Here's a little something I'd like to share with all you kniters to knit for the favorite Dude in your life. You can bet that David will be donning one next winter whilst we sip white russians.

have fun

I might even crochet him a rug too, you know, just to tie the room together.

Any of you ever cut and stacked wood?

Yeah? So then you guys know how hard it is.

No? You guys, it's really hard. First, you have to fell a tree (or get a really nice guy like Augusto to do it for you). Then you have to cut the tree into bite-sized pieces with a rather scary piece of loud machinery that requires protective eye and head gear (unless you want to cut a 6 inch slash in your head...that's another story). Then these pieces, depending on their girth need to be chopped into halves or quarters with a tool that isn't loud but requires a better than minimum level of skill and muscle. Now when you have a nice pile of hard earned potential heat source, you want to stack it so it doesn't rot away on the ground - that and so that your neighbors will think you are organized, prepared and just very cool in general. For you non-wood gatherers, I have to tell you that the stacking part is the most difficult. Ok, maybe not, but that's the part that I do so, for me, it's the most difficult.

Now that you all are sufficiently knowledgeable about the art of wood collection...CHECK THIS OUT!



Wanna see it again?



Yeah, ok. That's my boot in the photo but I'm just posing by the neighbor's pile. I have wood envy. Actually, I have wood stacking envy. Now that the weather is warm, I've quickly forgotten the heat value of a nice pile of wood. Right now, I'd just like to have a beautiful pile like that sitting out front of my house - you know, for the cool factor, not the heat factor.

After rereading what I just wrote there, I'm thinking that I'm probably not a real country girl.

No. You can't see a photo of my stacking ability.

To be fair (to myself) and because this is supposed to be a knitting blog I'd like to say that cool-wood-stacking-neighbor-pal probably can't do this***...



I wonder if he'd have wool envy?

***I can't show more of that knitted garment because it's the surprise piece that I'm working on ... so don't tell anyone.

connections

So, I've recently reconnected with one of my old friends on that wonder of internet networking/great time-sucks known as Facebook. After the usual recapping of 20 odd years in 3-4 sentences, my old pal asked me this:

"Lynn, what is a girl who graduated with degree in economics from a rather prestigious school doing on the side of a mountain KNITTING?"

Well, Tommy (that's not really his name, by the way) here's the answer:

I'm working on this *

while I listen to this.**



*For you knitter/crocheters: if you aren't into animal hats, or maybe develop an involuntary nervous twitch to anything Martha, Lois (from comments fame) has this great project -- a perfect quick one for working on whilst listening to a radio play.

**For you non-knitter/non-economists: this is a very enjoyable explanation for the terrible state of the world's economy. And if you don't think you have the 45 minutes to listen to it, just don't get on Facebook tonight. Grab a glass or mug of your favorite beverage and settle in.

with just 5 minutes a day, you too could...

So this year I've decided not to do the new year's resolution thing. It's really just a set up to make one feel really badly for not doing something, or for doing something if one's resolution was to quit doing something. Have you EVER accomplished a new year's resolution? Have you ever KNOWN anyone who resolved anything as a result of a new year promise? I haven't and I haven't.

Besides, if one really took the time to look honestly at oneself, their life and all the changes they want to make...dang. Well, let me just speak for myself, that list would be bella lunga (that means really freakin long, in italian). And logistically, what do you do? Pick one a year until you're dead...no way, impossible. So then you pick more than one, thus increasing your probability for accomplishing none? Now there's a good plan. No thanks.

So I listened to this podcast today which was an interview with the woman behind "one pretty thing". She talked about the genesis of the site, where she gets her material, and how it is humanly possible for one person to follow 4000 craft blogs. No, that wasn't a typo. I didn't mean 40 or 400, I meant 4000. Four thousand, three zeroes.

She said she spends 12-14 hours a day managing her website, most of it being surfing the net checking out craft blogs. When asked when she gets time to craft herself she said that she tries to put in 5 minutes a day on things that she's making. She said that she has 2000 things in her craft to-do queue. That's a lot of crafty time. 'Specially if you break in into 5 minute increments. Anyway, she said that it works...anyone, no matter how busy can find 5 minutes in a day, and 5+5+5+5.....=a lot of time. She's got a point there.

So I decided. This year instead of a resolution I'm going to try some 5 minute things. I don't currently have a job that requires 12-14 hours a day so I figure I can afford a few 5 minutes in a day. I'm going to choose some things that I want to do, that I always tell myself that I want to do, and that...like the resolutions, never get done. I'm picking some fun things and some things that challenge a part of me that needs challenging. There are no work or chore related items allowed. Here's the list as of today...

1. exercise. Yeah, I know, this is ridiculous to think that 5 minutes of daily exercise is going to result in anything, but, 5 minutes a day of exercise is 5 minutes more than I currently do. And, that's like, um, over a half hour in a week! Um, yeah, ok, it's ridiculous but it can't hurt, can it?

2. these socks.



They've been on the needles for, well, I don't even know how long. They gotta come off. 5 minutes a day til they're done.

3. reading. Reading something besides blogs or my before bed novel, that is. Something from that long list of non-fiction I continue to accumulate. And since I'm the world slowest reader, 5 minutes a day should allow me to whip through a book just about every decade. That's doable. My current book is this:



4. studying italian. Yeah, like my exercise plan this might seem ridiculous but again, it can't hurt, can it?

The beauty of this plan (my rules), I can change the things on my list whenever I want. Brilliant.

So, if you'll excuse me now I've got some verbs I want to look up, and I've only got 5 minutes.

Weaving in all ends.

The knitters in the group will know that the last thing you do before you're able to don a newly knit item is "WEAVE IN ALL ENDS". Every single pattern written ends with that last instruction. "WEAVE IN ALL ENDS".

It's actually a rather stupid thing to write in a knitting pattern. I mean, come on...if you made it all the way through every knit and purl and decrease and yarn over, all the casting on and casting off, it should be rather obvious that something must be done with all those dangling threads hanging from your otherwise beautiful garment. It's like if there were instructions for having a bath that told you to DRY OFF at the end. If you've made it through the soak, shampoo, wash, shave, and rinse parts it's pretty obvious you should dry off, no?

Well, having said that, it seems like whatever instructions I'm following for writing this blog are missing the final step "FINISH THE STORY". I suppose that should be obvious when writing but it seems that this blog has a lot of dangling threads...hanging chads if the metaphor works better for you.

For example, is anyone wondering if Casa Cornwell has water yet? Dang, I wrote that post about the plugged tubes like a week ago and then never told you how or even IF the situation was resolved.



It is. Thanks for wondering.

And the reversible sweater? Anyone curious if that feat of knitterly engineering genius has had its ends woven in? Probably not, but I'll tell you anyway...






It is. Thanks for being curious. (check that out!!! I can wear it right-side-up, up-side-down, forwards OR backwards...amazing.

And friends, let's talk about the birthday jacket(if you don't know about this you can read here OR here). Yeah, let's talk about it. Maybe none of you have brought it up because you were thinking that this attempt, attempt number 3 in two years such as it is, just might be a sore subject. You were thinking that maybe jacket number three might have come to the same fate at numbers 1 and 2. Well, thanks for being polite but I'm here to tell ya that sucker is DONE!



Except for weaving in the loose ends, of course.