We have a pupster!

Last week we adopted a 2 year old Beagle from Great Dog Rescue New England.



All we know about her is that she was dropped off at a high kill shelter about a year ago with a brand new litter of puppies when her owners decided they didn't want to breed Beagles anymore. A wonderful woman rescued her and fostered her for a while, then she was sent up to MA to be fostered with a great couple in Shrewsbury, Elaina and Alan. Elaina keeps a blog about their rescue fosters here. She was named Cherry by the original rescuer because she had a cherry eye. A vet took care of that for her, and we have renamed her Beasley.



Ken and I have fallen head over heels in love with this little doggie. She is so sweet. She's pretty low energy, when she's inside she's snuggling up to one of us on the couch, or laying across the whole thing if we're up and about.




When we go for walks though, she likes to run ahead. When she gets going her back legs trip her up, so she ends up running with her front legs and actually skipping with her back legs. A-dorable.




She's shown a little bit of separation anxiety, so this morning before we left for work (the first day we've had her where we're both gone all day) we took her for a loooong walk, packed a kong full of yummy treats and hid it, gave her some calm pets before we left, filled up her food ball (sort of like a puzzle she has to figure out in order to get her food out- she scarfs it up without chewing otherwise!) and while she was occupied with that, we quietly snuck out. She didn't make a peep while we left, so we are really hoping we don't come home to a stressed out puppy and a lot of pee on our floors! Last week I left her alone for a little under 3 hours while I went to Yoga, and she did just fine, so I think she'll be okay.



I'm just surprised at how much I miss this little ball of beagle! I can't wait to get home to her!

My long lost friend Ariel has recently started blogging again, after she moved her sorry ass out to crappy northern California which is full of golden sunshine, flowers, cheese and wine and left me here in awesome Massachusetts-where-it-fucking-snows-in-fucking-October.

It occurred to me that I never blog anymore, and the reason why is because I hate taking pictures, getting them onto my laptop, uploading them to Flickr and putting them here. I think I'm going to stop feeling like I have to do that. I'm also going to stop feeling like I have to put out tremendously exciting or lengthy blog posts. So there.

I went to Rhinebeck this weekend, and stayed in a big, fat house with like 12 women who were all totally, incredibly awesome, and only 2 of whom I had ever met before. It was very... how you say... kick ass? In particular I met this one woman named Muffinista (can you BELIEVE her parents named her that?!?) with whom I did a lot of Rhinebeck shopping, and a lot of Rhinebeck laughing. She actually reminds me a LOT of above mentioned friend Ariel. The two are kind of each other's bizarro twins. And they don't even know it. It's weird. In particular, I got to know this other woman named Kate a little bit better, and discovered that she's also freaking awesome. In particular, I got to hang out a bit more with my ever-shepherding friend Susie, who always puts a smile on my face.

In addition, there were so many other incredible people there with whom I'm sad I didn't get to spend even more time.

I did NOT go overboard on the spending. I am incredibly proud of myself here. I simply bought a rug hooking kit (I'M A HOOKER! A DIRTY, DIRTY HOOKER!), a few bits of roving with which I'm going to make thrummed mittens for myself and my new husband, some needles for needle felting, and a new small tahkli spindle with 3oz of baby camel. Not bad, right? Oh, and a lot of cheese and maple cotton candy!

We spent the weekend eating, drinking wine, telling stories, being snarky, fondling gorgeous fiber and laughing our asses off. All in all, a damn good weekend.


In other news, I'm a wife. That was pretty damn kickass too. :) I won't go into that now except to say that our wedding was like a big community barn raising, and if I had it to do over again I wouldn't change a damn thing. I'll post about it later, but for now here are some pictures. And here is a slideshow. Music plays on that slideshow, so if you're at work turn your speakers down.


In further news, we think this weekend we will be getting a dog! :) We found a beautiful, sweet, loving little Beagle to rescue, and we want to rescue her. They've checked our references and tomorrow night they are coming to do a home visit (ACK! I NEED TO CLEAN!) and we are very, very excited about it! We've been wanting a dog for years and it's finally time.


One more thing. If you have any interest in quilting at all, get this book.

Wedding Papercut!

I finished a Scherenschnitte for my wedding! Initially I had an idea of what I wanted but I knew I could never do the drawing/designing part myself, so I asked this amazing artist who I follow, Cindy Ferguson, if I could commission her to design something for me. She responded a day or two after I sent her the email, and in that time I thought I might just take a stab at it just for the hell of it, and I just kind of dove in and ended up drawing out exactly what I wanted! So, although she was very gracious and offered to design something, I hunkered down, cut my own design out, and here it is:



Stupid blogger won't resize, it just cuts the image off, so this is a small view. To see it in real size it's here.

I haven't been doing any knitting at all except for The Wedding Shrug That May At The Very Last Minute Not Work Out At All, however I am ARMED with some Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm bulky in their awesome Kiwi and a Menemsha sweater pattern in Baby-Size for Heavy Kevvie's 1st birthday, which I will attack on our honeymoon.

I'm also planning a stop on my way to the train this afternoon to Windsor Button to pick up some Manos, perhaps, for a beautiful bulky shawl that's on the new Knitty which I COVET.

Clearly I've had my fill of laceweight yarn for the time being, lol.

I'm also dying to spin up some yummy stuff for a cowl/hood on Knitty.

As for the wedding, I am so excited I think I might piddle. I'm also approaching BROKE, BROKE. This shit is expensive, and I'm becoming glad that we cut our wedding down to a smaller size than we originally wanted. It's insanely expensive, but I feel like we might recover. With our original plans, I would have just been feeling nauseous!

I seriously can't wait to be knitting on Prince Edward Island... It's one of the many thoughts of wonderful times ahead of me that are holding me through these last couple weeks of work! :)

pictures and some yuletide love

The dyed fiber and yarn (post black wash):






The sun wasn't shining directly on it, this one really is this bright



This is actually quite toned down after the black wash:



Meanwhile, Christmas came about 5 and a half months early this year, when my mom came over yesterday and decided she couldn't make me wait to give me these:



A brand new set of Valkyrie mini combs! I am thrilled, thrilled, thrilled. Mom did some dyeing of her own yesterday, you can see it here, and one of the many lots of fiber she dyed were some Romney locks, in this absolutely gorgeous combination of orange and coral. I just fell in love with the luster and color of it, she just up and gave them to me, so today I combed them up, spun and plied it and now I have 74 yards of this gorgeous yarn. Just need to find something to do with it.

My attempt at self-striping sock yarn turned out very well, I believe, (I won't know until I actually knit with it to see how good the striping is), however the colors are SO FREAKIN' NEON it's like being back in 6th grade and listening to the Micky Mouse Club group The Party and watching Back to the Beach.

So, this morning I mixed up a very watered down black and overdyed it. It's cooling now. I think it toned down the colors a bit. I'm just hoping it doesn't come out all muddy. Right now it's hot and wet (heh heh) and looking a little muddy, so we'll see.

This weekend I don't have much going on, I just dropped off my wedding dress at the seamstress to have it altered, so I'm nervous and hopeful about that.

Ken and I are pretty much planning on a whole lotta nothing this weekend, which sounds just about perfect to me. We might go out and look for some wedding clothes for him, otherwise, I just plan on doing a lot of knitting and spinning.

It's damn hot and humid, though. I want my next house to be on a small, swimmable lake. A lake on which no motorboats are allowed, only canoes, rowboats, kayaks, and where you can just swim across over and over for exercise. There isn't slime or too many weeds, and no bitey fish. A nice, clean sandy lake floor, and maybe an island where we can canoe out and have a campfire.

dye, bitch

Yesterday I had a fiberlicious day. I got an awesome dye kit from Hello Yarn and I dyed up 3 different lots of 4oz of combed mystery-wool top (which is something very similar to merino, we just don't know for sure) and a skein of Bare yarn from knitpicks.

I am not overly adept at color theory. I mean, I get the basics, but I don't have that natural talent that some people have, though I'm pretty psyched about some of the things I got. The first batch I definitely put too much dye into, so it got a little muddy, but after that things ended up pretty much how I wanted them to.

It's cooled overnight and when I get home I'll wash it and hang it to dry. I need to get a bunch of superwash sock yarn. All the stuff I dyed is not superwash, and I'm kind of over handwashing.

That could be the percocet talking. Again.

My mom-turned-obsessed-fiber-junkie bought a drum carder which she has loaned to me, which is great. I've always wanted one. However, now that I see how drum carders work (producing batts) it's becoming clear that what I really want are a set of combs. I want to be able to create combed, um, whatever they ares. Though, batts are wicked frickin' cool too, so I still want a drum carder (or just unlimited usage of hers. :)

I dyed some roving a year ago with food coloring, and it felted a bit in the processing of it, so I'm flicking it open with my new flicker brush that I got, and I'll card it up into batts. I can't WAIT. It's nice to get into processing fiber again. The wedding has kind of taken over my life.

the perks of perc

Starting on my 3rd pair of Monkeys. Don't know what it is, really, I usually hate knitting the same thing over and over again, but I just' love this pattern.

I'm using this special colorway of STR lightweight dyed specifically for a yarn shop called Tricoter in Seattle. I bought it when I was out there visiting my lovely cousin Jo. I WANT to knit these for her, but I may decide to be selfish and keep them for myself. :)

We'll see.

I had a dental implant put in yesterday. I'm in a bit of pain today, so I'm utilizing the Percocet. It's a good thing. :) I feel like my perc-high is probably coming through in my blogging right now. Which is a-okay.

Just sent the dude out for Rice Krispies and some marshmallows. We're going to the birthday party of his Best Man and I wanted to make these amazing cookies, but I just don't feel like going too deep into it, but RKTs are super easy, so I'm going to make those.

I pretty much just want to stay here, buzzing on the couch knitting and listening to old episodes of the Ricky Gervais radio show. Really kind of digging the ride. :)

I bought Angora fur. Lots and lots of angora fur. White angora fur. I spun it into a laceweight single. I knit it up into about 3/4 of a shrug. It's soft, it's beautiful, it's... about 437 shades darker than my wedding dress, and looks like unbrushed teeth next to it. It won't work.

It's currently in the guest room being punished.

I've started on a pair of socks I'm knitting my aunt.

I want something I've spun and knit for my wedding, but now I don't know what. What can I spin that's going to match the white INSANITY of my wedding dress? I guess I can't really spin anything, because that color white simply does not exist on the back of any animal, so I want to knit something, but I don't want to start over on that shrug with different yarn. I don't really want a shawl, because I find them to be unwieldy. I thought of a veil, but I don't really want a veil either.

I'm sure I'll come up with something, but right now I'm just feeling betrayed by the Angora Shrug.

I guess I'll knit it, then dye it some different color and just have a shrug. Or, actually, I'll make the full on Whisper Cardigan that pattern is supposed to be, and then dye it and have a very light sweater.

The play is this Friday. We're in full on panic mode. I think tonight is my turn to just FLIP OUT. So far I've been very sweet and positive about the whole thing, so we decided that if I'm the one to just spontaneously LOSE IT, it'll carry more weight than if Kevin the Director does it, because he did it last year and they're expecting it from him.

I'm kind of looking forward to my "performance." :)

Picture of the dress

So, I know I'm supposed to keep it a secret, but that's dumb. I'm going to show you a picture of my wedding dress! This is not ME in the dress, of course, this is someone else's picture, but this is the EXACT dress I'm getting.






Isn't it so lovely!!??!?

meanwhile...

I totally want this: http://www.sleeptracker.com/

I HAS WEDDING GOWN!

Well... I've sent $295 to a woman named Casper in Illinois. Hopefully that means that I'll get a wedding gown. The right wedding gown, that's in good condition. Yeah, so we'll see. :) I guess I shouldn't be surprised if she, ahem, disappears with my $295. Right? Get it? Casper??

Yeaaaahh... heh heh. Ooookay.

Hopefully this is not a case of me being too trusting, but rather a case of me being just trusting enough. :) I used Paypal, so that's good. She sounds very down to earth and reasonable. We estimated that shipping would take it to around $295, she said she'd refund any overage, and I said I'd pay the difference if it went over that.

I am excited. :)

confessional

Confession: When it comes to being a musical director for a high school musical, I'm really starting to think I have no idea what I'm doing, and as such, have no business trying to pass myself off as one.

I'm realizing how long it's been since I've had to read music and be good at it, and suddenly I've got these high school kids, some of whom have a hell of a lot more theater experience than I do, and they're all expecting me to... um, well, see that's the problem. I don't really know.

So, I'm making it up as I go along. There's this one great kid who plays piano, and he's playing during rehearsals. The problem is, I'm still in that awkward, beginning, feeling-my-way-around (not literally, that would be felonious), trying to get my footing phase, and the piano player kid has had to miss like, 4 rehearsals for a very worthwhile reason, but that leaves me with kids who need to learn their parts, a libretto and a cd player. So, I've been having them sing their parts along to the CD. Fortunately, in general they are all very cool, forgiving kids, and apparently this is how they did it last year when my (did I mention) ex-boyfriend-who-is-and-always-will-be-an-infinitely-more-knowledgeable-musician-than-I-could-ever-hope-to-be was their teacher, so it's going alright.

I think it's really going to be a matter of just getting through this weird part, and then hitting our stride at some point. They will start to know the songs better, I'll start feeling a little more comfortable and confident, I'll have the piano player kid back, and we'll get into a rhythm wherein the kids start improving and I won't feel like I'm constantly giving them reason to think "Where did they find HER?"

For right now, though, I go to each rehearsal with a little bit of dread that I'm going to make a complete ass of myself. Mixed in there is a bit of excitement, too, though, because through it all it's still really fun to get out of work early and go hang out with cool, intelligent high school kids. Way more fun when you don't have to be one of them.

But I'm ready to hit that stride now. Aaaaany day now.

Not that there's anyone who reads this blog who doesn't know this, but Ken and I took a vacation a few weeks ago to California. We flew into San Francisco, then rented a car and drove down the coast to Los Angeles. On the first day of the drive we stopped on a turnoff at a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

We took pretty pictures of the ocean





Then we took a picture of ourselves



Then Ken got down on one knee and asked me to marry him!

(I said yes)



What? You want to see another picture of the ring? Well... okay.



It honestly took me a few days to get used to the idea that we were engaged- as much as I knew it was going to happen at some point, it threw me head over heals in shock that we actually were. Once we got home, though, and got back into our lives in our house and our routines, once I was able to tear my eyes off my left hand and could get through an hour of work without sneaking another peak at Offbeatbride.com, I settled into the idea and I've been FLIPPING OUT WITH JOY ever since at the notion that I now, officially, get to spend the rest of my life with this awesome, very tall, gorgeous, lovely, sweet, funny, sexy man.

So that's my big news. :)

The right side of 30

Well, it happened.

I'm 30. I will never be in my 20s again.

Though, I have to say, while I was feeling slightly panicked in the days leading up to my birthday, when the day actually hit I not only felt relieved, but actually a little empowered. This is probably due to the fact that I've always been at least 13 years younger than ANYONE in my family, and therefore, even in my late 20's, have never truly been taken seriously (Mom, I'm not talking about you- you have taken me seriously since I could walk and for that I am incredibly grateful), but once I hit 30 I guess I felt a bit more valid. I told that to my friend Betsey when we were at the Paradise for a Sara Bareilles concert the night before and she yelled back "What?!? You feel PHALLIC??!?" So, of course realizing that feeling phallic is probably more awesome than feeling valid, I went with that. But inside I really meant "valid."

So, it turns out I am actually incredibly happy to be 30.

Something besides validity and empowerment that comes with being 30 is apparently a massive and very appreciated increase in knit speed! My mother, god bless her newly fiber-loving soul, bought me the absolute HAPPIEST skein of sock yarn on earth and I started knitting with it on Monday. I finished my first sock FRIDAY MORNING. WHAT?!?



Mom also got me a Spindolyn. It is SO COOL! It's a spindle, but not a DROP spindle. It sits in that base there on the bottom and spins freely, and you draft upwards, then wind it on. It's like learning how to spin all over again, but it's just SO COOL!



Speaking of my mom, she's prolly gonna kill me for this, but these are the absolute most adorable pictures of her I've ever seen. Unfortunately, they were taken by me, so they are incredibly blurry because I have NO talent for photography, but she is just SO EXCITED about the hat and scarf she knit with her own handspun.






I told her she should post that second picture on her blog and she said "Well, but, do you think people will think I actually look like that? Or will it be clear that I'm making a face?" So I just want to make it very clear that she was making a face.


Meanwhile, I've been working for a while on the Socks That Rock kit that I got at Rhinebeck. For some reason, I'm spinning this INCREDIBLY slowly, but the other night I was working on it and realized that what was on the bobbin really kind of looked like a sunrise. I tried to capture it, not sure it worked, but you can kind of see what I'm talking about:



I finished that bobbin last night and instead of starting on the 3rd and final bobbin, I decided to do something totally different, so I whipped out some Spunky Eclectic Superwash Corrie in her "Autumn" colorway, and thought I'd try to spin a thick and thin single, then ply it with thread, something I've always wanted to do. What I discovered, to my absolute SHOCK, was that for the first time ever, I was able to spin a consistent, thick single! So I'm not quite sure how I'll ply this up, but I'm just incredibly AMAZED at this newfound ability, and I'm attributing it entirely to my turning 30.




Something else I've been wanting to try is the Andean plying method. I got this amazing Bosworth spindle for Christmas and immediately started spinning up some Merino/Silk blend that I got from A Touch of Twist at the Gathering. I reached a pretty full cop so I decided to try Rosemaryknits' method of winding the single on a book with a popsicle stick to create a loose enough bracelet to ply from. I was scared, envisioning all sorts of evil tangling happening, but was comforted by her statement that this has worked 100% of the time for her, and I was thrilled with how easy it was!

So first you take the single and you wind it, you wind it. Onto a book with a popsicle stick stuck in it. You have to wind it on in the Andean Plying way, which I could never describe but know how to do (there are a million and one tutorials on the web for this, if you're actually interested.)



Then I took it off the book (a somewhat harrowing process, admittedly)...



...threw it on my wrist, plied it up against itself (not with enough twist, I'm afraid), and voila, my first mini skein:



Easy as peanut butter and jelly. :)


That's all the fibery news that's fit to post, however I will briefly recount the adventures of the vacation Ken and I were so looking forward to.

So the plan was to wake up Monday morning, get to the airport, fly to San Francisco, go on a wine tour, rent a car, explore the California coast on the way down to Los Angeles, stay with my sister for a few days, meet up with some old friends, visit some family, then fly back.

We got as far as waking up Monday morning.

Ken contracted some VIOLENT stomach bug that morning, and instead of going to the airport we canceled our trip and went to the hospital, where the poor guy was forced into a flowery hospital gown and made to lie in a bed at least a foot and a half too short for him, with a pink bucket by his side and an IV in his arm which pumped a ridiculous amount of fluids back into his body. He was given some very powerful drugs and felt a LOT better by the next day, but we were unable to go on our vacation.

We WERE, however, able to reschedule the vacation, exactly the same, but staying at one cheaper hotel and one better hotel, we're getting an extra day in San Francisco and the new dates cut down on our car rental price by about $150. We leave tomorrow morning. So help me god, if anything stands in the way of us and this vacation, I will commit murder. I will. Or at least kick something really hard.

I have not been happy with the precedent set regarding vacations and hospitals, what with our accident last August on the way up to our lake house rental, and now Ken's evil 24 hour belly bug. Though, I will say that I am one to try very hard to look on the bright side and I am grateful for several things. 1. He started feeling sick at 3am, and not 10 am, when we'd been on the plane for an hour. 2. This OBVIOUSLY happened because of some horrible accident that would have occurred had we actually made the trip. I don't know, maybe our car would have gone off a cliff to rest forever by that car Kerouac mentions in Big Sur which is apparently still there, resulting in I don't know how much money lost in paying back the rental company, not to mention insurance rate hikes for bad driving, not to mention a horrible, fiery death.

So now, we're out a few more hundred dollars in cancellation fees, but we're alive and healthy. Hopefully we'll be that way tomorrow on the plane, too. :)

My mom has a knit blog! Well, actually, it's really more of a spin blog. I gave her a spindle for Christmas and unleashed a MONSTER inside of her. A FIBER-HUNGRY MONSTER. Like daughter, like mother! Anyway, I'm loving her blog because she's a funny writer and says things like "I mean, this may need to be a short scarf. Maybe the first person to ever create a scarf had the same problem, and she said to her equally ancient husband-master, 'Shit, this thing is scarfing up all my yarn!' And so she named it 'Scarf.'"

Anyway, as of yet I'm the only person who comments, and so, in true only-child fashion, I'm taking that to mean that I'm her only reader, and I can treat her comments section like a personal email to her, but check it out if you have some time. The woman is DETAILED, so be warned. :)

Sooo in the life of me, lately I've been wondering if I'm pregnant. Not because I think I might be pregnant, but more because there has been this TOTALLY unprecedented, unexplained need to clean the house. I don't know what is going on, it's kind of ridiculous. I've also been busy on the fiber front too.

What? You say you want to see what I've been up to? WELL, OKAY!

So, this I finished in like, early January. It's been a while. It's a cowl for Ken to wear when he's out shoveling the driveway. Not only does he actually WEAR it, but he LOVES it. That makes me feel special. :) He made it very clear that the only way I was allowed to post pictures of it was by not including his face. Ummm, let's not tell him about the other times I've shown his face... kthanks!





This was knit out of the single that I spun from the gorgeous gray alpaca that Sarah of Sarahland also bought (her first unspun fiber! I WILL CONVERT YOU AAALLLLLLL!) I loved the fiber, loved the yarn, but when it knit up I actually found it to be a teensy bit scratchy. I think there are guard hairs in it. I've only ever heard of these irritating little hairs so I'm not totally sure, but I think that's what it was. Ken doesn't seem to notice it, though. It must be because of his very manly and already roughened-up neck.


For this next skein (see below), I bought the fiber from my new favorite dyer. Seriously, she's FRICKIN' AMAZING. So amazing that I'm not going to tell you who she is so that she doesn't get any more customers so that I can always be assured that there will be enough of her stuff for me. (okayfinehernameisLynnSIGH)

This is Falkland in a colorway called "Unfurl" and it is pure fibery SEX:

(below)


Right?

So this is what I'm currently knitting with it- a pair of elbow length fingerless mitts with an alternating cable down the middle. I have one completed and one just a few inches in.




Now, these I've already finished and worn and they are currently being washed, so I only have this picture from weeks ago, but ladies and gentlemen, I give you... MALABRIGO SOCK!



The yarn is a duh-ream and I loved knitting with it. Now, I can't tell you why this is, but I have this near-paranoid, um, paranoia when I'm knitting socks that I'm going to run out of yarn. However, I simply like to knit one at a time top down, so I always tend to make the legs of my socks SUPER short. It's really dumb, especially in this case. I wore them and they started all twisting around my foot just a little bit. It's entirely the fault of the knitter, and not the yarn, but it's annoying nonetheless. I don't know what I'm thinking, I have half the ball left over (which will soon be mittens for a friend's girlfriend, actually) and I absolutely would have been able to make them both INCHES AND INCHES longer, but no. It's like I assume that the sock yarn companies are like "let's just give them enough to make not quite long enough socks! Muahahaha!" Come on, Jenny, these people are KNITTERS, and by extension inherently trustable to provide me with enough yarn for a lovely, long pair of socks! Whatever. I think I've finally learned my lesson. I'm sure my next socks will be gloriously longer. Well, but actually, my next socks will be out of handspun yarn, so... hopefully I've made enough!


Speaking of said handspun yarn, this is a second bout of 4 ounces I got from the aforementioned not-to-be-mentioned (okayitsawesomeLynnagain) kick ass dyer, this time Merino in a colorway called Plum Honey:



You know, it's entirely possible, for those who care, that the Unfurl is Merino and the Plum Honey is Falkland. I simply am not sure at this very moment.


So, I do have a bit of really bizarre and exciting-to-me news. In early January, or, actually, late December, my favorite high school English teacher, who was also our drama coach and who I have seen exactly once since 1997, called me up and told me that the school was doing musicals now (oh, how I wanted to do musicals when I was 16! A feeling which has, admittedly, waned some as the years have gone on) and would I like to be the musical director? They were in need of one and he thought I'd just be perfect for it. How this guy even remembered me is totally beyond, but I told him that, as flattered as I was, I couldn't possibly. I work a full time job in Boston (well, I DO work from home a couple days a week) and I have absolutely no experience with anything even remotely like this (well, I WAS a music major in college and I DID direct my college a cappella group for 2 years) but I seriously just am so totally unqualified, I couldn't even play the piano in rehearsals, that thank you so much for thinking of me, but I didn't think so. He said "Well, why don't I get your email address and email you the details. I understand it's a long shot, but there's no harm in it."

I agreed, said goodbye and hung up, and went back to work. When Ken came home I found myself talking about it, and then thought "why am I talking about this like it's a possibility? There's no way I could ever do this," so I stopped talking about it, and then eventually forgot about it.

About a week later Murph emailed me with the details and for whatever reason I COULD NOT GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD! He said they could work with my schedule and provide a piano player, and the band teacher would take care of the band kids. I still had this idea in my head that I was totally under qualified for it, but you know how every so often someone presents you with an opportunity, and you realize that it's the very fact that you're scared of it that means you HAVE to do it? That's what this was like. The best experience of my life came about the same way. Plus, I don't do anything besides work, spin, knit and hang out on the couch with Ken. This would get me back into a school (a place where I've always had a sneaking suspicion I'd end up again anyway), and very excitingly, back in touch with my favorite teacher from high school (I LOVE this guy. He's surly and brash and very, very funny), working with teenagers, and back in a creative capacity that's very different from where I've been focusing my creativity for years. So I talked to my bosses the next day about the possibility of shifting my schedule just a bit for the next 4 months so I could make rehearsals up in NH (their response was "OMG THATISSOCOOL! OF COURSE!") and I committed to it!

At this point we've had auditions and cast the show, though we haven't started rehearsals quite yet. We haven't gotten the materials yet, so I've been going up to meet with the director (a kid who graduated in 2004! He's a FUNNY kid, I like him) and Murph to work out various details, and also to meet with the cast a bit and do some get-to-know-ya stuff.

I am ridiculously excited about it.

Three other things I'm ridiculously excited about:

1. Upcoming Vacation that will be the Awesomest Vacation In The History Of Vacations
2. Turning THIRTY YEARS OLD in LESS THAN TWO WEEKS. (fewer than two weeks? Yeah, I think so)
3. Ken is out for the evening and that means I get takeout from the Thai place down the street. :)

MASSAMAN CURRY HERE I COME! CLEMFO OUT!

A little update while dinner cooks

Here's what I've been working on:

I made a new pair of Monkeys with the yarn that I got in the skein swap. This was incredibly good timing- the day I started the second sock, my original Monkeys just fell apart. All in one day- I put them on in the morning, they were fine. At night, there were 3 holes in each sock. Seriously, beyond repair. Darning is not an option. But all is well, because now I have some replacements! :)



And check out those snazzy sock blockers Santa brought me!

Santa also brought me a new spindle- a Bosworth Midi!



I LOVE it, it's the most amazing spindle I've ever spun with!

I will fo sho be getting a new one come Fiber Season. I mean, Spring.

Continuing with what is apparently my Blue Period, I got this fiber from Spunky Eclectic. Merino in the Castaway colorway. This is my attempt at spinning chunky.



That is all. :)

I MIGHT have some ridiculously exciting news, but it's not actually news yet, it's just a possibility. It has nothing to do with marriage or babies, but once I know for sure I'll talk about it. Mind, it's not actually exciting to anyone but me.

I'd just like to take a moment to send a shout out to my girl Ariel, for whom tomorrow, Jan 7th, will be her final day as a smoker. I'm super proud of you! I did it, 3 and a half years ago. It sucks, but I know you can do it, too, and you will be SO HAPPY when you do. :) You have my number if you need to call and anguish.