Siege

WTF List

Since I broke my leg in February, I've spent a lot of time thinking.  It's pretty normal for me to think a lot, I live inside my head much of the time.  One of the causes of the broken leg is my constant habit of thinking myself ahead.  You know, "What do I need to do when I get to work? ... Did I return that phone call yesterday? ... What time is the meeting?" ... etc.  Instead of being present, I was rushing ahead and slipped on the stupid patch of ice I'd been stepping around all week.

Another problem I have is that I think I have the same memory I had when I was 20.  (I could remember my own schedule - as well as those of my roommates.  I could have told you where Diana, Susie, and Phyllis were at any given time.)  As I have aged, that memory has become so crowded with family schedules, names of people I see twice a year, and other useless trivia that I frequently forget important things.  I don't want to forget the important things.

Some of the important things I need to remember are the things I want to accomplish before taking the long, dirt nap.  I called it a life list, but Jillian gets the nod for titling it the "WTF List".  As in, "What the fuck, throw caution to the wind and do it already!"

I spent three days typing up all the things I wanted to do.  It's four pages long.  Then I told everyone I know that I have a WTF List and encouraged them to do the same.  Do you have one?  You should.  Do you need some ideas for what you want to do?  There are tons of websites that have tips - or even let you create your list online for free.  If you're interested, send me an email at cjkoho(at)gmail(dot)com and I'll send you mine.

My list is mostly places I want to travel (sleep in each of the 50 states, eat a Greek salad in Greece, watch the sun rise over the Taj Mahal), but there are some other things on there as well.  Things like, take a drawing class to be able to sketch when I travel, learn the tarot, read all of Shakespeare's plays.  The more I thought about it, the more things I realized I wanted to do.

So, I have a list.  Big deal - the important part is not the length of the list or the things you put on it, but the actual doing.  I have a call in to a teacher to take voice lessons in the fall.  I'm also dragging my husband to a wedding in North Carolina next weekend.  We're driving down and we're stopping in the western part of the state to take a couple of day hikes on the Appalachian Trail.  The goal is to hike the whole Trail, but I figure I can take it bit by bit.  Plus, I have the promise of a couple of other Knit Bloggers to come along on parts of this adventure - you know who you are!!

It's a start.  I want to live more in the present and try to avoid saying "someday I will {fill in the blank}."  Will I be able to cross off everything I put on the list?  Probably not, but it will morph over time.  Some things will be dropped and others will be added.  I feel like I have the infrastructure of a plan and if I cross a few things off every year, I'll make a dent in it. 

Hangover

Little Big Man and I went yesterday in search of Harry Potter.  The first bookstore we stopped at only had reserved copies in the store.  "The owner is out getting more copies ... I can call you when they get here."  He looked crestfallen when I replied, "Um, I think we're going to keep searching, thanks."

Even though LBM has his driver's license, he insisted I drive home.  I insisted he read aloud.  He was thoroughly pissed when I stopped at the grocery store to pick up some things before we went home to disapparate and gorge on the book.

It was amazing.  There were extremely sad parts and parts that made my heart soar.  I fell in love with Harry Potter all over again.  Today, instead of feeling so sad that the journey is over, I am eager to find the first book and start it all again.

Thank you Ms. Rowling.  It was a wonderful ride.

Sockapalooza 4

Back in June, it seemed like the thing to do.  I signed up to be involved in Sockapalooza 4.  The socks weren't due until August, so I had lots of time.  Being the procrastinator that I am, I pretty much did nothing the entire month of June.  "Lots of time, you have lots of time." 

Not so much anymore.  I pulled out some Socks that Rock that I got at Rhinebeck last year (or maybe it was Stitches) and got to looking for a pattern.  My sock pal requested non-wool - my STR is superwash.  She also wanted to break out of her color rut, which is purple, blue, and turquoise.  Take a look at the sherbet colorway.  I think this is breaking out of her color rut.  Sassy says she likes the individual colors, and loves the stripes at the toe, but doesn't like the pooling of the colors on the instep. 

The sock is the Crenellated toe-up sock from Lucy Neatby's Cool Socks, Warm Feet book.  I'm not a big fan of toe up socks, but I like the technique that Lucy has come up with here.  The only other pair of toe up socks I've done had that figure 8 cast on and it about drove me mad.  This one, you do a provisional cast on and carry waste yarn up the sides.  When you have your square, you pick up the stitches around the waste yarn and pull out your provisional cast on - voila, you have a toe.  This is the 72 stitch version and I think that's what's making the pooling happen.  Has anyone else had this issue?  It seems to me that there's a magic number for most sock yarns that creates that pooling.  I have a feeling that the second sock will pool differently and I'll end up with a fraternal twins pair of socks.  I hope my sock pal isn't anal about having them match perfectly.

The sock also has a different kind f heel than any I've done before.  When you get to the spot for the heel, you knit those stitches with waste yarn and then go back and knit over those stitches with your working yarn.  When you're finished with the top of the sock, you go back and pull out that yarn and knit the heel from there.

Now that I've realized that I have to finish these socks to be able to send them out in early August, I'm splitting my time between spinning for the Tour and knitting on the socks.  Makes for an interesting evening.

Orange!

I had to think a lot about what I wanted to do for my Tour de Fleece challenge.  It's a pretty laid back competition to take part in, but I wanted to make it count for something.  Last year, I spun 2 oz a day of something with silk in it.  I love silk, it was easy.  This year, I decided to branch out a little and came up with orange.  I sorted through all the fiber I had and pulled out a tub full of orange fiber.  There's a mix of fiber with wool predominating, but there's mohair in there too (ask Jillian how much I hate mohair).  So, my goal was to spin more than I did last year (about 2 lbs last year).

It seemed like a bit of a cop-out just to spin orange fiber as my challenge, so I dug out my Schacht and decided to spin on that.  Now, I love my Schacht - fabulous wheel.  Last year at the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival, I dropped a chunk of change on a Woolee Winder.  I hated it.  Seriously - hated it.  Everyone told me just to keep spinning on it and I'd like it.  I didn't.  I was more comfortable spinning on my Journey Wheel, so that's what I did.

I pulled out the Schacht - it was very sad.  The drive band had fallen off, there was a giant dust bunny living under the pedal and about 1/2 an inch of dust over every surface.  Out came the furniture polish and the oil and I got it back into shape.  The second part of my challenge was to spin with the Woolee Winder until I loved it.  It didn't take long.

What bothered me about it when I first got it was how LOUD it was.  It's hard to describe, but when you let the yarn wind on the bobbin, it kind of squeals.  My favorite spinning technique is sort of an inch-worm/short draw, so there was a lot of squealing going on.  For some reason, when I sat down to spin on Saturday, the squealing was gone.  It still clicks a little, but I can live with that.  The bobbins are huge and the way the yarn winds on, they hold a ton of yarn.  In fact, I had 2 - 1 oz puffs of fiber that I wanted to ply and by the time the bobbins were empty, I was seriously
tired of plying and just wanted to go back to spinning again.  Official verdict - love the Woolee Winder.

Also, the race - wow.  Fell in love with Robbie McEwen on the first stage into Canterbury.  He's an Australian rider and I've always thought he was a little, um, over-confident.  He was involved in a crash on Sunday close to the end of the stage.  His teammates waited for him and pulled him back up to the peleton, but everyone thought he was out of the running for the stage win.  The peleton was coming into the last few meters of the race and the announcers were talking about how Tom Boonen and Thor Hushovd were going to fight for the stage win.  When, from out of nowhere, McEwen moves up on the outside and blasts through to cross the line first.  Unbelievable!  During the interviews after the race, McEwen says something to the effect of, "My teammates pulled me back up to the peleton and it seemed like the thing to do - to win the stage for them after all the effort they put in."  How can you not love a guy like that?

Slacker

Yes, that's me.  I've slacked in almost every area of my life for the last couple of months, except my job.  (Which, now that I think about it probably caused me to slack in my personal life because I was giving it all to the job.)  I have been reading like a fiend, but the knitting and spinning has taken a back seat.  But, guess what happens on Saturday ... The Tour de France begins!!  I can hear you all "woohoo" from here.

If the Tour starts on Saturday, what else starts on Saturday?  Right!  The Tour de Fleece

I need to come up with a challenge that will keep me spinning and happy for the next 3 weeks.  I'll be rustling around in my stash tonight and let you know tomorrow what it will be.  The Tour promises to be very interesting this year what with all the doping charges flying all over Europe.  It's a wide open field.