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Dudes, I'll post something for real one of these days. I knit this cute hat, and I have a new pattern or two, and so on and so on and I have computer blindness and spend virtually (comparatively) no time online when I'm not at work. Makes me wonder, if a blogger falls in the woods, does she find time to post pictures of it?

Linky Linky!

I have so far blown off posts about our trip to Colorado (and that was in JUNE) and Key West (again, June) and my best friend's wedding and Vegas. But I am diligent about posting my shop updates and my thoughts on political babblings, am I not? Oh well - I promise one of these days I'll post a photo-essay on some of this stuff. And to think I have Taos coming up in a few weeks - I need to stop going out of town!!

Oh, speaking of which - I'm going to Taos in a few weeks! It's been about three years since I've been, and I've never gone at Wool time, so that'll be a nice addition to our usual routines. If anyone's going to Taos Wool, drop me an e-mail or a comment, I like meeting people! I'm flying in to Denver to meet up with Kristi first, and then we'll drive south to Taos. My mom and some of her girlfriends are going too and we're renting a couple of casitas for the week. We're also planning a dinner at Joseph's Table, which is just an amazing place to have a special meal, if you're ever in Taos. (Other planned stops, for anyone who's curious what's available: The Old Blinking Light for burgers, Ogilvies on the Plaza for Tecates and margaritas, Michael's Kitchen for breakfast and cinnamon buns, Overland Sheepskin for that nice leather smell...)

Then I'm going to Rhinebeck (that's about 98% certain right now) and what's even more fun - my mom's decided as of today that she's going to Rhinebeck too!! So I'll probably drag her to as many Ravelry and blogger meet-up things as I can to show her off. I'm so excited!

I should have a finished Habitat by this evening, so I'll have that to show shortly. And hey look, one whole FO! (Yeah, it's just a hat, but so what? It's a FINISHED hat! It's also the first thing I've knit out of my own handspun, which makes it extra-nifty...I kinda figured I'd never knit anything out of it, just let it all sit on a shelf and diligently collect dust.) I also just wrapped up another big ol' batch o' yarn and will be shipping that off in a week or two. I'm hoping to get some good-sized samples (like, half-skeins or something) dyed up and skeined to take with me to Taos and Rhinebeck. (So if you see me, ask me for some yarn - if I have any to give out, I'd love to give it to you!)

For my SAFF friends - sadly, SAFF is off the table this year...I had to choose between Rhinebeck and SAFF and, incredibly enough, Rhinebeck is somehow more cost-effective and requires less time away from work...weird...

HoffPosh For Prez!!

Without firing up a whole huge political debate that's blog-inappropriate, I gotta say it:

I have heard a lot of deluded things in my day - frequently coming out of the big hole in my own face - and while geographical proximity to a foreign country equalling foreign policy experience IS pretty rich (don't you know W. is looking at Texas and Mexico on a map and muttering, "damn, now why didn't I think of that?") this one beats even that. With regard to being ready to take over the presidency:

"I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can't blink..."

Unabashed self-confidence and an inability to blink, really? Fine, then I hereby nominate David Hasselhoff and Victoria Beckham to office! I'm not making fun of the politician or making a statement, please don't tell me what a saint the person is or anything...just, I had to take that opening because, I mean, that's a hell of an interesting qualification. Hence my nomination. I even have the bumper stickers all planned out:

Hoff: Deluded Enough To Lead.

Posh: Botoxed Enough To Take Over.

Time Picks At All Wounds

I'm not one to post remember-the-Alamo type things, but after seven years, things are still pretty scabby, aren't they? This hasn't even healed to a scar yet - it's only stopped gushing blood.

The strangest phenomenon to me is the desire to avoid the date. Not avoid thinking about what it means or avoid it altogether by, like, sleeping through it (though I did attempt this morning, entirely by accident, and ended up with one of those brush-my-teeth-while-in-the-shower, do-my-makeup-at-red-lights kind of mornings). Rather, I try to avoid the actual date. When scheduling things, I flinch a little when it falls on September 11. When writing out a check or dating a report, I feel inclined to back-date or forward-date things. All activities should took place before or after, not on....like somehow even seven years later, it feels wildly inappropriate to just be carrying on with our lives and business on September 11.

But that's kind of all we can do - carry on. Make it work. Holler at your boy. All that Tim Gunn kind of stuff. (And crack reeeally half-hearted lame jokes in an attempt to look like we're recovering.)

Hey, Lookit Me!

I'm on Lime & Violet's Daily Chum! It's obnoxious to post about that, isn't it? It totally is. That's okay, I just get so tickled when somebody likes me - please indulge me. I'm giddy - like last week when someone mentioned me and Sundara (cue the choir of angels) in the same sentence, though I managed to not post about that (well, until now. Oops.)

It's funny, it's not vanity, it's kind of the total opposite - there's some sort of weird sense of other-personness to it. Like if I was the big geek in high school wearing headgear and a ponytail and glasses (because if Hollywood is to be believed, in high school a ponytail and glasses = hopeless loser. Oh, and overalls. Gotta have the overalls) and the hot football captain started flirting with me. I'm going to giggle and flirt back, but really it's just like, "Did he have corneal surgery? He thinks I'm somebody else, doesn't he?" (Which, coincidentally and despite all my grand feelings of self-worth and confidence, was sort of exactly how I felt when Travis first kissed me.)

Anyway, I thought it was nifty. You can go about your business now. ;-)

FO, Funny Medical Stories, Shop Updated, and Whatever Else Comes To Mind

I finally got my NPR Series yarns done, and I'm working on a new batch for The Loopy Ewe. There will be additional skeins added to the shop over the next couple of weeks as I play with different ideas and techniques. Take a look at the NPR skeins if you so desire.

I'm making fast progress on all this stuff now, since I've been off work since Friday for a minor dental procedure - I'm having an implant placed to replace a baby tooth (yes, I really still had a baby tooth at 29 years old) and without knowing how having a hole drilled into my jawbone would affect me, I made sure to schedule it over the weekend and take today off as well. It's not too painful, so I can get a lot of work done.

The extraction was a treat, though. That was a few weeks ago, just before Vegas (cut to me trying to scream, around the hand in my mouth, "But I'm going to Vegas! Vegas! I can't be toothless in Vegas!") Fortunately it's a tooth near the back so I don't too strongly resemble a hillbilly who opens green bean cans with her teeth. I've seen the doctor a couple of times about this tooth, and I guess he was tired of me putting it off. (When you do theatre and seem to go out of town for fun picture-taking-type things regularly, it's easy to come up with reasons to not be toothless.) So he put his foot down, declared the tooth a danger to the bone above, skipped the numbing goo, and crammed a bigass needle into the roof of my mouth before I could complain or, more likely, bolt from the chair. It hurt like a bitch, and then he said the magic words: "If you're good, I won't charge you for the consult and extraction." Since that amounted to about a $200 savings, I shut right up. He waited a minute, asked to take a look, and popped the tooth right out. WE LOOK WITH OUR EYES!!! (This story makes him sound like a jerk - but I'd trust him with my life. He's been my oral surgeon for many years and did my jaw surgery three years ago. He reminds me of my granddaddy, and he's stern but fair and really kinda fun. Besides, a 27 year-old baby tooth comes out with remarkable ease - the novocaine probably wasn't ever necessary.)

I was going to let him throw that tooth away, then I had a revelation - do you have any idea what the payout is on a 27 year-old baby tooth? The tooth fairy owes me for principal plus almost three decades of interest! (I've consulted the tooth fairy and she declared that she handed over all fairy duties at the altar last year, so I'm waiting for that other fairy to come through. I got some ice cream and a couple of subs....I think that might be about it.) ;-)

I'm taking a break while the pots heat up - think I'll sit in my Ikea chair and work on my Habitat beanie hat thing. Now that I'm not working on any patterns, I'm casting on for stuff like a fool and just hoping to finish something. Kind of like throwing spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks, but with yarn and a little more effort (and maybe a lot more mess - there are project bags all over the living room.)

Oh! An FO! I finished a non-pattern-writing knit, yahooooo!:

A Baby Bolero from Leigh Radford's One Skein, knit in Blue Sky Alpacas Organic Cotton. I have another skein of Organic Cotton coming in sage green for a second bolero - I did a stash-swap with a Raveler for it, since two gender-surprise babies are on their way to a coworker. (Twins!) It only took about four days from start to finish, and I think the seaming on this thing took longer than the actual knitting - I SUCK at seaming. I know a lot of people say it, but I truly am awful at it. I seamed and unseamed the shoulder no fewer than ten times before I was kind of sort of happy with it. Let's hope the second one goes a little more smoothly!

Shop Stuff

Fair warning, nothing in this post but a small announcement or something about the shop and a pretty picture at the end:

There has been some interest expressed in a YoYo shop newsletter of sorts - I'm going to set up an email list, for notifications when shop updates happen (it's been slow in the updating lately, but I always have something up my sleeves.) If you'd be interested in receiving these notifications - they won't be constant, they'll only be when there's going to be an update or a sale (yes, a sale!) and I won't share your info obviously, etc., etc. - then please let me know either by comment (include your email address on that email address line) or shoot me an email at alysonknitsATgmailDOTcom.

(It seems likely that those who are on the list would get not only early warning of updates and sales, but the occasional fun stuff like sale codes or a contest or something....)