Friday, January 27, 2012

Full service LYS

Today I had some time to myself so it was time to hustle by my favorite local yarn store, Knot Just Knits.  I'm looking to refashion a denim skirt and halter with a pretty funky afghan pattern. I forgot one item, and here Elizabeth is, delivering it to me at a swim meet in downtown Chicago....that's a great shopping experience!!!! Check it out, downtown Oak Park!!!


Sunday, January 22, 2012

Take that, Mama!

This is what i got in response for asking the one to get a shovel out on friday afternoon.

Can I go ahead of you, ma? I'm too fast!
Glorious winter continues! Finally! A storm  that keeps us under the covers for sufficient days on end! This is what we truly need in order to get ready for everything that comes next.  So how do we celebrate at the land of un-encumbered-ness? Well, as I've alluded, we're now living with an adolescent, so the gloves are off.  Whatever tricks Peter and I had devised up until now to get our kids to behave the way we see fit, well, those tricks are coming around in full circle.  We have a glimpse of what we're looking at for the next quite a few years, and it might be rough going.  So how do we deal with this stress and still remain unencumbered?  Laugh out loud, talk, and go skiing!!!! Yes dog!!! Look at little one on the skis! We're ready for the next phase, no problem.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Get this girl some outdoor sports, hills, and fun!!!!

Happy.
 A girl after my very own heart. I went to pick her up after two hours on the sledding hill (yes, we have a hill here in OP), and as soon as we got home, there was a voice mail waiting from another friend. Does she want to go the the sledding hill (again?). Yes...of course!!!! She ate a plate full of rice fried with egg and mushroom, a nice looking orange, and poof!  Swept away for more fun outdoors (not to mention the tough two hour pool workout this morning).
I've always said, "This kid shouldn't have ever left Vermont."..but here she is. The only reason I bothered to bring the camera was that sinking feeling that there are only so many more times that she's going to go to the sledding hill, say, as a kid.  After all, with this year's growth spurt she barely fits the snowboarding pants we bought last year, and she's very nearly my height.  Where is the time going?
Obviously, it's a human-built hill, but it's steep and icy, all
that's necessary.















Maybe that's why I'm so nostalgic for Vermont these days.  Those first three years were truly magical, and we had so much time ahead of us, so we thought.  I have to be careful what I say around here about LBA (Life Before Ashby).  Ashby , ever the articulator of human emotions and relationships, reminds me that it is hurtful for her to hear about how idyllic it was when we lived in our ranch house in Burlington and biked with the burley and etc...so...shh... here are a few shots of my "baby", who, for the moment, doesn't mind yet that I photograph her.

Church Street, Burlington (no cars!!!!!)
Shelburne Triathlon 2002

Monday, January 2, 2012

Did we survive the holidays?

OK, it's not as if I spent all of the holiday season crocheting, but the time away from usual routine does allow a gal to complete some long standing projects.  Shawl #2, finished and blocked this morning.  Something about this shawl, I must admit, says: "beware of seriously skilled hooker".  Take, for instance, the lace work, the fine yarn (that would be LACE weight, or otherwise known as ZERO) the fastidious adherence to pattern, and, well, the seriousness of it all.  In fact, I threw the thing on today and had to take off all the regular clothes that I wear (oversized flannel shirt, thick brown crochet skirt, scarf, and hat.  So what does this mean?

Photo credit: Peter

Yes...it needs cropping, but look at our fantastic new shelf!!!

I'm trying to take it all in stride, lest I veer down the "wrong" crochet path.  Take, for instance, the very magazine that I found this pattern in.  Sometimes I look at the photos of yarn, patterns, models, the whole nine yards, and I feel the consumptive pull that is the very thing that I was trying to get away from when I resumed my yarn work.  Well. Duh.  Just like triathlon, cooking, parenting, music appreciation, house-improving, and every single other thing that touches our modern lives, there's somebody out there better, faster, more beautiful, more clever, and probably posing on a mountainside with a long flowing head of not gray hair with a really nice looking frock that could be modeled in the sundance catalog or garnet hill or wherever we want to be when we grow up and finish the work of accumulating the things that we think we want.  


This is more like it....I am learning that we're supposed to take pictures of handwork that enable the viewer to actually see the product.
So I'll go ahead and say it: it's January 2nd at it's time to assess or look forward or whatever it is we want to do when we turn the page.  I want to make every kind of crochet that ever existed. I don't want to be the best, and I don't even want to do one sort of crochet really well, but the other day when I read about crochet socks from Tajikstan, I thought to myself: "I have to make me one of those socks!".  So that's it, pretty simple. It's that simple desire, like reading all of Cormac or Joyce Carol Oates or like working one's way all the way through Prime Suspect or The Wire or whatever show ever mattered to us.  So, in the coming years, I can expect to keep on plowing through projects, and try not to get too bogged down in that afghan that can cover soldier field (remember the sweater that ate Oakland?), but we'll get there....or at least die trying.