May 2004 Archives

I would like to take the opportunity, on this day of dedication of the WWII Memorial (which I have yet to see), to give a big thank you to the men and women who served in the military during WWII and in many cases didn't live to see the V-Day. I would also like to say thank you to the family members and friends who sacrificed so much during these long years of battle, knowing that they might never see their loved ones again. There was a true sense of patriotism back then, a true sense of pulling together as a nation, despite differing political opinions.

There is a lot that we can learn from these folks today. Were it not for them, it is likely that I would not be alive nowdays, and likely that my co-worker's maternal side of the family, being Jewish, would not be around these days.

I want my future children, and my cousin's children and grandchildren, to grow up learning about the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and all that it means to be an American. For their sake, we need to pull together, put differences behind, roll up our sleeves and get to work to ensure their future.

Back now from Minnesota and so glad to be back in my own house. It was a very interesting trip, mostly meeting family members. But we did get to do a bit of sightseeing, mostly driving around Minneapolis. Unfortunately we didn't have time to hit any yarn stores. But next time we do go there, we'll make sure to take one or two days just for sightseeing. I got started on this shawl from Folk Shawls, the Irish one. It's a nice pattern, and I'm trying to get into the rhythm. Since I'm not too keen on purling over 500 stitches, I modified this pattern to be mostly garter. Right now you can't really see the pattern, but it should come out nicely when blocked.

Bruce has finally found a job at Lowe, and he'll be starting tomorrow by going through orientation. What's great is that it's just under 5 minutes from home - just drive to the intersection next to my townhouse community, make a left onto the main road, go through the traffic light just yards away, and then make a right onto the parking lot. He could even come home during his half-hour lunch break if need be. So far, so good.

A while ago I promised to talk about my visit to Bowie Folk Art Studio. I got around to visiting the place last Saturday. To be true, a good number of yarn that they carry are novelty yarns such as Colinette. But, they're expanding their stock as time goes on and I saw yarn brands that I have worked with before, such as Brown Sheep and Dale. I had a very nice conversation with one of the proprietors, Kate, I think.

She was very enthusiastic about this addition to the studio. I explained that I like to work with designs that have quite a bit of Fair Isle, aran, or lace, and that the biggest needle size that I will work with is 8, and that I've gone as low as the zeros when it comes to lace knitting. The decor is attractive as well - there was an Ashford traditional sitting on top of one of the armoires, and in another corner there was a clock winder on which a skein of yarn was draped. Maybe someday they'll even carry spinning supplies - one can only dream! I think if they get more feedback like this, they'll be better able to determine what to carry at the shop.

I do encourage you to go out to Bowie and visit it, especially if you're on the way to Ocean City and need to pick up an extra pair of needle, or get some sock yarn. It's about 4 or 5 miles from RT50. You just go east, and exit on the 1st Bowie exit that leads to rt 197. You want to stay on the firs two left lanes that go in the north direction. Keep going - beyond the middle school to your right, it turns into a two-lane road, on which traffic can be heavy during certain hours, until you hit the rt. 450 intersection. Then, you make a right turn onto Rt. 450, and keep going for 2 or 3 miles, I think, until you see Hilltop Plaza. Make a left turn at the stop light, then turn into the parking lot. The shop is at the rightmost end of the l-shaped mall. There are two entrances - one in the front and one in the back. It can be a bit hard to find if you're not looking carefully. Wednesday evenings you can come and knit with others, and you can get some munchies as well (they have a cafe). Next time I'm there (which should be sometime during the Memorial Day weekend), I'll take some pictures.

And now, I got to get back to packing - hubby and I are off to Minnesota to meet the rest of the family! I'll be taking the laptop with me (we're doing some genealogical research and we're taking along the scanner, and other equpment). So I may get a chance to update this blog if I can find time to sit down at Starbucks, but I'm not promising anything . .

Mena has asked those of us who use MT to state, rationally, how we use the software for blogging. Okay . . . right now, I have 4 blogs set up - the "First Blog" which was created by default and is not in use, this blog, and another blog that is in the wing and may or may not go live. In addition, I have another blog, that I set up for a friend of mine who doesn't have the money for setups like TypePad. I'm giving her space on my server, free of charge. It's a personal blog for her, as are my other blogs. And, the reason why I'm using MovableType is because I like to have control, I'm paying $$ for the server space (and have reserved my domain for another 5 years), and being a web programmer am not afraid of fiddling around with software. To sum it up, 4 blogs, two authors. All of these blogs are personal.

Thank you, God, the week from hell is now over! I've been banging my head against the wall and tearing my hair out over javascript. Let's just say it does not play nicely with ColdFusion (a web server language). With that said and done, let's see what I've been up to, before the cicadas start finding short-term mates . . .

Here's a nice picture that Bruce took of me weeding the front yard garden. It's really fun to get your hands right into the dirt and digging around. Of course, I do take my rings off first, and I find that gloves just get in my way (I have small hands). Even though the weeds are a real pain, it does help when you pretend that these represent irritants that may be bugging you, like that obnoxious driver who took forever to make that left turn, or the rude cashier.

This picture was taken standing next to the garage. See what happens when you keep putting off thinning out the fennel plants? I left one fennel bulb in that spot when I was getting the garden ready for winter. All through winter, the fennel kept growing, albeit remaining mostly dormant. As spring progressed, I did notice the fennel growing extra shoots, but I was too busy with other stuff, and I don't like to stay outside in the cold too long. Well, let this be a warning to you. I need to go in and dig up the fennel bulbs before the main stalk gets any taller - these can grow to be about 6 feet tall.

Since I don't have a wide angle lens, I had to take two views of the front garden. And this is just early May. I'm going to have to go into business selling bunches of herbs.

Update is coming in tomorrow - been having the week from hell and doing a lot of head banging and hair pulling. I'll have pictures of my gardens, and more coming down the pipe.

Bruce and I are thinking about going to the festival this year. So, we're collecting as much information as possible since we'll be coming from quite a distance, from Maryland. It makes sense to make this a long weekend trip. It might be fun to make this a camping trip as well - we can borrow a tent from someone and this means more $$ for fiber purchases. If possible, we'd like to camp out on the fairground properties where it's allowed. What have you guys done in the past wrt camping out for the festival? Best places? Do's and don'ts?

Yesterday Genia alerted me to the fact that there will be a new yarn store in my hometown. It seems that the proprietor of Folk Art Studio is expanding into the space of what used to be Year of the Rabbit Cafe (located at 6700 Race Track Road in Bowie, MD - you go east on rt. 450 and go into this shopping center where Magruders is . . . the Studio is on the back side of the shopping center [I know, it's a weird setup, but this place was built back in the 60s, I think]).

Apparently she is carrying high end yarn, much of it novelty type such as Colinette and eyelash yarn. Now, I'm not too fond of novelty yarn because I think these yarns are too faddish. I prefer classical designs that will stand the test of time and still be in style 10 years later and wearable at any age. Still, I'll be checking out this place soon. They're supposed to have a grand opening later this month, and will be doing more advertising, including a website. I'll keep y'all posted. I'm sure Genia will put up a report of her impressions when she's visited this place as well.

No, it's not going to be the final design. I'm going to be tweaking the style so it is lighter and easier on the eye, and a bit more pulled together. What I'm aiming for is a 3 column layout, so the page isn't so long. But first . . . gotta say hello to the sheepsies . . .

Well, I'm finally making a comeback, of sorts. I got tired of MT-Blacklist not working, and my hosting service had some sort of a meltdown with the server from which my domain was being served (and also where the mail server resided, so they couldn't really go and shut it down to reboot and have everything take forever to rebuild). So, I had my domain moved to one of their other server and that was quite an adventure. And, the database where all my blog entries and comments wouldn't cooperate (I'd forgotten to "download" before moving over to the server).

So, I've had to start over, using a different database setup which will be much easier to back up. I'm not happy about losing 2 years worth of my blog, but that's life.

Tomorrow I'm off to MDSWF!!! Shop, shop, shop till you drop . . .

testing post from ecto