Show and Tell

Happy New Year!

It's been a busy fall, busy holiday season, and well, just busy.

A little show and tell: first the tell. In December I finished several knitting projects, worked on a quilt, caught 14 very large fish with 3 family members (I reeled in 4 or 5 mahi-mahi by myself!), and oh, what was that last thing...?

Give me a minute to think....

OH, YEAH! My shodo calligraphy was exhibited in the brand new National Art Center Tokyo museum!!!

That would be THIS museum:


Another view:

My work hanging, picture of me and my sensei:

Someone also wrote a very generous article about my shodo calligraphy in a magazine this month. The author was gracious and kind, and she did a very nice job on the article making me look good. I've reached the "apprentice teacher level," which is the rank before full-fledged teacher, but I'm not going to be making that jump for a good while, if ever.

(Vocabulary: shodo = the way of the brush, as it were. It's Japanese calligraphy, and I study the sosho form, doing mostly kana work, although I've done some all-kanji poems and some short kanjis as well.)

It's kind of a shame to blur that set of pics with fish pictures, or knitting or quilting pictures, so I'll save those for another post. Truly, the fish pics need their very own post. I'm as proud of them as I could be.

Where are we all hiding?

In knit blog land, there are a lot of blogs that have gone quiet this summer...some entries just shorter, some never updating (like mine).

Wonder where we are?

We are on Ravelry.

Go now and get on the waiting list. It's awesome. Take the screen tour.

I've been spending so much time on it -- it's so much easier to upload pictures and such on there, that I'm really contemplating ditching the blog altogether. (Gasp!) I'm not the only one.


The Finished Calorimetry made of Fjord



My toe-up socks on Magic Loop made from Yarntini's Cherry Cordial variegated



The Knit One Crochet Too Cabaret Scarf

Ravelry!

I love Ravelry.

Wait -- I REALLY love Ravelry.

I love Ravelry so much that I've spent most of the last month's 'online time' updating my stash on the Ravelry site. I've barely blogged. I've been photographing new yarn purchases, uploading them into Flickr, and putting in all my books, FOs, UFOs, etc.

I believe the big opening to many folks is happening very soon, so get in line and get ready to be wowed.

So, in the real world (i.e. not virtual), I'm back in Tokyo (a whole 24 hours now), and I've unpacked most of the bags. I have put all the newly purchased yarn in ziplock bags, and stuffed it all in the big TV cabinet (that no longer has a TV). It is now full, and I've imposed a 'no purchase rule' on myself. (I've heard from reputable sources that sock yarn is not counted in these rules.)

While in Minnesota, I purchased enough yarn, patterns, and books to keep me knitting for a few years. As a matter of fact, I entered a lovely yarn store while on vacation, and fondled many lovely things, yet BOUGHT NOTHING but a gauge and needle thingy. My husband seemed impressed at my restraint, and I honestly told him that he should be very afraid if he saw such restraint because it meant that even I now believed that I had too much yarn. Incredible, I know.

Must sleep -- jet lag makes me cranky.

Back from the lake

Back from the lake -- about a 3.5 hour drive for some people, I hear, but I've never done it that fast. Today was a personal record for me in the incredible length of time it took to get home. 12 and a half hours. Yep. Something to be proud of. And I went the speed limit the whole time I was driving -- no traffic jams, really. Here's how I frittered away the day:


9:00 am -- vacate cabin.
10:00 am -- give up waiting in line at freakishly crowded diner, go to coffee shop and buy latte and the two day-old cinnamon buns they have left
11:00am -- finally leave Walker, MN
11:20 am -- swerve wildly to avoid a head-on collision with a truck towing a boat that had been tail-gating a car that decided to stop suddenly to make a turn (why, why, why would anyone swerve INTO ONCOMING TRAFFIC ON A HIGHWAY to avoid rear-ending someone instead of swerving onto the shoulder?) Thankfully, ALL cars in both directions had quick wits and there was no accident.
12 noon -- Lunch in Baxter -- subsequent yarn shopping! Stash enhancement: 3 patterns, and 7 skeins of merino-alpaca blend and one Mountain Colors (same shade as the 7 skeins I bought in the same store on the way UP north 1 week earlier)
2:00 pm Leave Baxter
3:00 pm Get gas and snacks near St. Cloud, MN.
4:00 pm (?) arrive at Albertville Outlet Mall
6:00 pm -- stay indoors at mall due to thunderstorm/tornado warnings (not that we were planning on leaving anyway)
8:00 pm Leave Albertville Outlet Mall

All I gotta say is, the COACH store at this outlet mall had WAY better prices that the outlet store in Gotemba in Japan -- WAY better. Everything else I bought at the outlet mall was for the kids' school clothes.

9:00 pm -- arrive in suburban MSP, hitting the edge of the big thunderstorm
9:30 pm -- arrive home, unpack car

I get home, there's a leak in the garage in the corner where my car and stuff are, and I had to spend an hour moving boxes and throwing stuff away that has water damage (apparently there was a lot of rain today). Luckily, most of the stuff was not really important, so I don't feel like I've lost anything but time.

Speaking of losing time, it's 1:19am, and time for me to have been sleeping for hours by now!

Bridge down?

The last 24 hours have been a bit surreal. The 35W bridge is down, as the entire world knows. There are a lot of bridges in Minneapolis. I even drove over the Mississippi River 4 times (on 2 different bridges) on August 2nd, hours before the 35W bridge collapse. Quick calls all around assured us that our friends and relatives were not on the bridge, and we are thankful, yet stunned. I keep thinking about the families who escaped, who are injured, or who have missing. I think of the bravery of the divers in that muck -- what a mess.

I had taken the safety and security of the roads here for granted. Now each bridge I drive over or under (and there are a lot of them) I take a little more notice.

Hug your loved ones again today.

Ravenclaw? No surprise there

So, I stayed away from the internet and tweens on Saturday, and only got to read my book at 11 pm on Sunday. I finished it at 5:30am on Monday morning, and had to wake up to take the kids to swimming lessons at 7:30.

Now I kind of knew that I shouldn't have stayed up that late. I'm really too old to be doing that. I obviously have no willpower. I will tell nothing of plot or anything, but I did think that while some of the vocabulary was stretched a bit at times, I enjoyed the book, and found all the ends tied up nicely.

I found the Sorting Hat quiz on Annie Modesitt's blog, and it put me in Ravenclaw. (I could have guessed that -- probably everyone who knows me would have put me there.)

I'm off to go buy some milk in the 90-something degree heat of Minneapolis. It's hot out there, baby.

The sorting hat says that I belong in Ravenclaw!

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Said Ravenclaw, "We'll teach those whose intelligence is surest."

Ravenclaw students tend to be clever, witty, intelligent, and knowledgeable.
Notable residents include Cho Chang and Padma Patil (objects of Harry and Ron's affections), and Luna Lovegood (daughter of The Quibbler magazine's editor).

Take the most scientific Harry Potter
Quiz ever created.

Get Sorted Now!

A Contest!

A contest for Victorian Lace and a skein of lace weight! Shelley Kang aka The Heathen Housewife is offering this contest, but you must be QUICK and enter by Friday July 20 before Shelley puts her kids to bed (I love that)!

Of course, if I am lucky enough to have lurkers that go enter *and* mention my blog or me, apparently I will get an extra chance. Love that.

Go now -- right here

Shelley is even offering to dye it to the winner's specifications. Sweet.

Go now. You have only 20 hours left.