Auditory or visual?

I have always thought that I was an auditory person - hearing as my preferred sense.

Relaxing in the evenings, I sit and knit, listening to music or to what is on the television, looking up occasionally. However, perhaps I was mistaken.

Since we bought the new tv, I have been sitting, astounded, looking at the screen. OMG, I had no idea all the things I was missing! So, I've been knitting on socks. I can do that without watching the knitting.




Now that I've become accustomed to that great big screen, I can go back to a more challenging project. I picked Osterdalen out of the basket and resumed knitting.

Just a few more rows and the sleeve will be finished.

Ben had a look at it when he was home. He pronounced it exactly what he wanted.

We did a bit of consulting on size while he was home. I was knitting a medium, but he would prefer a closer fit.

So, he'll have medium sleeves and a small body. No problem - just cut the sleeve steeks to fit the slightly larger sleeves!

The kid is home

Ben returned home on Saturday for a short break after his J-term. He spent J-term student teaching social studies at Decorah high school. It confirmed his desire to teach.

George has become a parrot cat. She has spent alot of time attached to his shoulder while he's home.

He must return to school tomorrow. We will miss him..






Paul and I went out Sunday for a couple of geocaches in the Cannon River Wilderness Park. We had never hiked there before.

It was warm, in the 30's. Bright and sunny! A great day for the snowshoes.





I managed to spin and ply the yellow fiber from the recently dyed superwash wool. I navajo plyed to maintain the slight color changes. It turned out soft and fluffy.










I had today off. My mid-week days to myself are numbered - I've accepted the offer of a new position at the hospital. My new position will be "Clinical Applications Specialist" - a glorified way to say I'll be the computer specialist for all the medical users in the hospital.

This will be a challenging transition. Besides the obvious - it's a whole new and different sphere of nursing and will no longer be direct patient care - I haven't worked a 40 hours/week position since the mid 80s. (Oh man, that makes me sound really old.) And this job is Monday-Friday, 8 to 4:30 - another big transition! And I'll need clothes! I've been wearing hospital-provided scrubs for years and years.

Best of all - NO CALL! I love my OR position, but the call is so disruptive to any semblance of a normal lifestyle.

I won't be able to start the new position for awhile. My current department has been short a nurse for many months, and my manager can't let me go til they figure out how they can make the schedule work, missing two of seven nurses. I'm hoping to start in a month.

And I'm really looking forward to it

finally, it's warmed up

After chores and errands today, Paul and I took the big dog out for a walk in the arb.















We saw four cross country skiers. It was sunny and mid 20s - darn near tropical compared to our recent subzero temps. We're scouting out places to put a new geo-cache.
Paul spent some time getting our new toy hooked up. This stand was a good place for our 1985 vintage tv, but it is glaringly not the right piece of furniture for the new one! We think it will eventually end up suspended upon the wall. I love having a handy-dandy guy to do all this stuff...

Dye Day

It was a lovely, sunny, freezing cold day again today.

Paul dropped my truck off at the auto glass place. My windshield cracked sometime in the past month, so I get a new one - YAY! Rather than take his big ol' one-ton, crew cab, dually truck around town, I hung out at home for my day off.

I've been thinking about spinning up some superwash wool that's been marinating in my stash. It'd make a good baby sweater. It would make a better baby sweater if it were colorful! And so, inspiration was born...

I dug out all the dyeing stuff.

I got this cool multilevel roaster at a garage sale. It works well for steaming dye stuffs in the oven. It has several racks to elevate the wool over the water for steaming.



Soaked the wool, sprinkled it with GayWool dye in five colors, and into the oven it went.





Chip was uninterested.








While the wool was steaming, I managed a bit of knitting on Osterdalen. You can see the bottom of the men's feet on the sleeve. It's starting to look like a real sweater.




The wool was rinsed, and is drying on the bathtub rack.





Does anyone use their jacuzzi tub regularly after the first six months? Ours makes a great drying rack...

No School Today

Girl of the House had no school today (or tomorrow). Luckily, I was off, too. We just hung out together.

I spent most of the day on the computer, finishing up the 2007 finances and organizing paperwork for taxes. Man, I let the end of the year slide - lots of receipts to enter and statements to reconcile.


This evening, we played Rage. We learned to play Rage on our ski trip, so we came home and bought the game. It's great fun! We played last evening, too.

We don't watch much tv - we love to play games in the evenings. I can usually knit a row or two between hands.

You can see Osterdalen is slowly growing.