(mis)adventures of spindlerose

Florida surprise

We whizzed by the Airstream Ranch so fast this morning that it barely registered. On the way back to Tampa this afternoon, I was ready with my iPhone. This monumental tribute to the Airstream is adjacent to a large dealership. Whether you view it as public roadside art or advertising, it brought a smile to this motorist passing through Central Florida on I4.

The other surprise today—just how much non-sock knitting I can manage when traveling. After a short flight and just under two hours in the car, I'm almost finished with Rosamund's collar. If I had been thinking last night, I would have tossed some stitch markers into my suitcase when I packed 2 extra balls of yarn. Instead, my tolerant co-worker agreed to an emergency stop at JoAnn's for stitch markers this afternoon; DQ knows what happens when I run out of road trip knitting. Now I can set up the raglan increases and knit on autopilot on tomorrow's flight home.

Ready, Set, Knit and Blog

November means NaKniSweMo and NaBloPoMo. I will knit Rosamund's Cardigan from IK with a friend. And I'm going to post every day. While traveling every week this month.

I will be visiting Tampa this week, Santa Clara, CA, next week, then Oklahoma City (a new place!), and somewhere that is not home for Thanksgiving (New York City or Boston). That translates to quite a bit of airplane (and perhaps car) knitting time, four days of in training all day sock knitting time, and a lot of interesting things to write about.

The way I see it, if I spend less time watching TV and haunting Facebook while I am at home, I will have plenty of time to blog and knit (and to cook, clean, and keep up with the laundry).

Saturday Sky

Sunset Ash Tree, Madison, WI

I spent today in Madison hanging out with my brother, his wife, and their kids. We took pictures of a stunning tree, raked leaves, jumped into the leaf pile, and read Dr. Seuss. And visited Lakeside Fibers for coffee and yarn browsing.

Random Wednesday with sniffles

Roadside Buddha, Maui, May 2009

If that's not random, I don't know what is.

I have spent the week at home with tea, Kleenex, soup, and occasional kitty snuggles. I am on the mend and plan venture to Knit Happens tonight for some knitting and socializing. Between now and then, I need to finish preparing to teach a class tomorrow morning and drink more tea.

How many socks did SpindleRose knit while on vacation?

So, I have been home for over a month, and I never did post the vacation sock contest results. Work and visitors took over for most of June. I did not travel much for a change, I just spent so much time attached to my computer during the workday that I had no desire to fire it up at night. Then we had visitors in and out for the past two weeks—which also required a fair amount of preparatory cleaning and organizing since kids slept in the wool room. First, my college friends Rachel and Hilary and their three boys visited for a long weekend. Then, my sister and her family arrived for a week. I had lots of fun entertaining all those kids, but I have no idea how their parents can do it all day every day. Just a few days wore D and me out.

To answer the big question, I knit about 1/2 of one sock on vacation. I also added a few inches to the summer shell while we shuttled across central Maui getting from our home base at Kanapali to fun activities. Amy was right—there is just too much fun stuff to do in Hawaii to spend time knitting. I knew that, but for some reason I thought I would spend more time knitting at the beach and pool and less time reading. I think I read about 10 novels on the trip (close to one a day on the days we lazed around). The random number generator picked 1 and 8, so the first and last entrants Susan and Angela win.

Amy wins her choice of blue or pink silk yarn from Japan—I'm keeping the other color. Susan and Angela both win a lovely little change purse (also from Japan) that is perfect for storing knitting notions. I found both the yarn and the purses at Yarn & Friends in Honolulu.

Thanks to everyone for commenting and being patient while I completely ignored the blog during June. And here's a new contest for July: I'm closing in on 300 comments. The 300th commenter will win a prize from my bin of handspun yarn.

Home again

I have over 300 photos from vacation to review, organize, and post to Flickr. I also have a bunch of notes and travel recommendations for anyone else headed to Hawaii. What I have not had is time.

We were home for less than 12 hours when one of my account managers asked me to join him for a 2 day visit to North Carolina this week. We had a lot of good meetings, so the 10 hours I spent in the car over Wednesday and Thursday was worth it, but being home is nice too. Barring another surprise trip, I'm home until June 16. I really do love my job, but the travel for the past 6 months or so has been ridiculous.

Check back this weekend for Hawaii contest prizes and more pictures of paradise. Now I've got to get back to work.

Rosemary is too busy relaxing to post

But here's a picture of Upper Waikani Falls to make up for the lack of anything. D included for scale.

Vacation photos on Flickr

Aloha from Maui!

To view the full collection of our vacation photos, check here every day or so. I don't promise to write a full blog post every day, but I will pull photos off of the camera every other day or so.

Right now, I have an appointment with a mango daiquiri and a sunset.

Recipe for a perfect birthday

Spend all morning at the spa. I enjoyed the papaya-pineapple body scrub, lomi-lomi massage, and a facial.

Have a tasty salad for lunch.

Spend all afternoon reading at the pool. D took the photo from our balcony. If you look closely, you can see the top of my head between two umbrellas.

Go out for dinner at a truly interesting restaurant. Ciao Mein's Italian-Chinese fusion menu has several award winning dishes; I had trouble choosing just one item for dinner. If I had been with a crowd of friends, it would have been fun to order many dishes family style to get a taste of everything. The bar makes outstanding mango daiquiris. D and I both enjoyed our entrees—he had pasta with a spicy tomato sauce and I had ginger-garlic shrimp.

How many socks can SpindleRose knit while on vacation?

And can she finish the tank top she packed, too?

Where did that lovely 747 take D and me yesterday?

Does this help?

In all my travels, would you believe that this was my first ever flight in a 747? I was pretty excited to see it when we arrived at our gate in Atlanta after a 5:55 departure from Dulles. Pretty excited = big smile, since that was all I could muster after leaving home at 3:45 am.

We are in Hawai'i until May 24. Our plans are to kick back, relax, and see some of the sights we missed on our previous visits. The inside of one or two world class spas, Diamondhead, the Road to Hana on a sunny day, and Haleakala's crater are high on my list. D thinks the best way to see Hawai'i is inverted at 3000 feet in an Extra 300L. He flew this morning. He also wants to swim with dolphins, visit the Maui Ocean Center, and drink several fruity cocktails while listening to the surf. If you have any favorite Oahu or Honolulu haunts that are off the beaten path, please let me know.

I had a good start on the vacation knitting on the flight over, until I tried on the peach sock and found it too big. I ripped back a bunch and started the pattern again with 8 fewer stitches. Will I knit all the yarn I packed? Guess how many socks I will finish in the comments to this post before we arrive in Maui (by 10:00 pm EDT on Tuesday, May 12). I will send something from Hawai'i to a random commenter or two. And if you guess exactly, you will win a prize, too.

Between now and Tuesday, I plan to enjoy Waikiki Beach and a fruity cocktail or two, knit a bit, shop a bit, and visit the spa (my birthday present to myself). Moms, enjoy your day, everyone else, have a happy Sunday.