Taking Off For A While



This is where I am going to be. It doesn't quite seem real, but I'm all packed and leaving tomorrow. I'll be back in a couple of weeks, with lots of pictures!

This plate was a present from Mark some time ago. Isn't it neat?

When I get back I will be trying to get this house ready to sell. We're moving (just found out for sure yesterday) More details later.

Need to set up an automatic camera in the bathroom

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of this. I think it's cooler in the bathroom than it is in the rest of the house. The dogs and the cat think it's a great place to hang out, especially in the bathtub. All the better if there is a little bit of water left in there. But when I go for the camera and try to get a picture, they either all come over towards me or they jump out. We were discussing phenomena like this when Carol mentioned the scene she witnessed a week or so ago. It seems that Taz must have forgotten to take the cat out of his mouth before going to drink out of the toilet. She fell in.
Maybe it's not that funny, but too funny not to blog about. Taz seems to have a habit of carrying other animals around in his mouth. He never hurts them though. One morning Ashley noticed Taz walking around with a fish in his mouth that must have jumped out of the fish tank somehow. We put the fish back in, and it was fine.

You don't have to be left-handed to be right-brained.

Brain Lateralization Test Results

Right Brain (76%) The right hemisphere is the visual, figurative, artistic, and intuitive side of the brain. Left Brain (54%) The left hemisphere is the logical, articulate, assertive, and practical side of the brain

Are You Right or Left Brained?
personality tests by similarminds.com

I'm not completely useless.

I apparently make quite a convenient cat bed, as well as being a source of considerable amusement when she is awake. It's not just my cat either - I was at a friend's house on Thursday, where two kittens reside, and those kittens slept on me too, and had just as much fun chasing my knitting and other crafts in progress. Tying macrame hemp jewelry seems to be perfect - the ends of the hemp are so fun to chase. Susie also likes to sit in my lap and chase my yarn and needles as I attempt to knit. So much for speed.



It may be a little difficult to tell here, but this is Susie sleeping on my legs. It's a little more difficult to grab the camera and get a picture of her helping me knit and make jewelry, for reasons you can probably imagine. She sure is fun to watch, but she can be a little terror. She likes roving and spinning wheels too.



I did take a picture of one of the washcloths made with leftover yarn from the apron. Decided to try taking a picture before it was finished, because they don't always stay around long after being done.



I have yet to get new knitting projects of any size started up again. Since it has started to feel like summer, at least some of the time, it seemed to be hemp season. I could have bought enough yarn for a project, but I got beads and beading stuff instead, which is fun too.



Some of these are kits, but after making a kit once I take ideas from that and incorporate them into my own designs. If I buy a kit it is usually because it uses some element that I think it would be fun to learn.

My beading supplies were not all that portable, but they are much so now, thanks to organizer boxes & stuff. I wonder if I can do that on the plane when I go to Norway? I am going in 10 days! Wow! Since I have not flown in over 4 years, I'm not sure what it will be like now. Have they relaxed about knitting needles on planes yet? If any of you have advice about what can and cannot be taken onto airplanes, I'd love to hear it. I like to read also, but in that much time, my hands are going to need something to do. The main problem I can see with macrame is cutting the hemp. My thread cutter pendant has a difficult time with it. Maybe I could pre-cut, but that would limit what I can do. Still better than nothing though, isn't it? I'm really looking forward to the trip! I will finally get to meet some of my relatives whom I have been corresponding with for a few years.

Back to talking about the season, I will leave you with this picture Mark took of some Western King Birds just leaving the nest. Just in time for the end of Spring and the beginning of Summer.

I must be spending too much time sitting in front of the computer!

Just to balance yesterday's test results and show you that I'm not angelic all the time, here's the famous leader test. I thought I'd come out most like someone like Ghandi, but no:

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Have you even heard about Che Guevara? Just in case, here is
more information about him, in three languages even! The English and Spanish are easy, but I'm not sure what the third language is. I'm thinking Dutch. I can follow it though.

Somebody tell me to get off the computer and do something constructive already!

Just for fun, find out how evil you are.

Here's my result:

How evil are you?

What do I want to knit?

There are lots of things I want to knit, but I don't have the right yarn, or enough of the yarn I want to use (especially when I want to use hand-spun). So I do small projects, and usually give them away before even taking a picture to post. Crocheted hair scrunchies, knitted washcloths out of leftover yarn from the apron. I have thoughts of making some wrist-warmers, mittens, etc. for future gift-giving occasions so that I can avoid some of the last minute rush. And I've started cutting up plastic bags to make a plastic bag tote. Using plastic bags this way seems like a great idea to me, if I can figure out the pattern. (I have yet to find a knitting pattern that seriously challenges me, but I don't do crochet from patterns well at all. I can always improvise though.) Making things out of plastic bags is environmentally conscious and cost-effective, but making the yarn by cutting up the bags is a little time-consuming. There are lots of patterns available on the internet for these things - more than just bags too! Here are some sources:

• Yarn Lover's Room (lots of other patterns here too - look around)
• The Plastic Bag Pages (the general page, but there are links to pattern pages from here)
• Shona's Place (When I asked my kids what to knit next they requested bottle holders - there is a pattern for those, crocheted, also linked here. As a side note, I did a search for bottle holders, and my own site was one of those referenced! But it didn't go to that entry, and I can't remember when I wrote about that. I need to add an on-site search feature, don't I!)
• Make-Stuff.com This one is just generally about how you can recycle stuff. I threw it in for good measure, since just about the only way things are going to get recycled around here is if we do it ourselves. Recycling hasn't quite caught on yet in a lot of rural areas. People even look at me funny for collecting compost! All the neighbors burn their yard waste. Of course, I might be more credible in my composting efforts if I actually did much gardening.

Back to the topic of what to knit next, I think I just need to pick several projects and start them, and keep at least two things in the works at a time. Otherwise I either go to places where I end up sitting with nothing for my hands to do, or I haul bags of yarn, patterns, and needles with me in hopes of being able to decide on something. I do the latter anyway if I am going to be someplace for very long, just in case I finish the work in progress before time to go home.

It's not like I don't have things to do. I have actually purchased my tickets to Norway! I leave on June 30th and return July 16th. So I need to prepare for that, and I'm continuing to work on my language skills (please excuse my inconsistent spelling lately - the more I study norsk, the harder it gets to spell in English). And I have been reading a lot. Exercising a lot too - yoga in the morning, sit-ups at night, and jumping rope or walking or running. Then there is all the stuff that I really should do but I would rather knit or read or even exercise. Let's not even go there right now.

Did I ever show you how the wool I dyed with Easter egg dye turned out? No, I didn't think so.



I'm not sure what I want to do with it, of course, but I have thought of blending the similar colors together, or possibly trying some needle felting. Thanks,
Teresa, for your tips on that.

It's a strange phenomenon, but I'm noticing a tendency to collect friends named Theresa (various spellings and pronunciations). I'm also a sucker for linking to other bloggers named Wendy. There are quite a few bloggers by one or the other of those names - or is it just me noticing that?