LoopyKnits

My first meme tagging is here, from Nowhere Nick and his Small Town Rambles blog. Here are my responses on what I was doing in the past and things I know and love:

5 years ago: My children were 3 and 10, I was working in a job with a great title and a sharply critical boss, I made less than half the money I do today, my husband was still working toward his graduate degree, I was depressed about my difficult mother still living with my family, and I was not optimistic about improving my life.

1 Year ago: My youngest girl had just started first grade, my oldest girl had just started high school, and I was feeling optimistic about my diet (ha). We also had just celebrated our first anniversary in our new home. (Difficult mom still in tow.)

5 songs I know all the words to (not proud of all these, mind you):

• Evergreen (I can’t STAND Barbra Streisand, but I loved this song a long time ago and memorized it … *still* can’t forget the words.)
• Puff the Magic Dragon (Don’t know why this one stuck. It’s a sad song. But I love it. Have sung it to my children many times.)
• Rock of Ages (those Southern Baptist roots will show, I guess. But I love this song. It’s comforting.)
• Bad, Bad Leroy Brown (My usual “painting the room, cleaning house, and doing chores” humming song)
• Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog (many nights spent singing this to my children … just a happy ol’ hippy song.)

Bonus song: Here’s one that I **love** but can never remember all the lyrics too. My all-time favorite song: The City of New Orleans

5 Things I’d do w/ $100 million dollars:

1. Pay off all the debts owed by me, my family, and my husband’s family
2. Set up trust funds my children’s education, their start in life as independent adults, and our retirement
3. Set up a trust fund for family members’ children’s education and first home down payments (if enough funding, it would be a gift. If not, then zero-interest loans.)
4. Give substantial donations to the small churches of my childhood and my husband’s childhood.
5. Fund a well-monitored and well-run business incubator organization for entrepreneurs — preference given to minorities and the poor. Would include business mentoring and ongoing support for at least first few years.

In short, I’d try to pay what’s owed, give to those who nourished me and mine, prepare for the future, and try to help people in their efforts to help themselves.

5 places I would run away to:

1. Canada (like the medical care and the society and the nice people and the cold weather … and the knitting)
2. Vermont (some progressive legislation and lovely part of the country)
3. Arizona (to satisfy my Inner New-Ager)
4. Seattle (interests me for many reasons. Seems progressive, cultural, fun.)
5. (The most likely) A cabin in the Smoky Mountains for many reasons, including the beauty of the view, the solitude, the nearby fun things to do, and the fact that it’s still in my beloved South — assuming I could still get Internet access! (Gotta get online.)

5 things I would never wear (or never wear again):

1. Gaucho pants (got enough of them the FIRST time around when I was in high school. See catalog image I grabbed, at right. Yuck!)
2. Spaghetti strap tank tops (too skimpy for my physique, too flimsy for the support this 44-year-old needs)
3. Muu-muus (I haven’t given up yet)
4. Nylon undies (gotta breathe). Don’t even buy them any more.
5. Turtlenecks (too “chokey”). I’ve regretted every one I’ve ever bought!

5 favorite tv shows:

1. The Closer (Brenda is a bitchin’ tough woman! Love her! The actress who plays her is married to Kevin Bacon, which still surprises me. Long marriage, too!)
2. CSI (the original)
3. Medium (can’t wait for it to reappear!)
4. Law & Order (any of them)
5. Comedy Central’s One-Night Stand (one-off shows of various comedians).

5 greatest joys (in no particular order):

• Reading insightful and/or witty books, cartoons, and blogs
• Writing something that expresses my views so clearly I can almost hear the “CLICK” as words fall in place
• Observing my children’s innocence and imagination
• Mastering a new skill
• My husband’s ability to surprise and amuse me and be endearing to me, after nearly 11 years. (Who can stay fresh that long? He can.)

5 favorite toys:

• If you’re talking childhood, I would have said: Tinker Toys, Silly Putty, my Mrs. Beasley doll (see pic at right … another webshot, since mine long ago disappeared), Barbies, and puzzles of all kinds. (Books are a category by themselves — my real love!)
• If you’re talking adulthood, I’d use “toys” broadly for anything that amuses me, including huge jigsaw puzzles, any metal/wood interlocking “brainteaser” puzzles, my laptop (not a toy … but my amusement lifeline!), magnetic word kits (to create poems), and art/craft supplies (paints, markers, nice fat pads of good paper, yarn and needles, etc.).

5 people I’m tagging: Do they have to have a blog? I’d say Gail M., Debbie R., Vicki M., Lisa B. and Sherman H. I’ll e-mail this to them.

Cheers! - Carolyn

Technorati Tags: memes, knitblog, LoopyKnits.com, Carolyn Bahm

Knitting? What knitting? All I’ve done since returning from my business trip to San Antonio is:

• Ignore my laundry pile. It’s growing faster than even my 7-year-old, too.
• Turn a blind eye toward housework (my house proves the chaos theory).
• Get the kids’ last-minute school supplies.
• Work. And work. And work. Lots of catching up since we were out of the office for most of a week.
• Sleep. Lots of early bedtimes for me recently. I can’t figure this out. Maybe it’s part of the periomenopause that has me testing the outer limits of my antiperspirant’s capabilities. (Works for the ol’ pits. But it’s my HEAD and NECK that are sweating the most — and you can’t exactly glide Secret over your hairdo, can you?)
• Repeat the previous steps.
• Oh, and frog my shawl. Twice.

The shawl was just too darned narrow or too long. Or both. It ended up looking like a scarf, even when I stretched it out (it’s very netty and stretchy). So I frogged it and tried again, this time casting on 80 instead of 40. Big mistake. Emphasis on BIG. It would have probably hit the back of my knees if I had finished it like that. (The extra weight of the yarn made it stretch even more when I examined several rows of progress.) So … back to the frog pond. Now I’m knitting around 57 stitches (intended 60, but what the hey). This — like the baby bear’s porridge — seems to be just right. So I’m thinking of calling this my Baby Bear Shawl, to the mystification of all.

I’m *dying* to get started on my 6-Sox-Knitalong project, too. But I’m discouraged because I will have to upsize the pattern to fit my fat, er, I mean, CURVY calves. I’m planning on doing the fancy calculating while I’m on vacation next week. (A week of housework, weeding, and knitting. Ah, knitting. Some bright spots in my fall cleaning project, at least!) And while I’m at it, I will try to find the darned two skeins of red sock yarn I bought last year and promptly misplaced. Hmmph. I think my house needs a good spraying for gremlins.

Technorati Tags: shawl knitting, sock knitting, procrastination, knitblog, LoopyKnits.com, Carolyn Bahm

I think I was a bit more of a fuddy duddy this year than in previous years because I stuck to the hotel room for peace and quiet when we weren’t in meetings during this year’s annual conference for my corporation’s division (about 480 people) in San Antonio. I don’t find drinking to be that entertaining. Not being a prude about it; I’ve certainly sucked down a few brews, fine tequila, cheap wine, and expensive Remy Martin in my day. But it’s not as entertaining as it used to be, and drinking makes me feel bloaty and draggy the next day, so I usually limit it to just one glassful. This time I just wanted to sleep, knit, watch TV and get online after being pinned down in all-day meetings.

Which isn’t to say the meetings were bad — we had a former Olympic skiier and a workplace diversity/bias reduction speaker who had some useful insights and who were each vibrant and funny in their own way. And the head honchos did drag us out a bit to have dinner at Rio Rio Cantina (the mild salsa was flaming hot but good, and the frozen margaritas were EXCELLENT). And of course there was the night when we all got to play cowboys and cowgirls.

My friend and co-worker, Deb (on left) and I
hold down the benches and hold up a couple
of the souvenir cowboy hats.

We went to the Knibbe Ranch for an evening of line dancing, pool playing, grub-eating fun. I have two left feet when it comes to following dance instructions, so I just watched and took photos of more nimble-footed friends. Some folks had their picture taken astride what must be the world’s most placid longhorn bull, a mild creature named Oreo. (With a name like that, he’s got to be an easygoing critter.) I didn’t want my thighs to smell like, uh, bull the rest of the night — not that any thigh-sniffing was planned (darn it), but still. So I passed on that too. But I couldn’t resist a shot of Oreo’s reaction to all the dancing and commotion.

Meet Oreo. That’s one calm bull.

I also took my knitting to the ranch in anticipation of having little to do besides vie for position at the pool tables (too crowded) or stomp on everyone’s toes, including my own, out on the dance floor. And once there, I found a fabulous use for the cowboy hats we each received as souvenirs.

Valiantly trying to knit amidst the clamor …

We were only there a few hours, some of which was eaten up by VP speeches, so I didn’t get a lot of knitting done, just a few inches on my socks. I’m making the Relax and Breathe socks from the Betsy Lee McCarthy book, “Knit Socks!” — which I picked because I wanted an excuse to learn Fair Isle knitting. I’m doing them in Debbie Bliss Cashmerino. Mmm, soft goodness. The colors are peach (main color), a mossy pale green, beige, and butter yellow.

I took the third bus back to the hotel for a quiet night in the room. (Sometimes it’s just too hard to resist taking advantage of those rare times alone — at least they’re rare for me!) I realized I was making a tangled mess of the Fair Isle portion of my socks anyway and stopped until I could get back to my room and check out the KnittingHelp.com site, which showed me a simple technique for holding a yarn color in each hand. It was easy and looked so cool doing that!

Now I’ve got to look up something on preventing “color jog” and I’ll be all set. I did go ahead and rip out the work done because I wasn’t happy with the look of the top cuff. It looked a bit large and floppy.

(It looks better in the photo than in real life, actually.) I’m going to try a second time with the alternate version of the pattern, which uses a garter-stitch rolltop. So I frogged, studied my yarn a bit more, and decided that I was happy being a fuddy duddy for the night. After all, my room really did have a great view — at least from my vantage point.

A room with a view

P.S. I’ll have more postings next week; my husband’s flying over for the weekend and we’re going to an aviation museum, some underground caverns, at least one yarn shop and (maybe) an alpaca farm. But no more blogging until Sunday or Monday night! ;o)

Technorati Tags: San Antonio, Rio Rio Cantina, Knibbe Ranch, travel knitting, sock knitting, Fair Isle knitting, color jog, knitblog, LoopyKnits.com, Carolyn Bahm

One of my favorite bloggers frequently talks about her own mishaps with a tongue-in-cheek reference to her breezy elegance. Boy, did I identify with her today at work.

A friend was chatting over the cubicle wall to me, wanting to know what this whole “blogging” thing is about. I eventually hopped up with the intention of going to the other side to help her get set up on Blogger.com. (Probably not the helpful team spirit my boss wants me to exhibit, but what the hey. It’s Friday.) My feet got tangled in my headphone cord, and — once again losing my work/life balance — I plunged to the floor. First to my knees (MAJOR thud), then kind of slumping onto my butt with a secondary thud, a groan and a couple of choice words.

As co-workers scrambled to my area to see who had dropped a load of bricks or fallen dead in the aisle, they saw me on my ass. And, I’m sure, they thought, “Oh. Just Carolyn again.”

And although I laughed it off while my stinging knees were crying for mama, I was left to wonder, “Why the hell doesn’t something like this ever happen when there ISN’T an audience?”

On the upside, I didn’t tear my jeans. On the downside, I left a couple of layers of skin on the inside of the jeans’ knees. Here’s a picture of the boo-boos. I’m just hoping all evidence of this breezy elegance is gone by the time of my business trip on the 26th. Or will there be green bruises by then … never can tell. Breezy elegance abounds. (Update: As it turns out, the knees were not the worst of it. I had a purple bruise the size of a salad plate on one side of my fanny. And, since I fell with all my weight on just one hip, it was a huge spinal adjustment. Put a kink in my spine that took weeks of chiropractic visits to unsnarl. Whee.)

But enough about my natural grace. A bright spot in the day was my very first purchase of railroad/ladder yarn — it’s so pretty! Normally I prefer to focus on the pattern and use plainer yarn, but I liked the springy, drapey feel of this in the sample wrap that my LYS had on display. Plus, it knits up on size 15s, so it’s uber-quick. You use two strands at once, one of the red/pink Mega and one of the glittery black Dazzle. It may sound gaudy but it works wonderfully together for a subdued glow. I’m going to start it tonight while we’re sitting around a local bookstore tonight at one of the local Harry Potter parties. (Yes. I’m a book nerd TOO.)

And tomorrow, I head to the Intergalactic Bead Festival here in Memphis with other members of Memphis Stitch ‘N Bitch to see what we can see. Maybe I’ll pick up the glass beads for my Seaweed Stole.  FYI: I say “My Seaweed Stole” loosely — I haven’t even bought the pattern yet. It’s just one of those that I know I’ll make someday. So lovely with the zig-zaggy fringe. Completely impractical, but things you love seldom are. Check it out at Needle Beetle and see if you don’t agree. Go on; I’ll wait. (tapping toes) You loved it, didn’t you — I knew you would.

 So many pretty things to make … but so many UFOs to tackle first.

Ciao, folks! - Carolyn

Technorati Tags: breezy elegance, fall at work, ladder yarn, seaweed stole, knitblog, LoopyKnits.com, Carolyn Bahm

A few signs that the day will be “interesting” if you’re not more careful:

• When you look down to see that your deodorant is sitting beside you on the bed and you are reaching toward your armpit with your undereye coverup stick.
• When you wonder briefly what deodorant would do for bags under the eyes. (Probably way more than the coverup stick would do for the ol’ pits.)
• When you can smell what the dog did downstairs before you actually *get* downstairs. (Why does he always develop digestive ailments when his owner, my oldest girl, has gone to her daddy’s house for the weekend?)
• Why does my mom (who lives with us) always walk through his digestive ailments before I find and remove the evidence of said ailments?

The culprit. (This is a guilty look, wouldn’t you say?)

Technorati Tags: guilty dog, interesting day, morning mishaps, Banjo, Ginny, mom, knitblog, LoopyKnits.com, Carolyn Bahm

Well, apparently, I knit faster when I’m anxious. I finished 10 rows in the newer, bigger, circular-needle version of the Beehive Hat while I was waiting for my cardiologist to show up in my chilly little examination room and explain the results of all my previous technology-infested tests. All I could think about was: My dad died of a heart attack at age 44. Now *I’m* age 44. Two of his brothers died of heart attacks. His surviving brother has had quadruple bypass surgery. My *mom* has had a heart attack, QUINTUPLE bypass surgery, and a femoral artery replacement. The circulatory systems are not great in my family.

The various docs scared the beejabbers out of me at an earlier appointment by telling me that I had a “prolonged Q-T interval” in one EKG they did. Then I read the very sad news that my employer’s daughter died earlier this month from Long Q-T Syndrome. Eh, say what? I don’t mean to take away from their grief or my sympathy from them, but part of me is shrieking, “IS THAT WHAT I HAVE?!!”

The good news for me personally is that … after an anxious testing period … I am okay. I don’t have that syndrome. I don’t even have a particularly long Q-T interval (the time between the Q and T squiggles on my EKG); it was a difference between the settings on my ENT’s machines and my cardiologist’s machines that indicated there might be an issue. There isn’t. I just have to come back in a year for another checkup, given my family’s history of cardiovascular disease.

Oh, and lose weight. But he didn’t really have to say that — I already knew it!

Hey, some good news, though: On the Recent Sinus Surgery Diet (in which nothing tastes good and all you want to do is sleep), I’ve lost 7 pounds in two weeks. Hmm. Now that’s $13,000 for the surgery and $6,700 for the doctor’s fee (thank God for insurance) … if I keep trimming on the old schnozz, I’ll only need to fork over another $391,186.31 for the complete weight loss package.

That, or *shudder* diet and exercise.

Hmm. I think I’ll think about knitting instead. Variations I’ve introduced into the Beehive Hat include:

• Using circular needles
• Casting on 96 stitches for the entire hat instead of 36 stitches for each of two sides that are seamed together for a total of 72. (I tried 112 stitches but could quickly tell that was going to be a Papa Bear hat that would be waaaaaay too large. So I pulled it off the needles, popped it onto my head and determined how much to trim, and continued frogging until I had a nice neat ball of yarn again. And off I went.)
• Making the 1×1 ribbed bottom edge 20 rows deep instead of 10 rows,so it can be worn folded up more easily.

We’ll see how it goes!

I’ve also finished the bee for the comically small version of the Beehive Hat and have attached it. Now if I can just get my older daughter to e-mail the photos I took to me. (My USB port is broken and hers isn’t.) Hint, hint, eldest daughter.

Technorati Tags: Beehive Hat, heart disease, prolonged Q-T interval, sinus surgery weight loss, knitblog, LoopyKnits.com, Carolyn Bahm