Monday, April 27, 2009

crazy weekend

This weekend was the busiest I’ve had in a while. I felt good waking up both days, which helped my get up and go, and it was gorgeous outside, which made the little part of me that’s been dying all winter bounce back to life.

Saturday I went to the CT Sheep & Wool Festival with Witchy, and wandered around in the sun a little bit. The buildings were a little overloaded with people, and with the way everyone was jostling each other, I was constantly worried I was going to get an elbow in the stomach...and, as most of you can guess, that would have led to me punching someone out...but luckily no one came that close to me, although Witchy got shoved around a few times. I bought my first spinning wheel, a Merlin Tree Hitchhiker Double-Treadle, which I’m very excited about, although there is going to be a learning curve, since the new version is different than Witchy’s old version, so I’m relearning to spin on it, but I’m still doing fairly ok on it. We also picked up a heck of a steal on alpaca fiber, because the person selling it was getting ready to shear her alpaca’s for this year, and needed to get rid of last year’s shearings...I just wish we had grabbed at that when we first walked past, because by the time we got back there, most of it was gone already, but, I’ll live. My last purchase was not spinning related, but was some yummy smelling shea butter soap, as I’m still hoping to win the battle of the stretch marks. The only real downside to the whole experience was the one woman who Witchy was talking to, who I had been pre-warned was hardcore C-F, who looked at me like I was lower than dirt because I would diminish myself by allowing a parasite to take over my uterus. It was annoying, but I will admit I found myself wanting to laugh more than get upset about it, because looking at this woman, I was just happy she was not breeding. She was ugly as hell, and didn’t seem all that intelligent…apparently Darwin was working on this one, because I would not want to see the offspring that could come from her.

We got back to the house, and did some spinning out on the back porch, while I managed to convince her son that I’m pretty much the meanest person who ever lived (which, y’know, I am, but it usually takes people longer than an afternoon to figure it out). I also learned why not to walk in my garage barefoot, as I stepped on a wire where the plastic had worn off, and gave myself a little shock. (that wire got thrown away the next morning) the only reason this concerned me at all was that the little man picked Saturday to not be very active at all, even after I threw some highly caffeinated, highly sugar filled soda down my throat, so I had a couple of small panic attacks, even though I knew intellectually that I hadn’t harmed him. (Yes, I watched the movie Powder one too many times when I was a child)

He made up for it yesterday though. I woke up at 7:30-ish with what felt like an entire circus going on in my stomach, which made me take a deep breath and relax. He proceeded to make up for the day before in about an hour, and then every once in a while yesterday would poke me hard as if to say “here I am!” which is fine, I’d rather get the assurance (even if it is a little painful) any day of the week. Yesterday was yard work day. I got the back porch cleaned up and swept and all the leaves picked up (the irony of the fact that we get more leaves than our neighbors in our backyard, while we have *no* trees is not lost on me) I also got one of the gardens raked out, and determined that I need to find out if home depot or lowe’s rents motorized tillers for our back garden, which is a huge mess, and not something I should be fighting with as I get bigger. I took a few breaks to sit inside and cool off with some water, but the only downside to that is the heat kept getting worse while I was doing that, so after the last one, I went back out, to only be able to stand out there for a few minutes before I started feeling lousy…so I called it a day with the yard work. I went grocery shopping instead, picking up some essentials (and once again proving my love for my husband by getting him a flavor of ice cream that he loves, called fenway fudge...*grumbles about red sox stuff coming into my house*) came home and put some food in my stomach. Soon after I did that, I started feeling wicked overheated, even with the exhaust fan on to give some air circulation, so at about 7 last night, I crawled into bed with a book and my bottle of water. Neither of which lasted long as I passed the hell out. Woke up at 1:30, realized I was still alone in the house (I had gotten some warning that the boy was going to be late, I just didn’t know how late) so I sent him a text asking when he expected to be home...only to hear the motorcycle pull into the driveway a couple minutes later. (I always did have impeccable timing :)) I got up and spent a little bit of time with him, and admitted to him that I’m going to try to either hit the gym or do some walking outside a few times a week, because I have felt much better now that I’m active. And, I’ll even give him credit where it’s due, he managed to swallow the “I told you so” that I could see forming. I may try to find the trail that someone told me is out around my work building, but I’ve also heard that Fisher Cats have been seen around, and after my dad got attacked by one last year, I’m a little gun shy when it comes to them, so a treadmill at the gym, or the track at the high school in my backyard might be my best bet. We’ll see. I know myself well enough to know that I will say I have to be more active, but I do have a tendency to be a couch potato.

Today is another beautiful day, and unfortunately, I’m “stuck” inside but luckily this job allows me to have the windows open so I am not breathing in recycled A/C like I would have been at my old job.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

An intro

I figured it was time to do an intro for this blog. My name is not something i'll be using on here, simply because I'll be leaving this public, and for reasons that I'll explain in a minute, I try not to be too easily identifiable in public spaces. Most of my friends call me T, or Birdie, or apparently, most recently, Sunny. I'm a 28 year old wife of 5 years to a police officer, which is the reason for the anonymity...having someone who's been arrested by my hubby find me online is not exactly my cup of tea. if he is referred to at all in this blog it will be as B, or boy, or hubby. i am currently halfway through my pregnancy with our first child, who will be known on here as A, or gummy bear, or froggie. (what, you wanted us to be one nickname a piece type of people? sorry bout that :))
This is going to be for my crafty blog, so there probably won't be much about either B, or A, and pretty much a lot of talking about my adventures in knitting, spinning, and whatever else i try my hand at.
I taught myself to knit about 2 years ago, and can hold my own with simple patterns, but for the most part i'm still a beginner...so needless to say A will not have a full layette of hand-knitted things...unless my BFF who is an amazing knitter goes crazy, which is always possible :) i've considered learning to crochet, but that's really my MIL's gig, so that has kinda been backburnered.
Spinning is something i started learning about 6 or 7 months ago (with a brief hiatus due to 1st trimester hormone sickness-not morning sickness, because it was an all day affair, but you get the idea) from a friend who will be known as Wytchy (what goes around comes around toots ;-)) on here. i wasn't sure how i was going to like it, but it was something that i figured at the very least would let me complement my BFF & MIL's talents, instead of being in competition (at least in my own mind...because i wasn't really competition at all for either of these women who have been honing their craft for many more years than i have) with them. Once i got past the initial frustration of learning (admittedly, i'm adhd enough that if something doesn't come super easily, i sometimes just throw in the towel) i discovered that i really did enjoy it and once i got going, it was easy to do while carrying on a conversation, or watching tv (see previously mentioned ADHD). I started on a drop spindle, which came fairly easily, and was easy enough to pack up and take it with me (and also was safe to use around both my, and my in-laws dogs) but when i switched to a wheel was when some of the frustration started to set in. Wytchy was a great teacher though, and was willing to help me with even my dumbest questions, but at the same time be very hands off (i'm one of those people that gets very possessive, and if i ask you to help me with something, tell me what to do, don't reach over and touch what i'm doing to show me...i am willing to completely admit that i'm a strange duck...it's part of my charm) I started learning on her Ashford Kiwi and was getting the hang of it slowly, all the while eyeing her Merlin Tree Roadbug with trepidation (the thought of controlling everything with one treadle instead of two was a little bit intimidating). Imagine my surprise recently when I tried it out recently and found it to be a much smoother spin for me, with better results all the way around. I have decided that when we go to the Sheep and Wool Festival in our state in a couple of weeks, I am going to try out the new version of it with the removable second treadle. And...possibly come home with it...cementing B's thoughts that i'm a little insane.
I've been working with pencil roving for the past few months, just to try to get the hang of everything without worrying about the different lengths of roving while trying to learn the ins and outs of spinning to begin with. fairly soon i'm going to be moving on to different types of roving/fleece, and am hopeful that MIL will allow me to spin the yarn for the christening blanket that she wants to make for A.
Ok, this "intro" seems to have gone on forever...kudos to you if you made it this far :) so i'm going to log off and figure out what i should be doing in this crappy weather.