just be.

happy (and sad) anniversaries

eight years ago today, we closed on our house.

two days after that, we went to see some dogs that were up for adoption. we ended up bringing them home with us and moving into the house almost three weeks earlier than planned.

there was this handsome guy for my handsome guy:

and this silly girl for this silly girl:

well, "moving in" = bringing a futon over and sleeping on the floor because actual moving-in weekend with furniture and such wasn't until almost three weeks later. (the sad part of the story is that my kitty kuan yin got to see very little of me during that time because she stayed at our apartment a block away so as not to be subjected to the dogs and too much change so quickly. mean but beloved old girl died two years later, to the day, from dog-adoption day. i just realized that and am sad all over again.)

kuan yin, in the old apartment:

LET ME GO I HATE AFFECTION

and yet i must sit on you at all times.

i feel the need to commemorate these special dates somehow, but we just ordered in *last* night.

fit to flatter

i just came home from amy herzog's fit-to-flatter class. so much fun, and i learned so much! i took my frankenhoodie with me, which needs just a button band, to get some advice from her on how to finish it, and i got some great advice. now to implement it :)

the funnest part of class was probably the trying on of the sample sweaters. she brought like 50 sweaters with her, many of which were her own designs, for us to try on, to see what flatters and what doesn't. here were some of the ones i tried, and what i liked or didn't like about each:

first is amy's greenaway design, which i adore because of the wide, square neckline and the smocking details:

this was knitted in a smaller size than i'd wear, as you can see from the snugness in the arms and across the shoulders, but i love it. the picture of the back is blurry, but it really flatters my waist in back.

another i love is eunny jang's tangled yoke cardigan:

i LOVE this. the deep ribbing is surprisingly flattering. look how tiny my waist looks!

because i am bottom-heavy (my hips are much wider than my shoulders or bust), the details in the yoke are good for me. the horizontal design at the yoke widens my shoulders to balance my hips and draws the eye upward.

similarly, this circles yoke pullover has lots of business at the top to draw the eye upward and balance my hips:

this beautiful grey pullover is amy's wintry mix design. i cast this one on the day it was released but haven't done much of it yet.

i'd probably need more waist shaping on mine.

finally, another of amy's designs, petrea. i love this pattern, and the sleeve length does indeed flatter the waist, i am much too self-conscious about my fat arms to wear sleeves this short. i'd add at least two inches to them, but otherwise i like this a lot. neither amy nor i could figure out why it dips down so much in front on me.

it was all great food for thought in choosing my next sweater. and it motivates me to finish my sweaters on the needles for sure.

toons!

saturday night, mr. bee and i had grownup time! we dressed up (okay, not much, but a little) and went to the toonseum and eleven with our friends liz and manos. it was so fun!

a year ago, i'd finished knitting my sunrise circle jacket but never hemmed it (it has a turned hem around all the edges). it languished for many months; i finally hemmed everything except one sleeve a month or two ago, and then decided that i wanted to wear it last night. so i hurriedly hemmed the sleeve and wore it! it was cozy and soft on a snowy night, so it was perfect (even though it was a little big in the waist--i closed it using a pedestal button, and it puckered a lot).

pics because it happened. i tried posing in front of a decal of bugs on the wall at the museum, but mr. bee kept trying and trying and trying with his phone camera. so that is why there are five shots, and i am sharing them with you because it cracks me up that he kept shooting. he was still unhappy with them, but i was bored of posing :)

the museum is super cool. there was a looney tunes exhibit in the main gallery, then a small keith haring exhibit in the hallway, and finally an exhibit of newspaper comics. AND they do not discourage photography! just no flashes. so i snapped a few shots of things i thought were cool:

the gift shop was excellent. small, but a nicely curated collection of books of and about animation and comics. i bought a copy of metamaus (i have kind of a thing for art spiegelman work and already have the original issues of maus and maus 2, bought a french hardback of maus and maus 2 at an excellent comics shop in switzerland this spring, and bought a copy of in the shadow of no towers this summer finally). i love that it's in our town :)  

a good time was had by all. and of course dinner was delicious :)

in other news, the floors are all finished and the stuff is all back in the house. the radiators are supposed to be finished cleaning tomorrow night. then we get them brought back and loaded into the house, mr. bee paints them, and the plumbers hook them up. THEN the flooring guys come and finish the stairs, and then i can have the organizers come back to finish up the unpacking, and our house will be ours again. AND we're getting a new sofa (espresso, chunky weave). I AM SO EXCITE.

so many things, so little time.

well. there is lots to say and i have little energy to write, but i need to get it all down tonight.

i'll start by saying that andrew and i celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary on saturday, and it was terrific. we dropped the dogs off at the cozy inn (warning: stupid music plays, but you can turn it off at the "music off" link beneath the changing pictures) and headed down to berryville, virginia, for the shenandoah valley fiber festival. it was my first time going to this one, and it was really nice. calm, friendly, spacious, a little warm but not too, and lots of vendors. and most indoors, making weather a minimal concern even if it had been bad. i was not very spendy and bought just two skeins: dragonfly fibers dragon sock in the titania colorway, which is a beautiful tone-on-tone emerald green and a nice sproingy tight twist,

and lizard toes isobel, which is a fingering blend of merino, cashmere, and nylon in a variegated grey and brown.

the dragon sock is earmarked for the tour de sock; my team is the team that rocks (slowly), made up of five members of the rockin sock club, and socks that rock is by far my largest stash, but dragonfly fibers is one of the sponsors and we get double points for using its yarn, so. i am competitive. what?

the isobel was just calling to me from the aisle and i waltzed into the booth and grabbed it, felt the cashmere and knew i had to have it, and THEN realized that it was a yarn by someone i'd met on lazy, stupid, and godless just a couple of days earlier. it will make beautiful weaving. on which more later.

after the festival, we checked into our hotel. we stayed at the aloft winchester, and let me sum up right here, unambiguously so that there is no confusion: DO NOT STAY AT THIS HOTEL. it is pretty. it has a snack bar. that's about all the good i can say about it. oh, and i guess it wasn't too expensive ($116 including taxes for one night). why did we hate it so much? here we go, chronologically: i was too stupid to check where it was located and should have booked something in the old town. my bad. not the fault of the hotel. but a bummer. whatever. so we walk in, and the young woman behind the desk is angrily flipping through a binder. chin on her hand, scowling, nearly ripping the pages out as she turns the pages, looking for something she's not finding. she doesn't acknowledge us (we are in her line of sight peripherally and the lobby was small--we know she saw and heard us) for literally about five minutes. when she finally does, she makes sure to tell us how crappy her day is going and that it's just beginning. this line of conversation continues throughout our (fortunately relatively brief) interaction. at the end of said interaction, she pushes a couple of card keys at me and starts to turn back to her computer problems (also a topic of complaint during our time providing hotel-desk-clerk therapy). so i ask, "what's the room number? is this it?" and i find it written in tiny letters on the card-key envelope. "what's the best way to get to that?" (any other time i've checked into a hotel, the checker-in has made sure to show and tell me my room number and then give explicit directions to the room. not this one. she had Things to Do.) so she tells us and then returns to her work. we head to room 226. it's cool. it's modern. sleek. we settle in for a little nap before dinner.

we walked around the pedestrian area for a little while before dinner, then headed to the restaurant. here's me on our walk. i was a hand-knits fool: february lady sweater, kalajoki socks, and earth and sky shawl.

 

dinner was AMAZING. i'd found (thanks, google!) and reserved a table for two at one block west. again, unambiguously, i'll offer this: DO EAT AT THIS RESTAURANT. so good! i started with this fabulous composed salad:

(oops, sideways; i'll figure out how to fix that). it's a mixture of asian pears, butternut squash, and spiced pecans with an apple-cider reduction. omg so good. also excellent french bread. very frenchy. i had a hanger steak with dragon-something (a theme!) wax beans and black kale. i love hanger steak. :) and then we shared a flourless chocolate cake called le bete noir. it was warmer and had a different texture from other flourless cakes i've had--almost like a flan, except that i don't like flan. not custardy, just soft and warm like that. omnomnom.

and then we were completely stuffed and drove back to the hotel. we were surprised (and, i confess, unimpressed) to see the desk clerk cozily adjusting the shirt of a young man who was enjoying the attention quite a bit, both enjoying pounding music and a lively party going on around them in the lobby bar. we were grateful to be headed to the peace of our room.

we thought. but we could hear EVERYthing from our room. we were annoyed. but we watched some tv and went about our business and tried to ignore them. this was doable until we tried to go to sleep. at 10:15 (yes, i am old), i phoned the front desk and asked about how late we should expect the music to be going on. "about 12:30, maybe a little later," came the answer. no apology, no concern. so i hung up. what could i do? 

then andrew suggested that we request a different room, so i called back. she had one more room, on a higher floor and at the other end of the hotel. why the hell hadn't we been given that one in the first place? i do not know. so we moved and had a decent night after that. but never any note of concern or apology from the desk clerk.

the morning-shift guy was a whole different kind of employee. genuinely aksed how our night was, just a general air of here-to-serve. too bad he hdn't been on the night shift.

we headed back to town for breakfast before hitting the road: the amherst diner. another good choice. not speedy, particularly, and not any prettier than any other old diner, but a good diner. i'd go again.

and that was our weekend. i'd spent a lot of it stressed and worried, despite the beautiful scenery and wonderful company, because i am having endometrial ablation tomorrow morning and had received a call friday afternoon saying that they couldn't clear me for anesthesia because of an abnormality on my ekg. so i'd worried all weekend about how i was going to chase down doctors and tests to get cleared by wednesday morning, given that i have a rush project at work right now that really needed to get to the author by COB today. (it didn't. sorry.) but monday morning i was able to get all the paperwork faxed and signatures transmitted, so i'm all cleared for tomorrow. i'm very nervous still, mostly about the IV needle (i HATE needles, serious phobia, like the only thing i'm actually phobic about), but also about the anesthesia not working and going through what i went through five years ago in the colonoscopy. but i remind myself that needles are not (generally) fatal and that i have survived being raped and the rape-like colonoscopy and that i shall therefore survive this thing tomorrow. i will be grateful to be under anesthesia finally and not worrying about this any more.

so. weaving: i start an eight-week course on weaving at the pittsburgh center for the arts on saturday, and i am SO excite. i learned to weave this summer at woven art in lansing but haven't had anyone here to help me learn more, and there are a few more things i'm ready to learn. the classes are three hours every saturday, and i am so excited to learn and make some more fun stuff.

and of course nerd wars and tour de sock both start on saturday, so those will be good for keeping me busy. 

oh! and i almost forgot: we brought nova flooring out today to have a look at our dr. seuss-ity house, and it looks like they might be the answer for us. we hope to have an estimate in a couple of days. now to choose actual flooring! i'm SO looking forward to entertaining at home again. :squeezesigh:

cats and their neuroses

we did have some regression in the litter-box department for about a week. it was tearfully frustrating for me, thinking that we really *were* going to have to surrender jack-jack and chloe to a shelter and declare ourselves true failures in this effort. we had a perfect week and then a perfectly awful (pee outside the boxes every damned day) week. i was discouraged.

but we seem to be back on track now. i'd moved the boxes away from the wall to create a few inches of space on all four sides of each box. this was on someone's advice, though i can't remember whose for sure. i think it was the behaviorist, but i was collecting advice from so many sources that it's hard now to remember. anyway, i did that, and every single day i would find pee behind one or more of the boxes, between the box and the wall. it was always on top of one of the pee pads, which made it easier to clean up (yay chux!), but still. frustrating.

but i decided, screw the advice, i'm pushing the boxes back against the wall again. all four boxes, flush against the wall. still several inches of space between the boxes for sweeping and such, and still room in front of the boxes, and still nothing above the boxes, baby gate still keeping the dogs out of the room, and full visibility to and from the boxes. just pushed them back against the wall. and not one accident since then. all the elimination has been in those four boxes all week. yay jack-jack and chloe! 

cleaning the boxes has become part of my daily routine. i usually do it as soon as i've done my own potty business in the morning, before go downstairs for breakfast. the boxes stay clean, and it's really not a big deal at all, it turns out, because all the boxes are in one room, so it's just one fell swoop of scooping into one trash bag and it's done. i straighten out the chux (which get bunched up with the paw sweeping) as i go. takes maybe a minute, and everybody is happy.

we'd kept the painters out of there last week, which means that it's the least-finished room in the house now (we'd painted the walls years ago, in a lovely color of--surprise!--blue, but andrew had stripped the trim). i don't have any idea how we're going to make way for the flooring to go in and still give the cats a place to potty all day (god, i HOPE it's just a one-day project in that room), but we are officially okay putting new floors in there. (again: yay chux!) molyneaux has sent someone out with a few samples and to take preliminary measurements; she'll phone tomorrow to set up a time to bring out more samples, and we should have new floors very soon. we're thinking medium-toned medium- to wide-plank hardwood; i like the finer grain of maple and cherry more than oak, but we'll see what she brings. this is not something that seems easy to shop for online, even just window-shopping.

a raveler turned me onto the blog the way of cats last week, and today's post is relevant, so i thought i'd share it.

all six of us are in one room today, which makes me very happy. the furry four are sleeping, and andrew and i are (duh) on our respective laptops. i have black-and-gold knitting to do during the game, which we hope hope hope is better than last week's debacle. go steelers!

i am smug.

and you know how i love to be smug.

a few days ago, someone on ravelry shared a url that was new to me: what the fuck should i make for dinner? smitten by the humor of the site, i checked it a couple of times for dinner ideas, but i finally decided last night that i would shop today and cook tonight. so i clicked until i saw something appealing, and BOY is it ever: stewed apples with macaroni and cheese. i know: stewed apples? wtf is that? but the ingredients sounded yummy, and i've been jonesing for some mac and cheese lately. so smug 1 = finding an awesome-looking dinner idea for a weeknight.

so i went to whole foods after the gym (well, after the yoga place, which was after the yarn shop, which was after the gym—i have been working a ton and decided that i could stand a long lunch today) (smug items 2, 3, 4, and 5 = going to the gym and having an excellent workout that did NOT result in a migraine—hooray—stopping for a few minutes at my favorite yarn shop and catching up with some friends—also hooray—stopping at the yoga place and not only getting the information i wanted about starting some classes but also troubleshooting some printing issues for the owner, and then getting to go to whole foods because whole foods). i picked up the ingredients, plus a few other things (because whole foods). i asked the cheesemonger (i love that there's a cheesemonger in my universe) for some advice on the gruyere, and he recommended a wonderful-looking one, and i asked him to shred it and he DID. so: smug items 6, 7, and 8 were getting cheese shredded and thereby not having to pull out a shredder or food processor to shred a bunch of cheese, finding ginger-something apples that are YUMMY and so my new favorite apples for cooking, and finding some fig jam to use for smug item 9, which will be grilled cheese, apple, and fig-jam sandwiches for lunch this week. i will even have leftover caramelized onions from tonight's dinner to add to said sandwiches. so that would be smug item 10.

smug item 11 = snacking on other delicious cheese while cooking. smug item 12 = finishing the cooking in like 40 minutes. and smug item 13 = eating this delicious delicious dinner. i am going to have to insist that you try this recipe because fabulous. pay no heed to the stick of butter and 10 oz. of cheese. you will love yourself for making this. and making yourself fat just gives you more of yourself to love when that happens.

pwned by yoga

had a frustrating first attempt at taking a yoga class today. i haven't taken any kind of group exercise class since i was maybe 11 years old, but i've wanted forever to take a yoga class, and today there was one at my gym right after my trainer appointment. i'd looked forward to it all week.

got into class, got my little spot—what an exercise in human behavior this was. everyone else seemed to know exactly what to do, to position their mats just so, to put their sticky mats on top of the gym-provided whatever-they're-called mats, to sit in the center of the mat just so while waiting for class to start. i did my best to just do whatever everyone else was doing. 

the beginning of class was super cool. the instructor was friendly and seemed approachable, soothing yet somehow also energetic, full of encouragement to smile and be happy while we were doing this. but. then the hard stuff started.

it isn't like i thought i'd be able to do everything everyone else was doing. my lower back still spasms painfully when i try to bend over too quickly or too far. but i had heard for years how group instructors are always really good about giving alternatives ("if this is too difficult, put your knee down" or "just go as far as you can"). 

although she said those kinds of things sometimes, they were never about the things that were hard for me or making my back freak out. so one frustration was in trying to keep up with instructions that i didn't understand or couldn't do as quickly as everyone else before she moved onto the next thing, but a lot of frustration was just feeling pain and not knowing the best adaptation to make to whatever everyone else was doing, so that i could be doing SOMEthing until they were ready to move onto the next thing.

plus, we spent a lot of time in downward-dog pose, which puts all your weight (at least, the way i experienced it) on your wrists, and my wrists are shit from working on a keyboard and mouse all day and knitting needles all evening and weekend. so i ended up cheating those poses into child pose sometimes instead. but the problem was that, if i found the pose sequence difficult or frustrating or painful the first time, repeating it five or six or eight times without giving me adaptations that would help was just making it five or six or eight times more difficult or frustrating or painful. and i wasn't interested in spending the whole hour in child pose (as awesome as child pose feels, it's pretty silly to do it in a room with a bunch of other people doing all kinds of other shit) (especially when those other people are clearly more advanced than me, doing even things that the instructor wasn't mentioning—definitely experienced yoga practitioners).

although i had gone into the class resolved to do my best and stick through the whole hour, i was so frustrated and humiliated and in such physical pain in both wrist and lower back that i finally gave up. i sprayed off my mats as quietly as i could, returned them to their original spots, and left. i kind of want to cry. i'm so angry that i couldn't keep up, but i'm also angry that the class couldn't accommodate a novice.

so. that happened. i'm so sad because i really wanted to incorporate this into my life. and before we got to the fast-moving ratatat business, i remember thinking, "wow! this is great! i should do this every day!"

oh well.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1 profile!

i love lists. so, natch: 

one project i'm particularly proud of

the scarf i wove in one day in my first-ever attempt at weaving!

for both warp and weft, i used a skein of brooks farm trio, a double knitting–weight blend of wool, alpaca, and silk, in a colorway that made me swoon from the first time i laid eyes on it at maryland sheep and wool this spring. i adore it.

two mistakes i've made in the past

me? i never make mistakes! 

ha.

okay, srsly. the big decisions that might seem like mistakes all must have worked out okay in the end, because i wouldn't have ended up here with this life i love so much if they hadn't. so that leaves me with smaller mistakes. or mistakes that i don't regret having made, if only because they helped put me here. so one mistake i made that always makes me shake my head when i think about it is deciding to quit grad school just a few weeks shy of the end of the year. this is back in april 1989, when i was just 22 years old and in my first attempt at an advanced degree. i was studying justice, law, and society at the american university in washington, d.c. i'd done amazingly well in my first semester, crazy-good gpa, good friends, living in a tiny studio apartment in upper northwest d.c., and really liking what i was studying. but i was a financial idiot and hadn't planned or saved for living in this very expensive place on a stipend of—wait for it—$5,500 per year (the apartment rent was $497 per month, if that helps put that stipend into perspective). so, in addition to the 20 hours of research and teaching i was doing for two professors (to earn the stipend), i took on a part-time job at a nearby waldenbooks. and my studies began to slip. by april, i was panicked that i was going to get a c or worse in my statistics class (and a c in that program was, effectively, failing, as it required retaking the class). so i withdrew. just like that. i remember that the dean, jim fyfe, even tried personally to convince me not to quit. he had such good logic and was SO right. i wish i had listened to him. but i didn't. i quit my classes, finished out what parts of my assistantship i could, and started working full time at kramerbooks and afterwords. it was a superfun time—i commuted from a bus stop directly in front of my apartment down to dupont circle every weekday morning to open the store at 7 a.m., sold george shultz his daily paper, and got to handle some really interesting stock. and i had lunch at the not-cheap-but-so-delicious cafe that was part of the shop. and on weekends i spent all my time in museums and galleries. seriously. like, what an awesome life was that? i did it for two months, until camp started again, when i returned to my one true love of my pre-andrew life, camp kittamaqund. (okay, "one true love" is overstating it—i love my friends and family—but that place had a serious pull on me for many years. i still miss it.) 

anyway. so. quitting grad school was a decision i'll never think was a good one.

a second mistake. really i don't know. marrying geoffery was a mistake, but if i hadn't married him, i wouldn't have become who i am or ended up in pittsburgh to meet andrew and start the career i have now and love. so a mistake but not a regret? 

three things that make my work unique

what makes my crafting unique is that i have, i think, a knack for choosing colors that i love, so i usually end up loving the *look* of the things i make even if the things don't turn out to fit or work otherwise :) (that's another thing that makes my crafting unique: it frequently comes out terribly, terribly wrong. wrong as in wouldn't fit anyone ever.)

what makes my workwork unique is the speed with which i can finish, usually, though that's changing. it's changing first because my physical ability to do it quickly has been declining; the narcolepsy has kind of taken over in the past few years, and i can't work the strings of 14- and 16-hour days, nights, weekends, and holidays like i used to be able to do. i just can't. it's very frustrating, but i haven't figured out how to change it. (brb forgot to take my ritalin this morning) it's also changing because my managers have made it very clear that i need to slow down. lots of reasons for that, some more understandable to me than others, but, if one wants to keep one's job, as i do, one does what one's managers require. so.

and the third thing that makes my work unique, regardless of what kind of work we're talking about, is that i like variety. i like to have a lot of projects going at once and to switch among them. and i like to start projects. oh, how i like to start projects. and plan projects. i want to make and do all the things.

four tools i love to use

ipad. easy. i adore my ipad.

iphone. also easy. more useful in most ways than the ipad. i can take photos and video with it, of course make and receive phone calls with it (though i loathe talking on the phone), and use my one million apps on it. i use it constantly. never want to be without it.

my signature knitting needles. such a pleasure to use, truly one of the things that makes knitting such a delightfully tactile hobby.

and my hands. i have loved working with my hands since i was a little girl, starting with drawing and painting, moving on to needlepoint and cross-stitch, later piano, and now knitting, weaving, and sometimes even crochet. even cooking. it's all about tactility and adroitness.

five inspirations

ravelry has to be the top name on this list. every day i see projects, patterns, and yarns that give me ideas of things i want to make and use. it's like the iphone of my crafting life.

my body. been cold lately? make a shawl. wish you had that sweater in blue? (surprise) make one. back hurting? try yoga. or massage. or acupuncture. or a different chair. or a different desk. or whatever. whatever my body tells me, i try to listen.

my friends. especially my crafty friends at my local yarn shop, natural stitches. this is my main circle of friends in town here, primarily because they all like to do the crafty things i like to do, but also because, within that, they also like to think about the kinds of things i think about: fit, color, tactile properties. 

goodness. (that's a fourth source of inspiration, not an exclamation.) with workwork especially, my values and principles are right up there in the list of motivating factors, and goodness is primary among them. yes, plenty of my work is dry. but i try to focus on the ways in which my contributions are helping the efforts of my employer (a policy-analysis think tank) make the world better. at least for somebody. maybe i helped shipbuilders be more cost-effective. maybe i helped policymakers understand housing and relocation after katrina or no-fault car insurance. maybe i helped police forces understand how to attract and keep excellent police officers. whatever we're doing, i believe in what we do and try to focus on improving whatever we're contributing.

lately, health. i've been trying to live more healthily, which involves purchasing healthier foods (and, of course, spending more time exercising). i love seeing what's in season at my local farmers' markets and figuring out what to make with what i find. we're eating a lot more produce here, and i love that so much of it is local these days.

day 17: a song that i hear often on the radio

the only time i really ever listen to the radio any more is briefly in the car maybe once a week while on my way to the shop, which i spend mostly flipping channels, or when i get to the shop and listen to its radio. and the song that plays most frequently there—i swear, the employees there will back me up on this—is "hey, soul sister." for those employees, i hereby apologize for the earworm you are forever constantly trying to lose.

 

p.s. i do like the song every once in a while, and i've got to admit: the man is cute.

day 11: a song from my favorite band

i'm not sure i really have a favorite band, but if i *had* to pick one, it would be eddie from ohio. i have most of their albums and have managed to see them a few times in concert. virtually every song evokes some strong emotion, whether giddyness, sadness, anticipation, or just silliness. my favorite album is easily quick. but i've already gushed about great day, so i don't feel bad about saying that my favorite efo song is old dominion, which is from the looking out the fishbowl album. it fills me with homesickness for virginia, pride in it, joy because it's such a happy song, and did i mention homesickness? yeah. lots of that. 

here's a rare hasn't-been-taken-down-yet video of an efo song, this my favorite one. and yes, i do this all.the.time when it comes on. fair warning to colleen, who's riding to maryland with me this weekend: expect serenading :)