Friday, November 14, 2008

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 .

10 comments:

Tracy said...

There she is!! LOL! Beginning to wonder if we lost you... ;o) So glad to see you posting. And what wonderful news about your thesis--very exciting! So are your beautiful socks...love that yarn. Glad that all is well...and knitting is happening. Happy weekend to you all ((HUGS))

Cloudberry said...

Nice to have you back :)
Great colors on thos socks!

Have a great weekend!

TheBlackSheep said...

Congrats! It's really great to have people appreciate your work, especially if you're not getting paid for it.

Ah Davis, my alma mater, you do always manage to make me homesick lol!

Anonymous said...

YES, action on the blog!!!!'

I miss you and the family....glad someone in the family is looking at college...someone else you know certainly is NOT....he's sure he will be a rockstar...oh well...

Hope to chat soon.
XO
Ann/Lincoln

Anonymous said...

Welcome back!

Tracy Batchelder said...

Congratulations on your publication acceptance! And, good luck helping your daughter find the right school.

Willow said...

SO good to hear you are alive and well, well-published, well-knitted, well-traveled, well-teaching. You sound really really busy! The socks are nice! Welcome back!

Rani said...

First of all, congrats on being published. That's quite an honor!

I loved the comment about 'pretending not to care'. That is some very wise parenting!

Good luck with those college bounders.

OH! AND HOORAY! Beautiful socks, too!

monica said...

Congrats on the thesis!!! how exciting for you.
Those are some beautiful and bright socks.

JayJay said...

Hah, you don't get paid for academic publications (unless its textbook)! The honor is more than enough payment right? Seriously, that is really great and you should be quite proud of yourself.

I have a skein of Jitterbug that I should pull out and play around with. Maybe after the holidays?

As for schools for Paige, at least all her choices in-state. My fear is that someday RJ will decide to go where I did my postdoc, Brown. Expensive and really far away, yikes!