I get it…you want me to post!  Fine.  Its not like I havent been busy with very important life skills like trying to remember how to make toast under a broiler, avoiding moose attacks and planning for student staff training and the opening of residence halls for UAA!!!  Let me tell you, making that toast can be darn tricky.  Even just now I let some get darker than I prefer!  That whole thing about ‘a watched pot never boils’ doesnt apply to toast under a broiler; you have to watch lest it burn to a mighty crisp.  Everything else has been fairly stress-free.

Moose-watch has been eventful.  Sisu is way more curious about the moose than she is wary and she managed to flush a Mom and babies (Cow and calves if you are being particular) out from their settled spot behind West hall the other night.  Right in front of MB who is the RC of West, who, to her credit, ran straight for the bridge and called UPD while Sisu and I backed quickly off and stood across the street.  They weren’t upset for being startled and jsut started grazing again…mainly on the rosebushes at the corner. Such delicate little mouths.  S/He managed to get all the leaves and none of the thorns off that branch.  I know because I looked later on   MB was maybe 15′ away when she took this picture.  S/He is about 4.5′ at the shoulder and has such skinny, wobbly looking legs.  They really are funny looking creatures and you just want to stop and watch them.  Sisu kept pulling and wanting to get closer but every time she barked at them I got nervous and the moose DIDNT CARE.  There were 3 of them and none paid any attention to the barking black and white little predator in their area.  I guess she doesnt smell enough like a wolf to cause alarm and enough like people to cause apathy.  Still glad I had her on the leash though!!

MB and I went to the store not long after that to buy her some boots and, as you can see, she had a bit of trouble getting them off again.  I was laughing so hard I almost couldnt help her.  It was a good evening.

Lately, my apartment has been the scene of an invasion of sorts. And she brought with her all sorts of disruptive friends:

From L to R: The Felted Sheep SWMerino/Tencel and Merino/Silk 50/50 blends, Corridale Natural and Lt. Brown-2 oz each, Merino Top-2oz and Super Angora 2 oz.

I’ve already dove into my survival plan for dealing with these, these…these…oh hell, these lushious, beautiful, perfect fibres and I am loving every moment of them.  I stared with the SW Merino Tencel from my friend, K who is The Felted Sheep and who I met at my first day that I went to the Saturday Market in downtown Anchorage.  I originally planned to have J send me my drop spindle after I saw and bought those rovings but then fate stepped in and threw Ladybugs at me.

For those of you who are still wondering what the heck I am talking about and why ladybugs have anything to do with yarn and roving:  Here:

Meet the Ladybug. Its a spinning wheel by Schacht Spindle Co and is fantastic.  You can read all about her HERE. I was torn about buying her, really, I was.  I didnt know if I really wanted to get into spinning as a ‘real’ hobby and really didnt know if I wanted to shell out the money for her.  I was borrowing my friend SYs’ Louet s10 in Pelican and while I really liked spinning, I wasnt sure if I wanted to continue doing it all the time.  Would it replace knitting?  What about dyeing?  When could I do it?  Its expensive!   All these questions and more and in the end, I was lead by the fantastic community over at Ravelry to a Ladybug.  I knew that I liked spinning on the Louet s10 but I didnt like the single treadle part because of the dead time on the wheel.  I needed a double! (and I’ve never said that before!)  I considered a Babe wheel because I really liked the inexpensiveness of the wheel and, really, how cool would it be to have a spinning wheel made of PVC?  But, after reading more reviews and advice from Ravelers, I went with a wheel that I could spend more time on, instead of  spending less but needing to upgrade in the nearer future.  I already knew that I could spin well on a Louet but then, I couldnt find anyone nearby who stocked them or had them in a price range that I was willing to get into!

Long story short, I found  a wonderful woman here in Anchorage who is a Schacht dealer (kind of like a crack dealer but with lots more fibre floating around).  She is the owner of Far North Fibers and runs a shop out of her home.  She also does natural dyeing and, wow, let me tell you how beautiful her yarns are.  Those colours are amazing and I can only admire and drool.  She was having a dyeing session in her driveway yesterday (when I bought the Corridale, Merino and Angora) and the ladies involved looked so happy and were having fun despite the drizzle coming down.  Anyway, last Saturday, she came over with my ‘bug and I took her for a test spin.  I was pretty nervous about spinning double treadle since I never had and really scared that I wouldnt remember what to do.  It was like coming home again.  My feet fell right into the rhythm of treadling and as I held the fiber, my fingers knew exactly what to do.  I drafted and spun, all the while talking to PG about what I was liking and what a comparison to the s10, my only other experience with wheel spinning.  After a bit, she stopped me and came over to see what I had been spinning and said something to the effect of, ‘you already know what you are doing, dont you!’.  I looked down at the product of less than 10 minuets work and saw beautiful, even,VERY thin singles.  I was, honestly, amazed.  I was never able to spin less than fingering weight singles before .  There was just something about this weel.  I was spun and I used my first paycheck to buy her.

So now my life is Sisu, knitting, spinning and Residence Life.  Yes, I have found the time to balance all 4.

And I have even found time to enable my own stalker, AlaskanMama.  She is buying a Ladybug now too.  Now that is the real meaning of a fibre-y life.  To be enabled and enable other.  My life is good, especially since now I will have a spinning buddy   Thanks A.

There has been so much going on for me for the past week, I cant believe it.  I’ve had my first few days off of work in over 3 months and took full advantage of the ability to sleep in, lay about and knit when and where I want to and take Sisu for a walk on the tidal flats when the tide is out, regardless of the plane schedule.  That was last week and I loved it.  I still love it.

Since I phoned Skeins and found out the good news about my yarns, Nancy sent me a list of the colourways  that she would like to have restocked so while I had to fill in at work on Monday, yesterday, I dyed like a madwoman.  7 colourways, 28 skeins, 8 hours.  Ouch.  But, I caught up on podcasts and while my feet hurt, I loved every moment of the process.  And I ran out of blue dye right at the end so that is perfect for my move situation.  I’m going to restock as soon as I get there with another round of sock blanks and dyes.  I really do love dyeing, especially right now as I am knitting with some!

Since I prefer the DK weight, I dyed for myself a skein of Otter in the DK weight a few weeks ago and once I finished my slippers…

…though they still need to be shorn and get a bottom coating…I started to knitting on socks.  My Otter socks are going to be 3×1 rib socks and I am knitting them on my 3mm Harmony DPN’s.  While I love my Harmony needles and I wouldnt trade them for anything, I cant ever seem to knit without creating ladders when I use DPN’s.  I love using 2 circs or magic looping because I never have ladders but it doesnt matter what I do, I always have ladders with DPN’s and its enough to make me want to pitch them all.

12 more days before my move…I am getting more excited/nervous as the days go by!

Its pretty ironic that I am titling this post “Nerves” when one of the things that is giving me tummy flutters is my final exam on the Nervous system.  I have taken 2 previous exams and have done just fine on them so why I am so jittery about this one, I really dont know.

Ok.  Yes I do.

Not only do I have this test to take today but I am going to hear about a job that might take me away from Pelican and up to Anchorage for a year.  It is such a great opportunity but boy, does it bring up huge questions, concerns, feelings and also makes me want to bring up my breakfast.  It would be such a huge thing that I cant even go into it all here and I dont want to until I know if I have the job or not because I dont want to jinx it…or maybe I do and I dont really want the job at all and want to stay in safe, little Pelican and continue working for the Seaplanes.  Nope, dont wanna do that but I just am nervous and nothing has happened yet!  The deal is, they offered the job to a guy who has a girlfriend who really doesnt like Anchorage (has been there a year) and she wants to go back to California.  So she says, take the job and stay but I am going back to Cali. and I would like it if you came with me.  So he asked for an extension in the decision time and it is up today.  He has to make a decision by today.

Monday.

The same day as my Nervous system final.

And Lab practical.

And the day I want to be able to ship out 36 skeins of handpainted yarn that I dyed, dried and reskeined this weekend.  But I cant send them until I have tags and they are in the mail.  I will fill you in on THAT brand of insanity after my test.  Pictures too, I promise.

And the day before my future in-laws are coming back to town with their pets.

And the day that I am moving from the house that I have lived in to a large boat in order to circumvent any dog socialisation issues.

And the day that I am supposed to adopt a dog from J’s Dad.  A Karelian, just like Sisu who needs a new home and a lot of love and attention.

And the day I am supposed to get more yarn blanks in the mail. To start dyeing.  Because I have at least 24 more skeins to do for this original order. (Yay!)

Can you tell why I am nervous and excited and have so much on my mind that I want to burst and cry and cheer and sleep and generally explode?

No, I didnt spell “dyeing” wrong, thats the one I meant to write. I

I’ve been busy the past 4 days with a project that I love and I hope I can do for a long(ish) time because I really enjoyed doing it…Dyeing yarns.

Last year while fishing I kept taking pictures, trying to catch the beauty of SE Alaska and thinking to myself, “Wow, that would make really pretty yarn colours.” Seriously, that is how much fiber I have on the brain. Anyway, I kept a list and recently decided to take the plunge and buy some dye and blanks and dip my fingers into the dye pots. I painted one of each of my colourways and here they are to show off along with names   ETA: All of the “The …” names are fishing boats in the community.  The Nightingale is mine and J’s and J is out fishing right now on The Alitak!

Clockwise: Top R: Puffin, The Pegge, Brown Bear, The Alitak, Tasha’s X-tra Tuffs, Coho

Clockwise: Top centre: Icy Point, Bald Eagle, Dixon Can, Otter, Inside Passage, King Salmon

L: Waterfalls, R: Glaciers

L to R: Lemesuier Island, The Gold Dust, Survival Suit, Humpies, The Nightingale, The Oceanaire, The Dutch Master

All are more beautiful than the pictures and I would be hard pressed to name the “best” one but I have to say, when I showed BrightonWoman “Puffin” she mentioned a Puffin poem and I, in all my dorkyness, perfected over the roughly 22 years that I have had this poem memorized, said:

There Once Was a Puffin

Oh, there once was a Puffin
Just the shape of a muffin,
And he lived on an island
In the bright blue sea!

He ate little fishes,
That were most delicious,
And he had them for supper
And he had them for tea.

But this poor little Puffin,
He couldn’t play nothin’,
For he hadn’t anybody
To play with at all.

So he sat on his island,
And he cried for awhile, and
He felt very lonely,
And he felt very small.

Then along came the fishes,
And they said, “If you wishes,
You can have us for playmates,
Instead of for tea!”

So they now play together,
In all sorts of weather,
And the Puffin eats pancakes,
Like you and like me.

by Florence Page Jaques

I memorized it in 1st grade for a talent show and forgot some of it then in stage fright and excitement and have always had it since. Thanks Mums.

What do I plan to do with all these yarns? Well, sell them for starters They are DK, Fingering and Feltable worsteds and I already have a special order for sock yarn in King Salmon and Otter from a newbie sock knitter in town and I have 2 local stores who are willing to try and see if they sell (me thinks that the cruise shippers might really enjoy) and 1 not so local store who has also expressed interest AND I have feelers out for one other option.

Iffn you want a skein or two for yourself, let me know…I can dye what you want in the way you want!

From BrightonWoman: “I love that song ‘exactly’ at some point I’ll have to take the time to listen to it, but I like those lines ‘I am exactly where I need to be, i need to be exactly where I am” It reminds me of Ecclesiastes and the time for every purpose under heaven… I think too many people get caught up in the past or the future and forget to be in the present, or to live in the now for the now.”

Yes.  Just like that plus the idea that the path to real happiness is within you and only you and is specifically FOR you.  That I can be wonderfully and completely happy with my very rural, slow paced, not hugely important in the grand scheme of this world lifestyle but still be incredibly connected, one of the fastest moving/on a schedule and very important person here in Pelican because, lets face it, if I wasn’t doing it now, there would be no regular travel into or out of here nor would there be 9/10 of the freight or any of the mail.  Not that no one else could step in and do it, but right now, I’m it.  And granted, its not a full time job but my knitting, spinning, helping elders and taking other part time jobs make my world very busy and I just will keep getting busier as the days get longer and longer. (On the side, did you know that it is light enough to see clearly at 5am and then the sun goes behind the mountains at about 7:45 and its dark at 8:30…already!  I forgot how fast this happens in the spring!)

I enjoyed my day off yesterday by gathering seaweeds and then drying them (and will post pictures later today) and Sisu ran like a wild thing on the flats while I did.  She is so funny and is my little clam digger.  She gets squirted by a clam or a worm and then goes crazy digging for them.  She has yet to get one and normally just likes to dig but the squirt gives her a place to do it!

My knitting world is blooming with fantastic yarns…that I spun!  I plied my yarns the other day and then dyed with food colouring and they look just beautiful.  There will be pictures of those soon too   The plied yarn is a worsted weight and I am so proud of myself for how even and well spun that it is.  Yes, I am proudly tooting my own horn!  I’m also getting ready to make a foray into dyeing on a larger scale and have quite a few blanks and pots of dye coming in and will gladly tell  you all about it once things are moving the way I want them to.  I dont want to jinx anything but I have some good ideas and if they come out half as well as I can see them in my head, they will be great.

I have always loved spring time.  The new grasses, flowers poking up from the cold ground, trees budding, all that fun spring-y type of stuff.  Not to mention that its warmer, there is less snow and, would you look at that!, there is SUNSHINE!  We only got Spring for 3 days here before we reverted to winter but I did see some very happy eagles basking in the sun.  Like this one While in Sitka, J found something that is fantastic and that I had been talking about wanting for a little while now.  Before I really got into the hat knitting she just seemed like a frivolity but seems more and more necessary as the hats go on.  Without further adiu, Meet Marsali!  She is an adventuress who often is looking for a way to warm her very cold ears but always wants to look stylish too!  So she wears Stranded Hats!  This season KFD has come out with some new designs and she is modeling the first two of the season:  A08-182 and

B08-188 Both are fantastic and I will be hard pressed to sell either.  Especially B08-188 because I just LOVE that white on the purple.  I chose the white (over my normal black contrasting colour) after BrightonWoman suggested it to me and chose 188 because it was looking so very dark in the ball.  It was the right choice and the hat is perfect to wear with just about everything and is long enough to wear with a pony-tail up and STILL be covering your ears.  I hate the creeping-hat syndrome and swear that none of my hats will have that problem!

Sisu has been so patient with all this hat knitting and picture taking but every once in a while she chimes in with a very expressive whine that says, “Can you drop the knitting?  I wanna play now, Mum!”  So we do and that red ball you can see is a favorite plaything just lately.  Play sessions and 3 miles of walkies a day keep my Sisu happy…me too, because I dont think that I could be happier.  I hope you are happy too.

For a little break from the world of the boardwalk, I decided to take a trip into Juneau.  Well, that and I wanted to take Sisu to the vet, get her up to date on her shots and get spayed.  Please, if you have comments about the cruelty about a spay, ie removing organs and the necessity of all animals to be able to reproduce, keep them to yourself.  I would rather not lose her during whelping because of lack of a vet if something went wrong.  Anyway, here I am and here I may be staying for a bit longer.  There are plenty of crazy people who want to get from Juneau to Pelican and because I fly for free, I get bumped for paying customers (Of course!).  Its just fine by me because it gives me more time to enjoy the view from R and C’s living room, Sisu more time to recover before getting on the plane and, naturally, I can enjoy more time knitting…while watching the Food Network!!  I love the Food Network and I could watch all day long because of the mad varitey of shows that they play.  Its not all recipies but also entertaining, history and challenges with the added tang of different presenters personality.  I swear, if I had cable at home, I would be stuck between Discovery and Food all the time.  My only downside to cable is that they dont have PBS and if I could have those and NBC, ABC, FOX and CBS, TV would be perfect.  I dont need all those other channels.  Heck, if I could have PBS only all the time TV life would be perfect.

I’ve been working on my second sock of the Cherry Blossom socks that you can see in a previous post and they really do go up fast.  I like working in DK/sport because of that and the fact that its just so nice to have thick squishy socks.  I know that some people dont like wearing thick socks because their shoes arnt fit for them.  Me?  I wear welly-like boots nearly all the time and they need all the comfort help that I can give them.  The extra cushion is perfect and, to me, cute socks are like cute panties; only certain people see you in them but you feel special and good all day wearing them!

 Speaking of yarn (and when do I not?), I found some Malibrigo Chunky on sale at the LYS here in Juneau and just fell in love.  It is so pretty and as soon as I get home and can take pictures of it, you can see it too.  I bought 12 skeins of handpain in all different colours and plan on making a blanket.  My plan is to make squares with garter stitch edging and then plain stockingette centres.  I want to alternate K, P, K sides “out” on the first row, then P, K, P on the second, repeating for the 3rd and 4th, so that there is no “wrong” side of the blanket, just alternated.  Pretty smart if you ask me   I cant wait to show you all so you can drool too!!!

This morning I had to do something scary to something that I love.

I cut my knitting.

No, this wasnt the dreaded steeking because you KNOW that I would have gotten much more worked up and had to talk about it more than “Hey, guess what I did this morning!” Nope, I had to lengthen a sock.  I cast on on Monday morning as I was administering a test to a 5th Grader.  You know the drill:  Here is your test book, do NOT open it until I tell you to.  Fill in the bubbles with your #2 pencil and dont make marks outside the circles.  Here are the directions and you have 40/25/55/30 minuets for this section.  You may begin now.  This is a boring job most of the time but when there is only one student taking the test, there is no one he can ‘cheat’ off of, talk to or generally mess about with so there is no real need for me to pay more attention than to the clock counting down the seconds he had left.  The kid is fantastic and the test went so smoothly AND I finished the first sock of the pair….except…This is what I had left from the first half of the skein.    Its Cherry Tree Hill Supersock DK in Cherry Blossom and I am in LOVE.  I am a huge fan of CTH anyway and when I found that Sheri has the DK, I had to try some.  It has all the joy of the perfect twist and colours of the fingering weight but its DK and that makes it all the better for me.  I divided the full skein into 2 equal balls so that I could knit the legs as long as I could.  Anyway, I knit this plain, top down stockinette sock with about 5 rows of 1×1 ribbing at the top.  I made the leg 6″ long before starting the heel and that picture shows just how much yarn I had left over from the first half of the skein.  I went to 6″ because that is what most patterns say that I, as a large, ski-footed woman, should do.  Um, No.  The foot fits perfectly and I dont want to have a pair of baby socks left over from anything!  So I went looking for some help.

There was NO WAY on earth that I was going to frog the whole thing back to the leg and keep going because I still wouldnt know how much further I could go without running short on the toe.  And because I worked this sock top down, I couldnt easily unpick the cast on row and I know better than to run half a stitch short by picking up the cast on edge.  These socks are my test runs before starting on my Pickle socks and I want to use all the yarn possible on those!  So I searched on Ravelry to find out how to lengthen an item.   While I didnt find anything specific about lengthening a sock, I did find a link HERE.  Oh. My. Gosh.  This person is amazing.  Everything I ever wanted to know about the technical side of fixing/adapting knitting was and is here.

So I follow her instructions and did this:

   I went just below my ribbing and snipped a stitch.  And then I had to steady my hands before moving on because, Wow, cutting knitting is a rush.  Not in a good way, in a ‘I’m going to be a sobbing mess if this doesnt work!’ kind of way.  No need to stress though, because it all worked perfectly!  A few stitches into it and I am not only picking up like a pro but I am learning so much about the anatomy of knitting.

  Because I was pulling back one stitch at a time, I could see exactly how the yarn wove through each loop and how each loop connected to each other in different rows and how cool is that!!!  It stopped being scary and started being fun and easy and then  it was over!  I had done it!  There is a separate band of ribbing on the size 0 circs and all 48 stitches on the Harmony DPN’s.  (Which, by the way, I LOVE!)

So last night I knit round and round and now the length is 8.5″ and I think that I have enough yarn to go to 9.5″ and then do a bit more ribbing before grafting the original ribbing back on.  I’m not scared of grafting and after this, I dont think that I will be scared of steeking the Vail sweater when I get to it or ever cutting into my knitting to fix some problem or another.  It wasnt so hard or scary when I think back on it, just not something I would ever do with caffeine in my system!

Whats that neat looking tin, heart patterns and that hint of red the the corner of that picture?  It’s my last Woolgirl Sock Club package!   The yarn is ‘Blush’ by Zen Yarn Garden, the little stitch marker is a sweet heart with a tiny flower by WeeOnes (who makes just amazing stitch markers, you really should go see her Etsy store).  The bag is waterproof, has a large pocket and a zippered outer pocket and the shoulder straps are the drawstrings and I really, really like it!

More knitting later…I want to update you on my Ribby Cardi Sleeves too.  And FYI, I still dont have running water at my place, despite all the warm weather.  Hopefully today though…I always dwell in hope and I pray you do too!

So about a month back I received an email that said that I won a prize from another blogger who was running a “donate to Heifer Int. ” contest. Rules? Make a donation, let me know, you’re in the running! So I let her know about my yearly donation and I was in the contest…and won one of the prizes! It was a shawl pin, hand made and exclusively designed for me by the fantastic woman who runs the ThatLoganChick Designs Etsy shop. She asked me about what I liked and disliked and said that as soon as she could get the beads and create my pin it would be in the mail from Alberta, Canada. I was so excited about the possibility of soon getting a shawl pin I even pulled out MY shawl and did a shell! Well, yesterday we had a break in the weather and FINALLY had a plane (it had been a week) and there, waiting for me at the post office was a box much larger than I expected that had come all the way from Alberta, Canada! Go and see what she sent me!! My flickr has the pictures as well as the other fun stuff that the mail plane brought me.  I think that I just might have to cast on in that lighter Treking XXL tonight.  Not like I dont have enough on the needles already!

On my workout path, I am doing so well!  I have managed to workout 6 days a week for at least 70 minutes a day for over a month now and though I am too scared to see what the scale says, I know that fantastic things are happening to me.  First of all I am loosing my, um..pooch?  I dont know what else to call it!  Its that fantastic layer of fat right below my belly button and right above my girly bits and for years it has plagued me.  While I was really active in Cardio Kickboxing I had it way reduced but over the last 3 years it was slowly creeping back.  Not any more!  I can stand up straight and see my…well, lets just say I can see everything below my belly button (and I could always see my toes!)!!   This morning I had the dreaded task of having to put on a clean pair of jeans.  As always, I dreaded it.  That too tight feeling that every pair has unless it is a size or two big?  Yeah, that one was nonexistent in my pair of 12’s.  Yes, in my 12’s.  1-2.  I stuck my legs in, pulled them up and buttoned them without one single tug, moment of breath holding or roll of fat.  I was/am so excited that I even woke J up and made him look and admire me.  He was suitably impressed so I let him go back to sleep but man, am I ever excited.  I bought them August 2006 but they had been getting slightly tighter from then onwards, mainly from my lack of regular exercise from that month on.  I had done Tae Bo with students the year before but just didnt do it again during the 06-07 year.  They became more loose during the end of the 07 school year and the 07 fishing season but were never as comfy as they were in August 06 or as perfect as they are now!!  I look better in them now than when I bought them!

I know that I love to run and I started a new programme where you slowly build to running for 30 min straight and then I want to work up to a whole hour.  Since I was already running for 20 minutes straight, I skipped to week 7 of the 10 week 30 minute plan (walk 1 min, Run 9, Rpt. 2 more times) and did just fine.  J was wondering if this would make me lose milage and/or speed but I did 2.7 miles so that means that the whole things was just under a 10 min mile (6 mph).  Not shabby at all!  The girls and I did a bellydancing video and we are all better at it now than when we started.

I’ve finally got my workout buddies convinced that we need to do a hard cardio workout at least once per week instead of strength training and more not quite cardio workouts…FINALLY.   I started running because I knew that I just wasnt getting the cardio that I need to reshape my body but they felt that any workout where their muscles got tired was cardio enough.  The only thing that convinced them was their Wednesday workout where they almost quit part way thru the Tae Bo workout that they hadnt done in about a month.  I had been saying how important it was to keep up the cardio but they didnt listen to me…now they listen to their bodies!  They were both at a plateau so hopefully this cardio change will give them the boost that they need.

Basics of Rewarding a Knitting Fisher:

I’m a knitter.  Ok, so that is a very “Duh!” comment but its true and needed to be stated so the rest of the post makes sense.

I’m not a clothes person or a shoe girl, I have enough of each.  I dont like a lot of smelly things like perfume and bath stuff is, sadly, mostly unusable because I dont have a tub to enjoy bubbles in.  Owning movies doesnt hold appeal to me (I think I have 10 DVD’s and those are ones I have watched so many times I have them memorised), especially with Netflix.  I’m not a computer nerd, gear junkie or a fanatic about anything other than the following three things.

What I do like is good food, books and yarn.  I love to cook and eat and not cooking and eating.  My favourite restaurant while in college was the one that let you grill your own steak and had a salad bar.  I make dinner every night and we rarely eat the exact same meal twice in a month with the exception of Korean style curry which both J and I love.  Here in Pelican though I have no place to eat out so that treat is out of the question.  J can cook but I, and he, would rather I do it.   Getting good ingredients is a challenge with spotty plane service due to poor weather so being exotic with my cooking is also a challenge.  Unfortunately, you are never supposed to use food as a reward for any kind of good behavior so that option is out.

Books are a passion but they can be heavy and unless I really, really love them, I try not to buy any.  I dont want to take up the space in my suitcase of “stuffs” and besides, there is a library less than 750′ down the boardwalk.  There are also other voracious readers in this town (you kind of have to be), and they are more than willing to share their much loved, just read once books with you, provided that you bring them back.  I have no problem with this arrangement and have yet to a) not return a book and b) find and read something that I can live without owning.  So books are now out.

All things fibery, well, I cant live without those.  I love yarn and roving, the patterns used to transform simple string into a garment or accessory, the tools used to make the strands of sheep fuzz into yarn and then turn the miles of yarn into said garments and accessories….everything.  I can justify buying any of it because a) it will turn into something eventually and replace a store bought something thus not taking up suitcase space, b) its entertainment AND function.  Who can say the same about going bowling or to the movies?  Heck, I can even take my knitting there if I want! and c) its pretty AND functional.  How many pairs of cute wool socks would be too many when you spend days in rubber boots?   How can you knock a beautiful wool hat if you can feasibly wear it from August to July, heck all year round here?  How many outdoors-y things are made for men and women are left with either very expensive or very drab/ugly warm/functional/poorly fitting clothes that were originally made for men?  In what other craft do you only need your own two hands, two needles and a mile of string to make something that is perfect for your own body?  Like I need to convince anyone who reads this blog of the passion which is knitting (well, maybe my sister and any other stray muggles that come around).  As a reward, this would be perfect.   But…

I’m on a sock yarn diet.  I have about 24 skeins of lovely sock yarn and I want to make something with each and every skein.  A pair of socks, from each and every skein.  While I love having them all to fondle and admire, I hate that they are sitting in a box.  I want them out and about and admired as the very cool pair of socks that I knit!  So no more sock yarn for a while…at least until I get 20 skeins out of the way.  I dont want to sell them (sacrilege!) or give them away (horror!) so my last option is to knit them up.  This I am OK with.  So no rewarding myself with sock yarn.

Sweater yarn is bought for the entire year already.  I am fully planning that Vail will take me a HUGE chunk of the year and though I have the back done for the Ribby Cardi, there are still the sleeves and both fronts to go.  I cast on for a EZ saddle shoulder seamless sweater and wow, does it take a while to get around 210 stitches.  This too will take a while and then the Simple Cardi will eventually get started, probably once I finish both the RC and the EZ-SSSS.   So no more sweater yarn is needed because I have no more time for sweaters until 2009, maybe 2010!  Needles?  Check, I have the Options and the Harmony DPN set.  Patterns?  Check, I have another year of IK

What is left for a girl to reward herself with?  Give me some help people!  I am making all these changes in my life that I want to stick with because I can already see good changes happening to me.  HELP!!!   I like to travel but is that a sane reward?  Maybe for a final reward but not for the steps along the way.  Just….HELP!