(mis)adventures of spindlerose

Wool confessions

Juno just flashed her stash. And reminded me that I should post my own admissions, too. D and I have houseguests coming this weekend. And my parents are coming for Christmas. We really need a guest room with enough space for the guests, their luggage, and a bed for them to sleep in. Last Friday, we ordered a new mattress and box spring for ourselves. So we need room in the office or wool room for a queen sized bed. Remember this photo of the wool room right after the movers delivered everything in March? Here it is as of 8:00 last night waiting for the guest bed delivery.

Where did all the stash go? Most of the yarn is in the wool room closet. The fleeces and fiber are hanging out in the bedroom waiting for a large shipment of space bags. The fabric is hanging out in D's office waiting for under the bed storage bins. And about 1/3 of the stash is in the entry hall waiting for me to find time to list it for sale. Yes, it's time for another major destash chez SpindleRose. Watch this space for announcements.

And now I must go to work to earn money to pay for the new bed, underbed storage bins, and space bags. Except that there is a large moving truck blocking the exit from my garage. I guess I'm working from the sofa today.

Happy trails.

Real Florida, part 1

Or water, gators, and spiders.

Look at the right end of the log

You know that you have been a bad blogger when your fabulous spouse complains about the general lack of posts. Even after he starred in the last one.

I survived conference in Florida. All I can say about it is this: It is much harder to be an employee of the sponsoring company than simply a geek attending a tech conference. I was pretty much "on" full time from my arrival at the hotel Saturday evening until D and I headed out for dinner Thursday night. Overall, the conference was a blast, but I was exhausted by the end of the week.

The mini-vacation D and I planned for the weekend after the show was just about perfect. On Thursday, we joined about 15 other geeks for a canoe trip in Wekiwa Springs State Park. Several geeks, six canoes, a fabulous picnic lunch on the river, a science experiment, and nature made for a perfect end to the conference. In addition to the alligator above, we saw many species of birds, banana spiders, Florida snapping turtles, and ancient fish. The lush vegetation and clear water would have made for an amazing day even if we had not spotted the gator hanging out on the log on our upstream paddle. The empty log on the downstream part of the trip had everyone keeping their hands and feet inside the canoes.

L to R: A small banana spider; the view from the middle of the canoe; amazing underwater Christmas trees; David playing with Diet Coke and Mentos.

Happy Anniversary!

With all the blog moving chaos this summer, I completely missed my 4th (I think) blogiverary last month. Given the disappearance of the archives, I don't even remember exactly what day it was.

I do remember, however, that yesterday D and I marked our 13th wedding anniversary. Since I'm on the road, we're going to celebrate a few days late. He is flying to Florida later today. We have plans to play this weekend once the conference is over.

Even though he constantly harasses me about my yarn and fiber collection habit and I bug him about his flying habit, we are a sound partnership. We support each other when we need to (D spending 6 years as a full time student for example), and we leave each other alone to pursue our favorite activities when appropriate. In honor of today, here are a few shots of my sweetie pursuing his favorite activities.

From top left, click for big: D and his dad flying a 737 simulator; D playing the piano; D in the acro bird; D visiting Mickey Mouse; D after biking down Mount Haleakala on Maui last year; D loving Toni.

Code Orange

I wrote this post yesterday at the airport while waiting for a delayed flight.

I'm on my way to Florida for a geeky conference. I have both of my laptops, a huge stack of presentation handouts, a full box of business cards, and far too much knitting for one event-filled week. I tossed yarn for three pairs of socks and at least one Baby Surprise jacket into my bag with the handouts and obligatory software-company uniform. The handouts, yarn and D's shampoo took up so much room that I ended up with no room for my running shoes. D is flying down to Orlando on Tuesday. I have already sent him the list of stuff I forgot to pack.

Thanks to the new ban on liquids and gels in carry on luggage, I packed knowing I would be checking my rollaboard instead of wrestling it into an overhead bin. I suspect that my good friend Aubrey will do a brisk business in her solid lotion bars as travelers realize just how drying cabin air and airport soaps can be when they do not have a tube of hand lotion on hand. I made a few friends of fellow travelers who saw me using my lotion and were impressed with my savy. Aubrey also makes the most fabulous soaps, scrubs, balms, and lotions. You can catch her at the Stitches Midwest Market today, at craft shows and farmers markets in Oklahoma and Texas, and on line at goodiesunlimited.com.

I'm not sure that I feel any safer, but the TSA will do what it must, I guess. This is air travel in the 21st Century.

Tomorrow, picture of palm trees and my suitcase full of yarn. Lots and lots of palm trees and a frightening amount of yarn given the shortness and busy-ness of this trip.

Happy trails!

Weekend fun

Here's the short take on last weekend. Friday night I flew to Wisconsin. Saturday H, Mom, and I drove to Bayfield. Saturday night we saw Nickel Creek at my favorite summer concert venue. Sunday we helped my aunt and uncle out in their amazing terraced gardens and drove back to Wausau. Monday, we played in Wausau. Then the mini vacation was over, and H and I flew back to the east coat.

I have nothing to show for Friday. I read a fun novel on the flight and did some sock knitting--Unst for the Knitting on the Road Knitalong in navy Socka. On Sunday, I gave up on the start of Unst as too small. An experience much like my aborted Conwy attempt last month. I'm going to start both of them over on bigger (2.5 mm instead of 2.25 mm) needles. It seems that as I get older, I knit my socks tighter. Odd, isn't it.

On the drive from Wausau to Bayfield we went through Phillips so H could see the Wisconsin Concrete Park. The picture at the left is Fred Smith's rendition of Paul Bunyan--a northern legend claimed by Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Canada. There are also deer, dogs, elk, Clydesdales, and replicas of important monuments constructed of concrete and broken glass in the park.

After a pit stop at my aunt and uncle's log home in the woods, we headed into Bayfield for lunch and window shopping. H, Mom, and I enjoyed lunch at Maggie's. Then we walked along the waterfront past the marina and beautiful sailboats. We window shopped in all the galleries and shops. There's even a yarn shop in Bayfield these days. And it has a bear. No, I mean a BEAR, hanging out at the top of the stairs to welcome shoppers. We ended our shopping with all three of us making purchases at Xanadu--one of my favorite eclectic clothing botiques in the country.

Saturday night we saw an amazing Nickel Creek concert. This was the third and by far the best show I've seen them give in the past 5 years. Musically, they're featuring Shawn more; he played several outstanding guitar solos in the traditional songs and sang a few of his own songs. H and I both wonder how he puts up with Sarah and Chris hamming it up on stage, though. The high point of the show was Chris' performance of the fugue movement from Bach's a minor Sonata for solo violin on mandolin. The entire audience was silent in the face of his musicality and talent.

Sunday we gardened. Mom delivered half a minivan full of perrenials thinned out of her garden. There has been a dreadful drought in northern Wisconsin this year, and my aunt lost many of her plants. We drove back to Wausau. We ate dinner at my second favorite Wausau restaurant.

Monday we gardened in my parents' yard. Mom risked her shrubs by letting H and I loose near them with pruners in hand. The end result of our work was a suitcase full of perennial thinnings for H and two trunkloads of prunings for the yard waste disposal site. We also went for a hike at Dells of the Eau Claire County Park to see the interesting rocks and river rapids. On the way to the airport we stopped for soft serve. Then I flew back to DC and H returned to Boston.

Tomorrow, I fly to Orlando for a week of work-related fun.

Happy trails!

I'm back

Did you miss me?

I guess I wore out my welcome over at yarnhead.com. I hope I can recover the archives. If not, here I am with a brand new fresh start. Of course, I have no time to really set up the new place. I leave for a quick girls weekend in Wisconsin in a few minutes. Next week is the final week of DevCon preparation before my first time as an employee and not customer. I'll be working on my face and name remembering skills and putting the final polish on my presentation.

Someday, I'll post photos of all the socks I've knit already this year. Perhaps I'll include the failures, too. Because there has been almost as much ripping out of socks as knitting of socks. Just this afternoon, I ripped the (admittedly tiny) cuff and heel of a cotton footie because the short row heel did not fit as well as I would have liked. I'm going to experiment with toe up gusset shaping on my flight tonight.

I've also been knitting Icarus this summer. And the shawl is almost finished. Here's a shot from about midway through. I have 6 rows, the border and cast off left to knit. It's too big to take this weekend, though.