Becca's Blog

Stocked up.

You dug deep into your stashes, and I’m very, very grateful. Thanks to contributions from Nanda, Teresa, Síle, Kate, Kate, and Carolyn, I have a solid supply of needles and hooks, and enough quantity and variety of yarn to let my students go “shopping” for just about any kind of yarn their hearts could desire. With a selection ranging from solid-color worsted wool to tiger-print chenille, I think they’ll be excited to choose something that suits them exactly, and be excited to get started. You know the feeling... A heartfelt thank you to each of you for making that happen.

I want to say a special thanks to Kate G. for going out of her way to procure the perfect new-knitter needles, and for being my guide to the wonderful world of SCRAP.

My needlecraft students need supplies.

I've been teaching knitting (and a bit of crochet) at the Women's Daytime Drop-In Center for about five weeks now, and it has been incredibly gratifying. Every time I do it, I leave happier than when I arrived, because I've had a chance to share something I love with people, and watch them get enjoyment from it.

I haven't had many repeat customers yet, but I don't feel that's a negative at all--I feel that I'm offering some enrichment to whoever wants to partake, in any way they want to. Often that means that I get someone started on something small, and at the end of the session, they take it with them. As a result, the knitting and crochet needles that I've brought and the odds and ends the center had are rapidly dwindling. We've gone through a lot of yarn, as well.

I'm going to start scavenging for more needles this weekend, starting with a trip to The Legacy in Sebastopol. A North Bay knitter named Fina tipped me off to it last fall at the Nordic Knitting Conference, but I haven't been yet. So I'm going to combine a nice little weekend drive with some supplies hunting. If I'm lucky I'll run across a couple of good thrift stores in Sebastopol and Petaluma as well. Next I'll hit SCRAP in San Francisco and the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse.

And I'll happily accept any and all donations of supplies--or tips on good sources. If you have needles that you don't care for, I'll take them off your hands. Super-small needles aren't great for beginners, of course, but I'll accept pretty much anything else. I've got plenty of yarn to donate in my own stash, but I'd be happy to give yours a good home as well (and yes, acrylic is very fine for this purpose!). Leave me a comment if you've got stuff I can take off your hands.

Special request of Bay Area folks.

Hi Bay Areans, and particularly San Francisco folks: I just got a call from Blood Centers of the Pacific because I've been donating whole blood with them for 20-plus years. It's very unusual to get a call requesting blood on a Sunday, but their supply of whole blood is just about depleted due to a single surgery that took 23 units.

If you are in the vicinity of one of their centers and you're eligible, willing, and able to give blood, please consider making an appointment in the next few days.

I don't live or work near a center anymore, but I will probably try to make some time to get over to the city and give. I hope you'll join me.

A couple of other expenditures.

One other small thing I popped for a couple of weeks ago was a donation to Ravelry. I figure that it's worth much more than $5 per month to me, so I donated $30, and in a few months I'll donate that much again.

And last night I had such a good time knit night at Stash that I bought a couple of skeins of Jitterbug. I know it's not free to keep a store open and staffed, and the vibe was extremely mellow and welcoming. So I purchased a little bit o' yarn as a way of paying some dues. Plus, it's really pretty yarn.

Kitty is behaving strangely again and howling a lot. So he's been to the vet a couple of times this week and been through a couple of rounds of blood tests. We won't know for about a week why the calcium level in his blood is elevated. He's going to be 17 at the end of this month.

What my students want...

is someone to teach them to crochet. I need to study up, because I can barely crochet with two hands, a map, *and* a flashlight.

Edited later to add: I must say that Lion Brand has some great, free knitting and crocheting instructions. Very helpful.

Using my powers for good.

I'm kind of excited because a couple of days ago I found out for sure that I'll be leading a knitting group once a week at a center for low-income women in my neighborhood. This will be the first time I've taught knitting in a formal setting, although I taught my niece, and ages ago I taught my best friend in college. I really didn't know what I was doing, though, and she was lefthanded. I didn't know from continental-style knitting back then.

I don't know exactly what will happen, what I'll end up teaching, or what supplies I might need help rustling up. I do think I'm going to hit up Knitty for permission to reuse of a couple of simple patterns, though.  I'll keep you posted!

Ten miles is nothing to sniff at.

Yesterday I went with Jane on her training walk for the Breast Cancer 3-Day, and we walked 10 miles in 3 hours. Jane has a much better fitness base than I do, since she exercises regularly, but I figured this would be a walk in the park (heh), because hey, I've run 10Ks plenty of times on practically no training.

Not really. I was tired after 5 miles, and by the time we got done, everything from my waist down hurt. I was hobbling slightly today. I'm very glad it's not me who's doing twice that distance for three consecutive days--and sleeping on the ground.

Team Shirley.

Jane's family, the one I married into, has always been very close. They--I mean we--face all of life's events, good and bad, together. Jane's mom, Shirley, was influential in keeping that connection going, and when Shirley became ill with breast cancer she had the best support team anyone could have. Her health and quality of life during her seven-year fight can be credited mostly to her devoted daughters and husband.

This year Jane's oldest sister, Susan (the one I ran my first half-marathon with), decided to do the San Diego Breast Cancer Three-Day to raise funds and honor Shirley's memory. Jane and I talked about how best to support Susan, and considered whether we should serve on the walk crew. We decided we'd go down to San Diego and cheer Susan on, and vowed that we'd walk next year. But our plans changed. When it looked like Susan's walking partner probably wouldn't be able to do the walk with her, Jane jumped in and signed up, three weeks before the event--because that's what sticking together means. So she's walking on November 9 to 11, and raising funds. She's trying to raise $2200 in the remaining 13 days before the walk, and I'm asking you to donate to her if you would support me in a similar venture. Because I'm a part of Team Shirley too, even if this time I'm the waterboy.

My weekend plans just changed.

I just got my Ravelry invite (I'm berkeleybecca)--woo hoo! And Jane is spending the weekend in San Diego with her dad and sisters, so I can spread my stash out all over the house and stay up all night uploading photos.

I have quite a few blog posts fermenting in my brain (I'm posting this from work, which is strictly AGAINST COMPANY POLICY, but I couldn't wait), so I'll make some time for at least one more informative post than this. Going back to work now...

Edited later to add: My TiVo arrived via UPS just after I posted this afternoon. So in addition to yarn strewn all over, there will be cables and manuals and packing peanuts and superfluous remotes cluttering up the joint. And I'll likely emerge on Monday morning pale and squinting like some kind of mole. And yeah, I'm pretty embarrassed about the TiVo--both by what it says about my unhealthy involvement with TV and by avoiding it thus far because it seems too hard to set up and master.

LinkedInto Library Thing.

This is probably stating the obvious, but I have a contrarian streak (although I always have a very good reason for my contrarian stance, unlike my Dad, whom I suspect of taking contrarian positions just to annoy me and others). So I find myself, say, supporting John Edwards rather than Barack Obama or Hilary Clinton, and having a "brand X" MP3 player rather than an iPod.

But just as often I end up following the herd, sometimes after initial resistance. For instance, I am now on the Ravelry waiting list, after holding out long enough to land as number eleventy-nine hundred (or so) in line. And I'm such an independent thinker that I apparently had exactly the same thought process as every other sentient knitblogger.

a) It's just another private club for the in-crowd. Phooey on them and their dumb club.
b) I don't have time for another bloglike thingy; I don't have time to keep up with the blog I have let alone uploading a bunch of photos to Flickr.
c) Um, well, I'm a bit curious, and I love making lists. It couldn't hurt to get in line and check it out.

And, perhaps prompted by Franklin's post, I remembered that I signed up for LibraryThing awhile back and decided to fool around with that a little bit more. And dang if it isn't fun and fascinating. I have wasted quite a bit of precious time this past week uploading titles and dinking around with tags. I finally "get" folksonomy--which is really quite valuable for someone who edits books about webby things.  I'm so enamored that I paid for a membership and ordered a CueCat from the LibraryThing folks. (I am so old that I remember when the CueCat was foisted on the world, and like many know-it-all journalists, I sniggered.)

Amazingly, my very own CueCat arrived in today's mail, and I got to try it out with the LibraryThing site and some ISBN bar codes. Not foolproof and not always easy (in fact, it doesn't work on some bar codes; coated, shiny covers seem to work best), but it's stupid fun. I'm probably going to steal a lot of time away from housework this weekend to sit in the middle of my office floor and scan more bar codes, then write capsule reviews. (Edited later to add: The book detail pages are a geek's dream, and I just discovered the statistics page and the power-editing mode. I may disappear for days.)

Also this week I was surprised to find that many of my colleagues and friends have joined a club that I thought wasn't worth belonging to: LinkedIn. I don't know if it's a little trendlet that runs through offices like a wave, or whether everyone joins the way I did; after the third flack or marketing guy you don't know sends you an invitation to join his network you finally accept. In an odd coincidence, the day after I joined I find out that Jane—like, the person I live with—has a LinkedIn account, along with many of my present and former colleagues. So I've been having a very good time nosing into their networks to see how they present themselves and who they know. And I wonder, is this MySpace without the MP3s and the eye-scorching graphics? (Needless to say, I don't get social networking sites.) LinkedIn has done much of the difficult organizational work of old-fashioned networking, and it seems like it would be much easier to ask for an introduction from behind the safety of a computer screen. Of course it's likely to be wonderful fuel for my insecurities, too: Look how many people are ignoring my invitations!