Big Sky Mind

As you may or may not know, I am not a fan of the cold, snowy weather.  I am so lucky as to have a “winter” vehicle to drive when the roads are bad.  Unfortunately for me, I cannot seem to guage when I am going to need to be driving it.  Sunday night I threw a big hissy fit and moved the Jeep (aka The Hoop)  into the garage and my Mini Cooper (aka Mini Pearl) out into the cold.  Roads were totally clear yesterday morning.  So last night, I put Mini Pearl back into the garage and The Hoop went back out into the cold of the driveway.  This morning I look out to see the roads completely snow covered and I had to truck out into the freezing morning to get the poor old hoop fired up and running.  I need to just  drive The Hoop, it looks like it might snow every day this week.  I really don’t like winter.  On a happier note, I got the promised photo of my Saturday morning yoga regulars.

Sorry that the photo is a little blurry, totally my fault.  Seated left to right are Peggy, Bonnie and Karen.  Standing are Jane and Anne, with Marilyn hiding in the back.  Marilyn doesn’t come to class, she just usually meets us for coffee afterwards.  It is a really good thing we took this when we did, Peggy is off to Florida for several weeks.  Yes, I’m a little bit jealous.  We do have a fun time, lots of post yoga laughs.

I also have new socks I’m working on.  They are for Carl for Valentine’s day.  I only bought the yarn last July, why are you snickering?  One is almost done and I have visual proof:

The yarn is called Camouflage by Lorna’s Laces.  I am using a toe up sock pattern and knitting them on size 0 bamboo needles.  I started them last week, and as you can see, they are going much more quickly that the ugly socks did.  I took another spinning class this past weekend, this one was to do hand spinning.  It was fun, it seems like it would be a relaxing thing to sit and do, but it would take a really, really long time to spin enough yarn to actually make anything with.  I bought silk to spin, it is called silk hankies.  That is sort of what they look like, then you stretch the heck out of them, and you can spin them into the finest yarn, it’s almost as thin as sewing thread.  Very cool.  And just because I want to, let me post a picture of the boys for your viewing pleasure.

For those of you that don’t know them, Oscar has the white paws, and Simon is the one guarding his favorite Christmas toy.  They are not from the same litter, Oscar is about one month older than Simon.

UPDATE:  Still no baby for Jason and Beth.  Keep thinking happy new baby thoughts for them.

Sorry everyone, no pictures with this post, just some random Friday thoughts:

We’ve been thinking about/singing a lot of 70’s soft rock here at the ol’ CO lately.  What is that all about?  Why are we thinking about “The Best of Bread”?  Since the roads were potentially slick this past week, I drove our old red jeep, “Jeepy” or “The Hoop” to work.  It only has a cassette player, yes it is THAT old.  I noticed when I was in the basement looking for a cassette to play that I had “The Best of The Guess Who” in my collection.  I have no recollection of owning this.  By the way, I ended up choosing Smashing Pumpkins “Gish” as my jeep music.  It made my drive much more enjoyable.  I have to give props to Mr. Carl for discovering the Smashing Pumpkins.  He picked them out and decided they were cool long before anyone else I know.  They sort of lost their allure for me after “Siamese Dream”.  My favorite new music are the Shiny Toy Guns.  Their CD is called “We Are Pilots”.  I really like it.  Very Europop.  I’m also excited about the new Fall Out Boy CD “Infinity on High”.

I have another spinning lesson tomorow.  This one is for hand spinning or the drop spindle.  I spun some yarn last night, I can see improvement, but there will have to be lots of practice. 

My good friend Cara, who has been very ill since before Christmas, may be coming back to work next week.  I’m very excited about this.  I love my mantourage, but a little girl power is a good thing.  Everyone that reads this, think good healthy thoughts, so she will be able to come back next week.

UPDATE: I also want everyone to send happy thoughts to my friends Beth and Jason. They are expecting their first baby any minute. Hopefully by Monday, we will have a new baby.

I guess that is all I know for now, everyone have a fantastic weekend.

One unexpected benefit of doing yoga is all of the great people you get to meet and new friends that you make along the way. 

Here is a picture of me and some of my yoga buddies last night having dinner after class.  Ann standing in the middle works with sight impaired children and even though she can’t always make it to class (she travels a LOT in her job) class is always better when she’s there.  Lisa in the purple tee-shirt is our yoga teacher.  I consider her my guru.  That isn’t a bad word, it actually just means teacher.  In yoga there are a lot of “schools” or different types of yoga, I come from the Lisa “school”.  If it weren’t for Lisa, I know I would most likely not be a yoga teacher today.  She is the one that convinced me that I was ready to go through teacher training and that I could actually do it.  If you’ve ever been to one of my yoga classes, you’ve basically been to one of Lisa’s.  I steal from her frequently and shamelessly.  Seated is my friend Jan who was our guest of honor in class and at dinner.  She left Indianapolis last year and moved off to Switzerland.  She is very brave, and very smart, and very funny.  They are all totally cool.  I also have a group of ladies that come to my Saturday morning class.  After class, we like to go over to the cafe across the street and have some breakfast and chat.  I will have to get a picture of them to post as well.  They are a diverse group, but I feel like I learn things every time I get together with them.  I teach them about yoga, they teach me about life.  That seems like a more than fair trade to me.

I was a very busy girl this weekend knitting wise.  I also had my spinning lesson and created my first skein of hand spun yarn.  It is pretty ugly as far as yarn goes, but I’m proud of it anyways.    

I managed to FINALLY finish the ugly socks.   They are ugly, but they are done and off of my sock needles. 

Here is a picture of beautiful Simon relaxing in the felted cat bed.  Don’t get any illusions that this is a common occurance.

A photo of My So-Called Scarf in progress.  It is a little hard to see, but this is a very cool looking  stitch pattern.

And last but not least, my buttonhole bag both pre and post felting.  I continue to be amazed by the felting process.  You take some giant knitted item and put in the washer and then it becomes something totally different.

Pre Felting                               Post Felting

Large and shapeless and flat.    Much more shapely.

So it was a productive weekend, and the Colts won (even though I did give up on them and went to bed before halftime).  I will try to get better with the pictures.  Any bloggers (Troy) who have advice for me, please feel free to share.

Strike me down if I EVER ask to speak to the manager, decision maker, boss, person in charge, or owner.  In my job, I answer the main telephone for my company.  If I had a dime for the number of times I have had someone ask me for a person ABOVE the person they orignally called for, I could retire today.  What is wrong with people today?  What has happened to patience, courtesy, and basic common sense?  Why can’t people just take responsibility for their problems?  I had a gentleman call this week because he illegally parked on our property and his car was towed.  He was calling us like we had done something wrong to him.  As soon as something happens that people perceive as “wrong” to them, they are calling everyone they can think of, and if they don’t get the answer that they want, they think that by asking for that person’s boss, or the decision maker, or the owner, they can somehow turn the situation around and get the answer they want.  I’m telling the world, “Suck it up People!”  Deal with your problems!  Take responsibility for your actions!  I’m sick and tired of taking your phone calls!  After having gotten all of that off my chest, have a lovely weekend.

Today I have to call to sign up for my spinning lesson.  I saw online that there is a spinning help class this Saturday from 1-3.    I need major help learning to spin!  While I understand the basic fundamentals of spinning fiber into yarn, the actual process is beyond challenging to me.  I realize that I am a smart person and I will be able to learn how to do this, but right now I am stuck in the “I will never understand this” phase.   I’m sure after Saturday, I will at least sort of have the hang of it.  Meanwhile, on the knitting front, I started “My So Called Scarf”.  Love the title.  I actually started it last night with 30 stitches, decided today that it wasn’t wide enough to suit me and ripped it all out and started again with 40 stitches instead.   Much better.  If I get my act together a little better, maybe tommorow you can see a picture of it in progress.  Any guesses as to the title of the post? 

Maybe it is time we talk and look at some knitting.  I just finished my scarf for the Red Scarf Project this past weekend.

This is my scarf, even though it doesn’t look very red in this photo.  Now all I have to do is send it off.  This project is sponsored by the Orphan Foundation of America. 

This is my first effort in charity or karma knitting and I’m pretty excited about it.  I also finished knitting my buttonhole bag.  I just have to sew up the ends and felt it.  I just made my first felted project last weekend.  It is a cat bed that the boys won’t really have anything to do with, which is typical for them.  Now I just have to go ahead and finish the ugly socks.  Is it any wonder that I’ve been knitting on them for what seems like months?  They aren’t getting any love or good knitting vibrations.  I have to finish them if I want my needles to be free to knit up all the cool sock yarn I bought for this year.  I have lots of projects on my list of things to make, and now David tells me he MUST have a Kitty Hat like Troy’s.  Thanks a lot John!

My Husband Carl and I have two orange marmalade cats, Oscar and Simon.  We adopted them from the Humane Society in June 2005.  They have distinctly different personalities.  Simon, the younger of the two is very mild mannered and laid back.  In fact, he never even meows, just a chirp now and then.  Oscar, on the other hand, has a bit of a bad reputation.  I can’t say it’s competely undeserved.  He hisses at almost everyone who comes to visit.  He cries, he picks on Simon, our vet says he has misplaced aggression issues.  He can be very sweet, but he is high maintenance.  Well, “the boys” as we call them, are typical, they wrestle and fight.  Yesterday morning when my husband left for work, Oscar was trying to wake me with even more gusto than usual.  I wondered why he was being such an extreme pest.  When I got up, I realized I didn’t see Simon anywhere.  After a brief search, we found that little Simon had been accidently shut in a linen closet.  Oscar was trying to sound the alarm, to let me know that Simon was in trouble.  It made me really rethink their relationship.  Oscar was looking out for Simon, trying to help him out.  Maybe he doesn’t deserve that bad reputation after all.

This is my first ever blog post. Starting a blog was one of my 2006 Resolutions, so I’m a little late. I plan on posting my knitting projects on this blog. My co-workers gave me a spinning wheel on Friday, so hopeful I will be able to post about the yarn I’m creating as well. I teach hatha yoga. I really love the idea of bring yoga to people who have never done yoga before or don’t really know anything about it. I feel like that is my calling in life. My blog is called Big Sky Mind because that is the name of a book edited by Carole Tonkinson. The actual name of the book is Big Sky Mind: Buddhism and the Beat Generation. I want that to be the name of my yoga studio if I ever open one. It reminds me of something I talk about in my classes to let you mind be open like the sky. So let’s all try to keep our minds open as I stumble though this new world known as the blogosphere.