Thursday, August 31, 2006

Yarrrrrrrn

After a year plus on hemming and hawing over what yarn to use for my Rogue Hoodie, I think I have found it! Well, I certainly hope I have found it, I bought 9 skeins of it. It's Green Mountain Mohair in Wintergreen. I could not for the life of me get a good pic of the color, so here's the swatch from the website. My favorite thing is that the spinnery is in Putney Vermont, in the same town I lived in when I first moved to VT. I am quite sure that although I was not a knitter when I lived there, I have been to the spinnery anyway during the Putney Craft Tour every Thanksgiving. So when one of my LYS started liquidating their yarn and this went on sale for 30% off, I figured it was meant to be.
My ONE concern is that the mohair content (30% mohair 70% wool) will fuzz up, hiding the knotwork of Rogue over time...any thoughts?

Monday, August 28, 2006

So we planted some basil...

and then planted some more in case the deer ate it, then some more in case it dried out and died, then some more cause you can never have too much basil, right?
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.


The best part? This was out THIRD picking. And we have one more to go before the frost gets the plants. So brace yerselves family, your ALL getting pesto for christmas. Lots and lots of pesto. Damn. I think we may need a bigger freezer.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

It really is done now

It's Penryn...See? after two blockings it is actually done, and it fits! Love it!

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Meme

1. Grab the nearest book. Open the book to page 123. Find the fifth sentence.Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
"Girls are really competitive but they don’t make it seem that way, Mary Duke explained. Like I’m so fat. When they say that it’s because they want attention. Finally, girls use “I’m so fat” to short-circuit the possibility of getting labeled “all-that”.”
This is from Rachel Simmons' book “Odd Girl Out”, a really interesting Reviving Ophelia-esque book I picked up and have now read twice. This question was much more difficult than it should have been, as the bookshelf nearest my computer is where all of my textbooks and school-related reading is. Page 123 was (closest book) a chart on some stats thing and (second closest book) a set of chapter review questions.

2.stretch your left arm out as far as you can...what do you touch first?
Yarn. Go figure.

3. what was the last thing you watched on tv?
Probabally CSI

4. without looking, what time is it?
2:45pm

5. what is the actual time?
4:20pm...oh lord I have a lot still to do today.

6. with the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
Cars on the road, Dulce eating/playing with a plastic bag, housemates youngsters chattering in the kitchen, peepers and crickets, the fish tank, and DH’s water tray bubblers.

7. when did you last step outside?
Went out to see if it was raining on DH’s laundry about 30 min ago.

8. what are you wearing?
Orange Roxy hoodie and green capris, flip flops.

9. when did you last laugh?
Taking pics of Zora tolerating Dulce giving her a very thorough bath around the eyes and head.

10. seen something weird lately?
Listening to the trailer for Brokeback Mountain on the DVD player while watching an odd comercial with a guy with a huge ping-pong ball as a head. The head was painted like a clown and he was at the office conversing with coworkers. While the trailer was playing. Hearing “Why can’t I quit you” while there’s a ping-ping headed clown was certainly the oddest thing I’ve seen in a while. And DH and I were so amused we kept watching it for a bit...

11. what did you dream last night?
I don’t think I remember it. I often don’t.

12. what's on the walls of the room you're in?
An orchid calender that’s still on...March.
My school/knitting bookshelf.
Tons of framed photos and pictures, lots of bookshelves (my computer is in the living room)

13. what do you think of this survey?
More interesting than many I’ve seen..

14. what was the last film you saw?
Just last night, Broken Flowers with Bill Murry. Really great movie by director Jim Jarmusch.

15.do you like to dance?
Yes but I’m pretty awful. Unless I’m intoxicated, then I’m Brittney-friggin-Spears.

16. would you ever consider living abroad?
I’d enjoy it, but I don’t think Dulce and Zora would like the plane ride. Then again we could always drug them...

17. if you became a multi-millionaire overnight what would you buy first?
My way out of debit. Pay off school loans for DH and I, pay off CC’s, and pay off both parents morgages. Then...buy us each a car that is running and newish (okay, millionaire? New one for each of us) and set aside $$ for our first house.

18.tell me something about you that i don't know.
I am a Special Olympic Gold medal winner. Yes, really, but on a technicality...I coached the RI team the year one of the teams won the gold medal in sailing and sailing is one of the sports where they have “unified partners” for safety and sanity reasons. So my two athletes won, and I got a medal as well. That’s my fallback fun trivia fact about myself...odd, unusual, and just a tad bit embarassing (the medal part, not the special olympics part)

19. what would you change about the world?
A. Must have license to have children. And it should be more difficult than getting a permit to the dump.
B. Presidential canditates should have to pass a “Basic Skills and Sensibilities” test. While it’s nice that they have someone to do everything for them, that should not take the place of their ability to do it for themselves. Like “Don’t worry that you can’t formulate a sentence Mr Presidential Candidate, we pay someone to do that for you.”
C. It should not be more difficult to obtain an education, basic or higher, than to train a monkey to use the toilet.
D. People should...oh I give up. I can’t even start on all the ills of the world, but perhaps we should consider the ramifications of sciencing our way away from natural selection. Some animals are just meant to die. People are animals. Sooo... (this is of course not applicable to me or my life, where if something happened to a loved one I would really appreciate the benefits of technology and science. But you know...)

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Vacation...on the St. Croix

Finally, I get around to posting a few of the several hundred pics we have from out canoe trip on the St. Croix. My DH, three friends and I all drove to the canadian border here in Maine and did a four day three night river trip. DH and I had done the Croix once before a few years ago, and LOVED it, and couldn't imagine anything more fun than doing it a second time with some of our close friends!

As you can see in this first pic, two canoes and a kayak on a pick-up looks a bit top-heavy. This is actually the night before the river, we camped at a local campground so we could meet the outfitter (who was excellent) early the next am. It also happened to be one of our canoers birthdays, so we celebrated with lobster, steak, and corn, topped off with a pino noir and the first sips off the trip liquor. Let me tell you- lobsters steamed over a coleman stove have never tasted sooo good! To top it off, the trip had a slow start with some car trouble and a swing through the mechanics after switching subarus so all of us actually making it to princeton was something to be celebrated indeed.The nice thing about DH and I doing A LOT of canoing together is we have out system dialed in perfectly. This is our canoe (an old town tripper that my parents bought in the early 80's that we have on extended "borrow") all loaded up and on the river. Everything we need is loaded in, I think our fishing poles and the map bag is all that's missing. Generally we don't tie anything down, but when we've got a whitewater section (the croix has 2) to do, we lash everything in via d-rings so IF we go over, we won't spend the rest of the day swimming after an aquatic yardsale. To give you a brief tour, those ACE buckets are fitted with screw-top gaskets, and hold our food and kitchenwear and some camping stuff. DH and I each have a yellow bag for all our clothes, personal stuff and sleeping bags/pads. The green bag is the tent, camp stuff like a lantern, machette (much more useful than an axe), water filter, coffee press, ect. Then there's the coleman stove, a small cooler for lunchies, a bigger one for fragile/cooled food, and our red day bag with field guides, sunscreen, bug spray, sunglasses, and all that type stuff. We also have a pelican box for the camera and binocs.
Now for the fun part. This is DH and I on Little Falls, a class three drop on the Croix. This section is able to be portaged, so you can either unload your gear and walk around so you can run it with an empty boat, or you could bring your whole boat around. We ran it full and lashed down, it was actually much easier than last time. There are two sides of the rapids seperated by an island and what line you pick depends on water level. We pulled up pics from last time at the same place and figure the water is about 1-2 feet higher this year. No rocks to aviod, just lots and lots of water. And FYI, the water is WAYYYYYYYYYY bigger in person-our pics make it look wimpy but it was a big class three!
I just like this pic. At a campsite during happy hour of iced gin and tonics with fresh lime after a long day on the river. And no, I did not intend to match my shirt and hair.
To end, i leave you with a pic of our other canoe party "canoing". It was so windy they decided to use a groundcloth to sail. And they were moving...check out the bow wake!