Updates and news...

Short bit of business first! My sister, Lara, now has a blogspot blog... It may be found here. :D Be sure to check it out...

Also, Ilana, she's in love with the pumpkin soap you made. As part of her Christmas gifts, I gave her half of what you sent me this past summer and she's clamoring for more already. LOL!

On to updates and news:

So I worked my first day as a sub yesterday. I subbed for my mom while she had to go to a professional meeting downtown. 8th grade, physical science honors. Boy, was it ever exhausting! I slept for 14 hours after I got home... Kids, man- Oy! It wasn't bad though. I think it was mostly just that it was the first day and whatnot that it tired me out so badly... Still don't have another job lined up. But it's early yet...

I saw My Bloody Valentine 3D on Wednesday night with Joe. I loved it. I had never seen a movie in 3D before and I thought the effect was pretty cool. I don't usually like horror movies, despite my love of Supernatural, but it was precisely because of my love for Supernatural that I couldn't pass up the chance to see Jensen Ackles in the 3D on a big movie screen. (Slight spoiler here) His character in this, "Tom," was similar in many ways to his character in DeVour, "Jake," although MBV was much better. (End of spoiler.) Jensen can do no wrong in my eyes. I thought he did a fantastic job. Kerr Smith - who I last saw in Dawson's Creek - also was pretty amazing. Overall, a typical slasher flick, which lives up to the "Bloody" in its title... so if you go in for that sort of thing, or if you love Jensen, make sure you see this in the theater. I - being a bit of a wimp when it comes to this sort of thing - did not watch the death scenes, but I enjoyed the movie nonetheless.

I also have been spinning... the superwash alpaca-merino blend I got from etsy. It's very soft, but not so easy to spin. It's like a merino roving I got several years ago now that put me off spinning merino for the longest time. The fibers are so smooth and slippery that they have a tendency not to draft very easily, so it's a bit fussy... I can't tell you the number of times that the yarn has broken between the bobbin and my drafting hand and I've had to stop and pull it back out through the orifice and try to get it joined to the roving again... So totally not my favorite thing to spin. The resulting yarn, however, is very nice, and I think it will make some very yummy socks. I've spun 210 yards from 3 ounces, and now am on my 4th of the 12 ounces I bought. Pictures will be up on Ravelry, if not here, as soon as I take them.

Rest in peace, Mr. Manners...

Kim Manners, lately an executive producer and sometime director of Supernatural, died yesterday from lung cancer. I am so saddened by this loss. My heart goes out to his family, friends and colleagues. His consistant commitment to producing high quality entertainment made him my favorite television producer and director. I'm not surprised that he was heavily involved with almost all of my favorite episodes of Supernatural, The X-Files, and Brisco County Jr. Thanks for all the good times, Mr. Manners. Rest in peace...

This is really cool...

Okay, so this afternoon I got an e-mail from Ilana's mom, Clara. Now, this is really embarrassing, but I have to admit it anyway: I knew her name was Clara, but I didn't immediately connect the name in the e-mail to that bit of information in my brain (because if there's one thing I've always been it is SO BAD at remembering names quickly - faces, yes, but names, not so much). So I did a quick websearch because I knew I should know exactly who it was who had sent me this e-mail but I just couldn't remember, and immediately realized oh, yeah, Ilana's mom! But upon searching the name, I found a really interesting article she wrote about Crypto-Jews of Brazilian extraction, in particular about her own family. So fascinating! If you're interested in this topic in any measure, check out the article here.

Come on up for the risin'...

I've been watching Inauguration festivities coverage on CNN all day. I'm very much looking forward to Tuesday, though I won't be able to watch the Inaugural coverage live because I'll be in training to be a sub on Tuesday (O.O FIRST DAY!!! O.O) Right now, I'm listening to Springsteen singing with a gospel choir on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial (points to subject line)...

Earlier today, one of the CNN correspondents got a bit... editorial... I guess, and said that there's the Washington Monument and there's the Lincoln Memorial, and the reason that it's the Lincoln Memorial and not the Lincoln Monument is because Lincoln is a more human figure in the American imagination and not this distant figure of the past like Washington. Ahem. *rolls eyes a bit* Acktuly, it's the Washington Monument because its construction was planned during Washington's lifetime and he knew it was to be built before he died, and it's the Lincoln Memorial because its construction was planned after Lincoln's untimely death, so he never knew that it would be built. Really, these are technical terms and have nothing to do with the historical figures' place or characterization in the collective American consciousness. See, I paid attention to the tour guides during my eighth grade trip to DC.

Now for the real reason I wanted to post something this evening...

I've been spinning this weekend. For Jared and Jensen's socks.

These first two photos are of the yarn I've made for Jared. It's custom dyed superwash wool from Blue Faced Leicester sheep.




I wanted a dark midnight blue-vaguely purple in certain light sort of color. Since it was hand-dyed, and hand-dyed things can never be completely and uniformly solid, there were some bits that didn't take the dye as completely as others, making some bits appear more gray than blue. To me, it sort of looks the way wispy clouds do in the night sky, so it works for me.

The last two pictures are of the batts I bought for Jensen (to be clear, both pictures are of the same wool, just at different angles to show what I'm talking about with the lighting). This is the first time that I've spun fiber from batts instead of roving, and I actually found that the batts were much fluffier than I expected they would be. The color is gorgeous and hard to capture. The pictures don't do it justice, but I did try. It shifts from periwinkle blue to a spring sky blue kind of color, depending on the light, but always it's a very deep, strong kind of blue. It sort of reminds me of Forget-Me-Nots. And it's superwash Merino.




I've spun about half of the amount I bought for Jensen, but that's drying after being set right now and so a picture wouldn't show the color at all accurately so I haven't bothered to take one yet. Will do that asap...

Randomness...

I drove home last Friday. It was a long day. And my birthday was Saturday. It was a good day. I went out to lunch with some friends and to the movies. In the evening we had pizza and watched reruns on tv.

Yesterday, I posted more/better pictures of the things I made for holiday presents to my Ravelry account. There were a few things I realized I never took any pictures of... I think I need a "D'oh!" graphic to put on there for when I do that. I really hate not having some kind of picture to put up...

I've been sick since at least Saturday (went out for my birthday in spite of it because I wasn't going to let a pesky thing like being sick ruin an otherwise perfectly good day). I'm feeling significantly better today, but still not quite 100%. It's just a cold... or a mild flu... or something. I'm mostly just tired and feeling a vague malaise now, all other symptoms having thankfully subsided.

I've been keeping busy by spinning and looking for sock patterns. I can't remember if I said before, but I'm going to tackle socks yet again. To make for the boys from Supernatural. Yes, I am. I got that superwash roving I ordered and plan to employ it well. I've got the first ounce of the BFL I ordered spun and plied, and I'm waiting to see what weight it's spun up to before continuing. I need a worsted for the socks I want to make. It's ribbed and stretchy and also the pattern is written for Jensen's size... and hopefully it won't be difficult to upsize this pattern to fit Jared. So... yeah...

Oh! Ilana! Before I forget, thank you once again for the lovely things you sent me for the holidays. I unpacked yesterday and I found a little sample of roving in the bottom of the bag you made for me which I had missed before. What is it a sample of? It's very pretty.

Today, I ordered a flawless ironstone teapot on etsy, which I'm really excited about, and bought a new stainless steel tea kettle at Target. Our old enamel one, which I've not liked for a while now because I realized that the inside is Teflon, had gotten a chip in the enamel and had started to rust on the outside, so yeah... New one...

Tomorrow, I want to make biscuits. I got this fantastic recipe while I was in South Carolina for Cat Head biscuits. I need to find where I wrote it down though... But it's basically a buttermilk biscuit that one doesn't need to roll out and cut, so they're really quick and easy to make.