Another Ride

6:45 am

                Ride yesterday: I finished my class at 3:30, spent 45 minutes loading the car, got home, did not unload the car but I got changed and was ready to leave by close to 5. I then biked to the house of one of K’s co-workers in Belchertown. Down the bike trail, Warren Wright, Stebbins, across 202  and then the killer hill up to her house. And it was not so bad. Which gives me hope for Cave Hill since this rose a lot more in elevation than that does. It was very satisfying to arrive all sweaty at the party. She has a pool so I put on my suit and actually went in, which is kind of a big deal for me. I really did not want to go into the cold water, but finally I did and then I did my Harold and Maude swim across and back a few times and it really was quite refreshing. Of course no one else came in, but that was ok.  Not sure if we’ll do a ride today.  We are supposed to go to a friend’s. And before that I have the entire car to unload and lots of bunny work to do.

Visit my new Etsy Shop!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

Class, Rides and Freecycle

6:30 am

            For some reason this morning, having done nothing else yet (except have my psillium – YUM) I feel compelled to write. After that I will meditate, then do whatever is next: stretches, bunnies, breakfast. My class is now > ½ over which I am glad of. It is pretty tiring/wearing. They are good kids, but they are having a very hard time mastering spinning. The old solid-wood, hand-made wheel keeps breaking – the footman plastic piece broke, I replaced it with bike inner tube – very brilliant of me, but that pulled out, I fixed it, it pulled out again. I have brought it home and given up on it, except that I ordered a new part, but that won’t come until after the class is over. Today we will start out focusing again on spinning, then we will do some felting. I wish I could keep them longer on the drop spindles, but of course they all want to move to wheels which look like a lot more fun. Next time I will not even bring wheels until later in the week. Not even let them know they are available.

            After class I got together with a friend who happened to be in town. It was nice except I made the big mistake of having black caffeine-rich tea. And could hardly get to sleep last night. I thought I might sleep later, but woke up and so why not get going? I believe I am going to meet a fair co-chair before class. I think I will bike up, maybe go a long way around, but not do an actual big ride. Yesterday I rode 15 miles and it indeed took 1 ½ hours (which included a pee break at Town Hall and another in the woods). Some good hills in there.

            This morning it would be very nice if I have a bit of time to spin. I did half of a skein of the nice fully blended lichen stuff which I am liking. I’ll do the other ½ ounce, ply that, then start in on some larger bobbins. And I started knitting the square that will become the bunny for my friend’s grand-daughter.  I really need to knit up some more of those for sale. And I need to pursue this store that is starting up – the woman wants commissions, and I think I will give it a try, even though she takes 40%. That is a lot, but really by the time I pay booth fees plus spend all day or weekend at the booth, well there goes a lot of anything I make.

            The white baby buns are getting quite large and are pretty much ready to go. I will see if I can do them over the weekend, that would help make daily care a bit easier. I put in another Craig’s List ad for the dark boy bunnies, we’ll see if anything comes of it. The Freecycle listings have been quite successful – both corner desks, the bureau, the couch, and the tv tray tables have all gone. Oh, plus the snorkel stuff that I got a call on literally as soon as I pressed send on that listing. No takers for the disgusting green chair. Maybe I’ll try again. Or maybe we can put it outside with a FREE sign, as long as it does not stay out when it rains.

            I did finally start to tackle my work email. The thing that made it bearable was that I started out with deleting messages. Lots and lots and lots of them. That is satisfying, except that it barely seems to have made a dent in the total number! Well I will keep at it. I will try to do some more this morning. Along with everything else…. I did manage to get to UMass on Tues to pay G’s tuition bill so that is good.

            Ok, time to meditate, then get going with everything else.

Visit my new Etsy Shop!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

The Coming Dark

7:20 am

                I am having a hard time getting going this morning. It is the first in a long time that I have gotten up in the dark which is how it will be getting more and more as we inch towards fall and then heaven forbid winter. It was not actually so much dark when I got up since it was 6:40, but it is overcast and so looks dreary out. I meditated in the “sun” room. I am supposed to go biking (just a short one) with a friend, but the forecast is for rain all morning, so I don’t know. We may have to try earlier than we had planned which was for 8:30.

                My class started yesterday. 7 kids which is one more than expected. One who had been signed up for the previous class that was cancelled joined up last minute. Last year I planned too much and we couldn’t do it all, yesterday I should have had a little more ready to grab and start as some things took less time than I expected. I also brought a snack that I forgot to pull out and that would have been very helpful. My plans are very sketchy as I figured I would adjust and clarify when I got a feel for the group, so I’ll look back over them now and probably change some things.

                Yesterday I actually finally started to tackle my work email. I was so nervous about it. What I finally did to get started was to paste a name into the search function, and have all emails related to that name come up. Then I could delete big chunks at a time if I knew everything related to that name I did not need to look at. Like Angora Rabbits. All the group posts came up and I just deleted them all. I don’t know if there is a way to sort the emails by sender, that would be a good way to do it too, but this is working. I also need to go through and delete all the emails from the spring semester as I never did that. Soon I will be left with the few that I actually need to look at and maybe act on.

                Today I need to get in before the class starts and pay G’s tuition bill. And go to the library to return all kinds of late books and get out our next bookclub book. And deposit L’s check at the bank. I was planning to bike in, but we’ll see what happens with the rain. I could certainly take the bus to campus and then walk from there.

                I think the other thing I’ll do before I go is to weigh out batt bits so I can get started on spinning the next of this lichen dyed angora blend stuff. I have a bunch of batts that are pretty thoroughly blended and that looks very nice spun up. And then there are a few more batts of the layered stuff. That spins up very much like the other skeins I did which I am sick of, so maybe I’ll so something with them to mix things up a bit. Ply with something dramatic? Put them through the carder once more to blend it more fully? I’ll have to think about it.

                I did 2 lovely food things yesterday. I baked a loaf of sourdough and roasted some eggplant. The sourdough had been rising for several days in a bowl, first on the counter and then in the fridge. I put it in bread pans yesterday morning and left it all day, finally, even though it was still not particularly risen, I put it in to bake. And it came out fine. Of course it is super dense and quite sour, but it is good. As for the eggplant, well K brought home fish to bake for supper so I decided to bake some eggplant at the same time. I cut it up, tossed with plenty of olive oil, and spread it on a baking sheet and let it roast. After the fish was done I turned the heat up a bit to really get it roasted and it was delicious. May have to do that some more as there is plenty of eggplant!

                I guess I’d better call my friend to see what she wants to do about biking. And I gotta do the buns. Speaking of which I took some photos and posted the young guys on Craigs List again.

Visit my new Etsy Shop!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

Rain, Finances and Finished Projects

7 am

                Well I thought I would go for a run this morning, but it is raining. Which does not preclude a run, just makes it discouraging. It’s just that bike rides take so long. I did what I had planned to yesterday and it was a very nice ride but it took 1 ½ hours. Can’t do that today. Today I must get out all the stuff for the class next week and make sure all is set. Must check over all the wheels – it seems like one of the lendrums was not working very well. I need to check to see how many have signed up in the end. I had 5, then there were the 2 from the class that was cancelled. I don’t know if they switched over.

                Yesterday, besides the bike ride, sucked. I did finances which sucked. Pretty descriptive.             I got stuff from the other house for class, now I just have to sort it all and figure out what kind of boxes I’ll use to bring it to the Bangs Center. It will be better this year if I have different activities in different boxes. And I really need to box up the camping stuff somehow because it is still all over the living room.

                Tomorrow the plan is to bike to Turners Falls to see the bike that our friend is going to buy, then maybe to hang around until the street party starts. But he will buy his bike at 10 and the street party starts at 2. We’ll have to leave very early to get there by 10 (it’s 25 miles). Not sure I want to hang out in Turners Falls for several hours, then have to bike home so late. I suppose we could bike to Shelburne Falls and watch our friend be a tour guide at the Bridge of Flowers. Or not.

                I finished a couple of things and washed a ton of skeins which is good. I got the knitting bag back from Mom so I was able to sew up the fingerless gloves I had knit. I like this design. I used an K1P1 rib, increased to make a gusset at the thumb and made a half thumb, then continued up the palm. They are very thick and warm. I also finished the neck warmer. It is of a very soft wool/angora blend. I used huge needles and just did a K2P2 rib on circular needles. It is long enough to fold over at a neck and is also very warm. Perfect for these summer days. It would be good if I could wear them or carry them around or something to get them to bloom out. Maybe once they are dry I will try tossing them in the drier with no heat and just let them bang around a bit.

Visit my new Etsy Shop!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

Busy with Mom

7:45 am

                Crappy morning crappy night soon to be crappy day. And I feel crappy. Thought I’d better get that off my chest. If not here then where?  Yesterday was busy. I left around 8 to pick up Mom to get her to a gathering of all the Great Grands. Ok, so that part was fun, seeing all the kids,  though there was also Mom to keep track of, make sure she was ok. We managed to get some really good photos of her with the kids. Now I need to get those photos off the facebook page and get them printed for Mom. By 11:30 we headed off with part of the crew to get lunch at 99. The whole day involved a lot of driving. Lunch was quite fun as I sat next to one of the kids and helped to keep him entertained. Finally it was time to get Mom home. We got back to her place at about 2 and I made some phone calls for her, washed some dishes, and left her to rest before she got herself to dinner. She did agree that while she was out and about with the kids the pain was not so bad - she was so distracted.

                I drove home and checked all the text and email messages. I had foolishly posted some furniture on Freecycle just the night before, so there were all kinds of questions etc coming in all day. I arranged to meet someone there at 7 (a second person cancelled). He did arrive and actually took a desk and shelves. Yay! I cooked a very nice steak that had been sitting with its “rub” all day, and after we dealt with the furniture we went to Barts for me to get an ice cream sundae. Kind of stupid and I felt not great at night. I just had such a craving for it and justified since I had had such a hard day. Next time try to be satisfied with a cookie or piece of chocolate….

                I am going to go for a quick bike ride now.  I did not ride either Tues or Wed and I felt crappy. It takes up such a chunk of time, but I really seem to need the exercise. Today I am just going up East Pleasant to Leverett rd (which of course becomes Amherst Rd in Leverett) then turn onto Juggler Meadow, cross 63 onto Hubbard Hill, then over to Plumtree, down South Plain (which turns into Shattuck) then onto Comins which will take me to Meadow and I can take North Pleasant back. Not sure how long that will be, but it will not take too long. As long as it does not rain.

                Then the rest of the day will HAVE to be devoted to: finances and getting ready for next week’s class. And sometime very very very soon I must finally open my work email and start the process of getting ready for the fall…..

Visit my new Etsy Shop!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries