N-Ennui

I love the French word for boredom—ennui. It sounds so . . . French. At first I thought it would be a good word to describe this summer, but it's not, really, because my to-do list is a thousand bullet-points long and I am far from bored. So I am calling it "n-ennui," because it perfectly describes my state of inertia at the moment. (I am probably breaking a thousand linguistic rules and angering lots of Frenchmen and -women by doing that. Apologies.) 

The MT job search is not going as well as I had hoped. I tested with one company and got as far as a phone interview, but received a "thanks but no thanks" e-mail from them yesterday. Last week I sent out at least two dozen resumes. I haven't heard back from any of the companies yet. I am told this is pretty standard, but it doesn't make the waiting any easier. I even spent an entire afternoon (3+ hours) testing on one company's website—for many companies, you don't even get to send a resume until you've passed their online testing—only to be told that they weren't hiring right now. Great. 

The husband has taken his usual zen-like approach and keeps telling me to be patient, that something will come along. In the meantime, I am going to get out Cables 2 out today and start working on it again. The cynical part of me thinks that that is the best way to shake loose an MT job—by going back to knitting. That seems to be how it works. He mused yesterday that maybe I should just go back to knitting altogether, but I spent $4000 on this MT training and I'd like to get some of that back. 

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I want to abandon knitting (I most certainly don't), it's just that I hate trying to focus on multiple things at once, and I am still looking for that balancing point. But do stick around, because I just got half a dozen patterns back from my tech editor and I'll be posting pics as soon as I make them available. 

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My mother was here last week, so she and the girls and I went on a road trip. We drove over to Spokane on Thursday and did some shopping at Kohls. DD#2 and I like Kohls—we always seem to be able to find clothing that fits us well there. The Kohls in Spokane is the closest store to us. We spent Thursday night in Spokane, then headed over to the Seattle area on Friday so my mother could see where DD#1 goes to college. We did some more shopping (I jokingly told the husband we were touring "malls of the Northwest" on this trip) and spent the night. On Saturday, we headed to downtown Seattle to Pike Place Market and to Nordstrom and Macy's, both of which were having big sales. 

[Just before we got to Snoqualmie Pass, I pulled in to a large fruit stand so we could get out and stretch our legs. Once inside, I realized that the top two floors of the building held antiques. I am always looking for things to add to my textile collection and I love antique stores. There were lots of crocheted doilies, but I pass those up in favor of knitted items, which are much harder to find. In one of the top-floor booths I found a large knitted lace doily, definitely handmade, and priced at $7.50. I bought it. I don't know who knit it, but now it resides in the textile collection.]

My sister wondered why we didn't do any sightseeing on this trip. Well, it's because 1) we've done sightseeing in Seattle on a previous trip and 2) when you live in a place with one department store—and a department store that could hardly be accused of being on fashion's cutting edge, at that—shopping in a large city is absolutely heavenly. I almost fainted from delight when I saw the Penzey's Spices across from Nordstrom Rack in Seattle. I've ordered from them before, but how nice to go into the actual store and smell the spices! I came out of there with $30 worth of Indian spices to add to my collection. And in the Williams-Sonoma store, I found a container of citric acid. I am on a cheesemaking kick this summer, and I need citric acid to make a batch of mozarella. Yay! 

In about a month I get to do that whole trip again to take DD#1 back to school. I plan to stop at that antiques store again. 

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We've had some very warm weather and the plants in the garden have responded nicely. I am so tickled with my lettuce—I have a row of an heirloom variety called "Ruby" and it's almost delicious enough to eat by itself (but I add chopped walnuts, dried cranberries, and bleu cheese to it). That row will all be eaten soon. The husband planted some green oakleaf lettuce which I also like, but he sowed it way too thickly and it's kind of spindly. I am trying to thin it but it's slow going. We also did some succession plantings of both kinds. So far the Ruby is bolt-resistant, so I am hoping to have lettuce for the rest of the summer and into the fall.  

The peas are putting forth all sorts of pods. I have six lovely little heads of cauliflower. The broccoli has been wonderful. There are little zucchini, and we've been overrun with strawberries. The husband has been out there every day, picking them, washing them, and putting them in the freezer. I promised to make him jam. 

We had one blueberry plant that was loaded, but the birds picked it clean yesterday. I was not happy. I need to rig up some kind of netting system. There are birds all over that garden, especially after we run the sprinklers. I assumed they were looking for worms, but apparently they like blueberries, too. 

We spend a lot of time talking about what is working and what isn't and what we plan to do differently next year. He said he saw a sign down the road advertising fresh lettuce for $4 an bunch, so I am thinking that next year I will plant even more Ruby lettuce and we'll have a produce stand in the front yard. 

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Our fire department responded to a structure fire just after midnight last night. The husband only got about an hour's sleep and this morning he went to Missoula to pour concrete. I did a little better—when he left for the fire, I got up and drove into town to the grocery store to get sandwiches and fruit for the firefighters, and after I delivered them I went back to bed. The fire was probably only about a mile-and-a-half from our house as the crow flies, but because two roads in our district are flooded and closed (high groundwater), I had to come home the long way around, which is about 8 miles. I see a nap in my future this afternoon, but first I am going to work on Cables 2. Really. 

Some Kind of Seasonal Disorder

I am really having a hard time with the seasons this year. If you ask the husband, he will tell you that "Janet's favorite season is the one she's not in," which is sort of true, but this year it's especially bad because Mother Nature seems to have lost her Dayplanner.  

I like the changing seasons. I like looking forward to summer, and then I get tired of it and fall is a welcome relief. I like winter because I have lots more knitting time. I like spring because it's full of the anticipation of getting the garden in. This year we didn't get spring, and we're not getting a whole lot of summer, either, and I am totally discombobulated. 

Going to the Sun Road in Glacier Park opens for the first time today—today, July 13!—making it the latest opening in history. There is still snow on the mountains. That hasn't happened in the entire 18 years we've lived here. The peas in my garden are just now putting up blossoms—peas are a springtime crop, not a mid-summer one. We'll be lucky to get zucchini this year. Tomatoes? Don't make me laugh.

I feel cheated. I know that we have, possibly, about two more weeks of warm weather and then things will start winding down to cold again. Oh, we may have some nice Indian summer days well into September, but it won't be warm enough to ripen the tomatoes. It'll be too cold in the evenings to sit on the porch. A little bit of summer is almost worse than no summer at all. 

The other piece of this that's bothering me is my lack of productivity. There are 3 other people in this house who aren't usually here during the colder months. They make messes and don't clean up after themselves, and I spend an inordinate amount of my time in drill sergeant mode reminding my older daughter that the pan in which she cooks her eggs won't clean itself. I hesitate even to start working on something because someone will invariably come stand in my office door and ask me if I've seen their phone charger/recipe for whole wheat pizza crust/blue camisole with lace trim, or ask "do we have any lemon juice and cucumbers?" (I don't want to know), or inform me that they need to be somewhere at 5:30 p.m. and by the way, could we pick up so-and-so on the way? Arrggghhh. It's almost as bad as when they were toddlers and I would spend all day puttering and looking busy because if I sat down, the kids would assume I had nothing to do. I even asked my older daughter the other day if she had once seen me sit down from the time I got up in the morning until I went to bed. She thought for a moment and said, "No."

So every morning I get up and fight with myself for a few moments. I am trying not to hurry time. I am trying to enjoy the sunshine because I will miss it in January. I am trying to lower my expectations for productivity. But I can't help it—there is part of me that will rejoice when September gets here again. 

A Weekend in the Flathead

I worked at Camas Creek yesterday. It was a pleasant day, although a bit on the slow side. Most of our customers were tourists. We had visitors from California, New Orleans, New York state, Canada, and various other places. 

I've submitted three classes to the fall schedule already, but I've gotten requests for a couple more. I will try and get those submitted soon, although I sort of hesitate to schedule anything else until I get a transcription job. I need to find out how that will affect what I can do and when I can do it. 

I've discovered that I have a skill that could be very much in demand in transcription. Apparently, very few people want to transcribe for ESL (English as a Second Language) doctors because they are "too hard to understand." We had a lot of training with ESL doctors in the course I took, and I remember saying to the husband that not only did I not mind ESL doctors, I actually preferred them to English-speaking doctors. Even if they speak with a thick accent, they tend to enunciate and not mumble. And their speech usually has a distinct rhythm or "cadence," that is easy for me to pick up (I think because of my musical background). So I am hoping that my willingness to transcribe ESL doctors will land me some work. 

I did an interesting experiment this week. My sister has just been diagnosed with some food allergies, so I am cutting out a few things to see if it makes a difference. I never felt like I had any food allergies (although I cannot eat raw spinach). But this past week I cut out all bread. In fact, what I've mostly been eating is salads, because the lettuce from the garden tastes so darn good. Anyway, I haven't had bread for a week, but yesterday for lunch I went to the Wheat Montana deli across the street. Lunch was a salad and cup of soup (they have the most awesome Wisconsin cheddar soup there), and it came with a wheat roll. I didn't eat the roll at lunch, but after work I needed something to tide me over until I got home. As soon as I ate the roll, I got an upset stomach. Hmmm. 

So it wasn't so much that cutting out wheat made me feel better; it was more like eating wheat made me feel bad. Interesting. I'm going to continue the experiment and see what else happens. 

The husband and I went for a hike last night. We like to walk back in the woods a ways to the place where there is a creek crossing. It's the same creek that runs near our house, and it's water coming off the mountains. The last two times we were there, the creek was too swollen to cross. It was the same last night. I cannot believe how much snow is still up in the mountains. We can't get to one of our favorite hiking areas because there is still three feet of snow in the parking area. 

They've just opened Going to the Sun Road in Glacier Park. I think that's the second latest opening on record. 

We're eating strawberries out of the garden. Apparently this is a good year for berries. I was checking out the huckleberry bushes during our hike last night and it looks like there will be a good crop of them, too. 

I'm off to get some lettuce for my breakfast. Lettuce with dried cranberries, walnuts, bleu cheese crumbles, and bleu cheese dressing. Yum. And a few strawberries on the side. 

Looking for Knitting

I popped into Camas Creek today and picked up the Mountain Colors yarn for a scarf. I like the stitch pattern I chose a lot, especially because it's a stitch pattern I morphed from another one. I always worry—when designing simple shapes with simple stitch patterns—that I am going to do something that someone has already done. I think this is unique enough that I will avoid that problem. I'll get started on this tonight and hopefully have it done in a couple of days.

I've also got an idea for an afghan, based on some of the swatching I did the other night, but Melanie has to order the yarn for me. 

It's good to be knitting again.

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I said to the husband the other day that I hoped I would have at least one garter snake take up residence in the herb garden. I think the garden always does better with a reptile living there. This morning I walked out to see how things looked, and lo and behold!—a garter snake slithered right past me and went under the oregano bush. Yay! I leaned down and warned him not to wander over to the chicken coop or he'd get pecked to death. 

The husband asked me if the snake had a name. We have this conversation every year. I think he doesn't remember. The garter snake in the garden always gets named Whistler, because there was always a garter snake in my Aunt Lil's garden and it was always named Whistler. I'm not sure what I will do if I discover more than one garter snake in the garden. We may have to go to a different naming system: Whistler I, Whistler II, etc. 

Obviously, snakes do not bother me. They bother my mother, who was not happy with me when I brought one in from the woods and accidentally let it fall between the slats on the porch. Oops. Then there was the time I stuck a praying mantis in my closet and it had babies . . . .

There is a reason I have a degree in biology. And really, I think it's too bad that black rat snakes aren't native to Montana, because I would so put one down in the basement to eat mice. 

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Here is a picture for you, courtesy of one of my students. From left to right: Jamie (one of my test knitters) me, and Jane, who sent me the picture (thanks, Jane!). I always feel like such an Amazon, even though I am only 5'7" tall. Much of the world is shorter than me, though. 

This was at The Mannings Handweaving Studio, where I taught on June 18. It was a great class. 

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The transcription job search continues apace, and I think it's going well. There is one company I am currently testing with, and I hope they offer me a job. A lot of the transcription jobs require you to commit to a set schedule or working 1st, 2nd, or 3rd shift five days a week (Tues-Sat or Sun-Thurs). I could do that, but it's not ideal. The company I want to work for simply requires that you transcribe a certain quota during each pay period, and how and when you get that done is up to you. That kind of flexibility is perfect for me. I've done well on the tests so far, so I am hoping this pans out. I want to be able to honor my knitting teaching commitments (and to keep teaching), and in order to do that I need some wiggle room. 

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In other miscellany, I stopped using shampoo on my hair. I decided to do this when I was in Maryland, because I hate frizz, and my hair totally frizzes during the summer. A while back I switched to a shampoo without sodium lauryl sulfate (Burt's Bees) and it helped, but I decided it was time to cut the cord altogether. I've gotten through the two-week greasy period and now my hair is soft and smooth and not frizzy. I don't even have to use the flatiron on it anymore. This is Very Cool. 

The husband asked me if the girls have started walking 15 feet behind me because I embarrass them too much. I told him they've been doing that for some time now. DD#2 was horrified that I wore my Vibrams to church Sunday (with a skirt, no less). 

Isn't it the job of the parents to embarrass the kids? Otherwise, they might not want to move out. 

The Big Gigantic Catch-Up Post

Today is DD#2's birthday. She and a friend of hers who shares the same birthday (but is a year younger) are having a party tonight at her friend's house. I am in charge of getting the cake. Her birthday is a celebration for me, too, because this is the child I wasn't supposed to be able to have after having leukemia. But here she is, and she is healthy and beautiful, and a mother couldn't ask for much else. 

We got home Tuesday afternoon, and the past two days have been a whirlwind of grocery shopping and desk-clearing. I thought it would be a good day for some photos, so I took the dogs and the camera with me this morning.

First, a shot of my foot wearing one of my new Vibram Five-Finger shoes.

I bought these the day before we left Maryland. We went to a store near my MIL's house so I could try them on. Once I had them on my feet, I did not want to take them off. Yes, they are goofy looking, but my hips have completely stopped hurting since I began wearing these. Clearly I am meant to go barefoot (or something close to it). Yesterday, DD#2 and I joined our church youth group to mow a local cemetery and I had to put my boots on to do it. By the time I got home, my hips were screaming again. As I do not want a hip replacement (or two) in my future, I will forego fashion and wear these. 

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GARDEN UPDATE: My herb garden is looking especially nice this year. It must be all the rain. 

I am just enchanted with my frilly columbines.  

I have a bunch of columbines in my garden and I let a lot of them self-seed, like everything else. I have 20 baby lavender plants in my nursery bed in the old veggie garden next to this one, and they are all volunteers that I dug out of the gravel paths. I am hoping that one of these days I get some new, never-before-seen variety of lavender and I can name it after myself.

It's a good thing the husband has nothing to do with my herb garden, because the barely-controlled chaos would likely send him into a fit. The new veggie garden, where he spends all of his free time, is a veritable work of art. There is not a weed to be seen anywhere. This is a view looking southeast. 

Here is his potato patch, of which he is very proud. He thinks we should have planted three times as much. I am reserving judgment until I see how much we get. One row is reds and the other row is Yukon Golds. 

We've already eaten some of the broccoli, and it is truly amazing. I like broccoli, but I've never tasted anything like this before. The lettuce (red oakleaf) is equally amazing. I have to give a shout-out to Victory Seeds, from whom I ordered most of my seeds this year. I was amazed at how quickly things germinated and how vigorous the plants are. I will be ordering a lot more from them next year. 

We're being optimistic gardeners—we put in some grapevines. They are a seedless variety called Reliance. Grapes are iffy up here on the mountain. Down in the valley they seem to do okay, but two of my friends up the road have grapes and they've really had to baby them along. I am hoping that the south-facing slope will provide a good microclimate for these, and the husband said we can wrap them in pieces of old concrete blankets to insulate them over the winter. We also have six blueberry bushes and they seem to be doing just fine. 

It's now July and finally—finally!—we are supposed to get some decent weather. The forecast is for hot and dry for the next week, at least. Those poor plants need some sunshine. I didn't show you my tomato plants because they look so sad. I hit them with some Epsom salt solution yesterday in the hopes that that would help them perk up a bit. The cucumber plants are still small, and the muskmelon and canteloupe (the husband was being VERY optimistic when he bought those seedlings) are hanging on by their fingernails. 

We've got plans for a greenhouse, and the husband wants to get one built before winter. It probably won't be heated, but we're going to put it out by the new garden and if it extends our growing season by a month on either side, we'll be in much better shape next year. And maybe, just maybe, we might be able to grow lettuce and spinach in there all winter. 

One thing I keep hearing over and over again from people who have lived in the Flathead Valley their entire lives is that this weather is typical of how things used to be. When we moved here in 1993, it was at the beginning of a cycle of hot, dry, weather. Cool rainy springs apparently are more usual. 

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KNITTING UPDATE: I didn't get as much knitting done in Maryland as I had hoped, but I got a few projects finished and that was my goal. My classes were all wonderful. 

I stopped in at Camas Creek on Wednesday, and Melanie asked me if I would want to design some small projects with Mountain Colors yarn—sort of a "Montana Designer, Montana Yarn" type of thing that we could kit up and sell. I have a bunch of Mountain Colors mill ends here, so I've spent some time over the past few days swatching up stitch patterns. Variegated yarns are hard for me. I finally hit on one combo that uses one of their handpaints and a coordinating solid, but when I look at the swatch I think it really wants to be an afghan and not a scarf. This morning I lucked out and swatched up a two-row pattern using an interesting technique, and it looks like it will be perfect for a scarf pattern. I'd like to come up with one or two more, but at least I have this one and can knock out a scarf pretty quickly. 

It looks like I may be heading to Kansas in November. The Yarn Barn and I are talking about a weekend full of classes, so stayed tuned. Another state to cross off my list! I've never been to Kansas. 

I'm also in the process of submitting some class ideas to Camas Creek for the fall. All you local knitters—if there is a class you want me to teach, e-mail me and let me know and I'll see about scheduling something. 

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TRANSCRIPTION UPDATE: It's almost ironic that now that I've finished my transcription coursework, the knitting business has picked up again. I'm not quite sure why that is, but things are certainly better income-wise than they have been over the past three years. I'm kind of torn—I could probably go back to knitting designing full-time again, but I don't want to waste the time and money I spent on the transcription training. And the bottom line is that I enjoy transcription a lot. So I've got to figure out some way to balance all of this. I am sure I can do it, it's just going to take some creativity on my part. If I could just give up sleeping I'd be golden. 

Okay. Now it's time to get some work done. Today's schedule includes some pattern-writing and more swatching. 

Walking

I love to walk. When I was in college, I walked everywhere because I didn't have a car. I walked back and forth across campus, I walked into town, I walked to the strip mall . . . I suppose it is no coincidence that all the guys I dated also liked to walk (one was a runner). And the one I married likes to hike. The husband is my favorite foot-traveling partner not just because he is my husband, but also because he and I have nearly-identical strides and we travel at the same speed. It's easy and fun to walk with him. 

My in-laws live just outside of a little town here on the eastern shore of Maryland. One of the things I like best about where they live is the chance to walk. I can walk in Montana, but here I do not have to worry about being attacked by wildlife while I do so. And there is a destination to my walk. It all makes a difference. 

And right now I have the luxury of time. I can afford to take an hour and a half out of my day to walk into town and buy some fresh veggies or homemade pasta. That's a precious 90 minutes of time, and I know that when I get back to Montana, that 90 minutes will get filled with something else. 

Walking is helping my hips. I've discovered in recent years that I have flat feet. This has led to problems not in my feet, but in my hips, and I am trying to correct those problems so that I don't have to have my hips replaced in 25 years. During the cold months, I am careful to wear shoes with good arch support. I can't wear Danskos—they make my back hurt. I have a pair of Klogs and I like them a lot. 

During the summer, I really just like to go barefoot. I would go barefoot all the time if I could. What I really want is a pair of the Vibram shoes, so I can go barefoot but with some protection. I've been noticing that the reason I like being barefoot is because most of my shoes force my heel higher than my toes, and that's uncomfortable for me.  I remember with great fondness a pair of Earth shoes I had in about 5th grade—I wore them until they literally fell off my feet. They had a negative heel and were incredibly comfortable. There is still an Earth Shoes line of shoes and a pair of them might be in my future. 

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Yesterday morning I drove north, to a little town called Chesapeake City. Along the way, I stopped at Washington College, mine and the husband's alma mater. It has changed quite a bit in the 25 years since we were there—probably the biggest change is that it has doubled its enrollment and there are lots of new buildings. 

Chesapeake City has a wonderful yarn store called Vulcan's Rest Fibers, and they were my hosts for the afternoon. I had a great class of women for Fitting Your Knitting. The three hours flew right by. Afterward, I walked a couple of blocks over the home of one of my college friends (who lives there), and had dinner with him and his wife and another one of our college friends who happened to be passing through town at the same time. It was a happy coincidence that we got to see each other. 

The husband says he is counting the days until I get home. So am I. This has been a great vacation but I am ready for the girls to come back and for all of us to go home. I miss the chickens and the garden. 

And now I am going to walk into town before the storms come. I'll knit this afternoon while it's raining.

My Knitting Vacation

We arrived in Maryland just under a week ago. Last Thursday, my kids and my in-laws flew to Italy for a ten-day tour of Venice, Florence, and Rome. They'll get home this coming Sunday. I haven't heard from them, so I figure "no news is good news" and they must be having a fine time. 

So am I. Last Friday I packed an overnight bag and left the eastern shore. I drove to the Metro station and took the subway into Washington DC. My destination was the Martin Luther King, Jr. branch of the Washington DC public library. For the past 13 years I have been sleuthing out a knitting story that began in Montana but has its roots in New York City and Washington DC. I've done as much long-distance research as I could, but one of the sources I needed to check was the archives of the Washington Star newspaper. And they are not digitized, so I can't search it online.

Alas, the archives are not well-indexed in physical form, either. They are on microfilm—not a problem in and of itself—but the indices, when they are available, consist of typed references by date and subject on microfilm index cards. The reference librarian gave me a few searching tips, but I think it was just sheer dumb luck that I happened upon two references within the first few minutes. I was able to find and print the corresponding articles, but then I hit the proverbial brick wall. After about two hours of fruitless searching, I decided there was no point in searching any further. I'll re-evaluate when I get back to Montana. I may just have to write the story using the information I have, incomplete as it is. After all, I've been working on this for 13 years. 

I stopped at a small restaurant and picked up a double bacon, double cheddar and tomato panini, and yes—it was just as delicious as it sounds. Then I walked over to the Natural History museum and wandered around, then walked over the American Indian museum and wandered around. By then it was mid-afternoon and it seemed to be a good time to take the Metro back to my car and head to my college roommate's house before rush hour.

My college roommate, Marcia, grew up in Maryland, and her parents' house was my second home when we were in school. I even had my own housekey. Now she lives a few miles from her parents, and I know that I can crash at her house whenever I am visiting Maryland. I had dinner with her, her family, and her parents. It was wonderful to see them all again, and her mom made a fantastic crab imperial for dinner. Yum. 

I left Marcia's house the following morning for a very pleasant 2-hour drive up to south central Pennsylvania. My destination was The Mannings Handweaving Studio. The husband and I lived in this area of PA right after college, and I spent many fun hours at The Mannings back in the early 90s (when it was a much smaller store!). I had a class of 10 women and we had a very enjoyable day of exploring cabling techniques. I discovered that one of my students went to college with one of my very good high school friends (small world!). I also got to meet one of my test knitters—Jamie—in person. She's a delight.  

I got back to my in-laws' house later Saturday night and went right to bed. I like driving, but the way people here tailgate and speed is really annoying, and driving is rather exhausting. 

I spent most of yesterday knitting and watching golf. I can't tell you how enjoyable that is, after the knitting drought of the past 3 months. Mid-afternoon I walked into St. Michaels to buy some postcards. It's a 1.5-mile walk one-way, so I treated myself to a scoop of coconut ice cream before heading back. Then I made a quick trip to the grocery store for some veggies and a container of jumbo lump crabmeat. Dinner last night was Maryland crabcakes, a salad, some sauteed zucchini, and a glass of wine. I called the husband and told him that the only thing that would have made dinner perfect would have been to share it with him. It seemed kind of silly for me to create such a nice dinner just for myself. Those crabcakes were amazing. 

It's raining this morning—although it is supposed to clear up by noon—so I am doing laundry and knitting. After lunch I plan to walk into town again and get some stamps for the postcards I bought yesterday. I love the chance to do all this walking. I probably won't have ice cream today, though—not at $4 a scoop! Yikes. 

Tomorrow I plan to drive back over the bridge to the western side. I'd like to stop at a yarn store on the way, another yarn store in Annapolis, and do some shopping at some stores we don't have in Montana (which is most of them, actually). 

I don't think I could have planned a better vacation for me than the one I am having right now, unless it was one that included the husband. I think I will get back to Montana nice and rested and ready to hit the ground running again.

High Honors

Way back in my previous life, I was an excellent student. Over my educational career, I accumulated a crate full of all sorts of academic awards. I have no trouble motivating myself from within. My level of self-discipline is amazing. Apparently, though, I am still an objective feedback junkie. I was determine not only to pass my Medical Transcriptionist final exam, but to get High Honors (more than 95% on the exam) doing so. 

I was pretty sure I had done well, but it wasn't until last evening, when I saw the e-mail that said, "Congratulations, you graduated with High Honors," that I could finally relax and breathe again. I received a score of 98% on the objective portion and 96% on the transcription portion. This is more than just an academic achievement, though, because the company which administered this program gives much more job placement assistance to the High Honors grads than it does to the other grads. I am hoping that I will be able to find some work but not until July when I get back from my much-needed two-week vacation. 

Whew.

Now it's back to knitting. I am almost done with a baby blanket I've been working on. I just have to put a ruffled edge on it, so it's going to Maryland with me. I love the stitch pattern, but the two colors I chose (one a solid and one a coordinating marled) aren't getting along as well as I thought they would. I may have to reknit this in a different color combo. We'll see. I like bright colors, but it is kind of retina-burning for a baby. 

I've got to pack today for my classes this weekend. A gentleman from our church died early Monday morning and his funeral is tomorrow. I am part of an octet that is singing at the service in the afternoon—with a practice in the morning—and I'll probably just head down to Hamilton, MT (a three-hour drive) right after the service is over. The fiber fest organizers have put me in a hotel. Yay. Two solid evenings of quiet knitting time and the Weather Channel and I should be nice and rested when I get back on Sunday. 

Knitting in Maryland and Pennsylvania

We leave a week from today for Maryland. I'll be house-sitting for my in-laws while they take our girls to Italy for 10 days. The girls are looking forward to the trip. This will be DD#1's third trip to Europe and DD#2's first. I have lots of fun stuff planned for myself while they are traveling:

June 18th: I'll be teaching at The Mannings Handweaving Studio in East Berlin, PA. This wonderful shop is only about 30 minutes from where the husband and I lived right after we graduated from college. I have many wonderful memories of trips to The Mannings and I am hoping to get to see familiar faces while I am there. I'll also get to meet one of my test knitters, Jamie, who lives in PA. Yay! 

June 22nd: I'll be teaching Fitting Your Knitting at Vulcan's Rest Fibers in Chesapeake City, MD. This cute little town is about an hour north of Chestertown, where the husband and I attended Washington College (we graduated in 1988—seems like forever ago). I also plan to have lunch with one of our friends from college, who lives and works in Chesapeake City. 

June 25th: It's a full day of classes at Woolstock, in Glyndon, MD, home of the lovely Leslye Solomon. I'll be teaching Infinitely Interesting Cables and Colorizing Cables. 

June 26th: Frivolous Fibers, in St. Michaels, MD, is my host for another round of Fitting Your Knitting, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. 

In between, I have a trip to Washington D.C. scheduled; I am doing some research for a knitting article and some of the information I need can only be had at one of the D.C. public libraries. I'll also spend some time visiting my college roommate and her husband. 

Beyond that, my only other plan is to knit. I am slowly gathering a bunch of projects to take with me: some need to be finished, some need to be reknit in other yarns, and some are swatches for some of my classes that need some tweaking. If I get all the miscellany taken care of, I plan to reward myself by starting an Aran. 

Before we leave, though (don't you love the serial prepositions?), I've got a teaching gig this weekend at the Big Sky Fiber Festival in Hamilton, MT. This is an every-other-year event—if I recall correctly, DD#1 was only 3 or 4 when the first one was held. I'm teaching Infinitely Interesting Cables, Better Beginnings and Elegant Endings, and Short Row Savvy. I spent this morning working on my handout for the short row class, and I am just tickled with it, plus it helped me refine a project idea I've been kicking around in my head lately. That's always a bonus. 

I'm waiting on my transcription final exam test results, which I will get on or around June 16. I think I did well on the test. Yesterday, a friend of mine who teaches at my daughter's elementary school and does transcription work on the side gave me the name of the company she works for. When I get back from the east coast (and hopefully with an excellent grade on my final), I plan to contact them and see if I can start working. 

I do want to spend some serious time this summer attending to my knitting. It's been woefully neglected for the past nine months. I think that part of me really needed the hiatus, but I don't want the knitting to just drift away completely. It's too important to me to let that happen, so stay tuned. 

It's Monday, I Think

I see that my last post was two weeks ago. It seems like two years ago. In the space of that time, I was rear-ended (in my brand new car) at a stoplight by someone who wasn't paying attention—the car is going in to the shop tomorrow to have the bumper replaced; I went to Iowa for four days to teach for the Des Moines Knitting Guild; and last week I drove over and back to pick DD#1 up from college, a ten-hour drive each way. Those are the big events. In between there was all sorts of packing, unpacking, gardening, cleaning, getting my computer fixed (the power supply conked out), taking the dogs to the vet, and scheduling my final exam for the transcriptionist program. It should tell you something that I finished my coursework on May 6 but couldn't schedule my final until May 31 because I needed 48 consecutive hours in which to take the final and there weren't 48 consecutive hours between May 6 and May 31 that weren't already filled with something. 

I am so looking forward to my trip to Maryland in two weeks. I am scheduled to teach a couple of classes, but beyond that, my days will be filled with—nothing! I can sit out in the sunshine, eat crabcakes, and knit all day if I want to. And believe me, I plan to.

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I did enjoy the trip over to get DD#1—I like driving, although the traffic around and over Snoqualmie Pass is insane. I stopped at two yarn stores, each about 20 minutes from her school, and introduced myself. I'm working on lining up some teaching gigs for late summer when I take her back. 

It is hard for me to believe that DD#1's first year of college is over. I kept walking around campus thinking, "But I just dropped her off here yesterday!" Then again, it was just yesterday that I put her on the bus to kindergarten. She loves college and has fit herself well into the community there. I truly loved my four years of college, and I am glad she is having a similar experience. 

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The new garden is almost completely planted. The husband has really gotten into being a farmer, although I told him the other day that he was acting like General Patton because he gets into "supervisor mode" and starts ordering me around, which I assume is what he does to his employees on the jobsite. Every so often he needs reminding that I am the wife, not an employee, and I do not take orders well. I do have to say, though, that it is wonderful to have someone to do the heavy lifting. He is like a human rototiller. And this past weekend he scored some raspberry plants from a guy down the road from us. 

I would have been happy to let a little bit of that garden lie fallow this year. However, the husband was determined to plant every square inch of it, so this is what we have:

• Asparagus
• Potatoes (reds and Yukon Golds)
• Eggplant
• Green peppers
• Cucumbers (lemon cukes and Straight 8s)
• Beans
• Onions
• Horseradish
• Peas
• Spinach
• Lettuce
• Beets
• Tomatoes (Amish Paste, Ultimate Opener, Sweet 100s, and Early Girl)
• Zucchini
• Acorn squash (per DD#2's request)
• Hubbard squash
• Strawberries
• Raspberries
• Sorrel
• Rhubarb
• Hops (along the fence line for cover—they grow almost as fast as bamboo)

Whew! I thought we were done, but yesterday he decided that we could still fit something in to one of the spots. He wants pumpkins, even though I don't think they will grow up here. But who knows? We'll try.

Today I need to get my desk cleared off and some things taken care of so that I am ready to start my final exam tomorrow. The next two weeks are almost as full as the last two weeks have been, so I can't slack off just yet. 

A Picture Essay

Yesterday morning at 5:30 a.m. I went and let the chickens out, and then I walked around the property with the camera and took some pictures. Thankfully, I live in Montana, where a woman wandering around her yard in boots and a green velour bathrobe with a camera is not considered odd. 

A robin's nest (from last year, I think). The robins are very enterprising and build their nests in all sorts of odd places. This was on a shelf under a lean-to on the garage at the other house. 

This is one of our neighbors' mastiffs. Our neighbors breed mastiffs, and at any given time they have 15-20 dogs at their house. We don't see them often, but occasionally some of the dogs will come over to the property line to investigate. They have big. booming voices and they slobber a lot. They are not mean, just big. 

The husband and I got the soaker hose laid out in the garden over the weekend. He was very enterprising and also put aged horse manure all over the beds while I was at church yesterday. 

I have asparagus in the old garden! I was beginning to worry because only one spear had poked through, but when I looked a few days later, there were several more throughout the bed. 

And finally, the first flower of the season—one of my primroses. These are always the first to bloom. The columbines are not far behind, however. (Ahem—someone clearly needs to do some weeding.)

We've had 48 hours of nonstop wind and my teeth are on edge. It started Friday night. There was a steady "breeze" of about 20 mph, with frequent gusts up into the 40 and 50 mph range. Our power was out for about 5 hours on Saturday because a tree blew down over a power line. We never used to get sustained wind events like this. We do get occasional windstorms for a couple of hours when a front come through, but this was more like living in eastern Montana where the wind blows constantly. Thankfully, it seems to have stopped now. I don't like wind (which is why we don't live in eastern Montana). 

And, of course, there are those people who don't have the sense God gave a chicken, and who lighted slash piles on fire in the midst of those 40 mph winds. People! Fire departments all over the county (including ours) got called out Saturday for grass fires out of control. 

DD#2's dress is almost done. I have to hem it today and sew on a last little bit of trim. I also replaced zippers and fixed tears in half a dozen other dresses. I am nowhere near as accomplished a seamstress as I am a knitter, but I do okay. I haven't knitted for almost a week, but I am off to Des Moines later this week to teach four classes for their guild. It will be a knitting-filled weekend. 

Farming and Sewing

It's supposed to be 75 degrees here today. By Montana standards, that is a heat wave, and I heard someone say yesterday that they thought it was warm enough to go swimming. We will probably be swimming shortly, as all the water starts to come off the mountains in force. 

The peas and beans are all soaked and ready to plant, so this morning I will get them into the ground. I also bought eight tomato plants yesterday—two of an heirloom variety called "Amish Paste," two Sweet 100's (our favorite cherry tomatoes), two of a variety called "Ultimate Opener," and two of the old standby "Early Girl." I don't usually plant Early Girls because they've never done well for me even though everyone around here swears by them. But the nursery didn't have the variety I wanted, called "Glacier." I planted some Glaciers last year and they were the only variety that produced ripe tomatoes for me (no one got ripe tomatoes last year because it was so cold, so that should tell you something). But I'll try the Early Girls again and see how they do. And I'll check at the other nursery in town and see if I can find some Glaciers. 

It'll be a good day to get the tomatoes in because the WaterWalls will heat up nicely. I checked on the cauliflower, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts that DD#2 planted for me the other night, and they look very happy. 

I got such a giggle out of watching the husband in the garden the other day. We have very different gardening styles. My garden tends to be a picture of barely controlled chaos. I'm not to picky about the rows, as long as stuff is basically in line and stays where it needs to be (although the plants in my herb garden fling themselves hither and yon with no regard for a landscaping plan). The husband, on the other hand, thought it was very important to mark off rows and stake them, so when I went to the garden the other day, there were stakes marking rows 36" on center. Okay, then! His plants are going to have to be good little soldiers and line up perfectly. 

After I finish planting this morning, I need to come in and sew a costume for DD#2. I don't know what I was thinking when I offered to make her a dress for the 8th-grade production of Romeo and Juliet, except that I also did it for her sister. We picked out a pattern and I bought the fabric Monday. Yesterday I had 3-1/2 yards of 60" wide fabric spread out on the floor of my bedroom—the only place in the house I have room to do that. I got the pieces for the main part of the dress cut out. Today I have to cut out the inset for the skirt and the lining for the bodice, and then I need to start putting it together. 

When the girls were little I used to make their Halloween costumes. That was a great way to learn sewing skills. Little kids are not picky. One year, I did the "Belle" dress from Disney's Beauty and the Beast." It had a skirt with an overskirt of six gathered gores. Oh my. 

DD#2 informed me yesterday that she offered to her teacher to have me mend the existing costumes, "since you have your sewing machine out anyway." Oh sure, why not? 

My FIL arrives tomorrow for his spring visit. At least the weather is going to be really nice. I don't know if we'll be able to get into Glacier Park or not because of possible flooding, but we may go hiking if we can. 

It's All Over But the Final Exam

I finished all my coursework at 5 p.m. on Saturday, 6 days ahead of the end-of-semester deadline. I can take the final exam any time after Tuesday, but I think I will hold off until the end of May. This week, my FIL comes for a visit, next week I head to Iowa to teach for the Des Moines guild, and the week after that I have to head over and pick DD#1 up from college. I am supposed to allot 48 hours for the final, and there simply isn't a consecutive free 48 hours in my schedule until the end of the month. Oh well, more time to study.

My wonderful husband spent two days last week fencing the big garden at the other house, and now it looks like this:

Yesterday I planted beets, lettuce, and spinach and moved the rhubarb over the from the other garden. The husband dug a trench and we put in 20 crowns of asparagus. He also wanted potatoes, so he put in a row of Yukon Golds and a row of russets. I've got some six-packs of broccoli, cauliflower, onions, and (yay!) Brussels sprouts hardening off on the back porch. Those will go in today. The peas and beans have to be soaked overnight and rolled in inoculant and then they'll go in. DD#2 (who likes to garden) planted a row of sunflowers before heading off to paint rocks with the names of everything I planted so I will have nice row markers. 

I'm starting to think of this as the "my eyes are bigger than my stomach" garden because we're planting so much, but I've never had the luxury of this big a garden and I want to take advantage of it. And I don't know what will do well and what won't, so I want to try everything. There are still a few things yet to be done:

1. Move some strawberries over from the old garden
2. Plant tomatoes (I have WaterWalls for them)
3. Plant zucchini (I have WaterWalls for them, too)
4. Get some raspberry starts from my friend Susan and put those in

The only bad thing about this garden is the rocks. The soil is actually pretty decent, but we're on glacial till and there are some fairly large patches of rocks in the garden. And of course, once you remove the first layer of rocks, there is a second layer just below. They're smallish rocks, ranging between 1 and 3" with a few 4" ones thrown in for good measure. I'd almost rather just have big rocks. 

You can tell I've been spoiled by 15 years of gardening in raised beds.

The husband also made me some nice steel ribs over the old garden so I can put row covers over them. I am leaving a bed of strawberries and a bed of asparagus in the old garden, but I think I'm going to use the rest of the beds as "nursery beds" for stuff that will get transplanted later. I was weeding my lavender bed last night and there were 20 or 30 baby lavender plants in there. I hate to just pull them out, so I am going to move them over to one of the nursery beds and let them get bigger. 

I am so glad winter is over. It's been too long.

Surfacing

Yeah, I'm still here. I have been deep in the throes of getting my classwork done. I am pleased to report that I am really close. I have about four more 8-hour days and then it will be all over except the final (which I can schedule at my leisure). I've even managed to sneak in a little bit of knitting here and there. 

TEACHING: I've also got some news on the knitting class front. Here are the summer 2011 dates for those of you who are keeping track:

May 20-22: Des Moines, IA knitting guild.

June 12-13: Big Sky Fiber Festival, Hamilton, MT (class details on their website).

June 18th: The Mannings Handweaving Studio, East Berlin, PA. I'll be teaching the 6-hour version of the Cables and Beyond class—great fun!

June 25th: Woolstock in Butler, MD, classes TBA. 

It's quite possible I may also have one or two more classes in Maryland, but those are still in process. I will announce them as soon as they are finalized. 

Looking ahead, I will also be in Sheridan, WY on September 16-18 and in Beaverton, OR (the Tigard Knitting Guild) on October 14-16. 

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Spring is so slow in coming to Montana . . . today is absolutely gorgeous—about 65 and sunny—but the weatherman warned us not to rush out to our gardens because it is supposed to get cold and rainy again. The biggest worry right now is flooding. Virtually all of this winter's snowpack is still up in the mountains. If we get a year like 1964 again—when there was a cold spring followed by a sudden warmup and freak storm from the Gulf of Mexico—it is not inconceivable that we could be cut off from Kalispell for a period of time. We're not in danger of being flooded out, but our access roads are. 

We are hoping for a gradual warmup and associated slow runoff. Wish us luck. 

And now, I leave you with a picture of our rooster, who is quite sure he is the handsomest rooster in all of Montana. He also likes to hear himself crow. A lot.  

I Work Best With Deadlines

Deadlines are my friends. Really. Part of the reason I liked doing the newsletter so much was because it forced me to be creative on a schedule. Some (including me) will argue that creativity cannot be forced. However, productivity can be forced as long as creativity takes care of itself. Me, I'll take anything that forces me to show up on time and get something done.

It's coming up on the end of the semester at our community college, and that means the end of my transcription course, as well. I've done a pretty good job of pacing myself, but the course I am taking is an online course administered by an independent company, and their deadline for finishing isn't until August 30. Somewhere in my head I decided I liked the August 30 deadline so much more than the May 13 deadline. Alas, an e-mail from the course administrator yesterday reminded me—in stark black and white—that the community college deadline supersedes the program deadline. Bummer. 

So I've got to bust my ass in the next two weeks. The bad news?—finishing this course won't leave much time for anything else, like sleeping and knitting. The good news—I'll be done by May 13 and won't have anything hanging over my head. The other good news? I've managed to keep my schedule nice and clear of distractions during that time. The six weeks after May 13 are chock-full of all sorts of stuff, so I am looking on the bright side and choosing to be pleased that I have a forced deadline. And I don't even really have to be creative, just productive. 

I am going to throw a load of laundry in and then my well-earned 30-minute break will be over. Onward. 

I Survived the Fake Plane Crash

The Mass Casualty exercise was very interesting and incredibly educational. Beginning at 7:00 a.m., I helped my friend Louise make fake wounds on approximately 50 people. Some were green patients with minor bumps and bruises (I'm actually pretty good at making fake bruises), some were yellow patients with more serious lacerations (I learned how to do fake lacerations at the very end of the makeup time), and some were red patients who had amputations, severe burns, and other kinds of trauma. Once we finished, Louise did my makeup. I was a red patient with 2nd degree burns over 35% percent of my body. This is what I looked like afterward (I am sure the effect would have been better if I hadn't been smiling, but we were having fun taking pics):

Interestingly enough, the gritty black stuff is used coffee grounds kept on with Vaseline, which apparently simulates charred skin quite well. Who knew?

(Someone suggested I make this my Facebook profile pic. I might do that.)

Around 9:00 a.m. the organizers herded the patients out to the "plane," which was actually an old bus tilted at an angle out in the field. Some of us got into the bus and others scattered on the ground around the bus. We had all been given acting instructions on how we were to behave. Mine was easy—lie on the ground and be unconscious. A couple of large slash piles were set on fire to mimic plane crash conditions. 

It took about 45 minutes for the first responders to get to us. I didn't expect that the response would be immediate, because there is a little thing known as "scene safety," and the incident commander doesn't just send rescuers in willy-nilly. However, I was a bit surprised at the way triage and rescue transpired. I am so used to the way that our firefighters train and respond, and I discovered that we are much better at it than a lot of the other county fire departments. I was hastily (and sloppily) strapped to a backboard, almost dumped off the backboard, shoved into one ambulance and taken out again, then left on the ground in a slow drizzle for 15 minutes before being put into another ambulance and taken to the hospital. Hmmm. Well, part of these exercises is to figure out where the holes are. 

The husband asked me how the ride to the hospital was. I told him it would have been much better if he hadn't asked me yesterday morning if I thought I would get carsick riding in the ambulance backward. The thought never entered my mind until he mentioned it. Sure enough, I must have been turning an interesting shade of green, because the EMT riding in the ambulance with me asked me if I was okay. I told him I was okay as long as I could lift my head up periodically and look out the back window—not an easy task when one is strapped to a backboard. 

Once we got to the hospital we were taken to a trauma room and the doctors ran through the scenarios of what they would do if we were actual patients—complete with actual charts (I read mine). It was all very fascinating. Afterward they treated us to lunch and then took us back to the airport. 

And I made the news last night! I taped the ten o'clock news and watched it this morning and sure enough, they got a shot of me lying on the ground looking unconscious. 

All in all it was a good way to spend six hours of my day. Then I came home and knitted. 

Mass Casualty

First, the time-lapse video of what happens at the Creston Auction, from Day 1 to Day 4:

Pretty cool huh? DD#2 and I watched it this morning. We were able to pick ourselves out but probably no one else can.

I am so excited about tomorrow—it is the county-wide mass casualty training at the airport and I am going to participate as a pretend patient! Actually, I get to go very early (we need to be there around 6:30 a.m.) and help my friend Louise do the makeup—it's called moulage—on all the patients. Louise is one of our fire department EMTs. She arranged for me to be a "red" patient (a severely-injured one), and then she asked if I wanted to help her with the moulage before the training starts. Of course! I'm not much of a hand with my own makeup since I never wear any, but I think I can handle making realistic-looking bruises and wounds on other people. We have an hour-and-a-half to get 50 patients ready to go. It'll be fast-paced and exciting. 

This is a very serious training and once it gets underway it is intended to be just like a real incident. I am curious to see 1) how other departments perform, given what I know about our own department's training, 2) how the various departments perform together, and 3) what we might expect if we were to have a mass casualty incident here. DD#2 thoughtfully farmed herself out for tonight to a sleepover at a friend's house, because the husband is also going to participate tomorrow. He will be in an engine, though, and I probably won't see him unless he is working as an EMT instead of a firefighter. I also think I will be riding in an ambulance at some point. Part of the training involved assessing how long it would take to get patients from an incident to the hospital, and how the hospital would respond to a sudden influx of injuries. 

Because of privacy laws, I won't be able to post any pictures of our training, but I will definitely write about the experience afterward. 

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More details will be forthcoming when I know something, but it may be that Fiber Trends will continue to act as a distributor for my patterns. I know some of you asked what would happen, and to be honest, I just wasn't sure. I've gone forward with the premise that I no longer had a distributor, but as of a phone call yesterday things may have changed. Let's all be patient—I know it will work out (whatever "it" ends up being) in the end. Bev left a great legacy. I want to honor that. 

I'm not so stressed over my knitting anymore, either. I've got a couple of projects underway (no sweaters, though). It's enough just to be knitting right now. 

Will It Ever Become Something?

My fellow knitting designer Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer is doing a very interesting series over at her blog Taking Time to Smell the Roses. She's calling it What Will It Become?—and each post focuses on a yarn and her design plans for it. I marvel at her focus, and it's making me think I have designing ADD. That's odd, because I have no other kind of ADD in my life whatsoever. Why designing? 

I sometimes wonder if I struggle not because I don't have enough ideas, but because I have too many. I don't know. I do know that I am thinking about my designing (and sometimes the lack of it) quite a bit these days. I'm not coming to any conclusions, and I wonder if I am just chasing my tail. It's very disconcerting. Clearly, I need a weekend retreat on the Zen of Knitwear Design. 

Thanks to my mother, I have a large collection of Threads Magazine dating all the way back to issue #1. There used to be a guest column on the last page of each issue, and one column in particular has stuck with me over lo these many years. The writer talked about how she would walk through a fabric store and imagine each piece of fabric made up into something beautiful. On one trip, she went home with a length of very expensive olive-green wool jersey. She talked about how the act of cutting into the fabric would ruin it forever, and she came to the conclusion that she wasn't really buying fabric, she was buying potential. I know exactly what she means. I have Rubbermaid bins full of potential in my yarn storage room. 

I also have a pile of things on my desk for which patterns need to be written: a kids' sweater, two cowls, a lace scarf, and—as of last night—a cushy winter hat. It's not like I am not producing. Of course, I'd like to be producing more. Some sweater designs would be nice, but they seem to be beyond my capacity at the moment. I can't even get patterns written for the things on my desk. 

Enough angst. I have to cast on for a baby blanket. 

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The husband brought home 5 new hens and a rooster yesterday (the rooster and two hens are Buff Orpingtons, and the other two hens are Rhode Island Reds). The rooster is quite handsome and full of himself, although he doesn't seem to be vicious. He also crows a lot. I am not sure what we are going to do if baby chicks begin appearing. The husband doesn't seem to know, either—at least, he hasn't answered me the three times I have asked him what's going to happen if baby chicks begin appearing. Hmmm. 

I got spinach planted today in the garden. I ordered some heirloom lettuce varieties, and they haven't come yet or I would have planted them, too. All of the varieties in my garden this year are going to be heirlooms. I like to know what I am eating and I would prefer it not have been engineered in a lab. 

Do go check out Jackie's blog. She's got some really excellent foodie posts, too. 

Let the Gardening Begin!

It was sunny and 54 degrees here yesterday. We're all like bears coming out of hibernation. On the first nice day, everyone is outside. By 7:30 a.m. I was dressed and ready to go out to the garden (never mind that it was only 28 degrees—it warmed up pretty fast). The big garden over at the other house is still covered with snow, but the little garden I've been using for 15 years here by the house is all thawed out. Last year I made the husband promise that he would rebuild the beds for me this spring. They've been falling apart for a while now and I didn't think they would survive another season. 

My job was to dig the dirt from around the edges of the beds and mound it in the middle so that the husband could take apart the edges and rebuild them. I like digging, and the beds are filled with wonderful bench loam from down in the valley. It is easy to dig up and turn. There were loads of gigantic earthworms. The husband made a few modifications to the beds along the way that will make it easier for me to keep the dirt where it is supposed to be. This garden is built on a bit of a slope, and one of the problems with the original beds was that the dirt tended to migrate from the upper to the lower beds. He used a different (much heavier!—we had to carry 25' long boards from one end of the property to the other!) kind of wood to edge the beds. Hopefully we won't have to do this again for another 20 years. 

So all of the beds are ready for planting. I am trying to curb my impatience. The weather people keep telling us that this will be a long, cold spring, and that sunny, warm days will be few and far between. I am pretty sure, though, that I can put some lettuce and spinach in any time now, because one of the beds we dug up and rebuilt was where I had lettuce last year, and there were a few tiny little heads of red lettuce poking their way up. The herb/flower garden still has snow on it—snow which has hardened to the consistency of concrete. I thought briefly about digging the snow off the beds, but it would have been a Herculean effort. We'll just wait for it to go away naturally. I am sure the primroses are blooming underneath, though. 

And there is rhubarb, right next to the strawberries that have ambitions to take over the world (any of my friends in Kalispell are welcome to strawberry starts—just let me know). Spring may be slow in getting here, but it can't stay away forever.

DD#1 has been home on spring break for the past week. She left on the train last night. She's got another 7 weeks of classes and then her first year of college will be over. How time flies! 

The cold from hell finally went away, although my left ear is still stuffed up and that's very irritating to me. I've been taking decongestants. They help some, but I think I may need to get my hands on some first-generation Sudafed. That was the only stuff that ever worked for me. 

I'm struggling with another knitting project. I will probably vent my frustrations about that in tomorrow's post. Stay tuned. 

Crash and Burn

It's been a long three weeks. The first week was the Montana History trip. The second week was the Creston Auction. The third week (now) is a week of suffering through the worst cold I can ever remember having. My head is full of at least a gallon of snot, my ears are stuffed up, and I have a cough that won't quit. Oh, and I have laryngitis (dear Mom, please don't call me and ask how I am doing because I really can't talk—and stop worrying about me, I'll be fine). DD#1 is home from college on spring break and I just can't enjoy her visit as much as I would like because I feel so crummy. Blah. 

To top it off, two dogs are in my office hunting mousies. I am glad they are on patrol, but we will have to get some traps set. I do not allow mousies in my house. 

The Creston Auction is the annual fundraising event for our volunteer fire department. It's been held every year for the past 45 years, and our chief estimates it has raised over a million dollars for our department. I cannot adequately convey the scope of this event. A planning group of us begins meeting in January. Over 200 volunteers are required to make it all happen. Several thousand people will come through the auction grounds on the two days of the sale. It really is "the social event of the spring" here in western Montana. 

I can't remember how long I've been involved in the auction. When the kids were little, I'd go for a few hours and help sell food in the concession stand. Eventually I got roped into helping set up for the food sales. When our PR person left, I inherited the PR job (or, as it's known in the fire service, Public Information Officer). A few years ago I became treasurer of the firefighters' association, which eventually led to me being in charge of all things monetary for the auction. Of all the auction jobs I have had, the job of Finance Section Chief is the one I enjoy the most. I don't think of it as being particularly stressful, but apparently the past couple of weeks have really taken it out of me and I fell victim to a stupid virus. 

This year's auction was plagued by bad weather (snow, wind, rain, sleet—we had it all), so our attendance and sales were down. We still made a significant amount of money for the department, though. 

This tent is where my kids spent most of the weekend. The youth group from our church comes and cooks brats and polish sausages. It's a great learning experience for the kids and they have a good time. My MIL spent most of her time at the fire hall helping to wash dishes. 

I love that this is a family experience and I think it's one that my kids will remember fondly when they are grown up. The sense of community here is one of the things I dearly love about Montana. 

The Flathead County Sheriff's Posse comes and patrols the grounds for us on horseback. (Note that this picture was taken during one of the rare five-minute periods when we actually had sunshine.) 

Next week I need to get back to transcriptionist work. I've enjoyed the three-week hiatus, but there is a lot of classwork that still needs to be done. I am giving myself permission to be sick until Monday, though. Better to do that than to push to hard and end up even sicker.  

And knitting . . . I took advantage of this time to make myself a very colorful scarf out of some recycled silk yarn from Nepal that I bought at Mountain Spun in Helena while on the Montana History trip. It's just a simple garter rib pattern and it's been great because I just haven't had the brainpower for anything more complicated. It'll be a wonderful scarf to wear with jeans and a T-shirt this summer (that's assuming we ever get summer). Next week I'd like to get started on a sweater out of that Pacific yarn I mentioned in the last post. 

In the meantime, it's the couch and a lot of tea and chicken soup for me.