving tomorrow to all, and happy birthday today to SpecialEd!

Right on target ... and brownies!

2009-11-23T16:27:00.005-05:00

With just one more week to go in National Novel Writing Month, I'm right on target: 38,302 words today, 50,000 a week from today.

World's Best Brownies -- Seriously

The recipe for these brownies comes from The Great Book of Chocolate by David Lebovitz. SpecialEd and I have tried a lot of brownies (he's the baker, I'm the taster, of course), and these are by far the best. They're cakey and fudgey and perfect. You're welcome.

Dave and Kate's Remarkable Brownies
Yield: 16 brownies (who is he kidding? 6 to 8 is more like it)

8 Tbsp unsalted butter (1 stick)
4 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1 C sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
6 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 C walnuts or pecans, toasted (don't skip the toasting) and chopped
1/2 C semisweet chocolate chips

Butter an 8-inch square cake pan and lightly dust it with flour, tapping out any excess. Adjust the oven rack to the center of the oven and preheat it to 325 degrees F.

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter. Add the chopped chocolate and stir over low heat until melted. Remove from the heat and mix in the sugar, then the eggs and vanilla.

Stir in the flour and salt, then the nuts and chocolate chips. Scrape the brownie mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

*The cutting will go much more smoothly if you can curb your impatience and wait for the brownies to cool completely. Ask me how I know. Also, the author says that they can be stored at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 3 days. Right, like there'll be any hanging around that long.

I can bend time and space

2009-11-19T13:34:00.002-05:00

Day 19 of National Novel Writing Month

Hard to believe that 12 days from now it will be the first of December and NaNoWriMo 2009 will be over.

I'm not finding the going that difficult. Of course, all I have are a bunch of scenes that have the most tenuous of connections to the ones that precede and follow. I'm not fussed about that, though. I know that editing and writing are two different disciplines and are best kept separate. Besides, I do believe that there's a National Novel Editing Month to go along with NaNoWriMo. If there isn't there should be.

I've been having fun with this. Let's see ... I've killed two people -- nastily, if I do say so myself. I've got a few somewhat flat characters, including the bad guy. I had a cop show up out of the blue and try to highjack my story, turning it into a who-done-it rather than the basic historical fiction thriller (?) that I'm aiming for. Fortunately, he's gone back to the office and hasn't been heard from since. I imagine that if I kill anyone else, he'll come calling.

Right now I have 1 hour and 20 minutes before Skimbleshanks and BuddhaBoy arrive, and all hell breaks loose (a daily occurrence in our house). I've done my daily quote of NaNo, so now it's back to my current engineering report.

TTFN!

NaNoWriMo

2009-11-13T20:43:00.003-05:00

This year I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month. On day 13, I'm up to 19,981 words; the goal is 50,000 words by November 30. That's not a bad number, considering that on the first of the month I really had no plot and no characters.

The story is set sometime after the Civil War in a small mill town. A series of horrible murders leads a young woman to stumble into a web of secrets that will endanger her life (of course), lead her to love (why not?), and ultimately shake the town to its very core.

Not much to live up to there, eh?

I did have a lot of fun the other day writing about the first murder victim. It's kind of a rush being able to decide who lives, who dies, and how they die. I must say that SpecialEd was a bit put off by how much I was enjoying it.

I'm really, really glad that learned how to touch-type in high school. It's one of the best skills you can have, if you ask me. And back then, who knew every home would one day have not just one but multiple computers? Anyway, when I write, I just lean my forehead on the front of the bookshelf above my desk, close my eyes, and let the movie and soundtrack unroll in my mind. My fingers do a great job keeping up with my thoughts.

It really is a lot of fun, and since I'm the only one who's being exposed to my writing, the potential damage to anyone's delicate sensibilities is minimized. Writing really is fun once you give yourself permission to just write. Maybe next year I'll set out to write the most awful book ever written. I already have the first sentence, which I've borrowed from Edward Bulwer-Lytton: "It was a dark and stormy night."

More autumn awesomeness

2009-11-08T15:14:00.005-05:00

Greenbank Mill, Wilmington, Delaware.
Photo 1: The barn and split-rail fence.
Photo 2: The wool mill.
Photo 3: Another view of the barn.

Wilmington & Western Railroad's steam train, Wilmington, Delaware.

(Sorry about the layout. If anyone can explain how I can work with Blogger so that it's less painful -- right now it about the equivalent of having a root canal w/o anesthesia -- please let me know!)

Autumn is awesome!

2009-10-29T13:52:00.005-04:00

This little guy was waiting for me on the doorframe when I went outside yesterday.

I just love woolly bear caterpillars. I love their bristly "fur" and their slightly sticky little feet. I love that when they curl up, the best they can do is a circle because of their fur, which also holds them above whatever surface they're resting on.

I've never followed woolly bear prognostication, but here's what I found with some amateur-level google-fu:

Some people believe that the Woolly Bear caterpillar can tell if the winter is going to be mild or rough. If the stripe on the woolly bear is narrow, it means the winter is going to be mild. If the stripe on the caterpillar is wide, it means the winter is going to be easy.

Whatever. I just know that fall is in the future, as is winter. This will be followed by spring, and then summer will be back once again. And yet, each year each season seems to be a surprise.

Bizarre Days and Holidays: November

2009-10-19T14:18:00.003-04:00

Here, for your early-planning convenience, are some of the more interesting days in November.

1 All Saints Day
World Vegetation Day
National Author’s Day
Zero Tasking Day

2 Plan Your Epitaph Day
National Deviled Egg Day
Look for Circles Day
All Souls Day
Cookie Monster Day

3 Cliché Day
Sandwich Day
Housewife’s Day

4 Waiting for the Barbarians Day
National Chicken Lady Day
Use Your Common Sense Day

5 National Men Make Dinner Day
Gunpowder Day

6 Saxophone Day
Marooned Without a Compass Day

7 National Bittersweet Chocolate with Almonds Day
International Tongue Twister Day
Book Lover’s Day

8 Cook Something Bold and Pungent Day
Dunce Day

9 Chaos Never Dies Day

10 Forget-Me-Not Day

11 Air Day

12 National Pizza with the Works Except Anchovies Day

13 National Indian Pudding Day
World Kindness Day

14 Operating Room Nurse Day
Young Readers Day

15 National Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day
America Recycles Day
I Love to Write Day
National Philanthropy Day

16 Button Day
Have a Party with Your Bear Day

17 Take a Hike Day
World Peace Day
Homemade Bread Day

18 Occult Day

19 Have a Bad Day Day
World Toilet Day

20 Absurdity Day
Beautiful Day
Universal Children’s Day

21 World Hello Day
False Confessions Day

22 Start Your Own Country Day
Go for a Ride Day

23 National Cashew Day
Eat a Cranberry Day
You’re Welcome Day

24 Use Even if Seal Is Broken Day
D.B. Cooper Day

25 National Parfait Day

26 Thanksgiving Day

27 Pins and Needles Day
Buy Nothing Day
Shopping Reminder Day
Flossing Day

28 Make Your Own Head Day
Red Planet Day

29 Square Dance Day

30 Stay at Home Because You’re Well Day

There are a number of sites out there with wonderful, wacky holidays. One of the best is http://www.brownielocks.com/NOVEMBER2009.html. I found some of the holidays at these sites, too: http://library.thinkquest.org/2886/nov.htm and http://www.rickroot.com/blog/1/2005/02/Bizarre-American-Holidays.cfm.

And she says she's not creative

2009-10-08T09:43:00.002-04:00

My friend Lisa sent this around to the gang this morning and suggested I post it here, since I enjoyed it so much.

Here is part of the home page for J. Crew.

I was stunned and disturbed to read the tag line, "The Answer to Your Pant Prayers."

First of all, who prays for pants? Are we really that shallow that we must appeal to God for the latest fashions?

Secondly, who in their right mind would pray for THESE pants? (Note that the model herself looks a bit deranged.)

The prayer have gone something like this:

"Dear God, please smite the designers at J Crew with the fashion sense of a drunken hobo so that they will produce pants that 1% of the women in America could feasibly wear but that 90% of the population will think they can wear. Please make these pants so form-fitting that our butt cheeks, panty lines, and camel toes will be visible to all, and so short that we look like we're waiting for the next tsunami, AMEN."

Beyond Words

2009-08-14T09:15:00.002-04:00

Sweet Sue's Whole Canned Chicken

Words fail me ... almost: Just think of the sound it makes when it comes out of that can.

Natalie Dee Is One of Us

2009-08-02T12:42:00.003-04:00

What style of karate do you like?

2009-06-05T14:07:00.002-04:00

I think that hamster style rocks!

Mars Real Chocolate Relief Act

2009-05-15T11:51:00.004-04:00

If it's free, it's me.

This is the real deal. An article about how you can get free, delicious chocolate is here. The site where you register is here. Go. Now.

Chocolate: It's what's for breakfast ... lunch ... and dinner.

Washing and Carding Raw Fleece

2009-04-30T19:04:00.055-04:00

Springtime ... the daffodils and forsythia are blooming, so it must be time to process some fleece.

Time to make a beauty out of the beast. Start with a cold-water bath for about a week -- just a fleece and rainwater. You just leave it alone -- no playing with the fleece unless you want to tempt the felting gods. After a week, the sheep dip becomes pretty aromatic; however, the results are worth it. The fleece rinses off nice and clean, with very little Eau de Barnyard.

Next, dry the fleece using your method of choice. Mine is to drape it over some tree branches in the back yard. The neighbors are not amused but not worked up enough to ask me what in the world I'm doing. It works out well, because I'm not amused when they burn sticks, leaves, and whatever else they've got in a barrel in their back yard. Last I checked, we're smack in the middle of suburbia here, not out in the sticks. But I digress...

So now I have a bucket (a couple, actually) of dry chunks of mystery fleece. It's time to turn those chunks into puffballs.

First, I grab a handful of fibers and pull them apart, grabbing one bunch of ends in one hand and the other bunch of ends in the other hand. You can see that the ends are starting to fluff out in that third picture. I do the pull-apart one more time, and now I have a lovely handful of fiber ready for the drum carder.

Next, I turn the carder's handle and let the big drum pull small bits of wool from my hand. Putting the prefluffed wool directly on the large drum is much easier or both me and the carder than trying to feed it through the licker-in (smaller wheel). So, once the large drum appears full, I insert the doffer at the seam where the ends of the carding cloth meet. Once I've levered the doffer up and through the wool (second picture), I switch to a small knitting needle and gently doff the wool from the teeth every couple inches or so. The fourth picture shows that the wool from this round of carding is only about halfway aligned.

Now I feed small bunches of the wool into the carder via the licker-in. You can see the detritus in that smaller drum. Periodically I'll use the knitting needle to clean out between the teeth, using the fibers as a mulch for my potted herbs.

OK, so after feeding in a reasonable amount of fiber (meaning that I can still see the teeth), I doff that bit and call it good. Sometimes I'll run the wool through a third time, depending on how much stuff is in it. Now the wool is all clean and aligned. Nice!

To make the wool "bumps," I tear the roving in half lengthwise and put half aside. I wrap the other half loosely around my hand, then pull the end into the middle of the bump. Viola!

So there it is -- again: beast to beauty. (It looks like this might become an annual post.) I just love the miracle that happens between shearing and spinning.

Something for Nothing

2009-03-31T12:53:00.007-04:00

The little girl in this picture is Veruca, the mascot of the Selfish Knitters group over at Ravelry. Rock on, Veruca!

This morning I was trolling the job boards, seeing if there was work out there, just waiting for me to snap it up.

I found all sorts of postings at Elance -- lots and lots of jobs. There were writing and editing jobs galore. Oh, boy! Once I checked each for more information, however, a trend became painfully clear: the people who post these jobs seem to think that writers and editors are willing to just give their work away. For example, one job was offering $10/hour. Seriously? Um, I made $10/hour when I was right out of college, and that was nearly 26 years ago. Dudes, seems to me that since you're hiring people to provide contracted services, you can afford to pay more than that. Heck, since you don't have to cough up for health-care insurance, vacations, disability, overhead, and other expenses, you're really being chintzy with the pay.

Then I took a look at the number of bids each job had. That was an eye opener, let me tell you. One job alone had 37 bids -- 37! Most of the postings had bids in the double digits. Hmm. What's up with that?

The writers are really good and can whip out the assignments on a dime ... uh ... without research or author revisions?
The writers are desperate for work and willing to work for peanuts.
The writers are looking at these low-paying gigs as a possible way to land a "real" job.

Vaguely unsettled, I checked out one of the "write for us and you'll make money and get known" sites. At first I was pretty excited. I could become the go-to gal in the area for information about, say, knitting or fiber-related information. I could also generate more by-lines, which I didn't have, despite years of working in the business-writing field. When you write annual reports, white papers, and application notes, your name doesn't get listed anywhere -- well, not anywhere public, anyway.

So I was ready to learn more about what I'd need to do. I read the get-to-know-us copy (a sales pitch, of course) until I hit these two points:

Writers are expected to post articles 3 to 4 times each week.
Writers are not paid.

I don't know about you, but I don't have a lot of extra time on my hands during which I can bang out that number of articles each week. Even if they're all opinion pieces, each one takes a bit of time to craft (yes, I do mean "craft"). And what extra time I do have is devoted to -- surprise! -- my family. As well, I don't give it away -- certainly not 3 to 4 times a week -- with just the promise of maybe making some pocket change.

So, to sum up, let me make my position clear:

I am a seasoned professional and am darn good at what I do.
I love writing and editing and welcome opportunities to flex those muscles.
I enjoy learning new things and sharing the information with others.
I am not willing to work for peanuts.
I am not willing to work for free unless it's for a nonprofit organization whose work I support.
I am not willing to crank out great articles that you can use to bolster your site and line your pockets with green while giving your contributors mere copper.

If that makes me selfish, then you can just call me Veruca.

Words Hurt

2009-03-24T11:20:00.002-04:00

"Our language frames how we think about others." --Special Olympics

Words can help, and they can hurt, too. One week from today, the folks at Special Olympics are asking us all to "eliminate the use of the R-word in everyday speech."

Seems to me that we can't stop people from using whatever words they want. However, we can make things pretty damn uncomfortable for them when they choose to use those words that are hurtful and hateful.

Once upon a time, SpecialEd and I had a friend who was dating a young woman who was kind of rough around the edges. One evening she referred to the husband of another friend by a derogatory term, and you could have heard a pin drop. She said what? In our house? Nuh uh, not in our house, you don't.

Sticks and stones can break your bones, and words can break your heart. If you can't say something nice, then don't say anything at all, m'kay?

Editor and Writer for Hire

2009-03-16T19:37:00.004-04:00

Love Firefly and Serenity. Most of all, I love Captain Tightpants.

I have temporarily joined the ranks of the laid off.

If I'm to believe the news, the economy is to blame. I have some serious doubts about that, but that's another story.

I say "temporarily" because I have skills -- writing skills, editing skills, word-related skills (but not nun-chaku, bow-hunting, or computer-hacking skills [reference to Napoleon Dynamite, in case I've lost you]). I'm trolling the job and freelance boards for work I'd like to do.

In the meantime, I'll enjoy spending time with SpecialEd, Skimbleshanks, Buddha Boy, Annie, and Loki. I am not, however, enjoying spending time with the mud Loki tracks in every time he comes in the door.

I will not, however, let a little (or a lot of) mud or my being booted from the cube farm damage my calm!

Love That SpecialEd!

2009-02-15T16:19:00.009-05:00

Even if he didn't give me the best presents ever, I'd still love that SpecialEd. Please not e that the box of See's chocolates is a luscious two pounds worth of heaven!

Each year when Valentine's Day rolls around, print and TV ads tell men, ad nauseum, that they'd better buy their sweeties something -- preferably something sparkly and expensive -- if they still want to have sweeties the next day. Oddly, you rarely see an ad in which women are giving the men in their lives something that they'd like. Oh, I know, the implication is that if a man gives his woman the goods, she'll return the favor between the sheets. However, I've yet to see a commercial in which a woman gives her man a small velvet box in which is a drill chuck, the keys to a new lawn tractor, or whatever it is that will make his heart flutter.

This year I had the best idea for SpecialEd. I thought of it Friday morning and, thanks to a happy set of circumstances, I was able to procure a hat for him with his Ham radio call letters embroidered on it: KB3RUX. The gift was something that is unique, something I just knew he'd like, and something that he's use every day. He was pleased and surprised. Success!

SpecialEd returned the favor by giving me a big box of my favorite chocolates, See's. He also gave me what, for me, is the equivalent of a luxury gift: wool. Just this week we were out in the garage, and I said, after taking in all the bags of wool out there, "I guess I don't really need any more wool."

Even though he knew I'd happily enough forego more fiber, he also knows the way to my heart. Weeks ago, he got in touch with Cory's Lincoln Longwools and ordered some of their best (and it's all their best, believe me) wool -- some washed, some not. The picture at the top of this post is a cloud of freshly washed Lincoln longwool; the picture here is of the same wool before its bath. You see, SpecialEd knows that, in some weird way, I really do enjoy the whole washing, drying, and carding process that goes along with raw wool.

SpecialEd also has a soft spot for Skimbleshanks and BuddhaBoy: each of them was given his own bag of favorite candy: York peppermint patties for the former, and Hershey's Kisses for the latter.

Oh, and that soft spot also extends to our furry kids, Loki and Annie. He gave each of them his or her own squeaky toy; one is a duck and the other is a pheasant. Here you can see Loki breaking in the duck. This morning he took the pheasant for a dip in his mudhole -- um -- wading pool. He then proceeded to happily toss the sopping wet thing around the yard before disembowelling it. Good times!

Hope you all had a happy Valentine's Day and that you gave something special to your someone special -- even if that someone special is yourself.

No matter how you spell it, fiber/fibre therapy is good for what ails me

2009-02-10T19:20:00.011-05:00

2009 is The International Year of Natural Fibres!

While I was Raveling today, I stumbled on mention of this year as being the International Year of Natural Fibers (Fibres, to my Canadian and British brethren and sistren).

How exciting is that? I'm surrounded by sheep, goat, dog, cotton, and most likely cat (miss you, Spot, Django, and Foster Grant!) fibers here. I have too many knitting projects to keep track of ... most likely because I have some degree of ADD--oh, look! something shiny! My spinning wheel and drop spindles are ever-present and ever-ready. All 40 samples in the sheep study have been washed and are waiting their turn on the wheel or spindle. It's just fiberriffic!

When I picked up the needles after a lengthy hiatus, I just thought maybe I'd make a scarf or two with (*shudder*) eyelash, acrylic, or other "dead" yarn. The smooth flow of the yarn and the smooth action of the bamboo needles were soothing -- just the sort of therapy I could use.

So I bought some wool yarn and happened to mention to SpecialEd how many different types of yarn there were, and it wold be so cool to be able to knit something with yarn I'd made. I honestly wasn't dropping any hints. However, when Christmas rolled around, there was my Kromski Sonata and some Coopworth roving, just calling my name.

So here I am, two years later, so heavily addicted to fiber that I have to have a dose every day. Life is very good.

The only thing that could possibly make things better would be my own tiny flock of pocket-sized sheep.

Necessity IS the Mother of Invention

2009-01-11T19:05:00.004-05:00

Photo spiffication courtesy of Picnik.

When Buddha Boy said that he wanted his biography report to be on Alexander the Great, I thought it was a great idea. I was secretly proud that a kid of mine new about AtheG and was impressed to the extent that he was willing to create a timeline, an oral report, and give his report in front of his class, dressed as the guy.

The "uh oh" came when he said that he wanted a helmet: bronze, horse-hair plume, and the metal thing that runs down the nose.

I wandered around A.C. Moore (craft store) a couple weekends ago looking for stuff that I could use. I came home with a cheesy-looking piece of fake fur (horse hair?) and a styrofoam wreath form (to hold the plume).

I didn't take any pictures of the work in process, because I was pretty nervous of coming up with something acceptable in the time I had.

I started by wrapping the bottom of a pumpkin bucket (you know, from Halloween -- no, it hadn't been put away yet) in aluminum foil. About five layers later, I was ready to take it off. I cut a small slit up one side, slid off the pumpkin-shaped bowl, and trimmed up the edge. When I tried it on, it balanced on my head and came down over my eyes.

A piece of duct tape closed up the gap I had after taking out some extra foil where I'd put the slit. Next, I got out the paper package-sealing tape and started wrapping the helmet in small strips. Once it dried, it was hard yet lightweight.

For the earflaps and the pointy nose-protector thing, I attached pieces of cardboard with the packing tape.

A coat of bronze spray paint later, we were looking pretty good.

SkimbleShanks made a fantastic suggestion at this point. We had a little broom that had seen better days. He suggested that I pull out the tufty bristles and use those for the horsehair. Awesome! It took quite a bit of work getting all the dog hair out, but they were exactly what I needed.

I glued the bristled in between the two halves of the styrofoam wreath, which I'd wrapped in the packing tape and painted bronze. Another piece of cardboard between the halves down to the top of the helmet, held in place with more tape, and we were ready for the final spraydown with paint.

Buddha Boy was very pleased with the result. In fact, when SpecialEd and SkimbleShanks arrived at school to pick up BB at the end of report day, darned if he didn't walk out of school with the helmet on his head.

I have to say, this is one my better efforts in the school project arena. It just shows what you can do with some common supplies, imagination, and minimal time.

Best Gift Ever: Jackie Bland's Fleece Study

2008-12-31T19:12:00.008-05:00

How can you not love a face like that?

This Christmas brought the very best gift. Ev-er. Naturally, SpecialEd was the giver, and I do believe that he's sick of hearing how awesome I think it -- and, by association, he -- is.

Jackie Bland's Fleece Study is a way for the hand-spinner to experience the fleece of 40+ different varieties of sheep. (Did you know that there are way more than 40? Learned something today, didn't you!) For those of you who don't know, certain breeds of sheep are shorn once or twice a year, and their fleece is sold as a whole or in pieces to fiberistas, such as myself. Of course, we could always buy a fleece that's been processed (read: washed and carded [combed so all the fibers are aligned]), but where's the challenge in that?

So on Christmas morning, SpecialEd directed me to a photocopier paper box next to our tree, and when I opened it, there was a 3-ring binder with fact sheets on each of the breeds represented, along with a worksheet where I could enter information about each fiber as I worked with it. This is the type of thing that appeals mightily to my anal-retentive nature: What does each sample look like, feel like, and how does it handle? How did I wash the samples? Did I card the samples before I spun them, or did I just flick open the tips? Did I spin S or Z? Did I ply? How did I ply (again, S or Z)?

Squee!!!

Once I regained consciousness, I explored each of the three plastic bags full of individually labeled zippered plastic sandwich baggies, each containing about 1 ounce of wool. Look at those names! Look at the texture! This one feels like a sponge, and that one looks like doll's hair!

They all smelled like sheep. And that's just fine. It's all about the process, folks. Yes, I'm well aware that I could traipse over to A.C. Moore or Michael's and buy some 100% wool yarn, hey presto. You know, I can also buy chocolate-chip cookies. However, you and I both know that store-bought never tastes as good as homemade -- not even those obscenely overpriced "gourmet" cookies.

Fiber is my therapy. I love the way it feels, the way it handles. I love the repetitive motions that go into carding a wad of fiber that looks quite a bit like something a cat coughed up into a soft, sleek, shimmery puffball. I love that I can feel my neck and shoulders relax when I sit and spin small bits of fiber into one long, continuous strand of yarn, watching my drop spindle or spinning wheel go 'round and 'round ... and 'round.

This best gift ev-er is the gift that just keeps on giving, too, because now I'm racing all over the Web, looking at pictures of the different breeds of sheep ("Ooh! I have that one! And I have that one, too!"). I'm continually amazed by how big these animals are. I always pictured them as being about the same size as a labrador retriever. But then, I always thought that deer were only a bit bigger than that.

I've led a sheltered life.

I plan to send Jacke Bland a note to tell her how in love I am with her fleece study. However, first I need to calm down. There's no point in making her worry that she just might have gained a groupie.

I Have a Pain in the Hip Flexor

2008-12-15T18:41:00.004-05:00

I like that this image looks a bit knock-kneed ... like me.

My mighty kicks are mighty no longer. Last week I learned the spin-rear crescent kick, and did pretty well with it, especially considering that it's a brown- or black-belt basic.

The next day, I had trouble walking. My right leg didn't seem to want to straighten without pain. My father is about 6'3". I learned at a young age to walk taking long strides, which was de rigeur if I wanted to keep my dad in sight. But last week I was reduced to taking little ladylike steps. Bah.

The pain went away in a couple days, and I didn't think any more about it.

This past Saturday we did a lot of kicking in karate class. I didn't have any problems while I was there, but as the day wore on, my hip started hurting more and more until I was hobbling around the house. Just to make things more fun, my lower back began to hurt because of the way I was walking and holding myself.

I must have lost my mind, because Saturday night I went to sleep without taking any sort of pain reliever (Tylenol PM is my all-time favorite at bedtime -- just 1/2 a tablet does the trick: puts me to sleep and takes care of whatever pain I might have.) So I spent the night sleeping in 2-hour increments, waking in between in pain from trying to change position.

Sunday was spent with my buddies, the hot rice bags -- one on my lower back and one along the crease in my thigh. Sweet, blessed relief. I met a girlfriend for lunch and was mortified to find when it was time to go that getting into the car required me to grab a handful of jeans on my right thigh so that I could lift my leg up and over, into the car. Today I discovered that I can't use my right foot to step on the handle to flush the toilet at work. This is not good. (Note: I used my left foot. I know my potty etiquette, thank you very much!)

So karate is right out for the rest of the week. I've had my warning: If I don't let this injury heal completely this time, the next time I go to kick the snot out of a BlastMaster might be the last time. That would be sad, because my plan for if I'm ever accosted is to destroy the attacker's knee. Gonna need a strong leg for that.

My Microwave -- It Goes to Zero

2008-12-13T17:32:00.004-05:00

Yes, I know it's dirty. I have many fascinating skills and talents. Housekeeping is not one of them.

I have a challenge for you. The next time you microwave something, watch the numbers as they count down.

What's the last number you see before the bell goes off? If your microwave is like ours, you'll see 3 - 2 - 1 - End or something like it.

My kids have been catching our microwave at zero. At first I didn't think anything of it. Of course it went 3 -2 - 1 - 0 - End. Except that it doesn't.

Since I'm nominally an adult, I decided to show the boys (in that patronizing way so-called adults do) that the microwave includes zero in its countdown. And, as so often happens when adults set out to show kids how childish they're being, I was the one who looked like a goober.

Zero is not part of the cooking countdown. Seriously.

Can someone explain this to me? Why is it that when you let the countdown continue to the end, there is no zero, yet if you're fast enough, you can stop the countdown somewhere between one and End and the screen will show zero.

I'm no genius, but this seems pretty weird to me. What should I do with this information? Should I report this and, if so, to whom? If I do, will our microwave be whisked off to Area 51? Will the boys? Will I?

I'd rather that the boys not be taken away. They've just started really helping out around the house. The microwave, on the other hand, is 20 years old. I'd miss it, but I'd be able to replace it in my heart and in my home with a newer model. Grownups are like that.

The Germs Have Me on the Ropes

2008-12-06T15:31:00.005-05:00

Oh, Natalie Dee. You do amuse me.

I've fought it for five weeks now, but my allergies have invited some of their germy friends to come on over, and now I'm sick. It's just goopy, coughy, "so tired I'll curl up on the floor" sick, though, not one of the more challenging GI bugs. You know the kind: you end up sitting on the toilet while you puke into the trashcan. If you've never experienced that, count yourself lucky.

I try to keep my personal area as germ free as I can without being neurotic or Felix Unger-ish about it. At work I'm barraged by germs, because I'm in the minority of people who believe that it's good manners (not to mention less gross) to cover one's mouth when sneezing or coughing. Oh, it's a germ extravaganza where I work, and you'll never hear "Sorry about filling up the immediate area with my germs." Tsk, tsk.

And for the sake of those of a more delicate nature, I won't even go into the daily barrage of rude noises emanating from certain offices. All I can say is that when my kids (both of whom are boys, mind you) do the same, they always follow with an "excuse me."

So it's about 10 of 4:00 on a cold, gray Saturday afternoon. After coughing until 2 this morning, I'm in prime condition for a nap. I'm still bound and determined (note to self: find out where that expression originated) to avoid a trip to the doctor's office for antibiotics, but I'm getting closer all the time.

Oh, and I just have to add that those three days of sick time I get each year are long gone, naturally. The germ originator? Well, that individual has all of this year's sick time, plus time carried over from previous years. That's bound to happen when you show up for work, regardless of how sick -- and infectious -- you may be.

Enough whining: bed calls.

Just Call Him Joe

2008-12-01T20:39:00.002-05:00

Hard to believe that little Delaware's Joe Biden will become the next vice president of the U.S.

I saw Joe Biden on his way to work (well, I was on my way to work, so maybe he was, too) this morning. I was driving north on 141, and traffic was pretty backed up. When I saw that no traffic was traveling south, I figured that an accident must be somewhere ahead.

Just then, two cops on motorcycles, lights flashing, came speeding south. They were followed by a big, dark SUV with tinted rear windows. Two people in dark suits were in the front seats. The SUV was followed by four -- count 'em -- police cars, also with their lights flashing. I can't remember if any sirens were blaring, but I suppose that it's a possibility.

In dinky Delaware, this is the kind of thing that happens. We are such a small state, that it's almost ordinary to run into your representative or senator at the coffee shop, the grocery store, or any of 100 other mundane places.

I remember eating breakfast in a tiny restaurant in Wilmington with my mother several years ago. For some reason, we started talking about the state quarters.

"I think that this is, bar none, the best thing Mike Castle has ever done in his years of service," I said.

"Really?" my mother replied. "Well, why don't you tell him. He's sitting at a table back there."

I turned around, and sure enough, there he was. That's Delaware.

If someone were to ask me one thing that makes Delaware special, I think I would say that you may think it's a small world, but you have no idea just how small it is until you live in Delaware. Here, the Six Degrees of Separation theory would have to be adjusted down to just three degrees.

NaBloPoMo Is Finished? Already?

2008-11-30T21:00:00.003-05:00

Natalie Dee is ultrasuperfantastic!

So here I am, the last day of November. It's hard to believe that 30 days and 30 posts have gone by so quickly. Some days were easy and some were really easy (i.e., I actually forgot about posting on one day -- I posted twice the next day, so as far as I'm concerned, I made it).

In some respects, a post a day isn't hard at all. It would have been more of a challenge if my blog were subject-specific. It's more stream-of-consciousness specific, I guess.

Lesson learned: posting really isn't and shouldn't be a chore. I doubt I'll keep up with the once-a-day regimen; however, I do think that I'll be posting a bit more frequently than before I participated in National Blog Posting Month.

So, ta ta for now!

Domestically Disabled

2008-11-29T20:09:00.005-05:00

I've had lots of great dreams, and not one involved my house being clean. See more of Anne Taintor's work here.

After shoveling the clothes off the floor in my bedroom, I've had loads of laundry to do. Interestingly, I found winter clothes from last year that I hadn't put away.

I am missing the housekeeping gene. My brother is neat and tidy. My mother is organized. My father is positively anal retentive in his housekeeping. Maybe my parents did find me under a cabbage rose, just like my mother always told me.

Well, I have just one more morning to sleep in. And how wonderful it's been! I think I'm still trying to catch up on sleep I lost once Skimbleshanks arrived. I swear, I could just curl up on the floor (not mine, of course; see above) and be asleep in five minutes.

Now that the floor in my bedroom is actually exposed (there's carpet down there ... who knew?), now Loki will be able to curl up on the floor, rather than on formerly clean clothes, and go to sleep. Of course, he'll still wind up on our bed in the morning. What a life! Naturally, he doesn't care if the house is clean. I just love that dog.

Black Friday Earns Its Name This Year

2008-11-28T20:29:00.006-05:00

Sometimes the perfect gifts don't cost anything at all.

Well, the Christmas buying frenzy has officially begun. Do I know because some stores opened today, Black Friday, at 4:00 a.m.? Do I know because some stores were open yesterday? Maybe I know because of the Christmas carols playing on loudspeakers and on the electronic bells at the church down the street. Nope.

I know because the traditional stampede for the good deals has happened yet again, this time with typical tragic results.

Jdimytai Damour's family will be celebrating the holidays without him this year and forevermore. This guy had the misfortune to work at a WalMart about 20 miles outside of Manhattan. As he was opening the doors at 5:00 a.m., the crowd surged into the store, knocking him to the ground and trampling him underfoot. At least four other people were taken to the hospital, including a woman who is eight months pregnant.

Who knows what deals those people were in line for? There's something wrong with people who are so desperate for a bargain that they will push and shove and run to get to their "must-buy" item ... and do it at 5:00 a.m. the day after the holiday on which Americans pause to give thanks for all we have.

What I just can't wrap my head around is that these people weren't in line for food or water or medicine that they had to have to live. They were in line for "stuff." They were waiting to spend their money on a TV, camera, computer, hot new toy, tool, or jewelry. You know: stuff.

Until people stop thinking of shopping as a sport, where the race (or bargain) goes to the swiftest or the toughest, the annual buying frenzy will go on. And each year, people will be hurt or even die, all for the sake of a "really great bargain."

Giving Thanks, Times Three

2008-11-27T22:11:00.004-05:00

Here are the three things
I'm most thankful for,
today, and every day.

Hope everyone
had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Some Numbers Are Not My Friends

2008-11-26T22:23:00.006-05:00

Seeing as how it's the day before Thanksgiving, I think I'll probably be regretting quite a bit by this time tomorrow. Thank you, Anne Taintor!

Today I went to my doctor for an annual checkup. I had my blood drawn last week, so we'd have something to talk about.

As my doctor was coming into the exam room, his first sentence included the phrase "talk about your cholesterol." Uh oh. This was not going to be good.

We've been keeping an eye on my cholesterol for a couple of years now. It seems that high cholesterol (both kinds -- HDL and LDL) run in my family. Thanks, mom! Anyway, nearly two years ago I was given the option of getting some exercise or start taking statins. I opted for the former, and now I've attained the blue-belt rank in kenpo karate. Three times a week I work my butt off for one solid hour and come out of class dripping with sweat but feeling pretty good about myself.

The first blood test after I'd been taking karate for several months showed that my triglyceride level had been cut in half. All right! My cholesterol had gone down, but just a little. My doctor said I could continue as I was and that we'd revisit the cholesterol again in a year.

Today was the one-year check point. And he'd come in the room talking about cholesterol. Crap. Not good.

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I believe that in April, my cholesterol number was somewhere around 140. That's not too good, but it's not horrible. Today, my number was somewhere between 170 and 175, I believe. This is not good.

I will be the first to admit that my diet, such as it is, is abysmal. Truly. I am the anti-Atkins: all carbs, all the time. I love all kinds of bread, and you probably have guessed that I love sweets, especially chocolate (good chocolate, that is; no crappy "chocolate candy" for this chickie). Meat is kind of "meh," as are vegetables. Fruit is great, but remembering that we have it and making a point of eating it is another thing. In my defense, I do eat oatmeal for lunch every day at work. Quick, cheap, and tasty -- instant oatmeal (with sugar, of course) works for me.

I guess I'm what you'd call an eat-to-live person, rather than a live-to-eat person.

So there I was, listening to my doctor giving me one compelling reason after another for starting to take statins (Zocor, specifically). Finally, I stopped him and asked, "Is there some reason you think that you have to convince me to take this medicine? Are you expecting me to argue with you?"

He looked nonplussed and replied that countless times every day he has patients who are adamant about not taking medicine of one kind or another. Hey, I believe him. I know someone (who shall remain nameless) who suffers (operative word) from obsessive-compulsive disorder -- big time. However, since she doesn't "like taking medicine," she's condemned herself to a life ruled by fear and desperation. Sad.

Back to me ... Since high cholesterol blocks the flow of blood, some of the fun end results can be heart attacks and strokes. What my doctor didn't know was that, when I was in college, I was on the pill (primarily to control the ferocious cramps that went along with every period; those are another story). Any-who, after I started taking the pill, I also started having headaches -- every day. You know how one of the possible side effects of taking birth control pills is the potential for stroke? Yeah, well, it turns out that I was one of those people for whom the pill is a big no-no.

So when I heard my doctor (who was probably still in high school during the whole "pill incident") say that untreated high cholesterol can lead to heart attacks and strokes, it was a matter of "nuff said," as far as I was concerned. Where do I sign up for them statins, doc?

If I'm brave enough, I'll go to Costco on Friday morning to get my prescription filled and start taking the Zocor Friday evening. The sooner, the better. The statins are a pill I can certainly swallow, you know?

So today's appointment had a happy ending ... or did it?

What I can't swallow and am fighting tooth and nail is the number I was given as being my current weight. They have got to be kidding. I mean, it was nice to hear that I'm actually 5' 5", rather than 5' 4-1/2", as I've always thought. Whole numbers just sound so much nicer. But I did have my back to the scale while the nurse measured and weighed me. Maybe she was lying. Maybe she was cross-eyed. Then again, maybe she was telling the truth. The truth hurts, sometimes. And now the bitter pill I'm having to swallow is that it would be a good thing for me to lose from 5 to 10 pounds. [Edited later to add: Actually, if I want to be honest with myself, I'd really be better off losing about 30 pounds. Time to face facts: I have a very small frame, and the gradual creep of poundage has reached an unacceptable level.] Ugh. Ugh! I wish I could convince myself that those extra pounds are all muscle, but I'm a terrible liar.

I feel so much better now that I've confessed. I'm no fatty-fatty-bo-batty, by any means, but I am a bit -- rounded? -- where I used to be fairly flat. I just wish it could be as easy to get that poundage number to come down as easily as it'll be to get those cholesterol numbers down. My physician assured me that that the Zocor will do an excellent job with those. Now I just need to be as excellent with my ... ugh ... diet.

Happy Thanksgiving. Pass that spoonful of pumpkin pie my way. Yeah. Just a spoonful.

As I've Gotten Older

2008-11-25T20:01:00.005-05:00

Another beauty from the talented Anne Taintor.

Today I was talking with someone about what some of my good and bad points are. For some reason, just about every answer was prefaced with, "As I've gotten older."

Good point/bad point: I am a perfectionist.
In my field (writing), it's good to be a perfectionist. You want to write clearly, correctly, and concisely. On the other hand, if you're a perfectionist, you're never satisfied, and that's not good. You have to know when enough is enough, and you have to apply the "appropriate quality" to your work. That's not to say that you do crappy work -- ever. It is to say, however, that you need to know when what you've produced is pretty dang good and it's time to move on to the next step. This is a lesson that's taken me years to learn.

I debated the whole "perfect" thing with a manager some time ago. I was told that X wouldn't happen until Y was perfect. I pointed out that X would never happen, then, because perfection just isn't going to happen. Ding! Author's message! (Naturally, this individual wouldn't concede the point, so we ended at a standoff.

Good point/bad point: I am uncomfortable meeting and talking with new people.
I am an introvert and have always been somewhat shy. When I was a kid, I was terribly shy. My shyness has decreased over the years, but it's still there, lurking in a corner.

As I've grown older, I've become much more interested in other people. People are fascinating! Everyone has a story. Everyone is interesting. The sticking point for me is what to talk about.

In my last job, I worked with a lot of young women who were right out of college, and our company was their first experience in the world of full-time work. Once I got over knowing that I was absolutely old enough to be their mother (ugh), I had a ball talking to them, telling them the tips and tricks I'd had to learn on my own during my career. Because I was nervous, I assumed that they, were, too, and I worked extra hard to make them comfortable with their assignments. I made it crystal clear that my job was to help them and that, because I'd made every possible mistake -- sometimes more than once -- I could help them avoid making those same mistakes.

In karate, too, I've become much more comfortable with myself. Doing anything physical at this stage of the game feels pretty awkward -- I'm older, and I was never what you'd call a jock. On the other hand, I'm comfortable asking questions, trying new things, and basically sticking my neck out. I may not be able to do some of the techniques well or at all, but I'm somehow able to explain them to other students (who then, later, help me learn how to do them correctly).

Good point/bad point: I say what I mean and mean what I say.
As I've grown older, I've realized that being reticent and beating around the bush serves no one, least of all me. I don't have patience with office politics and I certainly don't have any with petty cruelty. Hey, if you don't like me, that's fine. If we have to work together, then pull up your big-girl panties and get over it. We're not going to like everyone we have to be with, but that doesn't give you permission to be a jerk toward me. If you're going to snipe at me, you'd better be ready for me to call you on it.

I worked with a woman who was a 10th degree sniper. She'd make these cutting remarks in a way that if you questioned her about it, you looked like you were oversensitive or paranoid. Now that I'm older, I would handle this kind of person differently. "You know, that was a pretty insensitive remark," I'd say. "You need to take it down a notch." And if she followed up, as she was wont to do, I'd fire that warning shot across her bow: "You need to stop, right now."

Early this spring, someone said to me, "Don't be stupid!" This was in the workplace, and it was said by someone who *ahem* outranked me. (I don't know how else to phrase it -- I'm trying to avoid any sort of identifiers here.) I was absolutely gobsmacked by that remark. Stunned, I said nothing. And then the moment to respond was gone. Now that I'm older, albeit by only months, not years, I know exactly what I'll say if I ever find myself the target of that kind of attack. "I don't allow anyone to speak to me like that, including you."

There are some things about aging that I don't particularly care for; however, I love the freedom that comes with being myself.

Anne Taintor Turns Snark into Art

2008-11-24T22:02:00.007-05:00

No, I don't personally know of anyone who enjoys working for an idiot ... and that includes me.

Once again, I've left my blog to the very end of the day, so once again it's going to be a quickie post.

I love Anne Taintor. Her images of bygone beauties combined with snarky comments never fail to make me smile. And she slaps those images on all sorts of things for you to enjoy:

Holiday cards
Note cases
Passport holders
Flasks (!)
Messenger bags
Mini notes
Button pins
Magnets
And a lot more (I was going to list everything she offers, but the list would be way too long!)

Go. Now. She's sure to have something that you just can't live without.

My Marbles -- I Still Have Them

2008-11-23T21:57:00.006-05:00

I downloaded this image from here. You'll find an awesome selection, and it's all f*r*e*e. And, as I like to say, "If it's free, it's me!"

It's 24 hours later, and my headache is -- drum roll, please -- gone. Yeah, baby!

Granted, it took most of the day, more decongestants, two Excedrin Migraine, diet Coke (with caffeine), and a lie-down with my trusty hot rice bags, but I finally kicked that lousy headache to the curb.

Sheesh! I guess it's only fitting that someone as stubborn as I am would have headaches equally as stubborn.

Despite it all, I was able to accomplish quite a bit today. Let's see ...

Touched up my hair. Why is it that whatever gray hair I have tends to concentrate right out front, in the open, where everyone can see it? I have nothing against gray hair, but the whole gray-at-the-temples thing works so much better on men, I think. Last I checked, I'm not a guy.
Cleaned my everyday jewelry (wedding and engagement bands, cocktail-type ring from my favorite aunt, and my diamond earrings from SpecialEd).
Copied (ripped?) three Weird Al albums to my laptop. I've been meaning to do this for a long time. And I'm so proud: this is the first time I've ever copied music to my computer -- and all by myself, too!
Worked about 2 inches of the first of a pair of socks for SpecialEd. His feet have been "problematic," and that means that shoes are right out. What they need are some nice wool socks that are custom knit to fit just right.
Wrote out a check to my bruddah to pay him back for the stuff at IKEA that he put on his credit card.
Oversaw the burning of about a ream's worth of bills, bank statements, and other personal papers. We have a shredder, but it's intended for just one or two sheets at a time. You let that paperwork get a toe in the door, and it'll breed in the dark. This little job allowed us to get back on top of the situation, plus it enabled Skimbleshanks to burn things, something that's usually pretty near and dear to a boy's heart. It seemed to satisfy him, and he was quite cautious, which was a relief to see.
Wrote a check for a field trip to the Constitution Center -- and GIFT SHOP (yes, this was included on the permission slip) -- in Philly. Kids just love gift shops. Their parents? Not so much.
Did my roughly quarterly ironing session. Gee, what will I wear tomorrow? I have so many nice, crisp shirts to choose from!
Wrote my weekly post for Type-A Mom. This week's article is about the actual size of an infant's stomach. Ever wonder why babies are prone to "spitting up"? Well, it often has to do with their being overfed by the adults in their lives who are obsessed that they (the babies) get "enough" to eat. A newborn's stomach has the capacity of a thimble or a marble. Think about that for a minute. Hmm. So even if you can get a newborn to suck down an ounce or two of breast milk or formula, you'd better be prepared for its imminent return, because a newborn's stomach does not stretch. Period.

So it was a productive day, overall. And I still have about as many marbles today as I usually have. However, I expect I'll lose a few tomorrow ... when I have to go back to work for "da man."

I've had just about enough of these headaches

2008-11-22T22:16:00.003-05:00

I just love Natalie Dee.

I've been taking decongestants for at least two weeks now. I've been using Ocean nasal spray (awesome stuff -- it's helped me dodge my 2x/year sinus infection this fall).

However, I still have the sinus headache I woke up with today. And it's all because of my stupid allergies to something ... something stupid, I'm sure.

I wouldn't mind having a runny nose, truly. I could even come to accept my chronically puffy, bruised-looking eye bags. But I can't come to terms with these headaches. So, I will be taking my usual way out: half of a Tylenol PM. Hey, if I can't get rid of the headache, at least I can escape it.

Here's hoping that I wake up refreshed tomorrow, ready to kick some butt or at least ready to tackle the laundry.

Loki Goes on a Picnik(.com)

2008-11-21T18:27:00.017-05:00

A few more examples of what you can do when you take your pictures on a Picnik.

Here we have Loki, our water dog. This was taken one of his many photo-ops during a hurricane this fall. We didn't have any damage, just loads of rain and rivers of mud. The rivers of mud were in our house. Courtesy of Loki.

Note: I really do love my kids; however, my dogs are much more cooperative when it comes to sitting for pictures.

After I've cropped the picture a little, taken care of the doggy red eye, and given the colors a bit of a boost, I'm just about good to go. I added a frame and legend, and now my handsome muddy guy is just as handsome as can be.

I especially like that he looks a lot less like a devil dog and a lot more like a dog who realizes that he may have done something wrong. Please note the half-hearted grin.

Speaking of handsome, this picture was taken the day after we brought Loki home. What a beautiful baby he was! I wanted to crop out the shaven spot on his tummy (he'd had a hernia repaired before we adopted him) and focus on his face in all its rounded babyness.

Presto change-o! Doesn't this picture just melt your heart? If it does, may I refer you to pictures one and two? If you're going to love a golden retriever, you have to have a high tolerance for dirt, destruction ... and devastating cuteness.

RedHen Review: Picnik

2008-11-20T21:51:00.013-05:00

This is the first in a sometime feature of this site: RedHen Review. And since it's late for me, this will be a quick, "I really like this site"-type of review.

Picnik

Here's a easy, fast, fun, and -- most importantly -- free way to edit your photos. You can touch up, crop, resize, and add fancy frames to your pics in a flash. There's a lot more to Picnik, but you'll have to mosey over and check it out yourself.

For example, here's a picture I started with. Let me introduce Francine, a gen-u-ine red hen. My friend Nancy Zeller of Longridge Farm graciously sent me this picture of the lovely Francine to play with. Since I've dubbed myself RedHen (you know, because I do it all), I really wanted an image of, well, a red hen.

Call me a suburban girl, but I just can't get over the idea of carrying a chicken around.

OK, so I've just logged on to Picnik, and there's the start menu. The last photo I worked on is shown (no peeking), and Picnik gives me the option to continue working on that picture, close the picture, or upload photos. Since I want to show you the finished product, I'll click Continue editing ...

What I wanted to do with Francine's picture was to zoom in on her lovely face and feathers, frame her, and add some text. Here's the finished product (courtesy of Vista's snipping tool) -- and it took me all of 5 minutes to do.

I may still play around with Francine's picture -- heck, that's pretty much guaranteed. But Picnik makes it easy, fun, and addictive. Give it a whirl and see what you think.

Pattern Browser: Another Reason to Love Ravelry

2008-11-19T21:45:00.010-05:00

Yep. That snipping (i.e., image-capture) tool is just supercalifantastic!

Another reason why I love Ravelry [yeah, this is pretty much a continuation of last night's post] is the ease with which I can find patterns that are just what I'm looking for. In this capture (you'll have to click it to see details -- sorry), I'm looking for free knitting patterns for cardigans made of sport-weight yarn. (Hmm, I see that bulky yarn has magically been selected, too. Operator error, I'm sure.)

Shazam! I have a selection of patterns to browse to find my next project.

"Rusty" looks like a good choice. When I click its name, I have access to all sorts of information ... not the least of which is that I already have added this pattern to my library. Other options are to add it to my faves or to my queue or to cast on.

I'm a note-taker and list-maker -- I can't begin to tell you how many reading lists of written over the years. Can I find them now? Of course not. Every last one of them is in that mystical place: Somewhere Safe. With Ravelry, I don't have to have pencil or paper -- it's all online, and Ravelry becomes my Somewhere Safe, except now I know exactly where that info is when I need it.

To go back to last night's post about groups ... One of the groups I belong to is RU: Ravelry Underachievers. This group is for all of us who aren't living up to the full potential of Ravelry. How cool is that? At least I'm not alone! Just in the volume of posts alone, I'm an incredible underachiever. I guess I spend too much time sightseeing around the Ravelry world.

Here's another group: Will Write for Yarn. Yeah, barter is alive and well in Ravelryland. Oh, and even though it's still in beta, Ravelry has more than 218,000 members. That's a lot of fiber enthusiasts!

I knit so that I do not kill people -- what a great group! Here's a place where you can go and vent. It's expected. It's mandatory. And your fellow members will chime in and support you. Love it!

That's it for now. Time for the dogs' last potty break and good-night biscuit. I'll see if I can think beyond Ravelry for tomorrow's post. Promise.

Ravelry Rocks, Rolls, and Rules

2008-11-18T22:16:00.004-05:00

Say what you will about Vista, the snipping tool is some kind of awesome, as illustrated by my capture, at left.

Short post tonight. Why? Because One of the biggest and best time sucks -- ever -- has taken me all the way to 10:30.

Dang you, Ravelry!

As you can see, I love Ravelry. (For those of you not in the know, Ravelry is a community of people who love fibers: knitters, crocheters, felters, dyers, weavers, spinner, etc.)

I'm a member of 66 groups as of tonight. I tried to limit myself to "just a few," I really did. However, I'm interested in lots of things, and it's just so much easier to join the groups in my areas of interest rather than do a group search. When I first joined Ravelry, I looked through the entire list of groups, and it took me a couple of days. If I were to try the same thing right now, I might finish up sometime during the weekend. It doesn't matter what you're interested in: if you're into it, chances are there's a group for it.

So if you or someone you know loves fiberliciousness in one or all of its forms, you really owe it to yourself to check out Ravelry. Oh, and I'll apologize right now for all the time you'll lose down the rabbit hole that is Ravelry. Enjoy!

Sharing Sadness

2008-11-17T22:21:00.004-05:00

Here's my wonderful Tucker. I miss him.

I've just sent notes of sympathy to two special people. The first is one of the nurses who comes to our house to play footsie with SpecialEd. Well, maybe not footsie, but she does help keep his footsies is the best shape she can. Nurse Rose had to say goodbye to her dog, Casey, today, after a brief illness.

Our other friend, Nancy (Longridge Farm), had to say goodbye to her dog, Shelley, today, too. Shelley's health was declining, but she did rally for a last hurrah before quietly dying while with Nancy.

Having to say goodbye to our friends and companions is one of the prices we have to pay for loving them. Each farewell is heart- and gut-wrenching, and I'm crying right now while I'm sitting here, typing this. Sure, the pain fades, but the ache in your heart is there, hidden away until something pulls aside that curtain. Ta-daaah! Here you go: how 'bout another taste of that sadness, hmm? Ugh.

OK, I'm getting it together, because this this isn't about me, it's about two special friends. Rose and Nancy: please know that you're in my heart. I've alerted Tucker to keep his eyes open for two new friends to play with.

IKEA Tires Me out

2008-11-16T20:07:00.005-05:00

I drove up to Princeton today to go with my brother to the IKEA in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He had two coupons -- buy $150 and get $25 off -- but they had to be used at the Elizabeth store. The store is directly across the NJ Turnpike from the Newark (pronounced "new-erk," as opposed to Newark, Delaware, which is pronounced "new-ark") airport.

All told, I spent 5 hours in the car today and, while I love my car (1995 Honda Odyssey), that amount of time in the car is way out of my comfort range. Having company made a big difference, as did having a Discworld book on my iPod to listen to.

Anyway, as I write this, I'm sitting in my brand new chair, weirdly named Moses. I only screwed up the assembly once (put the armrests on the wrong way) and misplaced one of the washers, but found it when I shook out the couch blanket. I was able to get that baby put together in about 15 minutes, all told. Plus, now I have another allen wrench to add to my toolbox.

This chair is made of genuine "pleather," or some such, and adjusts up and down, which was beyond the capabilities of my previous chair. I am a very happy camper.

This is the coffee table that I want to get. In my little fantasy world, I image those cubbyholes holding attractive baskets into which we could all throw the crap that we're currently piling on top of our current coffee table ... and dining room table ... and recliner. (All four of us are accumulators. It's a character trait or a character flaw, depending on who's doing the defining.) I just wasn't up to the purchase today, because I was too tired to go back into the marketplace to find the appropriate baskets for the table. Oh, well. I can always go back, I suppose.

I've been on the run since 9 this morning, and it's nearly 8:30 now. Time to kick back and veg out until it's time for bed.

Total Drama Island

2008-11-15T21:35:00.006-05:00

Here are the campers on Total Drama Island. Only one of them will emerge the winner and claim the $100,000 prize. The guy below is Chris, the host. I'm dying to know what's in the little pouch around his neck.

So who would have thought that our neighbors to the north could put out such a great cartoon? I hang my head in shame: being half Canadian myself, I never should have doubted.

Total Drama Island is a spoof of the survivor-type so-called reality shows, except this one takes place at Camp Wawanakwa on Lake Muskoka in Ontario. (I've actually been to Lake Muskoka. It was gorgeous.) The 22 campers compete in challenges each week. Some of the challenges are benign (creating a meal for the host) but some are nasty (such as having to eat a multi-course Brunch of Disgustingness). One camper each week is voted off the island during the campfire ceremony, where those who get to stay each receive a marshmallow. The loser has to walk the "dock of shame, board the ship of losers, and can never return ... ever."

I was a little nervous when I learned that the campers were all teens. I guess I had visions of hormones running amok. Fortunately, that doesn't happen. What does happen is that each of the campers is a more-or-less stereotypical teenager: the goth girl, the nerdy guy, the brainless bimbo, the genius, the scheming chick, the athlete, and the counselor in training are just a few.

I've really enjoyed each of the 24 episodes (we're now down to three campers). Since it comes on at the same time as The Office, we tape TDI and all watch it on Friday evening. If you want a megadose, Cartoon Network runs the four most recent episodes back to back on Saturday evening from 7 to 9 p.m.

If you like some clever writing and have a high tolerance for typical adolescent humor, check it out.

The Word of the Evening: Blort

2008-11-14T22:02:00.003-05:00

Can't you just smell the awesome tastiness? Mmm! Spice cakewaffle (or is it wafflecake?) with melty cream-cheese frosting. Life is good!

Tonight I had dinner with my posse, the LOST gang: Lisa, Barbara, Judy, Kathy, Sally, Jen, and Elizabeth. (Kerry wasn't feeling well, so we'll catch up with her later, probably in January. Feel better soon, Kerry!)

We had dinner at Cafe Napoli (here's a link to the menu), which is just a little hole-in-the wall restaurant in a nearby shopping center. It was awesome. This shopping center has a Pathmark, Kohl's, and A.C. Moore in it, so it's always busy. Over the years I've seen lots of cars parked at the curb in front of Cafe Napoli and didn't think anything of it ... well, maybe I thought that some people really needed to learn to park in the parking lot with everyone else. I'd heard that the food was good, but really didn't quite get it.

Tonight, I got it.

We started with fried things, always the best way to start a meal. We shared calimari, broccoli bites, and, my favorite, onion rings. I could have just stayed with the broccoli and onions and been happy. I had shrimp and linguine with marinara sauce. It arrived, steaming hot, in a quantity that was about the same size as my head. It was really tasty, and I have lots of it left for lunch tomorrow ... and probably for dinner, too. Being a glutton for punishment, I finished with a cannoli that was bursting with sweet ricotta inside and ribbons of chocolate over top of it and the plate. I especially liked that they'd used an extra spoonful of ricotta on the plate to keep the cannoli from rolling around. Mmm!

As soon as I came home, I changed into my fatty McFatfat pants so that I could be comfortable. And what was the sound I heard when I unzipped my jeans? Yep: "Blort!" Ahh! It's nice being able to let it all hang out ... even if I do have to listen to the teasing of Skimbleshanks (who could easily use an extra 10 pounds -- or 20) and Buddha Boy.

Would I eat a dinner like that again? As the good governor of Alaska might say, "You betcha!"

My February Lady Sweater

2008-11-13T21:08:00.007-05:00

Picture from Flint Knits, (C) Pamela Wynne

My goal was to wear my February Lady sweater to Stitches East last weekend. *snort* I was nowhere close to being done. Oh, all I had left to do was to knit both sleeves, weave in all the ends, seam the sides, sew on the buttons, and block and let dry. Shoot, it feels like this first sleeve is taking longer than the entire body did. I'll post pictures of it once I've finished.

On the bright side, now that I've reached this point, I finally have the pattern memorized. I know, I know. So I'm a slow study, OK? I do have some goof ups in the body, but I decided that I could live with them and that if anyone so lacked in sensitivity as too point those errors out, I'd just have to give 'em the look. You know the one I'm talking about, don't you? All moms have it, and apparently I have it in spades. I was even able to make the head teacher at our karate school back down. He basically asked us how we'd walk in a way that communicated that we weren't to be messed with. I walked right up to him, giving him "the look" the entire way, and he took a step back. Seriously. How sweet is that?

Anyway, back to the sweater. I'm loving this sweater so much that I'm planning on making at least one more. This is my first foray into lace, and it's really been fun. For those of you who neither know nor care, tough ... This pattern involves multiples of 7 stitches (across) and 4 rows (up and down). So you make the same pattern of 7 stitches over and over for a row, then do the next row all with the purl stitch, then a different pattern of 7 stitches over and over for a row, and then a row of purl again. You have to pay attention, but you don't have to be absolutely glued to your work. I have a battered index card and a row counter to help me out. The sleeve is looking really nice, even if it is taking forever.

Many thanks to Flint Knits for sharing this wonderful pattern! It's beautiful, challenging (but not frustratingly so), and appears to be fairly addictive.

And, speaking of addictive, I just today joined the Diet Coke Lovers group over at Ravelry.

SpecialEd has just informed me that we've missed The Office (another group I'm in over at Ravelry). Dang you, NaBloPoMo! I was so focused on doing something productive that I completely forgot about my weekly date with Michael, Jim, Dwight, and the rest of the gang. Oh, well. Thank goodness for the internets!

The Melodious Sound of My Voice

2008-11-12T22:06:00.006-05:00

The honeys from Flight of the Conchords. Nerdiness never looked so ... uh ... nerdy.

Today’s post is being written using voice recognition software. I found that I had to do the dictation using Word rather than dictating directly into Blogger. I have no idea why this is, but I’ll check it out some other time when it’s not so late. (I also see now that I've copied/pasted here that I have two spaces after the period. That just won't do. I'll have to have a talk with the software about that.)

I was able to find the digital recorder I bought a couple years ago, which came with its own microphone. Such excitement!

Now that I have things up and running, I’m finding it difficult to come up with things to say. The voice recognition is actually pretty accurate. I’ve gone back over the text to clean things up, but check this out for a laugh:

the only mistake that I can see right now is instead of typing the longer it typed Olaf Kirch. That’s interesting, and it didn’t put in here water walker instead of food and Olaf Kirch of reading this last sentence and essays and it didn’t put in steer watcher walker instead of food and Olaf church salads

Who is Olaf Kirch and what's so special about his church salads?

I’m pretty darn excited about this voice recognition software. Once I get over, I guess you’d call it my shyness with the microphone, I ought to be able to crank out quite a bit of work. Either that, or I’ve just found a means of brain dumping when my “pensieve” is out for a tuneup. Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow.

Computer? Take a memo...

2008-11-11T18:55:00.005-05:00

Today's post was almost an awesome thing. I've been reading about voice-recognition software, and was totally jazzed to try it. My laptop runs on Vista; the jury is still out about my feelings for it. However, one of the cool things about Vista is that it comes with voice-recognition software -- yippee! And the phones we have here in our house came with the a headset/boom mike, which is the recommended tool for the job. Yipp ... uh oh.

Yeah, I can't find the dang headset. I'm the one who used it last, and I just know that I put it somewhere safe, as I "am wont to do." This means that it won't see the light of day until I no longer want or need it.

The upside of my quick search is that I found the TV remote (control is back in my hands, a-hahahahaha!), the bag where we stuff the grocery bags for reuse, and an unopened package of epoxy. We need this last thing to fix the knob on our dryer, which cracked. Being resourceful, I have an adjustable wrench set to just the right opening to slip onto the stem (or whatever it's called). Now we just slip the wrench on, turn it, and those clothes start a'tumbling.

Back to my issue ... I found an old-timey microphone (think silver mesh on the top and very heavy), but the plug was old-timey, too, meaning that it was way too big. Special Ed has a cheapie mike, which looks like a small gray lollipop. It worked like a champ during the training, and I was cackling with excitement, thinking about how efficiently I'd be able to churn out my articles and these blog posts.

"Start listening," I said. These are the magic words that launch voice recognition. Nothing. I tried again. Then I tried again. Then I made it listen ... by hand.

"Open Word," I said. Nothing happened.

"Opennnn Worrrrdddd," I tried. Nothing. I went "tsk" and started Word by hand. Then I started dictating.

"This post is different from my previous posts ...," I said, before noticing that it was sleeping (the technical term for when the software, uh, goes to sleep). "Start listening. Start listening! START LISTENING! Damn it!" I made it listen ... by hand.

"... until software," the screen showed. Not even close.

I won't bore you [any more than I have already] by telling you about what came next, but let's just say that it didn't work, and my dreams of incredible productivity were dashed.

I never say die, unless it's to a mosquito, and then its, "Die, you damn bastard!" So I'll keep trying to teach my new dog new tricks until I can kick back, knit, and watch my computer take down all my deathless prose. I'll keep you posted.

Image by the wonderful Natalie Dee (Married to the Sea). Go to her site. Love her. Buy stuff.

Pay Attention, Class: Which vs. That

2008-11-10T21:37:00.004-05:00

Today's post will be a brief explanation of when to use "which" and when to use "that." I know that you're just next to yourselves with excitement, but try to contain yourselves.

OK, I'm going to explain this in layperson's terms, because I think you lose and turn off more people by using the kind of explanation given by demanding English teachers ... the kind of teachers who make some kids just hate English.

So, let's say that we're talking about cake -- chocolate cake with chocolate frosting coated with chocolate shavings. There is only one cake, sadly, so there's no confusion over this one or that one -- there is only one. However, I need to tell you something about the cake; specifically, I need to tell you where it is.

The cake, which is in the kitchen, is all mine.

That's it: one cake and "oh, by the way, here's a little bit of extra information about that one cake."

Now let's say that there are two -- no, three! -- cakes. We have the original chocolate cake, a Costco sheet cake, and a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Because I live in the house with Skimbleshanks and Buddha Boy, I have to hide the cakes around the house. (By the way, we have found that hiding the Halloween candy in the hamper is the way to go. What is it with boys and hampers?) Anyway, because I have more than one cake, I have to be specific when I'm referring to cake, right?

The cake that is hidden in the dryer is the carrot cake.

That's all there is to it, pretty much. Use "which" when you're adding a little extra information about the thing (noun) you just mentioned. Use "that" when you're identifying the thing. If you follow these guidelines, you'll be right on the money most of the time.

Now it's time to check out that "laundry" in the hamper.

Official Stitches Haul

2008-11-09T18:39:00.006-05:00

As promised (to myself, I guess), here's the official photo of my Stitches haul, which represents:

20 skeins (99 yards each), black and green Fusion, PC-Dralon (whatever the heck that is)/wool/mohair, from Woolstock Knit Shop
1.19 pounds (1,600 yards), fall palette, Merino, from Newton Country Yarns
Bone sweater stick, Gita Maria
Clamshell bobbins and locking stitch markers, The Mannings Handweaving School and Supply Center

Please note that both Woolstock and Newton seem to be having identity crises. I notice that the names on the receipts don't match the names on their sites. Attention to detail is important folks. (See? Copy QC is all about picking up things like this. Maybe I should get in touch with them and see if they'd like a writing consult ... hmmm.) Nonetheless, the links are correct.

I don't know why, but attendees were forbidden from taking photos anywhere on The Market floor. I wasn't 100 percent sure that photos weren't kosher until the announcer said so. Hmm. I'm sure they have their reasons, but I'm curious about what those reasons are.

I'm whooped, so it's time to plant myself in my knitting nest and keep working on the first sleeve of my February Lady sweater.

Back from Stitches ... and Lots to Do

2008-11-09T11:30:00.004-05:00

One of the things I really missed, when comparing Stitches to the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival, was being able to see beautiful animals, such as this one. Just look at that face! There's a face that just begs to be loved.

Stitches was awesome! Any kind of yarn and every kind of yarn was there: wool, cotton, sea cell, soy, silk, Quiviut (sp? it's from musk oxen and is mind-bendingly soft), cashmere, alpaca (take another look at that cute face), and more. If you were after patterns or books about knitting, crochet, felting, or weaving, Stitches is the place to go. And there are jewelry (shawl and sweater pins and "sticks"), needles and hooks, bags and baskets, and even more.

After my first trip through the market, I was excited. After my second trip through the market, I was feeling tired, but still good. After my third trip through the market, I was on total sensory overload and had to actually leave the room and sit for 30 minutes until it was time to get on the bus. By the time I got home, I was on autopilot and spent the evening winding a hank of yarn that was bigger than my head (heck, it was bigger than my butt!) into balls and watching Total Drama Island reruns with Skimbleshanks and Buddha Boy. I thought about posting but just didn't have the energy to think. Truly.

Stitches was wonderful, and I'm glad I went. However, I think that, for me, MS&W is a better fit for me, since it has fiber, yarn, and animals. I also got a tip that Sunday was the best day to go, because the festival-going people usually go on Saturday, but Sunday was when the true fiberistas are there and have plenty of room for themselves and their bags of stash enhancement.

So, there's my recap of yesterday, and I'm counting this post as a double one (yesterday and today) as far as NaBloPoMo goes. I have loads of work today, and it's already quarter of 12. Here's my list:

Read the comics. (done)
Talk with my brother about next weekend's trip to IKEA. (done)
Rebandage Annie's paw. (done -- she sliced up part of one pad, and the vet had to finish by cutting the flappage off [ugh!])
Report on yesterday's events. (done, but I haven't photographed my loot yet -- maybe later, and maybe I'll post those pics later, too ... maybe)
Watch two-part DVD program. "Simply Breastfeeding"
Write review of DVD program and post on Type-A Mom.
Write and post my weekly article on Type-A Mom.
Forward my resume to my friend. (no, I don't care who knows that I'm doing this -- in these times and in this economy, you need to watch out for yourself, you know?)
Pack away the summer clothes.
Bring out the winter clothes.
Excavate the mess in the room where I'm writing this to find the remote. It's here somewhere, and I need to be in control of the TV.
Repack my messenger bag and purse.
Rake leaves into the so-called garden.

As you can see, I have just a few things to attend to. Heck, it took me 5 minutes just typing the list! Is the saying "no rest for the wicked" or "no rest for the weary"? I suppose it doesn't really matter since I pretty much fit into both categories ... especially when I have so much to do!

Off to Stitches

2008-11-07T22:10:00.005-05:00

OK, so this picture is from the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival, not Stitches. However, it is a picture of yarn, so it'll work for this post.

Stitches East tomorrow! Two buses full of people who enjoy high-fiber diets (lame play on words, I realize) will be schlepping down to Baltimore. I've dumped out my purse and messenger bag and repacked the latter in readiness, but, as usual, I've overpacked. At least I realize why my shoulders and back ache while I carry those two things back and forth to work each day. Dang, what a packrat!

Skimbleshanks and Buddha Boy will accompany SpecialEd to an appointment at the mechanic's tomorrow morning while I'm gone. I believe that the bribe or payment for their patience will be found at Best Buy on the way home. Today was report card day, and both boys did very well. Compared to last year's so-called efforts, this marking period's results were nothing short of stellar. While I don't condone payment of actual greenbacks for good grades, neither do I see anything wrong with recognizing a good job, well done and rewarding the boys for their efforts. In fact, Skimbleshanks has been receiving tutoring in Algebra 2, just to keep up with the demanding pace. This is some tough stuff for an 8th grader, and I'm really proud of him for making the effort and not giving up.

Back to fiber ... I imagine that I'll be a bit lightheaded from all the wool fumes tomorrow when I get back tomorrow evening. Will let you know just how awesome it was. This will be my first and probably last Stitches, since the event is moving to Connecticut next year, and the next closest location [OK, note to self: don't post to blog late at night when you're tired. Turns out that "location" was the last word I wrote. Duh!] ... will be Atlanta. Not that I wouldn't love to visit Atlanta, but I don't think our budget would look favorably at plane tickets to an event where I'd just end up spending even more money. Oh well...

Burying the Hatchet, Delaware Style

2008-11-06T22:07:00.005-05:00

Delaware has a great tradition that the rest of the country might do well to emulate. On Return Day, two days after the election, all candidates from the election ride together -- winners and losers -- to The Circle in Georgetown (in Sussex County, one of our three, the other two being Kent and New Castle). Traditionally, the candidates ride in carriages and antique cars; this year. Once there, the town crier reads the election results from the courthouse balcony for all to hear. The ceremony is followed by all kinds of food, the main dish being roast ox sandwiches, given free to all who attend.

Return Day marks the official end of the election season. Since tradition decrees that winning and losing candidates be together for the symbolic burial of the hatchet, it's a way of saying, "Whew! Boy, am I glad that's over!" It's also a way for people to get their heads screwed back on straight and realize that our opponents are really just people like us and that it's time to put the campaigning and rhetoric behind us and get down to the work at hand.

The candidates may shake hands and smile and still dislike their political rivals, but here in Delaware, they still have to do it, and do it publicly.

Return Day seems to be a pretty good idea. "Small wonder" ... it's a Delaware idea.

Times, They Are a Changin'

2008-11-06T07:27:00.003-05:00

Yes, I forgot to post to my blog yesterday. Between work, karate, and knitting, I had an utter brain fart when it came to keeping up with NaBloPoMo. So today I'll try to remember to post twice. Operative word: try.

So here's a picture of our new president. I have such high hopes for our country now that Dubya is in his final days (although Buddha only knows what kind of trouble he might cause in the next couple months). I know that it takes the president, House, and Senate to run our country. However, the president sets the tone for us as a country, both at home and around the world.

Under the so-called leadership of Dubya and crew, our country has become truly hated and despised. They have caused hardship and untold suffering. They have damaged our relationships with our former allies to such an extent that I wonder if we can repair them. They have eroded the principles on which our country was founded, claiming it was necessary to "protect" us. They have fostered an us/them mentality around religion, making Christianity the de facto top dog, and every other faith suspect. They've done everything possible to make this country less of/by/for the people and more of/by/for "me and mine."

Barak Obama is not a miracle and he's no miracle worker. On the other hand, he's a good man. I believe that he will do the best he can for our country and will help heal the recent hurts and those that reach back to the "rum to molasses to slaves" days. He is book smart and people smart. He's known struggle and pain, as well as triumph and joy as a biracial man raised by his grandmother. This man hasn't had any family ties to trade on; he's made his way with the help of others, but without anyone smoothing the way for him, a la Dubya.

I have very high hopes for the coming years, not the least of which is that a person's skin color will become irrelevant when measured by the content of our character.

Making History: Election 2008

2008-11-04T18:19:00.003-05:00

As of right now, 6:39 p.m. EST, we have no idea how this election is going to turn out. (You may not be able to see it, but the electoral count above both candidates is 0.) I'll have to admit that I'm pretty excited to see how everything plays out.

I went to my polling place at about 7:15 this morning, and the line was out the door. Even though we were standing, shuffling forward a foot or so every few minutes, I didn't hear one grumble or complaint. In fact, everyone seemed very calm and not anxious about being late for work. One young woman was grinning ear to ear as she stepped behind the voting booth's curtains. I'm betting that this was her very first experience voting. It was really nice to see her enthusiasm.

The volunteers this year were pretty much younger than 50, in a huge change from previous elections. Then, the volunteers were all white-haired seniors. Interesting.

I'm an independent, but I find that I lean left ... really left. I've been surprised and pleased that my current employer, a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, has kept her political views and opinions to herself. In the past I've worked for someone who had no problem voicing personal, religious-based views of pretty sensitive topics, and her opinions were the polar opposite of mine. Uncomfortable doesn't quite describe it. I believe that people's religion, like their sex lives and income, should be absolutely private. It certainly has no place in the workplace. One of my friends is a devout Catholic, but you'd never know it, because she is very private about her beliefs. I respect that and I respect her ... and she respects me, too, I believe. (Correct me if I'm wrong -- you know who you are!)

Um, where was I? Oh, yeah. This is the last half hour before the media starts barking and frothing at the mouth over the election results. It's the calm before the storm, folks. Who knows what the next few hours will bring? We shall see.

Countdown to Stitches East

2008-11-03T20:23:00.004-05:00

In just five days I'll be headed south to Stitches East in Baltimore. My LYS, Stitches with Style, is hosting a road trip, and I'm pretty jazzed that I'm not going to have to drive. It's not that bad a drive, but the steering wheel would probably get in the way of my knitting on the return trip.

I don't have an actual budget and I don't have a specific shopping list. I suspect that this is a bad idea. I have the feeling that once I walk through the convention center's doors and smell the wool and see the colors and textures, I'm pretty much going to be in a daze.

However, I'll be in good company, as loads of fellow Ravelers plan to be there. We'll be having a meetup at noon, and it'll be pretty neat to put faces to names (Ravelry and "real-world"). It's going to be a blast. I'll be proudly wearing my Red Hen Ravelry pin, so look for me and say hi. If you have to wave your arms in front of my eyes or snap your fingers to bring me 'round, that's fine by me.

Today Is My Pretzel Day

2008-11-02T15:34:00.003-05:00

"I wake up every morning in a bed that’s too small, drive my daughter to a school that’s too expensive, and then I go to work to a job for which I get paid too little, but on pretzel day? [smiling] Well, I like pretzel day..."

--Stanley Hudson, "The Office"

I just love when Daylight Saving Time ends. There's something that's so gratifying about getting that extra hour of sleep. It doesn't quite make up for the pain of losing an hour in the spring, but it sure is sweet ... kinda like pretzel day.

My thanks to SpecialEd for inspiring today's post. Today is his pretzel day, too.

NaBloPoMo--Let the Relentless Posting Begin

2008-11-01T19:31:00.006-04:00

Today is the first day of NaBloPoMo, or National Blog Posting Month. Originally I thought I might sign up for NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, but I just couldn't think of anything novelish to write about. However, I did think that being forced to write something -- anything -- every day for 30 days would be a good thing. So here we go ... 30 days of mindless blathering about nothing significant.

My thanks to the fine folks at nablopomo.com for the nice little graphic.

Say hello to my little friend: Lord Bufo (Bufo americanus, American toad). We have three of these guys or gals living with us.

I love this little guy. He always looks vaguely irritated and unhappy that I've spotted him. However, he will begrudgingly let me touch his little tummy, where it bulges out at the sides. I think he's so round and happy because he's been eating our monster crop of slugs. Before he and his buddies moved in, we had slugs all over the place, leaving their trails of snot all criss-crossed over our screen door and having sex while dangling from a long strand of snot from our trashcan lid. (I do have to say that slug sex is fascinating in a truly disgusting way. But I'll let you check for it on YouTube rather than try to explain it.)

Winter is lurking right around the corner, and it's time for Lord Bufo to curl up and go to sleep. I'm thinking that Santa might just bring our little guy something special: a toad house. No more rocks and piles of yard debris for him. My little guys deserve the best!

Sweetbay Communications Is Open for Business!

2008-10-27T20:57:00.003-04:00

Well, it's official. I've registered a domain, signed up for Gmail, and had business cards printed by those wonderful people at Moo. Introducing Sweetbay Communications, a company that specializes in writing, editing, and copy consultation. When it comes to communicating, your words really do matter, and my business -- my pleasure -- is helping you communicate clearly, concisely, and accurately. Take a look at my Web site and let me know what you think. If you have any questions about what I do, just drop me a line at sweetbaycom@gmail.com.

My fame is based on chocolate: Hershey's Kissables

2008-10-10T14:09:00.003-04:00

The article by Marc Levy has gone out on the Associated Press wire today. It's nice seeing my name in print when it's not associated with a marriage or birth. And I'm relieved that Marc didn't include my statement that the new Kissables taste like "crappy-ass fund-raising chocolate."

Hershey's: I await your apology.

Mars: I await a truck full of Dove.

You get to see pretty stars when you hyperventilate

2008-09-26T18:27:00.003-04:00

I'd like to thank the Academy ...

I've just spoken to a very nice reporter from the Associated Press about this Kissables situation.

Let that soak in for a minute: a reporter. From the Associated Press.

Do you realize what this could mean? Do you?! When this article hits, it may just convince Hershey's (and other companies?) that saving money by substituting ingredients is actually costing them so much more, because they're losing loyal customers. Like me.

Stay tuned. More to come as this story develops ...

I refuse to eat mocolate

2008-09-21T15:57:00.003-04:00

I am vindicated.

You may recall that I suspected that something was up with my Kissables, that someone was asleep at the quality control switch. The company rep poo-pooed my concerns and sent a couple coupons ... for Hershey's products.

I wasn't fooled, and now the company's dirty secret is out there for the world to see: Hershey's has been screwing around with its recipes to save money. Well, it's going to save me a lot of money since I can no longer feed my Kissables habit. I refuse to eat something that tastes like fund-raising chocolate, especially when I can remember how it used to taste. *sniff*

So be sure your bag or bar of chocolate says "milk chocolate" before you buy, because Hershey's isn't the only company cutting corners.

Fortunately, my husband loves me and likes to make me happy. He's been supplying me with Dove chocolate. Happy, happy, joy, joy!

A Retriever Is a Water Dog

2008-09-06T17:04:00.006-04:00

Tropical storm Hanna arrived in Delaware today, bringing buckets of rain.

Annie, our alpha dog, does not like rain, although she does love being dried off with a big towel. She's very ladylike and stays nice and clean.

Loki, on the other hand, loves being out in the rain. He loves coming in out of the rain. Sadly, he loves coming in out of the rain after he's been joyously digging in a hole full of muddy water.

At left you can see what I'll call Exhibit A. Please note that Loki's entire head is coated with mud. Cast your eyes downward and notice that his front paws are in a little mud puddle.

In our next picture, Exhibit B, we see Loki's calling card at the back door.

Exhibit C: Our happy, happy dog. After I took this picture, I used the towel in the background to try to reduce the impending damage to our floors, walls, furniture, and everything else in our house.

The towel went from a dusty rose to a chocolate brown, and pretty dang quickly, too.

As I type this at my desk, our little angel is curled up on a pile of formerly clean laundry on the floor near my feet. He's just looked over at his shoulder at me and blinked a couple times, before turning back around and getting down to the serious business of napping.

I am just so glad that housekeeping is so far down my list of priorities. On a day like today, you can get your knickers in a bunch and lose your temper pretty easily when you have a retriever. You could, however, resign yourself to a lot of laundry and related clean up and make sure you have photographic evidence. SpecialEd and I both had a serious case of deja vu: our Tucker did nearly the the same thing when he was Loki's age. The only difference was that nearly every inch of Tucker was coated with mud. Thoughtful, thoughtful Loki!

Dog Days of Summer

2008-09-01T21:53:00.005-04:00

When you have a water dog and you don't have wild water nearby, you improvise. Loki approves of his wading pool. He loves to jump in and out all day. He's happy. We're happy.

Unfortunately, Loki's not too good about wiping his feet before he gets in the pool. What you see here is the cleanest this water has been. Ever. He doesn't mind. We do.

Before we had kids, our house was reasonably clean. After all, we only had two cats, and they were fairly good about keeping the dirt to a minimum. We won't discuss the hair, shall we?

Once we had Skimbleshanks, the house was relatively clean, but pretty much kid-ravaged. Oh, well, we said. We added Buddha boy and a miscellany of dogs over the years. Our house became lived in. You know, the kind of house where you'd feel comfortable pulling your feet up under you while you sat on the couch.

This weekend, I washed the couch cushion covers and vacuumed their usual home. The horror! The horror! Dog hair, treat wrappers shoved down the cracks, two remotes we haven't seen in months, pens, pencils, highlighters, a tiny marble, plain old dirt. Our vacuum threw up. I was relentless and without mercy: I put in a fresh bag.

Next up is the vinyl and hardwood. They seemed like such good choices once upon a time. Now, not so much.

The dog days of summer may mean something else to most people, but to me, it means: those dogs ... what a life they lead. The phrase "leaving a trail of destruction in their wake" leaps to mind.

I'll Never Be a Hand Model

2008-08-20T18:25:00.005-04:00

You know, they used to say that you can tell a lot about a lady by looking at her hands.

Look at these two sorry specimens.

I tried to put them in a ladylike pose, but it doesn't work. My skin looks pretty wrinkly -- ugh. At least my fingernails are clean.

No, what I mean is, take a look at those big honkin' bruises. Impressive, no? Worthy of sympathy? Well, go ahead, if you want to, but it's really not necessary.

For some reason, I have the unfortunate tendency to "pop" blood vessels in my hands during karate class. When I punch one of the pads during a drill, it's not unusual for me to feel a faint pinching pop. Within the next half-hour or so, the site will swell and turn the color of a Concord grape. The beauties you see here were an interesting purple/red last night. Now that they've had nearly 24 hours to dissipate, they're impressive on a completely different level.

Despite this, I really love hitting those targets. And I don't hit like a girl, either. When I land one, I like to feel and hear ka-pow or boom or smack.

Apparently I have "issues" that are soothed when I beat the living crap out of the pads, landing punches and kicks as if the poor things had insulted my momma. I'm always delighted when I land a good one and a little piece of the stuffing poofs out one of the vent holes. "We have stuffage!"

So what do my hands tell you? To some they may say, "Look out, this one's gonna pound you." To me, they say, "See those bruises? You only landed one out of three with your hand in the right position. Tsk. Next time, those bruises had better be on the index- and middle-finger knuckles. Now drop and give me 20."

Well, I have class again tomorrow night, so I'll see what I can do, hands!

More than 15 minutes of fame?

2008-08-15T16:46:00.004-04:00

I just checked the counter for my article Snappy Comebacks to Rude Breastfeeding Remarks over at Type-A Mom. It's up to 2,046.

Dang!

I wonder about all those people who have clicked that link. Did they like the article? Did they think it was lame? (Am I lame for using the word lame?) Were they irritated? Enraptured? Did they maybe click on that link, meaning to click on the one above or below it?

It's kind of weird to think that the ripples of my snarkiness are working their way outward. Gee, I always fantasized about people reading something I'd written (aside from toxic material manuals, policies, procedures, and standards). This is both wonderful and weird.

Now all I need to do is come up with another post that'll get people clicking and reading. Hmm. After 30+ articles about breastfeeding, coming up with a unique slant on the topic is proving to be a weekly challenge. But I'm just the woman for the job!

My "Internets" Is Unwell

2008-08-10T15:32:00.005-04:00

Our Internet provider is unwell, and I'm racing to post this before I lose connectivity ... again.

The way it works is that I'm connected ... then unconnected ... then reconnected. And this goes on constantly. I feel safe in saying that I'm neither technologically savvy or particularly patient. I am frustrated with the whole mess, as is my IT guy (SpecialEd). The tech support people (people like "Kenneth" and "Christopher" in Mumbai) are very nice about the whole thing, but can't really offer any tangible help or consolation with this particular issue.

Anyway, I'm still here. I'm busy keeping my freelance clients happy, which makes me happy, too. One of my very favorite clients, KBComm, is just great. She loves the job I'm doing and offers suggestions for improvement that help me make my product even better. It's that whole circle-of-writing thing, I guess.

In other news, I'm one month away from promotion to blue belt in Kenpo karate. (The belt ranks go like this: white, yellow, orange, orange stripe, purple, purple stripe, then blue.) I'm stronger and more flexible than I was a year ago, that's for darn sure. Interestingly, doing pushups (27 during one session) has increased a certain dimension of my anatomy, which was a nice side effect. On the other hand, I have never sweat so much in my entire life. I mean, you expect to perspire when you work out -- you don't expect to soak your clothes. Gross. Hmm. Maybe my system is just flushing out the so-called toxins.

I had dinner with my posse, the LOST Gang, a couple of weeks ago. I just love our dinners. We're noisy, happy, and always have lots to talk about. We also keep tabs on our common factor, a former employer, and the shenanigans that continue to go on in our absence. I'm hopeful that by the time our next dinner rolls around in November or so, I'll have happy news to share with the gang ... and since I'm already married, already have kids, and already have dogs and a house, that just leaves employment. Keep your fingers and toes crossed for me!

Amazingly, I'm still connected to the 'net, so I'd better git while the gittin's good. Pasta fazool!

I reject this reality and substitute my own

2008-07-20T18:22:00.014-04:00

The boys and I are back from lovely Carlsbad, California: Land of No Bugs and Perfect Weather. As you can see, it was sunny. I'm a bad mother who totally zoned out on the sun block. Oh, well. They'll forget all about it, but I'll be scarred for life ... or until the next trip west.

It always seems like a dream when I'm in California and a nightmare when I'm home. Maybe it's the magic of my mom, but there are no bugs where she lives. Seriously. If it weren't for wanting to keep her cranky cat from being eaten by a passing coyote, she could leave her doors wide open.

Delaware, on the other hand, has some kind of evil mosquito that reminds me a lot of this guy we saw at the Natural History Museum in San Diego. When I was growing up, the mosquitoes were brown, and I hated them. The ones I squash now are black and white and very aggressive. They seek me out at any time of day, not just dawn and dusk. Little blood-sucking bastards. I've promised a financial reward for every mosquito head they bring me. I believe in live and let live, but not when it comes to mosquitoes.

[Warning: Kid Anecdote]
And speaking of live and let live, Buddha Boy has made it his job to personally escort each fly who ends up in our house back outside. He waits until the fly lands, then sprays it with water from a spray bottle until the fly can't get away. Then he scoops up the fly and takes it outside. This is just too good to be made up.

This snail is one of many the Boy found in danger on my mom's patio. He lovingly escorted each to safety ... in mom's garden.

And I'll leave you with this lizard, one of many who checked me out. Those little suckers are fast and zoom away like they eat jet fuel.

Sorry about all the fauna. I guess they made an impression. Frankly, I'd rather spend time with them than with some of the other critters who live in California!

California Dreaming

2008-07-10T19:46:00.002-04:00

Just a quick note to let you know that I'm basking in the beautiful weather in sunny southern California. The boys and I will be back home in high-humidity Delaware by the middle of July. TTFN!

My 15 Minutes of Fame?

2008-06-18T19:05:00.010-04:00

This past Saturday I posted my 22nd article at Type-A Mom. (I'm the breastfeeding editor ... er, the editor of the breastfeeding topic, and I post an article every week.)

The article, Snappy Comebacks to Rude Breastfeeding Remarks, was one I was able to write pretty quickly. This is because:

I didn't have to do any research (and 2 factual errors bear this out).
It made use of my innate snarkiness.

As I usually do on Monday mornings, I checked the hit counter for my articles. I think it was a fairly respectable number, like 20 or so. Not bad.

I checked again at the end of the day and found that the number had gone up to 99. Wow! I pretty impressive!

I checked my numbers at around 7 Monday night, and they'd raced up up above 200. Now it was getting weird. Only one other article (Top Tips for Increasing Breast Milk Supply) had the big numbers -- up around 450.

When I refreshed my screen, the number had jumped to just over 250. The little hairs on the back of my neck all stood to attention. Time to find out what's going on. (SpecialEd suggested that the hit counter was stuck. I'm no computer genius, but I was pretty sure that it was something else.)

So I wrote to the numero uno Type-A Mom, Kelby:

Ummm, Kelby? I'm trying to keep my cool, but I'm on the verge of completely freaking out. The number of hits on my latest article was at 99 when I left work. As of a couple minutes ago, the number was 254 and climbing as I watch. Are this many people really clicking on it? I mean, I'm flattered and gratified, but I'm also just a bit freaked about it.
How's that for confidence, eh?

It turns out that Kelby had mentioned my article on Twitter and another social networking site. She'll do that from time to time with articles that she thinks will stir up some interest.

Boy howdy! Right now, 8:00 Wednesday evening, the hits are up to 1067.

Hmm. Should I think about quitting my day job? Well ... I can think about it, anyway.