Update

A few things:

1) Today I had my first paid day as a Hall of Fame Museum Teacher. It was nice to walk around in high heels and a suit jacket with a binder in my arm feeling professional again. Been a little while. I think I'm really going to love the work too, which will largely be teaching thematic units to student groups via videoconference. Unfortunately, it's just a few hours a week for now and I'm still going to need to keep pretty much all my hours at the bakery.

It's hard because I really want to be dedicated to the museum and be flexible and generous with my availability there. I know the more time I invest with them, the more quickly I'll be qualified for all the programs and the more hours I'll get, but I can't afford to ask another day off at the bakery and sacrifice 9 hours for 2 or 4 museum hours. Hopefully, I'll be able to work with my manager at the bakery to get an optimal schedule for both jobs.

2) Brett and I drove all the way to Albany this weekend to eat at the nearest Fuddruckers. (Very good. Probably not worth a four hour drive...) Since we were out there, we checked out a few of the comic stores in the town and one of the yarn shops. (Very good and certainly worth a four hour drive) The yarn shop was the best I've been too since I went to Three Kittens in Minneapolis. They were at the end of a class when we walked in, so it was pretty crowded and a little hard to look closely at everything without being in someone's way.

My qualifications for yarn shops include a few things:
The overall store layout should be organized by weight or fiber content, maybe by brand, and not by color.
There should be an excellent selection of pure wool, preferably Cascade in a variety of colors.
There should be a dedicated sock yarn section, especially if yarn is grouped by brand.
There should be a good rotating display of yarns unique to the store or area. Local fiber, or small dyeworks.

If a store meets two or more of these qualification, chances are good I will come back again and again, because they meld with the things I think are useful and valuable when choosing yarn.

My only issue with the store was that the owner lady gave Brett a little flak. I know she was trying to be funny and warm, but she said to Brett as she passed, "See? You didn't melt!" I mean, come on, the guy took me to Rhinebeck and spent all day walking around in the cold with me, getting into things just because I did. He bought me Cinderella glass knitting needles and beautiful bone needles. He has a good eye and I know he was looking at the yarn just as intently as I was. He's a pro, and I do think it was a little presumptuous to assume not only that he isn't a knitter himself but that he was scared to come in. Honestly. Give the boys a little credit!