All Things Fiber

Yesterday was filled with friends and knitting. I finished a shawl and worked on a charity scarf. The shawlette does not look quite right on me. It really needs a size 12 or smaller person to wear it. The shawl was knit using the crazy sock yarn from Germany. It is just wide enough to keep your neck and shoulders warm. I will post a picture of it on my twitter and face book feed. If you are interested please let me know. The price will be $80.00 until I post it in my etsy shop and then the price will jump to cover the listing fees. Today was spent cleaning, napping( I got 2 naps in today), spinning and knitting. I skein of yarn was finished for the 1st day of The Tour de Fleece on raverly, all 102 yards out of 2.1 ounces of fiber. I can't wait to boil it up so I can knit with ot. Well it sounds like Eric is asleep so it's time for me to sleep too.

Normal

Today I got a taste of normal. After I dropped Eric off at his program I tanked up the car and got it washed. This was followed by 40 minutes of walking, the good news is that I covered 2 miles. Yes that was 2 20 minute miles today. Followed by knitting,lunch with friends. The service was bad so the eatting establishment shall remain nameless. I did manage to get a quick nap in. I have also made the decision to make a list of political robo calls, whom ever wakes me up from a nap will be put on the list and will not get my vote in the primary or general election coming up. We it is getting late and I have a very early morning tommrow.

Overwelmed

This has been a very over whelming week for me so far. I did training Monday morning followed by a lot of errands. You guessed it Eric got sick again this week, but thanks to Lisa I only had one 29.5 hour day this week. Yes I know that it is technically more than one day. My feeling on the subject is that the day is not officially over until I go to sleep, so that's how I get such strange days. I am project hopping right now. I will do a few rows of knitting on one project then hop to another project or some spinning. Exhaustion will do that for me. So this will be a very short post tonight.

Hot and Busy

Here in Tucson we are setting a record pace for days over 100. So today I tried to beat he heat by getting the laundry done very early on Saturday morning. I almost made it. By 9:30am we had hit slightly over 100, just as I was taking the last load out to hang on the line. I have no doubt that they were dry by bed time . A great summer family activity is going to the movies then taking a lap or 2 around the mall. So we did both.

We saw Men in Black 3, not a bad movie. It was well written with lots of twists that I did not see coming. You will be surprised by the cliff hanger. That is all I am going to tell you until you see it for yourself and want to talk plot line. I did knit about 1/4 of a new scarf while watching the movie. It is a simple broken rib pattern in light pink for the charity bag.

Later my friend Lisa and I went through my new Phat Fiber box together. I have been doing a pretty good job about teaching her about fiber. The good thing about sharing the box with Lisa is now I don't have to worry about any allergies, she can use the fiber I am allergic to. Then it was time for her first spinning lesson. Man I got to tell you her first time spinning was great. After about 15 minutes of fumble she had that spindle going  and going. He first spun yarn was at least 10 times better than my first spun yarn. Lisa had watched me enough to join fiber with out help. All I can say is wow!  Lisa is the second person I have taught to spin, and I think she was hooked before she even picked up the spindle.

Sunday we got off to a rather slow start. Then it was off to see Tucson's new Iron Chef. We had one of those roving lunches where we tried a little of this and that from the various restaurants in town.  Afterward it was nap time for all.

A little spinning but no knitting got done today. I had to wait until after dinner to start the laundry because I got off to such a slow start this morning. Since Tucson is on pace for a record year of over 100 degree days, I have a feeling I will be doing a lot of early morning or late night loads this summer. Anything over 100 and I give the appliances the afternoon off. It just messes with things when it hits 100 so early in the morning, then stays over 100 until after dinner.

Well I have a long day tomorrow. The final load is in the dryer so it is time to go to sleep for the night.

French Vanilla

Today went so smoothly that if it were an ice cream flavor it would have to be the rich creaminess of French Vanilla ice cream. The training went well. They liked the fact that Eric came with a cheat sheet on the basics of Eric. It did hit 108f in Tucson today. 3 degrees hotter than yesterday. This might be the reason why I am spending time thinking about ice cream. No I have not indulged yet, but just thinking about it is refreshing in an odd way. I have been hitting the ice tea and iced water with gusto though. Now if only tomorrow was Monday. It has been a very long and trying week so you can see why next week is looking good me right about now.

Rocky Road Better Known as Wednesday

If my day was classified as an ice cream, then today would be named Rocky Road instead of Wednesday. There were a lot of bumps along my path today. Lunch did not happen. But I did get some watermelon after I got Eric home. The day turned around when John came home and I choose the hot dogs and beans for my left over meal. Ah starchy comfort food. Followed by a little TV and knitting. With a large bowl of Rainer Cherries for dessert.

I know tomorrow will be a better day. I will be training a new advocate for Eric in his day program. In between teaching and answering a lot of questions there will be plenty of time to knit and spin. Well its time to get some sleep so I can get through a busy day.

Just the usual stuff.

Well Eric was home sick today. So I got all the laundry done last night. Today was filled with cleaning, taking care of Eric and a nice walk at the mall ( it was too hot to walk outside in the middle of the day, 105 I think.) when I got a little help with Eric.  I might have to either wear different shoes, or cut back a little on walking until my left heal and right knee feel better. Did I forget to mention lots and lots of knitting.

Well its late and time to call it a day.

Summer Time

Summer time in Tucson never fails to surprise me. There is always the really crazy driving and the tempers tend to flare as the heat goes up. But what surprised me the most today was that I boiled some yarn and had most of it hanging in the garage to dry by 1 pm. At 7 pm it was still damp even though it hit 107 at our house today.

I have been walking on a very regular basis since I got back from L.A., some days are better than others. Being sore and achy does not lend it self to me wanting to walk. I am hoping that it will help in the long run. My hope is that the walking will help lessen the pain. I will let you know how that goes.

My summer in Tucson tip of the day is to park in the shade when ever and where ever possible. Even if that means parking at the back of the parking lot and walking farther in the heat. Your car will be much cooler and you will be able to touch the steering wheel.

Suprised by my Family

Even after 28 years of marriage my awesome husband can still suprise me. Yesterday I mentioned that my mom had this lovely machine called a Keurig, that made wonderful tea without having to deal with a kettle of hot water first thing in the morning. With Eric's new schedule my day starts earlier. A cuppa tea is always a breakfast thing for me. I need a little caffeine to start my day. My body does not always love me first thing in the morning so I have been doing soy chai 7 days a week, don't get me wrong I love my soy chai, but it should not be an every morning thing. So with the Keirig I figured I could save over 1,500 calories a week. I broched the Keurig at dinner, but John deflected with the simple matter that I had. Ot done my homework. I had only looked at one C-Net review. I had not gone to the holy grail of reviews,Consumers Reports. So he tabled it pending more research on my part. So I was totally suprised when one showed up in our house today. The whole gang also had a number of other suprises today. My very own copy of a Dinosaur Train DVD, a Danish strip from Nadine's and some awesome slider cup cakes made by Lisa. I have already asked Lisa to do a guest blog to share the recipe. It is well after 11 pm and Eric is not close to falli g asleep so I think I will break out the knitting and hope that the rhythm will put him to sleep soon.

Busy

I spent last weekend with my mom and came home to a boy who caught the stomach flu that was going around. This was after he was told he was not allowed to get sick until I came home from my visit with my mom. John has a much greater apperation for my all nighters or near all nighters with Eric. I personally think he did a terrific job with Eric.

Since I got home Sunday night, I have had 1 all nighter and one relatively early night where he went to bed at 1:30am ish. It is now Wednesday and my body has hit the very tired stage. As a result I am very grumpy and not a lot got done today. I am sure that things will be better in the morning.

I did manage to finish 1 scarf today. Then did the finishing work on that scarf plus 7 others that are now tagged and bagged. The only thought related to the scarfs is how 2 kitchen trash bags full of yarn only translates in to a little over 1/3 of an XXL Ziploc bag full when knit into scarfs. It seems to me that the finished bag should be fuller.

Well it is getting late and it is time to call it a night.

Random Acts of Spinning

If you hang around me long enough you just know how I love getting my fluff samples from Phat Fibers. This sfternoon I took a bunch of samples in the same color range. All kinds of different fibers and colors, not to mention prep styles. Preped them and mixed them all up in a one gallon ziplock bag. I then started pulling them out at random from the bag to spin. What I am getting is a one of a kind art yarn. I am so into this one that at 10:30 I had to pull myself away from the wheel so I can get some sleep. Tommrow I plan to be back at Tje wheel in between chores. Pictures will follow. Fibers

A Long Over Due Blog Post

I write so much about Eric, that some people might not realize that John and I have a very talented daughter also. I am so very lucky to have such a wonderful daughter like Teri in my life. So I would like to share with you the write up I am sending to our local paper.

John and Sheri Karobonik are pleased to announce that their daughter, Teri Jane Karobonik, has graduated from Santa Clara University School of Law in California. Prior to Law school Teri graduated from Catalina Foothills High School in 2005 with Honors and received her bachelors degree from the University of Arizona in 2009 with Honors. She was also inducted into Phi Beta Kappa at the University of Arizona.

 

While in law school Teri served as a Lead Production Editor on the Computer and High Technology Law Journal which is the #5 Science, Technology, & Computing Law Publication and #6 Intellectual Property Journal in the country. She also participated in Honors External Moot Court as well as serving as the co-president for Santa Clara's ACLU chapter.

 

Teri will be receiving a High Tech Law Certificate IP Specialization with Honors. In addition, she won a CALI Award for highest grade in Mass Comm II; A Witkin Award for Academic Excellence for Virtual World Law; two High Tech Excellence Awards and a Pro-bono recognition award for her work last summer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation(EFF).

 

 

 

 

 

In addition to working at the EFF, she has also worked at a small firm doing in E-discovery on a multi-million dollar Quin Tam Pro Case and as a Research Assistant. She also served as an intern for The Federal Legal Assistance Self-Help Center at the San Jose Courthouse (FLASH), where she helped pro-se litigants navigate their cases and served as an expert in copyright law for all of the FLASH-like programs within the state of California.

 

Teri is currently studying for the California bar exam and hopes to pursue a career in litigation and pubic policy work in the areas of Intellectual Property, Privacy and Internet Law .

 

*Please note that Teri was the guest columnist for this blog. I will be happy to forward any comments you have relating to this post to her.

 

 

A First for Eric

Today was a new first for Eric. He made his way into adulthood, he started his day program. So I spent the day training and answering questions about Eric. I think the day went well and things will get better as time goes on. I mean how can you flirt or express your independence with your mother in the same room?

As the day progressed I was able to step back and watch the interactions in the room and liked what I saw. I find it amazing that people seem to forget I am there when I was knitting or spinning. I wonder if they thought I was not paying attention to them?  Of course things will have to be fine tuned for Eric and that will not happen over night.

Not much else got done today, but that is OK with me. I felt it was more important to get Eric off to a good start then to do chores.  Now to gather the energy to do the things that needed to be done while I was with Eric today.

It's Here

Awe you just have to love summer. At our house it briefly got up to 109f. So I spent the day knitting wool scarfs. I also found the time to do some spinning. I also love this time of the year,because when else can you pull pj's off the clothes line at 10 in the evening and have the pj's feel like they just came out of a hot dryer? Yes this is a short one done on the pod. Night all.