One Crazy Fiber Lady

I’ve been spinning again. This is fiber from Leann (polwarth – yum!!!). I had a little spin in here on Saturday and Leann was kind enough to bring fiber to buy with her . I had some user error issues with my Matchless and opted to use Tina for a change. I always forget how much I like this wheel. I should really use it more often.

Now that the insanity is over I can fill you all in. A little over a month ago, a new CTO started at my place of employment. He seemed to take an instant dislike to me and I was advised by more than one person to start looking. Well that and the fact that the downturn in education spending is seriously affecting the bottom line. Downsizings were not out of the question.

So I heeded advice, put together my resume and started looking. Apparently I was not fast enough and had mistimed when the layoffs where going to happen. I figured it would be just before the July 9th release. Alas that was not to be. Last Thursday I was laid off. However before Friday was over I had interviews over the phone with all three wanting to see me in person this week. Well yesterday was the first one in person and before I could get home on the train my recruiter called to let me know that they really liked me and that they were going to extend an offer. Since I thought that from the three and the tech and job specs that this would be the best fit, I quickly accepted when they called this morning. I start on Monday .

I’m still amazed at how fast that happened. I got three weeks severance too. Hopefully life will settle down now and I’ll get back to posting regularly.

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We are spending this holiday weekend with (finally) warm and sunny weather. A happy holiday to all and big thank yous to everyone who’ve served.

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Location:Beach Rd,West Haverstraw,United States

There Is a great upheaval going on in my professional life that I cannot talk about publicly at the moment. I have no idea any longer of who does and doesn’t read this blog nor if those I’d rather not know of things going on are in the do category. I’ll cone clean when things settle down or resolve themselves.

In the meantime there has been little crafting going on beyond the couple of hours at SNB. I’ve been spending my time reading teach books. Again.

One thing that hasn’t changed is that my kids are cute . I went on a field trip with the first grade last week to Turtle Back Zoo. It was a great way to spend the day and away from the office. I was charged with the care of three boys, including Alex. They were good boys.

And now? I’m out on the patio with a tech book while they are in the sand box. Yup they still play in the thing. Dad bought new clean sand for it yesterday.

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Omg. Is that crochet? Yup! I recently got an 11″ MacBook air and it needed a sleeve. So I’m making one. This is some Rowan Tapestry from stash and a size F hook. Started it a half hour ago. Been a long time since I crocheted anything. Kind of like it

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I came out of the bathroom this morning on this dreadfully dreary day with a wintry mix falling from the sky to find this sight.

Earl had cuddled up with the still sleeping Kathryn. Oh how I wanted to curl back up with them.

Craft on!

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No I am not reusing photos from last year but a new one. I swear. Dad took Alex for a haircut on Thursday and came home with another mohawk. This haircut is turning into another sign of spring like seeing a robin (which I saw yesterday!). Seems that when the weather starts to get warm, dad mellows and has the kid mohawked out. I still cannot tell whether it is the old man’s idea or the boy’s. Some day I will get the info out of them as to who is really behind it.

Off to take the girl to a birthday party.

Craft on!

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Today has been a really interesting one. My luck has been running good! The folks are away at some Power Squadron convention this weekend so I need to keep the monkeys amused. Off to the mall we went this morning after a good breakfast. Need sustenance for a day at the mall right? We had a couple of things that needed to be done:

1. Return a skirt to JJill and maybe see what they had jeanswise and in their big comfy shirts.
2. Buy socks for Miss Kathryn
3. Take the MacBook Air to the Genuis Bar as the battery had croaked and the machine was reporting Replace Now in the battery status window. Aye aye.

Now hitting the mall on a saturday in Bergen county is always a blast as they are always crowded due to the blue law thing still in place. Right off the bat we were doing fine as there was no combat for a parking spot even somewhat close to the door. Point one for the home team.

Hit J.Jill first as they were right near the door. I found the jeans I wanted and on sale! As a bonus two of my fave shirts in good colors were also on sale. Add in the 5% discount for using my store credit card and the 20% coupon I had from a previous online order and the return and I owed them $9.00 for the visit. Another point for the team.

Next stop was Childrens Place for socks only to find they were having a sale on socks (woo again) as well as dresses. Plus for every $40 you spent you got a gift cert for $20 for the end of the month. Add in the 20% off coupon I had in my email the morning and they kids got some new stuff as bargain prices.

Then a bit of wandering, lunch and then the Apple Store which was a total IPad zoo. Turns out my Air was in sadder shape than I thought. I bought it used in November I think it was. It had been ridden hard and put away wet so to speak. The Genuis started the thing up only to find that the logic board had been replaced at some point and not serialized. She managed to get the serial from the back of the case to find that the warranty ended two days ago. I nearly had an aneurysm. Ugh. But the she told me that they’d cover it anyway. Not only is the air getting a new $140 battery bit she’s also getting a new screen/cover as the bezel around this thing was a mess. All told $595 worth of repairs for nada. That’s the grand slam in my book.

Was walking around on such a high that the kids were able to talk me into adding to the family menagerie. Meet our new dwarf hamsters Phineas and Bufford.

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Hello from WOOL!

Have a lovely weekend.

Craft on!

And so starts another week. It is Monday again. Is It me or does it always seem like it is Monday? Oh well. At least it was a quiet weekend.

I had a multiple spinner personality on Saturday wherein I spun three different fibers on three different wheels. First up was new fiber for the cpw. This fiber is the May-June SAL in the Starcrossed color way- Bfl iirc. I spun a little of it before inspiration hit that i should use the van eaton production wheel as a production wheel. For a while now I’ve been spinning a huge bag of processed cvm on the vermont wheel. I decided to give over the remaining several pounds to the VE. Sadly about half a bobbin in, my newly bum foot was complaining pretty loudly. I hope that this is a temporary unhappiness and not something more permanent.

The schacht has been empty for far too long so it was time to get spinning on that wheel as well. I went shopping in the stash and came up with this ITW merino blend roving.

Pretty isn’t it? I’m going to two ply this for a change.

So there you go, three wheels – three fibers in one day. Wait make that four. I finally got around to plying the two pounds of grey BL that I bought at Rhinebeck this year and spun on the VE. In the end I have 1280 yards of Aran weight that will become a Rhinebeck sweater of some design or another for this year

Yesterday was turned over to the needles. I did a little dead project frogging on Saturday and reclaimed a number of yarns including this lovely lace weight merino that I started knitting a shawl with last summer I think (could have been the previous summer – must check ravelry to be sure). I repurposed it to become the Whisper cardi. I cast on after breakfast and here is where I start this morning.

I like!

Craft on!

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…and a wheel followed me home.

This one is a double treadle Roadbug by Merlin Tree. Yes I was still looking for a perfect wheel for the boat. The Journey Wheel is good and small but a tad heavy. I wanted something small with two treadles (thanks to the now injured left foot a single treadle isn’t the happiest thing for me on a small wheel). My first stop after hitting the fairgrounds at Cummington was Dave’s booth where I tried out the DT version and was happily spinning along for a while. No surprise that I bought it. I did leave a wheel wit Dave though. I gave him that mismatched CPW that I got in February. That thing had a drive wheel too big for the table, a frankenwheel if you will. I gave it to him for parts. I’m glad to be rid of it.

Anyway, now I have a small light wheel for the boat and got to use it there this weekend. Worked out nicely even if I had to carry it from way across the marina parking lot. Wouldn’t have survived carrying the journey wheel that far. The yarn you see draped on the bag is the first skein off the bug. It is 4oz of BFL fro Spunky that I also got at the festival. It is approximately 310 yds. Not my finest of spinning but will do as sock yarn or maybe a hat for the kids. I should probably get a head start on that this year and not wait until October

Time to head to the train..

Craft on!

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