Did anyone find April and May around here?

April and May seem to have gone missing from the blog. Oh, maybe that's because I didn't post at all during those months...how the time seems to have disappeared!

But it's now June, and school has ended for the year. Not that I dislike my job - far from it - but it was definitely time to let the kids go and for me to have some time away from the responsibilities of being a school librarian. This was a tough year in some ways, as I was asked to stretch myself in directions that I didn't think I wanted to go.

And for someone who is now on vacation, there is an awful lot on my calendar! During June, there is only one day (ONE DAY!) that doesn't have something scheduled on it. However, this IS considered vacation, because some of those events don't start until evening, so I can sleep until I'm ready to wake or the dog decides she's tired of being in her crate, whichever comes first.

So, last time I posted, I mentioned that I had a bad case of Startitis. Well, I'm now working my way through MustFinishStuffFirstBeforeIStartSomethingElse-itis. By the way, if you want pictures, look at these previous posts and imagine more of the same in the pictures!

Case in point:

Knitting:


Girl Friday -- back and fronts done, one sleeve almost finished. BUT, after taking a Fit to Flatter class with Amy Herzog, have discovered that I'm making it a size too big. I'm debating whether to pull it completely out and redo it in the smaller size, or if I should just pull it back to the underarm shaping and refigure the numbers to make it smaller just in the upper chest/shoulder area.

Chad -- back done, front cast on and ribbing done, except that I forgot to use a smaller needle for the ribbing. RIIIIIPPPPP! Only 2 inches of 2x2 ribbing, so luckily not too much!

A's mitts for Richard -- done!

Octavia shawl -- done (just not blocked yet)!

Yet another Eco Cloud cowl for a goodbye gift to a coworker who is moving to Buffalo, NY to work on a PhD in medieval literature.

San Francisco Giants mitts -- a commission (which I don't usually do) for a coworker as a gift to his friend who takes Pat to several Giants games each season. My payment -- he will donate to No-blog Rachel's fundraising effort/walk for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer walk in September.

The Lost in Transit scarf is languishing, the Susie coat is just sitting around, as are the plain vanilla socks being made from my hand-dyed yarn.

But I want to start a Daybreak shawl (I may have cast on for this already...don't tell anyone), need to knit socks from my purple handspun and from other yarn in stash, got ideas for altering a completed Spanish Dancer shawl, and.....we could be here forever with the list of "wanna-dos".

Spinning - need to finish projects:

Baby camel/silk blend - about 3/4 done; aiming for a 2-ply laceweight, spinning on my Lendrum.

Abstract Fiber merino/silk blend in Poppies colorway -- just over half done, spinning on the KCL drop spindle. Was originally going to ply the colors togther, but now, I may spin a matching single from a lovely alpaca/silk blend (also Abstract) in Black n'Blue and ply those.

Tri-color BFL (Frabjous Fibers) in Stained Glass colorway -- almost 1/3 done spinning on my Victoria.

The cranberry and gold wool spinning project is currently on hold until I clear up one of the projects already on the wheels.

The mind is bursting with desire to knit and spin and sew (need to sit down and bust out two quick baby quilts that were promised to parents - the babies are now 4 months and 2 months old, respectively).

But the time has gotten away from me and the calendar is filling up with appointments and rehearsals. I've just joined a local gospel choir, Joyful Noise, and we have rehearsals every Tuesday evening, in addition to my normal Thursday evenings at the public library. Then there is the storytelling that I do with my friend Sharon for the public library. We do one story a year for the summer reading program, but have been asked to tell our story in a couple weeks for a Friends of the Library function. We need to get the rehearsal schedule together. Oh, and there are the two presentations that I'm supposed to do at a Teacher Institute next week, one of which will also be presented in Philadelphia at the ISTE conference in two weeks, and the teachers with whom I'm helping find resources for a major curriculum rework in 10 days.

No wonder that Time has been disappearing fast!

I'm back!

Had a great time at the American Library Association's conference last weekend. Several good seminars, 6+ hours in the enormous exhibit hall, lots of author sightings, the Newbery and Caldecott Awards banquet, book cart drill team world championships, estimated 22,000 attendees...

Also included: time spent with family. Dinner with my in-laws (including SIL and niece), breakfast with my parents, sis and her kids. These are my sister's: A is 10, S is 8, G is 4. And of course, there is The Dork. He was staying with my parents because The Hubby was in New Hampshire at a separate event, and I wasn't going to leave a 16-year old home for 5 days!



And there was Disney's California Adventure, which was do-able because we only had about 5 hours to spend there. I would probably have been disappointed in trying to get to everything in Disneyland and not succeeding because of the time constraints.



The new Toy Story Mania ride is Awesome, even though I clearly do not play arcade games very well the first time around! It's a fun combination of a ride with 3-D games. The Dork did a great job on the blue side of the car. Me, on the red side, not so good! If the lines hadn't been so long (between 30-40 min.), we might have tried again and again and again.


Just for Mari: you found Tigger, I got Minnie to hold my sock!

I wanted to get both she and Mickey together, but he was heading in for some lemonade. It was over 80 degrees in the sun, and I can't imagine how hot it was if you were one of the characters!


There really was knitting involved with this weekend! Maureen, to answer your question, there are a lot of knitting librarians. I saw 4 others at the conference, and I wasn't really looking. Several more said that it was a great idea to bring their knitting and that they would next time. At the public library, my boss gets several staff members together around once a month to knit or crochet.

I finished the pair of Grumpy socks for me. The 2nd sock was cast on in the airport on the way down on Thursday, and finished on Sunday afternoon. Somehow, I managed to get an entire pair of socks, women's size 7, stockinette, with 3" ribbed 4x2 cuffs out of a single skein of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, 50 g. Hmmm, that means I have to do something with the 2nd skein I bought...

Bedtime sounds better right now, though! My goal in the morning is to reorganize my knitting books and patterns. It'll have to wait until I know if The Hubby needs to hide out in the bedroom all day tomorrow. He's not feeling well - and we'll blame it on the unnamed airline that he took getting home from New Hampshire. Let's just say that it took over 24 hours, due to a delayed plane, an unintended overnight in Los Angeles, having missed the connecting flight. No wonder he's gotten sick!