just be.

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:

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.

whew

today was a much, much better crafting day. not perfect by any stretch, but moderately successful.

i'd set out to achieve what i failed to achieve yesterday: warp (successfully) for a project by myself before my next class, which is in a month.

to achieve this goal, i decided to use a few skeins of peaches and cream cotton--the stuff that people buy to make washcloths and bibs. when we first finished the second-floor bathroom, i'd bought one skein of every color (i know), thinking i'd make a bath rug. yeah. that never happened. i never even opened the shipment when it came, and it sat in our dining room until today.

anyway, i thought i'd warp for a piece about 40 inches long and 20 inches wide and turn that into a bag for my loom supplies--the heddles, hook, clamps, peg, all that stuff.

so i set up the loom on its stand and clamped the warping peg to the far end of the coffee table. perfect distance. i could even perch on the coffee table while i did it, until i got to the middle of the loom. i was a happy camper, warping with bright, tropical colors: bright yellow, delft blue, and bright orange. 

the problem was that the loom wasn't well anchored against the tension of the warping, so it kind of slid closer and closer to the peg as i worked. this means (in case you've never done this before) that the warps i wrapped at the beginning, when the loom was in place, were like 72 inches long, and the warps i wrapped at the end, when the loom had slid and slid and slid closer, were probably not much more than half that.

the next step after measuring the warps (which is really what all this wrapping is called) is to get them all the same length and tension. i won't go into the details, because it'll bore you if you don't weave and you already know it if you do, but the point is that the short warps are as long as i can go.

so i was successful in achieving the big-picture goal. i warped and wove. the project came out only about a square--maybe 2 feet by 2 feet--and it's much more loosely woven than i'd intended. but it's even, and it's even kind of pretty. no idea what i'll do with it. but i'm glad i tried and got it.

edited to add a photo. i forgot that people do that sort of thing.

now i'm trying to decide what yarn to use for my next weaving project and where to anchor the loom and the peg *this* time so it's better than this time. it's very motivating to try to get it right.