Just What the Doctor Ordered

So a few things have changed since July 27 (ahem). I packed, I moved, and I am slowly unpacking. I was so exhausted from the pre-move frenzy that I haven't forced myself to rush to get everything unpacked. And then I got distracted. Not long after the move my Mom went in for knee-replacement surgery. The surgery went fine, recovery not so much. Ten days after the original surgery they did a second surgery. Then she went back to the rehab facility. Finally, finally, just last Friday she was released to return home. Everything's going well now, but it's been a hectic three weeks that has left me getting home at 10 p.m. many nights. That wouldn't be so horrible if the alarm clock wasn't set for 5:15 a.m.

Friday night I joined two girlfriends for a little knitting and a lot of chatting. It was a great way to end the week. The rest of the weekend I spent holed up in my house. From Friday night through Sunday night, I didn't leave for one minute, and I loved it. I cooked chili, unpacked a bit, cleaned a bit, did a lot of laundry, and took care of a pet who was under the weather. I also watched football and read and knitted some more. It was just what I needed to recharge and refocus after several months of good but time-consuming distractions.

Green Week 1 - Where, oh where, to begin?

It's no secret to those who know me that I love the color green. I love to wear green and decorate with green. I love to walk through green forests and sleep under green quilts. And, as the picture above shows, I like to knit with green yarn. Actually, I guess this picture really only shows that I like to purchase and stash green yarn. But most of these were acquired with projects in mind, if only there was enough time in the day for me to knit to my heart's content. And if only my sore elbow would let me. Anyway, I decided I'd start my green love this week with my lovely green yarn.

Thanks to the shining egg for suggesting green week. Please check out all the various participants' offerings. Green, oh green, you give me faith that spring is coming!

Side note: Only 36 more days until I touch ground in Portland, OR...a truly Emerald City where it's always green, even when it's gray!

Yellow Week 4 - Yarn Love

Before I could pick an angle to snap a picture of the yellow yarn on the quilt, Cassius snuck up and started getting comfortable. Eventually, he was resting his little chin on the skeins of yarn - so sweet. But photographing a black cat can be difficult with the best of light. At night, getting a good shot is nearly impossible for me. But I liked this one best, with the yellow light infusing the shot. However, he was much happier when I stopped taking the pictures and he could settle in for a long nap.

Don't forget to jump over to Flickr to see all the other great pictures from Yellow Week! I'm so impressed by the submissions. It's like we're willing spring to come.

This and That

If I had blogged last week, as I intended to, the title would have been "Snap, Crackle, Pop" as the perfect description of living through the snow and ice storm that shut down large swaths of the state. It snowed all day on a Tuesday, then that night the ice started, and you could hear the tree limbs creaking and snapping under the weight of the ice. Finally, by Wednesday, lines started snapping and transformers popped as the power went out, at our house and throughout the state. Here are my pictures from the front porch and back door of our house.

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But this weekend has been about puttering around the house, cooking, laundry, knitting, and listening to "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" on CD. My second attempt at bread from this book was much more successful than my first loaf (the rest of that dough went into the trash after the storm). Seriously, is there anyone out there that doesn't have this book yet? Everywhere I look, someone is blogging about baking something from it. I've had it for several months now, but peer pressure finally got me to start trying it. This could be very bad for my health goals for the year!

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The mushroom barley soup I made to go with it on Saturday tasted great, except for some of the mushrooms were too woody to eat. This is rather disappointing, since they came from a "gourmet" dried mix of mushrooms I bought at Costco. I love mushrooms, but they have such horrible shelf-life that I like to use dried mushrooms. These looked like a good deal, but if half of them aren't palatable, it doesn't do me much good. The broth and the rest of the soup is great, though. The recipe is definitely a keeper. I just have to find a better mix of dried mushrooms.

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Today I indulged in one of my favorite meals. I made a "hearty" breakfast of scrambled eggs with peppers and onions, hash browns and bacon. I adore breakfast. I adore hash browns. And I love, love, love bacon. So much so that this is the first time I've bought bacon in over a year. I have a hard time saying "No," so it's better if it just never enters my house. But I'd been craving this kind of breakfast for about a month now, so I finally gave in on a lazy morning. It was a very nice treat. When I was in law school I'd cook this kind of breakfast once a month or so, for my roommate and I. It's the only kind of luxury I could afford back then. It's a good thing I don't indulge in this habit too often, however! The bread is going to be bad enough.

(**Sorry for the stars...for some reason I keep having trouble getting new paragraphs to format correctly. This at least keeps the entire post from being one very long block of text!)

Christmas Knits in Review

Toasty (see link below) in Malabrigo worsted: Vermillion. The color's redder than seen here. These still need to be delivered to their recipient.

Malabrigo worsted in VA (?), basic hat pattern from my LYS. Mustapha, along with Andrew and Rhonda in the pictures below, were nice enough to pose for me, since I didn't get pre-giving pics. Unfortunately, that meant taking the pictures under flourescent lights. Ugh. The colors here are about right, though it's slightly greener and all the colors are much, much richer than appear here.

Same pattern in Malabrigo worsted: Black Forest. The color is very camouflagey, more than advertised when I bought it online. But it works for Andrew, who's in the National Guard.

Toasty in Malabrigo worsted: Indigo. Very "UK blue," which suits Rhonda to a "T". I'm hoping these help keep her fingers warm as she types, since her desk is in a cold hallway and her space heater doesn't do much to warm her hands!

I had bigger handmade plans, but I'm pleased that I got these done and am going to finish up some more gift items to give at random times to a few patient friends and family members!

Goodbye to Time

Okay, so that may be an exaggeration. But this is the first year since law school that I feel like I've had a Christmas break. Being a single person without children and a very small, flexible family, I'm always the one who happily works during the weeks of Christmas and New Years while others take time off. But this year I've been away from work for a week and a half, and most of the days have been rather unstructured (Read: A few days have been spent in PJs, knitting away and watching football and movies). It's gotten so bad that my roommate and I have been confirming with one another what day of the week it is.

Added to the sense of being out of the normalcy of daily life was the short trip I took with my mom to Daytona Beach. She had to go for a high school boy's basketball tournament for which she was keeping the score books. I "had" to go because it meant a few days staring at the ocean, walking on the beach, enjoying fresh seafood, and generally loving life. It was all of that and more. Our seventh floor hotel room had two walls of windows overlooking the beach, and a long balcony to sit out and enjoy the ocean air. The weather was beautiful, and there was always a nice breeze. The water was pretty darn cold, but I didn't do more than dip my toes. We drove on the beach, explored back roads and ritzy developments, and took in a movie (Doubt: very good acting, mesmerizing story, but you leave with as many questions as you have throughout.). It was the perfect tonic to the gray and cold winter weather of home.

But tomorrow the alarm will go off while it's still dark as night outside and I'll be forced to wear work clothes, put on makeup, and do my hair. I'll be getting to work around the time the sun rises, and I'll leave when the sun is setting. With the legislature coming back to the capitol this week for the beginning of the legislative session, it will be busy. Time to jump back into the regular tempo of life with both feet. As I sat in church this morning, after having taken communion and waiting while others were served, I have to admit my brain started racing on all the things I need to do this evening to prepare for the week to come, and all of the errands that must be done. Sigh. It had to come to an end at some point, and the day has almost arrived.

But first, one more moment of time away. This afternoon, the University of Kentucky plays the University of Louisville in men's basketball. In this basketball-crazed state, this is *the* game of the year. Time to go root, root, root for my team!

Fall Forward

Um. Hi. Sorry for the almost two-month absence. I didn't mean to be gone this long. I really didn't start out being gone at all. But here we all are, on the cusp of fall - which I am ready to wholeheartedly embrace, not being a summer person - and I guess I'll just chalk it up to a nice summer vacation!

So, what I did on my summer blogcation -

• Went to New Orleans for a work conference. Drank a hurricane (among other things). Ate a few beignets. Grooved in the French Quarter. Didn't gamble at Harrahs, across the street from my hotel. Ate wonderful, yummy Creole and Cajun food. Sweated and sweated and sweated some more. There's a reason Mardi Gras and the Jazz Fest aren't held during the summer. It's hot, folks!
• Went to Sacramento for a 9 day training seminar. Met fabulous folks who work in legislatures across the country and learned tons of good stuff about leadership and management. Practical stuff. Went to San Fran for one day and did a short boat ride around the bay, bought cheap purses of questionable origin, and ate good sourdough bread. Yum!
• Almost finished an Elizabeth Zimmerman Baby Surprise Jacket for a friend who had her little girl last month. I'm one row, a bind off, sew-up, and attaching buttons away from finishing my first sweater. And I've been at this point since July 20. Oops. Apparently the blog wasn't the only thing I let slip.
• Am working on a big knitting project that must remain a secret because it is for someone who actually reads this blog regularly. It's going to take awhile, but I'm enjoying it so far.
• Celebrated with Mom that her two big projects for the year are finally, finally finished - her dental work and her new hardwood floors. Helped her paint her living room, dining room, and hallway before the new floors went in. Now she's talking about painting the sunroom and her bedroom! She's on a roll!

Okay, enough for now. Pictures to follow on my flickr page about all of the goodies listed here. Thanks for patiently waiting for me to come back to the fold!

Carolina on My Mind

I spent the weekend with my mom in Asheville, NC. The reason for going in the first place was a concert by one of my favorite artists, David LaMotte. While we were there, we sampled several local eateries, took a historic trolley tour, shopped, enjoyed the architecture and personality of the city, and toured Biltmore House, seen here. There's plenty of pictures on my Flickr page, which you can get to by clicking on the thumbnail to the right. I was really charmed by Asheville. It reminds me of a very small Portland, OR. Very hippie-ish. Mom made the comment that it was sometimes hard to tell the hippies from the homeless. But the downtown, small as it is, was full of people, artists, and bustling shops. Besides our hotel room and meals, we also contributed to the economy through a few purchases. I bought some luscious alpaca yarn to make a scarf for myself. Mom bought a beautiful red leather love seat. It just barely fit in the C-RV, with less than an inch to spare in all directions. Whew! It was a whirlwind weekend and both Mom and I came back more tired than we were when we left, but it was a lot of fun, too.

Life List for the New Year

Today is the big day where I turned 35. It feels a bit momentous, though I don't really think it is. But because of that feeling, I started working on a list of things I wanted to do during my 35th year on this little planet of ours. The following isn't everything on the list (I do have a few secrets to keep) but it's representative of my whole list:

1. Learn to sew, using the brand new - to me - sewing machine Chrissie sent to me. Just awesome. I am sew excited! *groan*


2. Learn to play chess.


3. Use the Cuisinart my mom gave to me, on "loan."


4. Plan meals and take advantage of the farmers' markets in the area.


5. Prepare for yard sale this fall and pack along the way for move next year.


6. Get back to walking regularly.


7. Stop using the TV as "background noise" - get up and move, listen to music, or just enjoy the silence.


8. Ride the van to work daily so you can save on gas.


9. Clean out paperwork and files; take stuff to shredder at bank.


10. Walk the labyrinth regularly and become more attentive to my prayer life.


11. Blog and Flickr more frequently.


12. Take more pictures.


13. Read at least three classic novels a year.

There are several other things on the lists, like projects around the house and more detailed ideas about some of the above, but this is a start. One that makes me feel good about myself. I have already put a few of these ideas into practise: I've read The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas, have been good about getting to the van pool on time, been to the farmers' market, and am carrying my camera with me everywhere I go.

Knitterly Goodness & Belated Thanks

DSC00157, originally uploaded by kyredbutterfly.

I'm going to take full advantage of all my work last night and finally thank my dear friend Chrissie for packing up and sending me all of this delicious yarn and magazines and books. (The books are a little hard to identify, as Phoenix the Cat felt the need to pose on top of them. It must have been the smell of Artie the Dog, because no matter what I did, Phoenix wouldn't move!)

I know it's been way too long, but thanks, Chrissie! I've got a few goodies planned for all this fun yarn.

Brrrrr...

I know, I know...it's been awhile since I've blogged. I think I agree with my friend Chrissie, when you get out of the habit it's hard to jump in again. She recently wrote: "Funny thing about blogging is that once you fall out of the habit, it's hard to pick it up again. So I guess I'm going to have to get back up on the horse and dust off the keyboard." Of course, she wrote this back on January 8th and has blogged a lot since then. So I'm shamed.

It's been a fast-paced but good new year. The day after Christmas, one of my staff members informed me he was taking a new job...4 days after the legislative session began. Yikes! That put me in a bit of a tizzy, but so far we've managed okay. I'm just now starting the interview process for his replacement. It's hard to fit the time in when you're drafting bills and scheduling meetings and answering phone calls from legislators all day long. But today is the 13th day of our 60 day session, and it would be nice to get a replacement before the 60th day, even if that person doesn't know how to draft a bill.

Otherwise I've been very selfish with my personal time. When the weekend gets here, I just don't want to commit to much because it takes so much to gear up for another week of craziness and long hours at work. I am getting into another knitting craze, though. I bought lots of yarn last week when Michaels was having a sale, and tonight I'm starting a very short class on how to knit cables. I'm excited, because other than plain garter stitching and knitting hats in the round, I don't know how to do anything else yet. And I still can't read most patterns because there's always something in there that I have no idea how to do. This class may be the only one I can fit in before the session ends in April, so I expect I'll be knitting lots and lots of cables between now and then!

We were all beginning to wonder whether or not winter was every really going to come. As recently as New Year's Eve we were having weather more appropriate for late October or early April. But finally Old Man Winter has arrived (as it has in much of the country). We're not used to temperatures in the single digits (and that's without wind chill factored in). All I can say is thank goodness for knitted hats and scarves. Now if I could just learn how to do gloves and mittens!

I know my good friend Kat is going to ask where are all my pictures of the few things I've managed to complete so far, so let me just say that I'm not that organized yet! I'll try to get a few pictures of what I still have in my possession, but a couple things had to be given as gifts before I snapped any photos. Oops! I promise to do better...which is an easier promise to make now that I've finally invested in my own digital camera. Now I just have to download everything to Flickr.