Video Killed the Radio Star

There is something so sweet about this group...

Overwhelming Ennui

I have a vague idea of why, but really, the important thing here is that I am completely overwhelmed by melancholy right now. Yeah, AO is traveling, and that's always a bummer, but it's more than that.

I know on last year's podcast of this time-ish i mentioned feeling this way and here I go again.

This time, however, I think I sussed it.

It's the light.

I remember distinctly how, upon moving to NYC, I could see the seasons in the quality of the light. Something about the angle of it...the way it filtered in the windows differently...you can see Fall coming.

I know it's still August and even in NY there's a good chance that nice weather is at least a week or two off...but...the light is changing here. I can see it. It's distinctly different in the morning and evenings. Beautiful. It's the approach of Fall.
But...
It's 100° out.

Seriously.

Okay, now it's evening and it's not...well...hell, maybe it is. I know it won't be for long. But it'll only get down to 78° or so tonight and my Web Weather Monitor tells me tomorrow will be 102°.

This is not Fall.

I never really did the "season" thing before, having grown up here in the Southwest, but eleven years in NY... it's... it's very very hard to lose that. I suppose it's something primal... something... internal. I don't know. All I know is I'm sad. And it should be cooling off. And I miss my seasons.

In October sometime, the nights will start to cool off, and we'll have some days that are in the low 90s and it'll be dry again. That will be nice. Then, by November, we'll be sitting in sweaters around the fire pit at night.

But that should start in a little over a month...not a little over two. And I should have Jackie and John and Liisa and Professor Eval with me (a little Eval must enter every life).

There's something in my body that's telling me one thing while my environment is telling me another.

I wonder how many years it will take to erase this?

In the meantime, I'll just be...like this...

Up Again...

This time it was me being stupid.

I watched Zodiac with Andrew.

So...here I am. Why? Because there is also a hellacious rainstorm going on...it sounds like it just took out our rooftop satellite dish.
Ah...more fun for tomorrow.

We need the rain, no doubt, but I can hear the beating the house is taking. I'm tempted to go out on the backporch just to see how bad the flooding is in the wash...I just heard the gate smack itself open/shut again.

I wonder how long it will take the boys to wake up scared.

Ah well...if my eyes weren't so bleary I'd go knit...tra la la...

Polygamous Knitting

I can't settle down onto one project. I'm working on my I Love Gansey socks (which are lovely) and I'm working on the Guyabara shirt for my DH. And I'm working on my Huck Lace table runner (on the loom) and I'm...oh yeah, teaching a course at the UofA...

Too much, I imagine. If only it ALL created an income!

LOL

More soon...

NOTE TO SARAH 09/27/07:
There's definitely a discrepancy b/t the Guyabara shirt picture and the pattern. The purl 2 edging on the front panel of the shoulders is missing, they have you pick up stitches in the wrong color for the diamond panel, they tell you to slip stitch the collar with the wrong color, and my gauge was off, too (yep, with the Louet linen!).

I got gauge horizontally and left it at that. For the rows, I was rather unconventional.
I knit the first panel to the schematic measurement--since my row gauge was off--and then I went ahead and crocheted the following panels together to be sure they matched. I guessed on the front panels.

They have you put EVERYTHING on stitch holders, so I figure I can even it all out before I do the bottom hem (which is also badly explained in the written instructions--they call it a facing).
I also think it would be okay to have the back a little longer than the front since there are slits at the side seams.

I'm going to post some pics and specific instructions here on what I'm finding out, but it won't be until this weekend or early next week.

I feel your pain!
Heather

Thank you, Thank you, and thank YOU!

I just wanted to send out a big thank you to the people who have written to see how I've been (eh), ask if I've seen a chiropractic doctor (not yet), and to find out how the computer situation is (better).

More soon, and many, many thanks.

And the Sunday Self Portrait

What the storm hath wrought...

This is why I've not been online. And why no SPS...until now...

We've been hit by two storms, the first knocked out our internet. This one took chunks of our yard.

HeatherViaPhone

What time is it???

If you look at the date stamp on this you'll wonder if I'm out of my mind, up again at 2:29am.

The simple answer is, "I have no idea."

I am normally a Very Good sleeper (ask my husband).
I rarely have insomnia. I need (NEED) eight hours.
And yet...here I am.

I even swore off Diet Coke today after lunch. I had a glass (or was that two) of wine tonight and well over the recommended eight glasses of water. Tonight, to relax, I knitted more on the Victorian Lace Sock (from Six_Sox) and achieved the start of the toe decreases. I'm actually quite happy about that since I'm not loving this sock and will put it away (Second Sock Syndrome rears its ugly head) until I have fewer things that I want to do.

I have the Mystery Stole (not such a mystery now), Hogwarts Sock Swap Two, and my sister's Squid Hat, and another pair of Horcrux socks for Jan, and...o the weaving, the spinning, the spinning/knitting Jessica's hoodie (and o dear Lord, I have to think of a design to put on kangaroo pocket!!!). And with all that to tempt me, you should be musing to yourself, "mmmm, I wonder why she's not watching reruns of 'Bewitched' and knitting on the MS3?" And you would be right to ask that. It's where I WANT to be.

But I'm in pain.
Real nasty pain.

It's been like this for three weeks, and I cannot for the life of me figure out what's up. My neck and shoulders are like unto rock. My lower back is doing some weird occasional nerve pinchy thingy, and because my neck and shoulders are going, they're tightening the whatever to my wrists.
And they hurt.

A
Lot.

Trust me. I'm sitting here ergonomically. I've adjusted a number of times. There is no explanation. I'm not stressed (any more than normal). I've not been under the same writing schedule that I was under. I'm simply baffled.

Tomorrow, the hunt for an acupuncturist begins. If I can carry a tank of needles with me and put them in my own wrist when I need to knit (like now) that would be great! I wonder if they can do that...

Redwood creek Pino Noir. Surprisingly

Redwood creek Pino Noir. Surprisingly good.
HeatherViaPhone

Start of SPS

Yeah, so I'm a little late with the first SPS, but better late than never.


Check out Rosmarie's blog. Amazing work she does.

And, you know, we are the Borg.

Surprising Ending on the Survival of the Fittest

Huck Lace!

Second warp. three days of warp.
HeatherViaPhone

frank's diner. the best dive in Tucson!
HeatherViaPhone

Of Naps and Nighttime Knitting

I should get more sleep.

My husband will crack up when he sees this because, when he's home, I generally get eight hours (without which, you really don't want to be around me...really). When he's gone, though, I putter. I am able to putter my circuitous way around the house, putting up pictures, making things right, gradually going through drawers and filling boxes with Things To Go Elsewhere--not that they ever GET there...
If he were here it would only make him nervous. So. I save the putter for his trips.

But then, while puttering, I'll glance at a clock and see that it's nearly eleven p.m. and I've not knitted or woven or spun or...anything. And I get rather jittery and my hands start to twitch. And I stop whatever I'm doing pretty much mid-stream, and sit and knit. Or weave. Or something.

I've found that without question I sleep better after knitting etc. at night. I imagine it's something about the Alpha Waves or some such thing, but whatever it is, it works for me. Right now I'm in catch-up-sleep mode, Andrew having just returned, and I should take a nap. But instead, I'll probably finish warping the loom for the Huck Lace table runner.

So goeth the nap.

The runner had better be worth it!

OffTN: Syd's Horcrux Sox
OTN: Victorian Lace Sox, MS#3, Pomotomus (I'm so polygamous with my knitting...must be the influence of HBO's Big Love--Andrew will be glad it stops at knitting).

Oh, and speaking of Big Love, if you have HBO watch I Have Tourettes but Tourettes Doesn't Have Me.

Goofball Singers

I'm typing today while our babysitter sits outside, watching the boys swim. They are goofy and they have both inherited a love for (and a talent with) music. They are also genetically programmed to be completely ridiculous. They are making up songs at the tops of their lungs, but unlike other kids I've heard who just do this to make noise, they are working out choruses and refrains. They are actually and truly making music. They even fade-out purposefully at the end.

I'm trying to do the same thing myself right now with weaving. I've found four contradictory books/articles/patterns on Huck Lace and I have been trying to work out the math to make the table runner look the way I want it to.

I have little confidence that this will work, and a part of me wants to sleigh just a small bit of it, then test that. It's going to be a huge struggle if I have to re-sleigh the whole thing. But then...I'm still in the 'learning experience' part of this. We'll see...

I think I need to take a lesson from my sons, though, and just dive in and start singing.
Loud.
And clear.

OTN: back to Pomotomus socks, and almost done with Syd's Horcrux Socks.