smells like...spring?

We've been taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather by taking long walks outside - although today the wind nearly took our breath away! Almost all the ice on Beebe has melted, and the grass is a brilliant green everywhere. It's very strange!

I'm knitting the lace border on the shawl and hope to block it this weekend.

We had a good visit with the doctor yesterday; heard a healthy heartbeat and got back integrated screening test results - all normal :-) Yay! Also my blood pressure was down to 122/64, which is possibly my lowest reading ever. I'm feeling little kicks every day now - it's great :-)

Back in Ithaca!

It's a dreary winter day here, but I'm cozy in our little apartment. We had the perfect break in VA: sleeping, reading, knitting, and a little baking. I put together two jigsaw puzzles with Dot (MIL) and ate and napped whenever I felt like it!

Meanwhile, these pictures are old but they make me happy :-) Congratulations, Anita and David!

More pictures, please! :-)

Oh yes - and we got to see this little cutie on Monday!

Travel

We just got back from a trip to Phoenix, where Terry's sister Rosanne just graduated from Thunderbird. Yay Rosanne! She was the star of her cohort, with significant recognitions and awards.

On the bus to Baltimore, I started this shawl. You can see what it's supposed to look like here. I plan to use it as a baby blanket!

On the way back, our flights were interrupted and diverted by ice and snow, and this is what the tree in our front yard looked like when we got home:

Pretty, huh? Fortunately we weren't too delayed, and the roads were not slippery.

Terry and I are finishing up a bunch of little loose threads from the end of the semester... so when does vacation begin???

Knitting again...

Three finished objects!!! This is the "blissful jacket" from Interweave Knits; I started it about six months ago, knit all the pieces in Dallas and had all the seams done before we went to Bolivia in July. Then it sat there all semester. If I needed any evidence that the second trimester has begun, this is it! It's true - this whole semester, the ONLY project I actually started and finished was a pair of socks. Anyway, I'm not in love with the collar, but I'm glad it's finished and I can wear it at least once before the semester is over!!!

I also finished a second pair of socks that some lucky person is going to get for Christmas... and did some reinforcement work on this little sweater. When I knit the front, I only made a button band on one side, and the other side (the inside) was curling in on itself and pulling the buttons awkwardly. So I picked up and knit three stitches every two rows along the edge, from neck to waist, and knit rib stitch for about 8 rows. I sewed it down on the inside, re-attached the buttons through both layers, and it's much, much better. Sturdier and lies flatter.

Best of all, I suddenly feel re-inspired ... I inventoried my yarn Monday night and have all kinds of project ideas. I'm planning a Lord of the Rings marathon over Christmas break so I can get lots done!

Roaring Fires

A few nights ago, Terry and I were sitting on the couch waiting for some friends to stop by, and I said "wouldn't it be nice to have a roaring fire right there?"

Terry laughed and said, "No, we'd be running around screaming 'put it out! Put it out!'"

No romance, man.

But prophecy? Maybe!

Tonight I decided I wanted a fried egg to eat with my quinoa, so I put the pan on the electric stove with some olive oil and immediately forgot what I was doing. I went into the other room to check e-mail, and after awhile I smelled something weird. I went back into the kitchen and the pan was in flames! I literally ran around in circles yelling "I don't know what to do! I don't know what to do!" Silly me - I realized I do know what to do: cover the pan to smother the flame. It has no lid, so I used another pan that was sitting there. But the whole apartment filled with smoke.

The fire alarm went off about the same time that my landlady came running downstairs to see where the smoke was coming from. Fortunately by that time everything was under control.

So evidently my nose is (at least temporarily) more sensitive than the smoke detector... luckily this balances out the forgetfulness!

When Terry came home he just laughed: "Didn't I tell you that if we had a roaring fire in the room it wouldn't be romantic?"

Dear Hunting

Sunday afternoon we decided to go for a hike, and picked Abbot Trail loop since we hadn't hiked it before and it seemed like it would be a fairly level 2-hour walk. As we drove off the tarmac and on to dirt road, I noticed various vehicles parked on the side of the roads and had a sudden thought - "Hey Terry, is it deer hunting season?"

Hmmm....

He wasn't sure, so we went on to find the trail head. As we got out of the car we saw a guy walking towards us with a neon orange vest and a gun. Yep, definitely deer season. But we went over to read the signs posted at the trail head, just in case there was a notice along the lines of "No Deer Hunting allowed on this trail!" Or, conversely, "Open Season on Deer - Hikers Keep Out!" Well, no such sign either way.

T: "Well, let's give it a shot."
Me: "Uh, nice choice of words there!"

The second we stepped on the trail, we heard a loud BANG! that sent us scurrying back to the car. Yeah, never mind!

So we ended up hiking Buttermilk Falls instead, which was very pretty but quite the uphill haul for a good ways. And... in case you hadn't heard, I'm officially 12 weeks pregnant, so it was an extra-challenging hike. But great fun.

Oh, I also wanted to say that peacenik/tree-hugger that I am, I am also a big fan of deer hunting - seriously! What could be better than free-range, organic venison? Yum! Plus, every vegetable garden I've ever grown has been ravaged by deer. They are VARMINTS! So please, go get 'em!

Today

Today Terry vacuumed the whole apartment (even the corners! Of the ceiling!), shopped, cooked, did laundry, fed me, and even wrote a whole analysis and report for Habitat. Wow - Superman!

I slept in, was very grumpy, spent all afternoon reading in the library and all evening writing a 5-page farce of a paper, ate, and took a long nap. I think I owe him a foot rub :-)

neologism

Terry coined a new word for people who order fancy espresso-based drinks at the coffee shop and hold up the line (he always gets black drip coffee, straight up): "pretensionistas." I think it's perfect. :-)

Eve's Apple and the Bliss of Ignorance

I'm beginning to think that there is such a thing as knowing too much.

I'm helping T. with a consulting job for a juggernaut Christian NGO (that I won't name here) and, frankly, am really struggling to stay with it. I have so many reservations and philosophical issues with some of their projects - which, to be fair, every person I've talked to who works for them also struggles with.

The same could be said for my current "interesting" condition - it's hard to relax, knowing so much about all that could yet go wrong, or may have already gone wrong but I just don't know about it yet.

At the same time, there is a sense in which the knowledge that comes from experience is so hard-won that it takes on a feeling of value. I don't know that, given the choice, I would want to return to blissful ignorance.

(I'm trying to work in an allusion to William Blake but will have to leave it here in the parentheses).

Still here!

Sorry I haven't updated in a long time, but my class today was just cancelled so I have an extra three hours today! Fun!

Had a wonderful weekend with family on Oct. 20-21 and brought back a bag of fragrant homegrown apples that I'm trying to enjoy quickly before they go bad.

Anita's birthday was yesterday - happy birthday, P!

Go Gore!

This makes me really happy!

October

Last night I drove back to school with 3 undergrad girls from DC; giving rides at $20 each way helped offset the cost of the rental car (although man, the tax and insurance almost double the price!!) It poured rain through Pennsylvania but we made it intact. The Relief Sale was fun (scroll down for a note about Carmen Wyse!); the weekend turned out to be a social marathon, but I made good progress on a birthday present and taught my friend Elisa how to knit a baby bonnet.

Back to work now...

Happiness is a warm puppy

My husband makes me happy. This afternoon I was sinking into that so-much-work, so-little-ganas funk when he suggested we go for a walk. After an hour in the gorgeous early fall sunlight, I feel like a new person.

Here are some other things that make my happy:

1) walking to campus. This is the time when I look at trees and clouds and let my mind wander. Even though I do it out of necessity (although I could, perhaps, take the bus, it's actually simpler to walk 15 minutes than try to figure out a schedule), I still think of it as mental health time and usually I'm not in such a rush that I don't enjoy it.

2) Reading. Good thing, huh? :-)

3) knitting: definitely a mental health thing. When I'm trying to plough through a pile of reading I'll take knitting breaks, and I often pull out a sock to work on during meetings etc. (And yes, I did knit the ones I'm wearing in my new picture!)

Funny, though, I don't really like sewing. That purple and green jacket I'm working on just threw me for another loop - I was sewing in the stripes, which suddenly illuminated the fact that I had sewn the left sleeve in crooked - it's not centered along the top. Grrr! I have to unpick the seam and resew it in now. The finishing of a project seems to be the part that takes the longest.

So, making plans for Fall Break already! Wow...

Teaching

I love teaching; I love working with the students and getting glimpses into their minds and worlds. Well, most of the time anyway! I just find them very interesting - even if I'm occasionally horrified by some of the opinions that are expressed. There's always a reason.


I've also realized in a different way than before why it can be so hard to finish a dissertation while teaching. My focus and energy are divided in a different way now. I wrote my master's thesis while working part time, but it wasn't academic work - I could focus all my intellectual/academic energy into the thesis, and my social energy into the job. When I was teaching and working, I could focus my intellectual/academic energy on teaching, and my social energy on the job (I realize these are somewhat rough divisions and not terribly accurate, but there is still a different kind of energy that's involved). With teaching and studying, I find that there is not much left for other creating pursuits - pleasure reading has pretty much evaporated, and knitting has slowed to a crawl. Even working out has diminished to about once a week instead of about 4-5 times a week. I feel like my performance in the classes I'm taking has suffered a bit too, because of how much I'm putting into the class I'm teaching.


But I love it.


In lieu of new knitting, here's a project I did 2 or 3 years ago - the pattern is from Interweave Knits Winter 2004, it's a cabled shrug, knit in 100% wool from Peru, something called "renaissance" but I forget the brand. So worth the $60! I have anough yarn left over for something small, like a child's vest, but haven't figured out what exactly I'm going to do with it. I already made a pair of fingerless mitts that I gave away... who knows.

Happy Birthday Mom!

I hope your day is as happy as that random guy in the row behind us! Lots of love, tu hija Betty

Happy Birthdays!

(These pictures are both old, but still cute :-))

Go Big Red!

Worth a thousand words... :-)

Knit Pics

So, my poor neglected knitting projects... brown mitts are done, with a hat to match; unfortunately the "blissful jacket" is in the exact same state it was before we went to Bolivia/Colombia in July. I need to do something slightly different with the stripes. It's just that and buttons, that's all! Yet it seems so insurmountable.

busy busy busy

I found the other sock!

Sorry have not had time to post much - lots of work. As in, too much. Am dropping one class and downgrading another to audit.