A fibery post

This won't include all the wonderful fiber and new spindle that I got this morning for Christmas. First up is my new spindle set. These are partially to replace the bolivian rosewood one that I broke the tip off of. (I'm still hoping to get that fixed by sending in back to the maker.) Both of these spindles are 12 inch ones in Lignum Vitae wood. You can't really see how beautiful the wood is in the picture, but it has streaks of blue and green and is very pretty. I've already transferred the cashmere/silk that I was spinning on the broken one over.

Next up is the fiber that I spun up for Expressions in Spinning, the My Beard poem. It's 2oz of BFL. About 140 yards of sport weight yarn, Navajo plied. This was my first every three ply and likewise my first time Navajo plying. It was a lot easier that I had initially thought it would be, so I think it will be a regular occurrence. Right now, I'm in the middle of knitting this yarn into fingerless gloves for myself. They are turning out really nice.

I know that I have more pictures of fiber on another card. It may be in the camera. I'll have to get on downloading them to my computer so I can show them off. I'm not sure when I'll photograph the wonderful Christmas presents that I just received, soon I hope!

A couple of big long posts...

Merry Christmas! I've been neglecting blogging recently. Mostly, because there has been so much going on. One example is that Laurie got a job! We found out a few days before we left for California for Christmas. She will be working at the Jewish high school in Scottsdale. The job is almost exactly the same as what she was doing in her previous job and she really likes the people she'll be working with. We think that her being let go earlier was better for her in the long run because she was able to do things like tour the school on a work day and go in for a meeting. We're very excited, she starts on January 4th, but she has some meetings on the 29th and 30th so we are going to go home earlier that we thought.

Right now, we're on the second leg of our Christmas trip. We spent the first few days with Laurie's sister and brother-in-law and their 2 little boys. It was a lot of fun. They have a guest bedroom on the first floor that is perfect for staying in. We got in after bedtime on Saturday night and Sunday morning, I got woken up to be blown a kiss from the oldest (he's 2). We celebrated Christmas dinner a little early, Laurie's sister's family are spending Christmas in Seattle, with her brother-in-law's family. It was delicious and the boys got their gifts from Laurie's parents. The oldest got a balance bike, which was a big hit and both are sharing the Thomas the train set, complete with train table and track and everything. It was really cute to see them so excited!

The next few days have been quiet. Hanging out with the boys and playing with them and lots of reading with them. We went to lunch twice and it was really convenient to get out because Laurie's sister is the proud owner of a new minivan (ok, new to us. They've had it for a little while, but we didn't know about it.) So, we didn't have to load car seats into our car before we could go anywhere.

Now, we're up at Laurie's parent's cabin for a few days before we head home. There is a little snow on the ground, hopefully enough for them to cross country ski on. We're expecting friends to come up tomorrow. We'll leave for home on Monday.

Our neighbors at home have been really nice. I went ahead with my mom's permission to order all the things that I need for the bunny! (Only 7 days left!) Our neighbor is collecting the boxes that were still arriving when we left for CA. I'm really excited to go get Bennett! It's going to be a lot of work, but it will be worth it! (Bunny kisses!)

I hope all are having a good Christmas. I am a blessed girl this year. We do Secret Santas with Laurie's family and Laurie's father drew my name. I got everything on my list, which was extremely generous. I'm planning on doing a knitting and spinning post soon, I've got lots to post about. I'm looking forward to a family tradition - the making and eating of cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning. We're heading to Mass at 11am. Off to see about doing that second fiber post...

Snow, snow, snow...

On a whim, Laurie and I are up in the snow right now :). Laurie had been tracking the weather recently and at the approach of a huge winter storm in northern arizona, we loaded up the car and drove out to a lovely bed and breakfast near Flagstaff. We came up a day earlier that we had anticipated because we were worried about being caught in the beginning of the storm, driving up Monday morning. It's a really good thing we did. Yesterday and last night, the storm laid down 2 feet. It was blizzard conditions by noon. It was beautiful. We were here alone in this big, lovely, warm lodge watching it blow and snow outside. I've been spinning to my heart's content and Laurie's been working on the last of her finals. With any luck, she'll be done tonight and we can both spin together. Last night, the power when out in the blizzard conditions, so I was spinning by candlelight by a roasty fire in the fireplace. The power was restored in the early hours of the morning, so we're enjoying the lit Christmas tree and the cozy surroundings right now. Everything is so beautiful covered in snow. Unfortunately, the cross country ski place is closed and won't open until Thursday morning and we're leaving tomorrow morning. It's been quite a relaxing and lovely getaway. Just what we needed with all of the stress that's been going on lately.

When we get home, tomorrow, I'll post again to fill in what's been going on this last week or so. It's hard to be on the computer here and not spinning and enjoying the beautiful surroundings, I really hope Laurie will be able to have a little fun here, too!

Oh dear

Laurie was laid off today from school even though we had thought that she would be employed until December 17th. We're really praying for a good result from her job interview this week.

Catching up a bit

Mostly, over the last week or so, I've been sleeping a lot and hanging out in bed to try to alleviate the pain in my back. I went to the doctor a week ago friday and basically, came up with the "I have no idea what is going on" diagnosis. So, I'm getting set up for an MRI and a biospy and see what the heck is going on. (We are pretty sure that our lymphedema theory is not what's going on.) That and the meds keep me pretty sleepy and saying some pretty funny things :). Once I was talking to Laurie just before I took a nap and finished the conversation as if we were talking on the phone and then giggled about it for about 10 minutes afterward.

Our Thanksgiving was very nice, we went over to our friends Paul and Debbie's for dinner around 3. Everyone brought a traditional dish and there was lots and lots of food that was all delicious. After, we went over to my grandparent's house for dessert. Laurie made a delicious pumpkin pie out of the pumpkin that we bought and roasted after Halloween. It was very yummy :). We went to both places with about 4 bottles of heavy whipping cream and came home with none for our leftover pie. That's a lot of whipped cream! Of course, we did make three different kinds of whipped cream - carmel, egg nog, and regular.

So, let me catch you up on my spinning things now, (I have been knitting but I failed to take a picture of what I've been up to.) First, are the pictures of the bunnies. One of these brothers will be coming home with me soon! The woman whom I'm purchasing it from sent me these pictures to hold me over until I can come hold them. They are so cute!!

Next, I've been support spindling the first batch of bunny fiber that I got at the fiber festival from the bunny lady. The spindle's almost full! It's so soft!

Next, I just received a new shipment of angora fiber and I'm blending it with some merino that I just got to make a beautiful, soft, amazing pair of socks for myself. I love the color that the two fibers make together, a heathery purple. The first picture is the angora, then the "Wine" merino wool and the last the first batt I made of the two of them and what I've spun up.

Last is some handpainted BFL that I'm spinning up for Expressions in Spinning. This month, we're spinning up a poem by Shel Silverstein, My Beard. It goes:

My beard grows down to my toes,
I never wears no clothes,
I wraps my hair
Around my bare,
And down the road I goes.

I was thinking that the pinks and beige's remind me of cold, red toes and noses and a bare bottom. :)

A particularly ouchy week

I've kind of put off posting this week because I'm not having a particularly happy, good week. Last week, when I showered, Laurie noticed a new lump on my back. We're pretty sure that it's another blocked lymph node causing problems, but it is acting a bit different that the one in my neck. For one thing, it hurts really badly all the time. Even just running your hand over my back right now is very painful. So, I've been favoring that side for a week now and all my other muscles are protesting. My PCP hasn't been in the office all week, so hopefully we can get in contact with her today and see what's up. It's just frustrating to be in pain and frustrating to not be able to do the things I want to. I was trying to spin laying down last night with the heating pad. :)

In other bad news, we found out this week that Laurie won't have a job starting December 17th. That's about a month away (some people have assumed we mean next year, but no, unfortunately). Having just bought a house, we are not too pleased. The whole school is shutting down. It seems that they have realized half way through the school year that they don't have enough money to complete it. They should have closed the school in June and even though they own some property free and clear that might pay for the rest of the school year, the board of trustees for the school aren't wanting to sell it. Not only is this bad for teachers and staff losing their jobs, the seniors expecting to graduate in May are pretty screwed. Because the school was on the block system, they don't have enough credits to graduate this year at another school. So, everyone is scrambling to try and fix the credit issue and apparently, some parents and former parents, have offered to try to keep the school open. We'll see what happens. There is one glimmer of hope in this, there is a position open at a school near us that Laurie really would fit into very well, so keep us in your prayers, I know that God is in this somewhere and there is a reason for this. God is good and will get us through this. It's just been a long week...

A goodbye, some fiber and vegetarian hunting

Well, yesterday, my turtle, Athena, was adopted by a new family. She'll be well taken care of and be a beloved pet for another little girl. I'm a little sad that she's gone, but we haven't been taking very good care of her - especially when we lived in our last place and I couldn't get into the room that she was living in. I'm confident she's in good hands and the new family said they'd keep me updated on how she's doing. Here's Athena's goodbye picture...

Laurie and I had a big dinner party last Saturday with our church dinner group and some of their family members. Dinner was fabulous, we had a belgian ale pot roast beef stew, yorkshire pudding, and roasted vegetables. Basically, all of our favorites and it was delicious. When we were shopping for dinner at Trader Joe's we found the coolest thing! Brussel sprouts still on the stalk! I took pictures while Laurie prepped them for roasting, she called the zeal in which I photographed the sprouts the equivalent of vegetarian hunting. :)

Lastly, an update on knitting and spinning. I've started 2 new knitting projects this past weekend. One is the alpaca February Lady's sweater that I'm using the alpaca from Chile to make. It was a bear to try and wind into balls. We ended up with a tangled mess that Laurie's been picking apart. I think we're going to try wrapping it around something like a chair before trying to wind again because the hank is too big to fit our yarn store's swift. I also started the first project I've ever used my own handspun for. I'm knitting up a little kerchief with the lace weight silk that I just finished spinning. It's going really fast and the pattern's been easy to memorize so it's been a good out and about project. I also just got some new fiber. The purple in the pictures is BFL from Pagewood Farms in the colorway "River Rock". The second picture is of a BFL/silk blend that I got from Spunky Eclectic. The colorway is called "Joshua Tree" and I'm totally in love with it. I'm planning on making a pair of stocking with it and I'm really excited about it. I also got a little bit of Wennsleydale wool handpainted in the same color as the BFL/silk combo. I've been curious to try out new fibers and Wennsleydale is new to me, and I'm looking forward to try out spinning it. I'm going on a fiber diet for about a month or so now, I have so many projects to do and I really don't need more fiber. I do have sad news, my 12" russian spindle sustained an injury, the top broke off in my bag. I'm very sad about it, but I'm working on getting a replacement and also making a bag to protect the future new ones.

PS. Laurie said I could have an Angora bunny for Christmas!!!!! I'm so EXCITED!!!!!!!