Paper Tiger Knits

One Saturday last Fall I got up really, really early in the morning and drove halfway across Colorado to attempt a Fourteener. A Fourteener is a mountain whose summit is at least 14,000 feet above sea level, and Colorado has a lot of them. It's kind of a thing here to climb one (or more) of them, and I'd been training with my friend Monica to climb one this summer. Well, she moved, so I drove down and tried to hook up with a "beginner" climb.

The guy organizing the hike was completely nuts and chose a not-beginner mountain* and a not-beginner pace, so I turned around about a third of the way up. I was very sad and felt like the whole drive was a total waste of time, but on the way home I saw this.

 

It's a very inadequate photo, but there were close to 100 bighorn sheep on the mountainside. They were in no hurry, even when a truck drove along that dirt road and had to stop and wait for them to get out of the way. 

Looked like a good day to be a sheep.

*(As a Princetonian, I should have known better than to start with Mount Yale, because we're all taught the first day that Yale sucks.)

On progress, regress, and the passing of time

Stephanie's post today raises some interesting ideas about the way blogs have changed—and changed us—since the beginning of the Aughts. The first blog I ever read was way before we had the term "blog." In the beginning of 1997, my friend Teresa was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma and took a year away from school for treatment. She started a page to keep her friends updated about her health and her progress. (She's an engineer, and at that point most people weren't tech-savvy enough to build and maintain personal websites. This was 9 months before google.com.) A bunch of us on campus followed her progress, but somehow people from the rest of the world found her, too. Her site reached a lot of people who had Hodgkin's or knew someone who did. The internet seemed like a much smaller world back then, but that sense of connection with people far away through the series of tubes was pretty cool.

This blog is four and a half now, though if you counted up active time it would be a lot less. I've gone through the phases that a lot of bloggers have lately, falling away because of time spent on Ravelry and Facebook (and, of course, everything else). But it doesn't seem like the blog is over yet--some of us have come back. One of the reasons I'm not ready to give up the blog yet is because it's my main link with some pretty cool people whom I don't feel I know well enough yet.

And just today I helped someone start a new blog. Ann Budd, my friend and fellow Boulder knitter, decided that it's time to have a web presence, and one of her resolutions this year was to start a blog. She's just getting the hang of it, but you can find her here. (I teased her that her sock yarn stash is relatively pathetic in size—and she's acquired most of that recently—but the fact is, she's such a fast and productive knitter that had she started with a stash my size, she'd just have to get a new drawer for all her knitted socks. Plus, as a professional designer, she's used to getting what she needs for the project at hand.)

I've been plugging away at my socks since my last post. I put in some serious time knitting in front of the TV, and after about 3 hours I noticed I wasn't progressing as fast as I expected. I looked the socks over and saw the problem right away.

There's no gusset. The reason I was going so slow is that I was working about 20 extra stitches per round.

Sigh.

More favorite things

True to form, I've already tugged and rumpled the fresh sheets... but another one of my favorite things came back into my life today:

Not the tulips, though that is a little splurge I adore. The change isn't something you can see from the outside--new CO2 cartridges for the Penguin came today. I'm so hooked on bubbly water that when the bubbles run out I forget to consume enough liquid. (This baby actually belongs to my roomie, but I love it like my very own.) Can't explain why water tastes better fizzy, but it absolutely does.

On the needles—you will be forgiven for forgetting that this is ostensibly a knitting blog—is belated Christmas knitting. Top, socks for Mom; bottom, socks for Dad.

The joys of clean sheets...

Every time I change my sheets I think of my friend Kim, who has far more exacting housekeeping standards than I do. (She was slightly horrified to learn that I don't change my sheets every week. Since that conversation I try to do it more often, but... not that often.)

But when I do put in the 10 minutes (minus washing & folding) to change the sheets, that feeling when I first get in between lovely cool crisp sheets is heavenly. One of the nicest feelings around.

I'm back from a trip to the West Coast, having trouble remembering what day it is. (This morning seemed like Friday, this afternoon like Wednesday.) So I'm going to bed with a podcast and belated Christmas knitting (socks for Mom).

An unrelated photo from my December trip to New York:

Not an auspicious beginning...

Back to work—my first day of getting up early since Christmas. (And by "early" I mean "before eight.")

One of today's revolting discoveries: Back in December I booked really convenient direct flights for my boss and me to go to San Diego for a conference.

The conference is actually in Long Beach.

Road trip!

(I think there's some theater superstition that a terrible dress rehearsal means a great run. If so, then I'm in for a great year.)

Wilbur helps me work

Well, in the sense that he's not currently trying to type.

 

Orville? Not helping. Unless you'd like a deck of cards thoroughly shuffled.

Good heavens, it's been a long time!

Like lots of us in Blogland, I abandoned my (already sporadic) posting schedule for the Facebook and Ravelry addictions--but I've been missing this!

So let's look around for some fun photos so you can see how I've been spending the last 8 months.

I went on vacation to Maine in September:

Here are the seals I saw from the boat coming back from Monhegan.

I felt a little bittersweet seeing my best friend get married:

It's a North Indian custom for the groom to arrive on an elephant. Unfortunately, there were no elephants available in Framingham, Mass. I also made my dress for the event--not perfect, but the most ambitious sewing I've done so far.

I fell further down the weaving rabbit hole:

Taking a class with Sara Lamb can do that to you!

I went to Sock Summit:

I had total camnesia at the actual event, but this is a picture of my haul.

I spun a lot for Tour de Fleece:

Still not even close to finishing that!

I went hiking with my dear friend Moe:

That was our last hike before she moved and got married, too. (No photos of that, or the wraps I wove for myself and for her, but it was so fun.)

Anyway, here it is the end of 2009. I think there will be big changes in 2010. I'm trying to change my attitude toward change--to ride the wave instead of fighting it. 

Warmest, fondest wishes for a happy new year.

Short but satisfying.

I don't know why I always laze in bed on weekend mornings, then wish for those extra hours back on Sunday nights...

This weekend I tried a new tactic: instead of planning to work all weekend and being disappointed when I didn't accomplish as much as hoped, I squeezed in a couple of hours of working every day and made sure I was having fun the rest of the time. After weekends of crappy weather, this weekend we finally had enough clear skies to sneak in a damp hike yesterday and a cool bike ride today. (First ride of the season... Felt good, though I'm expecting saddle-soreness!)

Now off to spin a little, watch some TV, and have one last beer. Happy Monday everyone! (Tomorrow I"ll be 32.)

This is just nuts.

I love to brag about Colorado weather--how we have 300 days of sunshine a year, etc.

Last weekend it rained all weekend. Starting now, we have a winter storm warning in effect--up to two feet of snow is expected by Saturday midday. Chicago currently has better weather than we do.

On the bright side, a good weekend to curl up with kittens.

I know, this is getting to be "Cats R Us."

I need to buckle down to work this weekend. The cats are taking this very seriously and keeping me pinned down.

 
Srsly. I can't move.

Might as well stay in & work... Snow is in the forecast for the 4th time in 9 days. This is kinda ridonculus.