I'm gonna walk (500 miles)

I used to walk so fast that my friends had to run to keep up with me.

Sadly, that has changed. I've hardly walked at all in the last six months or so.

And, I have missed walking. I'm so out of shape that I get short of breath if I have to run 30 feet for the bus.

When the weather smartened up, I promised myself that I was going to walk as much as I could. It's been working. Starting to feel really good, and am slowly getting back to my old pace.

It's been going so well, in fact, that on my forced march yesterday, I was really motoring. I overtook an old man on a bicycle.

But today, I discovered that I pulled a hamstring muscle while doing so. And that is pretty damn sad.

Still procrastinating, and still don't care

When I was home for Easter, my mom asked me if I regretted buying a house.

To be honest, sometimes, I do regret it. I'm strapped for time, cash and ability.

Just like every other homeowner out there, so I do not feel alone.

But on a sunny day, when I can sit outside with a glass of wine and knit, there is no place I would rather be.

And I mean that. Chez Peepee may be a shambles right now, but it's still the perfect house for me.

After my hike to the grocery store and back (carrying $65 worth of groceries, that was a workout), I sat outside for an hour, with some fortification and a shawl. I could have stayed there all afternoon.

However, part of being a homeowner, and living alone, is that I have to be the grownup. So, I puttered for a few minutes, taking out the recycling, putting away the groceries, etc.

I opened my front door to grab the flyers that go immediately into the recycling (I do need to make a sticker for the mailbox) and found a parcel between the screen door and the real door.

I truly didn't expect these until Monday:

In order, all from Knitpicks: dpn wip tubes, two sets of 2.5mm Harmony dpns and the Harmony dpn sock kit.

I want to cast on for Ann Budd's Anniversary Socks (note, Ravelry-only link) right now. But sadly, I'm the grownup, and there are still chores to do. And the cats, no matter how much I beg and plead, lack the prehensile thumbs required to make dinner. I wouldn't trust them with the chicken, anyway.

A thousand things to do, but I don't care

My to-do list for today is as long as my arm, but I just spent two lovely hours listening to Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and working on my shawl.

I can't imagine a better way to start a Sunday. Now, I'm walking to the good grocery store. In the sun.

Wool-y goodness

When I was in the basement, looking for yarn, I stumbled on this sweater.

It's huge, unflattering and a gift from my (now) ex-husband.

But I still love it.

Any suggestions for modifying it so that I don't look I'm wearing football padding underneath it?

Serious business

I have never ever talked politics, or human rights, or anything remotely serious, on this here blog. Except my own craziness.

That changes right now. I have very strong feelings about women's rights, domestic abuse and violence. Feelings that I can't articulate. I can only say that I despise, with all my heart and soul, the evil in this world, and right now, I've found a very real example.

But it's nearly twenty years old.

I've been reading, for a while, a blog written by a woman in the southern United States. I clicked on a link one day, and it was funny, so I added it to my private blogroll and kept reading.

It's not funny any more. It's deadly serious. She's telling her story, and it is violent, heart-breaking and infuriating. Read this story. And get angry. And don't allow anybody to make you feel worthless.

Go, read. And stand up, for yourself and your sisters. If we don't look after each other, who will?

House P0rn

It was warm and sunny yesterday when I got home from work. So I sat on the back step, had a glass of wine and looked at the new Home Depot catalogue.


I sure wish I had an extra $20,000 or so right now.

Deliver me from knicknacks

Tomorrow, I'm going to my first ever yarn swap. I am quite excited about this, as I am going to meet some people that I only know from teh innernets.


In order to do this, I had to find some yarn to swap.


I apologize in advance, folks. I sincerely doubt there is a natural fibre in the lot.



While I was downstairs tonight, doing a load of laundry and cleaning the litter box, I went searching through the sea of boxes and came up with this:




And this is only part of it, I'm sure. To get more, I risked doing myself an injury.

It was quite the walk down memory lane. I found these:

The child these baby-sized overalls were intended for is almost ten. Whoops.

These are leftovers from an identical baby outfit I made, and the owner is now... twelve? I think I was making it on spec. The needles were my grandmothers. She died in 1977, and she was a Knitter. I have lost her needle case and most of the other needles that were passed on to me. I think the case inadvertently got packed in a box of stuff that belonged to my ex-husband. I asked him to return them to me, but I haven't heard from him in an official capacity since. Moving on...

Lots of single mitts, missing thumbs. I hate thumbs, and apparently, I hate second mitts.

These are sweaters, not knitted by me. These were given to me ten years ago by a colleague from my first, real, grown up job. Her mother was a Knitter, and none of her children caught the bug. So, I got her works in progress, and her yarn winder. The yarn winder that I use all the time. I didn't know what it was until I started reading the Yarn Harlot's blog and figured out how to deal with yarn that didn't come in a ball. I'm a little bit slow, sometimes.

So without pausing to think about what I was doing, I grabbed a couple bags, and started shovelling. That's how purging is done best. Don't stop to think. The results:

To the swap (I cleverly chose bags with handles, easier for the bus, don't you know).Stuff I'm keeping. Mostly scraps, the unfinished projects (not the inherited ones - those went in the garbage), and a bunch of truly irreplaceable yarn, whose story I will tell another day. If ever.

I am not keeping those sweaters, and I'm pretty sure no one else wants them. Sorry H, it's time to be realistic. I still am flattered that you thought of me.

The empty containers. I am NOT going to fill them up again.

I made the mistake of opening a few boxes that I knew didn't contain yarn. Eyeyeye... I have kept everything I have been given in the past fifteen years. And everything I have purchased. Man, I had some really bad taste, back then. And, I was really sentimental. Sigh. I will get to it. Someday.