things are looking UP!*

The pedometer works pretty well. I'm not sure I have it quite properly calibrated for my stride yet, but whatev's. I also learned that the timer on the NordicTrak is messed up (again, because of the messed up contacts: the timer will periodically "hang" and not change. By the end of the hour, it was ten minutes slower than the pedometer. So that may have been part of my frustration the other day: I had worked out as hard or harder than I usually did but the machine was LYING to me and telling me I hadn't).

I think I'm going to get a nice big digital readout clock and hang it up on the wall across from the NordicTrak so I can see at a glance how long I've gone. (Not that it's a real issue but I like to do an hour's workout - and in the morning, I can't go too much OVER an hour and still get cleaned up and to work on time).

And I talked to Bobo earlier today and he seems much cheerier. Maybe he just needed some time off. So working with him should be okay.

I'm getting the itch to start about a million projects again. I don't know why this hits periodically. I also am dragging out old projects and exclaiming over them and starting them up again. I found a simple garter-stitch scarf out of some "Yarn Bee" yarn (one of the less offensive ones) that I started this winter, looked at, deemed fugly, and shoved in a bag. I've pulled it out and decided to finish it and then decide as to its fuglitude. And maybe even put a picture up here to let you decide. It's a multi-green and grey and (IIRC) brown boucle. Partly wool (rare for a "Yarn Bee" yarn).

I also got to thinking about the odds and ends of yarn I bought to "sample" and make simple scarves out of - I have some Artful Yarns' "pastry" in a lovely pale blue ("Icing" - I am totally a sucker for their color names) that will become a skinny garter stitch scarf. And I have some handspun (not spun by me) for the knit-purl patterned scarf from SnB nation.

Why scarves? I like knitting 'em. There are lots of nifty patterns out there for simple knit-purl patterning, or nice cables out there, or tricky things with dropped stitches and "keyholes" and such. No shaping, you can just set up the right number of stitches, and then motor away. And they make nice gifts. And they remind me that even though it's 100 in the shade right now, in a few months it'll be cool and rainy (my favorite weather - at least in a climate where snow is a rarity) again.

And I ADORE my summer bio class. They are so funny and kind and interesting and willing to look a little geeky - there's not one in the bunch who's still doing that terrible fake-cool teenaged thing where everything is an effort and nothing is interesting. They all wished me a good weekend as they went out the door today. They ask interesting questions that tell me that they're thinking about the class material and trying to relate it to their lives. And they laugh at my funny stories instead of rolling their eyes.


(*I always think of the old Harry Belafonte version of the song "Rooster" which is about a couple that has some "chick'ns" and "no eggs would they lay..." [if you have his Carnegie Hall disks, you may recognize the song]. And then one day a rooster shows up, and, well, nature takes its course and...well, in the Belafonte version, one of the guys in the band yells out "Things are looking UP!" right at the end of the verse.

...aw heck, here's a transcription with guitar chords, if you're into that kind of thing. I only remember the first verse from the Belafonte recording; the rest is a little weirder (and eventually, a little dirtier) than the first verse.)