o happy feet

this is thy sheath

finally, the finished broadripples! finished last tuesday i guess. time flies faster than i take and post pictures. and, reporting a bit late and all, but finishing these and getting through one thuja were my socktoberfest results. i was quite happy with them. finally getting these done (and still not remembering why i stopped working on them) made my month. i want to wear them every day. just cuz i have nice socks for myself. finally.

bad habits

lately i've gotten into the bad habit of not having time to write a post and just scribbling down a few notes of what i wanted to post. except then they build up into novel-like posts. so while i'm not joining any of those crazy almost-acronyms i am going to try to post rather than scribble. cuz when all those scribbles add up? it feels like work and i don't want to post anymore.

so .....let's see what i have today. i've been reading a bit on the side, mostly YA novels (this means they're shorter so i whiz through them). heartlight was a pretty good book, very similar to a wrinkle in time, but with less depth. the first few pages made me wary, because they were so so similar to l'engle. a new england farmhouse, malcontented teenage girl with braces, interested in science but not in school, father/grandfather working on faster than light travel & mysteries of the universe. the story line was original though, with some cool ideas. somehow it seemed a little superficial, with a resolution similar to wrinkle. i'd still recommend it though.

apparently the seeker wasn't a great office box hit up here cuz it was in and out before i could see it. not that i was dying to see it in the theater, but it could have been a good date. lately we've been getting lots of movies i never heard of for very short runs. thank goodness for netflix. we finally saw pan's labyrinth. i really liked it, although it was unexpectedly bloody in parts. the fairy tale aspect was fascinating and surreal, and at the end you're not sure if it was real or unreal. a good movie, but with those violent bits (most war related), i wouldn't watch it with kids.

i've been anticipating the golden compass' release next month, but i'm a bit worried about the interpretation. kind of like the seeker. *sigh* hollywood did such a good job with narnia, why can't they show the same respect to other fantasy novels?

for halloween we went to a little party (ok there was tons of kids and people you normally don't see) at church. they always call it a "harvest festival" for some reason, except it's on halloween and exactly like a halloween party. i shake my head at the silliness. kim and austin came , with seth dressed as a lion (no, we're bad, i don't have any pics). we had fun. there was one little girl around a year old in a white bear costume that had the cutest growl. her face lit up if you asked what a bear says and she'd growl a few times for you.

the last two days i had off for parent/teacher conferences. i was heartbroken - not! my math job is done. i think. the teacher is adopting her newborn granddaughter and may need more time off. the kids were still trying to convince me to somehow get their normal teacher fired and become their fulltime teacher. and they said they would miss me - one girl even gave me a hug. awww. made me feel good, even with the math element.

i got some other warm fuzzies too. the woven stitch towel and fjörgyn were faved on ravelry. somebody likes what i made! i feel so appreciated this week.

thursday i was a good girl and did some housework. ok, so i still didn't get the cobwebs (they'll just make more anyway) but i did fold the laundry that i don't remember washing, took screens out of windows and took down the curtain rods. they haven't had curtains since last winter i think. i got rid of them as fast as i could convince chuck to let me. windows are for looking out. i hate curtains, shades or anything that gets in the way of my view of outside. we have pretty wood frames to, so they look nice without the curtains. and they look better without the rods! i even did some handwashing (finally) - all while chuck was on ebay. he's like a little kid discovering a candy store in his back yard.

we babysat seth thursday night, which was fun. we don't see him very often, so i don't think he really knows that chuck is his grandpa. we had fun playing with himand feeding him pizza crusts. i took advantage of kim's white rug to take pics of old FOs for ravelry. our rug's so ugly it just detracts from the picture. it's kind of cool seeing things pile up there and realizing how much i've made in the 4 years since i started knitting again. when i go home for christmas i'll be taking more pics of stuff i gave away. since i always forget to take pics. i used to have a good excuse cuz i had a sucky camera (birthday present when i was 12, very low quality - but i actually kept it till i was 27!). now i've got the digital and still forget. . . *sigh* but i think i've got pics now of everything here that i've made.



the broadripples are all done, but will be in a future post since i washed them but want a pic of them on my feet. they went so fast once i picked them up again! the stripes are a bit different, fatter on one sock than the other, but i don't mind. they still look nice. i cast on the 2nd thuja tuesday (i think) but haven't done much on it since i haven't been in school.

despite not knitting much the last few days, the second mossgrid is halfway done. yay! i'm itching to cast on a shawl but told myself i had to finish the towels first. i was planning on knitting the summer shawlette to try out the faroese style shawls, but since i got stahman's shawls and scarves (one of my bits of plunder from the ebay spree) i decided to go with something else more interesting. a feather and fan (i love that stitch), knit neck down so i can still use up the yarn i've got. i have 2 other yarns in my stash that i'm thinking of making shawls with, but i'm not sure if i'd wear them. or what pattern they'd look good in. so those keep rolling around in the back of my head.

while babysitting and not-watching the kingdom of heaven, i started in the hand of the goddess. reading kids' book makes me feel like a fast reader again. i blasted through it and finished it yesterday. i'm liking those books too, even though it was will of the empress all over again - went to read trickster's choice and found out it was sequel-ish to the lioness rampant books. luckily i had just read the first one, otherwise i'd never have known and spoiled the ending for myself. knowing the ending ahead of time sucks.

chuck ran out of lights (we bought them last year, guessing how much we needed and never got them up since it was minus degrees when we moved in), so we bought a strand of blue lights to try out. we've got those icicle lights that dangle, and the pic on the blue box made the snow look like moonlight was on it. and for once, the picture didn't lie! the blue lights are pretties, and now i just have to figure out how to convince chuck we want to buy all blue lights. hmmm . . . . . .

oh, and if anyone knows how to get rid of the little gnat buggies that live in houseplant dirt, PUH-LEASE let me know. they're making me crazy, and i don't want to ditch the plants (which is chuck's idea of a solution).

heebie jeebies

i've got this internal timeline for some things. summer ends, the air turns crisp. leaves turn to red and gold, then drift down to make piles for jumping in. the first snow comes, melts, then more snow. and right after that - christmas. that's just the way it goes. summer, leaves, snow, christmas.

living in alaska (and sweden) hasn't changed my internal clock any. so since we've blasted through summer and the falling leaves and the first few snowfalls, what i want to know is, when's christmas?

my internal clock says it's just weeks away. i'm all heebie jeebies thinking about presents for people and decorations (chuck put our outside lights up this week - it'll be way too cold and dangerous by christmas time to put them up).

*sigh*

the good thing is, i guess i'll get my shopping done early!

sox - toberfest

this post has been stewing a while. work and knitting and life have been taking up my time. which is rather a good thing. real life wins out over the computer anytime.

so..........how bout those red socks? while the playoffs were going on chuck said "wouldn't it be funny if it ended being the rockies against the red sox?" ie His team vs. My team. he totally jinxed them. and i don't think he's happy with the results. the first game i had to tease him, and of course a little today. i can't believe they sweeped the rockies. it was the perfect ending to the whole sox-toberfest (i couldn't resist the pun - sorry).

born and raised in MA i've always been a red sox and patriots fan. they always seemed to have this pattern though: do great during the season, get into playoffs, decide it's vacation time and crash and burn. so these last few years it's great to see the teams actually remembering to play during the postseason. and win. i love it. and with the pats 8-0 the superbowl's looking pretty good too. we're coming up against the colts though. i hope we whoop em. last year i banned payton manning's name, just because they said it every other second on espn.

in other good news. . . ah yes. the grand seaming event of last saturday. i was It. so i did what i could, and still have most of the squares to sew up. *sigh* at least the pressure's off. since then i've only done "fun" projects, but there's no school thurs and fri this week so i'll have my own private netflix seaming party then. and maybe get rid of the cobwebs in the house. the whole blanket project is turning into more of an ongoing thing, which is good because i still have squares (thankfully) trickling in. so given time we can do more.

the first fun thing i did was finish the woven stitch towel. yay!

the edges curl just a bit, but i can live with that.

last weekend i worked on chuck's neglected sweater until i couldn't stand it anymore. now i'm about 3 inches from the neck decreases. like a horror film, i knit but don't seem to get any closer. stake conference this weekend gave me plenty of time to work on it. for mostly being a church knitting project, it's coming along fairly well. i have a dream of it being done in time for our thanksgiving trip, but know it probably won't happen.

i finished the thuja. i tried the sewn bind off for the first time and *really* liked it. my first toe-up sock i had to go up like 3 needle sizes for it to be loose enough to fit over my foot. the sewn bind off is like grafting half a stitch so it's super easy. and flexible! i was very happy with it.
broadripple 2 got started and almost finished last week, mostly knitting at school during my prep period. that's the best thing about high school i think. it just needs an inch or two and it'll be done. no pics, cuz, hey, it looks just like the first one. and the stripes match up pretty good, maybe half a row off.

i finished reading scions of shannara. despite having no recollection of the story line, i apparently have read it before, since i came across a quote i copied from it. i definitely don't remember it being a trilogy. so, druid of shannara up next once i go to the library tuesday. yesterday i barely started heartlight but i'll tell you about that tomorrow (it's almost bedtime).

today i started the second moss grid towel. i noticed on the first one that the seed borders on the sides fold in pretty bad. it's not blocked yet (i figured i'd do both of them at the same time) so hopefully it'll go away. that'll be my home knitting, while the socks are my school knitting.

sadly, the job i have right now is math. which means the kids have questions and need help during class (yeah i actually have to, like, teach) so i don't knit. luckily it was a 5 day job. the checkbook likes gigs like that. it helps keep the kids in line too. they haven't been a problem at all though, and i was a little discomfited to learn i was popular friday. i started wednesday, but only had 3 of the 5 classes. friday i had all of them. they tell me i'm better than their normal teacher, which i take with a grain of salt. (have i mentioned lately i hate math?) but then friday, the new afternoon class asked some question, which they thought i would explain well, and said they'd been told i was a good teacher. what do you say to that? not being a real teacher and hating math? i guess if they tell it to their friends they mean it.

most of my pics were taken outside cuz the inside light sucks here. you know what's tricky about takings pics in AK? your breathe fogs up the lens and makes the pic blurry :( but still, here are some pics of the fjörgyn + buttons for you to enjoy. and for all of you out there (tanya) always asking why i'm not in the pics, i even got chuck to take some with me wearing it.

i think i like not blogging for a week, i feel like i've done so much!

oh yeah

after that little practice storm, we're getting some real snow. the flakes are still a little too dandruffy for me, but i promise i won't whine about that all winter. we're getting a decent accumulation now, but it's hard to know exactly how much cuz it's just piling on top of what's left from last time. almost 6 in. i love snow, there's something magical about it. here's the view from my living room

it is starting to pile up a bit. i went to visit chuck at work for lunch, and a 5 min trip took 15 min. (the alaskan drivers don't help). tomorrow we can go sledding! that gets me all excited like a little kid every time. wanna hear about my two favorite sledding trips ever?

when i was a kid (8?10?less?) it been snowing, and my mom went out for the evening. she got home late - everyone was in bed but me. the snow had stopped, and the full moon was out, lighting up the snow with that blue sparkly halo. my mom had me wake everyone up and we went sledding at the park around the corner. we had so much fun, even though they didn't have really big hills. it had to have been around midnight, there was that late night hush, and no one was around. we got to make the first tracks in the snow, every kid's dream. i still smile, thinking about that.

the other time was when tanya and i woke up at like freaking 5 am (it might have been even earlier) to go sledding at canyon park (?i think?) in provo. people had been there before us, but the park was deserted then and it was that same suspended animation feeling of life at a distance. oh, except for there was this one guy walking his dog. who jumped on tanya when she went down the hill. hehehe. that still makes me laugh.

and then there was the time with my 2yr old nephew that he still remembers, and sliding down the hill in my mom's front yard with my 8 month old niece. she thought it was a blast. memories like that are why i love winter.
not to mention the loveliness of birch outlined by snow. everything looks like an ansel adams photo.

besides the snow, the title refers to the thuja sock i started. by wed night, i was exactly halfway throught the heel. whoo-hoo! what was i stressing for? i think it was overexcitement caused by getting yarn for 2 projects at the same time. i didn't get much knitting in yesterday (overseeing paper mache is not conducive to knitting or clean pants) but still

not bad huh? and here's the promised pic of the finished broadripple
i really like how it came out. if only the second sock would magically knit itself up now.....

and while i don't have a pic of fjörgyn (i thought i'd actually be in it - no heartattacks now - but i need chuck's help for that), i did take a pic of the buttons to tide you over that's my favorite style of viking art, the urnes style. i was glad to find something that went along with the overall design.

tonight we're going to a holiday bazaar on eielson, so i don't think i'll get much knitting done. tomorrow is the grand seaming event for the women's shelter project, so i'm trying to get a ouple more squares in. somehow i feel bad that i couldn't make a whole blanket myself, but i know there wasn't enough time and planning for it. luckily we have enough for 1 or 2 blankets with the bounty i got sunday. hopefully i won't be the only one seaming the up though.

the results of last week's knitting book spree are starting to come in also, and lure me temporarily away from knitting. although they can lay flat, so maybe i'll just have to read and knit at the same time . . . .

but for now, i've got to make dinner and start some chili for tomorrow. the flakes have gotten bigger just since i started this post. maybe they'll get the hang of things after all :D

edited to adjust pictures