Blithering Knitiot

For Ted

I met Ted a couple of weeks ago at the Men's Knitting Retreat.  Ted is an amazing knitter of lace, and more importantly, a wonderful human being.  And because Ted tagged me for this meme, I'll play along.  So, here goes...

“The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.  Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.”

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
    Ten years ago I was given the opportunity to teach high school music along with my elementary duties where I work.  It was an exciting time of trying new things, and working with an age group I had never really worked with before.  The cool thing about it was that I had been teaching in my district long enough that the kids I was teaching in high school I had taught when they were in first and second grades, so now I was getting another chance to work with them as teenagers.  They had grown up quite a bit and had developed personalities as young adults.  And they were so willing to take what I had to give them as a teacher.  It was an awesome time.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):
    Meet with my trainer and some other people from the YMCA after school for a beer or two.
    Get a package ready to mail for a swap
    Walk Lizzie
    Starch and iron a shirt for school tomorrow
    Call Molly (A dear friend who retired from teaching four years ago)

3. Snacks I enjoy:
    Please.  What snacks DON'T I enjoy???  LOL!

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
    Spread some of the wealth to friends and family who could use some help.
    Build a little log home.  With a seperate wing for Mom to have.  I don't get to spend as much time with her as I'd like, and I do like spending time with her.  And since she's probably the world's most loyal Phillies fan, she needs a little place all to herself to watch her games on tv.
    Buy a Steinway Grand piano.
    Hire someone to clean, a trainer to work with me, and a cook.  I'm not fond of cooking, so that would be a BIG luxury.
    Travel
    And of course, knit more and try new things.  Like hang gliding...

5. Places I have lived:
    Tunkhannock, Pa.
    Mansfield, Pa.
    Norwich, NY.
    Hubbardsville, NY

6. Peeps I want to know more about:
    Kate
    Guido
    Knittingbrow

There you go!  A meme.

Time with the Boys

The place: Easton Mountain
The time: This past weekend
The event: Men's Spring Knitting Retreat organized by Joe and Ted.
Thirty two men gathered from across the country and Canada to knit, spin, teach and share knitting and spinning.  We also shared much laughter, excellent food and stories of our lives.  It's really difficult to express how special and almost magical this past weekend was.  So, I'll give you some photos to share some wonderful memories from some men who knit.

The Guest House at Easton Mountain:

Joe, Scott and Sean knitting during Show & Tell:

More knitting:

One of Ted's shawls.  Ted is a master lace knitter, and I was fortunate to attend a lace knitting workshop run by him.  Maybe someday I, too, can knit something this spectacular:

A beautiful Saturday evening sky:

My favorite pictures from the weekend show exactly what the weekend was about - men getting together and sharing and helping and enjoying the process of knitting.  Sunday morning my friend Van was getting some help from Ted with his very first sweater:

Is that a look of concentration, or what??

The weekend was a very special moment in time, and I think we all walked away with some very wonderful memories, and a sense of community that will always hold an important place in our hearts.

Now, I have some lace knitting to practice.  Have a great night.

Lately...

Life has been it's usual busy, get things done and meet some deadlines and have some more performance kinda thing. 

Drama Club at school presented "The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde a couple of weekends ago.  I was the Prop Master for the show, so tea cups and silver tea services, journals and LOTS of cucumber sandwiches were taking up my time.  These kids ate through almost the entire show!  They were awesome and had quite an excellent theatre adjuducation from the New York state Theatre Association!

Some of my high school singers attended a New York State School Music Association (NYSSMA) solo festival this past weekend.  They did pretty well overall, and two of them received a perfect score on the pieces they performed. 

This weekend I'll be attended an all male knitting retreat just north of Albany.  I'm very excited!  I'm taking a laceknitting class, a spinning class, double knitting and a class on binding off techniques.  I think there are about 35 men going, so it should be quite a hoot!  My friend Van, who I met through menwhoknit.com will be going, so he and I can do some catching up, as well as meet lots of new people.  I know of a few guys who are going, but I'll take lots of pics and let you know who they are next week.

Yesterday I drove to Pa. to take Mom out to dinner for Mother's Day.  It was a very nice day.  It's not often we get to have time with just the two of us, so it was a nice treat.

I've started a little lace bookmark for a swap, and a mohair shawl is on the needles for some mindless knitting.  That's it for knitting at the moment. 

I hope you all are having a great start to your week!

Sunday

Good afternoon.  Seeing as I'm a little bored with how my blog looks, and since I haven't really done much with it in a while, I'm trying a new theme to see how I like it.  Besides finding a new look, I've been reading a couple of new blogs that I'd like to share, unless you've already found them, but they're pretty terrific, I think!

Kate Smudges
Kate is all about gardening, stenciling, knitting and writing.  Beautifully written, excellent pictures of her flowers and gardens, and just a wonderful blog to read.

Love, Elizabeth
Rufus Wainwright, stained glass, silly contests and heartfelt essays on life.  She also authors a second blog called Ridiculon.  Check it out!

Fabulon
Fabulon has become one of my favorite new blogs to read.  It makes me laugh out loud, as do the comments left by others!  It's extremely clever, it's fashion, it's design, it's culture, it's gay, it's vintage photos, it's intelligent,  it's biting, and it's certainly not for the faint of heart (there is occaisional nudity and references to the gay lifestyle, so if that's not your thing, don't go there).  Enter at your own risk, but remember, it's FABULOUS!  Fabolun will also lead to you many other wonderful blogs out there on the net which  can also be addicting.  Again, this may not be for everyone, but with my strange sense of humor and theatrics, it's a winner in my book. 

I hope you all are having a great weekend.  I have some stuff brewing at school that should hopefully be coming to a head this week - nothing major, just a disgruntled student and her parents.  Not to worry.  Enjoy!

A friendly reminder...

You know from reading this blog that my good friend Sprite has been doing a great project sending care packages to our troops in Kandahar.  If you can, please contribute to the cause to help Sprite send Christmas boxes - your contributions (even as little as $5.00) will help her to get these boxes sent to our boys.  Sprite has been volunteering out of the kindness of her heart, and every thing you contribute is going directly to the Kandahar boys either through buying things to send them, or for postage to send the packages.

So, if you can give something, please get on over to Sprite's blog.  Every little bit helps!

Thanks for your help!!!!

Home...

..from a little weekend jaunt to New Haven, Ct. with my soap-making friend Maggie and her puppy, Atticus Finch - seeing friends, meeting new people, food and shopping (I did score a couple of skeins of Noro Blossom in a terrific red colorway) and LOTS of rain (which did not dampen our spirits one bit as we walked from store to store in the wind and wetness).  It was a very good weekend in spite of the weather, and has done MUCH to brighten my spirits.  I'm thinking that little trips to New Haven are definitely in the future for me.

Atticus Finch is a terrific little puppy of three months, and spent the day wandering around New Haven either walking on his leash or being carried around in a large handbag, which didn't seem to bother him one bit.  He rode very well in the car, and seemed to be very comfortable wherever he ended up, which for much of the time was behind my head stretched out across my shoulders...

Yes, that is his head and little nose resting between my head and the head rest.  Good thing he only weighs 7 pounds.  He seemed to be quite happy there, and crawled up there every chance he got.

Update: Sorry I left this out, but Atticus is a Lhaso Apso/Schnauzer mix. And yes, adorable as all get out!!   He's a great little guy.

I hope you all had a great weekend...

Good Morning!

Hi!  Now that everyone is rested and recovered from fiber overload in Rhinebeck, I just thought I'd let you know that my friend Sprite is still working on boxes for Kandahar, and if you would like to help in some way (as in helping with the cost of shipping boxes to the boys) visit Sprite and give her a hand if you can!

And as for the fiber from last weekend and the big sale I went to on Monday, I'll try to get some pics posted this weekend.  Cause I KNOW you wanna see it....

And, just because, a goat photo from Rhinebeck - because I don't think we've seen nearly enough goat pics from all the blogs that have posted about Rhinebeck:

Have a great Friday!

Former...

Good Morning.  The school year has started, and my schedule is, well, odd, to say the least.  I'm not going to bitch about it cause it's not gonna change a thing, and really, that's not what this blog is all about.

I got in touch with a former student recently, and this morning I got an e-mail from him.  He is probably the most musically gifted kid I've ever had, or will have the chance to work with.  His name is Matt, and you can find his myspace page here, with a couple of clips of his music.  He has a band he performs with, and I think (hope) he'll actually makes it big someday - he's a gem.  He composes and sings, and is an amazing pianist, and I'm just so very proud of him.  I'm not sure what credit I can take other than I gave him what I could, and gave him opportunities to perform.  He moved to Boston after high school, and studied at the Berklee School of Music.  And he's still performing, which is pretty awesome.

So back to my original thought, in reflecting on what I have done here and what I could do instead and what I need to be looking for for myself, I get this from Matt:

I didn't know you still existed!  Seriously. I'm fucking thrilled to hear from you.  (I'm grown up, I can say that now right?)

I just got a job as Music Director for some big budget, piece of shit musical that's opening next month.  Rehearsals are eating my life!! It's the first job I've ever had that makes me want to die - I'd rather eat a bowl of vomit than show up each morning. To make matters worse, I've still seen no pay check ...

I just miss when musicals meant everything.

It's the last line that really smacked me in the head.  I guess we don't always think about the lasting effects of what we say or do or give, huh? 

(Oh, and the "I'd rather eat a bowl of vomit..." phrase?  I guess I really do say that with some frequency...  ;-)  I guess I've always had a "colorful" vocabulary...  There are other phrases I use with the kids, and I know that I use them too often when they can finish them for me or in unison with me.  LOL!)

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.  I'm off to a little fiber festival in Pa. today, not too far from my Mom's place.  It's only their 4th year, so I'm not sure that it will be that big, but that's ok.  I think it'll be fun.  I'll take the camera and get some pics.  See ya.

A Quick Trip...

I know, I know.  I've not been a very good blogger this summer.  I've not done much knitting at all, so there's really nothing to show.  I've mostly just laid low and had a very quiet exsistance for the past several weeks, which I suppose is something I needed, but makes for a very boring blog.

I did take a little trip to California this past weekend to visit my favorite blonde, Sprite, and to meet a new friend, Duane.  Although the trip involved no fiber, it did entail a little jaunt to Yosemite National Park, shopping in Fresno, and lots of laughter.

The flights to and fro were actually quite good, the only little delay being the take off from San Jose Monday night (20 minutes, which did not screw up the rest of the schedule at all)(and yes, I did take the red-eye flight home, which really was ok, and I did sleep a lot on the plane).  The only thing I found very odd was that when I landed in Devner at 10:30 Monday night, there was absolutely no place to get anything to eat.  Nothing.  Nada.  Does that seem strange, or is it just me?  I'd think that if you have flights coming and going throughout the night at a very large airport, there would be something somewhere to get at least a cup of coffee and a muffin.  Nope.  I did find vending machines quite by accident, but a Coke and a Snickers bar at 11:00 just didn't do it.  And if there was a little shop open throughout the night, don't you think they'd be raking in some money from the red-eye passangers?  Just sayin'.  Anyway....

A couple of shots from Yosemite:

On the way to the airport on Monday we stopped at one of Sprite's favorite places, Casa de Frutos, a HUGE farmers market:

My favorite thing at Casa de Frutos was this 1930's (I think) pick up truck that they used for display:

Another trip to sunny California is now running through my head.  I'll be back.

School starts in a couple of weeks, and I've decided to stay where I am at the moment while I figure out what it is exactly that I want for my next job.  Lots to think about for the future.  And lots of yarn in my stash so I guess I better get my sorry ass in gear and make SOMETHING!!!  LOL. 

I hope you all are enjoying the last weeks of August.  I know I'm looking forwward to fall and Rhinebeck...

Saturday Sky

It looks like it's going to be a lovely day.  Sun, warmer temps.  Just lovely. 

This past week was a vacation from school - Spring Break.   I had a little trip to Pennsylvania to see a concert last weekend, visit with brothers I don't see as much as I should, and attend a cultural event all at the same time.  Way cool.

The rest of the week was spent at home doing some spring cleaning, and of course, a couple of day trips to shop.  Well, to add to the yarn stash more than anything else.  Hey, I didn't take a trip, so I figured I could spend a little money on yarn.  I know you knitters/crocheters understand that thinking...   I've also started collecting old knitting pattern books (1930's/'40's) and found some very cool little books.  And a tatting shuttle.  I always wanted to try that, so now begins the search for some tatting resources.  Like I need something else to do when it takes FOREVER to finish a knitting project.  (And no, we won't discuss the Trekking XXL socks I started last summer......)

My friend Maggie and I made a little trip to Skaneateles, NY to a shop I visited last year, called Elegant Needles.  On the way, we passed a HUGE fabric store (called Patchwork - I think??), and hanging under the main sign was a smaller sign that said YARN.  We knew we had to stop there on the way home.  Skaneateles was fun.  I picked up a few balls of NASHUA Wooly Stripes Tweed (Autumn Tweed colorway).  Then walking aroud the town, shopping, having lunch, and starting the trek home. 

About 5 miles outside of Skaneateles was the patchwork shop which we planned on stopping at.  Well, it's freaking HUGE!  And LOTS of yarn.  I came home with some  NORO Kochoran (25% off - the sale ended the day before, but she let me have it at sale price!!!), and some Patagonia Nature Cotton (clearance!!!).  This will be added to the Manos del Uruguay (which I have balled and did a little swatch) and Ironstone Yarn I got earlier in the week at a new shop near Syracuse.  Hey, it's my vacation.....

   
From left to right: Nashua Wooly Stripes Tweed (yep, it's all the same colorway), Ironstone, Patagonia, Noro, and Manos del Uruguay.  Are there projects planned for them?  Well, yeah.  Kinda...  *grin*

School on Monday.  Maybe that's a good thing.  I won't have time to find new yarn shops.....  Have a great weekend!