The First Snow

The scene this morning after last night's snowfall, the first of this year. May there be plenty more!

It's a Process

Things I have learned since Miss Ruth arrived: 1) I really, really want to be good at spinning on a wheel; 2) while I am a fair spindle spinner, I suck at wheel spinning, as in, I can't even keep the wheel going in the same %#&@% direction; 3) Corriedale is stickier than molasses and I don't like it any more on the wheel than I did on the spindle; 4) my wheel is the most beautiful thing on earth.

Happily, my friend K. came for a visit yesterday afternoon, played with - I mean, tested - the wheel, fiddled and adjusted, spun for a while, oiled the heck out of all the moving parts, and talked me through my own spinning. The result? Absolutely horrific yarn, but still... yarn. I can do this!

A New Addition

So, having been completely hooked on the spinning thing this fall, and having spun an entire skein of purple Corriedale wool on a drop spindle:


I dove in for real: I bought a spinning wheel. Not just any spinning wheel, but what is sometimes called the "Cadillac" of spinning wheels - a Schacht Matchless, single treadle. I bought this particular wheel because, well, it is freaking gorgeous, but also because I wanted one that would last me forever, whether I continued as a mediocre hobby spinner, or became more serious about it over time. Oh, and because my life had kind of gone to shit early this fall and I needed a pick-me-up. Now, life has somewhat reconstituted itself and I have a beautiful spinning wheel! Things are looking up.

My son has already named her "Miss Ruth," after one of his day care teachers. It suits her! So without further ado, here be she:

Even Preschoolers Like to Spin!

October Update

So, I'm been amiss in not updating on a few things. First, the garden. Far from being the rather barren, grassy spot pictured in a previous post, my hope of creating a real, food-bearing garden in ony a month or two was accomplished! Ok, I didn't get much more than a few tomatoes and some basil and oregano, but considering that I didn't even break ground until August, that's not bad. Next year: the real test.

Here's the garden as it looked just a couple weeks ago. The weather has turned to fall recently, so it's not quite so green any more.

My other update is that after a lifetime of knitting, I have been well and truly sucked into that fringe cult - people who spin their own yarn. Yes. It's that bad.

I blame my friend K., a.k.a. Harmless Drudge. I had resisted the call to spin for many years, but then with her influence, plus a truly eye-opening (and wallet-opening) trip to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival last May, I was bitten by the Spin Bug. I now not only have a stash of yarn, but a stash of roving (unspun wool). Oh, and I ordered a Schacht spinning wheel, due to arrive in November. Oh, and I already have two drop spindles wound with my fairly successful first attempts to spin. Here's one, with some partially-spun purple Corriedale on it:

Buy Local, Buy Fresh, Buy Sans E. Coli

See September 19, 2006. That was a year ago, and things aren't getting better.

The local food movement - she's a-growin'!

http://www.altonbrown.com/adventure/knowledge/edible_news.html

At the airport

Overheard in an airport security line: "I have more stuff in my bra than I do in my suitcase."

Really? This, I have to see. Well, maybe not. Ok, maybe.

What goes on in my mind

Sometimes I just feel like everything in life is so freaking difficult, and everyone in my life is selfish and difficult and disappointing. I swear some day I'm going to have a bumper sticker made that says "People are always a disappointment." And I feel like I'm here slogging along and trying to survive, and just waiting for the next crappy thing to hit. I want there to be someone around to lean on and to take care of me, just every so often, and there is no one, except sometimes Ivan. No parents, not many friends, no partner. Just me.

And in the Beginning...

...there was a pile of dirt, some uprooted grass, and just the dream of a new garden.

It killed me to leave behind my hard-won, extensive gardens when I left my old house. But just recently my landlord said, and I quote, "Oh, go ahead and start digging up around there, if you want to." Aha! She doesn't know what she has wrought...

Overheard at work

“Why can’t we subdivide ‘Beans in Art’ geographically, but yet ‘Gauntlets (Gloves)’ can be?”

Always Ask

Lesson #295746: It never hurts to ask. Ivan is insane over lemurs, which he has seen in book, on web, and in person (or in lemur?) at the zoo.

My mother, who was visiting, and I went to look around the local toy store – one of those small, floor-to-ceiling kind of neighborhood toy stores, run by a very eccentric man who appears to love stuffed animals and pirates.

I commented that it would be hilarious if some day I could find a stuffed lemur for Ivan. My mother looked at me, and then marched up to the store owner at the front counter.

Mom: Do you carry stuffed lemurs?

Store Owner: Of course. I always make sure I order plenty of lemurs when I re-stock.

Behold, Lulu the Lemur:

Toddlers Like Pool, Too!

Especially after a hard day at day care:

Sheep and Wool Heaven

Two weekends ago, I went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival. Baa! Held at a fairground outside of Baltimore, it was a two-day extravaganza of sheep breeders and their flocks; bundles of wool and other fibers of all sorts; yarn, yarn, and even more yarn; and all sort of fiber crafts. Oh, and lamb. As, in to eat. Yummers! Surprisingly to those who understand my deep passion for all things knitted, wooly, and farm animalish, I had never been to any sheep and/or wool festival before. Apparently, these things happen all over the country – who knew? Not I.

Oh, the things I bought. I bought two big balls of roving (unspun wool) plant-dyed with indigo and some other plant-like substance, some undyed yarn, a little stuffed sheep for Ivan, etc. etc. I really could have spend hundreds of dollars there – thousands, if I had any place to store sheep... Most importantly, I got a nice, sturdy drop spindle, since I’ve picked up yet another hobby – hand spinning – thanks to my enabler friend K., a.k.a. Harmless Drudge

Check out the amazing drop spindles. Mine isn’t anywhere nearly as decorative, only because I am completely broke:

Look, purty yarn: Look, purty wool:

Look, pit lamb!

Now that I’ve been to such an event, I have of course become addicted, as is my wont. Next up will be the New York Sheep and Wool festival in Rhineland, NY. Whilst in Maryland, I discovered how very much I love sheep. No, not in that way, pervert. They’re just very pleasant animals, and I’d like to have some. They make a nice sound, smell pretty good for hairy farm animals, are reasonably friendly but not in that pushy goat-like way, and plus, they make wool. And they’re tasty. I don’t think they would enjoy the stairs to my apartment, though.

Regardless, the breed I liked best at the festival was the Border Leicester. So very, very cute. Such lovely wool.

When I returned home from my adventures, I showed Ivan all of the many pictures I had taken, explaining to him that sheep fur is called wool, that people spin wool into yarn, and that yarn is what I use to knit with. All the while he had an expression on his face like, “are you shittin’ me, mom?” No, son, I shit you not.

The Eternal Question

Ivan's learning how to string more complicated questions together - asking what we're doing (“what’s you doin’ mama?”), what we're talking about (what’s you talkin’ ‘bout?”), what we're looking for (“what’s you findin’?”), etc. He has to think about each word and how to put the questions together, but he's getting really good at stringing together the right verbs and nouns.

The other night, as I was applying diaper cream to a little rash while I changed his diaper, the question was:

"What's you puttin' on my heiny?"

Good question to know, kid...

Knit Therapy

You know what really keeps me going? I mean, when every person in my life is either an idiot or a monumental asshole, and I just wonder why I can't be Queen of the Universe and control everything and everyone because really, it would all be so much better... it's knitting. I think about my current project, and about how after I have slain dragons all day at work, picked up Ivan at day care, fed him, bathed him, played with him, and (God willing) put him to sleep, I will be able to sit my tired ass down on the couch and KNIT. And I feel better. Really. I have something to live for, and look forward to. And it's knitting.

Kind of sad, really. But it works for me.

Really, beer?

Ivan informed me last night that he didn't drink milk out of my breasts when he was a baby. No, he is quite certain that it was beer.

Window Ice

I have my bedroom windows sealed with plastic for the winter to keep out the (considerable) draft. On cold mornings there is a lot of condensation on the outside of the windows, and it freezes, making the windows look like this at sunrise:

We're Hardcore

When I first moved to Htown, my new-ish habitation, it was summer. I was struck by how many of the residents are runners. They run alone, in packs, with their dogs, you name it. In Gtown, my previous place of residence, I was a complete and total freak for running. The neighbors would gawk at me as I went by, often with their huge beer guts flapping in the breeze.

My new, more enlightened neighbors, however, have turned out to be wimps. As the weather grew colder, the numbers of runners grew smaller and smaller. Now, in February, there we are down to three.

I wake up at 6am, and often when I look out my window I see a lone figure, a man, running down the middle of the street in the dark. When I start my run around 6:30, the neighborhood is quiet. But I always look for the woman I think of as my mirror image: a tall, blond, 30-something woman, who I pass at approximately the same place during each run. That’s the three of us.

This morning I woke up to find an inch of snow on the ground. I bundled up and headed out for my run. I could see the distinct footprints in the middle of the street of the man who runs even earlier than I do. And as I passed the halfway point of my run, I passed my mirror image. We both waved – and laughed at each other, because there we were, bundled head to toe, running in the street on an inch of new snow, in temperatures of no more than 15 degrees. Everyone else was home in bed. We felt lucky, and happy.