Now What?

(But first, can I just say that I'm unhappy about Blogger wanting to connect everything to my Google+ account? I'm going to be looking into Tumblr and Wordpress instead. Not that I'm blogging all that much ...)

But ... the Eyjafjallajökull Shawl is done, and blocking! I can hardly believe it. Part of me thinks I should really never knit again, and the rest is just blithely adding more and more shawls to my queue. For a while I thought I'd make a shawl for a graduation gift for each of my advisees... now I'm down to seven but even that feels daunting some days(although they are only sophomores at this point --see, I keep talking myself back into it). Anyway, photos of my Iceland volcano shawl:

The outdoor pre-blocking photos are closer to the real color of this gorgeous Heritage Silk but neither set gets it exactly right. Oh, have I loved this project. I might even make it again.

Happy Earth Day!

The Ides of March

As good a time as any to take stock ...

So I ripped the shawl back to the very beginning (I knew I would, you knew I would) and have plugged along dutifully to find myself once again well along in the final chart. I am about 10 rows short of where I was when I discovered the mistake. This seems promising and I still hope I might be able to have it OTN by the time I head out on Sunday. I don't want to take this on the plane. After all that's happened, I don't think it is travel knitting. I'd be sure to snag it on something, or drop all the beads, or ...

Elder Daughter and I have managed to be quite diligent about the gym this past week. Spring break is good for such, and I hope she will keep going while I'm away. She is still hoping to find a way to keep swimming as her PE credit for the spring but our league is notoriously picky about this. Maybe if we bill it as shoulder rehab?

Like most parents of school age children at some point or other, in late December we finally had to deal with the horror that is head lice. We live in a building with three other families and thirty-one other teenagers, 99% of whom have long hair and a penchant for hugging. It's been a nightmare, and probably plays a role in Younger Daughter's decision to cut her hair "like Emma Watson's". It's a cute hair cut, but it actually makes it possible for me now to see the extent of her dandruff issues -- and I have been moved to interfere in her personal hygiene in a way I haven't had to for some time. I'm a little worried though, about the effects of the serious dandruff shampoos on the rest of her skin. We've tried a product from Alpenglow Skin Care, a small producer in Alaska that I like a lot, but it's so concentrated that I need to be present for its use (not popular with YD ... or with me, as I am usually sopped by the end of the process). So, back to the drawing board on that one.

There's a lot of my spring break to-do list still standing up and waving at me. E-mails to authors for a collections of essays I am co-editing, starting my tomato seeds, cleaning up the debris of the past three months (the "I'll just throw this on the bookcase and deal with it over spring break" pile), getting organized to go and scout potential conference sites, and, yeah. I'm not going to keep going with that list, it's too wearing.

Focusing on what HAS been accomplished: YD and I have been to a new movie (The Secret World of Arrietty), I've accomplished one task I'd promised myself as a birthday present (it was a milestone last fall, say no more), I logged off Pinterest this morning without adding to my wish list, and I've been knitting. And now I have blogged.

Ribbit

I couldn't stand it and frogged the entire thing. So now I'm on take 2. Months of work down the tubes, but at least I know I'm capable to sticking with this project and that it is still important to me.

In other news, the first phase of Elder Daughter's swim season is over, and she is is frustrated, disappointed, and down on herself for not swimming best times while rehabbing a serious shoulder injury.

Sigh.

Ugh

I am approximately twenty rows away from finishing the final chart of my shawl .... and I'm freaking out because I think I have read the chart wrong. I know in my heart that lace on the needles looks like crap and I shouldn't expect it to resemble the beautiful blocked versions on Ravelry but I may have to put aside all of my grading and all of my project folders to finish this & get it off the needles so I can block it. Then I'll either be thrilled/relieved/proud or I'll be doing something drastic to bemoan my knitting hubris in taking on this project in the first place.

Happy Alaska Day

Alaska was admitted as the 49th state on this date. No, I didn't know that off the top of my head, but I was looking for a non-Happy New Year title for the blog post and this is what you get. Not, of course, that I don't wish everyone a happy new year, because I do, but it's the 3rd of the month and that just seemed a little too late.

We're back in school today after a break that didn't really feel like one. R's father died on the 15th of December. It was not unexpected and it was a blessing to have him go peacefully, but that sort of life change definitely causes rearranging of the personal universe for everyone even remotely connected to the person. The next day we learned that an 8th grader at my school had died very suddenly and mysteriously. Elder daughter knew her, but not well -- however. More universe shifting and several sleepless nights for me. We had a nice jaunt to southwest Florida with my family but the rest of the break felt oddly disconnected. We did a family movie marathon and watched ALL of the Harry Potter movies, in order -- that's an accomplishment, right?

I've decided, on the crafting front, to try to power through the bum elbow thing and just knit as much as I want. If I can't straighten my arm afterward, so be it. I finished another Ishbel shawl, this time in BMFA Woobu, which just feels WONDERFUL. I'm going to have a hard time giving this one away. It isn't blocked yet, but I still think "yum" every time I see it or pet it ....

I also made a pair of mittens for my nephew (I hope they fit him):

and several monsters (I'll have to add these photos later, as they're still on my phone).

On the needles now, as part of a swap challenge,Vermillion, in Madelinetosh sock in the Lichen colorway, along with several other unfinished items ... my crafting goal for the next month is to deal with those UFOs.

As for New Year's resolutions -- how's "treasure every second"?