A-Frogging -- Again!!

I know the Yarn Harlot has an "easy way to make a hat" but I don't have the book here. And it's probably a good thing that I left the Strawberry Fields hat at home. 

Now, I'm up to 4" or so on the body. Hubby held the needles (so nothing would slip off, which would totally annoy me). I tried it on. 

Or rather, I tried to try it on. I swear it's a baby beanie and the pattern said NOTHING about size. Ok. So I frog. Again. I am determined to make this hat, with the Kauri yarn. So maybe I have to delve into the world of knitting math, but I'm so annoyed with myself at this moment.

And I'm annoyed at the hat. At the designer for not specifying size alternatives. At the yarn for not behaving. And at Zealana for not having more free patterns. Thanks, but no - I don't want to have to purchase an entire book and "hope" there's a hat pattern in it. Can't you just put out a simple hat? Let the yarn speak? 

Yeesh. There are days when knitting is NOT therapeutic. And today is one of them. 

So I found this link: 
http://www.earthguild.com/products/knitcroc/marypat/hatcalc.htm 

- it's a hat calculator. So I figure, if I can get 4 st/inch as the designer did specify, perhaps I can just enlarge the hat. 

I love the pattern. LOVE it. 

It's such a gorgeous pattern with this absolutely sublime yarn. Nuts. I hate when the knitting fairies conspire against me. I do not want to go buy Red Heart yarn for this pattern.

And why is DK yarn not uniform? According to Wikipedia (don't judge -- I'm having a yarn crisis right now...) I'm in the ballpark. But I'm flummoxed as to what is wrong. I have 188-ish yards of this stuff, and I don't want to knit it bald. 

Auuuuuuuuuuuughhhhhhhhhhhh (as Charlie Brown said after Lucy pulled the football away).

Guns...

In today's Chicago Tribune, there's an article: Dangerous mix: Guns, road rage. No, I'm serious. Like nobody's ever thought of that concept before??

So now that Illinois has succumbed to the stupid and is allowing people to carry concealed weapons, NOW someone thinks about guns + stupid + road rage = something not good... Yeah, we're on the ball here, folks. 

I'll save you the trouble of digesting it all. To sum up: "...researchers and police alike worry an increased number of legal guns in cars could lead to an increase in road rage shootings."

Ummmmm. Yeah. It's likely. And there's another wrinkle in this tablecloth: undiagnosed mental disorders, specifically anger disorders. The article notes, "...psychologists say anger disorders are some of the hardest to detect, allowing them to easily slip by undetected and get concealed carry permits." Lovely. I'm so looking forward to this summer. 

I'm sorry: I don't think the 16 hours of training is enough. I don't think people have fully comprehended the concept of carrying a deadly weapon and how quickly things can go bad. And they haven't considered fully the psychological implications of actually pulling the trigger while the gun is pointed at another human being. We civilians don't think like that. We're not trained sufficiently, and we have a romanticized version in our heads of what this new law will do.

And I don't think it'll be pretty when the bullets start flying. People have this image of "only gangbangers will be shooting" but it's not so. Guns have a weird psychological effect on you; they make you think you're actually fit to defuse a situation, and immune to injury because you're carrying them. 

I think people are going to be surprised at how this all shakes out. And I pray that I'm overreacting. 

Yoga...

So I have the script and a basic outline of a sequence for hands and arms. That's the thesis I'm doing to complete my 200-hour training. I have one section on mudras to work on and then I have to get Hubby to film it. I'm doing a DVD. And no, I'm not selling it, nor am I doing much promotion on it, though if I can figure out a way to do it, I may get a workshop out of it!

Apan mudra

Mudras are fascinating. They are hand gestures used in yoga and Indian dance. My focus is on the therapeutic use of these gestures, specifically as they relate to hand and joint health. 

The one pictured here, apan mudra, is an energy mudra. It helps balance the mind and bring clarity to your thoughts. The image is one I grabbed from The Google. It's not my hand; my hand isn't that pretty! 

And yes, I believe this. 

Mudras can be used for meditation; healing; rejuvenation. It's all subtle body work, and maybe the key is that, in this loud, loud, LOUD world, mudras force us to sit still and breathe. Maybe that's a key component to their healing properties. Either way, I'm looking forward to finishing it up. 

I have one Karma (free) class to host, one more private lesson, and one more workshop. Oh, and one more book review, which is a pain because somewhere, I set the book down, and now I can't find it. It's likely buried in the heap that is my office. 

Mud Season...

So it's now "mud season" till the next snow and/or polar vortex. They say it's coming back. Right now, it's "ugly snow" and mud. Lots of mud. I took some pictures on Saturday, because I had to go out and get my new glasses. These are along the river and in the canal area. This is where snow is not pretty. 

The picture to the left is where I parked my car to get to the eye doctor's office. It looks better than snow looked at this time of year when I was a kid. At least this is crud.

Back in the dark ages, children, we used cinders to spread along the roads. Not salt unless it was BIG SNOW. But for everyday snow, it was cinders all the way. 

Tracking those buggers through the house was a pain in the butt. You couldn't get them all cleaned up. They were everywhere. 

For environmental reasons, they stopped using cinders. I live in an area with a lot of coal-fired power plants, so cinders were a totally renewable resource, if you think of it a little sideways and you squint. 

Thaw along the river

I went under the high-rise bridge to get the one here. It's a gorgeous spot, though prone to flash floods because the road is so close to the river. 

This is with phone, so you probably can't see the ducks. It was a grey day, so the light wouldn't have been spectacular even if I had the big camera. 

Hubby took the girls for a walk and came back in record time. He said the trails were so icy - even in the melt, there were large sections of black ice and he wasn't about to risk breaking something. As it is, Quinn slid and was hopping around on 3 legs for about 10 minutes. Nothing was broken on her, but she took a good jolt. I've been overly-careful myself. Today is the first day I'm actually wearing "real" shoes. 

I hear people chirping about "spring being right around the corner." 

Yep. In about 3 months. 

Random Picture...

Hunting Island Lighthouse

This is at the top of the Hunting Island lighthouse in South Carolina. It was a cloudy day. I would imagine that a sunny day would be spectacular!

I think this might have been one of the highlights of The Bus Trip with Mom... Climbing to the top of the lighthouse was something I wasn't sure I could do, because I hadn't exactly been physically fit. More like "physically pfffffffffth" because of my own lack of exercise. But I took my time, stopping to take pictures out the various windows, and then getting to the top. It was dizzying - I mean, I'm out on the deck there, it's a high-ish wind, and I wanted to get a sense of the scope. But I tipped my head up and realized (quickly) that that wasn't smart! Railing notwithstanding, it was a very "Vertigo" feeling! I hope the picture gives you an idea of what I was seeing at that moment. 

It's not exactly Ansel Adams, but it's a cool picture. At least I think so. 

Here's Where I Draw the Line...

Just in case anyone had any confusion about where I stand, let me explain this clearly. 

Women are human, sentient beings. They are not incubators. Test tubes. Hatcheries. Fertilization pods.

We are actually quite capable of making our own decisions. And I get so tired of Republican agendas being all about the uterus. Especially when those drawing up that agenda are white males... Why would any woman be Republican in 2014??

Brain dead...

Dr. Cory Franklin wrote a very compelling opinion piece in today's Chicago Tribune. It's called "When are you officially dead?" and it discusses the very tragic case of 13 year old Jahi McMath, who went into relatively routine surgery and something went horribly, horribly, horribly wrong. She's brain dead. No hope for recovery.

According to Dr. Franklin, the accepted standard of "death" is "brain dead." In other words, you have no functioning brain activity. Oh, you can be kept "alive" on a machine, but you have, for all intents and purposes, flat-lined. Jahi has no brain activity. No electrical activity in the brain. No blood flow to the brain. She's unable to breathe on her own.

Yet her parents sued (and won) to keep her on a ventilator and moved to a facility "...that accepts responsibility for a patient declared dead."

OK. It's horrible to lose a child. She's been declared dead by three neurologists, and the coroner of Alameda County, CA. Yet her parents saw something. I don't know what. And now, the LA Times says her body is "deteriorating." The family maintains that as long as her heart is beating, she's alive. However, a professor of law and ethics says that "once cessation of all brain activity is confirmed, there is no recovery." 

For God's sake. Is there a compassionate physician or nurse or clergy who can explain that the only reason this poor child's heart continues to beat is because of the machinery?  

Speaking of which...

In North Texas, there's a woman who is brain dead but being kept alive against her family's wishes. Because there's this quirk in Texas law (when isn't there a quirk, especially if it screws women?) that says you can't disconnect a pregnant woman from life support. 

The usual pregnancy, all things going well, is 32 weeks. The baby is "technically" viable, though still in extreme danger, at 24 weeks at the soonest. This woman was 14 weeks pregnant when she had what they assume was a pulmonary embolism. That's TEN WEEKS on life support. And that's a big freakin' deal. Because if she's in a brain-dead state, there's no activity. There's no life. She's an incubator, and frankly - not a very good one, because the body will start to deteriorate. And technically, if she's brain-dead, she has no "condition" medically speaking. Dead is dead. 

The family wants her disconnected. The hospital interprets Texas law to say they can't do that. However, medical ethics experts say they can - they just lose immunity for a lawsuit. Seems to me, Texas is once again in the uterus. Where it has no business being.

Knitting...

What would a knitter do? I need a hat. So instead of trucking to my local Target, I cruised around and found a pattern. Found some lovely Kauri yarn in my stash, and I'm knitting a hat. So far, it's going well, and I should have a hat by Sunday. 

Here's the scoop:  The yarn is a yummy Kauri, from Zealana, and it's worsted weight. It's a blend of New Zealand merino, possum and silk. This teal color is lovely, and it's a nice warm beanie. The link goes to Jimmy Beans, but I got this at a lovely shop in Indianapolis, IN. The shop is called Knit Stop and if you click on their name, you can see what they're about. It was a charming shop and was a nice side trip during our visit to the Knit and Crochet Guild event this past summer. 

The pattern is Strawberry Fields Hat, which is looking to be a "mock cable" kind of thing. I'm doing it on DPNs and my only wish was that I had longer DPNs because of the bulk of the yarn. I don't have a 16" size 7 circular...

It's about a 2" band, then about 6" of body and then you start the decreases. I'm really liking this yarn, but I have to say that in the worsted weight, I'd only do hat, mittens, scarf or mitts. Anything else seems like it would be super-duper warm. Way to warm for me with hot flashes!! 

The pattern description says "easy lace" -- which is true: the pattern is quite easy and quickly memorized. With the right beginning knitter, I could teach them this pattern. But lace? I'm not sure yet. I mean, yeah, there are holes, deliberately placed, but the yarn overs and psso technique kind of leaves me feeling "cable" rather than "lace."

What do you think?

Random Picture...

The snow people from my office. Well, actually, they lived in my basement for years. They were a gift from a friend who somehow thought we had (a) a larger house; and (b) a fireplace... We don't. Either of them.

So for a while, we put them in the house, but with the dogs, and just feeling "cramped," they lived in the basement for a long time, and then when I got to the place I work now, I was able to put them out.

First, they lived in the vestibule. But then I thought that the little niche in the front of the reception desk was cool. And they fit! They'll stay there through February. Yes, there's a teensy bit of holly in their hats, but when outside looks arctic, snowmen are cool. 

See? A pun. 

Weak, but a pun.