You wanted photos?

You got 'em: The in-progress Forest Canopy...


...and the in-progress Red Shawl Dammit.


It's amazing what feats Ravelry will inspire. If you're "in" over there, my profile (plumtexan, of course) has tons more old FOs for your enjoyment.

Up next: yarn pr0n. No promises on when, of course. :)

tomato puree, vinegar, and sugar...

...also known as "ketchup." Yep - I'm back, I'm punny, and I still don't have any new pictures to add. I figure three months is about long enough for you to wait for newness, however disorganized.

There's been a lot going on - some of it good, some of it not. Good: I still love my job, I'm really happy with the knitting I'm doing right now, and I'm getting my, ahem, *stuff* together slowly but surely.

Bad: I was sick three times in four months, sometimes work is way too busy, and my husband has Crohn's disease all the time. (He's fine now, but Bryan had a bad flare-up over the last few weeks and it took a while to get him back to [ab]normal.)

I've been away for both the good and bad. More specifically, the not-so-good has taken up a lot of time in the last month; when it hasn't, I've mostly been spending time on the good. I'm still working on the Red Shawl Dammit, and have been really getting somewhere on the Forest Canopy. Plus, I'm starting to plan ahead for rather a wide variety of things.

Since those things include knitting, I was pretty jazzed to finally get my Ravelry invite! There's not much I could say that everybody else hasn't said already, so I'll just add to the chorus of love. And another testimony that the system works: I found someone else (in Canada!) who had done the Forest Canopy in Sea Silk on US4s, which is exactly what I'm doing. She really helped give me a clue as to how many repeats I'll want to add to get it to the size I want.

Speaking of Sea Silk, I've bought a whole lot of it since I've been away. As an update to the Yarntopia outing I mentioned back in March, my total haul was two skeins of the stuff in Berry. Of course, I thought that was enough.

This was before lovely Evelyn at Knitty-Noddy.com announced she'd received (as did several other stockists) a whole bunch of 150g skeins of Sea Silk. "Like white on rice" doesn't even begin to describe how on that I was. So now, in addition to the IP Amethyst and the two skeins of Berry, I am the proud owner of 600m each of Ocean, Sea Storm, Vintage, and Sangria.

At least it's the only yarn I've bought lately, right?

Almost as stunning as the Sea Silk (and believe me, it's stunning) is the fact that I've only been working on two projects for a couple of months now. I reclaimed a few random UFOs recently, one of which I started working into a quick desk coaster for work (Sugar 'n' Cream, of course) yesterday...but otherwise, it's the Forest Canopy when I can focus, the Red Shawl Dammit when I'm mindless.

All my creative mojo must be going to the shawls, though, because it's certainly not coming out in my cooking. I've been doing more of it, but it hasn't all been great. To some point, it's "only" weeknight dinner stuff and is therefore almost acceptable...but I like cooking mediocre food even less than I like eating it...and that's saying a lot, which you know if you've met me in person.

All in all, there's just a whole lot of getting my groove back. On the one hand, it was good to discover that I'm more prepared for a random crisis than I realized...and on the other, random crises SUCK ASS. As does seeing your husband ill and knowing there's not a whole hell of a lot you can do until the flare-up passes. We both think he'll be fine - all things considered, his form of Crohn's is still the (ha) mild one - but he has to get the right medication and the right doctor, and we both have to learn how to help him maintain. That's all right with me, even if I wish we didn't have to.

So it's not altogether a cohesive post, but it's a start. Back on the planning note, I'm trying to pick back up on being Plum Texan and telling you lovely folks (if any of you are still out there :) ) all about it. My blogiversary comes around on July 30, which gives me about 5 weeks to Bring It (Back). Ideas are in the works...there may be polls, if I can figure out how to use them...and I could very much use some assistance with CSS, if anyone local is interested. (I pay cash and/or yarn shop gift certificates. Seriously.)

P.S. No photos now, but I'm working on getting my Flickr together and taking more shots. I make no promises, but there's a chance that your patience will be rewarded this week.

Quick, sick, and late

Just a few items:

1. Work has been completely kicking my rear - most days for the last month, I've worked 8a-7p or more, plowing like mad the whole time. This week was finally a little slower...which is a good thing, I guess, since...

2. I am presently being spanked like an ill-behaved 7-year-old by what appears to be a combination ear-nose-throat infection. I spent today at home on doctor's orders, and I got a bit tired of staring blankly at the TV or trying to sleep and failing due to a hacking, disturbing cough that must have the neighbors convinced that I'm about to die of something really gross. Also, despite the fact that I can more or less breathe out of both nostrils now, my right ear feels completely closed over and nothing, flat nothing, is making a difference.

3. Those of you with standard-issue domestic critters really, really need to look at this if you feed them wet food. It's a HUGE recall of foods that have caused kidney failure in both species and, worst of all, caused several hundred deaths, and while most of it involves store brands, it also includes Iams and Eukanuba. A few days old, but worth passing on nonetheless.

Knitting time has been especially slim for a couple of weeks, though as my SnBers can attest, I've made what I think is admirable progress on the Forest Canopy shawl. I will probably not make my 43 Things challenge deadline of March 31, but I will forgive myself. The Sea Silk is indeed a dream to work with, and after three years of knitting and grousing to the contrary, I finally find myself loving small needles (US4 Clover bamboo circulars). Of course there are WIP pictures to come, but not quite yet. To wit:

Item 1 is the major reason I've been AWOL lately - plus, with the new-Blogger switch, I have a hard time posting without wanting to fix everything I lost...and sleep is of the essence these days. If I'm going to come back to real posting, I want to do it right.

So I will remain scarce until I have time to get things together...here, at home, at work...and then I'll be back all shiny and pretty and new. I still don't promise to post more than weekly (again: in knitting vs. blogging, knitting is scissors-cut-paper every time), but I'll be going for the more all-my-interests content that I originally intended.

Please note that an exception may be made for the Yarntopia anniversary event next Saturday - because I am setting aside a bit of bank and may consequently have to Flash My Haul.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go cough up a lung.

A difficult matter

Only one day late (give me a break - I'm still in Austin and don't have constant access!), I bring you the post I wanted to make yesterday - my contribution to the Brigid's Day silent poetry reading. Had I been more together, I might have posted something of my own; instead, I'm taking you on a short trip down (my) Memory Lane.

I used to be a shy person. While I didn't exactly have a hard time making friends when I was young, I did so slowly and carefully, and was very quiet most of the time. At the beginning of my 10th-grade year, I had to make a last-minute elective change, and my mother insisted that I make it a public speaking class. I'll save words by telling you that I was Not Happy about this, but it happened anyway.

By my senior year, I'd been elected president of the speech and debate team. While it didn't turn me into a boisterous, exuberant social butterfly, performing began bringing me out of my shell. Since my mid-20s, I've had several people laugh when I tell them I was once a shrinking violet, though plenty of folks still notice my reticence in new situations and with unfamiliar groups.

I won't say the change is all due to speech tournaments - the older I get, the less I worry about what people think of me, which is the important factor - but it certainly helped. In honor of this, I'm going to share one of the two poems I performed together that first year. T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats is oddly whimsical and (particularly to those of us who have cats...including 'Jellicles' such as mine) fantastically real. I paired the poem below with "The Naming of Cats" to meet length requirements for performance...but this one is my favorite.

[Disclaimer: I do not share Eliot's apparent dismissive disdain for the canine mentality; in fact, I adore most dogs...so no hate mail, please. ;) ]


The Ad-dressing of Cats

You've read of several kinds of Cat,
And my opinion now is that
You should need no interpreter
to understand their character.
You now have learned enough to see
That Cats are much like you and me
And other people whom we find
Possessed of various types of mind.
For some are sane and some are mad
And some are good and some are bad
And some are better, some are worse -
But all may be described in verse.
You've seen them both at work and games,
And learnt about their proper names,
Their habits and their habitat:
But
How would you ad-dress a Cat?

So first, your memory I'll jog,
And say: A CAT IS NOT A DOG.

Now Dogs pretend they like to fight;
They often bark, more seldom bite;
But yet a Dog is, on the whole,
What you would call a simple soul.
Of course I'm not including Pekes,
And such fantastic canine freaks.
The usual Dog about the Town
Is much inclined to play the clown,
And far from showing too much pride
Is frequently undignified.
He's very easily taken in -
Just chuck him underneath the chin
Or slap his back or shake his paw,
And he will gambol and guffaw.
He's such an easy-going lout,
He'll answer any hail or shout.

Again I must remind you that
A Dog's a Dog - A CAT'S A CAT.

With Cats, some say, one rule is true:
Don't speak till you are spoken to.
Myself, I do not hold with that -
I say, you should ad-dress a Cat.
But always keep in mind that he
Resents familiarity.
I bow, and taking off my hat,
Ad-dress him in this form: O CAT!
But if he is the Cat next door,
Whom I have often met before
(He comes to see me in my flat)
I greet him with an OOPSA CAT!
I've heard them call him James Buz-James -
But we've not got so far as names.
Before a Cat will condescend
To treat you as a trusted friend,
Some little token of esteem
Is needed, like a dish of cream;
And you might now and then supply
Some caviare, or Strassburg Pie,
Some potted grouse, or salmon paste -
He's sure to have his personal taste.
(I know a Cat, who makes a habit
Of eating nothing else but rabbit,
And when he's finished, licks his paws
So's not to waste the onion sauce.)
A Cat's entitled to expect
These evidences of respect.
And so in time you reach your aim,
And finally call him by his NAME.

So this is this, and that is that:
And there's how you AD-DRESS A CAT.

Don't panic

I know this looks a bit different right now, and I also have lost most of my links in migrating to the new template (which appeared, you know, *required*). I'm not dissing anybody, believe me.

Plus, the entire reason I stopped by in the first place was to announce a long weekend in Austin. Don't get jealous - I won't be sitting around! It's my 11th YMCA Texas Youth & Government state conference - time to corral teenagers into creating a newspaper for the Youth Government that will be at the Capitol this weekend.

In no way do I consider the trip to Hill Country Weavers when it's all over a cherry on top. Rather, it is a grave responsibility. *somber face*

After starting over Saturday night, the Red Shawl Dammit is moving along nicely. I keep taking it out just so I can tell people what I'm calling it.

I'm going to try to borrow a better camera to take progress pictures. I'll also be starting a Log Cabin to donate to a silent auction for a work event. LB Homespun on 11s should go quickly, right?

As blog posting inhibits my ability to finish packing, I'm off. I'll miss the SnBuddies (tm) tonight! Somebody split a brownie for me.

And can I get some "rain go away" vibes for good measure?

P.S. Yes, if the trip to HCW turns into SEX (non-knitters: stash enhancement expedition [I should put up a glossary]), I will show you what I get.