Knitting Knirvana

The last 24 hours have put me on a knitting high. At this point you can start to feel sorry for poor Jim, having to put up with my excitement!

First off, last night I finished knitting my pullover sweater. I decided to have my photo taken in my new sweater, outside, so you might begin to understand how warm this baby is going to be. When I wear this sweater we may be able to turn down the heat in the house another degree or two! 

The second knitting/yarn related event was this morning when I attended the first of four spinning classes. For those of you that know that I love to ride my bike, this is not that kind of spinning. I spun roving (cleaned and carded sheep fleece) into yarn and it was great fun to learn a new skill. I am taking the class at a local yarn store and one of the good parts of this class is that I don't need to have my own spinning wheel, and I can try out several

different types of wheels during the 4 classes. After several frustrating attempts at getting the wheel to spin at the right speed and my hands to move the roving at the right pace, I finally settled into a rhythm and was quite pleased with the single ply yarn I spun. I must have spun over 100 yards! Next week we will spin some more yarn and then we will learn how to "ply" the yarn. Are you completely bored at this point? Just think of poor Jim that has to listen to all this and more! Interesting note: The woman spinning next to me reminded me of Sandy L. (look closely at the other person in the photo)!

I came home from spinning class to find my sock yarn from the Rockin' Sock Club had been delivered! I actually knew it was here because Jim called my cell to tell me-what a guy! The variegations are red to orange and are lovely. These are not colors that I would typically buy, but I am glad to have this yarn and look forward to knitting with it. The pattern has a lacey look to the leg and top if the foot. It should be real pretty when it is finished. 

We are having 2 couples here for dinner tonight and I had better do a reality check to see if everything is ready. None of our guests are knitters, so I guess I will have to get my excitement under control. 

Tomorrow we are off to SU for an afternoon basketball game and then dinner with Corey. My next entry will be either Sunday or Monday night.

Hope all is well!

Pies

Every Friday at school, we have Friday Treats. The staff is divided up into groups of 6 or 8 people and each group is responsible for bringing in Friday Treats twice a year. The group I am in is up for tomorrow. Now, ever since this tradition started at school, about 6 years ago, I have brought in Grape Pies for my first turn. Today at school, 4 different people came up to tell me that they were really looking forward to getting a piece of my pie on Friday! There is even a teacher who broke her foot last weekend, who has arranged with another teacher to bring her a piece of my pie! So, tonight I made 3 pies and the house smells wonderful! Don't worry, Corey! There are still quite a few left in the freezer. 

Today was the 3rd day I endured a really cold gym. The temperature has been 63 degrees, with a wind chill from the air ducts that were blowing cold air. Today I was wearing so much wool, that I could have been a sheep! Even with physical activity, the kids were complaining about the cold! This afternoon the district boys came over and fixed what they messed up last Friday when they came in  to do routine maintenance and the warm air is going again. 

Here is an interesting story: Sally was in San Francisco last week and while she was there she lost her wallet. She had to do all that bothersome stuff like canceling credit cards and getting a new driver's license, and you can imagine the challenge of trying to fly home when your only ID is a fax of your passport. But she made it and today someone sent her wallet back to her! Too late to matter to the credit card people, but isn't it nice to know that there are nice people in the world. I don't have any details, and maybe the wallet was completely empty (there were no details in Sally's e-mail), but I am going to think the best and hope that everything was in order. That's your uplifting story for the day.

I joined a Sock Club. Now before I go on about why I am telling you this, let me say that this is a club hosted by a yarn manufacturer and when you join (one of the first 2000 to send in your money) you get 6 mailings a year of a one-of -a kind yarn and a new pattern, neither of which is available to the general public for one year. Now I'm sure you can understand my excitement when I tell you that our first packages were mailed out today!! I can hardly wait to see what I am getting. This is the second or third year for this sock club and all the big knitting bloggers raved about their projects from last year. I will put a photo of the yarn in the blog when it arrives. I hope I like it-although I guess there is a chance that I won't. I better get knitting on my sweater because it would be nice to have that completed before my first Rockin' Sock Club package arrives. 

We got 4 inches of snow in less than 2 hours this afternoon. Just enough to make it look pretty, but not enough to be a problem.

Hope all is well. 

A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

Back to school today after a 3 day weekend. 

Yesterday was a good day in that there was nothing pressing on my schedule. I got a good work out in before taking the van in for what we hoped would be a routine inspection and oil change. That was not the case. In order to pass inspection the right tie rod needed replacing. $235 later I have the van back-we call expenses like that our annual user fee for the car! The car guys also said that in the next 6 months or so we would need to take the car to a welding shop and have the strut tower welded before it rusted completely through. Now I have never heard of a strut tower, but the car guy was able to pop the hood and show me what he was talking about and I guess I see the need for the repair. Sometimes I wish I wasn't such a car idiot! 

Sally came over for lunch and then we had a little knitting show and tell session-always fun!

Today I am including a couple of photos from Jeannie. The first photo is of Elizabeth's

engagement ring. What a beauty! Michal has really good taste in both rings and women!

The second one is from Michal's annual Christmas 

tree bonfire. He started doing this a few years back and it sure sounds like a hot time! Jeannie reports that there were 244 trees and several wreaths sacrificed for all this fun!

Joanie and Bob, I understand that you are going to start a kitchen renovation project. Send photos! I want to see see before, after and yikes-what-have-we-done photos! 

Anybody watching American Idol? There have been some funny moments and some good singers.

Guess that's all for now.

Hope all is well.

Balloons Over Bluff

Tucker called yesterday and told a funny story about how he and his roommate, Ben, awoke to what sounded like dragons outside of their windows. When they went outside to see what was making the noise, they looked up to all these hot air balloons floating over their trailer! What a beautiful sight! This has been quite a weekend in Bluff for Tucker, who usually heads to the big city of Cortez, CO on the weekend. The farmer who owns the land on which Tucker's trailer sits was hosting an impromtu music festival on his farm so Tucker spent Friday evening, listening to and making good music. The musicians planned to keep jammin' last night too, so I'm sure Tucker was one happy picker!

Jim and Steve went to the race in Ithaca and Steve didn't run as well as he had hoped. Oh, well, that happens! One disappointing race, makes all the other races that go well, a little sweeter. Come back next year, Steve! 

Corey raced at Cornell yesterday and had an OK race. His time was faster than any indoor time he posted in high school, but he was hoping to go faster. Once again, oh, well. There will be other races. As a matter of fact, Corey called tonight to say that the team is going to Yale in 2 weeks and he will race there again. 

Last night I went out to a pub in Irondequoit (OK boys, pick yourself up off the floor!). One of my colleagues invited the Longridge Staff to Murph's Pub to hear a band that had a couple of Greece teachers in it. There were lots of teachers there and the band was good so it was fun time. 

Today was an exciting day at church. The Pastor Nominating Committee presented their candidate for our Head of Staff job. The church was fuller than it has been in years and this new guy was unanimously approved. I cannot put his name in here yet, because his congregation will not be told until next Sunday, and we were asked to maintain some confidentially up until that point. The guy preached a meaningful sermon and seemed very genuine and likable. There certainly was a new excitement moving through the church after the service. He will start at Bethany just before Easter.

Good football day. The Patriots won, even if they didn't look that good and are on their way to the Super Bowl. The other game is still in progress and I really don't care who wins that one.

I've been knitting on my Weekend Sweater and am almost done with the first sleeve. The main body is done. It is being knit on size 17 needles (which are huge) so the knitting goes very fast. This is going to be a very warm sweater. 

Yesterday I went to the  monthly meeting of the Genesee Valley Hand-spinners Guild to see what I could learn about spinning yarn with a spinning wheel. I meet some wonderfully helpful and encouraging people and ended up going to a local yarn store where I got the last spot in a beginning spinning class. The 4 Saturday class starts this next Saturday and I am looking forward to trying to spin yarn with a wheel. This is a great opportunity to learn this new skill without having to invest in a wheel first. Stay tuned for an update on my progress. 

Happy Martin Luther King Day. Take a moment to think about what you are doing to promote social justice for all.

Hope all is well.