That's what we're supposed to do.

Okay, now that my heart is starting to slow down and my stomach is back where it’s supposed to be…
I just about had the scare of my life.

I just had a package delivered to me. Which is awesome. I was expecting it. What I wasn’t expecting was the the BANGBANGBANGBANGBANG on the door immediately after the doorbell was rung.  It was the kind of bang you expect when someone is in really dire trouble and needs help immediately. Not to mention, the post girl didn’t even give me a chance to get out of my seat between ringing the bell and banging on the door.

I appreciate getting my package, but wow!!! It was literally :ringaringaringaringa: BANGBANGBANGBANGBANG, and she was reaching for the doorbell again when I opened the door. It took me all of 5 seconds to get from my chair to the front door.

5 seconds is too long, maybe?

I asked if she was in a hurry and she glared at me and said “That’s what we’re supposed to do.”

Long range weather forecast and a sitting mouse

I'm going on a really fun camping trip in just 8 days.  Long range forecast is looking really good.  That makes me happy because this is a special trip.

We're leaving our men at home, and we're going for a fun weekend of knitting around a campfire!

I enjoy the whole outdoorsy thing, and I've never been girls-only camping before.  It is shaping up to be quite excellent.

In random, non-knitting news, it's difficult to update a blog while a little mouse (aka Scruffy) is crawling all over your keyboard.  But even more adorable is when she sits to eat her treats.  She's the only one of my 6 kiddies to do this.  She sits on her bottom and brings her "knees" up, and hunches over her food.

I have a feeling it's a position she's adopted to keep Greedy from snatching her food.  Doesn't make it any less adorable!

Please pardon the dust behind the mouse.  She's sitting on my keyboard tray and I don't clean back there much.  ;)

Tweedy yarn

I'm trying something new.  I've got some brown alpaca that I've carded up with bits and pieces of blue and green cotton.  I'm spinning it up so the cotton bits get caught at irregular intervals.  It's looking pretty interesting right now.

The best part is, I'll be able to repeat this for as long as I've got alpaca left over.  :)  What I don't know is whether I'll be spinning this to weave into a blanket, or knitting it up into a tweed vest, or even knitting an irish sweater out of it.

I'm leaning towards the last one, just because that would be an interesting project and this is a very interesting yarn.

New yarn

So I just finished my latest handspun.  I was aiming for a nice thick single, with a weight and feel similar to malabrigo.

I swapped with an online pal for some lovely roving a while ago.  It was a blend of cria alpaca, soft lambswool and silk, and was heavenly soft.  It was the sort of roving that you want to spin into a nice thick single, which is exactly what I did, and got the most heavenly soft yarn out of the deal.  The colour just turned out amazing, and reminds me so much of one of my dear knitting friends, that I have to name it after her.

This is the yarn I have called "Teresa".  There are 2 skeins, weighing about 60g each, with approximately 58yards per skein.  It's a lovely vintage shade of orange, yellow and purple.  Exactly the sorts of colours my friend likes best. 

I've got two skeins of this and haven't quite decided if I can bear to sell it or not. 

More Ow

Further to this morning's "Ow".  The muscle pain has subsided somewhat.

About 6 years ago, I had a crown done.  It wasn't done very well and has been a source of discomfort ever since.  My new dentist couldn't touch it, though, since he wasn't the one who did it in the first place.  Today, we started the process of replacing it. 

The freezing is wearing off now.  And ...uhm... OWOWWWWWW!!!!  I think I'm going to go take two advil and knit for the rest of the night.  And for the next two weeks until the temporary crown comes off and the new one goes on.

But on a more knitterly front, I got to knit through the whole first half of the appointment, and got a good inch done on the back of my sweater.  :)

Oooooooh, the pain

Ow.

The running caught up with me this morning.

In other news, I pulled out an old wip last night.  It's a wrap that I was weaving, back before the loom got packed up and the basement got started.  It's actually a very pretty wrap, with a creamy bamboo warp (lengthwise thread) and a blue and white wool/cotton weft (widthwise thread).  I had decided after I'd taken it off the loom to tie the ends together and weave them in to make a mobius wrap.  It was a great idea, except there are something like 150 ends on the wrap.  So I'd gotten through 20 ends and got bored, stuffed it into my knitting basket where yarn ended up piled on top of it, and forgot about it.  Until last night.

I'm going to a wedding on Saturday, and it would be nice to have a shoulder wrap for the evening.

In between cleaning the bathrooms and going to get a crown replaced by the dentist, I think I'm going to try finish it up today.  The mobius thing kinda camoflages the uneven edges that are a result of my inexperience as a weaver. 

I don't know if I should take it to work on the bus, or if I should stick to my deadline-knitting.  I've got a sweater due asap.

Run, run away

So, this has nothing to do with knitting at all, but that's okay. 

About 3 weeks ago, the Husband (henceforth "H") and I had some friends over.  I was talking with one of H's friends, who recently started running.  It seemed to be working so well for him that I was inspired to start running again.  I hadn't done it since high school.

So about 2 weeks ago, I started running.  I noticed almost right away that if I'm going to be running, I am going to need a running partner to keep me motivated.  I always have great intentions for doing things, but fall off the wagon when they stop being fun or start being hard work (the afghan I've been "working on" since I got engaged 6 years ago has been sitting nearly untouched since I got married 5 years ago).

I ran 3 times the first week, and twice last week.  And today, I went running with one of my friends.  I was shocked to learn that I'd run 3.6K!  That makes me feel amazing!  My goal is to be doing 5K in one month, and I'm hoping for 10K by the spring.  I'll need to find an indoor track for the winter.

Questions about yarn and my sanity

Now that the official first entry is out of the way, let's get down to yarny business.

I have mixed feelings about my tendency to bypass common sense in order to make money.  I just sold two things that are very precious to me, and while the coin is nice, now that they are sold, I'm not sure I ever really wanted to let them go.

Thing #1: 4 skeins of very pretty Noro Silk Garden.  I got these at the super-awesome annual LYS tent sale.  They were $3 per skein.  I put them up in my Ravelry stash.  Just my regular stash, mind you, not my "will trade/sell" stash.  Within an hour or so, I got an offer to buy them.  And I saw the dollar signs and sold them for double what I paid, but still half of what they are worth.  And now that the transaction is done, a little part of me is sad.  I know I shouldn't be, though.  We both got a good deal.

Thing #2: My very first spinning wheel.  I bought a new spinning wheel back in May.  The agreement was, if I sold my first spinning wheel, I could have a newer, better, more spinning-wheel-looking spinning wheel.  So I put the first wheel up for sale when I found the new wheel I wanted.  The new wheel is quite nice, and the old wheel wouldn't sell.  I got lots of offers, but they were empty offers and they all fell through.  I found an amazing deal on an electric spinning wheel, so I bought that one, oiled it up and checked it out, then promptly resold it for a pretty penny.  The profit on that covered both my wheels (twice over), so I decided I didn't care if the first wheel ever sold.
Then, randomly, today I got an email asking if the wheel was still for sale, I said yes, she asked for the paypal address, and BOOM!  Sold.
And now that it's sold, I realize just how much I actually use BOTH wheels.  I use one for spinning and the older one is an incredible plying wheel.  And alas, now it's someone else's incredible plying wheel.

One of these days, my desire to make a little extra cash is going to get me into serious trouble.  I might end up accidentally selling something I actually really do need, like my car or my husband.  ;)

A new knitting blog...the official first entry

Because there aren't enough knitting blogs out there, I've decided to start my own.  I need a spot (besides facebook) to ramble on about my current knitting and spinning projects.  I don't think my facebook friends care much about my knitting...except for my facebook friends who are also knitters.

That leaves me with the conundrum...do I bother uploading my blog to my facebook notes so I can continue to bore my non-knitting friends with random ramblings on yarn?

I used to blog back in university.  Random ramblings about boys, grades, work, and projects.  That old blog still exists somewhere in cyber space, but as hard as I've tried in recent years, I don't seem able to resurrect it and devote it to knitting.  So it lies dormant and locked up.  Kinda like an old diary (that you don't mind the whole world reading).  And here's the shiny new blog, devoted to all things knitting and spinning.