Make that: Where have I BEEN? Amazing how easy it was for me to get out of the habit of blogging when nearly three weeks of travel are thrown into the mix. I know, I know, for some bloggers that would be an opportunity to post copiously from far and wide, but I am clearly not one of those bloggers. However, when both of my two readers (OK, there are probably more than that, but you know who you are, R and V!) send me concerned emails wondering where have I been and why haven’t I been blogging, it’s time to get back on the horse. My daughter was home from college for a week, and then we all took off to visit family for both Christmas (New York):
and New Year’s (Ohio).
We celebrated one very big birthday (my sister’s):
Who really appreciated the sentiment expressed on her cake (“Don’t Ask”):
And made the astonishing discovery that all three of us have the identical black down coat – and on a frigid night in New York City, naturally we all wore it:
And we saw a few movies; Avatar (yes, in a 3-D theater – worth the extra few bucks for that experience), Up In The Air (never saw it coming, George), and It’s Complicated (I’d watch Meryl Streep doing her laundry, if it came to that). Since returning home to my “normal” life, I’ve also seen A Single Man and The Young Victoria, and this totals up to more movies – in a movie theater, with popcorn and all – in the space of a month than I saw in all of 2009. This makes me a good representative of the average American who has been seeking out little entertaining respites from all the bad news in the world.
You’ve undoubtedly noticed a distinct lack of knitting content in the entry above. And here’s the reason: I’ve been knitting like a demon (and have the sore hands to prove it), but it has all been secret knitting. Three projects the details of which I cannot share until their publications come out for the world to see. What I can show is that my long-suffering February Lady Sweater now has most of one sleeve. I’m tellin’ ya, that sweater may actually be completed in February, and no one will be happier than I.
I also attended a full-day machine-knitting workshop so I could begin to learn the electronic component of the knitting machine that is supposed to save my hands. It was great, but a bit too much information. By the time we broke for lunch, I was already on information overload, even though the information we’d been given was just the tip of the iceberg. But one of my classmates is far more competent than I with computer-aided design, and she gives tutorials… my savior!
This past week, I’ve also been plunged into the edits for my forthcoming book, Brave New Knits. It feels great to be moving forward with the project, and I’m getting excited all over again as I review the projects.
And then there’s the earthquake in Haiti. My heart breaks for every one of them. Knowing that all I can do from here is give money to one of the many relief agencies that have rushed to assist that island country, I made a donation through Yarn Harlot’s Knitters Without Borders, which gives the money to Doctors Without Borders and has done an amazing job of raising both awareness of the needs and raising generous donations from always-generous knitters. It’s little enough to give when I sit here warm and well-fed, well-sheltered, and with all my loved ones safe.
Comments welcome