OK...new word...one syllable...sounds like... gem?...

Phlegm!! I swear to your deity of choice that I almost resorted to charades during my clinic today. Come to think of it, I used the universal symbol for "smaller" [index finger held parallel to the thumb] to indicate to a slighty deaf patient that the metastases on his most recent chest xray had shrunk compared to the previous one. Yes, I had even less voice today than I did yesterday, although at least my head no longer felt like it was stuffed with cotton batting. Our receptionist reassured me that what voice remains sounds sexy - great, where do I sign up for the 1-900 number service? Or maybe I just sound like Margaret Atwood. I got some great stuff in the mail yesterday - my Favourite Colourswap package from Jane, and my prize from cpurl for guessing the most macros correctly: Looks too good to open, eh? Can you believe this? Lorna's laces, Brittany DPNs, AND a Lantern Moon bag!! ***Edited to add - this is the swag that cpurl sent me - click on the link above to view Jane's sweet prezzies. Yeah, yeah, I could just cut and paste, I know. Give me a break, I'm sick!*** Will close this post off with a quote from DH: "Do you know what the best part is about all this Secret Pal stuff? Now you pick up the mail regularly!"

Who heals the healer?

I have a cold - it started out as laryngitis, and now my sinuses are congested. Either that, or I have a terminal case of brain fog. I managed to get away from the hospital early yesterday, and cut my clinic waaaay back today so that I could get some rest. Of course, I am not sleepy, just tired. Knackered, as the Brits would say. Spent a few hours laying on the couch with Somerset napping on my stomach as I worked on my Kureyon knapsack. Because I am using 2 strands, it is kind of tricky to match up the colours so that the beginnings and ends match. Photos will be uploaded later this week. Instead, here are some pictures of DH's art: Closeup of the toy soldier painting featured in a former post. A collage of photos of DH's 103 year old grandmother. Altered vinyl There's going to be a "Medical Art Show" in late September - a fundraiser. Spouses and kids of docs can participate, so DH is probably going to display some of his works. Maybe his work will take off, and I can retire to a life of knitting, yoga, and travel.

Oh, right, this is a KNITTING blog, isn't it?

Haven't blogged much about the WIPS lately, so here is an update: DH's Doomed Sweater has been frogged, and is now being made into a backpack (BTW is there any difference between a backpack and a knapsack? Because I instinctively want to call it a knapsack) The flap projecting out front is a pocket that will be sewn to the body of the pack before felting. This was the test swatch for a Heartfelt Wishes Bowl that I made for Lynnknits from Knitty. I was her replacement replacement angel for the One Skein Secret Pal exchange (yes, replacement replacement - the first angel fell through). I of course didn't think to take a picture of the completed project, but you can see it in this blog entry (slightly squished). Lynn got the duplicate skein of STR that Blue Moon Fibre Arts sent to me by accident. Actually, the way I became her angel was that I saw a post where she said that she had been abandoned twice, and wrote the One Skein mods offering to send her the yarn and pattern to tide her over until they got her straightened out. I got an email back saying "your second pal is Lynn...Please send her 2 single skeins before the end of the month, and a one skein gift by mid September". So all of a sudden I was an angel. I used Patons Classic Merino (2 strands), and also used an ebay yarn that was pink/purple as a carry along. I added 4 rows to make the bowl deeper. The pattern doesn't use much yarn - if I had followed it exactly, I could have made 2 from the single skein. Sock B: I took a recess from sock B just before I got to turning the heel. The week before last I sat down and did the heel. Here's where it was yesterday. Not much progress, but this is my "car knitting" - I work on it if I am the passenger in the car, or, if I am stuck in bridge traffic. Bridge traffic can add another 20 minutes driving time to a 15 minute drive home, much of that time spent stopped, or crawling. Having something to knit makes it waaaaayyy less frustrating. This is the newest project - designed by Ev, who a very talented employee at my LYS has, and a very sweet woman. I am a test knitter for one of her latest designs - a fisherman style scarf. This is some Llama/alpaca yarn that I bought off of ebay; the original colour is a faded red/burnt orange; I dyed a few skeins with Koolaid - it's not as deep of a red as I had hoped, but I've already dyed it twice (Anyone know if yarn can get "saturated" with dye?). The design is a 10 stitch repeat that runs over 6 rows. Pretty easy, but not simple enough to multitask while doing. I was watching Kill Bill 1 on TV last night, and I frequently had to rip back because of minor mistakes. But if you are actually paying attention, it is no problem. It also helps that I found a row counter at a thrift shop, so I can easily keep track of where I am in the pattern.

Last Saturday in August Sky

Where has the summer gone?

Feet Fotos - this week's blogstalking assignment

One Foot: Fuzzy Feet: Feet waiting to go outside Coy feet Feet waiting to go inside Foot of the Bridge Foot of our hill: Foot of the access road to our driveway: Foot of the stairs: Foot of the bed: Enough feet - how about hands? I managed to hurt my left hand early this morning, and now my 4th and 5th fingers cramp up if I make a fist. So I am doing everything with those 2 fingers extended - knitting and typing included. And how did I manage to do this? Weeeeeeelll, I slipped and fell running. On a path covered with loose gravel. Uphill. Backwards. It seemed like a good idea at the time... I asked one of our ER docs to take a peek at it. Luckily the Xray he ordered didn't show any fracture in the metacarpal, because that way I didn't have to explain the actual mechanism of the injury.

We have a Winner!

Two actually - CheekyRedHead got the material right (vinyl), and Jaquiebeancurd got the format right (LPs). DH has been trying various ways to melt old records (leaving them out in the sun, a blow torch, on the gas BBQ) and shape them. He's also tried painting them before melting, but that didn't work out well. He made a mobile first, and has tried other forms, but the "bowls" are the ones that he has made the most of. I like them; they look very organic. Sometimes the surface gets all bubbly, but on the older records, they often retain their grooves (presumably because they were made from vinyl that was higher quality)

Will the new art form float?

DH has a new medium to work in. Any guesses what it is? The first person to guess correctly wins one (blus some bonus yarn) And now for something completely different. Here is my entry for the Fearless Fibres Doofiest Knitting Goof Up Contest: When I took my first Mobius Knitting Class, I misunderstood how to count the stitches during the Mobius Cast On. So I didn't realize that one "cast on" would yield 2 stitches. I decided that I would cast on 80 stitches. In order to keep track of the number of cast on stitches, I placed a marker every 20 MCOs. And then, for reasons that I still cannot explain, I kept casting on until I had a total of 8 markers placed. Let's do the math: 8x20 = 160 MCOs, which = 320 stitches. And each round involves knitting that number of stitches twice; 640 stitches. I think that each round took at least 45 minutes. When I finished, the damned thing was about 42 inches long.

Secret Cat Exchange

It's amazing how much you can cram into a box... 2 PalPackages gone, 2 getting ready to go, and one more left to pack. Whew!

Floaters!

Object 1: Rubber Frog - obviously this will float Object 2: Sand Filled Rubber Frog - hmm, the sand makes it heavier, maybe it won't float. Convenient body of water: Duhhh: Well there you go, floating sand: Item #3 will get its own post tomorrow. Oh yes, Saturday Skies - I almost forgot: Not smog, smoke. Come to our valley from fires in Washington State. Methinks I will have a busy week on call.

Watch This Space

Blogging activity has been sacrificed for knitting, travel, and visitors. And SP exchange activity - last night I prepped 4 packages for mailing. There's probably going to be a need for new hires at Canada Post if I keep joining these SP exchanges! Reveal of the closeups will be tonight. Catchup blogging over the weekend. May I just mention this - Monday night, I dreamt that I was reading a post written by Grumperina in which she blasted the concept of crocheted socks. Exactly how pathetic is it to spend REM composing a blog entry for someone else? At least it wasn't a medical dream, like the one I had last night. The first item was: A raku apple, given to me by my friend Ute. Made by Ute's friend Neil. Ute gave one to each of her friends who attended "Girl's Weekend" at her cottage on Lake Erie a few summers ago. Neil built the kiln himself, and taught himself how to do pottery. At the time, he was also in the process of gutting his old cottage and totally redoing it. Here's the second item: The decoration on DH's birthday cake; not a bad representation of him at the poker table. You know you have made it when you have been immoralized in sugar icing (because rest assured, that the head was removed from the cake, and is drying in preparation for being varnished and then incorporated into an objet d'art.)

I'm ready for my closeup...

Here are 2 extreme closeups of things in my house - one is not going to be around for much longer. My digital camera is getting on in years, hence the poor focus. Maybe I should get it bifocals. Here's last Saturday's sky: We were in Sidney (on Vancouver Island). You can just make out a snow covered mountain top on the horizon (about 1 cm to the right of the end of the pier). Not sure what mountain it is; it's in Washington State. This Saturday was cooler than it has been for a while. Which was a nice break for us, but my sister (who's visiting from Winnipeg) wasn't too thrilled with it. At least it didn't rain yesterday, and the clouds actually broke up by late afternoon, and it was quite nice until it cooled off in the evening.

Musings

If recent events are going to make air travel even more of a hassle, and gas prices keep rising, will people no longer venture far from home? Train travel is an option, as is travelling by ship, but both have limits of range, and neither is fast. Would this lead to a schizm between the virtual "global village" and our actual experience? The city I grew up in has many people who were born and bred there, and have no intentions of ever moving elsewhere - "lifers". Is that what we will move towards? With aquaintances all over the world, and no means to ever meet them? *Edited to add: As I wrote this post, I was sitting in front of a TV that was showing some vapid entertainment show [DH had been watching football, and left the TV on, and for the most part I was ignoring it]. Right when I decided that I might as well turn it off, some shiny hostesss dressed in sequins asked the guest (who turned out to be Beyonce whatshername) if she had felt nervous about flying from the other coast. Beyonce replied, "Well, I kind of was, but I flew private, so it was safer". They then had a mini feature about private jet services, and how they were now being utilized by "ordinary" [read - either D list celebrities or rich people] for travel because of terrorist concerns. Which added this facet to my question - what if long distance travel returns to being nearly exclusively the domain of the rich? BTW - this could be the end of duty free shops - think about it: the most lucrative items they sell are perfume and booze. If you can't bring liquids on board anymore... Regular blog activity will return tomorow.

belated meal post

I often "assemble" food rather than "cook" per se - I use alot of pre-prepped/frozen/tinned etc ingredients. One evening I converted this: Into this. Stuff from the freezer. From the fridge. From the cupboard. Cook/Thaw/Chop: Voila!