Boston

The Head of the Charles-What an event! This was the 43rd running of the Head of the Charles

and I feel so honored to have had the chance to row in it. Our race was at 1:15 PM so we launched the boat at 12:30 PM. The top photo is of us carrying our boat down to the river. I am

wearing the lavender/black jacket, 4th from the front of the boat. We launched just beyond the finish line, and rowed downstream to the start. You row up stream in this regatta, but I wasn't aware of any current. The race was 3 miles and took us 20 minutes. We were pleased with our time, and I haven't checked the results yet to see how we placed.  The second photo is of me

with my team.

This is quite the spectator event, with people lining both sides of the shore for the full 3 miles, in addition to throngs of peoples on the many bridges over the river course. Boston College, MIT, and Harvard all have very impressive boat houses along the river and they each had large tents set up for all their alumni. After our race, I walked around quite a bit, checking out the many vendors. After two other boats from our club raced, I found my car and got directions to get back to I-90 and headed west to Lee, MA.

Rowing in Boston was an experience I will never forget, and to top off this weekend, tomorrow I go to the NYS Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, NY. I hope to be there in time to hear a couple of knitting authors speak. On my way home from the festival, I am going to stop in Syracuse and take Corey out for dinner. It will be perfect ending to my weekend.

Jim is all set to leave for England tomorrow afternoon. He'll be home on Friday. 

I won't be up late tonight because I am really tired. I shared a hotel room in Boston with a women who rows in my boat and she snored-all night! So I had a restless night and then rowed hard this afternoon. I'll knit and watch the baseball game and get to bed fairly early.

The Weather Channel showed a "Leaf Peeper" map and the New York Thruway and Mass. Turnpike corridors were supposed to be at peak color and I would agree. My 2 hour drive today was a treat for my eyes! Autumn in New England-it can't be beat!

Hope all is well.

Excitement for the Weekend

Maps-check, rowing clothes-check, Rhinebeck sweater-check, knitting-check, iPod-check, camera-check, computer-check, Money/Visa card-check, I guess I'm ready to go away for the weekend. The weather forecast for Boston on Saturday is for mostly cloudy skies which is better than the 70 % chance of rain/thunder storms that was predicted earlier in the week. I have a colleague who rowed for Mercyhurst College and he told me a story of his boat sinking when they were out practicing in a rain storm because the boat filled with water!!

I will have a 6 hour drive to Boston tomorrow when I get out of school, so I hope I get a good night's sleep tonight. My race on Saturday is at 1:15 PM but I'm sure the group that is staying in my hotel will all go to the race course fairly early in the morning. 

I am taking my laptop with me and my Saturday night hotel has free internet, so I will try to give you a regatta update. If I cannot get the internet to work, the report will be filed when I get home on Sunday. 

Sunday is the NYS Sheep and Wool Festival and it should be great. Sunday is Author's Day at the festival and I hope to hear 2 women speak who have written knitting books that I have enjoyed. I am a bit worried that the yarn will be pretty picked over by Sunday, but I really don't need anything. Plus, Jim said he would try to look for some nice English wool while he is in England. 

Jim is going on a business trip to England on Sunday and won't be back until Friday. He will be in-flight by the time I get home on Sunday. He is staying at an old castle that has been restored to serve as a luxury hotel. Looks like a great place to stay. Hopefully he will take some photos that I can include in a later blog. 

Joanie, we ate your sauce last night and it was once again delicious! I tried some whole wheat pasta and it all tasted good. 

I'm including in today's blog,  a beautiful photo from our trip on the Salmon River this summer.

Hope all is well. 

Catch-up Day

 I've had a couple of pretty normal school days. Today was "Flu shot day" and this year the district picked my school as one of 2 locations to get the shot, so it was very convenient to take advantage of this district perk.

I am including 2 photos from Jim's recent races. The first photo is from his Corporate Challenge race in NYC 2 weekends ago. Notice the sweet young things on his team! At one point in NYC Jim was walking around by himself and he saw a running friend who asked, "Hey Jim, where are your kids?" referring to how old he was compared to the ages of his teammates! 

The second photo is from this past weekend at Jenny Lake. Jim captured this beautiful fall scene before he and his friends left for the race in Saratoga. It's enough to 

make a school teacher long for the days when she can take a fall vacation! Jim had a good race in Saratoga, taking 4th place in the 50-59 year age group and his team took 2nd place overall. They were pleased with the race.

Last night while I was at a PTA meeting, Jim took his Mom to the local library and taught her how to use the internet so she could read this blog. Welcome Maw!!!! Jim also set her up with an e-mail account so if you want her address let me know and I will share it with you. We need to encourage her to use this technology so she becomes more comfortable with it. 

The yak yarn had another day of washing and rinsing with Sally. Tomorrow it gets hung outside to endure whatever Mother Nature has in store. Sun, wind, rain, any of it would be good for the yarn. 

I had my last rowing practice tonight before I go to the Head of the Charles in Boston this weekend. I'm nervous and excited about that race. 

Hope all is well. 

Wonderful Weekend

I hope all you faithful readers have had a good weekend. 

First things first. Joanie, please show this top photo to Bob. It could be entitled, Wish You Were Here! Having brother Jim in town has been a nice treat and a great opportunity to catch up with each other (and share a Ponti's!).

My Jim got an early start to Jenny Lake on Saturday morning and got there in time to do some fishing and closing chores before going to Saratoga to run the course where he was racing today. I'll

post his results in a blog entry later this week.

I got my sweater seamed so it is now complete and I love it! It will be my Rhinebeck Sweater for next weekend's  New York State Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, NY. Of course, my sweater will pale in comparison to some of the works of art that other knitters will be wearing.

My big project on Saturday was the washing of the yak yarn. I posed a question about cleaning the yak yarn on one of the knitting websites that I read and 2 people responded with ideas. In addition to the ideas I got from my faithful readers here, Sally and I were armed with lots of things to think about as we tackled 2 tightly wound balls of yak yarn.  We started by using my swift (see 9/2/07 entry for photo of my swift) to convert the

balls of yarn into skeins of yarn. We made one large skein of the smaller ball of lighter

colored yarn and we split the larger, darker ball of yarn into 2 skeins. We thought draping the skeins over the bench by the lake side was a nice artistic touch, plus we got a breath of fresh air. Remember, I have mentioned that this is stinky yarn. After skeining, we filled Sally's bathtub with lukewarm water and baby shampoo. We submerged the skeins and set the timer for one hour. When the timer went off, we discovered an incredible amount of dirt had come out of the yarn and the smell was most offensive! We repeated the

 process 2 more times, shortening up the time

 before we changed the water to 20 minutes. 

And we continued to have a disgusting tub after the water drained out ( see the photo to the right). Sally and Bob were going out for the evening so I wrapped up the skeins and brought them home where I continued the rinsing process. Finally, at 9 PM the water was almost clear after a soak and the smell was greatly reduced and my hands were pruny so I quit! I used my salad spinner to get the water out of the yarn and hung the skeins in the garage to drip dry. They still need more work but are much improved from where we started at 2 PM. We might just leave them hanging outside to get rinsed by the rain and de-odorized by mother nature. This is quite an adventure and whatever we knit with the yarn will have quite a tale to go along with it. 

Tucker called last night and he was in New Mexico, hiking and camping with his friend, Kellum. He is doing well and work is keeping him busy. He expects to be working on this project until Thanksgiving. What's after that, Tucker?

Today I had to ring bells in both worship services at church so I was up early. I went to Gram and GrandDad's for a Ponti's lunch with Jim. I didn't hang around too long (think eat and run) because Maw and I were going to Spirit Work yarn store. We are taking a knitting class there in a couple of weeks and we wanted to select the yarn we wanted to use for our projects (a felted purse). I got a load of wash hung up, but it may take a couple of days to dry!

Jim just called from Syracuse University. He and 2 of his running buddies stopped in to see Corey and they were going to have dinner in the SU dining hall and then continue on home.