Like a Big, Deep Breath

This weekend (in a few hours, actually) I am going with Katy and Lori to Sacramento for a little adventuring. Katy has a conference to go to for work tomorrow all day so it seemed like the perfect excuse for a little outing. Dinner tonight, some shopping and wandering around tomorrow and then Chik-fil-a before we come home. Lucky for me, I had time earlier in the week to find a knitblogger in that area and she, Caitlyn, was oh so very helpful in recommended a couple of good yarn shops. Thanks, Caitlyn!!

It is nice to get away - even if it isn't far away and isn't for long.

I think we have decided on a name for the baby dog:

I wanted to name her an old lady name (Sally was nearly Ethel except for the fact that my mama refused to call her that....) I considered Mae (for Mae West) and Fanny (for Fanny Crosby) and Tallulah (as in Tallulah Bankhead) and Edna and Ethel and Myra and Flossy and a variety of other names that I am certain are very popular in Miami Beach. Then we were taking her over to my parents' to meet the family Wednesday evening and I was holding her in my lap in the car and it just came to me:

Trixie.

That sweet, mischievous face. Somehow the name just seems to fit her.

This week, there has been no real knitting accomplished. I've worked on one of the tiny sweaters that I will be using for Christmas ornaments so, truly, nothing monumental but it is good to keep my hands busy.

Mostly this week has been work and craziness. Busy-ness. Hectic hither and thither. The kind I am glad to have reached the end of.

This is a picture I took on one of our trips to Oregon this winter. I have nothing of consequence to say about it and I don't remember exactly where it was taken - somewhere between her and my mother-in-law's.
Dorothy, I have fresh batteries in the camera and have vowed to take some nice warm sunny pictures just for you!

Today's Quote:

"That ain't the half of it, honey, but that's all I'm telling." -Alice Coachman

Yarn May Not Stop the Tears...

...but it is very absorbent.


I have been very weepy for the last two weeks.

Not long ago, a friend of mine was feeling a little hormonal and weepy. When she was telling me about it, she said that it made her cry to talk about the crying. I was sympathetic but I didn't get it. Why did talking about the crying make her cry? I still don't know the why but I know the feeling. Typing about the crying can (theoretically, of course) prompt the same phenomenon. I know that the tears, the emotions, can be blamed largely on the ankle surgery, the pain, the pain medicine, the disruption in my routine (I am a lover of the regularly rhythms of my life), the stress, the crutches, the frustration, the not being able to drive, the Little House on the Prairie reruns on the Hallmark Channel...And just as soon as I think I have figured out all the things that might possibly set me off, something new pops up.

I can acknowledge all these things and yet, I cannot put a cork in the tears. I can laugh about it but it doesn't stop it. Weird. I don't think there is anything wrong with me (before anyone asks, yes, I have talked to my doctor about it and I really am ok) but it has given me bit of a new perspective about myself. I have a bit better grasp on it. I am more aware of that lump that rises in my throat and manage to guard myself, at least, from prying eyes. I know it will go away eventually, but for now, I've got the waterproof mascara and a good stock of Kleenex.

I haven't talked about this here...actually, I haven't talked about it much at all except to my sister-in-law (poor dear) and a bit to my sock guru...but what's a diary (even a public online diary) good for if not to be a place to be painfully honest with oneself? There are several reasons I have haven't blogged about it. Chief among those reasons:

1) Because, really, if I don't write about it, I can pretend it isn't happening. Denial, I know.
2) When people talk about being emotional, others (kindly) offer sympathy and compassion. And for those of you who have never been inexplicably weepy, let me tell you: sometimes the kindness and sympathy only inspire more tears.
3) I am not particularly proud of not being able to keep my emotions in check. A day or two a month, no big deal. A death in the family, free pass. But two weeks? Bah! Ridiculous!
4) I keep thinking I will wake up and it will have passed.
5) Talking about crying is boring. Yarn? Hedgehogs? Socks? Frankenankle? Much more interesting subject matter.

Oh well. There it is. Feel free to ignore the preceding portion of this post.

Lucky Me

Hurray! I'm a winner!! I've always thought that blog reading is its own reward but today I learned that, occasionally, there is more reward. I was Susie's 2000th commenter and now she's sending me two skeins of her handpainted sock yarn. I'll show ya'll pictures as soon as it arrives. If you have never visited To Knit, Perchance to Dream, you should. She always has something interesting going on - knitting, spinning, dying, family goodness - and she is as sweet as can be. Thanks again, Susie! Here's to your next 2000 comments...and the 2000 after that!!

Planning

I want to knit this baby sweater
from Weekend Knitting for a friend's baby, due in May. The pattern calls for Hemp for Knitting. I've never knit with hemp and while it is comparatively reasonably priced, I wasn't ready to make the 6 skein investment until I knew how it felt in my hands. I ordered these two skeins
from the Yarn Market and sometime in the next few days (weeks?), I am going to knit up a good sized swatch and wash and dry it and see how I feel about it. Does anyone have any experience with this yarn? Also, do any of you have any experience with the Yarn Market? I'm interested in thoughts on both.

Lucky Me, Reprise

Kim sent me a birthday present. Yippee!!! I love presents. This present? Yarn! Alpaca Yarn!!

It is so soft, almost delicate, but not fragile. It is so beautiful. I can't stop touching it to my face. Thank you, Kim!

Special Delivery

My Lisa Souza yarn arrived.
It is very soft. I'm so eager to turn this magnificent stuff into socks. (Lisa, if you are by chance reading this, please skip ahead to the Today's Quote at the bottom of this post.) I love the yarn and the color is lovely. Unfortunately, the color is a little pinker/more orange than I wanted for a pair of men's socks. DISCLAIMER: Lisa told me that this colorway (St. Valentine's) was more of a "true red" and if I was looking for a richer red, I might consider the Garnet. Based on the color I was seeing on my screen, I felt pretty confident going with this color. This is absolutely not a complaint about Lisa Souza or her yarn. The yarn is wonderful and Lisa's customer service is unmatched. Any dissatiscation I have with my yarn is 110% my on resposibility. Whatever the reason, the yarn I have is not quite the yarn I want so rather than order more yarn or make socks that would just be a disappointment to me, I decided to try to overdye the yarn and darken it up. I overdyed it last night using 4 packs of Cherry Kool-Aid. It took the color well but the color didn't end up any darker. Tonight, I overdyed it again with 6 packs of Black Cherry Kool-Aid. It is now busily drying. I'll let ya'll know how it goes. I am feeling pretty good about it. So far, it is looking like I'm getting good results.

Dying yarn with Kool-Aid ranks right up there with felting on my list of knitting magic.

Old Man Winter

We finally got a little rain here today. This is what passes for "winter weather" in Northern California. That said, I am eagerly watching all of your blogs for cold, snowy, frosty winter pictures. (Dorothy is having a gorgeous Canadian winter.) If I can't get snow here (and I can't) I will have winter vicariously through my knitter friends in blogland.

If ya'll are feeling the chill, let me know and I'll sent you a little sunshine! :)

Today's Quote



I didn't want my picture taken because I was going to cry. I didn't know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of my throat and I'd cry for a week. I could feel the tears brimming and sloshing in me like water in a glass that is unsteady and too full. ~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Welcome to My 100th Post

Have you ever had anything sort of insignificant that you anticipated in such a way that it got built up to be a big deal when it really wasn't? That's where we are with this post. This is my 100th post and I've been thinking all week about what would be a worthwhile topic. Turns out, I just don't have anything that interesting to talk about. So instead of a monumental post, we're stuck with our average everyday grab bag of a post that we here at Ok! What Next?? have come to hold so dear.

International Scarf Exchange, Go Figure

On Christmas Eve eve, I found a bulky brown package in my mailbox. It was my International Scarf Exchange knit by Kathy. (Who is blogless, as far as I know.)

God Rest Ye Merry Puppy Dogs

We spent Christmas Eve at my husband's aunts' house. They have big dogs and Sally played hard but she was finally persuaded to take a little rest by the fire while we opened presents.

She likes having her picture taken but had just woken up here because someone was clapping. Like me, she is not keen on clapping in the house.

A Beloved New Yarn Companion

I mentioned in my last post that my parents gave me a beautiful wooden swift for Christmas. I love it. It runs so smoothly and quietly and is everything I dreamed of when I asked for a swift.

(That's one of my nieces leaning across my picture to get to the ball winder. I'm doubtful that this one will ever be a knitter but we can hope.)

I Bought a Book

Tuesday night my twin sister and I went to dinner and then to Borders. I shopped for such a long time - my goodness, the options!! - and I came t-h-i-s c-l-o-s-e to buying 3 books to just read. You know, fiction. That would have been nice but then I wandered over to the knitting section and ended up buying this book instead.

I've contemplated buying this book online several times but when I saw it in person and was able to flip through it, I couldn't resist. There is a baby sweater in here that I think will be perfect for my friend Melanie's baby that's due in May. Has any ever knit with hemp?

Also, I think maybe I've crossed the line into the zone of thinking too much about my knitting, because one of the reading books that I nearly bought, I ended up buying as a book on CD instead so I could "read" it and knit, too. There should be some sort of books on CD exchange program for knitters because books on CD, while lovely and a fine idea, could seriously cut into the yarn budget.

And I Knit Something From My New Book. Sort of.

By my own estimation, I am generally a good daughter but for the last couple of days, I have been a delinquent daughter. The Weekend Knitting book led me astray down a path called Not Knitting the Hedgehogs My Mother Has Requested. (In my defense, I didn't even buy the hedgehog yarn until Thursday...)

When flipping through the book at Borders the other night, I saw these tiny sweater egg cozies.

I remembered that Ann mentioned them in a recent post over at Mason-Dixon Knitting. Aren't they cute? I felt the need for some instant-gratification knitting and these little babies seemed to fit the bill. We don't eat many - well, any - soft boiled eggs at my house and, of course, no good pattern goes unaltered. I hate turtlenecks on actual human-sized sweaters and therefore saw no reason to knit little miniature turtlenecks. I thought these little sweaters would make nice Christmas tree ornaments so I cast on and then, all willy-nilly-like, doctored the collars on the fly. (Yes, I know, wild and crazy.)

The orange (actually "papaya") is Misti Alpaca Pima Cotton Silk and the red is a little 3/4 sleeve number in Cascade 220 in shade 8895 (my favorite). Here's a close up of the Papaya.

Not exactly earth shatteringly thrilling knitting but it satisified my need for a finished object or two and now I can plunge into my marathon hedgehog knitting. Wish me luck.