Thanksgiving From Hell (continued)

10 am
Well. Here I am in Asheville. In (now) my Father-In-Law’s house, with Daisy. The F-I-L and S-I-L have gone off to the Mall to get new décor for this guest room. K has taken our car to Midas Muffler to get the muffler fixed so we do not have a disaster on the way home. The girls have gone back to the house where we are staying up the road, L to finish her paper on the government of India, and G to be grumpy because L will not do anything with her. So that leaves me and Daisy. Not that I am particularly unhappy about it, since being alone with a bit of time to write Morning pages is just lovely. At some point today the cousins will arrive, and tonight we have dinner with them at the dining hall here.

The thanksgiving from hell happened, if you consider thanksgiving as being yesterday. It is still happening if you consider it as being all weekend. We drove like hell til 1 am on Tuesday, stopping off just off the interstate in East Chattham NY to pick up the drum carder that was advertised on Ravelry. We spent the night in a hotel, then left early to get to Oberlin in time for the Invertebrate Bio class. L went to it with G, while K and I wandered the streets of Oberlin. We went to a café, walked up to the local Frank Llyod Wright (?) house, walked back, had lunch at another place, stopped at a very nice 5&10 store, then rejoined the girls after the tour/info session/interview. G was really grumpy which made K really grumpy. He started griping to me –the griping about how he sure hopes she doesn’t decide that only a place like Green Mountain will satisfy her (he had been expressing all his concerns about L wasting her time after college all lunch – by that point I was not only incredibly tired of hearing dire predictions, but my butt was incredibly sore and I was super tired myself). I got a bit snappy which made K even gripier, so basically most of the 5 hour drive to our next hotel was miserable.

Yesterday we got up kind of late (no need to hurry since we were apparently not invited to the Thanksgiving Dinner here). K and I went to IHOP for breakfast, by the time we got back the girls were more or less ready to get up. We all took showers and left around 10:30. And drove and drove. Another 5 hour stint, broken up by a stop at Tamarak the West Virginia crafty place just off the interstate. I got ice cream which I probably shouldn’t have, but hell, I decided it was my thanksgiving dinner (can one sense a tiny note of bitterness over my missed TG meal?). We arrived here around 4 and I must say no one seemed too particularly excited about our arrival. The S-I-L eventually warmed up a bit, and we went through all kinds of stuff that was piled up in case it was stuff we wanted…. And then we proceeded to shred electron micrographs of kinorinchs etc that the F-I-L is terribly worried will “fall into the wrong hands.” Can you say “paranoid?” And a neighbor very nicely brought over some food so we did actually get supper which was nice.

Oh brother, this will be a long few more days. And with K off at the muffler place I cannot even work on grading the exams, since they are in the car. And I slept very poorly last night, and food will probably be an issue since it is all unfamiliar. As long as I am diligent about the psillium I am hoping to be ok. I think I will work on the latest scarf I started in the car. Except that I think it is too wide. I only have 2 skeins of this Lucky yarn, and I would like to make a full scarf.

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

Thanksgiving From Hell

7:45 am

The whirlwind begins. Today will be the start of the Thanksgiving From Hell. At 3 this afternoon we will get in the car and drive to Springfield to pick up K, then we will set off for Ohio. We’ll get to the hotel sometime in the middle of the night, then arise in the morning early enough to drive the last 2 hours to Oberlin where G will go to a couple of classes, take a tour, have an interview. We’ll kick around Oberlin, perhaps taking a nap in the library. Then we’ll get back in the car, drive about 5 hours to the next crummy hotel, sleep, get up, drive again to Asheville where we will be thrust into Family Time in a big way, with everone there for the memorial service. I’m assuming it will be reasonably miserable. K is thrilled at the idea of all this cousin time. I will have to find way to excuse myself (and the girls) to go off by ourselves to town or even to just hang out at the house. Family Dynamics. Oh dear. Oh, and that is not the end of it. Monday G visits Warren Wilson, and then we drive like hell all the entire way home, which we will reach at some ungodly hour on Tuesday in time for G to get to school and K to get to work. L and I can sleep.

                This is why I do not like going anywhere. I wish like hell that I was just staying here the entire break. And as for today, I have a todo list a mile long of everything I still need to get done before we leave, including packing. Oh, and as I sat down at the computer just a bit ago, G came dashing down the stairs having just woken up. It was 7:30, well past the bus time. And she has not yet packed. But she has a Russian presentation first period that she cannot miss. So I wrote her note to leave early and she’ll have to pack then. Of course it means she has the car until 1 so I cannot pack it. But that’s ok. I have the camperbus to get me to work this morning to get my skeins of yarn there for the Art at Work which is the last thing I want to think about, but I guess I’ll do it.

So I suppose I’d better get started.

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

Fair Photos

8:40

Hartsbrook fair went very well, it was tiring but reasonably fun. I don’t really have time to write this morning, I must get going to feed buns and get to work. I also should really read over the citation papers they turned in and I haven’t had time to look at.  Tomorrow begins the Thanksgiving From Hell, and I must get things ready for that, too…….

 Here are photos of my booth, lighting was bad, so they are not great.

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

Hartsbrook Fair

8 am

I actually have a few photos to put up on my blog this morning. 

the lovely pinky orange stuff i've been carding

here it is getting spun up

artsy photo of both!

Tomorrow is the Hartsbrook Fair so I must pack the car up as best I can this morning, plus do errands before work, including getting change from the bank. This afternoon I will bring the stuff over to the fair. I should be able to leave work by about 3, so I can get there at 4. In fact, I will probably have to come home first to finish packing stuff up, I don’t suppose I will actually be ready.

I worked over the past few days on revising the spinning instructions. I’ll see if I can print up a few copies at work (I can print double sided there) and another errand I must do this morning is pick up some dowels and washers to make more cd spindles. Am I ready for this fair? Not in the least. Oh well. It will happen as it happens.

I guess I’d better get going. No meditating today. Didn’t meditate yesterday at all – I was at work until 7. Or rather, at work until 6:10, then I caught the 6:20 bus and got home around 7. Long day.

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

Day Off!

7:50 am

                Nothing like a nice day off work to brighten my mood. Well, really, I cheered up a lot once I got to work and got super busy with getting things ready for this week’s lab. Being busy certainly helps. So I will stay busy today. I want to start spinning up the orange stuff I finished carding last night. I think I will spin one skein and knit up at least a sample to see how it looks. And I am exhausting another couple bits of dye and will set up a few more. It’s funny – I set the jars up with a lot of dye, the roving ends up very dark and saturated, and there is dye left in the jar. So I add more roving, and it ends up much paler, but there is still color in the jar. So now I am adding a bit more and expect to get very pale color and I hope that will exhaust it. But why, since the second bit of roving is certainly not saturated, does that bit not take up all the dye. There is obviously “room” on the roving for more color. I wish I better understood the chemistry and physics of dyes.

                Another hope for today is that I can get together with my friend. I would love to walk over to her house (I NEED to get more exercise – I am starting to get chubby 2 ½ years after my surgery and I don’t like that). I’m hoping she’s around, I could walk over there, then we could drive back here and she could do more carding. Don’t know if that is a possibility for her. Also I have her watch from the fair meeting and I need to get it back to her.

               

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

depression (again)

7:45 am

I don’t have much time to write or anything this morning – I want to take the 8:30 bus to get in to work reasonably early. We have to finish the preparations for this week’s lab, and I don’t want to stay too unreasonably late. Reasonable reasonable everything must be reasonable. That is a strange word.

                I’m feeling unfortunately more and more depressed lately. Lately and reasonably. I suppose it is reasonable that I am feeling depressed since it is getting darker and colder. Though it was quite sunny warm and lovely all weekend. Still. I am having a hard time feeling interested or excited about much.  I did more carding between the MS&WF meeting and bookclub yesterday, so I am nearly done with that red/orange/yellow stuff. I sure hope I enjoy spinning it because there is a lot. I’m assuming I will ply it to itself, just a 2-ply, but that could always be changed. I could ply it to the tangerine-y stuff I carded previous to this. Or ply it with some orange angora, since I have plenty of that. Or Navajo ply it to keep color changes more intact. But I want to keep it quite thin. The pink stuff I spun up and then knit into a scarf was really too thick.

                I am also continuing to work on the grey angora scarf which is turning out really lovely. It is nice to sit and rub it on my face when I feel crummy. Like yesterday at bookclub, I just wasn’t into it and I was feeling depressed. I’m not particularly interested in the next book, and I might just bag it, which is very unusual for me. I do get kind of tired of being nearly the only one who actually finishes these books we choose. And I have the Ford book that I am plowing through, so maybe I’ll just read that and skip this other book. Why read it if it doesn’t interest me and is nothing I’ve heard of?

                I will have to skip meditating this morning, but still I had better get going since I have to get dressed, find something for supper, and feed buns.

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