the Akamai Knitter

(gakked from our Cookie, who gakked it from Carole.)

For those who are unfamiliar with Thankful Thursdays, the basic premise is to list three things you’re thankful for.  So here goes.

1. My friends. They’re an endless well of support and love. Especially in the wake of all my whining when I’m sick and I happen to get sick a lot.  They also respect my boundaries. I have a thing about people touching me and they respect that. So thanks to all my local friends and to my cyber friends.
2. My mother. Blogless Dayna and I  have a theory that we used up all our good parental karma on our mothers because we get along so well with them, but no so much with our fathers. But get along well with my mother I do. She’s one of my best friends and I cherish her.
3. This is a weird one. My dentist. If it were not for him, I would not have gotten the root canal that relieved me of considerably pain. He also doesn’t demand full payment at the time of the procedure. This is a lifesaver as I wouldn’t have been able to get said root canal. Instead I’d probably be missing a tooth.

In knitting news, I’m still trying to catch up to our Cookie when it comes to the Lyra (Ravelry).

I can’t wait for the 47″ needles I ordered to get here. It’s currently cramed on a 32″ circular needle and it’s getting a bit cramped.

Sammy’s feeling rather bashful today.

Happy Thursday everyone! I hear we’re canceling the rest of the week. (Not that there’s much of it left.) Doesn’t that sound like a great idea?

Crazy is thinking I’ll be able to spin this batt with  a spindle:

into laceweight singles.

It helps that the spindle is so nifty. (I got it at Maryland Sheep & Wool last year.)

I love how the artist wood-burned her name into the shaft.

This is how much I spun last night.

Crazy is winning the CJ Kopec Spin-Along thingy.

Crazy is how the winning yarn knits up. I personally think it’s ugly, but the intended recipient loves it.

Crazy is wanting to acquire more spindles when I already own over ten of them.  No hassle me! I’ve been collecting for nearly 10 years! (Do ya like my pidgin?)

Crazy is the way cats can sleep comfortable with their feet past their chin.

There’s more crazy, but I can’t share it with you all on a public forum like this. You’ll just have to take my word for it. I will say that I hate people.

Happy Thursday, people! It’s a long weekend! :D

I finally made it home on Tuesday night. The flight home took over 10 exhausting hours and I’m still recovering.

The cats have reacquainted themselves with me after being surprised by my return. It seems Pressie really missed me and managed to lose some weight and luster while I was gone. She seems to be bouncing back now that I’m home, but I’m keeping a close eye on her.

I did manage to get some knitting done during the long flight and I’ll be back with that and more next week. Until then I hope you’ll enjoy this picture I took of an iris outside of the Red Lobster back in Altoona.

Happy Friday everyone! Enjoy your weekend!

Kung Hee Fat Choy! It’s a new year everyone and this time it’s my year. That’s right, I’m a rat and proud of it.

In celebration of this special year, I received a tiny little rat figurine.

The piece of paper you see with him is full of cute little tidbits of information. For example, my flower is the Peony and that means “dignified like a king”. Does this mean I’m like royalty?

It also says:

“You will have many chances. Do not miss them. But if you are too proud and lose your presence of mind, or get lost in an indecent life, and you’ll lose your fortune immediately.”

Hrm. Now I’m worried about having an indecent stash. ;-)

In our family there are a few traditions that we practice every year. There’s the red paper we buy from China Town and put near the doorways to bring in good luck. This one says, “good health throughout your household.” Good health is always a good thing.

Before we put up the new paper on New Year’s Eve, we burn the old paper to burn away any bad luck from the previous year. This is always an adventure as I’m more then a little afraid of fire.

There’s also a frenzy to clean the house to sweep away the bad luck. This has to be done on the eve of the new year as there’s no cleaning done on the first day of the year. That supposedly sweeps away any good luck.

Another must do for our Chinese New Year celebration is Chinese food.

There’s the traditional Jai that we have every year, Mongolian Beef, and Salted Fish Fried Rice. Delicious! And no, I didn’t cook a single dish. I’m a disaster in the kitchen. :)

Another thing I like to do for New Year’s Eve is finish a project. So I started another felted fish. I was able to get the knitting done, but not the felting. Hopefully this won’t mean that my year will be filled with only partially finished items.

On New Year’s Day, I started a new project in the hopes that my year will be filled with beautiful and joyous projects. More on that another time, I need to felt a fish.

May your New Year be filled with good health and beautifully joyous projects too!

Here we are at the eve of another new year. As I look ahead at another year filled with friends and fibery goodness, I thought I’d take a moment also look back to see if I managed to accomplish some of this past year’s resolutions.

To refresh your memory these were my goals:

1. Get over my sweater fear and knit a few. I really need to get off my lazy ass and my comfort zones and just dive in. I have enough yarn for one sweater. I just need to get rid of the mental block in my head that I can’t do this.
2. Spin more and with specific projects in mind. I’ve already started doing this, but I want to keep it up.
3. Knit with what I spin. I have yet to knit with what I’ve spun except for one afghan block. This is just plain silly. I must stop this kind of silliness.
4. Lose weight. I’ve been slowly losing weight this past year and I’d like to keep it up by going for regular walks and cutting down on my snacking. I think if my body were at a more acceptable weight I’d be more inclined to knit sweaters for myself too.
5. Get my Christmas presents out on time. I was really bad this year and I feel really badly about it. I had them all knitted up I just didn’t get them wrapped and mailed in time. Shame on me.
6. Buy more yarn. I’m really hard on myself when I buy yarn. I agonized over every purchase like I’m bleeding money when in fact I’m not. I don’t have a terribly big stash and I do use what I buy. I need to stop with the guilt trips whenever I buy yarn. (I do need to go easy on the sock yarn though. My sock yarn bin is huge. I need to go on a sock yarn diet.Oh and I have huge amounts of laceweight.)
7. Be more patient and kind to myself. I find that the courtesies that I unthinkingly extend to others rarely get extended to myself by myself. So I need to start being more courteous to myself by being more tolerant as well as being patient and kind.

Let’s start at the beginning.

1. While I didn’t knit a lot of sweaters, I did manage to get over my sweater fear. Hopefully 2008 will bring more sweaters into my wardrobe.
2. I did start a spinning project with a specific goal in mind. Unfortunately, I didn’t even come close to finishing it. Maybe I’ll have better luck in the future.
3. I did start a project out of my own handspun. Even though I didn’t finish it, I feel like I’ve accomplished that goal.
4. Ha! Let’s not even go there. :)
5. Again. Ha! But I have joined a support group this time around to help me be better prepared for next Christmas. I’ll get it right one of these years.
6. Oooh. This was a hard one. Needless to say, mission accomplished.
7. My perspective has changed from when I set this goal for myself. I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to be demanding of oneself. It’s great to challenge yourself to new heights as long as you don’t abuse yourself to the point where it becomes counterproductive.

I don’t think I’ll be making any resolutions for next year. After awhile, the resolutions I made this year began to feel more like a burden then a motivation.

Instead, I will start the new year with a completely clean slate, clear of mind.

Happy New Year!