Hail the new, ye lads and lasses...

Thanks for the compliment on Swallowtail. I didn't even realize I'd blogged it. I was trying to, but the entry wasn't showing upon blogger when I was in the process of doing it. Flickr and Blogger don't want me to know that they're secretly friends, I think. Hmmmm...

Happy New Year. A merciless cold has set in here in north Georgia. Temperatures in the 20's, teens and single digits by night, and suddenly my enjoyment of winter is coming to a screeching standstill. Mercifully, the biting, crackling cold is accompanied by brilliant sunshine, and a cessation of the endless mud and rain that had so plagued my days in 2009. So while I'm wearing long underwear and lots of clothes, I'm also not mired hopelessly in my own weather-related depression.

I've joined the working world, at last, with my math teaching gig starting up yesterday. I'm off Tuesdays, a situation I hope to remedy by subbing in local public schools, but am still completing the background checking, fingerprinting, etc. I went in to the math gig yesterday, for a faculty meeting and to look at some student work. It looks doable, though again with the mixed feelings about the culture of private vs public schools and where I want to put my energies in the long run. But a 2010 resolution is to spend less time in the winding halls of my head, and more time in the present, so I'm putting those angsts away for the moment and working to enjoy the kids, the math and the paychecks that will be rolling my way with happy regularity.

A few loose ends pictured here:

The first Christmas tree I've had in years! We never bought them in HI, because imported evergreens are a major source of insect and organism pests in the islands. I realized I'd left all my lights back at my old job, so I had to go out and buy new ones. I wanted all blue, but found the last pack of blue lights at Target, and felt the tree needed more lighting, so hence the colored lights. All the ornaments are old; collected over the years, gifts from students or from my childhood trees... The star is one that I bought in Sacramento, on a special ornament mission with DisKnit. It was really nice to sit in the living room with the lights off and enjoy the reflections and shapes the lights and ornaments made.


Remember the Christmas cactus I repotted for my mom last year? The one that had been in my family for seventy-odd years? Well, this fall, I brought it here, as my dear mom is not a coddler of houseplants. I kept it outside til November, and then brought it in to its current place under our skylight, where it proceeded to bloom for the first time in years, and earlier than it usually does! It was normally, in years past, a Valentine's bloomer, but the conditions and coddling with Miracle-Gro spurred it into action. A happy surprise, especially since I've been too lazy to force any amaryllis or narcissus bulbs to bloom indoors this year.

Also in the unfinished business category of things finally getting done, I spun, washed and skeined up the last of the blue and brown Romney roving. Got about 100 yards of worsted weight for my troubles. I think I'll do a felted project with it; as it's too scratchy to consider making something to wear. I had hoped washing it with hair conditioner might soften it up a little, but no go. Still, it IS pretty.

Ella appreciating my handiwork.


A goal for the new year is to take more pictures and to blog more regularly. Any progress is progress, I'd say.