Back Again

I guess I'll begin with the knitting blogger's cliche: "I've been knitting; I just haven't been blogging." It is my choice to teach college classes, so I shouldn't complain, but I do sometimes feel like I'm being a bit of a sell-out to my values by working so much. On the other hand, it's pretty rewarding...and I get paid well, which means we can do more special family things, so I should just "put up and shut up." As one of my friends at work would say, "That's a good rationalization."

I've been knitting some saguaro socks, using Colinette Jitterbug. It's a free pttern from Ravelry, and I love it. I also love Jitterbug. It's so cushy and soft. It ws nearly 80 degrees today, so I won't be wearing them for a while still, but I'm enjoying working on them.

I have lots of projects in the works. The main reason for this is that I had an "extreme knitting" Saturday with a couple of my friends. We spent the day visiting local yarn shops. There are three in Bakersfield: Bead and Yarn Studio, which has recently moved to District Blvd. across from the Dreyer's Plant, ABCs of Creative Pursuits, and Classy Knits and Yarns. We had a wonderful time browsing, buying, and just enjoying each other's company. Add a nice lunch at the Sequoia Sandwich shop, and we had a perfect day.

I had a nice opportunity to knit endlessly last weekend. We drove seven plus hours up to Chico State to look at the campus with Paige and her best friend. Russ and I loved it up there, lots of beautiful, old trees, and a lush park with a stream running through the center of town. We stopped at U.C. Davis on the way home too, which is "only" five hours away from home. Russ and I have always liked Davis. We have a good friend who went to school there, and we, of course, appreciate the great natural food choices. Paige and Kai are used to going to Co-ops to find lunch when we're in "healthy" towns. Paige's friend, Melissa was a good sport about it, but I noticed that she didn't try any of the hummus or tofu that we bought....Paige really surprised me a couple of days ago though, saying that maybe she'd prefer to be closer to home. I'd love to see her go to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, which is barely two hours from us, so I guess I better pretend that I don't care. (LOL)

This has nothing to do with knitting either; in fact, it kind of is an "anti-knitting" thing since it kept me from knitting a lot of the time for four years. I sent a chapter of my thesis to the Polish American Studies Journal for consideration for publication last month, and. they accepted it, which is really exciting for me. I read on their site that last year that they accepted 26 percent of the articles submitted to them, so I feel quite academic. My friends have been appropriately impressed, and then they ask if I'm getting paid .