And the Winner is...

Black Sheep, You're the winner of the scrumptious skein of Knittery cashmere yarn. I loved everyone's sock story, and I couldn't possibly decide the winner by the "best" story method; so I decided to complete my contest using a highly scientific manner. I asked Russ to tell me a number between one and ten, which was the number of comments I had. He said, "five" and Blacksheep ws the fifth comment! Blacksheep, if you will email me your address I will have that yarn on the way to Switzerland right away:)

I spent yesterday at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. I'm part of a group of four teachers who take a class of honors students to the Getty every year. We get to go the Getty for "orientation" every year too, to get acclimated to any new exhibits since we're the tour guides. It is an incredible museum, situated on a hill overlooking downtown L.A. Of course, the view was a bit obscurred yesterday with all of the smoke, but the weather itself was perfect. We've been planning to go to the Getty Villa, which is now open in Malibu, but for obvious reasons it's been closed for the last week.



These two paintings are both on dispaly at the Getty. They're both paintings of Venus and Adonis by Vouet and Titian, respectively. I really like Vouet's version (top picture), since it reminds me of the mint candies my grandma used to have when I was little. It's the pastel colors I guess. I even used these two paintings as a subject for one of my papers for an art class I had to take for my Humanities degree. Sadly, that was the only class I received a B in, and the prof. ripped apart the two papers of mine that she graded. I never even got back my third and fourth papers....but I'm not bitter. (LOL)

I haven't been doing any impressive knitting, but I've been happily knitting pumpkins. I found a pattern for these pumpkins Curly Purly. They're so easy but still cute, I think. I think I'm calling the yellow one an apple. I'm planning to donate them for a fundraiser at our church next weekend. I figure they'll look cute on a Thanksgiving table.

100th Post

I just happened to notice yesterday that I was on my 99th post. I knew 100 was coming, and I had kind of thought I'd just let it go un-marked since I didn't have any great ideas about how to celebrate it. However, I was looking through my yarn yesterday as well, and I discovered a beautiful skein of of merino cashmere sock yarn from The Knittery. (I don't even remember where I bought it. Jimmy Bean's maybe. It's worsted weight, which someone in colder climate would have many opportunities to make use of: but sadly I don't think that heavy wool socks will ever be something I'll need more than a day or two a year.

So I'm having a small contest. All you have to do is to tell me a "sock" story. I'm most interested in your favorite pattern, but I don't care what your story is about. it will just be fun to read them. I'll keep my content open until my next post--No! I'm not going to wait a month between post like I've been doing! I'm thinking I'll just choose the winner randomly, but I reserve the right to choose the person who tells me the best story:)

Rabbits

I could't get Blogger to post my picture of my rabbits yesterday. So here they are today.

Angst Ended

Before I give my monthly excuse for not blogging, there are a few accomplishment I can boast about. I knit some cute little gloves for my little six-year-old neice for Christmas. I accidentally ordered one skein of Claudia's Handpainted yarn in Jill's Pink from from the Loopy Ewe, so I decided to make something with one skein instead of ordering another skein to knit another pair of socks. I love this yarn. It's so soft. I think it's softer than Lorna's Laces yarn which I also love. The color is perfect as well. I also knit another little rabbit so that both of my neices can have one.

I don't live an incredibly stressful life, but it does seem like sometimes I have too much going on to really enjoy it much, and I will begin to feel this growing angst. I usually take a day off work when that comes on, but I haven't even felt like I had time to do that in the last couple of weeks. Some of the sources of my anxiety seem pretty humorous now, but they weren't when I was going through them.

Here is a not completely atypical day in my life. Up at 5 (even though I was up until at least 10:30 to run 3 miles, get to work by 7:40, which is technically ten minutes late. Within five minutes of arriving, I discover that the school's televised morning announcements which I am partly in charge of are not working on the principals computer even though they work fine on mine since I check them innumerable times in the morning because I worry about them not working.--problem is eventually solved. Teach three classes of English to students whose only desire is to sneak text messages to their friends, accuse each other of being gay, or merciless tease members of the opposite sex. (And I teach the "good" ones!) I then teach two technology classes which are fun BUT hectic. And finally go up to another class during my preparation period to tutor students on webpage design since their teacher who is mainly a football coach doesn't want to understand it himself. By the time 3:00 rolls around, I'm pretty beat, but still have to tie up some lose ends, prepare for a evening college class I've been teaching, for the first time. Parent arrives with his son in tow because the son got a deficiency and parent's goal is to humiliate his lazy but decent kid in front of his teacher. I soon discover that I have a bloody nose at about this time which won't stop bleeding. Parent doesn't seem to notice and makes son get all of his make up work and take a make up test right then and there. I finally get rid of this no altogether unpleasant pair, when my good friend comes in all excitied about starting a new college academy thing at our school He also seems not to care that I still have a bloody nose and talks for another fifteen minutes. I make it home to realize that husband has made "dinner"...that is--one item--Pad Thai out of a box from Trade Joe's. (OK, he did work all day too teaching first graders, but...) Somehow I make it through the day, but that was the day that I decided that I needed to slow down. I'm tired again just reading about it. Anyway, I'm really happy that it's fall, and I've been gardening and cooking....and knitting, of course. The only fullfilling thing I haven't been doing is blogging, and I'm going to start doing that again too!

Gidget, our beagle puppy, is still cute and troubesome. She loves yarn like Rowdy used to, and can't seem to control herself around it. Here is what is left of some Nashua yarn I accidentally left in grabbing distance.



Here's why I don't care that much what she does...within reason!