Do you have those times when there is a lot going on & not much that you can discuss? Or in this case, discuss by writing.
On the knitting front, I am still working on sleeve # ! of the V-neck sweater & am doing hat # 5 for the KR Retreat Dulaan project. A ways back I made a lovely scarf w/some Karabella Aurora black & grey yarn. If you looked up "soft" in the dictionary, you'd see a photo of a skein of this yarn. The ends were so tightlyboundoff that I have undone both of them & will be reknitting them. I had not been able to make the Knit-along for the Landscape Shawl at my LYS so the wonderful folks there taught me some of the beginning stuff (like the picot "pattern"). I did a few rows & a few of the picot pattern before showing it to them. Most of the little picots were OK but there was an impotent looking little one in there - easier to frog it, consider it as my practice & start over. For me my LYS is like "Cheers" - remember the theme song, "Don't you want to go where everybody knows your name?" ? The owner, M, & the members of her delightful staff whom I know the best, the Divine DJ & A are like that. How good it is to feel so welcome.
There is very little other knitting news for me for now.
I spent this AM in the dentist's chair having a molar (if you know dentistry, it's number 19) prepared for a crown. The temp will be there for a few weeks. I adore my dentist - Jim is the best. Part of my job history took place in dental offices - I was a dental hygienist for many years & was a pediatric hygienist during four of those years. It's a job that teaches you a lot about people, some good & some not so good. The price for good dental care is not cheap - oh how I wish I had dental insurance.

A recent post from Jane's blog gave me some good food for tho't - what constitutes a good, cool knitting group? What brings a group of diverse people together & makes them really come together? How do we achieve that balance?
Jane added her articulate, well reasoned & tho'tful reactions - do scope it out.
I have been lucky to be involved w/two local knitting groups. One group was comprised of folks who knew each other from their jobs as public school teachers &/or had been knitting students of the woman who hosted the meetings. The meetings were set on Friday night which was not the best night for me but I wanted to attend them as I was one of the students of the hostess & thus the meetings had an extra dimension for me. I attended them on a regular basis for a while, heard a lot about the principal of the school where these folks taught, heard about the students & became pals w/one of the other members who lived near me & w/whom I carpooled. Friday nights became problematic for me as it had not felt like a good night for a knitting group & I stopped my lessons w/the hostess (who does do wonderful knitting herself). Thus I bagged that group.
The other knitting group is comprised of former teachers or current teachers from a local Friends school. (One interesting aside: the volume of their voices is so much lower than the voices of the public school teachers from the Friday night group! It was amazing.) Yes, they do discuss the students at times but it's OK. Some of the things that I like are that the meetings just seem different in a low key & good way - no pressures from anyone, a comfy atmosphere, rotating homes, some folks do other things in addition to knitting (one quilts [me too], needlepoints & knits, another makes doll clothes for historic dolls), many of them have been friends for YEARS & they adore each other. Lucky me - I'm the only non-Friends employee or ex-employee in the bunch. And we meet on a week-night that varies from month to month, depending on the schedules of the members.
There is usually a lot of laughter, sharing of personal & family issues, showing off new projects & questions asked about how to solve project boo boos.
Because there are so many people who belong (a meeting may have 12 or so folks) & most usually do show up, I asked to do the email reminders about the meetings to make up for the fact that my home is so small that I don't have room to host a meeting & have room for everyone. Everyone seems to find the email notices & the reminders to be helpful so it's a win-win situation for all of us.

courtesy of a bossy little dog's mom & rose by any....

courtesy of a bossy little dog's mom & rose by any....

1. What is your occupation? Professional pet care sitter (I have a cat only practice.)

2. What color is your underwear? Blue

3. What are you listening to right now? The attic fan & NPR

4. What was the last thing you ate? a flax frozen waffle toasted twice in the toaster oven w/yogurt on it & coffee w/half & half

5. Do you wish on stars? Yes - for sure.

6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Forest Green

7. How is the weather right now? Not terribly hot temperature wise but oh so humid.

8. Last person you spoke to on the phone? A cat sitting client

9. Do you like the person who sent this to you? I swiped it, but yes, I like both of them very much!

10. How old are you today? 54 (that changes soon)

11. Favorite drink? Just one? Here are a few: water, coffee w/half & half, iced tea, good soy milk (yes, there is such a thing!), homemade lemonade, good red wine

12. Favorite sport to watch? When I was growing up, my Saturday night dinners were spent watching "Wild World of Sports" w/my Dad as we ate our carry-out hamburgers, using TV trays of course. My mom always refused to join us & ate by herself in the kitchen. You know what - Dad & I were OK w/that!
Back to the sports: tennis, baseball, figure skating, football

13. Have you ever dyed your hair? Had it highlighted only one time

14. Do you wear contacts or glasses? Wear contacts & over the last couple of years, I have begun to need to wear glasses when I read. It feels so weird to need both for reading.

15. Pets? Two adorable cats

16. Favorite month? September - it means that the hot & humid summer is behind us.

17. Favorite food? Nachos, scrambled eggs, mac & cheese (made from scratch, not the blue box), mashed potatoes, fish & chips

18. Favorite day of the year? Don't have one

19. What do you do to vent anger? Moi, angry? My voice gets louder & I can cuss w/the best of them. And then often I stew.

20. What was your favorite toy as a child? Had a bunch of model horses and one Barbie whom I really ignored after a short time.

21. Fall or Spring? Fall

22. Hugs or kisses? Hugs

23. Cherry or Blueberry? Blueberry but cherry is a close 2nd

24. Do you want your friends participate in this? Sure

25. Who is most likely to respond? Good question - anyone have that answer?

26. Who is least likely to respond? Ditto wondering if anyone has that answer

27. When was the last time you cried? Two days ago

28. What is on the floor of your closet? Boxes of yarn & fabric

29. Who is the friend you have had the longest? Mary Lou, my friend from kindergarten - we reconnected after many years at our 35th high school reunion in 2003. She still lives in Ohio.

30. What did you do last night? laundry, ate dinner, read email, answered email, did a blog entry, figured the gauge for my Landscape Shawl, fell asleep.

31. Favorite smell? Bread as it's baking, coffee, vanilla, the air after a good, cleansing rain

32. What inspires you? Love, creativity, heart strength.

33. What are you afraid of? Good question - can I think about it for a while?

34. Plain, cheese or spicy hamburgers? Let's make this one about veggie burgers - then it's spicy please for me.

35. Favorite dog? My late great dog, BJ - love mixed breed dogs in general

36. Number of keys on your key ring? Four

37. How many years at your current job? oy, 16 1/2 years

48. Favorite day of the week? Sunday

49. How many states have you lived in? 3

50. How many cities have you lived in? 5

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In case you missed HBO’s “Late Night with Bill Maher,” here was his open letter to the President:

Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you any more. There's no more money to spend--you used up all of that. You can't start another war because you used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people. Listen to your Mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit cards maxed out. No one's speaking to you. Mission accomplished.

Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or space man? Now I know what you're saying: there's so many other things that you as President could involve yourself in. Please don't. I know, I know. There's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela. Eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote.

But, Sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised that you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire city to rising water and snakes.

On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky. I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.

So, yes, God does speak to you. What he is saying is: “Take a hint.”

Got yarn? Why, yes, I do.
Got WIPs? Ditto.
Here's my list of the most current WIPs ...
~~ The Knitting Pure & Simple V-neck pullover: one sleeve has been started (thanks be to the Divine DJ of my LYS for the fine pointers & assistance) & the body of the sweater is about 2/3s done.
~~ The Dulaan Project is wonderful & because I think it is so wonderful, I have 2 hats in the works for inclusion in the Knitter's Review Retreat Charity project. I have two other hats that have been completed for Dulaan. (Hopefully I will be able to have the Dulaan button on the sidebar soon. In the meantime you can get to that button from the blog of the wonderful & talented Mossy Cottage.)
~~ I will be participating in the next Knit-along at the LYS & ta da, it will be the Fiber Trends Landscape Shawl. I have done the swatch for that although I have not figured out the gauge.
~~ The Constant Companion bag is progressing, albeit more slowly than my fingers would like. Over the week-end I began stranding a white Cascade 220 w/a pale blue Cascade 220. It's not the greatest combo & I decided to knit a few more rows of it & switch to two other yarn colors to strand.

Hey folks, I'm back ^..^ Sorry to be so quiet for a while.
My job keeps me hoppin' up until Labor Day & sometimes even through later September as well. Luckily for my sanity, spiritual health & my much needed sleep time, I chilled for a few days.
Ahhhh, it felt splendid - still feeling splendid, I must say.
My city is enduring a long period w/out rain - maybe on Wednesday, a fellow neighbor who gardens told me that we'll have some rain. That would be ever so nice.
As I sit writing this - at this very moment - a part of the garden is being watered via a sprinkler. Yes, I know - watering via soaker hoses &/or a handheld hose is more efficient. And I have meant to place soaker hoses for oh-so-many years that I would embarrass myself should I write that number here for all to see.
We have such a mosquito problem in this area that even a walk to the compost bin brings bites on the arms & legs.
Thus I am here at the computer as the sprinkler is trying to revive the plants & I'll head out in a moment to change the position of the sprinkler.
There will be a lot to do this fall, garden-wise. Plants to divide & pass along to other garden pals, plants to divide & add to my garden, plants to pull out altogether (phlox for one) or cut down (the many sunflowers who have nothing left in the seed heads as the gold finches have munched all they could & the plants are now falling over), plants to deadhead w/the idea that they may give off a couple of more blooms.
As you can tell, the garden is important in this house!
More fiber & knitting content soon - promise.

What a rough week, to put it mildly, it has been for New Orleans & Mississippi. Having just read Jane's blog, I am moved to include two links she had for her entry - Network For Good and the North Shore Animal League.
Hurricane Katrina has been, it seems, one of the worst disasters for America - the poor folks, the helpless animals - they need our help. This has been our tsunami.