love is all you need

Q: How do you feel about my knitting as a hobby?
A: I think its great.

Q: Do you feel like I spend too much time knitting?
A: No.

Q: What is your favorite thing that I've knitted?
A: Proabably the sweater for the baby.

Q: Do you wish I knitted more things for you?
A: Yes but I know it takes a lot of time, though I do want some fingerless gloves.
(Must add that to the queue.)

Q: Do you know what my favorite yarn is? If not, take a wild guess.
A: Alpaca?
(I guess I'll give him that one, I used to love alpaca. I still like it, but I'm more wool-focused now.)

Q: Do you know what a swift is? If not, take a wild guess.
A: Yeah its that thing that you use to wind the yarn or whatever.

Q: The big thing or the little thing that I wind yarn with?
A: The big one.

Q: Do you know what DPN stands for? If not, take a wild guess.
A: Drop... Purl... News...???
(Well, at least he knew "purl" had something to do with knitting.)

Q: What is your favorite yarn?
A: Whatever you made my scarf out of.
(Knit Picks Panache. Too bad it doesn't wear well.)

Q: Do you think I spend too much money on yarn/knitting related things?
A: I'm not actually aware of how much money you spend on yarn.

Q: Use one word to describe knitting.
A: Hip.
(Good answer!)

Q: Do you notice knitted things in stores or on other people more now that you've been around me knitting?
A: Absolutely.

Q: What's one thing you'd like to say about me/knitting/my knitting to end this interview with?
A: I think you're the best knitter around.
(Awww...)

Finding and sewing buttons on the February Baby Sweater:

Watching a sock grow like magic:

And making the enchiladas I've been craving for the past three months:

I was going to begin this post by complaining about how difficult it was for me to get from Brooklyn to my parents' Texas ranch (3 planes, 2 trains, 1 automobile) but I decided to focus on all of the fun stuff I did last week.
I saw the clouds from above

I wrote, knit and snacked while I flew

I picnic-ed in the shade with the family

I drove a tractor and raked hay

I enjoyed the beautiful sunflowers

I hung out with the nephews

and I loved on the dogs

I had a wonderful week visiting my family and I'm so glad I got to spend some unexpected time with them.

So I got this text from my sister the other day:

Now I get to go on a yarn hunt, which is going to be fun. I've always wanted to knit a February Baby Sweater.
(No, they don't know what it is either and they don't plan on finding out which is killing me!)

You know how in Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter celebrates his Un-Birthday? Well this weekend, we were Un-Spinning; doing anything and everything but actual spinning.
We soaked, simmered and steamed:

We let our semi-clean wool dry in the sunshine:
We made our own drop spindles:
And we tried:

And we even got Dad to try:
We were not successful:
We even took a mid-spinning-session trip to the store to buy dog slicker brushes thinking they would be similar to hand carders in getting our wool straight and fluffy. We did have a reference book with many helpful pictures, but as none of us has ever seen any actual spinning, the pictures weren't enough to grasp the actual movements. I chalked it up to the way we processed our fleece. Mom chalked it up to us not trying hard enough. My sister probably chalked it up to her morning sickness. Dad chalked it up to us getting in over our heads without doing enough research first. He is probably the most right. The learning curve rears its ugly head.

I’ve never considered myself as having good luck, but I did win a radio contest once.  Joey and I were driving down the highway listening to the radio and the DJ mentioned something about calling in to win a 6-pack of Lenny Kravitz CDs.  I had my cell phone in my hand and for some reason got a wild hair to call in.  Surprisingly, I won.  I was pretty non-plussed as I gave the DJ my info to send out my free CDs.  Then about a week later, I got a call from the radio station telling me that my name had been put in the drawing for the Grand Prize and that I had won.  The guy was kind of put-off by the fact that I wasn’t screaming with joy.  “Do you know what the grand prize is?” he asked me.  “Actually, no” I said.  Turns out, I had won an all-expense paid trip for two to Miami to see Lenny Kravitz and his band perform at their practice studio right before he kicked off his 2002 World Tour.  I was pretty surprised; as I hadn’t even heard anything about that when I called in.  It turned out to be an awesome trip, we stayed at a really cool art-deco hotel right on South Beach .  Mr. Kravitz was actually really sick the night of the “intimate show,” so he ended up performing acoustic, but it was really fun.

 

My good luck streak has resurrected itself this week, as I won Leah’s blog contest.  As my prize, she is going to knit me a pair of socks!  That has to be the most generous prize I’ve ever come across for a blog contest.  I have to say that I’m really excited as I’ve never had someone (other than myself) knit me a pair of socks.  I can’t wait to see how wonderful they are!

 

Oh, and my mom sent me some better pictures of Doc the horse, so I’ll share one of my dad riding him.

 

 

My grandparents from Arizona are down at my parents farm visiting for a few weeks, so Joey and I were planning on heading down there on Saturday.  I was awakened by an excited phone call at 8:44 Saturday morning with my mom screaming, "I got a HORSE!!!"  Joey and I quickly got ready and made the hour and a half drive so that we could meet Doc, the 10-year-old paint horse. 

As soon as we got there, Daisy rolled in some cow poo and Henry rolled in some dead fish guts.  He smelled so bad that if he walked within 5 feet of where you were standing, you would start gagging from the smell.  Ah, dogs.  You gotta love 'em.

Doc is such a sweet and gentle horse.  He was completely comfortable meeting everybody and was really easy to ride.  (I've only ridden one other time in my entire life and found him really easy.) Another really cool thing about Doc is that he has light blue eyes.  He was hard to photograph, because the sun was setting and he was moving around a lot while eating, so you get a blurry pic.

In knitting news, I am still working away at my Master Knitter Level I swatches.  I was starting to think I was close to the end, but I still have to knit two swatches, reknit three more, knit a hat, write a report on blocking, and finish off answering a million questions about gauge and increases and decreases.  Oh, and there are a kajillion ends to be woven in…

The real reason I wanted to post today was to talk about something that affects everyone on this planet: cancer.  I’m sure if you haven’t been directly impacted by cancer, you can name at least five people you know that have.  Cancer is a big deal and it is everywhere.  In the past 10 years, 3 people in my family have been diagnosed with it.  Only one of them is still alive today.  Not only is it a horrible disease, but the treatment options are pretty horrible as well.  My mom was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma a few years ago and was told that if she didn’t go through with chemotherapy she wouldn’t live more than 6 months.  She chose the chemo, lost her hair, got incredibly sick and thin, but defeated the cancer.  Unfortunately that life-saving-chemo has also taken about 10 years off of her life.  Her heart function will probably never get back to normal and she will always have to deal with chemotherapy’s ugly after effects.

My family and I have decided to participate in the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life, which will be held in Fort Worth, Texas on April 4-5.  I am accepting donations, and you can visit my personal donation page here. 

Relay For Life is an overnight event where teams of volunteers and survivors are formed to walk throughout the evening in honor of loved ones who have battled cancer.  The walk is lit by luminaria, which are also in honor of cancer victims and cancer survivors.  If you do not wish to donate directly for my participation, please consider purchasing a luminaria in honor of someone you know who has been impacted by cancer.  You can purchase a luminaria here.

 

A few days after the new year, I was lazing around at home when I noticed that I had missed about 6 calls on my cell phone from both my mom and my sister Kasi. I was pretty worried, cause they didn't leave any messages which meant it must be something that you wouldn't leave in a message. When my mom answered the phone the first thing she said was, "Have you checked your email today?" Which totally threw me off guard. "No, actually" I responded. "Your sister and I have been waiting all day for you to check your email... we felt so bad that you didn't get the KnitPicks Harmony Sock DPN set for Christmas that we decided to order it for you... call your sister!"

How cool are they? I bought a set for my sister for Christmas and really wanted to order a set of my own at the same time, but I convinced myself that I should wait because I knew I would probably get some as a gift. I was actually going to order some on the same day that they told me they had gotten them for me. Thanks so much, Mom and Kasi! I absolutely love them!

I've been in New Mexico and Arizona this past week visiting family; aunts, uncles, great-aunts and great-uncles, grandparents, cousins and beautiful new babies. It's been a busy week for me so I'll just leave you with some of the sights I saw.