Expressive Dignity

So it's almost May, and May is the end of the school year - a month filled with activities, which is compounded exponentially when the student is a senior...

...Last night girl child and I went to a "pep-fest" gathering for the IB and honors seniors. The teachers call it a pep fest since the kids still have testing to do all next week. As a parent, I appreciate the fact that they didn't make it later in the year; we could actually go last night and enjoy it.

And enjoyable it was.

Being a public, city school there is no money for anything fancy. This can be turned into a plus, however, with a creative faculty, which was exactly what happened last night. The students had filled out information about themselves, their school memories and what they were looking forward to ... but the frosting on the cake was that they wrote words about each other. The teachers pulled two words from each list and gave them to the students as their graduation gift.

Girl child's words: Expressive Dignity

Movies

So I don't have any pictures of yesterday's snow - I mean, who wants to see snow the end of April? Today was better, although the weather scene here in Minnesota doesn't seem to be "brightening" any time soon.

And what better thing to do when the weather is bad than to watch movies? Last night I watched The Green Mile. Really, it was very enjoyable and I'd forgotten a lot of the magical realism details. It's about the only Stephen King I'll watch. I also saw When Harry Met Sally with girl child the other night - I felt it was important that she see the legendary scene that ends with, "I'll have what she's having" now that she's about to go off to college. (Note that the deli scene gets its own paragraph in wikipedia). The movie was funnier than I'd remembered.

I had coffee with a couple of old Northwest Airlines friends this weekend too. Only one still works there; we who don't were reminded of how much we don't miss the airline business. With the Delta deal in the works, we are especially grateful.

I also finished a sock and started it's mate ... I'm very slowly making progress on two other socks and waiting for P to come home before going any further on his. I've frogged a sweater I started last summer and may even work that yarn into a tank for this summer.

That's the end of a lackluster post on a dreary, cold day. I'll try to find something fun to write about this week...

Knitter Retreat and Senior Party

Thanks to Sue for the information on MN Knitters' Days which is held this year October 17-19 at Villa Maria in Frontenac.

If I could, I would certainly go to this retreat weekend with Candace Eisner Strick teaching!

Remember the fabulous colors and designs found in Strickwear

I've spent my evening at a meeting for the Highland Senior Party Planning Committee - how did that happen on such a beautiful day? Anyway, it looks like it will be lots of fun with great prizes including boxer shorts to be won in "Bowling for Boxers"

How could you not have fun at a party that lets you bowl for boxers?

OCD or Startitis?

So I'm trying to decide if I have a little problem....


...with starting so many projects at a time...


...and then I get frustrated 'cause I'm never finishing anything...


...or maybe I'm just trying to avoid cleaning the house...



...although today I did get the house clean, with the help of girl child...and it's a beautiful day out too...so I took pictures...but I didn't knit much...



Mozart is very happy it's springtime.

Back to Yarnover

I've never been attracted to kits before, but I saw this at Yarnover and I couldn't resist - It's a Candace Eisner-Strick design and the sample she had out was so wonderful the kit was irresistible.

I guess her stuff is not available online except wholesale, but I do know she teaches (as she did at Yarnover) and I think there's a class with her over a long weekend in October at Villa Maria. (Sue do you have details?)

Books

This is the book I'm currently reading - very fun and interesting with many curious characters to love, hate and wonder about ... from the 17th century and modern day. I received the book as a birthday present from Auntie, but I haven't finished it as I read Water for Elephants in the middle (for book club) which was another fun read. I'm also intermittently reading Harlot's new book - for those moments when I don't have time for much, but enough for something.

The fact that I have too many socks going has cut into my reading time quite a bit so I'll post some pics of those later.

Knitterly Weekend

Two big events have just taken place for the knitters of the Twin Cities.

On Thursday night we got to see Yarn Harlot speak. In spite of driving rain and sleet with blinding lightning and ear-splitting thunder, about 400 people showed up at the University of St. Thomas. I must have been trembling with anticipation since all of my pictures turned out blurry except for this one - my current sock with Harlot in the background:

If you want to see the hilarious show that was put on by The Yarnery before Stephanie spoke, take a look at Shelly's blog for the video of the Yarnery Family Singers.

I love listening to Stephanie speak. I love reading her books. The only thing she left out (imho) about how others view us was the thrifty part - I had a fellow bus rider comment not long ago about how much money I must save since I knit my own socks!?!!

(I will confess that I'm a little worried about her since she still hasn't posted her Twin Cities visit on her blog yet and it's Sunday ... Harlot, are you out there? Are you ok?)

The other big event was Yarnover. I love Yarnover. Thanks to Shelly (different Shelly from above) and all the others who put this event together. This year I took a class from Lucy Neatby - what's not to love:


And I also subjected myself to being photographed for the 1,000 Knitters Project so that I could meet Franklin of the Panopticon:

I love Franklin and all that he writes and knits. I think I was able to hold myself together and not make an a** of myself by gushing (although that may have ended up being pointless babbling instead of gushy babbling, it's hard to say). As far as what the picture looks like, I'm sure Franklin did the best he could with what he had to work with ... I'm in the number 500s.

Spam Museum

The end of the road trip, which was over a week ago now, was the Spam Museum. Everything you ever wanted to know about Spam is there in the museum. They even have a video that includes Spammy music by the Spamettes...

There was also a stop in Independence, MO at the Truman Library, but alas we have no pictures from Independence. Not only was it a miserably rainy day, the neighborhood has obviously gone downhill, which made us feel kind of bad for Harry.

Farewell to 23 Things

Sorry y'all, but I think it's pretty obvious I'm not going to make it through the 23 Things on a Stick by Wednesday...

I'm glad I had a looksie at the 23 Things and I will continue to use the ones that work for me, which I'm sure will be constantly changing. As a result, I'm sure I'll be dipping into those resources from time to time.

Thing 9

I've decided to edit the commentary on an early map of Hispaniola available on the Library of Congress' website.

Since Columbus never knew where he had been, I think it's important to include the fact that he was lost on any information related to his "discoveries".

:-P

Yes, there would be lots of library applications for this thing ... particularly when working on putting together instruction for freshman classes teaching them how to use the library for research in a particular field.

Thing 8

Here's my sock-a-rama slide show using Fliptrack:

How would I use this in the library? Well, I'm not sure. I guess I'd be most likely to put something like this (ok, not socks, but library stuff) up on the screen while patrons trickle into the classroom to pique their curiosity. I'm a little less flashy for the actual instruction part, mostly because I like to try to get them to focus ...

Guthrie Loot

Well, I had a Visa gift card so while in Guthrie I exercised it a little ... these three sock yarns and Jo Sharp book.

The shop where I got the loot is SWAK or Sealed With a Kiss. I think the woman in the shop maybe almost fell off her chair when she asked me what we were doing in Guthrie and I told her it was to visit her shop. I'm very sad I didn't take a picture of her or her little grandson masscot while there, but here's a look at the shop:

Road Trip - Guthrie, OK

The town of Guthrie is a little Victorian gem. Apparently it was once the capital of Oklahoma but that was changed - which means that Guthrie was preseved. The antique shops that are housed in the brick buildings on the main street are full of treasures and could be browsed for days.

Road Trip - Waco, TX

Are you a Pepper?

Here in Waco the Dr. Pepper Museum will tell you all about the captains of industry who created Dr. Pepper. It's privately owned and they promote free enterprise like no other museum.



Waco is the victim of bad press. It's really a nice little town and has a lot of good restaurants in the warehouse district. We ate at Ninfa's and stayed at the Waco Hotel - it was great.

Road Trip - Amarillo, TX

Cadillac Ranch really should not be missed by anyone - and don't forget to bring your spray paint: