k-brow: laying low with my koigu

A little of this and a little of that, and mostly working my butt off, trying to get that classroom ready for Tuesday, which is the day that those 26 5th graders show up. I'm mostly ready, enjoying the planning of curriculum and the anticipation, though everything would be so much more ready if I had 2 or 3 more weeks. It has been many a year, 4 to be exact, since I've been in charge of an entire classroom. I've spent the past few years working as a resource teacher, an assistant teacher, or as a specialist, and thus, have not had to worry about the planning of every minute of the day. I forgot how much one has to consider the management of time and materials. Yick. Rude awakening.

Knitting has helped me navigate our endless staff meetings, without remarking to my boss that "hey, we don't need you to make a Power Point presentation AND read it to us." The Minimalist Cardigan, with its endless miles of moss stitch in the soothing green Cashmerino Aran is just the ticket for keeping me suitably passive in such trying times. I'm through the back and 1.5 sides, and will knit both sleeves at the same time. I'm hoping to finish this puppy by the time the Olympics begin, so I can concentrate on Olympic knitting; project to be determined...

A peek at the endless miles o' moss:

This is not a very good rendition of this color. It's way less yellow, and more of a nice clovery green in reality.

Last Wednesday, Acornbud, P. and I went to see The Dark Knight at Ward Center. What a thrilling movie! Dark and awesome in every way. Not feel-good, not even one little bit, but so riveting and relentlessly fast-paced that I didn't even mind. After the movie, we felt the need for Thai food, so I drove us to Restaurant Row, for some Payao. Or that was my intent. In the RR parking garage, getting out of my car, I stepped in someone's spilled slimy frappucino or some such coffee-oil slick and fell, partway under my car, taking a faceplant right into the concrete. Where I lay, crying and soaking up the coffeeslime til P. and Acornbud helped me up and sponged me off. Lots of blood; my glasses cut my eyebrow and head wounds bleed like crazy. Needless to say, there was no Thai food. Now my boy P is the survivor of many freak accidents, and Acornbud herself is a doctor, so I was in good hands, though they both seem to have graduated from the same hard-nosed bedside manner school of manners. P: "Looks like you're gonna have a real shiner here!" Acornbud: "You're lucky you didn't lose that eye!" After the parking garage triage, we dropped Acornbud off to eat pea soup, and I went home and sent P back out for Chinese food, after he denied me the martini which would have made it all better. No concussion. But I did have a terribly sore face the next couple o' days, and a mild black eye, pictured here in a mending state.


I'm trying to take back some of my time, these days. During my weeks at my parents' house, I was bedazzled by how relaxed I was, away from the drama of work. I read a lot and got so much knitting done. I'm struck by how much time I spend messing around on the web, blogreading, emailing, timewasting and procrastinating. With the return to work, and longer workdays, at that, I'm trying to open up some more free time for myself, and more quiet time, as well. To knit, to read, to do tarot, to just "be," as well as hang with P and the pups. I'm done with agility, Ella's retired, Cricket's not ready, and so I'm done, for the moment, with formal dog training. Laying low is the order of the day, as we move into the harvest season.

In VA, I didn't do much fibery shopping, but my sis and I did get to the wonderful Mosaic Yarns where I indulged in some Koigu acquistion. Now I'm still not over my fervent belief in the Koigu curse, but since my Chevron Scarf is going well, if a bit endlessly, I'm thinking my curse may just be limited to socks. I'm thinking Eunny's Endpaper Mitts for these skeins of Koigu goodness:

I taught myself to do 2 color knitting at my sister's house one evening, and magic loop, too! A fiddly experience, and my work was not too pretty, but I've got the basics down, more or less.

Look! It's the opening of Opalescence, the Akamai Knitter's new Etsy shop! Go! Buy! Give her love!