Thanks to Pam for this link. Cracked me right up!
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Snow Dogs
Dinah Moe enjoying the winter weather
Seamus relaxing in his "thinking spot" in the corner of the dog yard.
When Bad Things Happen for Good Reasons
Don't be alarmed -- we're all okay. My car didn't crash this past weekend, but my formerly-trusty Toshiba laptop did. There I was, innocently reading my Yahoo email, when all of a sudden the poor thing went into a sort of infinite loop. It shut down, then booted as far as the initial Windows screen, then shut down again, then started over.
The restore disc that came with the laptop seems to have disappeared into a black hole, so I'm awaiting a new one from Toshiba. I did try to do a clean install of XP from my other full copy, but it didn't work.
What's the worst that could happen? I don't think my hard drive is shot -- the boot sectors have been corrupted somehow, and I'll lose my installed programs and settings when I do a restore operation. Most of my data is on the external drive, and the rest is online and recoverable (such as the files for my Web site). Sucks, though. It will takes ages to reinstall all those applications.
What's the good news in all of this? Well, I've been forced by circumstance to make better friends with my lovely new MacBook Pro. I never quite "moved in" to the new machine after I bought it last summer -- I had planned to move all of the stuff from my Toshiba onto its Windows partition eventually -- but now I'm living on the MacBook and discovering all of the Massively Cool things OS X has to offer. I've been a Mac fan since the mid-'80s, but four years of PC and UNIX only caused me to forget how much fun the Mac really is.
I've been playing with iWeb, created my very first photocast, and in general having a pretty rockin' time of it.
The restore disc that came with the laptop seems to have disappeared into a black hole, so I'm awaiting a new one from Toshiba. I did try to do a clean install of XP from my other full copy, but it didn't work.
What's the worst that could happen? I don't think my hard drive is shot -- the boot sectors have been corrupted somehow, and I'll lose my installed programs and settings when I do a restore operation. Most of my data is on the external drive, and the rest is online and recoverable (such as the files for my Web site). Sucks, though. It will takes ages to reinstall all those applications.
What's the good news in all of this? Well, I've been forced by circumstance to make better friends with my lovely new MacBook Pro. I never quite "moved in" to the new machine after I bought it last summer -- I had planned to move all of the stuff from my Toshiba onto its Windows partition eventually -- but now I'm living on the MacBook and discovering all of the Massively Cool things OS X has to offer. I've been a Mac fan since the mid-'80s, but four years of PC and UNIX only caused me to forget how much fun the Mac really is.
I've been playing with iWeb, created my very first photocast, and in general having a pretty rockin' time of it.
Monday, January 08, 2007
The View from the Mountain
Greg and I took all three puppers up Mt. Abbot yesterday. Greg and Charlie have done that hike together a few times before, but it was a first for Dinah, Seamus, and me. Here are a few shots...
Charlie had a great time.
Charlie and the White Mountains
Dinah and Seamus take a break at the summit
I call this shot "A Brown with a View".
Dinah and Seamus sport that windblown look
Charlie had a great time.
Charlie and the White Mountains
Dinah and Seamus take a break at the summit
I call this shot "A Brown with a View".
Dinah and Seamus sport that windblown look
Saturday, January 06, 2007
I Couldn't Go to the Tropics, So...
...the tropics came to me!
Anybody who believes that our climate isn't changing should come to Maine right about now. Here it is the freakin' 12th day of Christmas, and it's sunny and 66 degrees out! Not that I'm complaining -- I loathe winter -- but it just isn't right for this time of year. By rights, I should be taking turns shivering and shoveling -- but I spent much of this afternoon driving around with the windows down and Charlie grinning out the window. I had been feeling a little bummed out because I haven't the time or money to take myself off to someplace warm for a vacation. If this keeps up, I won't have to go anyplace.
Isn't She Lovely?
Dinah after her makeover from Dog In Sight magazine. Photo by Mike Wiggin. Thanks to Mike and to Helen at the Dog Wash in York Beach for offering the contest!
Lately it's been a blast to bring in the mail, because almost every day's delivery has contained something nice from one or another of our adventures. Of course, you've heard all about Dinah winning the free "day at the spa" from Dog In Sight. The January issue has just been published, so locals can start looking for it at grooming and pet supply shops around NH and southern ME.
Not only that, but the City Puppies book has been published. Dinah's on page 30. Various of our Dogster friends and acquaintances appear in the book, too.
Doesn't Nick do a terrific job?
There's The Lovely One, as she appears in the book. Photo by Nick Diana of City Puppies. I wish I'd taken a little more time with Dinah's hairstyling, but so it goes.
The Lovely One is entered in the Fitchburg shows on the 13th and 14th. There's a good-sized entry in bitches, though not enough for a major. I hope Dinah does well -- it sure would be nice to pick up some more points. This will probably be our last show till April -- although if this weather keeps up, I'll probably wish there were more shows and trials we could do in the wintertime.
He's #2, and He Sure Does Try Harder
The national rankings are out for APDT rally obedience for 2006. Imagine my surprise to see Seamus's name in the listings! Mind you, we only finished an RL1 title this past year, so we didn't come anywhere near the Top 20... but there we are, planted solidly in the middle of the pack. Turns out that Seamus is also the #2 Beardie in the country. Disclaimer: the #1 Beardie has about 10 times as many ranking points as we do, not to mention an ARCHX -- but we're still #2 out of 6. How about that?!
Not that we have the time to lie around basking in our own collective glow. Classes have started again, and Seamus is taking two sessions of agility in addition to our Sunday rally class. We were lucky enough to secure a spot in Anne Andrle's intermediate agility class at Happy Tails, but we're also doing a Saturday morning class. We love, love, love working with Jim (our Saturday instructor). He's helpful and perceptive, and gives excellent advice to each handler about how to improve each performance. I've known a bunch of people who have taken (or are taking) classes with Jim, and they all adore him. The best part about this class is that I know nearly everybody in the class already, including a friend I haven't seen since her Lab Chester and our Charlie were puppies (9 years ago!). I'm also really looking forward to Anne's class, which starts next week. More on that after we get there.
I'm hoping that taking the two classes will help us solidify our teamwork and get us into synch as an agility team. I'm not in a huge rush to get us into trials, but it's definitely in the plan for someday. Let's conquer AKC Rally Advanced first.
Hey, Look What I Made!
I've been helping my friend Fran and her business partner Betsy with the Web site for their new business, BorderCollics Anonymous. Go on over and have a look! Even though the templates I've been working with don't offer me as much freedom to tweak the design as I'd like, I think it came out pretty decently.
And On the Needles...
It's probably a good thing that I was just too beat on New Year's Day (plus the weather was horrible) to head up to Patternworks' annual New Year's Day blowout. I honestly don't have room for any more yarn, but when has that ever stopped me before? Dale and I went last year, and we had too good a time.
Fran and I managed to get into enough trouble just cruising up to Rosemary's Yarn Shop last week. Rosemary keeps a whole big "bargain room" of yarn, and I managed to scarf up enough balls of Brown Sheep Naturespun (at Wicked Bargain prices) to knit my next couple of sweaters. (Both are Yankee Knitter patterns. One is a sheep cardigan, and the other is a simple guernsey.) There's a whole shelf of Big Kureyon at the shop that keeps giving me come-hither looks whenever I'm left alone in the bargain room with it. My resolve is weakening... and the hayloft in the barn is still empty... so there's room for yarn after all!
I'm almost finished with the back of the Seacolors tunic sweater. The sweater itself is dirt-simple -- roll hem, roll neck, set-in sleeves -- and the hand-dyed heather colors (thistle and teal) are so gorgeous you just want to put whipped cream and a cherry on top and eat them for dessert. I really should be farther along with it, but those pesky Fortissima socks keep calling to me to work on them instead. I have the first one almost done, and I need to decide soon whose feet these should fit. I have a waiting list for socks (which actually makes me happy), and this color scheme would please my sister almost as much as it pleases me.
Anybody who believes that our climate isn't changing should come to Maine right about now. Here it is the freakin' 12th day of Christmas, and it's sunny and 66 degrees out! Not that I'm complaining -- I loathe winter -- but it just isn't right for this time of year. By rights, I should be taking turns shivering and shoveling -- but I spent much of this afternoon driving around with the windows down and Charlie grinning out the window. I had been feeling a little bummed out because I haven't the time or money to take myself off to someplace warm for a vacation. If this keeps up, I won't have to go anyplace.
Isn't She Lovely?
Dinah after her makeover from Dog In Sight magazine. Photo by Mike Wiggin. Thanks to Mike and to Helen at the Dog Wash in York Beach for offering the contest!
Lately it's been a blast to bring in the mail, because almost every day's delivery has contained something nice from one or another of our adventures. Of course, you've heard all about Dinah winning the free "day at the spa" from Dog In Sight. The January issue has just been published, so locals can start looking for it at grooming and pet supply shops around NH and southern ME.
Not only that, but the City Puppies book has been published. Dinah's on page 30. Various of our Dogster friends and acquaintances appear in the book, too.
Doesn't Nick do a terrific job?
There's The Lovely One, as she appears in the book. Photo by Nick Diana of City Puppies. I wish I'd taken a little more time with Dinah's hairstyling, but so it goes.
The Lovely One is entered in the Fitchburg shows on the 13th and 14th. There's a good-sized entry in bitches, though not enough for a major. I hope Dinah does well -- it sure would be nice to pick up some more points. This will probably be our last show till April -- although if this weather keeps up, I'll probably wish there were more shows and trials we could do in the wintertime.
He's #2, and He Sure Does Try Harder
The national rankings are out for APDT rally obedience for 2006. Imagine my surprise to see Seamus's name in the listings! Mind you, we only finished an RL1 title this past year, so we didn't come anywhere near the Top 20... but there we are, planted solidly in the middle of the pack. Turns out that Seamus is also the #2 Beardie in the country. Disclaimer: the #1 Beardie has about 10 times as many ranking points as we do, not to mention an ARCHX -- but we're still #2 out of 6. How about that?!
Not that we have the time to lie around basking in our own collective glow. Classes have started again, and Seamus is taking two sessions of agility in addition to our Sunday rally class. We were lucky enough to secure a spot in Anne Andrle's intermediate agility class at Happy Tails, but we're also doing a Saturday morning class. We love, love, love working with Jim (our Saturday instructor). He's helpful and perceptive, and gives excellent advice to each handler about how to improve each performance. I've known a bunch of people who have taken (or are taking) classes with Jim, and they all adore him. The best part about this class is that I know nearly everybody in the class already, including a friend I haven't seen since her Lab Chester and our Charlie were puppies (9 years ago!). I'm also really looking forward to Anne's class, which starts next week. More on that after we get there.
I'm hoping that taking the two classes will help us solidify our teamwork and get us into synch as an agility team. I'm not in a huge rush to get us into trials, but it's definitely in the plan for someday. Let's conquer AKC Rally Advanced first.
Hey, Look What I Made!
I've been helping my friend Fran and her business partner Betsy with the Web site for their new business, BorderCollics Anonymous. Go on over and have a look! Even though the templates I've been working with don't offer me as much freedom to tweak the design as I'd like, I think it came out pretty decently.
And On the Needles...
It's probably a good thing that I was just too beat on New Year's Day (plus the weather was horrible) to head up to Patternworks' annual New Year's Day blowout. I honestly don't have room for any more yarn, but when has that ever stopped me before? Dale and I went last year, and we had too good a time.
Fran and I managed to get into enough trouble just cruising up to Rosemary's Yarn Shop last week. Rosemary keeps a whole big "bargain room" of yarn, and I managed to scarf up enough balls of Brown Sheep Naturespun (at Wicked Bargain prices) to knit my next couple of sweaters. (Both are Yankee Knitter patterns. One is a sheep cardigan, and the other is a simple guernsey.) There's a whole shelf of Big Kureyon at the shop that keeps giving me come-hither looks whenever I'm left alone in the bargain room with it. My resolve is weakening... and the hayloft in the barn is still empty... so there's room for yarn after all!
I'm almost finished with the back of the Seacolors tunic sweater. The sweater itself is dirt-simple -- roll hem, roll neck, set-in sleeves -- and the hand-dyed heather colors (thistle and teal) are so gorgeous you just want to put whipped cream and a cherry on top and eat them for dessert. I really should be farther along with it, but those pesky Fortissima socks keep calling to me to work on them instead. I have the first one almost done, and I need to decide soon whose feet these should fit. I have a waiting list for socks (which actually makes me happy), and this color scheme would please my sister almost as much as it pleases me.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Our Cat Needs Vocational Counseling
Persephone napping on the job
We currently have a repairman here working on our treadmill. The incline function stopped functioning a few weeks ago. The treadmill still works fine if you just want to trek on a flat distance, but going uphill just wasn't happening.
The treadmill is under warranty, so Greg called the repair number, and a technician determined that the motor had failed. He had a new motor shipped to us, and scheduled the repair date for today.
Come to find out that a mouse had crawled into the downstairs family room (almost literally under the cat's nose, since she lives down there and sleeps a few feet from where we keep the gym equipment) and decided to take up residence in the treadmill motor.
Unfortunately, since we're still using the treadmill, the story doesn't end happily for the mouse. The technician just pulled it out of the motor with barbecue tongs, and it just received a less-than-proper Christian burial in our garage trash receptacle.
The cat has thus far refused to comment.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Wow -- Didja See That Holiday Whiz By?
I can hardly believe it. Here I finally have some time to get ready to celebrate Christmas and it's December 26! The pups are outside enjoying the night air, Greg's napping, and I feel as though I've just been run over by the Christmas bus. Anybody get the license plate number?
Not that we didn't have a good time -- we made the usual pilgrimage to my brother's family's place for the usual feast -- but half the family had a bug that the kids brought home from school, and for the other half of us, the holiday came and went before we were really even ready for it. Because Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday this year, Greg had to play three services at church (I attended the evening service to hear him play). The two of us finally had a chance to have our own Christmas this afternoon. We exchanged a couple of small presents (we're saving our funds for a trip to Italy), sipped pumpkin egg nog laced with rum, and soaked in the hot tub. He toddled off a while back for a nap, and I caught up with a few mundane details.
At least having a little downtime means I have a chance to come back to my poor, lonely, neglected blog. I've been saving news and topics in draft posts, but I haven't turned anything into actual online prose since before Thanksgiving. At least some of the stories I had to tell managed to get told, no thanks to me.
Dale related the story of the POC Christmas party, which has to be experienced to be believed. I am almost disappointed to report that there were far fewer really tacky gag gifts this year, but I ended up with a couple of them. I now possess a lovely figurine of a fire hydrant that I'll treasure for an entire year before wrapping it for next year's party, chuckling evilly all the while.
A Truly Vile Consort
Greg's Consort for Viols was "performed" a couple of weeks ago. I use the quotes because that day was just one of those where absolutely nothing went right. First off, one of the tenor viols showed up to the gig without his music, and Greg had to race all over the Fine Arts building to print another copy from his laptop. Greg's relationship to inanimate objects (especially computers) is tenuous on a good day, but things got really tense when his composition program insisted on printing the parts in landscape mode. About 5 minutes before the concert hall needed to close for the next performance, Greg rushed back in with music in hand.
I suppose you could call what happened next a "performance," but that would require a certain to-the-breaking-point stretch of the imagination and the solid placement of one's fingers in one's ears. The other three members of the consort were visibly rattled by the tenor's having forgotten his music, and nothing worked at all. They didn't play together, the intonation was horrendous, and you could just hear the silent moans of all of the composers in the hall collectively feeling Greg's pain. One of his friends whispered to me, "There isn't a composer in this hall who isn't just horrified for Greg. You can bet we've all made notes to bring extra parts to all our performances in the future. Talk about unprofessional --!"
At least the remaining three members of the consort offered to redo the performance at a later date and re-record it. It won't make up for the sheer freaking stupidity of the tenor viol, but at least there will be a good performance of the work at some point.
But There's More Good News
There really has been more good music news than bad of late, apart from that terrible concert. Greg's been working on his CD project with four other composers and the New Hudson Sax Quartet. At some point in the new year, everybody will be ready to sit down and record this thing, and then the CD will be available for purchase, press reviews, and broadcast. The exact dates have to be worked out, but we're really looking forward to it. This really will be an impressive commercial release -- sometime within the next year, you could search a site like Amazon and find this CD!
He has also been making some progress on his Brass Quintet bit by bit. A Beardie buddy of mine, who plays trumpet in a few different bands and ensembles around the Portland area, emailed me that one of her brass ensembles would just love to play a brass quintet if Greg had one available. This is actually the second such request he's had from a brass quintet for a piece, so he's been working out some variations on the brass chorale section in Ongiara.
America's Next Top Model is a Real Dog
Dinah Moe had her "Day at the Spa" a little while back, and we're eagerly awaiting the January issue of Dog In Sight magazine to see how things turned out. (She'd won a free bath and grooming when I sent in a copy of one of her "mud puppy" photos.) The editor pinged me a couple of days ago to say that he'd tried to send me some photos through email, but that his ISP had choked on the file sizes. I'm now awaiting the CD that he kindly burned for me and dropped into the snail mail.
The little princess (who currently appears on her breeder's home page as their "Merry Christmas" photo) also appears on page 30 of the City Puppies book (Oceanside Edition). The book is available at a couple of stores around the NH/southern ME seacoast area, but you can probably order it directly from the photographer as well.
And the Usual Knitstuff
A couple of weeks ago, my friend Fran and I took a class in Fair Isle knitting at Rosemary's in Cornish. Their resident instructor, Cheryl Hevey, is a designer for Peace Fleece. She designed a knitted Fair Isle pillow top that I'm really looking forward to doing (I haven't quite managed to finish the sample piece yet).
It's nice to be able to approach a whole new class of projects without trepidation now. I really knew less than zip about colorwork, but now I'm looking forward to cramming more colorwork projects into my "someday" list. Knit Picks has a few Fair Isle projects -- including socks -- that I'd sure like to tackle.
My 6-year-old niece has asked me to teach her to knit. I brought a pair of scarves to her and her brother yesterday, and they were tickled. (Scarves make lame Christmas presents unless the recipient really wants them, so I was a little reluctant to bring the kids scarves until they asked.) Emmy is a kid after my own heart -- she wanted something in purple and left all the other details up to me. She ended up with a novelty-yarn spectacular that makes her look like a little purple movie star. Her brother Max said that he'd like something in green, but he flipped for the camouflage yarn I picked up and knitted in a masculine-enough-looking 1x1 rib. He's deeply into GI Joes, and now he can dress the part.
I'd brought a sock on #1 circulars with me yesterday, so I promised Em that I'd bring bigger needles and easier yarn the next time we see each other, and I'll teach her to knit then. Cripes, hanging on to cotton yarn on those teeny-tiny Addi Turbos is hard enough for me to do!
The Knitter From S.A.B.L.E.
We've had an empty video cabinet in the upstairs hall for the past couple of years now, ever since Greg brought it with him from his house. It actually held videos in its previous incarnation, but it hasn't really had much work to do since arriving here.
In a fit of organization, I appropriated the cabinet for my skeins of sock yarn. I've finally acquired enough different colors (and requests for socks!) that I really needed to take inventory, accumulate the colors I needed to accommodate my requests, and reduce the size of the yarn stash pile in the living room. Inspired by my purpose, I pulled yarn-shop bags of skeins from the pile and installed them in the cabinet until I'd filled the thing completely.
You'd think that doing this would have reduced the apparent size of the original stash pile -- but it hasn't. The stuff does multiply in captivity!
In case you were wondering, your standard video cabinet holds 78 skeins of sock yarn, plus about half a dozen paperbacks that I had no idea what else to do with before reading them. Here's the kicker, though: I still have about a dozen more skeins of sock yarn that just don't fit in a full cabinet, plus the 6-8 in my knitting bag waiting to be turned into socks.
Cross-stitchers use the acronym SABLE for "Stash Accumulated Beyond Life Expectancy." I'm still new enough to knitting that I haven't managed to acquire a SABLE-level yarn collection (don't ask about the embroidery/cross-stitch/quilting/rug-hooking stuff, though)... but I have been doing the math. It takes me a couple of weeks to knock off a pair of socks, between watching movies and TV shows, hair appointments, and suchlike. If I start now and knit nothing but socks, it'll take me roughly 2 1/2 years to empty out my current sock stash -- assuming I don't buy any more sock yarn in the meantime. (Yeah, right. My Christmas present to myself came from Webs. Need I say more?)
Not that we didn't have a good time -- we made the usual pilgrimage to my brother's family's place for the usual feast -- but half the family had a bug that the kids brought home from school, and for the other half of us, the holiday came and went before we were really even ready for it. Because Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday this year, Greg had to play three services at church (I attended the evening service to hear him play). The two of us finally had a chance to have our own Christmas this afternoon. We exchanged a couple of small presents (we're saving our funds for a trip to Italy), sipped pumpkin egg nog laced with rum, and soaked in the hot tub. He toddled off a while back for a nap, and I caught up with a few mundane details.
At least having a little downtime means I have a chance to come back to my poor, lonely, neglected blog. I've been saving news and topics in draft posts, but I haven't turned anything into actual online prose since before Thanksgiving. At least some of the stories I had to tell managed to get told, no thanks to me.
Dale related the story of the POC Christmas party, which has to be experienced to be believed. I am almost disappointed to report that there were far fewer really tacky gag gifts this year, but I ended up with a couple of them. I now possess a lovely figurine of a fire hydrant that I'll treasure for an entire year before wrapping it for next year's party, chuckling evilly all the while.
A Truly Vile Consort
Greg's Consort for Viols was "performed" a couple of weeks ago. I use the quotes because that day was just one of those where absolutely nothing went right. First off, one of the tenor viols showed up to the gig without his music, and Greg had to race all over the Fine Arts building to print another copy from his laptop. Greg's relationship to inanimate objects (especially computers) is tenuous on a good day, but things got really tense when his composition program insisted on printing the parts in landscape mode. About 5 minutes before the concert hall needed to close for the next performance, Greg rushed back in with music in hand.
I suppose you could call what happened next a "performance," but that would require a certain to-the-breaking-point stretch of the imagination and the solid placement of one's fingers in one's ears. The other three members of the consort were visibly rattled by the tenor's having forgotten his music, and nothing worked at all. They didn't play together, the intonation was horrendous, and you could just hear the silent moans of all of the composers in the hall collectively feeling Greg's pain. One of his friends whispered to me, "There isn't a composer in this hall who isn't just horrified for Greg. You can bet we've all made notes to bring extra parts to all our performances in the future. Talk about unprofessional --!"
At least the remaining three members of the consort offered to redo the performance at a later date and re-record it. It won't make up for the sheer freaking stupidity of the tenor viol, but at least there will be a good performance of the work at some point.
But There's More Good News
There really has been more good music news than bad of late, apart from that terrible concert. Greg's been working on his CD project with four other composers and the New Hudson Sax Quartet. At some point in the new year, everybody will be ready to sit down and record this thing, and then the CD will be available for purchase, press reviews, and broadcast. The exact dates have to be worked out, but we're really looking forward to it. This really will be an impressive commercial release -- sometime within the next year, you could search a site like Amazon and find this CD!
He has also been making some progress on his Brass Quintet bit by bit. A Beardie buddy of mine, who plays trumpet in a few different bands and ensembles around the Portland area, emailed me that one of her brass ensembles would just love to play a brass quintet if Greg had one available. This is actually the second such request he's had from a brass quintet for a piece, so he's been working out some variations on the brass chorale section in Ongiara.
America's Next Top Model is a Real Dog
Dinah Moe had her "Day at the Spa" a little while back, and we're eagerly awaiting the January issue of Dog In Sight magazine to see how things turned out. (She'd won a free bath and grooming when I sent in a copy of one of her "mud puppy" photos.) The editor pinged me a couple of days ago to say that he'd tried to send me some photos through email, but that his ISP had choked on the file sizes. I'm now awaiting the CD that he kindly burned for me and dropped into the snail mail.
The little princess (who currently appears on her breeder's home page as their "Merry Christmas" photo) also appears on page 30 of the City Puppies book (Oceanside Edition). The book is available at a couple of stores around the NH/southern ME seacoast area, but you can probably order it directly from the photographer as well.
And the Usual Knitstuff
A couple of weeks ago, my friend Fran and I took a class in Fair Isle knitting at Rosemary's in Cornish. Their resident instructor, Cheryl Hevey, is a designer for Peace Fleece. She designed a knitted Fair Isle pillow top that I'm really looking forward to doing (I haven't quite managed to finish the sample piece yet).
It's nice to be able to approach a whole new class of projects without trepidation now. I really knew less than zip about colorwork, but now I'm looking forward to cramming more colorwork projects into my "someday" list. Knit Picks has a few Fair Isle projects -- including socks -- that I'd sure like to tackle.
My 6-year-old niece has asked me to teach her to knit. I brought a pair of scarves to her and her brother yesterday, and they were tickled. (Scarves make lame Christmas presents unless the recipient really wants them, so I was a little reluctant to bring the kids scarves until they asked.) Emmy is a kid after my own heart -- she wanted something in purple and left all the other details up to me. She ended up with a novelty-yarn spectacular that makes her look like a little purple movie star. Her brother Max said that he'd like something in green, but he flipped for the camouflage yarn I picked up and knitted in a masculine-enough-looking 1x1 rib. He's deeply into GI Joes, and now he can dress the part.
I'd brought a sock on #1 circulars with me yesterday, so I promised Em that I'd bring bigger needles and easier yarn the next time we see each other, and I'll teach her to knit then. Cripes, hanging on to cotton yarn on those teeny-tiny Addi Turbos is hard enough for me to do!
The Knitter From S.A.B.L.E.
We've had an empty video cabinet in the upstairs hall for the past couple of years now, ever since Greg brought it with him from his house. It actually held videos in its previous incarnation, but it hasn't really had much work to do since arriving here.
In a fit of organization, I appropriated the cabinet for my skeins of sock yarn. I've finally acquired enough different colors (and requests for socks!) that I really needed to take inventory, accumulate the colors I needed to accommodate my requests, and reduce the size of the yarn stash pile in the living room. Inspired by my purpose, I pulled yarn-shop bags of skeins from the pile and installed them in the cabinet until I'd filled the thing completely.
You'd think that doing this would have reduced the apparent size of the original stash pile -- but it hasn't. The stuff does multiply in captivity!
In case you were wondering, your standard video cabinet holds 78 skeins of sock yarn, plus about half a dozen paperbacks that I had no idea what else to do with before reading them. Here's the kicker, though: I still have about a dozen more skeins of sock yarn that just don't fit in a full cabinet, plus the 6-8 in my knitting bag waiting to be turned into socks.
Cross-stitchers use the acronym SABLE for "Stash Accumulated Beyond Life Expectancy." I'm still new enough to knitting that I haven't managed to acquire a SABLE-level yarn collection (don't ask about the embroidery/cross-stitch/quilting/rug-hooking stuff, though)... but I have been doing the math. It takes me a couple of weeks to knock off a pair of socks, between watching movies and TV shows, hair appointments, and suchlike. If I start now and knit nothing but socks, it'll take me roughly 2 1/2 years to empty out my current sock stash -- assuming I don't buy any more sock yarn in the meantime. (Yeah, right. My Christmas present to myself came from Webs. Need I say more?)
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