I'm alive, I'm alive...really...

Hola! Just checking in.
I am alive and I do have SS11 blogs started but I got seriously distracted by...uh...well, life.

After the Sock Summit, I had to hit the ground running for work due to bonus industry-wide changes that have come into play as well as the necessary pre-prep for the normal Bi-annual industry changes that are coming up in a couple of months.
Add to the above some minor medical adventures and the blog sits idle - but not forgotten!
(My medical adventures are certainly nothing on the scale of what Martha and her husband are dealing with!  How did the bone scan go? Wishing you both healing and strength!! Blessings Be!)
I am considered to be ok physically for now, but I am dealing with some unexpected fatigue and there are things to ponder and pursue.

It'll all work out. It usually does - maybe not the way I'd like, but it'll work out.
There is more for me to learn here.

The cats are charming, surprising and, as usual, easily the most entertaining thing in my life.

Mikale & Nikoli

More appreciated entertainment: PodCasts have been a near-constant companion. My thanks to all the podcasters out there that share bits of their lives, knitting adventures, their creativity, education, humor, and personality with us! Most especially of late:

• Congratulations and blessings to Jasmine and Gigi of the Knitmore Girls and their expanding family! Enjoy your summer hiatus and thank you very much for podcasting! Jasmine, please consider that sometimes our creative "Mojo" is diverted from our knitting to other important tasks. "Nesting" comes in many forms. ;-)
• Thank you for the giggles shared and inspired by Rick and Carin of the KintWits Podcast. 'Tis appreciated, especially now. (I got to meet the lovely Carin at the Sock Summit!) 
•  Strength and ongoing well-wishes are offered to David Reidy and his Mum. Mr. Reidy (of the Sticks and String Podcast) is also on podcast hiatus to be able to focus more on caring for his Mum and her current health challenges. 
• Paula of Knitting Pipeline has been keeping me company as well.  (Thank you again!)
• I'm also back the fascinating History of Rome, listening to the early episodes. I recently laughed out loud to hear about a Roman Consul (Publius Claudius Pulcher) seeking the auspices of "The Sacred Chickens" before a battle. When the chickens didn't eat the feed offered to them to assure a favorable outcome for the plan to destroy the Carthaginian navy, he had them tossed overboard, citing "If they're not hungry, maybe they're thirsty." (Yep, the attack went "poorly" to say the least!). 

I have been getting some knitting done amidst the long hours at work. Here's a finished pair of socks for a friend in the White Mtns.  About 6 months back, she loaned a car to a friend of mine (My ride to the crafting retreat) so we could drive back to Tucson after the serpentine belt in my friend's car let loose inside (broke) the engine. She's a lovely person and it shouldn't surprise me at all she would lend us her car. I wanted to show her my appreciation for the rescue so a pair of socks, in the yarn of her choosing, have been knit and are ready to ship this week.

Yep, my foot, her socks...I'm pretty sure these will fit her much better!

For "just checking in", I've been typing for quite a while. (I have to admit, I do "blather" well!)
I need to get back to Laundry and other weekend to-do's - and back to SS11 blogging.
Please bear with me..."Life Happens".

Sock Summit 2011 (SS11) - Where to start?

I've been thinking about this most of the week.
So much to say. So many pictures to go through! (I took nearly 400 pictures!  Woof! Oh - and I still need to take pictures of yarn and take-home goodies! I guess I'll be reviewing nearly 500 pictures. Hmmmm.)

And I keep thinking of things that I forgot to take pictures of - before the moment passed, before I ate it, before I gave it away...and alllllll the names and faces of the amazing folks I met that I didn't jot down or record with a photo. (Huge, smack-my-forehead SIGH).

But there is still a lot to show-n-tell about.

So...starting at the beginning of my Sock Summit 2011 trip...
Don't panic - I'm going to skip the plane stuff. It was a normal-ish trip in my limited experience and I've nothing of specific interest to record.

Oh - wait, I lied. I did have some pictures from the plane:

Mountains - greeeeen!

Startling Blue Sky & Clouds (I loved the texture and shades of white, gray, lavender...)

No - not a Sock Summit "Twilight Zone" moment about something out on the wing...

My first completed pair of baby booties.

I finished the first bootie and knit the 2nd one on the way to Portland. I wanted to knit something in honor of Rav-baby "Eloise" as suggested by the Sock Summit organizers. Since Eloise is most likely well stocked in knitted items, they suggested we knit/shop for Snowcap ("a Portland charity that provides food, clothing and advocacy to those who need it").

I'd been semi-living at work the weeks before the Sock Summit so having realized I was not going to be knitting the baby sweater I'd planned, I'd gone shopping for baby onesies and children's underwear to donate to Snowcap.
I also pulled out a languishing WIP (Work-in-progress) and plotted to finish these booties to donate in Eloise's name.

Oh - and this was too lovely not to snap a picture: Crater Lake.

Ok, off the plane and onto Portland, Oregon -
I did get to semi-meet some spiffy folks on the MAX train ride to the Convention Center. They had cards! Similar to Business Cards - more like calling cards of old. That was the new-to-me thing that many folks brought to the Summit. (Sure beats spelling K-I-N-I-A...25 times a day!)

All 3 ladies were very nice (especially about my tipping-over suitcase) and 2 gave me their cards.
Confession...the 3rd lady may have also given me a card, but I did a poor job keeping them organized and worse still, matching faces to cards. {sigh}. More-over, I didn't ask if I could feature them in the blog so here's some general references:
I believe one woman may have been the dyer of Three Fates Yarn (spiffy stuff) and another was a teacher at the Sock Summit with a familiar knitterly name! I earned a temporary nick-name of "Rav-girl"with said spiffy teacher/designer that I carried through the week with a slightly tickled grin.

That was one of the neat things about the Sock Summit - you'd meet someone and then meet them again and again throughout the event.

We travelled to the Oregon Convention Center and split up for our various hostelries.
It turned out that my assigned room at the Inn at the Convention Center was still occupied (no, it was past check-out/in time). I was temporarily shifted to a non-smoking "Handicapped" (??) room - but when I found cigarette butts decorating the mini-balcony, I asked to be moved. I ended up in a room that met the some-where-to-sleep criteria and I stayed for the duration. The stay was a bit of an adventure and I'll leave it at that. I will say that nearly everyone I met working at the hotel was very nice and I slept well.

It was Tuesday afternoon and I had plotted a trip downtown to a Yarn Shop, a Chocolate shop, Powells, and the Museum of Contemporary Craft.

As promised, I'm going to split the SS11 adventures into smaller blogs to avoid wearing out the reader - and the blogger.

Join me next blog for Weaving Art, Lost-in-Powells, Missed Yarn, and the very best Chocolate I have had in my entire life.

Where did July Go?

Greetings! My apologies for posting nearly a month ago and then essentially disappearing.
I thought of the blog often enough, but I didn't translate those thoughts into typing and blogging.
Why didn't I? Because I was engrossed with several projects.  (i.e. obsessed)

A huge project came into being at work - with a deadline that coincided with my being out of town. So - I had to design, setup and test my portion of this project and turn it over to our stellar Quality Assurance department for testing and implementation more than a week before the project was due. I took this task a little too seriously and spent a great deal of time at work. (Yep, fell off the work-a-holic wagon again...)

In my not very spare time, I was living on the internet - trying to plot my Portland explorations around my Sock Summit classes and events. The Sock Summit Raverly discussion group was a huge boon to this research and plotting (I seemed to have plotted a lot of restaurants to visit...). The Portland natives' suggestions on what to visit and where to eat was invaluable. Several people also organized events around the Sock Summit that were definitely intriguing.

And as my life was consumed with these projects, my body made it's preferences known (loudly) and I attempted to get some exercise and sleep between work and SS11 plotting. (I wasn't particularly successful at these endeavors.)

Deep Breath/Sigh.  {wry grin}

Thusly I disappeared for a bit, blog-wise. Now I'm "back" and I have a lot to blog about...a lot of pictures of events, food (YUM!), amazing craftsmanship (no, not mine), and new-to-me LYS pictures. As usual, I always have silly observations to post but there are also some Sock Summit Stories to tell.
(I think I managed to not entirely embarrass myself this time at the Sock Summit when faced with Knitterati. {whew!})

But it's going to take me a bit to go through all the pictures and plot the blog posts.
I will make an effort to post  smaller chapters rather than "War and Peace" blogs.
And I will fulfill my promise to include the progress of my own crafting exploits of late.

Please bear with me. There is more to come.
Blessings Be.