the gray of the day

My 2 fun-filled weeks off work, frolicking with my husband and family are at an end. Today, I tutored the tiniest Tiger, as well as the sweet girl who always does her homework. Tiger Mother emailed me a schedule for the upcoming week full of new clients, including some adult ESL students, just in from Korea. So I have a slightly new direction, which is good, if somewhat anxiety provoking.

P left for DC this morning, and I was sad to see him go. When I say I like living alone, that's when I am in a groove, getting things done, in a clean house, with nice weather. The day my husband drives away for 3 + weeks, in cold, gray weather, with a holiday-trashed house behind me, and a long day's work ahead, the day after we spent the entire day in the woods watching birds, well...today, I don't like living alone so much. Even the dogs seem depressed. I self-medicated with gyros after work, and now I feel just overstuffed and nasty.

There are diversions ahead, of course, the season 3 premier of Downton Abbey tomorrow, and the kickoff of my mini KAL with Acornbud. We are casting on for  The Lady Edith with the premier. I'm doing mine in this lovely yarn:


That's Dragonfly Fibers' Dragon Sock yarn, in the Bougainvillea colorway - a pleasing mix of reds with a shot of hot pink. I figure Lady Edith can use some cheering up, as she's all too often the forgotten Crowley sister. I was dithering a lot about what yarn to use, and even bought (off destash, so it doesn't count, right?) this lovely green dream:

but decided it was too variegated for the lacy part, so I will make other plans for it. I do love that Smooshy yarn. It's so...smooshy! 

I'm trying to work up the mojo to clean the house, but really hardly know where to begin. I need a serious kick of motivation, here. Or some sun and fresh air. Really, SAD is sad. I thought I was dealing with it, but it has hit me like a train, the past month, and so I am having the same damn conversation with myself again, my annual SAD struggle. Yick. 

My quest to grow out my hair, in both length and greyness has resulted in some pretty funny moments, including this, which is what it does naturally, these days: 

That flip has been with me since childhood. This is the hair washed and airdried, allowed to do its own crazy thing. I tame the insanity down with a flatiron, and it is really much better behaved on a day to day basis. Longer, it will settle down into waves. I REALLY like not messing around with haircolor for a change, though I do have some electric blue Manic Panic in the cabinet for some frisky fun. The color in the picture is fairly true, though. I actually like the grey, though it is giving me some makeup and skin tone challenges - suddenly I feel pale and washed out, and it has me running for the red lipstick, with pleasing results(not shown here). This is a pleasing new lipcolor I've scored in recent makeup shopping, during the buy-one-gift-for-you-buy-2-gifts-for-me season that has just passed. 

I am trying to be back in the habit of blogging. January is full of possibilities, no? 

a little knitting, a little striping

I've really been struck by how many of those stripey colored shawls there are out there: Color Affection, Catkin, etc. I was jonesing for a Catkin of my own, but had neither the luxe yarn, nor the patience/time/orthopedic integrity to knit up such an ambitious project, so I cast on for something not entirely unrelated:

I give you Pendulum, still in WIP status, knitted in 2 shades of Malabrigo Arroyo: colorways Candombe (blue) and Chircas (green). It is very pretty and squishy and the garter is boring me and hurting my wrists, and I love it and can't wait to wear it. Yes. Pendulum is all about the product for me. I love how the colors rock back and forth, and they lok like river deltas or fingers of the sea coming into the land. With any luck, I'll finish it sometime this month or so, but I realize there's an error in it a few rows down...I dropped a stitch, it laddered down, and I tried to repair it, and realize I don't really know how to fix garter mistakes - it doesn't work in quite the same way as a stockinette repair. Some research was done, and now I am girding my loins to fix the ugly spot: 

Meh. It wouldn't really be visible, but it is bugging the daylights out of me. I may be developing a little more responsibility for small repairs. Gone are the days when I'd just blithely fold in mistakes in my knitting and wear them proudly. 

Trying, desperately, this week, to photograph and update my ravelry project pages and stash page, including handspun. It has all run away from me. We'll see if I catch it. 

New Year's Day

Ooh, Happy 2013! I bid a pleased farewell to the departing guest of 2012, helping it pack and get its ass out my door. I am not one to wish away time, but 2012 was a challenge. I suppose I should try and see the good, and it was, in many ways, a good year.

Good Things Happened
 - I found my job at Tiger Mother Tutoring, a great boss, enjoyable work, and good experience teaching ESL. I also did some easy-money sub teaching work.

- I knit and finished a surprising 13 items!! When I first thought about 2012, I didn't think I knit much, beyond Aidez, but I actually finished some things - smalls, and stuff that had been on the needles a few years, but still...

- Ella is healthy and frisky at 14, and we are treating her arthritis, and she's responding to the meds and has had a good year. Cricket has really settled down, I've kept him bite-free and fight-free, save for one day last month when we were rushed by a neighbor's dog, resulting in a scuffle. My dogs have kept me going, this year, and represent the thin gray line between me and the Black Dog of Impenetrable Depression and Craziness. I love them.

- I got into GA State, took 3 graduate level classes, worked my ass off, and nailed a 4.0 this semester. More important, I feel like I actually LEARNED a lot, and made good professional and research connections. I also clarified further for myself that I am truly non PhD candidate material, and this endorsement may be it for my academic career.

- I won a raffle for a week's tuition at the John C. Campbell Folk School, to happen sometime this summer. I also won a raffle for one of Rachael's books.

- I spun a lot of yarn, and am actually knitting projects from my handspun.

- The commuter marriage continues to work, and most days, I'm okay with it. I don't see my husband enough, though, and I hope to get to the DC area a lot more in the coming year.

- I cleaned out the Clamcave and made it a better studio and workspace for myself.

- I found a UU church that feels good to attend. I don't go as often as I like, because laying around on Sunday is my true religion, but I can say that this church feels like home.

- I got certified as a GA Master Naturalist, by taking a 10 week class in Athens, every Friday last spring. I also got certified to do chemical and macroinvertebrate monitoring for GA's Adopt-A-Stream program. I joined up with a couple of neighbors to start a stream cleanup group in the neighborhood.

- Obama got re-elected. Election drama and facebook and family wank aside, this was great news for our country.

- I joined the Outlander Swap on ravelry, and had an awesome time immersing myself in the wonderful time-traveling world of Diana Gabaldon's books. I will do this again.

- I grew out my grey hair, and am working on growing it longer. I actually like it this way!

- I started making my own laundry detergent, and made some dryer balls by felting some of my crappy handspun.

Bad Things Happened (please bear with me as I chronicle what I realize are First-World problems.)

- I let the house and yard go to hell, and am really going to have my work cut out for me getting it cleaned up and decluttered/weeded/pruned back to a reasonable state.

- I gained 10 lbs for no good reason.

- Just as I got the knee straightened out, my shoulder flared up with an impingement, which I ignored (because grad school was so much more interesting) and then developed into a full-blown frozen shoulder. gah. It is no fun dealing with chronic pain, and that is an ongoing issue in 2013. Let's not talk about how I can only knit a little without hurting, right now.

- Schedule and injuries have caused me to fall out of my yoga practice.

- I am pretty broke. My jobs pay relatively little, and while I DO have P's salary to fall back on, I don't have a lot of fun money after my food and household money, and the lack of substantial travel funds is sucking my soul.

- The ONE class I need to finish my endorsement isn't being offered this semester, so I have to go to summer school, and that screws with my professional timeline. I have cried my tears about it, and am making the most of it, by using the time to work more, make some $$ and do some professional and portfolio writing, but still, it galls me.

- I lost a cute project bag, with a nearly-completed sock, and my beloved Kollage square dpns somewhere out in the world. All efforts to find it have turned up nada.

All in all, the good tremendously outweighs the bad, and I have had a pretty blessed year. I am looking forward to working on getting my body back, and moving forward in life.

mushrooms, magnolias, and way too much schoolwork

So it would seem that despite my best efforts, I only publish seasonally now. Not a good thing, but my writing is tied up in other venues again. School is ON, and it is kicking my ass - in a good way, but nevertheless, I am reminded of all the reasons I dislike being a student, and why I greatly prefer the non-formal education route.

I'm taking 3 classes this semester, because of crappy advising, and should have probably only taken two. A teaching methods class that seems geared toward the majority of my classmates, who are brand-new (as in as-yet-uncertified) teachers in a Master's program. I like the technology and research aspect of it, but I could do without the weekly lectures of the professor on how important it is to have a literature-based program, and how teaching is more than a 7-3 job...they'll find out soon enough, lady, let them be.

My linguistics class is far and away the most interesting. I love the prof, who is very involved in classroom-based research, and whose personal interest is adolescent intertextuality - how teens shape their identity by the things they read and write, and specifically through nontraditional media; internet, fanfiction, texting, and suchlike. Very cool. There is a ton of reading associated with this course, mostly journal articles, but fascinating stuff. I don't mind the writing that the course involves, because it's centered around reading, digesting, and integrating this research. Interviewing, transcribing interviews, and looking at the social aspect of language learning round out the work.

I'm also in a practicum, working with a Burmese refugee family, teaching reading with the mother, and doing some computer work with the father. Really enjoyable assignment, though the ranty professor of the methods class is my field supervisor, so I'm hoping to see a different side of her through this work, because I'm not enamored of her in-class style, at all. The mom reads at about the 2nd grade level, and we're working on navigating the myriad of forms that life in America requires, plus vocabulary and conversation that trips to the doctor and library necessitate.

All this has served to consume my brain-and-body time in a big way; knitting has suffered, and I broke my footman-to-treadle connector on my spinning wheel, so spinning has been nonexistent. I ordered a replacement part from Louet, and it is here, so I just need to do the repair to get back on that horse, but I'm a little afraid of that distraction, right now, as I've always used spinning to avoid work, in my non-academic days, so diving back into that caramel colored silk/alpaca again seems a dangerous thing.

Aidez is finished, except for sewing up the side seams. The sleeves fit, a huge relief, but since we are still having 80-degree days, I'm not in any big hurry to get those done. I DID finally learn mattress stitch, thanks to my sister, who insisted that I use you-tube videos and Knitty tutorials to figure it out, since I'd been avoiding it all these years. Hey, guess what? It's easy and fun, and makes a gorgeous, flat, invisible seam!!

Now I'm just messing around with a Kureyon sock, and trying to knit a little every day, and rediscovering how very comforting it can be when it's a stolen pleasure. House and yard have fallen into disrepair, though the dogs are doing very well. Ella is still on arthritis meds, and a liver supplement, and seems to be feeling frisky at the moment. End of summer, and a break in the profound heat (a week of 100+ days were too much for us both) have revitalized her. Cricket is Cricket is Cricket; funny, sneaky, and utterly unfit for society, though he brings great joy here at the Atomic Lodge.

Around here, we grow our plants big: A magnolia flower from down the street,

 and a great big whompin' mushroom back in the woods...heat and humidity have their advantages, botanically speaking. At least the magnolias smelled great; our street is lined with the trees, so summer evenings are wildly fragrant. The mushrooms, not so much.

This weekend, a much-deserved getaway to St. Simon's island, on the GA coast, with some of my knitters. Ahhhhh...relief.

a rainy week

I am loving this week of daily thunderstorms and somewhat cooler (high 80's) temperatures. Yes, it's true that my driveway and front steps are now too slick to walk upon without risking life and limb, but the grey skies suit my mood. This morning it is sunny, though, and I'm thinking that our dark n' stormy week is at an end.

At an end, as well, is the Tour de Fleece, with my best result being this lovely fiber. It is the knittyandcolor superwash merino, that was a joy to spin, and has me wanting to make some socks from it - just under 300 yards of super soft sportweight, so I could get away with some short socks I think.

I am now spinning up 8oz of Herdwick fiber, dyed in an indigo sig vat - that is, using naturally sourced ammonia. In other words - traditionally fermented with urine. I found this fiber on Etsy, quite by accident, and was so curious I had to order it. It doesn't stink, other than a slight vegetal smell, but it is a very scratchy wool. But pretty! Pics to come later. 

Some recent finish object success in the form of the Deep Sea Flower Dice Bag, a free pattern from Ravelry. I gifted this in the Outlander Clan Beauchamp envelope swap. Noro Kureyon is  so much fun to knit, though I did dissect the skein a little, to get the proper blend of colors - way too many green/blacks for my tastes in this skein. 

And a dreamy violet-hued dishcloth for the soap and cloth swap on Ravelry. This is the run of the mill Lily Sugar n' Cream cotton that I seem to have so much of. I do like the colorway a lot. I love that swap - a dishcloth is knit up in just a day or so, and getting a package in the mail with some fancy soap is always a big thrill! 

Little else going on. I am still living La Vida Low-carb, which is fine as long as I eat enough and have enough available things to snack on; veggies, hummus, etc. I don't really miss the bread, but I am missing my easy oatmeal breakfasts! Bacon helps to take the sting off that, though I'm not sure how much my thick-cut, locally sourced bacon is helping my weightloss cause...I have dropped a couple of pounds, and have added hills (there are a few in my neighborhood) to my dog walks, at least for the powerhouse Cricket walks, which should burn a few more calories. 

I've been making a very good breakfast, in the form of some sauteed kale, with garlic and lemon juice, topped with a couple of poached eggs and a smattering of parmesan cheese. I used to eat this feast on toasted garlic bread, but it is now bread-free, and still very satisfying. I leave the yolks runny, and mush it all up into a rather ugly but tasty mess. Bacon on the side. 

School starts up in a couple of weeks - classes for me, and I'm still trying to figure out this whole logistics thing of taking 2-3 classes. It looks like I'll have class on Monday and Tuesday nights, with Tiger Mother keeping me on as a tutor Wednesday and Thursdays, and the occasional Saturday. I can probably work as a sub, as well. It will play havoc with my yoga classes, though it looks like GA State has an Iyengar class in the rec center several times a week, and that would be infinitely cheaper than my studio class, if I could time it right. I could also go off the reservation and take a Vinyasa class which is tempting - imagine yoga with music! Iyengar is such a strict tradition in many ways; no music, little emphasis on spirituality, the focus is on alignment and doing things properly, and the teachers can, at times, seem rather harsh. I love my teacher, it might be nice to have a change on the mat. 

Transportation-wise, my plan is to take the MARTA lightrail downtown to classes, and save on parking fees. This should allow for some time to knit, as GA State is about 20-30 minutes away on the MARTA. 

To celebrate becoming a student again, I'm buying a new daypack. I would never have done this, except that I have lost my beloved lavender Jansport pack,  the Scotland splurge, and have looked for it everywhere imaginable; here, at P's place, my mom and sister's houses, etc. It's been missing for 2 years that I can account for, and through all that time, I haven't really required one, but was wanting one badly to use as a bookbag. I can only surmise that it got sent off to Goodwill by accident in some household purge. I searched REI, but couldn't find a reasonably priced daypack that wasn't ugly. I do have some requirements: it must be subtly colored, it must be a panel loader, it must be hydration compatible (ie, hold a Camelback bladder for water) and it shouldn't cost an arm and a leg. I went to thrift stores, but the packs I found were all trashed, or little kids' packs. I'm young at heart, but I don't want a damn Dora the Explorer daypack. SpongeBob, maybe...then I went on Amazon, and was admiring a Kelty pack that seemed to meet all my criteria, and saw that it was available used, in "like new" condition for $29, so I ordered it. Free shipping. I'm awaiting its arrival now. I've bought used items off Amazon in the past with great success, so I'm optimistic. I am half-waiting for the old missing pack to turn up as soon as I get this new one unwrapped, though. Isn't that usually what happens? 

Today is sunny, and I am getting geared up to walk Ella before it gets too hot. I am happy to say that after 3 rats, there have been no others, and I'm calling this battle over, at least for the moment. This day will involve some basement yoga, dog walking, a bit of grilling for the week to come, and then a trip to the movies, to see this: 

a week from heck

This has been a Most Difficult Week. It started with last week, Tuesday morning, at 6am, down in my laundry room. I was putting in some clothes to wash for my vacation in the DC area, when something raced past me, and scampered behind the washer. A rat, smallish, dark in color. A rat. Seen on the morning that I was departing town for 5 days. I didn't even own a rat trap here in the Atomic Lodge, in spite of all the rat drama I survived in Hawaii. Shit. I was leaving town, a dogsitter was coming by a couple times a day to see my hounds, and I was off in Arlington with my love for a week. Shit. "Okay, you've got 5 days to party, Brother Rat, and then it's all over."

I went on to Arlington, where it was spectacularly, sensationally, insanely hot. Really, GA had nothing on the DC area for stifling, white-skied, 100+ temperatures and swimming humidity. I tried so hard to have a holiday, but it ended up being rather quieter than I'd planned, due mostly to the need to keep cool. People, you know me. I am heat-tolerant. I love the feel of humidity on my skin, welcome the sun's healing fire. But this thing that's been hitting the East Coast the past couple of weeks was bigger than all of us. I saw movies, met friends for breakfast, spindled pretty wool, watched Tour de France recaps, hung out with P, swam in his apartment complex pool, which was like bathwater. One desperate day, we decided not to go outside, in favor of watching the entire first season of The Walking Dead, in one big air-conditioned marathon. Good times, even though I would never define myself as a fan of the zombie apocalypse. One does strange things in this heat.

I came home, and set off to find my rat traps, visiting Lowe's, The Home Depot,  another local hardware store, Walgreens, CVS, Kroger, and finally, the hated Wal-Mart. It was that last place, a desperate bid, that turned up 3 Victor rat traps, which I initially thought might be overkill. I set them that night, and turned up the next morning with a rat in the laundry room trap. Next night, another. Next morning, a third, caught in broad daylight, over by the dogfood. At this point, it ceased to be a humorous thing, and turned into a panic. 3 rats in 36 hours is not a laughing matter. I emailed my friend Mike, a well-known rat killer, in CA, who offered me sympathy, encouragement, and the advice to "keep the rat death machine rolling, whatever you do, do not lose heart."

So I kept setting traps, though there have been no other kills. The week kept on being a series of ups and downs. Badly behaved, disrespectful children at work. Heat, humidity, and a nasty 5 hour stomach flu that I thought would kill me, and then mysteriously departed. Huh...

Through an act of mindlessness, I melted my plastic compost bucket on the stove burner, thus putting that system on hold, temporarily. The garbage men did not pick up my trash, leaving me one rotting rat in the trash can. It got rained on, making rotten rat soup in the can. Nature's Miracle and a lot of baking soda took care of that this morning, after they finally came. I wised up and just pitched the other 2 dead rats out into the woods, allowing for decomposition and the circle of life, but the stink of dead rotting rat is one you don't soon forget.

My dear pagan friend Leah came into town, and we went out and about in Roswell, for negronis and charcuterie at the salt factory, a cool pub in this hot town. That actually was a bright spot in my week, which continued on in its desultory way, culminating in my laptop crashing last night, and temporarily losing all the pictures in my iPhoto library. 8,000 images. Attempts to restore the photos have met with mixed success, and it looks like they are still parked in a file on the machine, and will have to be added back into iPhoto manually. I am not so happy with OS Lion right now. I back up my data pretty regularly, and it shouldn't be a huge crisis, but for a few minutes, I was heartsick.

Leah's advice to me was to join her in a re-read of Pema Chodron's great classic book, When Things Fall Apart, which I think is sound. Now it's Thursday, we've had 2 nights of violent thunderstorms, which have broken the awful heat, but left me a yardfull of sticks to pick up.

Summer's heat and weird schedule, plus the daily Korean rice-and-noodle based lunch my boss makes have served to make all my clothes extra tight, and not in a flattering way. So, in an attempt to avoid the creation of a whole new wardrobe, I've stopped eating bread, rice, noodles, and sugary foods again, revisiting a modified South Beach diet, which always makes me feel more energetic, if not thinner. These days, breakfast is a slice or two of smoked turkey or veggie sausage, a hard-boiled egg, some kind of fruit or leftover vegetable. Lunch is salad, and dinner is something cooked up - tonight it's tandoori chicken legs and grilled yellow squash, because we've got a break in the rain. Last night it was this treat, a grassfed ribeye from Whole Foods, with a decadent baked potato topped with plain yogurt.

Tomorrow is a day off from work, possibly my only Friday off for the rest of the summer, as few of the other teachers want to work. I don't either, but I could use the money.

Tour de Fleece rolls on. Here's my spindling, all plied up. 120 yards of worsted-weight squishiness, some mystery silk/merino from Acornbud. Silvery greens, golds and touches of brown evoke late summer/early fall. Enough for a hat or a cowl, I think.

I am off to grill my chicken legs and walk Ella down to the labyrinth and maybe try and turn this week around before it runs right over me.

tasting summer

Greetings from Arlington, VA! I am up here, visiting P, and digesting pizza, waiting for the Tour de France coverage to start, while P naps. It is hot, terribly hot, and many folk in the area still don't have power, due to the derecho that whirled through on Friday night. P, because he lives in a concrete jungle, with no trees of any size, only lost power briefly, which is a mercy.

I spent the weekend being quiet and subdued, in Atlanta's 106 degree heatwave. Really, I almost never left the house the whole weekend. Something about 100+ and humidity combined to make a blast outside, and the dogs and I spend our time down in the basement, knitting, cleaning, puttering. I ate easy things like salad and smoothies, and did some Tour de Fleece spinning.

This fiber was a joy to work with, and I'm a little sorry that my wheel is back in GA - now my TdF efforts must be carried out on the trusty spindle, and with some fiber that Acornbud brought to SAFF for us to play with. It's been a WIP for far too long, so I'm glad to get back to spindling it. No real hopes that I'll finish it, but I will post my progress.

Looking forward to visiting with my dear DisKnit, and some pagan friends over the next couple of days, a visit to the National Building Museum, and maybe a walk on Teddy Roosevelt Island, if it's not too mercilessly hot. I also get to go to my interim Mid-Atlantic Kaiser doctor (long story, but I have long-distance health care through 2012) for prescription renewal and grad school immunizations. It looks like I need about 100 shots, and hey, I have only a battered WHO card, that shows the last time anyone stuck me with a needle was for tetanus back in 2003. Hmmmm...hoping to talk my way out of some of them, and wondering how to prove that I've had stuff like MMR, etc. I don't even sport a typhoid scar, though one assumes that by virtue of having grown up in modern day America, and having served in the Peace Corps, I've had all those kinds of shots.

On the knitting front: I find myself in 2 swaps coming due, and so I have a sorta super secret project for an Outlander Clan Beauchamp Envelope swap, plus a pair of Dashing mitts for my friend Leah, and a dishrag for the soap and cloth swap I'm in. All amounting to a lot of work on small, satisfying projects, and a welcome break from the slog that has become the sleeves for Aidez. Which I hope to get done before Ravelympics. Or whatever they are calling this event now.

A couple of pics of summer so far:

The yarn that broke my yarn diet: some Malabrigo Arroyos, purchased at Wyrd Sisters. Too pretty to knit, but I play with it daily. 

Some surprisingly sweet blackberries, found on my Ella walk a couple weeks ago. Funny, last summer, the berries weren't at all sweet, but these were much juicier - recent rains have done them good, I guess. As you can see, i was lucky to find the few ripe ones that weren't already eaten. 

Box turtle, rescued in the road, in Floyd County, VA. I was on a rambling jaunt with my sis, out in the rural reaches of southwestern Virginia, and we came upon this box turtle, just about to cross the road. It was a really sassy turtle, popping out to visit, and very curious. We gave it a little ride to a less trafficked place, and turned it loose; later found out that you aren't supposed to move them away from their territories. oops. Master Naturalist screws up big time. 

I am still feeling a low-key blogging mojo, which I hope I can sustain through the summer. 

tour de fleece!

It's the beginning of the Tour de France, and to spinners of yarn, that means the Tour de Fleece is now in session! The goal of this tour is to improve one's spinning, by spinning every day that the Tour rides, and to set up special challenges on the days of the hard mountain stages. Here's a pic of my wheel, sitting empty and ready to be spun this morning during the opening - the Prologue.

I'll be spinning this pretty roving, purchased at Stitches South this spring. Superwash Merino by knittyandcolor, in the Candy Hearts colorway. My goal with this braid is to spin nice singles. I don't spin consistent singles, thus I have to ply everything. I hope, by spinning daily, to work this out. 

In other news, we are having a spectacular heat wave here on the East Coast. It is supposed to reach 106 today. oy. I have a few things to do outside, and a little run to Costco for coffee and greek yogurt, but otherwise, I am going to be ensconced in the cool of my basement for the day.

an attempt to catch up

Gah...have I really been gone since mid-February? (shakes head, dusts off laptop, wonders where to begin)It's not like the blog hasn't been in my thoughts. I've composed entries almost daily, but haven't quite been able to put those good intentions down on this here dashboard. But a chance early rising (thanks, Ella) and a cup of coffee might just make this happen today. I can't completely catch up on every little thing in life, but I will hit the highlights...the trip to The Mountain, with the knitting guild was definitely one of them. Oh and I spent 8 weeks in the spring taking the Georgia Master Naturalist certification course, spending every Friday out in the woods around Athens, GA, sciencing, learning about our local natural surroundings and hot environmental issues. I am now a certified Master Naturalist, a title I do not yet feel qualified to carry, but there it is. This path got me interested in stream water quality assessment, so I've been pursuing the trainings for that certification, as well. This is considerably more technical, there are tests to pass and qualifications must be renewed annually. I passed my chemical monitoring lab test, and in late July, will do macroinvertebrate id training. This is where you learn to id all the little crawlies in the stream bed, for census. I like little crawlies, streams, and data geekishness in general, so I am happy with this new direction.

north to the mountain

A home for a gnome? Seen on a dog walk I took with Ella a couple of weeks ago.
Our knitting guild is holding a getaway retreat in Highlands, NC this weekend, and I am headed up there. Supposed to be like a "camp for adults," it's at The Mountain retreat center. My friend Debbie and I are driving up there this afternoon - it's about 3 hours away. The capable Cathy is coming again to babysit my beasts and hold down the Atomic Lodge whilst I'm off breathing rarefied air and knitting up a storm.

Handknits lucky enough to go with me are: the long-languished Noro Stripey Scarf, Aidez, a sock that is just not moving, and a gift for my swappee for the Outlander Swap. The scarf is really just an hour or so away from being done, after nearly 2 years on the needles. What can I say? I am slow, and some knits, while desperately wanted in finished form, just don't get knitted up all that fast. I am trying to make a sincere effort to finish or frog some longstanding UFO's though, over the next month or so. I will report progress on that front when it becomes less shameful to do so.

I promised an update on my employment status, a couple of entries ago. I got hired on as a sub teacher in the district, and started working in some of the schools in my area. The money is so-so, but the biggest epiphany for me, in this job, has been how amazingly different the school culture has been from last year's hell job. Teachers seem happy, kids go to recess, admin seems to be somewhat less psychotic in these 3 or 4 schools where I've concentrated my efforts. The possibility of maybe teaching full time again has entered my mind, though I am enjoying the pleasure of half-time work.

For a few weeks, I was trying to doing some work with a company who ran Lego robotics classes as an afterschool program. This was fun, and initially, I thought it would be a take-off new direction for me, but alas, it was not to be. There weren't many hours, and what hours there were conflicted with my subbing, and it just didn't pay enough to justify my not taking sub work, which I consider very easy money, most of the time.

During my Lego phase, I was offered another job, at a tutoring center which served mostly high schoolers studying for the SAT. They were getting a lot of requests for an elementary tutor, one who could teach reading and writing to children whose primary language was Korean. This had more hours, evening hours which would allow me to take sub jobs if I chose to keep doing that. I've been doing that for about 10 days now, and am kind of enjoying the work. The kids, for the most part, speak pretty good English, though the moms prefer speaking Korean; mercifully, my boss is bilingual and translates. My students are in 1st through 4th grades, and we're working mostly on reading and writing, with a little math thrown in, and a little test prep, mostly because this is Georgia, and the test is the tail that continues to wag our dog. The center has a lot of resources, so it's not a huge planning and prep toll, and HEY!! I don't have to submit lesson plans; merely to record what we worked on for each session. It's nice to be working, it's nice to see the same kids each week, and to feel like I have a little more flex in what sub work I take. I'm off on Wednesdays and Fridays, and on Saturdays when I'm in town (commuter marriage and all) I see a first grader for a couple of hours. Seeing a paycheck, albeit a small one, is a good thing.

Beyond that, I'm kind of languishing in an end-of-winter doldrum here. I've had a nasty cold, which I treated with a combination of Chinese herbs, elderberry syrup, hot tea, and chicken soup. I spent every non-working hour in bed, asleep, for about 3 days, and really think this "let-it-run-its-course" approach is a wise approach for such illnesses. Funny thing, a month into working with children again, and I get sick. Predictable as the seasons, right?

I've been continuing to have fun in the kitchen, of late, and have been making homemade salsa, using a Rick Bayless recipeinvolving canned fire-roasted tomatoes. I am never eating store-bought salsa again, I think. I also put together some preserved Meyer lemons, and they are about ready to eat, so we should see some tagine in the near future.

Brigid's Day Silent Poetry Reading

SONG OF AMERGIN

I am a stag: of seven tines,
I am a flood: across a plain,
I am a wind: on a deep lake,
I am a tear: the Sun lets fall,
I am a hawk: above the cliff,
I am a thorn: beneath the nail,
I am a wonder: among flowers,
I am a wizard: who but I
Sets the cool head aflame with smoke?

I am a spear: that roars for blood,
I am a salmon: in a pool,
I am a lure: from paradise,
I am a hill: where poets walk,
I am a boar: ruthless and red,
I am a breaker: threatening doom,
I am a tide: that drags to death,
I am an infant: who but I
Peeps from the unhewn dolmen, arch?

I am the womb: of every holt,
I am the blaze: on every hill,
I am the queen: of every hive,
I am the shield: for every head,
I am the tomb: of every hope.

Translated by Robert Graves;The White Goddess.

water dragon new moon love bubble

Since all hope of catching up with the events of my last 3 weeks is washing away in my 2 flooding creeks beyond the yard, I will simply post a cold-hard-facts post. Bo-ring, I know, but we play catch up with a minimum of drama.

Knitting: Aidez, back completed and pretty. I love the sheepy Ecological Wool, and the big fat US#10 needles. I do not love traveling trellis cables, as they require me to pay attention to the ever-changing status of seedstitch fill and which cable to use to cause all that traveling. But I do like cabling, as evidenced by this little bit of cozy comfort:

I joined in the madness of the Outlander Fans annual swap, centered around Diana Gabaldon's book characters and storylines. This little coffee cozy is a product of a swap-related activity, in which you and a partner are "dancing to the same tune" so to speak. I have been using it nonstop, since taking the fiddly thing off the needles, and I've decided that a coffee cup cozy is the ultimate Small Luxury, especially when it is knitted up in one's own handspun - the remnants of the shetland that decorated my Riverrun Shawl.

I'm still in the commuter marriage, which has been a blessing and a curse, depending on the day you ask me. P was offered an early retirement buyout from the Feds, and is considering taking it - it wouldn't happen til 2013, but that event is one which profoundly affects where we live - on one salary(mine) + one pension(his), the Washington, DC area becomes too expensive to enjoy. He'd take a year off and then go back to work as a private consultant, but we're thinking to just locate that work down here in Atlantis. My hard-working husband has been kicking around retirement for awhile, but thinking it would be a 10 year plan, as he gets increasingly fed up with the government service. As in Education, the golden heyday of Federal Service is past. So we're running the numbers, but the current plan is to stick out the commuter marriage til mid 2013, keep the Atomic Lodge as our home base, and then decide whether to stay here or move to some cheaper, possibly more rural place in VA, closer to my Olde Country.

After a day of heartfelt sadness over not going back up to the Love Bubble of the DC area, I experienced a wave of profound relief at not having to plan for a Big Move this year, and a wave of joy at the idea of being able to live in the Atomic Lodge for at least another year. I don't think I'd been letting myself feel the love for awhile because it all seemed so temporary. Now, I look at the redwood ceilings, the boulders, the green woods, and I feel a balm, a loosening of my frozen heart.

All this was hard to explain to the NoVA friends, of course. "How could you possibly stay there?" When I explained the whole ECONOMICS of the thing, there was understanding, of course, but closing the door on the Love Bubble plan was hard. I do have friends here, but settling into a place takes time, and I am still in the midst of that process, here.

I drove up to the Love Bubble this weekend, a drive which included 150 miles of blowing snow, and a return trip of socked in fog and stinging cold drizzle. It was punctuated by happy times visiting the King Memorial on the National Mall with P and a very old friend from CA, reuniting with DisKnit for a couple of joyous hours, bloody marys with my old cocktail circle in Shirlington, and good times hanging with my husband in his corporate apartment in Ballston. I took Ella, and learned that she is a great apartment dog, and that having a big dog in an apartment with no backyard is a hassle I do not want to deal with. She enjoyed the travel and the constant attention, however, and I do love spending time with my aging grey lady. Cricket stayed with the babysitter and played frisbee and tracked mud in the house all weekend. DC gets snow and ice, Atlanta gets rain and mud.

Now I'm back here, taking a day off from my 2 McJobs (which I will discuss in detail, later - suffice to say that neither is paying me what I am worth, but both are fun and not too taxing) and trying to embrace all that I have to do around the place.

Happy Chinese New Year! Happy New Moon! May the energy of the Water Dragon bless us all with prosperity, peace, and health!

An experiment

How can anyone look at this yarn and not be happy? I just love Noro in all its crazy psychadelic beauty. This Kureyon sock skein is full of Easter egg candy colors that are just begging to be knit up into some silly springtime socks that go with nothing, therefore going with everything. It was a gift from my knitter Patty, who insists she didn't know what to do with it. (hoard it! pet it! sniff it!)

After a careful assessment of my stash - holding fast at 2 big Rubbermaid tubs and a file box, and my finances, holding fast at not very much money at all, I have decided to Not Buy Yarn in 2012. I have mulled over this long and hard, the past few days, when I was considering resolutions and affirmations for the coming year. At first, I made the pledge secretly to myself, and then decided it would be too easy to break if it were my little secret; I tell myself all kinds of stories and they contradict each other all the time. This would be another one. Nope. I'm putting it out there. It's an experiment. Souvenir yarn is no exception. Festival yarn is no exception. A year of not buying yarn. No exceptions. I am allowing myself a reasonable amount of spinning fiber, IF I am spinning consistently.

There. I committed to it.

Mostly this is an experiment, to see if I can do it, like the No Bottled Water commitment, and the No School Cafeteria Food pledge, and various slow food efforts I've made. Putting it out there helps me to take it seriously. It's also a challenge for me to delve deep into the stash and handspun and knit it up. I have more yarn than I want or need, and yet I love it all. So I'm gonna let all of it be enough for now.

In other news, I have finished the mitered mittens, including cutting into the knitting to place the thumb. I'm happy with how they turned out, and really, cutting into them wasn't too bad, and accompanied only by a cup of Tension Tamer tea and the latest episode of Downton Abbey, which is obsessing me, as I catch up with old episodes in order to prepare for new ones. The mittens are warm and slightly scratchy, and when our weather changes - supposedly temps are warming up by Friday, I will give them a good soak in Eucalan and hair conditioner to soften them up a little. If I had to do this project over again, I'd make them a little bit shorter. No one needs a gauntlet that long, do they?

Meanwhile, I march along on Aidez, enjoying the knit, but it's a big sweater, so the progress is slow and uninteresting to the casual observer. To folk looking to knit a chunky aran cardigan, it's an easy knit so far. I wish it was done already, as these temperatures in the teens and twenties at night are daunting. I am making full use of my little stable of hats, even wearing them indoors.

Hoping for sub work soon; the district just started back to school today after the Christmas recess, and I'm still being entered into the system, I'm told, so no sub calls yet, but I'm hopeful and ready to start working. I've ironed all my pseudo-professional outfits and hung them up in the closet, readjusted my bedtimes (9:30pm) and wake-ups(5:00am) and organized some lunch likely food. If you build it they will come, I'm told.

vacationing and knitting and flowers galore

I am on a writing roll, and am waiting for my salted caramel sauce to heat up for tonight's decadent dessert (ie, poured over vanilla ice cream) and uploading pictures from my camera; surely the slowest process in my life these days. Creep, creep, anticipation...just came back from knit night at Starbuck's, where I worked on the latest of my smalls - a pair of Elizabeth Zimmerman's Mitered Mittens.

Look, Ma! No thumbs! EZ suggests we knit these without thumbs, and then add an afterthought thumb by locating the location and snipping a stitch and unravelling a thumb-sized number of stitches and picking up and knitting on. I am trying to cultivate fearlessness and faith, in equal measures, so I am going for it. But not without a stiff drink in hand as I snip.

Isn't this Kureyon pretty?

We are enjoying the quiet aftermath of the holiday, with the tree still up for a couple days more and nice things being eaten, like salted caramel sauce, and bison flank steak, and a truly lovely Amador County Barbera to drink. Knitting and dog frisbee and the reading of Olive Kitteridge at a leisurely pace.

There were plenty o' flowers for the holiday, both the show-stopping amaryllis,

and the more subtle beauty of the white tulips contributed by my sister:

It's been so warm outside this fall that the paperwhite narcissus that I planted out in the backyard are starting to bloom, about 2 months early. Grrrr, what to do? Enjoy them, I suppose, as Winter is finally here, and our morning temperatures are in the 30's now, with frost on the ground. Brave narcissus.

My sis and I cast on for our long-planned knitalong of Aidez, which is the French word for "help" I think, which means we'll be helping each other along. It's a fun aran cardigan, knit up in plump Cascade Ecological Wool - mine in brown, my sis' in grey. I was quite stressed in the beginning of this project, as I ripped and re-knit the beginning cast on and the set up rows a couple of times before I got it right. I think I angst too much over cables, and how they play out in a left-handed knitting scenario. In the end, I decided not to reverse my cables, but to knit the whole thing as written, and just let it twist and fall where it may. I did drop a needle size, based just on "feel", as I cannot see this thing being knit on US 10 1/2, even though Brenda's looks great and plushy. We shall see how it comes out. Here is a bit of detail. Apologies for the washed out picture. The brown is a much richer, sable-y color. I think it's called Java, but I'm calling it Walnut.

I think this is product knitting, as opposed to process knitting, as I want this cozy cardigan very badly.

a little bit of history

A funny thought...many long years ago, I was sitting up in my office, on a snowy December evening. We had just moved to Virginia that summer, and I was surfing the web on my spiffy new laptop - a little blue clamshell iBook. I did not have a blog, though I had kept a paper journal since high school. The year was 2000.

I was trying to figure out how to force an amaryllis bulb to bloom indoors, and I came upon this site Waking the Amaryllis, which was essentially, a page out of someone's blog. It was the first daily life online journal I'd ever seen, and I was dazzled and inspired. I raced over to a free journaling site, the now-defunct-but-then-all-the-rage Diary-X and started The Secret Beaver World, which became my online journal for 6 years, til D-x crashed and ceased to be. The rest is history, as they say, but the Waking the Amaryllis page is still up there, and I am growing an amaryllis under my skylight now.

The holidays have floated by in a happy cloud of ham, visiting relatives, cold rain, gifts and friends. I am ready for the comparative austerity of the new year and a return to the good habits of more sleep, longer walks, doing some work and new knitting projects, which will be documented here tomorrow. Along with the amaryllis.

full moon fever

...er, not so much. I am completely lacking in firepower, due to a Flexeril I took last night to combat a tension headache, aching shoulders and back. I always gloss over how badly this drug and I get along, even though I am loose and relaxed today, with the headache banished. I'm just not very animated. Damn the halflife of chemicals in my system! I'm feeling a nap right now, and it's taking everything I have to do a blog entry instead, but I've got things to say, so sleep, especially unnecessary, chemically-induced sleep, will have to wait. Besides, it's the full moon, and I heard owls in the woods tonight, so that's reason enough to stay awake.

It's all good, though. My district is hiring me back as a substitute teacher, so there's a possibility of money on the horizon. This means I have to go to a most-of-the-day training next week, in order to hear the lectures on dress code, professional conduct, ethical behavior, etc. that this employer likes to lecture on. I have heard it all before, twice before from these very people, in fact, so I may bring along some knitting to do surreptitiously whilst it's going on. Subbing means that I'll have to do some pavement pounding in order to drum up my own work, so I'm getting psyched up to go out and sell myself at my neighborhood schools. I'm grateful for the upcoming possibility of working, though, particularly at a job that leaves me some flexibility.

This past summer, I knitted Ysolda's Rose Red beret in some Madelinetosh vintage. I was so ambivalent about the FO that I didn't wear it for awhile, and threatened to frog it - it just seemed waaay too big for my already-big head. I felt like I needed some dreadlocks to tuck into it to justify All That Hat. But I blocked it out instead, and decided, once it got cold, to give it another chance. After all, I don't like frogging things, and repurposing yarn is something I just never quite get around to taking care of. Blocking made Ms Rose look a lot nicer, and I think I might just let her hang around.

Apologies for the no-makeup look. I was playing around, and then realized that I liked the way the hat looked in the pic - rather Green Beret-ish, no? But seriously, I could have used some lipstick! The pattern is very well-written. I knitted the size medium, but think it produced a gi-normous hat. Might have been the superwash nature of the yarn that contributed to that; all I can say is that it is generously proportioned. But the yarn was lovely, and the Tart colorway is just gorgeous.

Now that the weather has turned, I've been all caught up in cooking "cozier" foods. I roasted a chicken last weekend, with the intent of making several meals from my effort. I've been really trying to eat cleaner meat, so this was a Springer Mountain bird, bought on sale, and roasted over a bed of root veggies: potatoes, carrots, onions, turnips and rutabagas. Rubbed with a mix of olive oil, garlic, chopped rosemary and thyme and roasted at 400 for 1.5 hours.

Amazingly delicious. I read somewhere about letting the bird sit out for several hours before roasting, so that the skin dries out a little, and so that everything comes to room temperature, and I did this. It ended up being the crispiest bird I've ever made, and yet the meat was actually quite moist.

From the leftover chicken and veggies (after a dinner, some meat nibbling and broth making) I made a chicken pot pie, using Chelsea's biscuit recipe (with some modifications) for crust. I used some of the broth to make a gravy to mix with the meat and veg and covered it all with rolled-out biscuit dough. A serious dish o' comfort food, and one that will be revisited around here throughout the winter. Super easy, once you have the meat, veggies and broth available to assemble the whole thing, too. I roasted the chicken with that plan in mind, and I think that's the way to go; I couldn't see myself as being organized enough in the kitchen to just whip one of these puppies out with stuff laying around.

Remember when I was going on and on about this being a mast year for acorns? Well, here are some new ones I came across yesterday, on a walk with Cricket. They are about an inch in diameter, with a rather rough, prickly cap. The acorns seem smaller and very tightly embedded in the cap. I'm fascinated by the variety of oak trees in our area. I suppose this will all mean a huge spike in squirrel population around here next year.

Blogging, and hearing the owls have given me a little bit of energy, so I'm going to go make some tea and watch my new Netflix dvd: Pedro Almodovar's "All About My Mother."

November into December

November roared by; a beautifully warm, acorn-and-leaf-filled haze. Before I knew it, it was Thanksgiving, and I loaded up the dogs in the CRV and drove up to VA, to hang out with my family, and meet up with P for Thanksgiving.

My mom and I went out for lunch at a rural German restaurant. Fantastic sauerbraten and wonderful dark beer, in this cozy place on a cool foggy day.

I loved the fog. Everything was so hushed, in this blanket of mist.

Our family went out to Thanksgiving dinner at the Hotel Roanoke; yummy buffet, too much food. Our family is very small on my dad's side; neither my sis nor I have kids, and my one cousin on this side of the family is single, too, so it was me, P, my mom, my 80 year old auntie Lucille, my sis, and cousin Chuck. Nice to do things with these folk, and I feel we need to be together more frequently, which should happen after I move back to VA next summer.

My trip to VA also included getting together with a high school friend, hiking with Mr. Cricket on a rails-to-trails trail in Rockbridge County, where he saw his first cows - something he did NOT like in the least. Lots of outdoor time, lots of knitting, and coziness over the week. My sis and I fit in an all-night Lord of the Rings movie marathon, and we went out to hear David Wilcox in a small club in Roanoke. It was nice to hang out with my husband for a few days, too. I am suffering from not living under the same roof with him, this fall. This house seems too quiet, too overwhelming at times.

Last monday, I drove from VA back to GA. An 8 hour drive, 6 hours of which were made in a hard rain. Not fun. I left late, and arrived home late, and just released the dogs from their car prison (or so that's how they described it to me) and came upstairs and fell into bed. Nice to be back, even if it is in a too-cold, too-quiet house.

Some frosty leaves in the front yard yesterday.

The oaks are nearly bare, now, and it seems winter is upon us! I have managed to do a little Christmas shopping at craft fairs, thrift stores and such, and am knitting along on gifts for P and my mom.

This little village, being set up at the German restaurant, added to the wintry coziness.

Some nice fall things going on around here, new colors, new endeavors and surprises abound!
I have been taking a daily early morning ramble with Ella; she is good off-leash, and relatively harmless, unless you are a bunny or a squirrel, so we walk a little loop of hiking trail back behind the house. She is more often than not a little limpy these days, but being outside in the crisp autumnal air livens her right up! We have returned from our stroll and in spite of being a bit sweaty out on the trail, I am now chilly - enjoying the last of the coffee.

Here are the current colors in the woods right now. November is Georgia's October, I've decided. It really doesn't get going around here, leaf-wise til November, which is kind of a treat for those of us who like to take things slowly.

There's been some knitting - more than a little, most of it for Christmas, but I am sneaking a little mindless sock action in there for me. I taught myself the Turkish cast-on and started a new toe-up sock. My gosh, where has this cast-on been all my life? So easy, so unfiddly. I am going to experiment with an afterthought heel, as well, as one of my knitters assures me that this, too, is an uncomplicated thing to do. I love these fall colors! The yarn is Spirit Trail Fiberworks basic sock yarn, marinatating in stash since 2006, and the toe is done in Knitpicks Stroll. I am renewing my commitment to knit socks for myself this winter; slowly but surely.

Finally, a seriously surprising surprise.About a year and a half ago, I grew some shitake mushrooms on a log from a kit I gave myself for Christmas. This was an easy little project, and I kept it up for a few months, and then, last fall, as the job ate my life, I harvested the current crop of mushrooms off the log, and put them down under the bed in the guest room to rest (the log has to have a period of dormancy for a couple of weeks between fruiting cycles) and simply forgot about them. The 2 little logs lay under the bed collecting dust and dozing for a solid year. This weekend, I was cleaning the guest room in an attempt to set it up as a sewing room, and discovered them there, with a fresh (though dehydrated) crop of 'shrooms!! Nice to know that Nature goes on doing her thing, even as we are sometimes oblivious to it.

I've harvested my dried-up shitakes, gonna rehydrate them for some miso later on, and have soaked and set up the mushroom scheme again. The logs are springing a new coating of mycelium even as I write this. I can't wait.

Other things not photographed, but worth mentioning: I've been applying for jobs, with no real movement forward, (merely notes from school districts saying "hey we've got your application - be patient") I've made homemade pizza, I went to the apple orchard with Jessie again, to get some Arkansas Blacks, a favorite apple variety. The orchard had harvested all the apples, so the only picking we did was picking up the bag of apples off the shelf, but still, they were locally grown and a good keeping apple, or so I hope.

Even though the time has changed, and our days are ending an hour earlier, I'm trying to take full advantage of this Indian summer, it's been in the high 60's this week, and is just glorious. Planting bulbs, long walks with Mr. Cricket, who is back in his boot camp-esque training class on Tuesday nights. Project Z is more or less successful; the real challenge will be whether or not I can sustain it if I were to find work. I am feeling good, though, and not napping; in bed around 10 most nights, and up around 6 most days. Much easier to do with an early hour of daylight!

moving forward

Fall is most definitely in full swing, now, with leaves turning golden, and acorns raining down upon us. I have never seen so many acorns as this year - a "mast" year, I believe they call it. In truth, this pic was taken at the Atlanta History Center, but our front yard is much the same situation, and all over Atlanta, we are covered with the bitter nut. I wish I had some pigs to fatten up on my little 1/2 acre. Though Mr. Cricket enjoys munching a particular tiny acorn from our Willow Oak in the backyard.

Ms Acornbud's visit to The Atomic Lodge was a blast. We managed to do a lot; thrift shopping, eating Indian and Korean food, a trip to Asheville,NC to meet up with my sister and fellow Atlanta Knitter Jessie for SAFF and general Asheville joy. There was a visit to the Atlanta History Museum, and plenty o' spinning and knitting. And probably a lot that I'm forgetting to mention, including a Malabrigo hat that Ms. 'Bud whipped up in no time and left for me to enjoy. I will post SAFF pix (mostly llamas, alpacas and sheep) later. Project Z was slightly abandoned for the week, though I think I got a fair amount of rest; didn't really suffer. Now I'm back on the horse, though, and am feeling fine as frog's hair with all the sleep.

I ended my physical therapy a couple o' weeks ago, and am on my own with my mostly recovered knee now. It is pretty much back to normal, though hours on my feet, and a change of weather causes it to flare up with shooting pains, and I can't do Virasana or any of its variations, without putting a rolled up towel behind my knee for support anymore. It was never my superstar pose, but I was always working hard on it, and now I'm just a lot more careful. I made my physical therapist some fingerless mitts. She's also a "Game of Thrones" fan, and we spent a lot of therapy hours deconstructing "A Song of Ice and Fire" so I thought some black fingerless mitts to wear on The Wall would be appropriate.

This was such a quick knit. I used this pattern, and a skein of black Cashmerino Aran, and whipped them out in about 3 hours. A short snort for a gift, and equally important, that grrroovy FO feeling that seems to be so rare in my life these days.

And now, something from the "Weird Stuff in My Woods" category:

An appropriately named Bigleaf Magnolia leaf. For the record, I wear a size 7 1/2 shoe. Supposedly, this tree boasts the biggest flower in the USA, as well, though I have not seen it bloom.

As part of the upgrade of The Atomic Lodge, we ordered some Adirondack furniture, which I had the pleasure of assembling. I do love to build things - easy things, mind you. I wish now that I had taken wood shop in high school instead of art, even though I was an art major in college for a whole year. I think shop might have gotten me farther in my self-sufficiency path, whereas I can reasonably assure you that I didn't learn a whole lot that I didn't already know, in my high school art class. Which made being an art major in college something of a challenge, though I did okay - changing my major more because of changing interests and the desire to take a whole bunch of psychology and anthropology and other -ology classes in hopes of getting a job in my field. Anyway, I digress, and here is one of the chairs, modeled by the handsome Mr. Cricket, who really likes to hop up on things.

I am starting to do a little agility with him, not because he has had a renaissance in temperament that will allow him to enter a trial, but because he is a smart dog, who needs to learn things beyond barking and aggressing.

More good times, and I am creaking along in my job search for flexible, part time work, being told by 2 school districts that my subbing application is "in progress" and I should hear something soon. Gah, these people are slow!! Meanwhile, I'm still enjoying not working (I saved a LOT of my salary last year in preparation for the possibility of unemployment) and doing the domestic goddess thing. Dog training, cooking, decluttering, yardening and knitting take time. Still, it will be nice to see a paycheck again, someday.

Project Z redux

A couple of years ago, I started working on the lifestyle habit of getting more sleep. I called it Project Z. I went to bed by 10pm, and got up at 6am or so - if I deviated from that, I tried to make sure I got 7.5 to 8 hours of sleep. The change in how I felt and functioned at work was dramatic. I managed to maintain it for about 9 months, and then, it spun out, maybe because of my crappy job last year, maybe because I got slack, less vigilant, who knows? My hypothesis is that because I worked long days, I was staying up later, sometimes to do schoolwork (especially during grading periods) but sometimes to catch up on life, or pleasurable downtime; knitting, reading, watching tv. Then summer came, the knee dislocation came and I got less exercise, which further screwed up my sleep; less tired, I sleep less, but become more tired, if that makes sense.

So I'm taking it back!! Project Z will ride again!! I've been a fervent reader of Leo Babauta's Zen Habits blog, and have been struck anew by his emphasis on making small changes that turn into big changes over time. I did a lot of reflection on what needs to improve right now in my life...more exercise, less internet surfing, better eating, more knitting, cleaner house, more time outside, finding a job I like, getting a better handle on Cricket's behavior, daily yoga practice, fewer cupcakes, more consistent spiritual practice, reading more, spinning better, blogging, being better at composting from the kitchen, saving more $$ for retirement, oh the list is endless! Leo wrote that in his experience, picking ONE THING to work on til it became a good habit - about 4 to 6 weeks, and then maintaining that one, worked better than making a lot of little changes that don't really stick, because you spread yourself too thin. I think that's a good point. I think the change in the way I felt a few days into Project Z was SO big that I really want to reinstate this positive practice.

Now practically speaking, this is a tough week to start such a thing. For one, Ms. Acornbud is headed my way in just a couple days. No way are we not gonna stay up late, and even though I anticipate her jet lag might make her sleep in, I can't guarantee that. For another, we're headed to Asheville, NC for SAFF, and rooming with my sis and Jessie, and I don't see the four of us tucking in early in a hotel room this weekend. So I'm gonna just try and focus on being well-rested in a catch as catch can way, and then, next Tuesday, when I'm home alone again (and this will be a sad thing) I'm gonna put my ass into bed at 9:30, with the knowledge that I certainly won't sleep at 9:30, but will probably knit or read instead. I think, for the time being, I'm not going to let myself nap, mostly because I think it contributes to the further jacking up of my circadian rhythms. So this Project Z is the thing I'm gonna focus on from now til about December 1, to see if I can reset my sleep. I forsee some bumps in the road, with P's returns to the ATL, and Thanksgiving and such, but overall, I spend most of my time home alone, and most of schedule is my own to control.

I feel like I needed to write it down here because I want to hold myself accountable for actually starting to make this change, but reading other peoples' writing about personal changes can be dull, so I offer you a couple of other things to contemplate:

Autumn is coming to Georgia, ready or not. I am ready to dispense with the heat, and have been really enjoying our 80 degree days, as opposed to our 95 degree days. Tomorrow, it is supposed to be only about 60, though, so that will be a fast forward into fall. Not sure I'm ready for that.

Behold the amazing thing that is Hanami. Completed, blocking in my spare bedroom. What a long strange knit that turned out to be. I love it, but am honestly not sure how much I'll wear it. It seems too fancy. But still...Hanami!!

Time for oatmeal and some laundry.