On second thought, if you sent me an email, DON'T resend it yet.

I'm getting spam, but not the test emails I keep sending from my campus address. This is most annoying. Makes me wonder if the spammers slipped a fiver to the netcommander guys and said, "will this help ya get our e-mails through faster?"

oh, and Dragon Knitter - the socks aren't yellow. They're actually a cream color. But that's, I guess, the main color-distorting property of the compact fluorescents I've put in (because they save so much energy! or so I've been told). Okay, maybe the bloom's a bit off the rose with them.

I guess I didn't mention the First Cold Front of the year. So I'm wearing my red Zelda pullover (1824 Wool). And this morning I was wearing my little Koigu beret and my Kureopatora wristwarmers. (I didn't want to wear the pi hat because there was a chance that there would be Bad Things in the proximity of where I was working, and I didn't want to risk losing my new hat on its first wearing. Actually, in retrospect, the sweater wasn't the best idea as I'm still picking chaff and litter off of it - one of the field-tasks we did was to rake the leaf and grass litter off some of the plots, scatter prairie seed, and then redeposit the litter on the plots.

Some of the students commented on that - "We just raked it off and now we're having to put it back on !?!?!" I just quietly said that there was something metaphorical in it but didn't elaborate. [they do not have enough of an experience of doing research to know that a lot of it is Doing a Hard Task and then Seeming to Undo That Very Same Task Shortly Later. I didn't want to disillusion them too much.])

Oh! And here are a couple of shots of the funky undulating winter-sky clouds that were out there this morning (it was EARLY and it was still ALMOST DARK so the photos are kind of dark-ish.)



funky looking sine-wave clouds



winter-looking sky. Where I grew up, a sky like this would be one that could snow all over you.

This time next week I will be on mid-fall break. I still have not decided what to do. I have narrowed it down, I think, to three things:

1. Get a hotel room somewhere in or around Guthrie for at least Thursday night and go up there for a couple days of shopping and exploring

2. Go to Longview as has been my custom and spend the day shopping and exploring (That will largely be dependent on Stitches N Stuff still being in existence; if it's gone, it's not much worth the 3 plus hour drive to get there)

3. Stay close to home but take a day and go to McKinney; I've not been there for a while.

1. is pleasing to me in that it's a New Place and it has the option of Yarn Shop Exploring (SWAK Knits is up there). But it's also largely an unknown and I'd have to arrange for a hotel room pretty quick - there's supposed to be some music festival up there that weekend and I may be too late to get a place to stay. And it may be crowded. And I don't know where anything is and don't have a good map.

2. has the benefit of familiarity, but it's also a long drive. And I have to find out of the key shop I go for is still in business (not to be pessimistic but - the owners are like 80. So it won't be there forever unless they have family or someone good to sell it to). But another benefit is I can do it on Thursday, and then convince myself that I'm also entitled to Friday and Saturday off.

3. has the benefit of I get a couple days at home to maybe do some intensive piecing, or to rent some videos and do a marathon of knitting, and also get the chance for some shopping-fun in the vacation, too. The downside is it won't feel so much like a vacation. The downsides are that Saturday is really the ideal day for McKinney (other days, the traffic is unbearable. It's only nearly unbearable on Saturday). And I'd probably be unable to relax Thursday and Friday as I'd feel guilty, like I should be in working.

I COULD combine 2 and 3 (do 2 on Thursday and 3 on Saturday) if I wanted to be super-fiscally-irresponsible (or if I charged myself with getting all my Christmas and holiday shopping done at the time). Or I could do 2 with a trip to Denison to all the art galleries (one of my half-thoughts was to try and find a small, not-to-expensive piece of artwork (like a pottery vase or a stained-glass window-hanging) for everyone on my list - because it's distinctive, because it's supporting local-ish artists, and because it avoids the malls. And because it avoids last-minute shopping.

Right now, I'm leaning most towards 2, because I have so few traditions or constants in my life that it's nice to do something familiar but not worn-out-with-familiarity. 2 also carries with it the promise of Barron's bookstore, and access to a Michaels, and other good things.