lifelong knitter

OH dear!

Today began with a trip to the veterinary emergency clinic. Not an auspicious start to the New Year (Chinese) of the Monkey. Please say doggie prayers for sweet Tasha. I'll keep you posted.

What DAY is this?

Ever since the eye surgery I have had trouble figuring out what DAY it is. Usually I am the humanoid GPS. I always know where I am, kinesthetically speaking within a degree or two, relative to the horizon. In college they tested a bunch of us to find out why flipping and twisting and flying through the air at high speeds (GYMNASTICS) was calming and made for better test scores in some of us. I'm assuming (yes, I do know how dangerous that is) there is a connection between my need for visual stimulation and cues and my relative lack of centerdness (now THAT word looks weird!) but there is a teeny bit more to it than that. I miss my yoga. I went to the eye doctor and asked (whined, actually) HOW MUCH LOOOOOONGER do I have to wait before I can be upside down? I thought this was a reasonable question. He looked at me in alarm. UPSIDE DOWN? What exactly do you mean? No trapeze, no trampoline, no BatGirl stunts, I thought I made that perfectly clear. Well, yes, you did, but I feel AWFUL. Unbalanced. Oh. He relaxed, and we had a long discussion about behavioral optometry and how Learning is Directly related to depth perception and what percentage of your ocular capacity you operate with. I adore my eye doctor. He is smart, calm, and explains things. sigh. I am still not cleared for takeoff. So, back to the couch and knitting kiwi. If I'm GOOD (now what are the chances of THAT, exactly?) I can resume my yoga practice *with restrictions* in another two weeks. Fourteen days and counting. My kids have always thought that everybody's mama NEEDS to hang from the monkey bars by their knees and sing silly songs. That the beach is the perfect place to do cartwheels until other people get dizzy. We don't get dizzy, we make endorphins. Wheeee! OK, now, where was I? Knitting kiwi. I honestly never thought I would enjoy these long stretches of solid color stockinette stitch, but I am treating it like yoga....when my attention wanders away, which it invariably does, I gently guide it back and breathe....oh, there, that's better. Yes, I am right side up. sigh. TWO MORE WEEKS. I'm almost there.

Why the blog is this color

you are deeppink #FF1493

Your dominant hues are red and magenta. You love doing your own thing and going on your own adventures, but there are close friends you know you just can't leave behind. You can influence others on days when you're patient, but most times you just want to go out, have fun, and do your own thing. Your saturation level is high - you get into life and have a strong personality. Everyone you meet will either love you or hate you - either way, your goal is to get them to change the world with you. You are very hard working and don't have much patience for people without your initiative. Your outlook on life is very bright. You are sunny and optimistic about life and others find it very encouraging, but remember to tone it down if you sense irritation.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

Computer Cleanup

Just before the New Year, I alluded (somewhat cryptically, I admit) to the fact that I would be back with a whole new look. sigh. I am an eternal optimist. I saw the commercials about switching to the mac and thought, yep. It's time. OMG. Let me just say that nothing ever worth having is easy or simple, or as it appears on TV. I have lived with my PC for over a decade now, and while it sometimes loves me back, it is pretty much an *I told you I loved you once, it's right there in SETTINGS, now get me a beer and quit whining, I'm watching the fishing channel* kind of partnership. You know, same old same old. Then along came the ipod and I remembered....oh baby. Remembered what it was like to have someone whisper in my ear, of course you can do that...no problemo. I remembered my first mac. I gave my PC plenty of chances to go to therapy with me, improve the relationship. I took it in for service, had the memory upgraded....it still belches at the table in front of guests and uses a toothpick and says WHAAAAAT? Just before the Blue screen of Death. *Yes dear, I'm listening*. So, first of the year I started to move to the mac. OMG. I LOVE the mac. I do not love the process of going through ten years of digital pictures to try and decide how to organize them before moving them over. I'm doing it the old fashioned way. Slowly. Carefully. Burning them to cd's with titles that make sense to me. Kitchen renovation tells me a whole lot more than mvc001-mvc099. So, rather than *not blogging* (gasp) until it is ALL perfectly transferred and up and running ,during this process I am doing the OKAY, go through two more files and then you can surf blogs for an hour routine. It is working. I am only moving what I really want to keep, and when it gets there it will be categorized and organized within an inch of its little life. So, in case you were skipping ahead and wondering whether I am applying this neat little strategy to the BIG PICTURE, the answer is YES. I watched an organizing show last night to try and get some tips. Guess what she said? If you want to have a neat, well organized house, don't get married ,have kids or pets. After that got my attention, I noticed it took a thousand dollars, professional help, and the complete absence of husband, kids , and pets to actually accomplish the WORK involved. Not all of which was documented by the film crew. OKAY. I get it now. The worst part of this whole thing? While I was watching, I finished the second front of kiwi up to the armholes. Guess what? REVERSE ALL SHAPING didn't happen. I thought it did, but nope,I had TWO exactly identical LEFT FRONTS. RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP. Moral of this story: It aint ever easy. Three hours later, in the wee hours of the morning, I was right back where I started. This time with two kiwi fronts. One right, one left. wooohooooooo. Okay, back to work.

It's a FUNNY thing....

A FUNNY SCARF, actually. I'm not sure this picture conveys the lush, FURRY softness of this....go to Bea Ellis and get you some of this! LUSHous....this used two leftover skeins, not quite full, on size 9US needles.
After that was cast off and documented, I went back to kiwi. Up past the armhole decreases on the first front, and Loving it. (Anybody else picture Maxwell Smart uttering those words? *hee* Hang on, my shoe phone is ringing, must be the Chief....)
So, I spent the better part of yesterday working on the blog sidebar and realized there are a lot of links I simply cannot tweak...they go into my Favorites folder if there is a non removeable one-line bio, or a link to a commercial site embedded, or an inordinate number of popups and spam associated with it. Please don't feel slighted....it is my lack of patience, and HTML ability, not your worthiness or un. I hate to even bring that up, but since immediately after posting yesterday I got a couple of (um) please don't forget my important site emails....I was transported back to junior high school. It was possible then to have more than one best friend, although it took a great deal of mediation and remediation on my part to assure all parties involved. That said, we're still friends today. Same rule applies, 'k?
Today Daughter bird and I shall bake a birthday cake in honor of MLK, talk about PEACE through Peaceful means, and review what it means to have a Dream and follow it through, whatever the cost. He is one of her heroes, and this is a very meaningful and important day for us. A Moment of Silence and Reflection is requested.
NAMASTE.

To Do Today

One of the things on my very long list of things that must be done today is to update my knitters list of blog links. I have this *system*, whereby I go to maggi's site and then click on her links, cruise back here and go see ROB and click on his links, and etc on down the list. This doesn't accurately reflect who I am visiting on a daily basis and probably not a very efficient way to handle it. So if you don't see your name on my list and you are feeling a little miffed, fear not....it is just my very Lazy Sunday way of learning to make the links work the way I want them to. Which is perfectly seamlessly all the time thankyouverymuch. On the knitting front of Kiwi, I had to take a little break to do a FUNNY scarf for a dear friend's birthday. She is a TOTAL animal lover, lives on her very own little farm with a whole family of adopted rescued critters of all sorts, and when she saw the frontier hats she just oooohd and aaaahd and petted them and so I had just enough of the minky color to make a scarf....yesterday while I was nervously waiting to meet the LintQueen in person, I sat out front of the restaraunt and worked on it. What a man magnet. I swear, every guy stopped to look, and a couple of brave ones even fondled it....and sighed. I am EARLY for everything, so I had awhile to knit and people watch. This one guy walked by once, glanced at the scarf and ran into the door. Covered very gracefully, went inside. Walked by TWO MORE TIMES and finally came back and asked me if I was knitting. What? Is that KNITTING? he asked again, clearly perplexed. YESSSS, I replied, not sure where this was going...oh he said, because I never knew you could knit FUR...hey honey, come look at this! Before you can say *alapeanutbutterandjellysandwiches*
I had given them the link to Bea Ellis Knitwear and a primer on eyelash yarn. Too funny really, what happens when you KIP. Which reminds me, I'd better make some linky-dinks to suppliers, too.
Roger that, this is Danger Girl, over and out!

THANK YOU

Does a public thank you note on a blog count, Gina? (wink,wink) Have I mentioned the kindness and generosity of the knit blogging community lately? Thanks to Christine I have my very own BUTTON created from the fabulous artwork from Jessica, and today I got to meet another FABULOUS knitblogger in person, two tables away from where I met maggi and the fabulous Princess Caroline, and dare I say the place has AMAZING karma, cuz once again we talked the afternoon away like we'd know each other since second grade...wow! So without further ado, may I present...for your very own swiping pleasure....DG!

Here she is!

Button, button...

Oh how I wish I could turn the DG graphic below into a button for my site! Wouldn't that be outstanding? It took me a couple (okay let's just call it halfa dozen and be fair) of tries to get it to post on the site, the size I wanted it...and that is because it is SO easy with Typepad. What are the copyright issues here? I want to give FULL credit to the designer, of course! Do buttons have to be so teeny? So rectangular? Can we think outside the box? I'm tossing this up to anyone who might LOVE this sort of challenge...a fair exchange for something the knitblogger craves would OF COURSE be in order.....Any takers? You will of course also have the *joy* of seeing your name scroll across the screen in the credits when maggi makes the film that em writes the screenplay for after I get busy and finish the book. There. I said it out loud, in print. Thanks, Debbie, for the nudge. I'm off to get my boy bird for the weekend!

New Mascot

Isn't this AMAZING? When I saw the super eggplant that Jessica's genius husband drew...I "wondered" if perhaps he could do a DG mascot....and the next morning, THIS arrived in my email inbox. WOWZERS.