New Year's Goal Number Whatever

"Knitting down the yarn stash, and getting some of the fiber stash spun up, too."

Or some such verbage....

The MLCB and the entrelac shawl did very well for the first, not to mention the MIL scarf.

Really well, as a matter of fact. I think the total knit down hovered around 21 balls/skeins for the first project, 12 smallish balls for the second, and 3 skeins for the third.

Whee!

Also, I have finished washing and teasing the baby alpaca, and can see the end of spinning my first fleece. Not the knitting, but the spinning.

So far, so good.

But then I found this.

Noro Taiyo - 40% Cotton, 30% Silk, 15% Wool, and 15% Nylon (1100 yds, enough for something sweet!)

The lys worker whispered 'this batch is mispriced...'

Then this happened....

Textiles A Mano - 100% wool (1500 yds, I am thinking maybe a sweater.)

The other lys in town had a grand re-opening after a wonderful remodel.

Textiles A Mano - 100% Silk (a scarf for moi.)

I found all this at a great discount. A really great discount.

Textiles A Mano - 50% Silk, 50% Wool (socks, of course)

The fleece and fiber I found in February has already been spoken of.

I have never spun suri before. I hope I can!

However, I found this suri roving for $3/oz. 10.4 ounces! In Old Town Fort Collins, no less. A very unlikely place to find suri roving, I must say...and marked down. Sweet.

So....

Any one keeping score? How am I doing?

Finding My Instincts

That’s only part of this story.

Finding my instincts, and trusting them, and then following them after a lifetime of not believing in myself is unsure ground.

Growing up, I didn’t know much of what was going on. Others needed to be trusted for that, and I was supposed to do as I was told. If I thought something might be haywire, or off track, or maybe a good thing to do, but grown-ups (or anyone bigger/older/more intimidating) could tell me different, well, that was that. End of story. What I knew or thought didn’t count as much as what others knew or thought.

I went along. No need for instincts. I just listened, and did as I was told, and caused the least trouble…mostly. Seemed like when I didn’t follow along, when I broke out of doing as I was told, serious repercussions seemed to reinforce how much better the other way seemed to be.

Lately, and yes, since the life changing opportunity of the dee-vorce, one of my twelve step lessons has been that of listening to MY heart, hearing MY instincts, and recognizing my own inner voice.

Then…in the belief that I can know what is right for me, following those instincts.

Yowza. Thinking for myself. Means I am responsible for me. Means I am responsible! Means I can do it.

And I can.

So I have alluded to ...over the last year and a half...about my work and the attendant stresses. It has been a tough road of lay-offs, late paychecks, people leaving, and chapter 13 bankruptcy. I have stuck it out, and without putting out a resume for a very long time.

Following my instincts? Or sticking my head in the sand? I can do denial, too. Oh, I can do denial very well, indeed.

Finally last November, I decided my instincts were telling me to ramp it up a bit. Over the last couple months, I looked at some websites, touched some bases, and talked to some former co-workers. I scored a couple of interviews, and while there wasn’t a job offer, each brought something that I could hold on to.

I heard that someone remembered the grace with which I handled the day I was laid off four years ago.

I heard ‘You can do this job’ from a former co-worker that I admired and respected, when I was intimidated by the prospective position.

I needed to hear these things. It is one scary job market out there, and add to that being…uh...experienced…and silvery haired…well, suffice it to say, there are a lot of young bucks to compete with these days. And not a lot of positions to go around.

Then, in filling out an application, when I was asked for references, I thought to myself, I need to verify that those folks still are willing (after all this time) to...reference me, and that I have their current contact info...blah blah blah…and so I did.

See. Instincts! And following them!

One of those references has called me. Seems he has a job that I might be suited for…if I am interested.

In town.
Working with, and for, some of the best managers/mentors I ever worked for, and with.

I will be on a temp basis for a while, working towards regular, but I am just looking at that as thinking outside the box…as a bridge from here to there.

I gave my 2 weeks notice today. (And that's my news.)

Spring?

This is from Snow #1

3/26/09

This is from Snow #2

4/4/09

On the upside, we need the moisture. We are way behind, and I don't want to do the rationing thing for watering the yard.

I made it to my lys and spent money like I am celebrating...which I am. I bought yarn for 40% off, getting ymmy stuff I have not bought because of the usual cost. Wait til you see. Oh, I already have photos! I am just pacing my posts....

Also, it is Grandbebe Girls birthday #2 and we are going to go celebrate.

News

That I can’t share just yet. Stay tuned. It’s good stuff.

So it’s the weekend. Guess what I get to do. If the weather is nice, I might get to go to the auto show. I really love Wonderful Guy. Only Step Son may go, too. It will be a fun outing, if the weather holds. For them, the cars. For me, with them. A trip to Denver means knitting time…

Also, one of the lyses is having a SALE! That will be fun, and since I have a little bittie thing to celebrate (see above news), I maybe will have to buy just a little something for me.

And it is Grandbebe Girl’s 2nd birthday. There will be a barbeque, and I will give her a basket full of knittie eggs. Just in time for Easter! She was over the other evening while her parents celebrated their anniversary. We had a grand time, obviously.

I have washed the last of the baby alpaca, and have been spinning when I haven’t been quilting on Grandbebe Girl 2’s quilt. By golly, I think I am going to get it all spun up before the Estes Park Wool Market. I have done so good knitting down my stash this year (thank you, MLCB!), I am pumped to spin that stash down, too.

But…as I spin that down…the yarn stash climbs back up…hmmmm…what a conundrum.

In other knitterly knews…I knit up a Jayhawk finger puppet for a co-worker (who says the Jayhawk will defeat his zombie finger puppets.) (Of course.) and some dishcloths. So tiny they are.

And we may get snow tonight/tomorrow. We desperately need the moisture. I am sorely in need of spring.

G is for...

...Greensburg.

Home of the World's Largest Hand Dug Well, and Largest Pallasite Meteorite!

My mother's family homesteaded just a few miles southeast of Greensburg, Kansas at the turn of the last century. I was born in the local hospital, and spent my grade school years there. All my family, from my grandfather's generation through my older siblings, graduated from Greensburg High School.

I learned to ride a bike around the Big Well Park. I won blue ribbons and a Grand Champion ribbon (I'll have you know!) for a sewing project (a pleated skirt and a crop top) in 4-H at the County Fair one year. I won red ribbons for my chocolate chip cookies. (Go figure!) Momma taught knitting classes in the back room of the Ben Franklin 'Five&Dime' on Main Street. I learned to knit, to sew, to swim in the BEST. SWIMMING POOL. EVER! and the value of a library card in Greensburg.

At Hunter's Drug in 2005, with Mr. Huckreide, who had been fixing soda's for over 50 years. Seriously.

I found my BFF there, and she and I, along with Dearest Sister raised some cane in church, enjoyed nickel cokes at Hunter's Drug, watched parades on Main Street, saw some afternoon matinees at the Twilight Theatre (but only at Christmas when there were special showings and likely friends of the elder sibs who wanted to take us. Lands, do you think we had money to waste?)

On May 4, 2007, a EF-5 tornado all but destroyed this town where I was born and raised.

Just the night before, my sibs and I had been discussing the possibilities of meeting in Greensburg to inter my mother's ashes around Memorial Day. She passed away 2 years before, and her memorial service took place where she lived after leaving Greensburg in the mid-60's. We siblings are spread out over the western half of the U.S. of A., and hadn't managed a time to get back to our hometown to bury Momma's ashes with Daddy. Now it looked promising with certain travel plans and arrangements that we could all be there over Memorial Day.

The Big Well Park in 2005

Friday night, while watching TV, I got a phone call from my brother saying it looked like Greensburg was getting hit by a tornado. Being raised in southwestern Kansas, my experiences with tornadoes were of those skinny little funnels that dip and touch and raise and hit and miss. As the events were unfolding real-time, it was very difficult that night to get any definite news, but as the story developed, it appeared this tornado didn't miss much. Almost two miles wide, it covered pretty much the entire town, Greensburg not being that big.

When I woke Saturday morning, I grabbed a cup of coffee, and turned on the national news while I exercised. I was stunned. As the weekend developed, Dearest Sister and I spent time on the phone, each on our own computer, looking at the aerial photographs, trying to identify landmarks. It seemed in each photo the house where we grew up was just outside the shot. (We found out later the back part of the house was damaged, with the roof, and later had to be demolished.)

The hospital I was born in, where my broken arm was set, and my chin was stitched up...gone. (Incidentally, BFF was working there that night.) The church turned antique store where we were baptized...gone. The water tower that marked the town, symbolically pointing the way to the Big Well, and occasionally overflowed (to our delight!)...on the ground. The schools we attended...gone.

The swimming pool...still there!


We were able to take care of Momma over Memorial Day weekend,burying her ashes 48 years to the day after my father died. It was going to be just Mom's kids, a couple of nieces and nephew, and some grandkids at the cemetary, but word had gotten out. Others started showing up, and kept coming. When it was time for us to say our good-byes, there were twenty or so other people there, some who had lost a good deal, who had a lot of unanswered questions about what they were going to do. Nevertheless, they came to say good-bye to this woman who had been a part of their community years before.

It is almost two years later, and Greensburg has embarked upon rebuilding. Leonardo DiCaprio even produced a TV show about their efforts to rebuild as green as possible. Some left after the tornado, but many stayed. And that is right, and good. But the town I grew up in is only in my memories.

We have another family get-together planned in Greensburg this Memorial Day when Wisest Sister and Only Brother celebrate their High School Reunions there. Dearest Sister and I will be hangers-on, providing comic relief, no doubt, and spending some time with Dear Aunt. It will be interesting to see the progress, and fun to see folks.

But I will miss the old town.