Belated blogiversary

As I woke up un-wantedly this morning at 0530 (so much better than yesterday morning's awakening at 0230) I realized that I've had this blog for awhile. It's been over two years since I started it.

While I initially started it to create a better photo record of my stash and WIPs (and the rare, endangerd completed project!) as well as give Brian some relief from the regular babbling about fiber, it's somehow taken on a life of it's own. (Cue campy horror film music: "It's the Blog! AAAAAAAH!") And that's been a surprising source of support in the last several months of crazyness.

So to celebrate both the support and the blogiversary, the first two people to leave comments will get either handspun yarn or fingerless mitts (their choice) from handspun yarn.

The downside of democracy

Remember my impassioned plea of a few weeks ago to motivate people to get off their collective backsides and vote? It turns out that an unfortunate consequence of allowing people to vote for whomever they want is that they vote for whomever they want.

Por exemplo...

Sodaville, Oregon is about nineteen miles from where I live. (If anyone who lives in Sodaville is actually reading my blog I should probably appologize for this post, but you have to admit that this is pretty weird.) Thanks to the recent elections, it has a new mayor. Who also happens to have a criminal record stretching across a decade and three counties.

Tell me this isn't funny!

Back to being nocturnal

I've started working nights again. After working days at Mills-Peninsula and contintuously having my nursing "groove" interrupted by physical therapy, family members, speech therapy, physician rounds, telephone calls from family members, questions from family members who are present, etc. I'm very happy to be back on nights. It's a bit less friendly to my own personal sleeping and waking cycle, but I'm truly enjoying working a shift where the flow of the day fits better with my personal philosphy of nursing: Keep people's pain under control and let them get enough sleep to allow the body to heal.

I'm working at a local hospital, which thank God turns out to be the only one in the five-hospital constortium that offers 12 hour shifts. "Twelves" are rough on the nights I'm working, but leaves me with a lot more free time during the week with Brian and the Mimi than eight hour shifts do.

Mimi, by the way, is teething. She's got a visible tooth coming up on her lower jaw. She was much happier than usual this morning, and then turned into a complete Screaming Mimi this evening. I interpreted this evening's fussing as "I bit my tongue! And since I have absolutely no frame of reference for this event, I think it deserves a full-out four-alarm panic! WAAAAAAA!"

Glad I borrowed a drum carder!

Last month, thinking I wanted to blend some of the wool I got from Carol's shop with some other fibers, I borrowed Pop's drum carder. (I'm too lazy to run upstairs and snap pics of the batts of Cotswold/soy silk/tussah silk I blended.)
Then, last weekend, we went to the Albany Oregon Natural Fun and Fiber Festival. (At least I think that's what it's called. I got distracted by the yarn before I had a chance to process the sign.)
I got to meet more spinners, and there's a spinning group on Mondays at the local senior center! I'll be working nights as of Sunday, so I might have a chance of going to the group meetings now and again.
Shirley was great at the festival. She babbled and cooed at everyone, and several of the ladies said how much they wanted to take her home with them. (I resisted the urge to blurt out "Please, take her!") Then, having exhausted all of her reserves of diplomacy, she turned into a Screaming Mimi and was a fussy irrational Mimi for the remaineder of the day.
I'm glad she's well behaved in public, but it'd be nice if she was on "good behavior" at home occasionally!
I picked up some amazing dyed Romney locks from the local farm Iron Water Ranch, which I'm plying with this "leftover batt" from Superior Fibers. (Charlotte says she calls them that because they're composed of bits of fibers from her commercial fiber processing and "I'm not sure what exactly's in there. I know there's some Shetland and alpaca and all kinds of stuff." Spins like a dream!) I'm not sure how it'll look when it's all done, but it's so much fun to work with!

Be afraid...

Very afraid. I just found this news story about a local girl who apparently has great difficulty maintaining a safe speed while driving. (Bonus: her defense to the state trooper who arrested her was that she "had trouble seeing while talking on her cell phone.")
Just when I was starting to get excited about not having to deal with San Francisco traffic...