The Weekend

Thank you all so much for your thoughts and warm wishes yesterday. Yesterday was difficult at best. Grief councelors were at school and helped the kids to cope with their emotions. They held a candle light vigil last night and it was healing for all these kids to get together and talk and remember Cayla. Nicole understands that things will get better with time. Life goes on.

So those who guessed that a spinning retreat was my destination last weekend - you were correct. We arrived at Sacred Heart Retreat Center on Friday afternoon. The grounds are just incredible. We went for a nice walk on Saturday afternoon.

And there was some spinning. Boy was there spinning!

Karen was a new spinner who started spining this

And by the end of the weekend she spun this

Some carded batts

There was weaving

And more to come tomorrow...

Currents

EXCUSE THE FORMAT - BLOGGER IS BEING DIFFICULT THIS MORNING Listening - 630 WPRO News Eating - nothing right now Drinking - orange juice Wearing - sweats & purple turleneck with a jacket Reading - 1000 Gifts (still - I know, I'm a slow reader) Weather - sunny and in the 40's. Very pleasant Knitting - socks (that will be every week after my resolution) Wanting - to take my daughter's pain away after hearing that her friend was tragiclly killed yesterday Needing - an hour to myself to get my thoughts together before dealing with the week Enjoying - the days being longer Looking forward - getting my house back in order after the weekend Wondering - if there will be enough snow in upstate NY so we can go snow mobiling this weekend.

It's Friday

Can anybody guess where I'm going today?

Some FOs You Might Like

I'm the first to admitt that I am terrible with taking pictures. When I first got my Iphone I took alot of pictures with it (and still do)but it's going on 3 years old so the quality isn't great. I have my digital camera (a simple Sony Cybershot) but if I took decent quality pictures it only had the capability to hold 10 pictures at a time. Not very convenient. So hubby bought me this memory card and I can now fit over 5000 pictures on my little camera. So while I save my pennies for a DSLR I can explore the options this little guy has without having to upload my pics every 10 shots. I realized that I have many many FO's that I have never shown you. I will get to taking pictures of all of them, but here are two (one is quite old) that I have not blogged about yet.

This was a cowl pattern that I kinda made up as I went along. It's knit from cormo I had spun up from my fiber share from Juniper Moon Farm . I can't tell you how squishy and warm that cowl is. I love cormo. Cormo was the very first fleece I bought (I don't recommend this as a first fleece project if you plan on processing the fleece yourself - the amount of lanolin is ridiculous and the long staple can be tough to card). I started washing and carding myself but quickly realized that this was far too much work for this girl. I loved the fact that this came all washed, carded and ready to spin from Juniper Moon. It is by far the warmest cowl I own and I use it the most. I finished my hat over the weekend. It' the Coffee Beanz Hat. I really should have some shots of it ON somebody's head but getting Harry to model for me? Let's just say he did his part by getting me the memory card..

. It was knit it Univeral Yarns Classic Shades . It's a combo of wool and acrylic and it's not itchy at all like I thought it would be. I have another whole skein that I think I might try and knit mittens from (I realized during the last snow storm that I, a knitter and spinner, have NO mittens - this is now an emergency).

The Last Skein

Socks That Rock - my favorite sock yarn. Notice the rockin skein I picked up over the Christmas break during my visit to WEBS.

Magnum is always willing to model for me.

That's the last skein I will get to purchase for a while. I decided to participate in the 2012 Stash Busting Challenge This is all part of my attempt to simplify my life in 2012. I cleaned the Yarn Loft, aka - the mess of a room upstairs that houses my yarn, fiber, loom, wheels, etc... out a bit and was pleased to discover that I only had one large rubbermaid container full of store bought yarn, one big bag of hand spun yarn, and a seperate container for my sock yarn. The sock yarn is where I have been glutonous - I have enough yarn to knit 30 pairs of socks. My goal for this year is to not buy any more sock yarn until I have most of that stash knitted up. I'm just not sure if I can knit 30 pairs of socks in one year! What do you think?

Weekend In Pictures - And A Few Words

4 inches of snow? I don't think so. I believe the total ended up around 12 inches. But hey - they were close. I didn't mind though. We stayed inside most of the weekend and read, baked, knit, got cozy by the fire and enjoyed each others company. Exactly what we needed.

Currents

Call me un-original but I saw this awesome post on Mary's blog and also on Beth's blog



listening - Pandora Radio on Shuffle

eating - not much (don't fall down from shock). I've got a touch of the stomach bug today

drinking - same as eating, but I should go get some tea as I'm sure it would help

wearing - LL Bean polar fleece with a turtle neck and it's not keeping me nearly as warm as it ought to

reading - 1000 Gifts. A must read.

weather - probably in the 40's but I feel like it's 0 degrees. We saw the sun for about 50 seconds in the late morning so I should consider it a lucky day

knitting - just finished socks above. Just cast on a scarf for daughter's boyfriend who requested another one

wanting - to get the house de-cluttered this afternoon/evening. It's getting on my nerves now

needing - to do some bookkeeping duties for spinning guild

enjoying - the way we have been simplifying life these days

looking forward - my spinning retreat this weekend

wondering - what should I pack for the weekend

10 on Tuesday - 2 Weeks Late

Welcome to my world people. I saw this topic a couple of weeks ago and loved it. I never got to blogging about it because my laptop was giving me trouble, I had no current pictures to post, I was busy, etc... That's usually why I don't blog regularly - everything else gets in the way and I let it fall off the To Do List. Well hopefully the following list will be helpful in not letting that happen anymore.

10 Things I Want To Do In 2012

1. Keep schedules better. With all the apps I have downloaded to my Iphone such as Toodle Do, Informant, Springpad, Evernote, Organizing - you would think I had it all together. I guess I do - it's just spread out all over the place and needs to be streamlined.

2. Take more pictures with my camera. I was looking to get a DSL camera after Christmas but I couldn't justify spending the money if I can't even operate the 3 simple digital cameras correctly. I am carrying my camera with me all the time and I plan to go online and find some helpful tutuorials.

3. Read more. I have my Nook Color and I love it. I just have a hard time reading these days with knitting calling my name. I think I can manage both at the same time if I am knitting simple socks now.

4. Speaking of knitting - I want to knit most of my sock yarn stash. It is not huge. I'm guesstimating that I have maybe enough yarn to knit 20 pairs of socks. And socks make great gifts.

5. Card and spin that awesome fleece I got last year. I am hand carding it (yes, I do have access to a drum carder but I like to hand card in small amounts and I think I can do this). This fleece will become a sweater for me and my daughter next year sometime.

6. Publish one of my patterns. Even if it is only on my blog, I will feel like I contributed something in exchange for all those great free patterns I use on Ravelry.

7. Explore the vegetarian lifestyle. I never thought I would say this but I have met quite a few people lately who have made the change and they look and feel great. I think they may be on to something.

8. Take Country Line Dance lessons. I went to Tobie Keith's "I Love This Bar" a couple of weeks ago to see a friend play in a band and was in awe of all the people line dancing. I think I convinced Lisa to do this with me.

9. A place for everything and everything in it's place. I can't count the hours that are wasted in my household on "straightening up". Bottom line - we have way too much crap for one household. Bottom line problem - some people, who shall remain nameless, refuse to throw anything out. I am afraid I will have to resort to drastic measures to make them see the error of their ways. If anyone has any helpful hints, please pass them on. In the meantime, you will find me sneaking big black garbage bags into the dumpster at 6:30 AM.

10. Change up the blog. My blog has had little attention, let alone not many entries. It has been neglected and I plan to spruce it up a bit. Stay tuned.