The Journey of 1000 Blogs Has Led Me Here

There are so many reasons that I love the blogs I read. They provide me with company, comfort, and cohorts. I love the advice I get from the moms, the stories of other families, and the sneaky exploits of other knitters.

This time, The Blogs did not let me down. I was reading Erika over at Redshirt Knitting when she posted about her latest sock. It is an explosion of yellows and oranges, like orange juice for your feet. It is just the thing I always admire, but seldom choose to knit for myself. This time, though, when I saw the storm of sunshiney brightness flash up on my screen I knew that I must knit it. Now.

Let's face it. I live in Minnesota. Like Wisconsin and South Dakota, the winters here are hard, long, and brutally gray. Weeks can go by between sunny days and after a while one's retinas become starved for even a flash of color. Anything but white or steely gray.

On Erika's blog I commented on how much I admired her socks and she kindly replied back that a later commenter had seen this yarn for sale at Borealis Yarns in St Paul. I'd never been there before (Surprising since I've been to nearly every other yarn store in the metro area.) so I jumped at the excuse to go.

Oh my goodness. What a terrific yarn store. They had some yarns that I haven't seen in other Twin Cities yarn stores and a decent selection of colors in the brands that they carried. The staff was helpful and the store was full--FULL, I SAY--of knitters coming and going, sitting and talking the whole time I was there. They had a whole WALL of Jamieson Shetland wool. They must have stocked every color Jamieson makes (this is important because the subtlety of the colors is hidden by a computer monitor and it must be seen in person, in my opinon). There was another wall that was ONLY SOCK YARN. And it was a big wall, too. I can't believe I'd missed this neighborhood shop for SO LONG. Forgive my caps, but I was amazed. I am in the first blush of love.

Anyway, they carried many, many colors from the company that made Erika's sock yarn, but sadly they didn't have the exact color. There was another one that was close and I nearly bought it until I saw this beauty sitting in a tub by the front window.

I think you'll be coming home with me, my pet. You're so pretty. And yellow. Sigh.

Tired

This morning I have had three cups of coffee, spent a half hour exercising on the elliptical machine, ran out to the cold, cold garage to retrieve some canning jars and I am still, still tired. I can't get over how tired I am. Soooo, soooo sleepy.

The first among you to suggest that I'm pregnant will get kicked in the shin.

What do you do to wake yourself up when sleep is threatening to take you down?

Hair Cut

I think my blog may have hit a new low for interesting content, but I'm going to post anyway. With my favorite blogs, I like to see updates, even if it's just "this is what I made for dinner and this is the color of my socks".

So here is my quasi-interesting post for the day. Last night I got my hair cut. Short. The front of my hair is now chin-length and the back is a bit shorter. The only true significance is that yesterday I had hair that reached nearly to my waist. I had meant to take the obligatory before/after pictures, but my day was thrown off by Anna's ballet class in the morning and a surprise dinner invitation from my parents. Before I knew it I was sitting in the salon chair having my hair removed when I remembered that I was supposed to have taken a picture earlier that day. Oh well. Imagine long, long hair and now imagine short, short hair and you'll just about have it.

My hair had reached the tipping point. I couldn't bear to have it so long because it was becoming my Fourth Child, difficult to manage and in need of thoughtful consideration. Eventually I knew I would find myself on Oprah having a Drastic Makeover with some cosmopolitan hair dresser using words like 'soft layers', 'gentle highlights', and 'backside of an angry squirrel". So The Hair had to go and on my own terms.

I've had the same young woman cut my hair (using the term loosely--for the past two or three years I've only really gone in twice a year or so) for years now so she knows me pretty well. She knows that somewhere in my house there is a blow drier, but that it would take me more than five to ten minutes to lay hands on it. She knows that I'm feeling pretty good about getting regular showers in again now that Henry is getting bigger. She also knows that I have never, ever been skilled in the use of Product.

Ever since I was in middle school in the mid-80s and had an unfortunate incident with a curling iron and Aqua Net which resulted in a failed attempt at poufy bangs I have been beyond reluctant to take on hair styling again. So I don't. Ta-da. I have the mythical "Simplified Morning Routine" that so many woman's magazines promote. It can't get simpler than "Be clean. Now stop." But I digress.

I went to the salon and told my hair cutter that I needed to go shorter. I would leave it up to her as to whether that meant that we would go 'short' or just 'shorter'. The last time I had been in she said that my long hair was really cute so I thought I would leave it to her. Am I still cute with long hair or is it time for a change? I have to wonder how annoying it must be to have someone sit in your chair and say "I have no opinion. I also have no desire to do any hair styling." I did add, though, that if we went short enough that we could donate my hair to Locks of Love.

So that's what we did. We cut off at least 10 inches to send in and another three inches must have gone off in the styling process. I just can't get over how short my hair is now! I'm not bothered by it, though I wish I'd waited until summer. I am unbelievably cold right now!

Statistics Poetry

Peter took Thomas and Anna sledding today. We finally achieved the ideal convergence of warm-ish temperature and snow so they seized on the opportunity and headed to a nearby park. They must have had a thrilling time because I was given two accounts of their morning out at the same time.

Later on I learned that my oldest son is a boy of many talents, one of which includes the writing of poetry.

He discovered my old electric typewriter in the basement and has been hammering out all sorts of messages. It's like living with the young Edward R. Murrow. When he had warmed up from his snowy escapades he went down and typed out this gem:

120 steps to climb the mountain
12 times sledding down
2 times down alone

My favorite part of his post-sledding narrative was when he told me he fell over when going down by himself. And how he has a hard time controlling the sled. So the next time he went down by himself with Daddy.