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Recently I feel like life is doing its thing and I am just along for the ride. It is a pretty sweet ride with a lot to see and experience. Last week I was in Washington D.C. for a conference. There is nothing like D.C. for art and history. It is one of my all time favorite cities along with Portland, Oregon, New York City, Chicago, and Baltimore. I love museums (big surprise) and tend to choose favorites based on cultural offerings. I think my favorite part of the trip was visiting the National Gallery. We used to visit at least once a year when we lived in Pennsylvania and I haven't been back since we moved to Ohio in 1996. It was like visiting old friends and not just any old friends, but the friends who set me on my life path - my mentors and teachers. I was especially excited to see the Jackson Pollock painting I ever-so-lightly touched when I was little. That was quite a scene. I just wanted to know what all the fuss was about and to be honest, I still want to know. Sorry Pollock. I'm just not blown away.
Then I came home on Friday and was back out the door on Saturday. Lovey and I are house hunting in Clintonville. It is a hoot! Seeing how people live, wandering around old empty houses, trying to get a feel for a place. We haven't found the one yet but we have around five that are pretty close and 10 more still to see.
Finally, I have been knitting balls. Christmas balls. This pattern is crazy easy with a lot of room for personal flair. The balls are for my co-workers for our holiday party tomorrow so I am frantically stitching, stuffing, and sewing to get them ready to go.
Usually Lovey and I get our tree the week before Thanksgiving. We love Christmas and we go out of town a week before Christmas, so it makes sense to get it early as we always take it down early. This year we aren't going to San Diego so Thanksgiving has come and gone and we are still tree-less. I am feeling the pang this weekend. We went to see a Christmas Carol last night at the Palace Theatre. It was a really lovely play - the costumes and sets were very fun and Scrooge was a stitch! We agreed afterward that we prefer the creepier, more ghost-y version with less singing and more speaking, but it was still really fun and wanting a Christmas tree. However, this year there is a caveat. After many years of saying I was going to knit a tree skirt, this fall I decided to get down to business and make it happen.
Lovey didn't believe I could finish it in time to get a tree, which he told me in a way that turned the whole ordeal into a legitimate throw-down. This skirt has been my world for about a week now. I have two and a half sections of the eleven sections left. One section seems to take me a few hours. The hour of glory is upon me.
Eleven down, one to go. Get ready, Cath, we have Rivendells to knit tomorrow!
My first two days of work were exhausting! So much to learn, so many people to meet, so exciting. Plus this week was Lovey's birthday, plus my mom is in town, but it all seems to be working out just fine. Saturday I took mom to the Hopewell Earthworks in Chillicothe. 
I love visiting the mounds and earthworks because they are strange, peaceful, spiritual, even fanciful, like a fairytale landscape. Chillicothe has a wealth of mound sites as it is located on the Scioto River, but we just visited this one - the Hopeton Earthworks, which is considered a national park.
The collection includes some lower and taller mounds, a large eliptical mound, and a recreation of post holes from a ceremonial lodge enclosed by a square-ish earth wall. It was a gorgeous day, almost like summer, and the grassy enclosure was warm and sunny.
The area is wrapped by a nature trail. There is a small enclosure that features this section from the canals. It is a nice reminder that all of us humans gravitate and intersect at the water, seeking out rivers, streams, and lakes, navigating in from and out to the sea.
So, the job is wonderful because it keeps me in touch with this history and provides an opportunity for me to apply all my art experience to a new field. At the same time I keep imagining myself chomping along trying to devour and digest all the new information and skills coming my way like a hungry hungry hippo!
This has been a big week for me. I...got...a...job... :) That's right, I am a bona fide adult member of society contributing to the education of our youth and bettering our world. I have been floating around since last Wednesday when I got the word basking in the good news, meditating on my thankfulness, and trying not to go nuts waiting for my first day on Thursday the 12th. I feel like a little kid two days before Christmas. No, seriously, can I start now? I really want to start now. One whole month without work or school has proved to be too much! In the meantime I bought the gift I promised myself back at the beginning of this process. A PVC floor quilter's frame. 
And despite how dorky Lovey says I look whilst bent over it, stitching away, I am still in love. With him and the frame. So here is a big fat thank you, the first of many, to all of you who have been so supportive and encouraging during this most recent stretch of crazy.
I have been kicking this idea around for a while now. I really struggle with having objects in the house that I don't like, cannot see a future purpose for, or that just seem to take up space. It really weighs on my mind, probably more than it should. I only like to keep clothing and shoes that are loved, books I enjoy reading and might read again, furniture that is used, and crafting supplies that will be used. Which gets me to the crux of the issue. I really don't like novelty yarn. I really, really don't like novelty yarn. It's not about the way it looks. I think really cute items are born of novelty yarn - hedgies, gnomes, cat toys, cat beds - the issue is not the yarn itself. Basically, in this post I am breaking-up with novelty yarn and saying, "it's not you, it's me." I just don't like knitting with novelty yarn. I get vexed when the eyelash yarn snarls on itself and I am frustrated by the way it catches on my skin and nails and needles. I'm sorry novelty yarn, but, it's over. You will be much happier at Goodwill where some enterprising knitter who loves everything squiggly, ribbon-y, and nylon-y can snap you up at a price well below your value (because you are really cute) and turn you into something wonderful, give you the life you deserve, help you to fulfill your promise as yarn.
There are some patterns that I return to over and over and over. They are the faithful, all-purpose, workhorse patterns, and they never bore me. The infamous Ball Band Dishcloth always gives me so much joy! I have made three in the classic size and today I started my third large and in charge version. 
This one is meant to go under a drying rack by the sink. I cast off 93 stitches and then knit to pattern. I have two for our kitchen that we rotate. This one is for my sister who just moved into her first big girl apartment! 
I LOVED my first big girl apartment. It was a DUMP! But I loved it. Hers is much nicer then mine was, certainly less infested and dangerous. But that is the difference between living just off one of the largest college campuses in the nation and living in a small town up the street from an elementary school. My nasty little one bedroom backed right up to a campus parking lot and I shared it with roaches and mice. I remember the first time I found a mouse. I was cleaning and I lifted a little crate with school papers onto the bed and the mouse came flying out of it and ran across my lap. I flipped for a moment as Chloe, cool as a cucumber, watched it run into the other room. "Fine," I thought, "this is not a big deal....I'll just....call mom." The conversation went like this:"Mom! A mouse just ran over my lap! Should I catch it and put it outside? Should I get traps? Chloe didn't even budge!"
"DO NOT put it outside. You catch it, kill it, and feed it to Chloe so she learns to love the taste of mouse! Otherwise those little f-ers will just keep coming back inside and sh*tting in your kitchen cabinets!"
"......"
"I'm serious! Are you there?"
"So I should get traps?"
Mom used to live in a trailer near a swamp (no, seriously) with dad just before I was born. In the war against all the critters that thought they could share that trailer she learned some mercenary, green beret, kung-fu style moves against slugs, mice, rats, and snakes. So I set traps. But Chloe, apparently already had experience with the delicate flesh of the common house mouse. It showed up very dead and very stinky behind a shelf a few days later. Now we have Ronan too and we are set. When our neighbor to the left had spiders we didn't because Ro eats them. When our upstairs neighbor had mice we didn't because...well...We don't have roaches here (thank heavens) and hopefully I never will again. Someday I'll share those horror stories, but not tonight.
She also got me a book be our friendly neighborhood yarnies - the ladies of WonderKnit, Libby Bruce and Karida Collins. This book is packed with patterns - deceptively so because it's so small and compact.
Finally, we got a big 'ole box from San Diego and it was loaded with presents from mom and Joe. Now the tree looks ready for the big day!
Christmas is on. I have been plugging away, trying to get the house cleaned and the Christmas on display. It has been no small task.
I finished the tree skirt and then sat under it for the better part of the evening because it is warm and snuggly and I was so tired.
It looks really great too even if are tree is a little on the Charlie Brown side this year.
Now I am knitting ornaments. My poor other projects have been terribly neglected thanks to the Christmas projects. Oh well! There will be plenty of time in the New Year.
I am knitting it in the yarn I have left from knitting Owls, Knit Picks Swish Bulky in adobe. 
I started this tonight. It's been in my queue for a good long while and tonight I thought, "Why not?" The office, like most offices in the world, is too cold for my delicate constitution. So I am knitting a lap blanket for my cubicle. The pattern in Flying Geese from the first Mason-Dixon Knitting and the yarn is some Red Heart Sport I've had in the stash forever.
Finally, I have been knitting my bum off to finish my Sunshine Socks by Monday. Cath is jonesing to knit the Rivendell Socks together and she wants to start them on Monday. I think I am up to the challenge.
I love visiting the mounds and earthworks because they are strange, peaceful, spiritual, even fanciful, like a fairytale landscape. Chillicothe has a wealth of mound sites as it is located on the Scioto River, but we just visited this one - the Hopeton Earthworks, which is considered a national park.
The collection includes some lower and taller mounds, a large eliptical mound, and a recreation of post holes from a ceremonial lodge enclosed by a square-ish earth wall. It was a gorgeous day, almost like summer, and the grassy enclosure was warm and sunny.
The area is wrapped by a nature trail. There is a small enclosure that features this section from the canals. It is a nice reminder that all of us humans gravitate and intersect at the water, seeking out rivers, streams, and lakes, navigating in from and out to the sea.
So, the job is wonderful because it keeps me in touch with this history and provides an opportunity for me to apply all my art experience to a new field. At the same time I keep imagining myself chomping along trying to devour and digest all the new information and skills coming my way like a hungry hungry hippo!
And despite how dorky Lovey says I look whilst bent over it, stitching away, I am still in love. With him and the frame. So here is a big fat thank you, the first of many, to all of you who have been so supportive and encouraging during this most recent stretch of crazy.
I have been kicking this idea around for a while now. I really struggle with having objects in the house that I don't like, cannot see a future purpose for, or that just seem to take up space. It really weighs on my mind, probably more than it should. I only like to keep clothing and shoes that are loved, books I enjoy reading and might read again, furniture that is used, and crafting supplies that will be used. Which gets me to the crux of the issue. I really don't like novelty yarn. I really, really don't like novelty yarn. It's not about the way it looks. I think really cute items are born of novelty yarn - hedgies, gnomes, cat toys, cat beds - the issue is not the yarn itself. Basically, in this post I am breaking-up with novelty yarn and saying, "it's not you, it's me." I just don't like knitting with novelty yarn. I get vexed when the eyelash yarn snarls on itself and I am frustrated by the way it catches on my skin and nails and needles. I'm sorry novelty yarn, but, it's over. You will be much happier at Goodwill where some enterprising knitter who loves everything squiggly, ribbon-y, and nylon-y can snap you up at a price well below your value (because you are really cute) and turn you into something wonderful, give you the life you deserve, help you to fulfill your promise as yarn. 
This one is meant to go under a drying rack by the sink. I cast off 93 stitches and then knit to pattern. I have two for our kitchen that we rotate. This one is for my sister who just moved into her first big girl apartment! 
I LOVED my first big girl apartment. It was a DUMP! But I loved it. Hers is much nicer then mine was, certainly less infested and dangerous. But that is the difference between living just off one of the largest college campuses in the nation and living in a small town up the street from an elementary school. My nasty little one bedroom backed right up to a campus parking lot and I shared it with roaches and mice. I remember the first time I found a mouse. I was cleaning and I lifted a little crate with school papers onto the bed and the mouse came flying out of it and ran across my lap. I flipped for a moment as Chloe, cool as a cucumber, watched it run into the other room. "Fine," I thought, "this is not a big deal....I'll just....call mom." The conversation went like this:
