Rabbit

Recently I got the uncontrollable urge to knit a toy; in particular, a toy rabbit


That looks like a rabbit, doesn't it? DOESN'T IT???

New Niece!

Thanks for all the comments about exercise. I should emphasize that I would NEVER, EVER have thought that I'd get to a point where I would like running for FUN. Not ever. A tiny corner of Hell must've frozen over.

I'm still catching up on answering you all, but I wanted to post this now: I'm an aunt again!


I like this aunt thing: all of the cute and none of the pain.


This makes us a triple-niece household. Here's baby girl and her sister (a few months shy of 2 years old)

E is for Exercise

This is an unusual E, especially for me. This post in honor of my being able to go to the gym this weekend for the first time in a month. I have trouble expressing how wonderful it was to be able to move again. My back is healing, but I'm being very cautious. I never thought I would actually *miss* exercise, but there you go.

This is my exercise story.

I was your usual active little kid. I played soccer, basketball, softball; I swam during the summers at the neighborhood pool and biked around. I was even on the track team in Jr. High, and swam with a swim team.

But, I wasn't ever any good at it. I'm not all that coordinated and I don't have a lot of natural upper body strength. I wasn't able to do a pullup or a handstand or climb the rope in P.E. Having mostly typical physical education teachers, I pretty much learned:
a) the rudiments of American popular sports, and
b) to despise my body for being slow and weak.

I wasn't ever a pudgy kid, but I've never been skinny. When puberty arrived, the hormones hit my metabolism hard, and I've been overweight to obese ever since then. This made me even less likely to want to get into gym shorts and t-shirt. By high school I had pretty much stopped exercising altogether.

It was all just a huge source of embarrassment -- I was big, I was bad at sports, and I couldn't even run all the way around the stupid track. I associated physical activity with shame, and wished I could just make my body go away. I had to take PE classes in college, so I took badminton. At one point near the end of college I tried out the exercise thing again by taking an aerobics class. I couldn't do as much as the other people but I did lose a bunch of weight in that 2 months. I still got a C in the class, since they graded on attendance (A+!) plus how many pushups and situps you could do (F) (never mind that the aerobics class didn't actually DO any pushups, situps, or weight exercises at all. Still grumpy about that).

About 8 years ago, in my twenties, I saw a picture of myself and something inside snapped. I put myself on a diet: low fat, low sugar, low calories. I don't eat excessively, but I do have a sweet tooth. I dieted all the way through Fall, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and beyond. Yeah, no Christmas cookies, rolls, gravy, or candy canes that year. I dropped some weight, but then I hit a plateau. For months.

After weeks and weeks of no change, I finally sucked it up and walked into a gym.

I don't really know how to describe how much of a leap that was for me. I DESPISED exercise.
I specifically chose a gym that was immediately across the street from where I worked, so that I would have no excuses about it being too far away.

I had NO IDEA what I was doing. The nice man who was quite happy to sell me the gym membership recommended I work with a trainer. It was really the best thing I could have done. Maybe I just got lucky. She was great, fantastic; helpful without being accusatory. I told her I wanted to be healthy and weigh less, and I'd do whatever she instructed to get that way.

She showed me how to exercise. It sounds absurd but I just didn't know how to use my body. Instead of getting on a treadmill and running hard until I fell over (in about 2 minutes), she showed me how to start out jogging slowly, then walking after that got to be to much, then jogging again, all the time working to increase the running times. She showed me how to use the weight equipment and pay attention to what my muscles were doing. She designed all different kinds of exercise programs for me so I wouldn't get bored (well, too much. I have a short attention span).

And over the next 6 months, I actually got fit. I had muscles. The little flabby bits under my upper arms went away. I got so I could actually jog for 40 minutes WITHOUT STOPPING. I felt great. I was exercising 50 minutes a day, 6-7 times a week, and lifting weights 2-3 times a week. Oh my, was it a timesuck. I got down a size 12, the smallest I've been since before puberty. I learned how to enjoy my body and using it effectively.

Then the whole knee thing happened and physical therapy and blah blah blah. It involved some ripped up cartilage and some unfortunate genetic revelations. Since then I haven't been able to do all that I used to do. The weight has slowly crept back up again, since I've slacked off the weights. I sure do miss the running (although biking is almost as fun).

But the exercise, it is a good thing, truly. I really do feel better when I'm doing it regularly, as much as it often bores me. I never, ever, thought I would actually enjoy exercise. But now, it really just feels good to move. Just to walk the mile to work without pain is little miracle. Even during my careful, reduced-impact gym sessions, it felt like all my muscles were singing. It's wonderful to feel so much more at home in my own body. Not that we don't have our little differences, but we're kind of stuck with each other.

I never get anything done

I like to read blogs and all, but honestly? Not so much lately for people I don't know, because everyone seems to Get Stuff Done except for me. I just looked this one blog and she's got a pile of stuff in her "Finished for 2008!" list. I've got a pile of half, mostly, and nowhere-near finished stuff and I only seem to keep adding to it. It's not as if I am having a mad cast-on Spring fling, it just feels I unknit more than I knit these days. It's true I am often distracted by the Shiny and New, and also I have to have an easy travel knit ready at all times or I might die of boredom on the train, but that doesn't explain the enormity of this pile.

I can't get it together in other bits of my life either: do I have pictures to show you of all these supposed knitted things? No, I do not.

Darth Socks: reworking the toe for the 3rd time now.

Obsession Socks: ran out of yarn halfway through the second foot. Nowhere near the toe, so I can't just fake my way with some different-colored toes. Not enough yarn even if I pulled out the first sock's toe.

Clown Socks: waiting for measurements. Mostly done with first foot.

Lace stole: on hold since forever. Newer shinier things appeared.

Cardigan o' pinkness: got bored. Fearing it is too fugly.

Knittin' for the new niece: I did design and finish a hat. I have no idea whether it will fit a real baby. I can't find a grapefruit of the appropriate trial size. But the accompanying baby booties are stalled out at the straps because I can't figure out how to do them so they look the same. grrrr. About 4th or 5th reknit on these.

2 ideas for niece baby sweaters floating around my head that I want to cast on for RIGHT NOW: on hold 'til I get some measurements, since niece #1 was MONSTER BABY and fitting into size 1 clothes when she was 6 months.

Cassidy's handspun beanie: needs ripping out AGAIN because it's just a smidge too short. And it's got an unfortunate nipple top.

In the midst of all this, I think I want to make a toy rabbit, one that has a stranded colourwork dress. I have never worked stranded colourwork. I'll let you know how it goes.

First though, I've got to figure out something on those booties and get them out the door. SIL's due in a couple weeks so she could pop at any time.

Snow: It's Not Just for the Midwest Anymore

Well, I hope you're happy. Poor frigid oregano.

And just when the irises started popping up, too.

Sheep-Transmitted Disease

Last night I was talking to K the Love Monkey, telling him I felt all glum and somewhat embarrassed that I had to tell everyone to whom I'd lately sent yarn that it might be contaminated with carpet beetle eggs. He said, "It sounds like yarn-eating insects is the knitter's equivalent of an STD."

And then he popped out with the phrase, "sheep-transmitted disease."

He doesn't knit yet but I'm working on him.

D is also for Discouragement, Disillusionment, and Destruction

I thought of multiple titles for this post, including

Another reason why I don't like wall-to-wall carpets
I am not so good at the non-violence when it comes to protein-fiber-consuming insects

I spent part of the weekend cleaning up an infestation of carpet beetles. These little bastards have been appearing around the house for months now, but never in large concentrations until just recently (Friday). I found ground zero on Saturday - the upstairs linen closet/cat litter box location.

The first time I saw one of them, maybe a year ago?, it prompted me to bag up almost all of my yarn in plastic ziploc bags. Unfortunately I got a little lax.

Possibly infected yarn is now going through a freezer regimen.

Fortunately they don't seem to care for cotton (which I have a lot of and isn't bagged) unless it's soiled. Instead they've got caviar tastes: it's wool and silk and feathers all the way.

There are 2 casualties so far:
1) some holes in a length of woven silk, and
2) a well-eaten Pomatomous sock, not even worn once. I discovered this just as I finished sock #2 and took them outside to take pictures. So I'm back to 50% on that project.

So I was a vacuuming fiend this weekend, albeit one that didn't bend over much and had a temperature and a dripping nose. I feel better today, much better than Saturday (slept 11 hours). But I know they are back there, breeding. Grrrrr.

To anyone I've sent yarn to recently: I don't think you need to worry, as I have found no beetles, larvae, or sign of infestation anywhere near where that yarn was kept. However, if you want to be absolutely safe, stick it in a ziploc bag in a freezer for 2 weeks, or throw it in a pan and heat it a 150 F oven for 30 minutes. That should kill all stages of the insects. I'm sorry about the runaround on this.

D is for DYEING

I've been doing a lot of dyeing lately. I don't really know why as I've got a bazillion other things lined up to do, but it's more dyeing for dyeing's sake, not really to produce anything. I use the excuse that I'm trying out different sock yarn blanks.

RED RED RED
I do kettle dyeing. I could handpaint instead, but I'm just having fun messing around with this. Since the yarn is completely submerged, there's much more color blending. I've been kind of on a shaded solids kick.

I dream of Greenie
I, um, have a little problem with saturation. As in, I have too much of it. Give me a jar of dye and I go buck wild, I guess. I finally managed a little restraint last time and got something with pale to medium greens, which I like very much and seems to be impossible to photograph well (even with image enhancement, it looks like poo).

As usual, my little obsession with red. I can't get a good pic of this either; it's dark reds shading to browns and I like it very much.
I just enjoy color. All kinds and flavors. I like admiring all the other hand-dyed sock yarns out there and how beautiful they are. I like the almost-always pleasant surprise of the skein's final coloration once it's out of the dye pot and dried. With some of these dark ones, I think, oh no, I've dyed a mass of solid black, but it's surprising the subtle range in colors I get at the end.

At the bottom of the deep blue sea
However, I need to deal with this growing pile of sock yarn. Cannot. Knit. Fast. Enough.

Enough with the flowers already

This is a public service announcement for those of you in the in the North/North-Eastish bits of the North American continent:

SPRING IS ON ITS WAY. REPEAT, SPRING IS COMING.




I waffled between putting these up or not--whether it'd be nasty and mean or offer hope. I fell on the side of 'but they're just so pretty'. If it makes you feel better, last weekend there was brief but intense hail storm which stripped those blossoms right off the trees.

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend. My brain is dissolving out my nose, but hey, it is FRIDAY.

Another Big Fluffy cameo, on his grand tour of our backyard:
He looks mean in that picture but really he's just a big softy (Ha, Wren'll get that reference I think.) You can see from the pick just how thick his winter coat is--that iron pillar attaches to the fence. A few weeks ago he decided to sneak inside and hide in our basement for at least several hours. We were alerted to his presence during a movie when a loud yowling came from the direction of the (now closed) back door (our cat Frances was sitting on my lap at the time).

Either Frances is getting mellower or she's just scared of him so she doesn't go on territorial defense DEFCON 1 unless we're also around to back her up.

Did I mention that C is also for Clumsy?

And completely idiotic?

Latest in the line of just-how-can-I-annoyingly-(not seriously, thank goodness)- injure-myself events for this month, I managed to slice 2 of my fingers while cutting onions tonight. Onions that were to go into the chicken soup I was making because I think I'm coming down with a cold.

My typing accuracy goes way down when I'm only on 8 fingers. It took 3x times as long as normal to write this. Also numbers are hard (and not in the Barbie sense).

I'm fine; one finger's not bad, the other is deeper and of course right on the top joint so I'll self-splint the damn thing so that it heals faster. And at least it's my non-dominant hand. I think that's the first time I've ever been in (slight) shock before and I didn't enjoy it. I just got dizzy and a little nauseated for a little while.

I think knitting is out for the moment, though, unless I can figure out some way of holding things with a half-splinted left middle finger. Time to get friendly with crochet again!

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Happier C's:

Croissant (this one's almond. And eaten)


Crocus


Chrysanthemum


and of course,
CHOCOLATE

This is the chocolate cake I made for K's birthday (extremely belated). Bakerina's blog has been inspiring me to new heights of baking lately, and so voilà: my first successful cake completely from scratch. I used these eency 5" diameter pans because a 9" wide cake would be way, way overkill.

It's yellow layer cake with milk chocolate buttercream icing. And it is DEADLY, let me tell you.
Deadly but delicious. (Is that an awful enough segue to D?)

The Anti-Back

K the love monkey got free tickets to Cirque du Soleil, which I have never seen, so we went last night. The show was beautiful, very impressive. It's probably best I never saw this when I was a kid because I'd probably have tried to devote my life to getting into it (I was kind of an attention hog kid. What'd I want to be when I grew up? A movie star.) That would've been disappointing because I'm extremely uncoordinated and not exactly the tumbling body type (I sucked SO MUCH at ballet. And I was only 6).

Anyway, I was enormously impressed and entertained, and I admit to complete and utter envy that people could contort and move in such ways, especially as I was sitting there hoping my back would last out sitting for 2.5 hours. Really, still pictures don't do the show justice--a huge part of the show was the lighting, ambience, and sound, as well as the costumes and props and movement. If you ever liked watching the gymnastics at the summer Olympic and wished, oh, that there were better costumes and it was more like Ice Dancing, you'll love this. Except the dude hanging from the girl's hair. OW.

My spine & I

Thanks all so much for the sympathy and suggestions. I wish I could say I'm feeling better, and I was feeling better and optimistic at the end of last week. My lower back and I had a temporary detente and plans for possible mutual disarmament, but something changed (? who knows what) Sunday and we're back to open warfare. My ice pack (bag of frozen corn. Don't mock, it works) and I are on very close terms lately.

I think I'm going to have to break out the big drugs as every day this week has been progressively worse. Today I'm walking around with a noticeable list to the left and no position stays pain-free for more than 10 minutes. I refuse to let this stop me from doing things though. I'll hobble around and sit uncomfortably and do everything glacially slow but I will NOT stop.

Sigh, this has happened before, it's like the Wheel o' Back Pain 'round here, every few months->years I spin the unlucky number and lurch around like Quasimodo and bitch and whine and mope about and generally feel miserable. It takes about 6 weeks to heal to "normal" levels, so I just have to trust that it'll heal again this time. This fact that it's getting worse worries me though. The absolute worst thing is the worry, especially the worry that this time I'm screwed and it'll never get better and I'm going to have to live restricted and in pain for forever.

The timeline of back suckage started 8 years ago while doing squats in a kickboxing class. I figure I probably partially herniated a disk then, and occasionally I'll sleep on it wrong or overtax the muscles, which makes it flare up, leak a bunch of fluid which then presses on the spine which presses on the nerves. My Highly Unscientific Conjecture is based on the fact that warmth==very bad more pain but ice is my friend, which makes me think inflammation. I Am Not A Doctor, but then again all the doctors have ever done is throw pills at me and say "try to move around, don't just lay in bed; it'll get better eventually" (yo, there was the time I could hardly make it to the bathroom without falling on the floor. I'll stay in bed and not be in pain, thanks all the same).

Nah, I've never seen a specialist. I should probably hunt down a good chiropractor but I never get around to it until I really need one, and then I don't have the energy. Massage seems to make it worse, but I only tried it once. I should probably try again, I know that sometimes things have to shift around a bit and feel worse before they feel better.

I REALLY ought to be doing yoga; I saw at least one study that shows that it was more effective than traditional muscle strengthening/conditioning at reducing the incidence of chronic lower back pain (and the strengthening in turn was more effective than doing nothing). But I have to do it at least a couple times a week for it to be effective and I don't know how to fit that in yet. I barely make it to the gym (ha, not for the last couple weeks) for an hour in the morning. Sometime in the evenings? Hmm. I need to shop around for good class.

And finally there is the plain and obvious, "lose some weight, stupid." I'm trying, I really am. It's just hard to move around when I want to curl up in a fetal position. I've been very good about food intake lately, lots of veggies and grains, low sugar & fat. I just can't help but envy the pizza & a coke crowd. The ones who are eating all those Friday donuts. Do you KNOW how long it has been since I've had a carbonated beverage? Or a hamburger?

Anyway, enough on the self-pity. I need to figure out how to hobble out for food. I've got an apple in the fridge but I forgot to bring anything more substantial. bleh. Hope you all have a happy, motile, pain-free day.

Signs of Spring

Daffodils

Hydrangea shoots

Ornamental plum blossoms

Cursing

Big Enormous Thank You

I am something like 3 weeks late in posting this (ha, what else is new?), but I'd still like to do so.

A bit ago Zoe sent me a fantastic wonderful package full of knitting goodies. It was such a fabulous surprise to come home to, and I want to publicly thank her for doing such a lovely thoughtful thing for me. I opened it up and thought Damn, I've died and gone to Heaven and it's a yarn store after all.

Some Regia silk sock yarn, so soft and a gorgeous slate blue; variegated Wool In the Woods (more socks! woop!) in toasty browns and greys. There is a skein of lovely soft brilliantly colored Sophie's Toes that I can't wait to try, and a skein of Sundara silk lace yarn in a beautiful silvery slate grey. I can't stop touching it, I'm such a silk addict. A skein of Skylark yarns in alpaca and bamboo that is so amazingly soft, and an awesome sock yarn bag and the Mindful Knitting book by Tara Jon Manning.

Thank you so much, Zoe, you made my day (& week & month).

grrrrrr

I'm breaking my own rules by posting without having replied to all your great comments, but I'm feeling annoyed and I have no one to bitch to except the ether.

Stupid back, stop hurting. Can't concentrate, can't sit down for long, can't even walk normal speed. I walk like I've got something stuck up my rear end. OTC painkillers don't help, prescription painkillers make me fall asleep. I don't know how people live with chronic pain. Don't even know what I did to make it like this, or I'd stop doing it. DAMMIT STUPID BACK

C is for Catatonic

No, not really, but it's a state that has a certain appeal right now. I am very behind in a lot of things; work, prizes, gardening, email, and library books included. (Thank goodness for online renewal systems. And I apologize to all the librarians. Really I'm not usually this bad). Thank you all so much for the well wishes. I will get back to you soon, I do promise.

C is also for cabin fever which I've got real bad right now, seeing as we've had an extremely unusual 2 weeks of unseasonable sunny days. It's not all that much fun to have to work inside right now. And 50 degrees F! Gah, it's almost balmy. The clouds are supposed to close in tomorrow for thunderstorms and possible hail.

I finished the first sock of the obsessive-compulsive control socks. So pretty. I like to admire them in the sunshine from the window. Have I done anything AT ALL on the Mission Possible projects? HAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHA no.

I keep collecting C words to use and pictures to accompany them and then not getting everything together. So it might be several days of C-celebration here. You've been warned. For today: there's a lot of great C words that just sound nifty, not matter what their meaning. I always liked the line about "concupiscent curds" in the Wallace Stevens poem. Compulsory, concurrent, cupidity, coordinate, celeriac. Maybe I just like 3-syllable words with 2nd-syllable emphasis.

Really, though, c will always be for
COOKIE

mmmmmmmmmm cookies

Cute 'n' fuzzy

Arrrgh, this morning at the gym someone had "Animal Planet" on, and what were they showing? Goslings, little baby gooses who weren't yet able to fly, who had to jump off a 100-foot rocky cliff so that they could go find food. Let's not even go into the footage that followed soon after of a fox carrying off one of the lucky survivors.

I think I need a dose of Cute Overload, stat.

The cat says: "Goslings? WHERE?"

Apologia

I'm sorry I haven't been around. I meant to be but then I never seem to find the right mood to sit down and write anything coherent. Also, I'm doing that hide-from-my-email thing, and it's really piling up, and it feels unfair to post and not actually answer mail. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I'm sorry.

I'm having trouble keeping up with everyday life. Tonight I feel like Bitchy McBitchersons. I'll try not to let it bleed into here. You all don't deserve that.

Look! Cute kitty!



It's become a regular feature, like the Friday night movie. Tuesday: Big Alice shows classic depressive symptoms YET AGAIN. Will she manage to pay the credit card bill this month? Film at 11. I am SO not entertaining enough to be a Lifetime movie. Crossing things off the to-do list gives me no relief, it's just guilt I didn't do it sooner and the rest just looms up ahead like an ominous, nearly crashing wave. I concentrate on the small things, stuff that gives me a guaranteed happy boost, even if for a few moments. It's hell to pay later (such as when I have the unfortunate acknowledgment of Just. How. Fat. I. Am), but it's all about the little tradeoffs right now. Yes I'm exercising. If I'm not exercising, my back gives me hell to pay. It is a very nice way to empty out the crap thoughts in my head, if only for an hour, and I'm very grateful for that. I need to make friends with the drugs again but I really don't much care to go to my doc (although it'd probably be easy to get Dr. Pillman to give me whatever prescription I ask for). See, the side effects are not all that fun. Again, little tradeoffs. I'm hoping that the increase in sunshine will be self-medicating enough. Only 30 days 'til the solstice!

Pretty flowers! Morning glories! (Am I distracting from the words enough yet?)


I've been doing a lot of dyeing (NOTE the 'e' in that word, ahem) lately because color makes me happy. Only I have this little, uh, saturation problem. As in, I have too much of it. I don't seem to be able to manage a pastel. Oh well. The red especially pleases me. I tried to take pictures but they didn't come out so well. The camera is not so good at capturing these colors. I'll try again in another light.

I also started a new sock, just because. It's with some Trekking XXL, all purple and gold and a little bit of green and blue thrown in for fun, and I am just a tad bit OBSESSED with this sock. Maybe it's because I don't have to actually plan it or anything, I'm just following a pattern (kind of. I tweaked it a little) and enjoying the colors. I think it's because I'm heavily into the control over the thing. sigh.

Look, a mountain!
Mt Hood, looking pretty and pointy on a camping trip from a few years ago.

I'll come back to reality soon, I have to prune the roses. It's early Spring now, the weather's changed for good, and oh lordy did I enjoy this last weekend, mild & full o' sunshine. I would've enjoyed it more if I'd actually been able to take off Monday as a holiday like the rest of my coworkers, but work is doing the too-much-to-do-not-enough-time thing lately for me. And no, I didn't even get it all done. But I did skein up my pretty, pretty red yarn. Gonna have to make more of that, it's so nice.

The cat says, I can stare down any of you.

Pearly Whites & Knitting Angst

I had a dentist appointment this morning. It was just a regular cleaning, not even x-rays this time.

I don't much care to go to the dentist but I REALLY don't like having my teeth drilled, so I am A+++ Great Dental Hygiene person. Oh yes I floss.

It's probably wrong and all messed up that I get a little glow inside when I get "Wow, you have great teeth!" compliments from the dentist. It's my little opportunity for professional approval, seeing as I'm a fatty and always get the lose weight talk from the doctor (at least he's nice about it.)

Anyway, hooray, no cavities! Safe for another 6 months.
The robins do not care about the state of your teeth.

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I've been kinda off lately, hence all the navel gazing. Also I've been suffering through a spate of the gimmes. You know, happiness through retail therapy? What I really need is less of things. sigh.

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I made aioli last night for the first time. Wow, was that easy. I don't think I've ever done an emulsion before besides salad dressing (and that always separates, I don't shake it up enough). This was garlic aioli with rosemary and thyme, as a sauce for roasted root vegetables. I sometimes like to buy weird veggies and try them. Yeah, I don't know how to explain the Weird Vegetable Fascination either. I mean, fennel? Leeks? You just haven't lived 'til you've stared at celeriac, wondering what to do with it.

Although, I've never used to be much of a vegetable fan, they always needed to be slathered with sauces and spreads to mask the taste. That was until I discovered that I do like veggies, I just don't like how they'd usually been served to me. I'm a fan of the raw and the lightly cooked. And I've also discovered that I adore roasting. Cauliflower didn't have to be watery and boring, but it could be sweet and nutty. Broccoli? Doesn't have to be steamed into pale green submission.

So the wild hair up my rear this time was parsnips and rutabagas (I got some carrots to, as a backup) (Cook's Illustrated described people as thinking of parsnips as "pale, anemic carrots," which cracks me up.) After some initial confusion as to how large or small to slice the Vegetables of Mystery, I roasted for about 45 with some carrots, onions and garlic. Mmmmm yum, they were delicious, especially with a little touch of the aioli. Did you know rutabagas turn this lovely golden color when roasted?

The hen-and-chicks is not interested in the color of roasted rutabagas, as long as you do not eat them.

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SeekrIt Project is done and submitted. Now I'm working on a hat, just a 3x2 rib, but it's made out of something special. My friend and coworker Cassidy gave me the first handspun she ever made with her new wheel, as a thank you for some dyes I'd given her. Her first handspun! Aren't you supposed to enshrine that up on the mantle, like bronzed baby shoes? She says she doesn't care for the colors.

Cassidy's handspun

And here comes the Knitting Angst. See, I like to knit. I actually enjoy just forming the stitches and watching it grow. Color changes? Even more engrossing. I also like to design because I like doing my own thing. But I really don't like the involved angst. Some days I'm better at coping than others, but right now, I Just Want To Knit.

So. Try #1 at the hat was too small (yes I knit a gauge swatch). Also seemed a little too open so I went down a needle size. Try #2 seemed way too big until I tried it on and it's just perfect now. Whew. I'm happily knitting along on my big ribbed tube (I tell K it's a cat cozy), but the yarn is getting a bit thicker as I go along and now I'm all worried. Is it too stiff? Should I go up a needle size? I'll have to decrease a bunch of stitches so it's not too big. Am I losing the essential lovely springiness of the yarn?

Gah, it's this WORRY that bugs me more than anything else. See, really, I should just go up a needle size or 2, try that out and see how it looks, and if I like it better, rip it out back to the part where I'm afraid it's too stiff and change to the other needle. But I DON'T WANT TO RIP AGAIN. grrr. I want it to be perfect NOW, the first time. grump.

This whole obsessively perfect-on-the-first try thing is bugging the hell out of me.

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Aw crud. Something happened (no, nothing big. I'm just crap at regulating how I feel these days. Tiny little things make huge waves), and now I feel like dirty smelly 5-day-old garbage. I'm going back in my hermit hole.

B is for Boy, I'm tired

Here it's Sunday night but not all that late and all I want to do is crawl under the covers for some blessed unconsciousness. But more about that later. First things first:

B is for blueberries!

Possibly the easiest accessible fruit ever. You don't even have to bend down or reach up, you just reach out and pick. No thorns, and the ripe ones are easily distinguished from the unripe.

That picture is of our little miniature blueberry, who lives in a pot and I think is lonely because it never does produce many berries. A fully-loaded blueberry bush is a sight to behold. Every other summer or so the itch gets to me and we go to the u-pick farms and go wild. YUM. We also come home with about 8 pounds of blueberries. Do you know how long it takes to consume 8 pounds of blueberries? There were also a couple pies involved, if I must admit.

And I'd really not like to forget blackberries and boysenberries and all those other variants which might not happen to start with B. Damn, now I've got boysenberry pie on the brain.

B is also for blossoms
(dogwood)

and blooms!
(calendula)

Neither of which there are much of right now. I'm just a squidge bit tired of winter. Remind me of that when I'm complaining about a heat wave this summer, will you? Although the camellias are pumping the blooms out and pansies are still going strong, even after a week of sub-freezing temps.

B, so versatile!
So tasty! (I wanted to mention butter here, but I figured a picture of a stick of butter is kind of pushing it).

And one particular B that's on my mind:
My bicycle!

Last weekend K bought me a Christmas/birthday bike (yes, and it's even a blue bike. K favored what he called the 'slick Darth Vader' black one, but I preferred the bright, garish blue. Yeah, still working on that subtlety thing). Isn't it beautiful? We went for a little ride afterwards and I. thought. my. legs. would. fall. off. That gym stuff is really working good, ain't it. Sigh. K says that I *had* gone to the gym that morning and had taken all those test rides, so not to feel too bad. Bah.

I've been trying to ride frequently this week to build up my tush calluses (I did get a woman's saddle. Now I feel much more, ahem, supported), but it's difficult when it's raining ALL THE TIME. Today there was a bit of sunshine between dramatic snow/hailstorms, so we headed off (it of course started raining as soon as we got out of the driveway). I think we did about 8 miles, based on my eyeing the map. Now all my muscles are pleasantly warm and tired, but I know that my gluteus maximii are going to express their wrath tomorrow, I can just feel it.

We're trying to get ready for the Worst Day of the Year Ride. Hopefully I will not die halfway through. K assures me it's OK to bail if it gets too bad and take public transit back home. But oh the shame! (plus I would miss the cookies)