What's Jami Working On?

Just to prove that I have been knitting during this rather long period of non-knitting commentary, here's a (partial) inventory:
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The Red Heart is for a baby hat and mittens set requested by one of my farmer's market buddies. Red Heart, because it's just about indestructible and we are talking about a baby after all. The request is for something train-themed; I'm thinking I'll do a hat with red and black bi-color rib (like the 4th of July hat) but run two rounds of black running through it, so the whole thing looks like train tracks. I really wish I could find some train buttons in the right colors!! I want to add a chin strap, and if I was able to put two train buttons running around opposite sides of the track, the chin strap could just have button holes on each end to make it detachable. But this project is due on Sunday afternoon, so those buttons are going to have to either magically appear at the one place I have time to check (Wally World), or I'm going to have to do without.
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The blue object next to it is a stash-buster shawl in garter stitch. It has no particular destination in mind, but will be about 60" x 36" when I'm done and features several different eyelash and novelty yarns that I thought had better be used up before that fashion is completely gone. It may be a bit behind the trend, but it is very soft and cuddly.
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Speaking of passing trends, I'm also trying out the "squiggle shawl" method with these other two novelty yarns I got on different clearance racks. The brown has a suede-like texture and the cream is iridescent, so the whole thing keeps reminding me of pearls on a beach. Don't know what I'm going to do with it, exactly, but it's fun.
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I also just finished the baby packer hat I'd promised to the nice people in my Lay Academy car pool - I'll weave in the ends and embroider the yellow "G" on the way there tonight. Not sure if I'll have time to photograph it, but I'll try. And I've packed all the materials for one last (incredibly overdue) pirate hat, which will now be crafted out of something a bit warmer than cotton. I'm thinking about throwing in some basic hand-warmers as well, just to apologize for the late delivery.

And so, off I go to another session of Lay Academy. I still haven't gotten all of my reading done, but I'm closer than last time!
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Blog Blast for Peace

What more can I say?

(http://mimilenox.blogspot.com/)

One Last Gasp of Fall Beauty

It's another unreasonably unseasonal day, and I managed to walk/drag the puppy about 3/4 mile this morning in celebration. She's now more or less paper-trained (at least as far as fluids go), will sit for her supper, is starting to understand the basics of "off" and "down," and is less of a trip hazard on a leash. But "heel" is still just completely beyond her - if we're motivating forward together, she just doesn't see the need to restrain herself and will hang the front half of her body from the leash as we stumble down the road. Sigh.

But days like this, with balmy breezes and low gas prices and conciliatory commentaries filling the radio waves, are gifts which should be appreciated while they last.

A Warm, Hopeful Day

I don't know if you can rightly call this Indian Summer so much as an unreasonably welcome fluke of nature. But the sun is shining and it's 72 degrees out - in the first week of November! In Wisconsin! I have the windows open in the house and car, and let the puppy loll in the grass when I went home for lunch. I'm even wearing sandals today.

Luc says that on his way to class this morning he spotted a group of four deer standing in the field and looking bemused about the current situation. And on my way to work, I passed a small flock of turkeys who were looking awfully content.

Sure, the world is going to hell in a handbasket, from some perspectives. I've heard more prejudiced comments (based on race and faith) in the last 20 months than in the 20 years prior. There are the wars (plural), and the environment, and the economy, and that asinine Proposition 8 in California.

But when the sun is shining, and a balmy breeze is blowing, and your son just gave you a hug for no particular reason, and the polls don't scare you as much as usual - it's easy to just relax and smile.

24 hours or so

The guy on the radio said they will probably start leaking winner predictions by about 5:oo p.m. tomorrow. Unless we suffer a hanging chad or Supreme Court intervention or some other such nonsense, we should have a new president-elect shortly thereafter. Silly season is finally almost done.

Lucas still says he doesn't think he'll vote - he doesn't like the choices. I told him he could write in another candidate. I told him he could pick one of the several other candidates, even if they weren't really viable contenders, just to make a point. I told him to take a left out of the driveway, cross two intersections, then look for the little building with the flag in front. I told him they might have candy. He said something non-committal, and my motherly instinct is telling me to let it be; if I stop nagging him, he might do it.

There's an e-mail circulating just now about the suffragettes and the things they went through less than 100 years ago to gain women the vote. I'm not sure I believe all of it - it also recommends a movie on the subject, and the subject matter is so sensational that I'm surprised I'd never heard of it before. But the fact remains that our grandmothers and great-grandmothers challenged their entire social structure and risked their economic and inter-familial security (which in that era was none to secure to begin with) to gain us this one precious right. The least we can do in their honor is vote. I have an opinion, as you know, about which candidate is more appropriate - but vote for the other guy if you must. Vote for the Green Party, or the Blue Party, or the Flat Earth Society, or what ever other party made it onto the ballot. Vote for a write in of your choice, just as an expression of your opinion on the whole process and the candidates at hand. Whatever. But go vote.

Your grandmother would approve.