smooch

Among the things I love about Brett...


When he really cares about you he's not afraid to show it.

Lakefront

Brett's parents, aunt and uncle were in town for a couple days this last week and it was lovely to have the company. We were scheduled to look at a couple houses with a realtor (which was a huge, huge bust) so the family tagged along. Afterwards, we all went to the Lakefront Restaurant for a nice dinner (the duck and the scallops were particularly awesome).

The engagement ring had just come back from the jeweler after being resized, so I got to show off the bling to the very appreciative ladies and tell them the story of how Brett proposed. It was a beautiful day and we were finishing dinner at sunset, so I asked if they would mind taking a picture or two at the spot where Brett actually got down on one knee. We were harassed for aparently "looking funny" in the pictures, but I think we got some good ones. Here's my favorite:



I'm gonna marry that man!

Sunday in the Park with Brett

To start off with: I'm writing this post Monday night, June 2nd, but I am setting it to auto-post in two days because this is An Important Post that I do not want to miss for any reason and because it will give me a deadline of two days to tell as many people as possible about the Important Stuff before this automatically goes live.

When I moved to New York, I moved in the company of a guy. Named Brett. Brett and I met when we were both assistants at the 1900 farm at Living History Farms in IA. We started hanging out pretty much right after I started working there and we got close really fast. It wasn't long before he was my best friend in Des Moines and the one with whom I spent most of my free time. I liked him, but we always made it clear that it was a friendship and that neither was looking for the complications and strings of a "relationship."

When he finally got the job at the Hall of Fame, I was thrilled for him, and I was even more thrilled when he asked if I was going to come with. The way he said it made it seem so obvious that that was what should happen that I said, "of course." We packed up a U-Haul, and drove across the country to our little rental in Fly Creek and he, the animals and I have been a happy little family ever since.

Gradually, the feel of the relationship had changed in little ways. We articulated the fact that we loved each other. We missed each other terribly when he or I had to go away. We bought a vaccuum cleaner together. He put a picture of me on the background of his phone. Nothing ever felt weird, or obligatory, or bad. If anything, when I noticed these changes, it was to be amused at how happy they made me.

Last night, we took a drive down to Oneonta, as we occasionally do, mostly to get rations at the Big Box Store and for an excuse to be out of the house. The day had been really pleasant and the drive to Oneonta was equally nice so I was feeling pretty darn content with life by the time we headed back towards Cooperstown.

As we listened to the Plain White Tees's, "Delihla" on the way home, Brett said he wanted to take a detour into town and look at the lake for a little while. It was chilly, but the idea of a quiet dark lake sounded pretty soothing, so I was up for it. We headed to a our favorite local park with the bronze statue of a hunting Indian and his fathful pooch and benches that all face the lake. We sat and cuddled up for warmth and Brett started talking about how he had been thinking and he had something important to ask me.

(I got a little butterfly in my stomach.)

He told me he tried hard all day, but he couldn't find a ring to give me. Then he got down one knee and said he loved me, wanted to spend the rest of his life with me and asked, "so are you going to marry me?"

I was completely and honestly floored, but I said "of course," because, it seems like the aboslute undeniable right thing to do. Of course I want to marry him, because I love him more than he can guess. Because he helps me happy and helps me be who I am. Because I can't think of another man I have ever felt this way about before. Because I want to be there for him and know he'll be there for me for as long as we both shall live.

Hey guys,

Last night, I got engaged!!

Re-Branding

I think shmooze is a terribly dirty word and I'm not fond of Networking either.

To help get my fiber company off the ground on the right foot (without mixing too many metaphors) I've been doing a lot of reading and research. The library in Cooperstown is a little underwhelming when it comes to books on business even remotely related to starting a company where your main product is your creativity. What I need is literature targeted to artists and mostly I've found that online.

In particular Havi, of "The Fluent Self," has plenty of interesting and encouraging things to say about having your own business. She talks about addressing your personal issues so you can move on and do Good Things. Her writing reminds me of "Eat, Pray, Love" and often advocates a sort of spiritual approach to business, wrapping up meditation and lessons on loving yourself so that you can be unhindered in bringing Your Thing to the world.

Lately, she's been talking about relabeling corporate terminology so that you can get rid of the negative feelings you have towards a proccess or a business essential and make it, basically, more friendly and easier to approach. For her "marketing" is the big bad swear word.

I don't mind marketing so much because it reminds me of a market, like an agora or a forum- an exchange of ideas and goods to the benefit of all. But being a naturally shy person, networking scares the the pants off of me. I know part of my terror is the fear of being judged. A social situation where I would also want to be selling my creativity and having all that judged too? I get clammy hands just at the thought of it. But I think to myself, "what would Havi say?"

Well, probably something like fear is my personal biggest block that will keep me from achieving what I want. That I need to figure out what that fear is doing there and why I have it. What is its point? I should try to accept that I am afraid without beating myself up about it.

Accept that I have fear and that it is something I have created to protect myself from the pain of rejection, of not being good enough. Accept that while the fear is trying to keep me safe it's also keeping me from facing the adversity of criticism and coming out of that adversity stronger in my own sense of self. It's keeping me from being successful in bringing My Thing to the people who want My Thing. And it's hurting me. So today I'm going to say to my fear- "Thank you for wanting to keep me safe. But I got it from here."

And I'm going to relabel "networking."

In the Meantime...

Enjoy the happy kitty fluff.

The Listing Habit I get from my Mother.

My first day off in a week and a half! I'm not quite organized enough in my head to sit down and write you all something cohesive, but I miss chatting with you when the internet decides to only work sometimes. I will write you points.

A. The garden has recovered and is enjoying New York spring. Lettuce, sunflowers, and radishes (thanks for the seeds, Aunt Karen) are up and the tomatoes and peppers are in and doing well.

B. The job at the bakery is great, but the owner encourages snacking and I'm going to have to control myself better than I have been.

C. Being tired and hungry when I get home from work at 9pm has lead to some pretty destructive food habits. All I have been craving is fresh, tasty stir fry, skewers of chicken satay, and giant salads topped with juicy grilled chicken, but all I have been eating are bags of chips and pints of Ben and Jerry's. I've never been one to believe that strict diets are healthful, but mine needs serious whipping into shape. I want to modify my diet to fit with my work schedule, or I will not fit into my summer wardrobe.

D. I also need to get more physical activity. With the DVR on the TV, I've got a week's worth of Yoga programs stored and I like them, but I need to do the cardio and weight training too.

E. I have a very persistant internal edit button. I know the edit button is just there to keep me safe from criticism and to keep me from hurting other people, but sometimes I really really hate knowing I'm restricting myself all because I fear external reaction. Nowhere do I feel the Button's hulking presence more than when I'm trying to write for this blog. I started and stopped this post at least a dozen times, worried that anything I said would be boring and unamusing and uninsightful and that I would dissapoint people if it wasn't perfect.

The complete, unfortunate truth is that I'm not perfect. I really need to work on the self-delusion that if I'm not, I don't deserve to be loved and cared for. You who read this blog either care about me and will keep reading regardless of what I do or do not say, or you actually like what I say when I'm being genuinely myself, or you don't read my blog. No one has everleft me a critical comment or writen a dissapointed e-mail but even if they had, I suppose none of what anyone else says or does can change who I am or how I feel about myself anyway- that's all up to me. So all I can do is say what I'm thinking, and work on my Stuff (as Havi says), and not put my own issues on anyone else's shoulders.

F. I knew that if I started with the little stuff and kept writing, that the stuff I actually wanted to articulate would come spilling out. That's how it works. It's my process. All my good papers in college happened that way.

G. August is going to be a big month for me. I have a little start up money now and I'm going to establish my Fiberworks here in Fly Creek Valley. I'll be selling handdyed yarn and authoring patterns. I'm planning to open an online store front through Etsy, that great purveyor of the modern artist and the handcrafter in August, so stay tuned for all the news about little Midwestern Kate building a fiber company.

Locavore

Well, it looks like the late frost did in most of the seedlings I had planted- the cosmos, cucumbers, and cabbage were all done for. Luckily, I think all the broccoli will make it and the parsley (which I covered with pots from the kitchen) wasn't even phased. The moral of the story is listen to the freaking frost warning and cover the freaking plants.

I should have scraped together enough coverings to try to save them, but I honestly thought that cucumbers and cabbage would be hardy enough to survive a little frost. They survived Abigail The Anti-Plant Cat's repeated attempts to kill them by knocking over their planter tray and spilling dirt and baby plants everywhere. What's a little frost compared to a 7 lb ball of fur and teeth? Alas, it was one trauma too many and they are lost.

The seeds are coming up though and in another few weeks we'll have lettuce and radishes for the table. I'm planning a local food party to celebrate Midsummer, and backyard garden salad should definitely be on that menu. The goal is to only serve yummy foods raised or produced within a 100 mile radius, the closer to me the better. I doubt that it will be an inexpensive meal, especially considering I want it to be a small dinner party, but it's something I've wanted to do since moving out here, and I really hope it comes together.

Of course I'd like to serve local meat. I wonder how expensive a good beef roast would be? Should I stick with cheaper chicken? Or go adventurous and get some lamb or rabbit? All these options (and more!) are available at the Cooperstown farmer's market, well within my radius.

My guess is that unless I can find some nearby farmer who grows wheat, I'm going to be severely handicapped by a lack of flour. Given this roadblock I could either use another starch (potato maybe?) or give myself the leeway to follow 1850 rules and let myself use store bought staples. What do you all think? Is that cheating?

dust buster

We bought a new vacuum cleaner.

I had very little to do with the purchase, really. Since Brett brought a vacuum with him when we moved out here, it was pretty much his call. While I was away in the Midwest, it was determined that this minor appliance would no longer make the cut. It was a fairly sad piece of equipment; the brushes didn't really spin and there wasn't much in the way of suction, but it had worked well enough we thought. But that week, Brett called me and said that we would just have to get a new one.

Which, as you might imagine, did not make me terribly happy.

When I got back from my trip, Brett had already done a bunch of research online and pretty much already picked out a model that he liked. We trekked down to the Big Box Store in Oneonta. Feeling a little out of the loop and a little poor, I made some reluctant noises and annoyed faces and I insisted on looking at each of the vacuums they had in stock. The one he liked had a HEPA filter, a pet hair attatchement, a little tornado bucket instead of a bag- it's one serious cleaning tool. Still feeling a little pinched about the price, I eventually agreed with Brett that the one he picked looked best and we stuck it in the cart and headed to check out.

And you know what? He was completely right.

The thing is amazing!

Seriously, I've never been this psyched about an appliance before. We pushed it around the living room and filled the bucket multiple times on the first sweep. We kept pulling the bucket out and looking at it and every time we were shocked at how much dirt we had been living in. It even picked up all the cat fur in the big shaggy carpet upstairs, something the old vacuum never even came close to doing.

The only problem I can see is that being this thrilled and entertained by a freaking vacuum cleaner must mean I'm getting old...

Library

Today, Penelope Knits comes to you from the Village of Cooperstown Library porch where the paint may be peeling from the eight magnificent Corinthian columns, but the air smells of lilacs and a group of ladies sits and knits. No kidding! I showed up after walking around town for a little and having lunch with Brett at the park by the lake and lo and behold there was a group of knitting ladies, chatting about shawl patterns and sharing the local gossip.

I know I should go over and say hi, find out if they're a regular group or what, but I'm shy. What if they think I'm intruding? I'll have to tell you later what I decided to do.

In excellent employment news, I start working at the local bakery tomorrow! Now I have enough regular jobs that I think I should be able to catch my finances up and feel pretty comfortable by the end of the summer. And I know I've committed to the grocery store at least for a while since they've spent all this time training me to work in the office, but I feel like I could quit there come September when (hopefully) I'll be full time employed at the bakery. How awesome!

To make things even more excellent, I pretty much owe the opportunity to the girlfriend of one of Brett's co-workers. She is very friendly and a sci-fi geek like me. I think we're going to get along great.

I'm so happy about this turn of events I could giggle. From complete homesick misery to joy in one week!

Welcome Back

A few quick points:

1. I had an EXCELLENT trip home to Illinois, in which I traveled a total of 1116.4 miles (according to Google Maps) by car around the Midwest and about 1800 miles by plane to and from the Midwest.

2. We've had frost warnings here the last two nights. I planted broccoli, cabbage, cucumber, parsley, and cosmo seedlings a few days ago, hoping that they would be able to survive cool temperatures, but I was pretty sure they wouldn't need to deal with frost. (A danger which was supposed to be over three weeks ago here in the middle of NY, by the way!)

3. I've got lots of patterns in the works over here and I can't wait to have a spare month of bright warm summer days to just sit on a blanket in the sunny back yard, letting the scent of apple blossoms waft over me and and let my creative self go nuts. A girl can dream, right?

To the KC Socks

Dear Socks,

I think I was seduced by the first blush of your heady color work, your strong deep blue, your fanboy charm. All I know is I had to have you.

Now, we both know, the bloom is off the rose and you sit, languishing in my work basket. Believe me, nothing about you has changed. You're still the wonderful, charming socks you were back when I first cast you on. I know we have some issues to address, like getting your color work and your patterning to be a little easier for me to deal with. But I've been so focused on work I haven't really been paying enough attention to you. I've let us drift apart.

It's not you, it's me.

Tell you what, I'll take you with me tomorrow on the plane (and bring a self addressed envelope to send you home in if they won't let me carry you on). We can spend the whole week together and really reconnect. Won't that be nice?

Love,
Kate

Leaving on a Jet Plane

It got cold here again. Boo.

But Wednesday night (if all goes well) I'll be on a plane headed back to the Midwest for my brother's college graduation. And to help set up my Mom's quilt show. And help LilBrudder move into his new apartment. And Mother's Day is kind of an added bonus. It'll be a big trip.

I'm looking forward to being home, but travel always makes me nervous, and air travel especially so. Not that I'm afraid to fly, but I don't enjoy all the ways the whole thing can go wrong. I'm already rehearsing everything that I could screw up so that I can make sue to leave early enough to have time to spare just in case. I've already decided not to take the computer, cause I don't want to hassle with it through security. I always forget to dump my water bottle, or take my keys out of my pocket or something as I'm trying to rush to get my stuff in the buckets and not hold up everyone else in the line. I worry too much about disappointing or inconveniencing these random strangers in line and let the worry of it screw up nights of sleep before hand. Lame, yeah?

Albany is a small airport, though. The last time I was there, it took up maybe 15 minutes to get from the door to the gate, but that was at 3 in the morning and this time I'll be on the latest flight I could get and it'll probably be busier, and I'm limited as to when we can leave by work. I'll have about 45 minutes to get to the gate, which should be enough (barring me screwing up), but I'd feel better with another half an hour. I'm actually nervous that I'll miss my flight.

Unstuck.

Yesterday I found myself unexpectedly checking out Facebook, that social networking site of great repute, and who did I happen to bump into but Rebecca, my freshman year college roommate. The Ormsby Girls got together in out here on the East Coast this February and I was devistated to not be able to go, but with money the way it is, there was just no posibility of that kind of adventure. So this conversation with Rebecca was the first time in way too long that I'd gotten a chance to talk to one of my girls about how her life is going.

Rebecca has always been one cool chick. All my best college friends are women of lofty goals and go-forth-and-conquer attitudes. They're working for the New Yorker, doing art therapy, teaching English in Korea, translating family planning services into Spanish, curing cancer, getting Katrina victims back into housing, raising goats in Maine and all together making World Peace seem just a little bit more realistic. I don't believe that without knowing these women I would have even half as much faith in the Goodness of Humanity as I presently do.

So back to Rebecca...

She's always been pretty seriously liberal, in the same intense way she was serious about music and school work. So it wasn't terribly surprising to me when she mentioned she had decided to work with Americorp. But I was thrilled and jealous when she told me she (just today I think) has an installation of photography up for sale in two (!) locations in Portland. Check out her work here. I'll wait.


Gorgeous, right? And to be able to say, "This thing I do with my creativity is worth something and I don't need validation from a corporation to try to get money for it..." the girl has got some gumption.

As always happens when I bump into the Ormsby girls, I got unstuck. They have always encouraged me to look at myself and get constructive. Rebecca sort of kick started me into doing something I've been hedging around for a long while now. Sometimes things just fall into place and it feels a little like that's happening now.

I want to do work I'm proud of. I want to be able to tell my friends that I'm doing something worthy with the talents and skills that I have. I've got a lot of ideas, and I'm working on a feasible model that I can use now as I'm starting a new business and still leave room for expansion down the road. All I can tell you for 100% sure right now is that it's going to be fibery.

I know right now that the hardest part of this whole enterprise is going to be maintaining confidence and not letting fear of failure cripple it before I get going. Can't wait to tell you all about it.

Exploded!

The last three days here have been unseasonably warm in a lovely way. Something I've noticed since working at Kline Creek and the Farms and living here in New York is that spring is completely amazing.

Last year was the most obvious for me. All through the winter the farms staff ran programs that involved being outside long enough for the weather to really register. When all you need to do is run from the office to the car, cold, snow, wind and rain are bothersome, but they don't seep into you the way they do when you're standing outside with a group of 2nd graders for 45 minutes. Teachers, I'm sure you know what I mean. For me, the hardest part of our school programs in the winter was always the outside chores, where we took the kids into the barn to meet the horses and pitch hay, shelled corn, fed the pigs or the cows or the sheep and checked the chicken coop for eggs. With no wrist watch or clock, it was hard to time the chores so that you could get all the education in, but not have a ton of extra time at the end. But I found that I could tell about how long we'd been out by 1) how many toes I could feel 2) how runny my nose got 3) how many fingers I could feel. If my toes went numb before we were out of the barn, I was running slow. If I could still feel my fingers when we went to shell corn, I was running fast. It worked for me.

But when spring came, I can't even tell you how grateful I was for the warm air. I can remember one day specifically as I looked around the farm yard I noticed that the oak trees in the wooded area behind the barn had a faint light green hue, as if they were covered in moss. The baby leaves lightened the color of the branches, but they also feathered the outlines, softening everything in view. I could have sworn that the day before there was nothing, so the color was especially surprising after seeing the trees harsh and dramatic all winter.

The same thing happened here yesterday. There were no leaves. And then the trees just exploded! Now when we drive around, there are trees covered in heavy white blossoms and bright spots of neon green out on the hillsides where a tree or two have woken up. The daffodils have been up for a while, but now they are everywhere. People have planted them in lush beds in their yards, ranks of them have popped up all along the roads, and here and there a single flower nods where a squirrel must have horded the bulb last fall.

Things are really growing now, but mentally it feels as though spring has been here for quite a while. I was ready for spring in February when the snow started to melt. Ever since then it's been a battle of inches, trying to outlast the cold. Each and every day it was a few degrees warmer, and if it was sunny, I was outside digging in the garden trying to get the beds ready for planting. If I had a hotbed set up I could already be eating lettuce. I can see now why spring is so charming to so many people.

Before I started to get closer to the dirt, spring was those two weeks in May when everything bloomed and the air was warm. Now, I can see that it's not the cloying twitterpated season ala Bambi that I thought. Spring takes it own time and comes slowly, enjoying a long and gradual awakening. I can relate to this. Far from the saccharine beauty I usually think of, spring is often awkward, even ugly, full of mud and old dead plant material. But here and there a bunch of wildflowers pokes through the generations of their dead ancestors (as Garrison Keillor observed) and is all the more welcome and beautiful for its rarety.

I like the honesty of this wild spring better than the manicured spring I've been used to.

Also, the yarn dyeing turned out...well interesting. My kettle dyed green was exactly the effect I wanted, but not quite the right color. Too neon for my taste. I also tried a painted skein with blue and green and brown that I like a lot, but also isn't quite what I was shooting for. Pictures when I get to the library.

Guess what I am doing Right Now.


You'll never guess.


Barbara, et al, I am DYEING! Aunt Karen gave me a whole whack of lovely yarn for Christmas and my birthday and I have been doing nothing with it since then. I think I was waiting for the heavens to open and show me the way. Then along came Barbara.

And what did I hear but that of course I could use Easter egg dye and don't be silly food safe coloring won't hurt your cookware and that was it for me.

I'm still nervous about ratios of fiber to dye stuff. All the instructions I've seen are for dry weights of both and I'm using the liquid food coloring that we always used for dyeing eggs when I was growing up. But how on Earth will I ever learn if I don't go ahead and experiment? Reading about the process isn't going to get me pretty homedyed yarn.

So I've guesstimated. I used a teaspoon of vinegar to each half cup of water I put into the pot for acid to set the dye. There are 10 cups of water in the dye pot, but that's just to keep the yarn wet and aid the absorbtion of the the color. I could have used more or less water depending on how deep I needed it.

The yarn I'm dying is some of my first wool handspun and a skein of superwash Bare sock yarn from Knit Picks that Aunt Karen sent me. I'm shooting for a springy yellow green, with a mottled kettle dyed effect to vary the color slightly. 30 drops of green and to balance the blue undertone I noticed when I was coloring eggs, I added about 10 drops of yellow. I'll leave the yarn as it lays in the pot on the stove top and not turn it or fiddle with it. I hope that will encourage a slight variation in the color that will add depth to a finished knit.

It's fun to think about the blank yarn as what I'd like it to be eventually and choose coloring that will compliment that goal. I've got another skein of sock yarn, two of a fingering weight pure wool, and three skeins of Cascade 220.


Update- The dyebath has exhausted and the color is bright. Gonna let it cool down and the rinse in the sink and see what we got!

sprout

These pictures are a couple weeks old now. Gonna be a summer of tasty things! I'm super excited by the cherry tomato plants

Underground

Want to see where I went the other week?


Howe Caverns!

I was surprised by how much I really liked the tour of the Caverns. The brick walkways meant that we could walk through the cave without walking in the very cold and fairly deep underground steam.








The theatrical lighting gave enough light to see all the neat cave formations while keeping the rather of magical atmosphere caves naturally seem to have. The pictures we took didn't do the mood much justice, unfortunately...





Being an interpreter for an educational/entertainment venue, I felt a certain kinship with our rather young tour guide. He must say the same things tour after tour, day after day, but he gave us plenty of enthusiasm. And I learned that Mr. Howe, who originally discovered the natural entrance to the cave around the turn of the century when he investigated what made his cows all congregate on hot days near a certain bush in their pasture, rather than seeking shade elsewhere. He started explored the cave himself and eventually began giving tours for a nickle a pop. In addition to exploring the entire length of the cave (a few miles, as I remember), the tourists's nickle got them a lunch about half way through the cave and a pair of coveralls so they could handle the water and mud. During our tour, I kept imagining those turn of the century spelunkers. I wonder if there were many (or any?) ladies who took Mr. Howe's underground tour in their long skirts and corsets. And how fantastic would those cave formations have looked in lantern light?
I'd say one of the coolest parts of the tour came at the half way point. The tour guides took us in big boats down a passage of the cave completely underwater and pushed us out to a pretty dramatic waterfall. This was the part of the cave damaged by mining and off limits to the public. The light didn't get very far into the depths of this "unconditioned section" but it didn't look like a place I wanted to go. And then they turned out the lights. Our guide mentioned that with no way for natural light to get in, you literally couldn't see your hand in front of your face. When they flipped the lights back on, I, along with Brett and most everyone else, was caught holding my hand in front of my face. Just to check, you know...



We all had a great time, and thought I think I would have enjoyed being able to walk around unsupervised and really enjoy the otherworldliness, but of course that would be dangerous and the Howe Caverns people would be liable. Brett managed to hang back enough to be sort of alone on the way back to the entrance and said it was totally awesome. The last part of the cave was the best part of the actual cave- the Winding Way. It was sinuous and feminine and intriguing and really really beautiful. Because it was so curvy, there were lots of points in this passage that you could have all to yourself. I've always felt happiest in small places full of charming detail tucked into wider landscapes. I felt better and better with each corner I turned. Yay for Howe Caverns!

Pacific Monkey

Pattern:
Monkey by Cookie A. from Knitty.com
Lacier than I was expecting from the photos, I find I don't mind. It seems like a good spring or fall sock to wear with the cute little Mary Jane shoes Mom got me for Christmas.

Needles:
US 2 DPNs. Despite losing one from my best set, I cannibalized a bamboo needle from another WIP to finish the thing off.

Yarn:
Liza Souza Sock! in colorway Pacific
The colorway is a little more flamboyant knit up than I guessed it would be when it was in the skein. I'm super glad I didn't make socks for Dad with this, as I intended to do. He's not really a knitwear guy anyway, but I know he'd never ever wear something like this. I'm not certain where I'll wear them! The pattern is lovely, but just a touch overwhelmed by the colors- I think I'll knit it again but in a light solid or semi-solid color to emphasis the arching lace.

Modifications:
None! The pattern, as is typical of Cookie, is clear and concise and achieves a lovely effect. I enjoy writing patterns and crafting things just to my taste, but it's a great mental break to sit back and follow a pattern written by someone else. Cookie had a different heel construction that I usually do- more triangular and less square which wants to just inch its way down my foot. I guess I have a big fat heel that needs a bigger pocket. It doesn't bother me enough to change it, and with a little more wear, I'm sure that it'll fit great, so I doubt I'd change it when I knit the pattern again.

Knitting Update

Ok Ok. Quickly, now...

No typo brother. My whole argument in White House Green Thumb was that the Obama's garden is a symbol, a piece of propaganda, but that I like what it stands for. I found out yesterday that the White House had a garden before this, but it was out of sight and out of mind up on the White House roof (which is pretty cool). To move it to the highly visible front lawn and make a big deal out of it means it's absolutely for show, but it's also a genuinely Good Thing.

Like Karen said, gardening is good stuff, whether you're looking for pesticide free produce, a productive hobby, cheap food, an outdoor escape, to lighten your footprint on the environment, a scientific challenge, landscaping, a way to spend time with your kids, to show the neighbors how fabulously green you are, etc, etc... Whyever you're doing it, it's good stuff. It's compatible with a huge variety of people and lifestyles. It's an excuse to be outdoors. It's great mild exercise. It provides you with fresh produce which is something we could use more of in our diets. And it encourages respect for where your food comes from.

If there's something wrong with more people doing it, I don't know what it is.


And now for something completely different!

I finished the Monkey Socks last night. I had a sock in progress that I remembered I was using US2s on, so I found a stitch holder and canabalized one of those needles. It's bamboo instead of metal, and relatively blunt, so it was a little bit of a speed bump, but much much easier than resorting to the interchangable circs.

Someone on the Yarn Harlot's blog a while back mentioned how quick a knit this pattern is, and boy they are right. There's something about the short, easily memorized pattern repeat that just speeds this little sock right along. I had the cuff already started, but it only took me two days to finish the second sock of the pair. And that's pretty decent speed for me.

But now all my WIPs are FOs! The Apple Mittens are done, the Monkey Socks are done and I need to start on something new.

I'm looking for caramel colored laceweight alpaca from Lynn's farm at the next farmer's market. Brett's mom, who came to visit this last weekend, thought it would be nice to have something made from the alpacas we visited. The weather was so pretty I switched from the gold cashmere scarf I wore most of the winter to the light blue mohair/silk lace I knit way back in the say. When she saw it, Brett's mom seemed to really like it and asked me to make something similar for her.

Since Brett and I became friends, his parents have been ridiculously generous and kind to me. From the kinds of big generosity of helping us move to New York and buying plane tickets so I could take the time to move my own stuff to the little gestures of a gift card for dinner out, they are constantly giving. They even took me in last Easter when I couldn't make it to my own home. I think a shawl is absolutely in order. She picked out the Swallowtail Shawl from the Fall 2006 issue of Interweave Knits, which I think will look fetching tied under a little jacket, or over a pretty summer dress to keep off the chill on evenings out.

So I'm going to try to pick up about 450 yards and get started on that shawl. If all goes well, it could be done sometime in May. I think I'll also rip out the tank top I started last year and see what kind of yardage I wind up with. Then pick a sweater pattern and see if I can knit a nice cardigan sweater for myself. You know. Something to curl up with in the evenings while I enjoy the valley view from the back porch.

well hello

Dear Lil' Brudder,

My only loyal follower! I knew from the minute you arrived that we were going to get along. Eventually...

As to your comments on White House Green Thumb, I thought they were pretty interesting.
There have been a TON of direct comparisons between the White House kitchen garden and the Victory Gardens of our grandparent's era. Very perceptive of you. You seem to be a little wary of the "water bill" and other costs of growing your own food. Certainly the "Haves" are going to be in better shape to maintain a garden for show, the way the White House Garden is meant to be. They could build a beautiful green house, truck in lots of dirt, irrigate, buy specialized seeds, hire gardening help...and fix lots of things that supposedly make growing your own food really difficult. And if their potato crop doesn't come in, it's not like they're not going to need to worry about feeding themselves that winter.

Though the "Haves" could do all this fancy schmansy stuff, will that actually make their tomatos taste better? Could be, but I doubt it. All you really need to do in order to produce your own delicious cabbage is plant a seed, do a little weeding, maybe take a watering can to it every now and then, harvest and prepare it. Harder than driving to the store to pick one out? Probably. Difficult? No. It's something anyone with patience and a sunny spot in the dirt can do. And so the "Have Nots" are just as capable of producing food for themselves as the "Haves."

When I went for a run today I noticed that every single house (and I am not exaggerating) up here has a decent sized garden somewhere in the yard. This is a relatively poor area and plenty of people rely on those gardens for a lot of their nutrition. And my point is? That the kitchen garden is, or could be, a real source of food for an average sized American family. Beautiful, delicious, sustainable produce can be class blind, beautifully democratic. I sincerely wish for this to happen.

So often when I take stock of American society, I see a culture consumed with self-gratification. We are obsessed with ease and speed. We Tivo our way through commercials, hire cleaning services, send the kids to day care while we work overtime to be able to buy everything we can imagine a need for at the BigBox store down the street. We overindulge and oversimplify complex issues.

And I believe that food, and local food, and homegrown, homecooked food could be our cultural salvation. No, dear brother, I don't expect that every American home will have a cow in the yard, or even down the street. As I mentioned, the Jeffersonian ideal of a self-sustaining American oikos is incompatable with the brilliant science, masterful economics, intriguing philosophy, uplifting theology, thoughtful literature, pleasing pastimes that Americans have produced in our proud national history. If John Adams had stayed a farmer, and not had the leisure to pursue law and politics, maybe America wouldn't even be the country it is today.

But taking the time to pause, and eat well with friends and family, instead of eating a drive through burger alone in the car, could help Americans communicate with each other better and reduce health concerns. Purchasing from producers close to our homes can help us revitalize our rural agricultural communities, trickling down wealth and lifting all boats. Growing some of our own produce could help us not to eliminate the processed goodies we get from the grocery store, but realize the difference between real food and indulgent calories and make informed choices. And I know that I could personally reduce my consumption to what I could grow myself or purchase locally, minimize my food waste, and still maintain a healthy weight.

My diet wouldn't be as varied as it is now. I wouldn't get to eat chocolate or Mc Donalds. But i would survive. $7 goes a lot further in veggie seed than it does in frozen pizza.

So, yeah. Did I make any sense, or did I just talk a lot? I don't even know...