'Twas the night before the Fourth...

Woke up this morning with a song stuck in my head. I don't actually know the name of it; it's one we sang in our 6th grade Bicentennial extravaganza, Patriots on Parade. I suppose it's fitting, since the first line of the song is the title of today's post, but really. It's been more than 30 years. Why do I even remember it? Probably for the same reason I still remember all the dance steps to I Am Woman from the same play. And the name of the play, for that matter.

On vacation this week, and so far it's been excellent. Got some knitting & reading done on Saturday, as well as fixed the sprinkler and tidied up the front porch (sweeping, trimming the wisteria, etc). Sunday we went to see Brave followed by dinner at the pub. Yesterday we went to the Getty Villa and toured the gardens (photo in today's post is of one of the ponds there), had dinner at our favorite Mexican place, and baked a batch of brownies. This morning we did a bit of pruning & weeding in the backyard. Ralph cut two large branches off our poor overloaded lemon tree. I picked about four dozen lemons off the cut branches & have them in bowls out front with a 'free lemons' sign; there are still plenty more should those all get taken. Shockingly, I even remembered that today is Tuesday in time to move the cars to the other side of the street before the street sweepers come.

Last month was a big event in the life of our friend SS. After three years of seminary, she was made deacon in her church. You can tell by the smile on her face how proud & happy she is. She did have a bit of an irreverent moment, though. At one part in the ritual, the three officiants were to prostrate themselves on the floor while the bishop spoke of the spirit of Christ coming to them & filling them. SS told us that at this point she thought, "Odd--I didn't know the Holy Spirit smelled like floor polish..."

The Ravellenic Games are coming up. These were formerly called the Ravelympics, but some of you may be aware of the brouhaha over that. If not, just do a Google search for "USOC Knitting" and read a few of the stories that come up. This year I'm actually co-captaining a team: I am the First Mate of Team Pissdrunk, representing the Simply Nonsense for the Sake of Fun group. I've changed my Ravatar for the games; I've posted it here. The original image is from the blog Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosch, and can be found at the end of this post (which is pretty funny and I highly recommend reading it): http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/09/party.html Most of the team have Jack Sparrow Ravatars, but I'd made mine before realizing that JS was traditional & liked it too much to change it.

Anyway, this year I've got four projects planned: socks (sock put, single skein sprint, and lace longjump); a lamb (toy toss); a shawl (shawl sailing, lace longjump, and balance beads if I decide to do the beaded version of the pattern) and finishing up the sweater I started two years ago (WIP [work in progress] wrestling). I was only going to do three because I was sure I could finish them in the amount of time allotted, but figured if I *knew* I could finish, it wasn't really a challenge, was it?

Had a nice picnic for Father's Day (or as we call it in my family, Fathead's Day). Quite a few of us there: myself & Ralph, Lizard, Duh & Happy, and my friend Termite, who was a surprise guest for my Dad, who hasn't seen her in years. Plenty of good food & good conversation, and of course my camera battery died as soon as I tried to take a picture :-/ Ah, well.

Don't faint; I'm posting something.

Hmm, now that hasn't happened in a while; I actually remembered my password to Blogger. Of course, when you post once a month or less, forgetting the password isn't exactly unexpected. Today's first pic is a swainson's thrush. This guy knocked himself silly against our window last month. When it was obvious he was on his way to recovery I took a few pictures (it seemed a bit morbid to do so when I wasn't sure he would live or not. "Hey, look at this photo I took of a dying bird.") This one came out the best. All the dust & dog hair on him is from his collision with the screen. He flew away a few minutes after this was taken. The second pic is the tote bag I'm working on. It's the same pattern I used last time (Mrs. Weasley's Bag of Stitch Witchery) only I'm using three colors instead of four, and as my long-time readers will notice it's in a much more subtle color theme as well. It's almost done; all the knitting is finished and I've bought the necessary items for the lining & handles. Now I just need to suck it up and do the sewing part. Sorry about the poor staging of the bag. I realized it was all crumpled after I took the picture, and for some reason my camera decided not to recognize the card on the next three I took & the pictures didn't come out at all. Guess I'll have to reformat the card. Missed out on an impromptu class reunion last night--30 years to the day since graduation. Funny, it doesn't seem that long ago, but I guess everyone says that when their 30th comes around. By the time I found out about it, it was already close to 8:30 pm & far too late for me to be getting ready to go out for the evening. Ah, well, maybe there'll be another get-together in the not-too-distant future and I'll be able to attend that one. Work is tremendously busy right now, with fiscal year end fast approaching and closings coming thick & fast. Normally we've got between 10 & 20 closings in a month, compared to May with 80 closings and June with approximately 30 already done and another 85 or thereabouts to go. Things will slow considerably in July, of course. I'm taking some vacation time the first week of July--I'm gonna need it! No plans to go anywhere, just going to crash at home with the dogs & my knitting. Had a weird thing happen while I was spinning. The strand of yarn came apart (not enough twist) which isn't *too* unusual, but what was weird is the end still attached to the bobbin completely vanished. I'm guessing it pulled apart somewhere under the top layers of wrapped yarn, but I'll be doggoned if I can find it. Rather annoying, really. The roving I bought was three pieces braided together before being space-dyed, so when you unbraided it there were three identically dyed strips. I was planning on spinning each strip separately so that when I plied the three bobbins together I'd have nice long stretches of color. However, with the end being lost I'm not going to be able to use the second bobbin, and I spun planning on a three-ply. It'll be thinner than I like if I only do two. I do have another of the braided rovings in a different colorway, but darn it I already had one strip done & well onto the next. I know, I know, first world problem. Hmm, also weird--when I preview this, all the spaces I put in between paragraphs disappear, and so did the post title. Sorry if this is hard to read--I swear I didn't type it all as one long entry.

Silver & Gold

Faire season has begun. My wheel has been quite popular; I got a lot of people stopping and asking about it, and have done some teaching with the drop spindle. I do need to get a cushion for my stool, though, as my seat bones felt rubbed raw by the end of the first day. I only spun for a couple hours today because I got sore so quickly. Ralph has been hither and yon playing music. We left a little early today because he wasn't feeling well & wanted to rest up before tomorrow, when he really needs to be there as the band he is in is going to be short a couple musicians.

Knitting-wise, I've been making juggling balls lately (see photo). Ralph wanted a set, and asked if I'd make four rather than just three, then mentioned that if he had six he could teach someone else as a Faire gig, and oh if he had nine then he could teach two people at the same time...Luckily for him he is extremely knitworthy. I've already done six & have the seventh on the needles. I got some new yarn yesterday, though (see other photo), which I'm dying to make into socks so I've really got to hunker down & finish the juggling balls. If I start the socks now I fear I may never go back & make the last couple balls. The colors of the yarn got washed out in the photo; the orange is deeper in real life, and the blue is more of a silvery grey.



Ralph also bought me some rovings at Faire today. One is blue, purple & green; the other is more rainbow colored. I think they're going to spin up into some lovely yarns. Not sure what I'll make with them once they're spun up. I'll have to wait & see how they look before deciding.

Had kind of a weird thing happen the other day. I had a sudden sunspot in my right eye, with sort of lightning jags coming down from one edge of it. Lasted for at least half an hour before starting to fade, and took several hours to go away completely. Of course I went & had it checked out as soon as possible. Turns out I've got some venal hemorrhaging going on inside my eye. The optician thinks it's related to blood pressure. I'll be seeing a medical doctor in a couple weeks to confirm (it was the first appointment I could get). It's not painful, but I do have a bit of a blurry spot in my vision which is a little annoying. Still, I was afraid it was something worse, like a retinal detachment.



On the brighter side, Ralph got a new car, a Dodge Challenger. He loves it! It's a bluish-black, or maybe a blackish-blue, and has a nice muscle-car rumble to the engine. I haven't driven it yet--I'll wait until after it gets its first scratch--but it's definitely comfortable to ride in. This is only the second new car he's ever had so as you can imagine he's quite excited.

Well, that wasn't my intent

Boy, I must have really offended one of my friends by that post on Facebook (see last month's blog entry for details). She has not only defriended me on FB, but also on Ravelry. Such a shame, as I hadn't intended to offend anyone. If you happen to still read my blog, please accept my apology.

Cold & rainy day today. I've spent most of the morning knitting; I'm working on a set of juggling balls for Ralph. I'm almost done with the "skin" of the fourth one & will be ready to sew & fill them later today. There's one each of black/red stripes, black/green, black/purple, and one that has all four colors. It's a surprisingly easy pattern & fun to knit as well.

I received my Pi Swap items on Monday. Wow! Lots of fun stuff: yarn, a brownie pie, cherry pie filling, can opener, treats for the dogs, treats for the birds, toys for the cat, wool wash and a little sheep magnet set (one magnet is the head & the other is the tail). I was amazed by the wool; look how it almost disappears in the shirt I was wearing when the box arrived. She obviously picked "me" colors.



In other news, I've bought a new spinning wheel: an Ashford Traveller. My very first double-treadle wheel! It's a dream to spin on. It came unfinished & I did all the staining myself before putting it together. Just in time for Ren Faire, too.

As usual, not much else going on. Taxes are done & we're getting a bit of a refund, yay! Comic-Con tickets sold out within hours of going on sale & we didn't manage to get any, boo! Maybe next year, or maybe The Boy can pick some up for us when he goes.

Considering the source

Had an interesting thing happen on Facebook recently. I came across a wall photo that expressed a sentiment with which I agreed strongly enough that I shared the post. For those of you who don't do Facebook, let me say that when you share a post, there's sometimes a link at the bottom of it giving the original source. Well, I had several people respond negatively, but not for the post itself. They felt personally attacked by me having shared it because of the source, & the comments were fast becoming a drama llama melee. I removed it, and re-posted just the saying without any source material. Since then I've gotten quite a few "likes" on it, including from at least one of the people who originally took offense.

This got me to thinking. The best way to come to terms with a person or group with whom you disagree is to find common ground. If you will not "listen" to what is being posted because the original person/group to say it is someone with whom you disagree, how in the world do you expect to resolve your differences? How can you expect them to listen to you if you don't listen to them? And I was amazed at how quickly the topic derailed. The focus was no longer the saying (which had to do with taking away the rights of other people), but instead on the political group which had first posted it. It's no wonder things in this country are such a mess.

But on to other things. The Selfish Knitters & Crocheters are having their second annual "Save Your Fork-There's Pi!" swap. We should be getting assigned partners any day now. I've already ordered a few things for my partner, but I won't say what they are here since my blog is linked to my Ravelry profile & I don't want to ruin the surprise. I've also got some ideas for other items, including the handmade object, and can hardly wait to find out who I will be spoiling so I can prune the ideas list.



Almost time for Faire to be starting up again. We've got a guild meeting tomorrow, and the thought of Faire has me spinning again. Not turning in place, I mean I've pulled out the spinning wheel & finished off some roving. I've also started a new roving--a lovely blue merino/tencel blend that I bought years ago in Virginia--as sort of a test for myself. I've split it pretty evenly in two (1.9 oz per half, according to my postal scale) and am going to ply the two finished threads together. I want to see how close to each other they are in length, which will give me an idea as to how consistently I'm spinning. Also, for reasons I have yet to fathom, I have ordered a new spinning wheel: an Ashford Traveller. It's not here yet, so here's a link if anyone's interested: http://bountifulspinweave.com/images/ashford_dt_traveller.jpg

Today's photos were taken on January 7, a point in time in which our backyard was convinced that spring had arrived. The top photo is a monarch butterfly caterpillar on a milkweed plant that is growing next to the pond; the other is of nectarine blossoms on the tree.