Turning The Page

I’ve had a debate going on in my head these last few weeks about what to do about my blog- should I keep blogging, should I stop, how much will I miss it, why am I blogging anyway? The Northern Voice conference I attended a week ago made me proud to be a member of the geek community but is that enough to keep going?

One thing I know is I need to stop talking about myself so I’ve decided to take a break from blogging.

I truly appreciate everyone of you who has taken the time to read my thoughts, to leave a comment or said something about what I have blogged about on your own blog.

I do intend to keep blog reading and flickr gazing.

Vancouver in February

I’m in Vancouver all weekend attending Northern Voice at the University of British Columbia. It’s a conference about internet applications and how to integrate them into out personal and professional lives.

The weather is surprisingly sunny. I’ve found myself leaving the beautiful faculty of Forestry building, where the conference is held, to wander around the campus looking for old haunts. There are snowdrops in full bloom, violets and even a few crocuses in the sunnier spots.

Like a pot of water boiling all over the stove

I feel wrung out, something like how I imagine I would feel after psyching myself up to jump off a forty foot cliff but landing it safely, with my arms, legs and most importantly my head still intact.

It’s work pressure. How I resent the way it makes me feel, I can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t sit still. I wish I could stop doing this to myself. As Robert would say, they are not paying me to take my work home.

Longworth Lookout snowshoe trip

We were about two thirds of the way up, it was colder, the snow had lost its crust , it was steeper and as I turned around to look at the view I saw a perfect line down between the trees. Suddenly I wished I was on skies not snowshoes.

It always happens midway through winter- the mercury rises, the sun comes out, the top layer of snow melts then freezes, melts again refreezes etc, all the snow falls off the trees becoming wet, sticky and crusty. The only way to get out is on snowshoes. Yet it's still fun. And I was able to convince myself that that skiing would have been terrible.

We hiked up there for lunch. It was colder and I was glad I had packed my down jacket.

I love the way the trees get this frozen wedding cake icing look

Ravelry, my new reason for spending too much time staring at my computer screen

Update: you can find me on Ravelry here.

Ravelry is a place for knitters, crocheters, designers, spinners, and dyers to keep track of their yarn, tools and pattern information, and look to others for ideas and inspiration.

I was invited to join before Christmas, back then I put up a bare bones face page and forgot about it. Yesterday evening I went back to it.

I started looking at patterns for cardigans and bags. I found it interesting to see how people knit the same pattern and had it coming out so differently- using different yarns and colours, making small adjustments, alterations and additions to the pattern. Making it their own.

It was so easy to be able to fave or queue a pattern, design or other users project. I was really having fun so this morning I spent nearly five hours entering in all my knitting projects and uploading photos. I have kept a ball band from every type of wool I have used for every project. Now with Ravelry I can keep track of the needle size I used for each project, the pattern and designer and my thoughts when knitting it.

I could even keep a separate inventory of all my knitting needles, all my knitting books, magazines and pamphlets and every ball of yarn I own. Not only can I keep track of the knitting stuff I own but the stuff I want to own, may someday own or can only dream about. In addition to all that I can keep track of my knitting friends or friends I....

If you want to be a member of Ravelry you have to put your name on the waiting list. The founders of Ravelry ( Casey, Jess and Bob) make it clear the reason they have a waiting list is not because they want to be snobby but at present they only have "one Casey code monkey to keep up with updates and bugs!" And Ravelry is still in Beta, that makes all us Ravelers guinea pigs.

Wooly Bullies Mockumentary

I saw this over a year ago but just dug it up, after been reminded of it while listening to Stash and Burn to remind myself how fast laura Chau can knit. I'm jealous.

Knitting and Baking inside on a Snowy Valentines Day

This morning I cast on the enough stitches to make the smallest size of my next project, Claude designed my Anna of My Fashionable Life

I was knitting away happily, although in the back of my mind I thought the whole thing looked loser than it should be and was probably way too big. Eventually, after listening to the entire latest episode of the Knitters Uncensored podcast I took out my tape measure to check. No point in getting upset. without further thought I ripped out the two inches of knitting I had done. It hurts less if you do it fast.

I had a lot of baking to do, bagels, oatcakes and a chocolate soufflé cake for supper. In between shaping the bagels, washing the flour off my hands, rolling out the oatcake dough, cracking the eggs, melting chocolate and beating cream, I knit gauge swatches.

I had to go down a whole needle size to approximate what the pattern called for. Even after casting on the required number of stitches I obsessively measured and remeasured how much space the stitches took up.

When I bought the kit to make the thrummed mitts I was given two skeins of wool. The mitts took most of one of them. With the other skein I made a hat.

I used the pattern for swell from knitty. I only used it as a guide because my wool is too thick and it’s variegated. After I had knit about half of it I decided to add in some left over mohair. If you look closely you can see the fuzziness near the top. I also crochet an edging around the whole thing and used it in the tassels.

I’ve always wanted a hat like this.

There is still wool left over so I’m making a scarf. I’m using a needle about six sizes too large because I want it to be light and airy and knitting it in garter stitch because I want the process to be mindless.

Love Never Gives Up

Anne Enright's Man Booker prize winning novel, The Gathering, is an engaging, deliciously written story. I read it curled up on the couch, wrapped in a wool shawl while feasting on Rogers Victorian creams and sipping cup after cup of rooibos tea.

Enright has a way with words which makes me jealous. Rather than repeat staid clichés she approaches her subject, three generations of an Irish family, by climbing inside it making it fresh like new leaves in spring.

Veronica, the protagonist, is off to identify the body of her dead brother. Memories of old hurts, dimply understood childhood events and her adversity to having sex with her husband crowd her mind as we follow her to the scene of her brothers suicide and back again, home for the funeral.

We get her grandmother, her mother, her father and her dead brother painted in glowing technicolour, every detail rendered in loving brush stokes as bit by bit the complicated myriad of decades, all fading together in the back of her mind, is dismantled.

It’s Enright’s prose that kept me greedily turning the pages. Every last word of it.

Using Natural Oils to Alleviate My Dry Skin

A jar of Baobab oil from the body shop has stood on my shelf for years. A sample of Burt’s Bees vitamin E body and bath oil was in my Christmas stocking. Several months ago I heard on the lipgloss and laptops podcast that olive oil was a great substitute for shaving cream. Even longer ago I discovered a delicious recipe, from Pink of Perfection, for a homemade body scrub containing grapeseed oil.

Homemade Sugar Scrub

1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. grapeseed oil (olive oil would be great, too)
splash of vanilla extract

Stir to combine and slough away

The other day I found a tube of pure coconut oil in the cosmetic section of my local health food store. I took it home and transferred it into a glass jar, mainly because at room temperature, around 19 C in my house, the oil is a white solid and hard to squeeze out of the tube. The heat from my fingers is enough to soften it as I rub it over my body. It’s absorbed quickly and leaves my skin feeling soft and supple.

Since December I’ve been using an organic rosehip oil, made by Kosmea an Australian company, as a moisturizer for my face. It was recommended by the women in the health food store. As usual the company claims great benefits for its usage.

It may help treat: scars, minor burns, eczema, psoriasis, pigmentation, stretchmarks, cradle cap, nappy rash, acne and scarring and wrinkles. Great for giving that glow to dull, tired skin!

The point for me is that it’s pure and unadulterated if any of the other stuff is true that’s a bonus.

The only problem with all this oil in my life is the greasy ring left around my bathtub. But, a quick wipe with a damp cloth sprinkled with my all time favourite cleaning powder recipe, a mixture of borax and baking soda soon gets it sparkling white again.

Cinema CNC Film Festival

I finished these mitts and socks just in time because the mercury has plunged again. Unfortunately all this, frostbite can occur in seconds, type of weather is not good for my skiing life; I had to cancel my ski trip to PK today.

I got out of swimming for the iceman this year because I wanted to spend the entire weekend watching movies. Except I chickenend out, I thought I would be too ansy to sit still for so long so I only bought passes for tonight and tomorrow.

I was hoping to ski Sunday but most of my ski buddies are in the iceman, away on other trips or hobbling around on crutches.

I finished the socks on Monday, started the mitts and have been knitting every second of my spare time, even at the dentist, I finished them this morning.

Sunday at PK might be only slightly warmer. Maybe I should buy a movie pass for Sunday....

Happy Birthday Dear Blog

It was five years ago today I started this blog because I was bored.

For complicated reasons I had left my life back in the BC Peace, sold my sheep, abandoned my friends, resigned from my volunteer positions in the sheep association, the public library, the parents association and others, to move reluctantly with my family to Prince George.

I found Prince George to be a big smelly city full of unfriendly, unhelpful people. I suppose I was homesick.

I don’t know if starting this blog was the tipping point but it sure gave me something to do for the rest of the winter.

Since then I’ve joined two outdoor groups and met and made friends with many interesting, enthusiastic, fabulous people. Robert and I have built our dream house although it still is not finished on five acres north of Prince George outside the city limits.

Unfortunately on really bad days we can still smell the pulp mill in the morning.

Eewwwwww.

Bluebird Day

The only problem with today is I forgot my camera. The weather was picture postcard perfect and for once the higher we went the warmer it got.

We did a ski tour in the Pine Pass. When we arrived it was probably minus 21. By the time we had put on our boots, activated our avalanche receivers and put the skins on the bottoms of our skis our toes and fingers were freezing. Nobody spoke as we followed each other past the cabins, across the sled run and up the mountain. We traversed quickly across the slope trying to warm ourselves.

I didn't stop moving untill the tips of my fingers and toes were toasty and the rest of me was sweating. Only then did I feel safe to take off my jacket, neck warmer and hat.

The scenery was gorgeous, lots of snow and blue sky. Every conifer tree or the bit of it that stuck out of the snow was covered in a thick layer of more snow like a rich cloak of clotted cream. We stopped numerous times for snacks and cups of tea from our thermoses.

Eventually we burst out onto the ridge ready to check out the terrain looking for the best place to ski down. It was very warm, it felt like minus 3, and there was no wind. I think it had something to do with a temperature inversion, where the air is warmer at the top of the mountain than at the bottom.

I really regret not taking my camera

Flying My Paper Airplane Through Houses, Using Hot Air Vents To Keep It Afloat

I was looking through my stash of yarn for something suitable to make thrummed mitts with when Robert came inside asking me if I had a palm pilot to give away.

I remembered responded to someone's request on Freecycle, a worldwide network where you can get rid of stuff you no longer want and aquire stuff others no longer want. I thought of my Palm 111 in the bottom drawer, in the desk in the basement. I fired off a reply so, now here he was to collect it.

I ran downstairs, spent a frantic few minutes digging around in the bottom drawer, pushing aside cables for crossover ethernet, reular ethernet, usb adapters, firewire, a whole box of cables for dailup, a couple of very tiny hard drives, two battery charges, one for use in Europe. and my Palm Pilot.

I found a couple of triple A batteries put them in, pressed the on button and there was the welcoming screen, The thing is at least ten years old. Anyhow I gave him a brief lesson then ran back downstairs to look for the software. I found it, as well as a whole stack of things, like every Mac installer disk from system 7 through to system 9. File Maker Pro, remember that ? Tech Tool for fixing classic Macs, games like, The Sims, Doctor Brain, version 1 and 2 and Glider Pro, I loved that game. There was also a few promotional disks from Apple and software for printers I no longer own.

Why am I keeping this stuff, nostalgia?

If you liked Glider Pro go here to get a free version of the game for Mac OS X.