* I did manage to knit a bit last night - I worked on the current "simple sock," which is being made of some Online self-striper that I *probably* got cheaply on sale from Simply Sock Yarn (she seems to often have the Online brand on good sales). It's an unusual color combination - bright, almost neon stripes (orange, purple, greenish yellow). I think it's this one (different seller but I'm pretty sure that's the yarn). I kind of like the "bright stripes on dark background" look, and so many of the striping yarns either don't have a "background" color or else are white for the background color...
* I am also nearly done - thanks to giving a Soils exam earlier this week - with the left front of the Augusta cardigan; I have half a plan of working on that tonight to finish the front and maybe start the right front. (I give an exam in another class next week - well, shoot, I give an exam in a class nearly EVERY week, because one class I have has five exams (the gen ed where we all have to follow a set plan), and the other classes I schedule four so I can do one as a "drop" exam)
* I am already excited for getting out next weekend to go shopping. I will have to check to BE SURE that the quilt and yarn shop will be open (am bracing for disappointment because): Whitesboro apparently got v. bad storms and many people have had several days of power outages. (I will be deeply disappointed though if the yarn shop and quilt shop are NOT open next Saturday for whatever reason, or if the weather turns too bad, or if I happen to get sick again - often, it seems I get a URI right around my birthday).
And yes, that's one specific way in which I'm deeply immature: when I am looking forward to something and then something comes up - I get very deeply disappointed, and feel hard-done-buy, and even get kind of cranky, especially if it's some last-minute work or other obligation that has come up. I'm also not terribly good at doing the "I have....plans" shifty-eyes thing to get out of unwanted tasks, though I think some of my colleagues have become masters at saying "No, I can't do that then" when they really don't have any big plans. And maybe I need to get better at that, given that there have been times I've wound up sitting in the kitchen floor crying because I am running out of food and I can't figure out a time when I can get to the grocery store when it won't be unacceptably crowded. (This is a problem with wal-mart. I am considering going after my 10-11 class today, hoping I can beat the Friday afternoon rush. Because I can't go tomorrow, and Sunday I will be doing the finishing bits for whatever I take to the potluck)
(A check of Quixotic Fibers' website shows they are doing a mitered square class on the 3rd, so unless there's some big EMERGENCY they should be open - I know it's a small operation and if the owners go to a show or on a buying trip or get sick, the place closes, but they seem to be very good about e-mailing their customers to let them know).
Another thought for enjoying my birthday "month" - maybe if the rain quits enough this afternoon I run to Lulu and Hazel's, and if nothing else, get some plain solid colored fabric for a background/sashing on an upcoming quilt. One of the new books I got for my birthday has a quilt made out of a Layer Cake that I want to use one of the Layer Cakes I have hoarded up for, but it takes a fair amount of white background. (Or, I might go with a v. pale pink or v. pale turquoise, given the colors in the Layer Cake)
* And I've pretty much decided to do beans. Not baked beans, more western-style beans. Provided Green Spray has Anasazi beans in stock, I am going to do those - just beans and an onion and some spices and maybe a bay leaf, and I MIGHT get some diced ham to bring separately for those who want meat with beans. (Our minister is a vegetarian and a couple of the kids who sing in the choir might be too, so I try to be conscious of having a main dish that vegetarians can eat. And I like to bring a main dish *I* can eat, given my celery allergy and dislike of green peppers and need to avoid excessive salt.). I can cook them overnight: do the boil-and-sit after I get home Saturday, then pop them in my Dutch Oven in the oven on low (with extra water just to be safe) overnight, and that should work fine - they will cook eight hours or so.
I figure that would be easier than the other option: making a dessert.
* I confess I am kind of longing to start a new project. Either one of the crocheted ponies I have brewing in my head (G4-ized versions of Surprise - with crocheted corkscrew curls, because the G4-ized fanart of her gives her hair like Pinkie Pie, and a G4-ized version of Heartthrob). Or a pair of really *complicated* socks. (I bought some size US 00 sock needles (that is: like 1.5 mm diameter) and I have a few quantities of yarn ahead where I bought more than the standard 350-400 yards, because I want to try some of the complicated "men's socks" patterns in Nancy Bush's "Knitting Vintage Socks" but I will need to downsize them just slightly - I have a smaller "foot circumference" than what the patterns specify. And my feet are shorter, but I bought the full amount of yarn on the grounds that I couldn't predict how much *less* I might need. If I wind up with a whole 300+ yard skein left over, I can either use it for hat/ mitts or can maybe swap it or give it away to someone. Or, if I ever had oodles of time and a good place to donate, knit caps for people who need them...). Or another small shawl. (I really should dig out the ongoing projects I have - Celestarium and the Scottish Heather shawl, and I bet there are a few others- and finish them).
* I finished "Death of a Busybody" the other night. This is one of the Inspector Littlejohn novels by George Bellaires. Again, he's not the greatest writer that ever was, but the novel is enjoyable and I like the character of Inspector Littlejohn. (I mainly read detective novels for the recurring sleuth characters - here, he's an official member of the police, a quiet, thoughtful, workmanlike inspector, good to his wife, kindly towards his counterparts in the rural police forces he tends to wind up working with). I also read them for the settings, here the country towns of Hilary Magna and Hilary Parva. (In the US, we don't seem to have towns with Latin naming conventions. Then again, we were never occupied by the Romans...) And I also read them for the fact that good triumphs in the end: the one who did wrong is found out and punished (or punishes him/her self; a not-inconsiderable number of these seem to end with jailhouse suicides, I suppose, to save the executioner the burden of another death on his conscience? And these being of the time they were, there's no suggestion the "suicides" are anything other than exactly that: a guilty person's guilty conscience driving them to do it, or perhaps, to avoid the execution by going out on their own terms)
I'm also still picking away at "Back from the Land," I just slogged through the chapter on how marriages/relationships broke up because of stresses related to the whole back-to-the-land thing. (For one thing: if you're living in a 20-square-foot cabin in the dead of winter in New England, and your only car is on the fritz, there's no where to go to get away from the partner you are angry with. And for another: it seems in many cases the couples wound up somewhat unequally yoked, in that one shouldered more of the unpleasant work, or one was more 'all in' for the hardships that that kind of life imposed). It was kind of a depressing chapter. (And also: it seems it's impossible, by and large, to successfully "go back to the land" alone - too much work. Though I'm sure I've read of bachelor farmers and single-women homesteaders who did it, I wonder how they managed. I am guessing in some cases they weren't *really* alone - in many cases from what I've read, unmarried farming-types were often two or more siblings sharing living quarters and work, kind of like Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert...)
But yeah. I think one could do SOME of the voluntary-simplicity things (I might, in some ways, be happier, and would probably be more productive with neither Internet nor cable, and I might be able to survive without most electric devices, though an air conditioner in the summer in this climate would be necessary), but I think doing it ALL - where you have to haul water, and use an outhouse (and presumably, clean and re-dig the pit for same), and chop and season wood for the winter, and keep a fire going all winter long, and try to cook on a wood stove, and try to raise/hunt/forage all your food. One of the little secrets of 1800s life, I think, is that so many people had hired-hands or servants was because it's too hard to do it all yourself....
The author of the book writes of her sheer resentment of having to use an old, non-automatic, wringer washer for clothes. I have a *tiny* bit of experience with those: my grandmother had one. (Actually, I think it was the one my parents had when they were first married, that they then gave to her when they got an automatic - she had been using a laundromat/tub and washboard before that). They're not fun to use on a regular basis because you do have to fill them (if you're doing a cold-water wash, like you would for not-heavily-soiled clothes, it's not so bad, because you don't have to heat the water on the stove first). And the wringers are kind of dangerous. (I thought they were cool when I was a kid, but I wasn't allowed near them, because my grandma said I'd break a finger in them). And they mangle buttons if you're not careful. And then you have to hang the clothes to try, which in the winter means either they freeze-dry, or you have to hang them in the house (my grandmother had something that looked like a giant umbrella swift with sticks on it for hanging clothes in the house). And yeah, it was a LOT of labor. I probably would not change my sheets every week if that was how I had to wash them.
And again: I wonder if a lot of the back-to-the-landers never experienced this kind of thing? As I said, hearing my mom's stories of growing up without indoor plumbing (and my own few experiences with either camping, or that week when I had no water to my house because of a broken line) have inoculated me against wanting to ever live without running water.
I also admit I wonder if this is going to show us how the "tiny house" movement shakes out: a lot of the tiny-house advocates remind me a bit of the back-to-the-landers with their zeal and their sense that they are the vanguard of the Fixers of the World and the Solvers of All Problems. And I, an old person (comparatively speaking) look at the houses and go:
1. Where do you store enough canned goods in case there's an ice storm or a trucking strike?
2. What do you do when the weather is horrible (we have had rain every day this week and even as someone who *likes* rain I find it getting on my nerves) and you are stuck inside the same 400 square feet, perhaps with a partner, perhaps even with a kid and a wet stinky dog, for days on end?
3. Doesn't having to go down a ladder from your sleeping loft in the middle of the night if you have to pee get really old really fast? (Okay, yes: maybe guys have an advantage there if they (ugh) keep an empty bottle next to the bed, or have a window they can open up there. But still) And for that matter: for the ones that have composting/chemical toilets: doesn't the constant toilet maintenance get to be a giant drag? I get the sense that especially if you live with a couple others, you have to empty the thing on a regular basis and ugh. I'm all for environmental friendliness but I don't think I could do that: there are things I would much rather give up.
4. Where do you keep your stuff? (The answer is, I guess, you DON'T: you don't own actual books, you don't keep family heirlooms, you don't collect vintage My Little Ponies, you don't knit or quilt or any hobby where having stored supplies makes any sense. Granted, some of those folks may have the "city privilege" of living only a few minutes from shops selling supplies for their preferred hobbies, but I admit I have a bit of a hoarder mindset for supplies, because if I suddenly decide I want to start a new sweater, it's Sunday afternoon, nothing within an hour of me is even OPEN....well, I can't, not without a yarn stash)
So anyway. I wonder if in a few years we're gonna see a falling-out-of-love with it, and only a few really hardcore folks stay on. (There are still a few back-to-the-land type communes, but far fewer than in the late 1970s.)
I dunno. History doesn't repeat itself but it does rhyme, the saying goes, and maybe I'm too good at seeing patterns but there does seem to be an awful lot of some of the Tiny House Movement (at least how it is currently promoted and faddish) that sort of maps on to the back-to-the-land movement.
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