Rachel's Ramblings

I. Introduction – I have so much to say in this post that I decided to organize it 7^th grade English-style. This is how they used to make us organize our essays. Anyway, I'll try to include lots of pictures to make it interesting, and thereby keep resolution IV-b-ii.

II. Regarding Knitting

a. FO: Camera sock

That's my speedy cute little newish camera.

I knitted it a sock. Because that's what I do. You can't see it, but I even grafted the 'toe' with Kitchener stitch.

b. WIP: Manos Raglan

I got a kilogram of gorgeous Manos del Uruguay at Stitches, and I finally started the sweater. That's just a sneak peek. And I think I'm going to have at least a third of the yarn left over, so I can play with felting it! I've seen amazing felted stuff out of Manos.

c. Bobby’s – I got nominated for a Bobby on Ravelry for Most Unusual Project. The voting starts on January 14^th, so please vote for me! There’s a lot of other cool stuff, and you can vote more than once!

d. I have a new idea for a design. I haven't even started knitting one yet, though, so it'll be awhile before a pattern emerges. If it works out, though, I do hope to write it up.

III. Regarding Life

a. Animals now outnumber people in our house – that’s right, our family now consists of five people (mom, dad, brother, sister, me), a dog (Erie), a cat (Pixel), a hamster (Java), two fish (Dimaggio and The Babe), and two birds. They’re zebra finches, called Tweedledee and Tweedledum, after the Lewis Carroll poem, and they’re cute. Addie calls them the Beeperbirds.

Erie. She does this when she thinks we're not looking.

Pixie, doing what she does best - looking down on people.

This is Java. It's really hard to take pictures of twitchy animals.

This is Tweedledee.

The lighter-colored one is Tweedledum. Even though I turned the flash off, they both hated the camera, so these pictures are less than marginal...

b. Snow sports

i. Skiing – Ski club starts this coming Friday, and it’s supposed to be 54^o on Tuesday. On the bright side, ski club conflicts with five swim meets, so I almost hope it’ll be cancelled because Coach is going to kill me if I actually miss that many. Ski club was paid for before I even decided to swim, though, so if it comes down to it, ski club wins, except for the League Meet. Also, we’re going to Gore Mountain over February break, which should be AMAZING.

ii. Skating – Yesterday a bunch of friends and I went ice skating. It was really fun and we took some pictures. But I'm not posting any because they all suck.

c. I can SEEEE! That’s right. My glasses are back! Huzzah! And no, I'm not angry at all about this. I just thought that was a really cool picture.

IV. New Year’s Resolutions (overlaps with II a bit)

a. Break out the spinning wheel again. I barely spun at all in 2007, and I have this lovely Lendrum!

And a wonderful stash of fiber. So I want to spin more and actually use the yarn I make. To make cool stuff like this hat, which was the original inspiration for the Mutant Bunny Hat. Ignore the stunned look in my eyes and focus on the handspun hat, please...

b. Use>Buy: I want to use more of my stash than I accumulate. Here’s my stash now.

And to make me feel better about myself, here's my mom's:

And there's actually more than that, I couldn't back up far enough to fit it all in one frame without falling out the window!

c. Health

i. (continuing from last year) Only eat when I’m hungry. I think this is a good practice for everyone, honestly. It really makes you aware of how much you actually need to eat.

ii. Stay in shape! I love being in shape. I want to keep exercising (running, biking, swimming, whatever, combination) all year and beyond! Buzz Lightyear-style.

d. Blog

i. For myself – it’s like a diary. Both in the sense that barely anyone else reads it, and that it keeps track of my life.

ii. For other people – but, I want to make it interesting! I’m going to try to take more and better pictures, and write coherently about interesting things. Feel free to make suggestions to this effect.

V. Conclusion – This is a concluding conclusion which concludes. It’s quite conclusive. Oh yes, and apologies for the slightly screwed-up formatting. Pasting from Word into Blogger doesn't quite work perfectly.