on hiatus

Just a quick note to let you know that this blog will be on hiatus for awhile. In the meantime, have a happy new year!

A sure sign that summer is over

Snow on the barbeque. Those long, lazy days of summer are certainly past.


Old Man Winter is on his way. We've had our first flurries of snow today, with just a dusting over everything. Time to knit faster...

There are no shallots in this town!

One of the things I love about living in this small town is the slower pace. I went to the grocery store today to pick up the last-minute ingredients for our Thanksgiving dinner. I made a point of going early--mid-morning--to avoid the mad scramble for food that always happens the day before Thanksgiving.

The cashiers were harried, frustrated, and tired, as you would expect on this crazy day. But the crowds? Where were the crowds? The "crowds" consisted of three--count them, three--people in each checkout line. Oh, the madness!!

But there is a downside to being in such a small place. I've always taken for granted that I can get what I want, when I want it, from the grocery store. In Boston, I lived within a few miles of three different Whole Foods stores. In Austin, I was a short walk from Central Market. Here, we have Wegmans, which is a fabulous store--but it's a half-hour drive away.

But here, our options are so much more limited. Shocked to discover that our local grocery store was out of what I consider basics--fresh mozzarella, shallots--and shocked to see that all their so-called fresh herbs were brown and wilted (and still being sold for $1.99 a package!), I had only one other option: Walmart. And we all know how much I love Walmart... :(

Amazingly, Walmart actually had the mozzarella, but no shallots. There isn't a shallot in this entire town.
[image source: www.restaurantwidow.com]

Oh, how I miss Whole Foods! Oh, how I miss Central Market! Mr. Wegman, please oh please open one of your stores here! We NEED you.

A beautiful sight

No, someone didn't egg our house. This is the sweet sight of an insulation installation. The last week has been chaotic, with workers swarming around the house, drilling holes, mixing the foam, and filling our walls with goo. (Actually, it's not goo, it's Air-Krete, a moldproof, rodentproof, fireproof insulation for walls) It's left our landscaping trampled (okay, there wasn't much landscaping to deal with, fortunately), and it left my patience wearing a little thin at times (such as when I had teleconferences for work and had to keep hitting the "mute" button so that my coworkers in two different states didn't have to share the noisy joy with me.) But it's done, and now we can look forward to a toasty winter.

It's hard to believe that people having been living in this house since the 1870s with no insulation in the walls. Do you know how cold it gets in the winters in the Finger Lakes? Well, I don't know yet from firsthand experience, but I've heard it gets COLD. (As a side note, there was an infamous Civil War prisoner-of-war camp in Elmira, just south of Seneca Lake. There's a reason the Confederates named it Hellmira, and it wasn't because it was hot!)

Anyway, the house looked like it's been in a street fight, what with all the patched holes for the insulation to go in. But it's worth it! A toasty house AND a lower fuel bill this winter. Can't beat that with a stick!

Of course, I still plan to keep warm by knitting. I'm about 2/3 of the way through my scarf project (begun in August! :( but I am stubbornly refusing to put a new project on the needles until this one is done. (Of course, that doesn't stop me from buying yarn for new projects--I just can't start them yet!)

Natural beauty

When I first moved to the Northeast, I was so disappointed when we moved beyond peak leaf season. The blaze of color was so amazing to these color-starved eyes that it was just downright depressing once the leaves started falling and the brilliant colors started to fade.

But after a few years of that, I began to look beyond the obvious beauty of the peak of autumn toward the more subtle delights. Here are a few that I saw the other day at a nearby park.



This bark reminded me of an Aran sweater. There are several trees that have this kind of twisted bark facing the lake, but the bark on the opposite side is linear. I wonder if cold winter winds caused this to happen? Nevertheless, it is quite stunning.



I've always loved the look of bare-limbed trees against a brilliant blue sky. Nature's lace.



Even though we are well past peak here in the Finger Lakes, this stubborn crabapple tree is hanging onto its leaves and fruits.What delightful color!



And this one just made me giggle. All the picnic benches lined up in this way reminded me of dancing poodles in a circus. I'll bet they'll look even more like poodles once they have snow on them in the winter!

Then and Now

So much has changed in the last year. Massive move from the city to the country, and nothing says it better than pictures.

Last year, just before Halloween, we went to the Boston Common to see the attempt to break the record for most jack-o-lanterns carved and lit at one time. With two little ones in tow, we didn't stay until after dark, but it was quite impressive to see the massive numbers of carved pumpkins in one place at one time. It was a beautiful sunny day, marred only by the pervasive stench of pumpkin guts in the warm sunshine....



Flash forward one year. A much smaller pumpkin patch, but beautiful in its natural setting. Plus, we had Portia with us this time to help pick out the best pumpkins. Bigger boys, too!

A Study of American Wallpapers

I love my house.

Let me just say it again, I love my house.

I love the great tall ceilings and the leaded glass in the living and dining rooms. I love the cozy fireplace and the Victorian-era woodwork. I love the quirky upstairs bathroom and my office with the view of the backyard.

I do not, however, love the wallpaper.

Yes, there are acres and acres of wallpaper in this house. A veritable museum of wallpapers. And so I bring to you my study:

"It Takes a Village (to tear all this stuff down): A Study of American Wallpapers, circa 1970"

FIGURE 1: A delicate montage of daisies, cosmos, and monarch butterflies in tones of murky and murkier



FIGURE 2: An elegent faux-toile in shades of sage and dirty grey:



FIGURE 3: A garden of peach roses scattered over white frilly bits:



FIGURE 4: Um...daggers? half-completed crucifixes?



FIGURE 5: A scrubland scene viewed through dust-stained windows during a rainstorm:



FIGURE 6: Mud viewed through dust-stained windows during a rainstorm:



FIGURE 7: Invasion of the blue butterflies:



FIGURE 8: Just turn the lights off, please!



FIGURE 9: It only gets worse:



FIGURE 10: Was butterscotch the only color they had back then?



FIGURE 11: And my personal favorite. This isn't wallpaper; it's FABRIC. Nothing like some naughty bathing scenes to keep you entertained while you brush your teeth in the morning.



This concludes our study of American wallpapers, circa 1970. I'm sure it all looked stunning at the time. And I'm sure that my children or grandchildren will think I'm stark raving mad for thinking it's ugly. What do you think?

It's about books today

Wanda at Fiberjoy has tagged me for a book meme. I've done a few of these from time to time, but I really like this one. Books, books, and more books!!

1. Hardcover or paperback, and why?
Generally I prefer hardcover books. I plan to keep every book that I buy, and I'd much rather have a library of hardcover books than paperbacks. However, paperbacks definitely have their place--when reading in the bathtub or when traveling, for example.

2. If I were to own a book shop, I would call it…
Tracy's Books?

3. My favorite quote from a book (mention the title) is…
...difficult to decide! One of my many favorites comes from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. The opening line is "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." It is a line delivered plainly--for it was largely true in Austen's day--and yet, there is a touch of irony in it, once you get into the book and learn more about Elizabeth Bennet's character.

4. The author (alive or deceased) I would love to have lunch with would be…
Crazy Aunt Purl (Laurie Perry)! I've been reading her blog for ages and am now reading her book and enjoying every page of it. Plus, I think she'd be a real hoot to have lunch with!

5. If I were going to a deserted island and could only bring one book, except for the SAS survival guide, it would be…
my journal, so I could write down my thoughts.

6. I would love someone to invent a bookish gadget that…
would hold a book above me and turn the pages while I read in the tub, on or the beach, or on the couch...

7. The smell of an old book reminds me of…
so many places! Hot, dusty secondhand bookstores in north Texas. The stacks of Davis Library at the University of North Carolina. The pounding of my heart in the archives of the Fawcett Library in London, when I first laid my hands on the papers of Teresa Billington-Greig, the British suffragette I wrote my senior thesis about.

8. If I could be the lead character in a book (mention the title), it would be…
none of them! I love to escape into someone else's life in a book, but I'm quite happy to return to my own when I'm finished reading.

9. The most overestimated book of all times is…
(in my world) everything that one of our competitors publish. I work in educational publishing, and as each new competitor's book is published, there's always a flurry of nervousness about how the competitors are going to take the market. But I've been in the business long enough to know that there is no revolution in this business. There is incremental change, certainly, but a single book never radically changes the market.

10. I hate it when a book…
...is poorly edited. As an editor myself, I have little patience for companies that don't take the time to make books properly.

The Genographic Project

Yes, I'm still knitting, but in the absence of anything interesting to show, I thought I'd write about something I just discovered: National Geographic's Genographic Project.

I know, I'm probably the last person to have heard about it, but I find it so exciting that I just have to share.

Under the auspices of National Geographic, Dr. Spencer Wells is heading this massive five-year study of human migration, charting the migration of peoples through the analysis of DNA. One focus of the project is the collection of DNA from isolated, indigenous peoples--those whose separateness is threatened by growing contact and intermingling with the rest of the world.

But the part of the project that I find personally fascinating is the public participation aspect. The project is collecting genetic samples from anyone who chooses to participate, providing further depth to the knowledge about the migrations of peoples. If you choose to participate, they send you a kit for you to take a DNA sample (through a cheek swab). Some weeks later, they will post your results on their website. You can find out more about your deep ancestry than you ever could have before. You'll learn which path your family took from our common origin in Africa. It's not genealogy; it's a glimpse into your own prehistoric past.

Of course, it's just a glimpse, a limited view into your past. Women will learn the migration path of their family only through the maternal line, because the mitochondrial DNA is what remains unchanged from one generation to the next (except for mutations, of course). Men can choose to trace their family's migration path through their paternal line (because the Y chromosome is unchanged except for mutations) or through their maternal line (through mitochondria). But I think it's absolutely fascinating to be able to get even this limited glimpse into this previously unknowable past!

Our kits arrived from National Geographic yesterday, and we'll be sending the samples in tomorrow. Then, waiting on pins and needles to see what we find out!

If you're a foodie...

Since moving to this part of upstate New York, we've discovered some amazing foods at the local farmers' markets. Corn so sweet, so delicate, so delectable you want to eat it at every meal. Grapes so sweet and thin-skinned that they pop into sugary goodness as soon as you put them in your mouth. And pie....oh yes, the pies. Apple pies. Cherry pies. Fruit flavors so intense that there's barely enough room for sugar, and yet they're so sweet. Pastries so flaky like my mom used to make...or even better than my mom made. (Love you, Mom! Love your pie!)



And there seems to be a common denominator to all these lovely foods: they come from Amish or Mennonite farmers.

I know very little about the Amish or Mennonites. I plan to learn more, now that I'm living in an area where they live too. But as I'm going through my own process of simplification, of making life more genuine, of spending my time and my energy and my money on things that matter to me at my core, I wonder how they manage. How do they live their separate lives in this relentless modern world?

Last weekend, we went to Ithaca for the Apple Harvest Festival. Massive crowds of people from all walks of life, with so many ways of marking their separateness from mainstream American society. Hot pink hair. Tattoos. Piercings. Long, flowing, all-natural clothes. Black lipstick. And there amongst the rebels of American society, there were these plain people, entire families, some selling pies and other baked goods, others quietly observing the world around them. As we stopped to watch people ride the Ferris wheel (which, thankfully, none of the kids wanted to ride--I have a healthy fear of Ferris wheels from traveling fairs), I looked around and saw we were standing next to an Amish or Mennonite family watching the Ferris wheel too--the mother and girls in their starched caps, the father and the boys in their plain blue shirts, all in the same fabric. They were so unlike us, and yet, so like us. How do they find their balance in this crazy modern world? How do we?

Happy Birthday, Portia!

On this beautiful autumn day, our Portia turned nine years old--last year of the single digits, last birthday before middle school, one foot in childhood and the other striving toward adulthood.


The world is your oyster, Portia! Make a wish!!


Enough with the birthday wishes, we want cake!!

Gorgeous autumn

I love autumn. And I feel so fortunate to live in a place that rewards us with brilliant colors in the fall.



In the part of Texas I grew up in, autumn was the time that leaves just went brown and fell off the trees. It didn't change the color of the landscape much, because it was already pretty brown from the scorching summers.

In school, however, we celebrated fall as if we were in the heart of New England. We drew pictures with bright red, orange, and gold leaves, and we made our own fall leaves out of colored construction paper--bright reds, oranges, and yellows. As an adult, I was known to make wreaths out of craft-store "silk" autumn leaves, just to have a hint of that eastern color.

Now that I've moved to a place where the leaves actually do change colors, it amazes me to think how eastern-centric we were in Texas. We not only mimicked the east with our fall colors, we did the same thing in winter--making snow scenes out of paper and glitter and glue. We only had snow once every few years--and never enough to warrant snow boots--and yet, all the pictures we learned to draw in wintertime had to have snow in it. Why didn't we celebrate the seasons the way they actually were?

But anyway, now I'm in the northeast and loving the colors. The trees started changing here quite early--at the very beginning of September--but we're still just approaching the peak of color. In the Boston area, the best color was always found the week of Columbus Day, but I'd always heard that this part of upstate New York was a little earlier than Boston. But here it is, just a few days from Columbus Day, and we still have a long way to go.

That's fine with me. I love the autumn and wish it could last a little longer. There are a lot of cold and grey days to follow, so I want to keep the memory of these brilliant colors as long as I can....

Little boys, getting bigger

My two little munchkins just amaze me with their resilience. In the last month, they have experienced tremendous change. They've moved away from the only home they've ever known, left all their friends, endured weeks of living with all their own toys boxed up in storage, and living in temporary digs until our new house is ready.

I expected a trying time of adjustment--tears, longing, defiance, sleeplessness, worry. And yet... they surprise me! They've had their moments, but both boys are doing so well with all the changes going on in their lives. Of course, they miss all the people they love in the Boston area, but they are embracing this new life with both hands.

Yesterday was the boys' first day at school: Aidan in kindergarten and Douglas in preschool. This picture pretty much sums up their attitudes toward it--Aidan was a little hesitant, while Douglas was unmistakably gungho.



And while yesterday was officially the first day of kindergarten for Aidan, today was his first full day--without Mom. I was a little nervous for him, since he was a little flustered yesterday by all the crowds and activity. But today, he was so eager to get to school that I couldn't keep up with him on the walk to school. Then today on my lunch hour, I drove past the kindergarten playground on my way to the grocery store, I saw him running with a big group of kids. He's making friends already!

But the work continues. We're finally in our new house, with boxes and boxes to unpack. Moving is hard work....

Welcome to the Finger Lakes!

Whew! It's been a long slog, but we finally made it here. Multiple truckloads of household items and workshop items, getting cars from one place to another, getting kids and cats from one place to another, but we've made it!

We're in temporary digs for the next week or so--our house closing was delayed awhile for a number of reasons, but we're lucky enough to have a comfortable place to stay while we're waiting to get into the new place. We're starting to settle in--a few days ago, we took Aidan to visit his new school, and he got to meet the principal and see all the classrooms before the Big Day. Plus, he and Douglas have played at both playgrounds at the elementary school (they have one just for kindergarten and another for the older kids), so they both know there is FUN to be had at school.

And, I've already visited what will be my LYS, which is Finger Lakes Fibers. The women there are so friendly and helpful--just attentive enough to make sure you have the help you need, while allowing you space to browse and soak up the woolliness of it all. (And yes, even though they had a big sale on summer yarns in cotton and linen and bamboo and all sorts, I still was drawn to the wools, even though it was about 95 degrees on the day I visited...)

I needed a project to help me keep my sanity, but my yarn stash and needles and patterns are all in boxes...somewhere...! So, I bought everything I needed to make a lace scarf. First, the pattern: Fiber Trends double fuschia scarf (the pink one on the left). The yarn: Elsebeth Lavold's Silky Wool in a pale grey. It's my first lace project, and after one false start (complete with gnashing of teeth and a little sulking), I managed to learn the pattern and make quite good progress. Photos to come when I find my camera....

The knitting world

As I sit here on my lawn chair, listening to the crickets and some unidentified summer-time noises outside, I have a rare moment to ponder things that usually escape my notice in the whirlwind of family life.

I think about the brood of Muscovy ducklings we saw on our walk yesterday. There is a pair of Muscovy ducks that live along the shores of our pond, so I took the boys through our "secret passageway" to the spot where the ducks usually hang out. They weren't along the shore or in the grasses nearby. Instead, they were across the street, with their six ducklings, hanging out underneath a parked car in our neighbors' driveway. What a funny sight--six fuzzy yellow quackers huddled together underneath the back bumper of the car, while their pudgy mom and dad (with their distinctive red masks) waddled around keeping guard.

I've also been thinking about the knitting world, though I'm miles away from it at the moment. My knitting stuff is in boxes one state over, and I won't be getting back to it for some time, I'm sure. But I keep up with the blogs I read from around the world, and I'm pleased to see that people around the world are beginning to read mine. Hello, Australia! Hello, Peru and Brazil! Hello, UK and Ireland and Japan and Thailand and Canada! Hi there, Israel and Turkey and Finland and Belgium and Austria! What a fantastic thing that through blogs, I can be in touch with people all over the world, through my own words and through theirs. Wow.

This fascination all comes back to being an exchange student at heart, I suppose. Way back when, in the year between high school and college--back when Reagan was president and massive shoulder pads were in fashion and the Cold War was still going strong, I spent a year as an exchange student in Austria. That was the single most transformative experience of my young adulthood. It was so much more than learning to speak German and living with another family for a year. It completely changed my outlook on the world and on my own life. I'm still discovering things about myself that have their origins in that year. I could write dozens of blog entries about the gifts of that year, but for now, I'll just focus on how that year made me realize how much I am a part of the world community.

That may seem like a no-brainer to those who grew up in more cosmopolitan surroundings, but for me, that was a tremendous revelation. My world, growing up in suburban north Texas, was remarkably insular. Most people I knew didn't look too far afield. Few kept up with world events. Most had never traveled out of the country. No one in my family had gone overseas specifically to learn about another country--as far as I knew, their only international experiences had been in wartime (and 1917 wasn't the best time to visit France, nor was the early 1940s the best time to visit the islands of the south Pacific). People like us weren't cosmopolitan and worldly.

But I had a fabulous French teacher in high school who recognized my budding interest in language and culture, and she encouraged me to consider becoming an exchange student. Looking back, I'm shocked I actually went through with the idea, because I was such a shy, quiet kid. But the experience was the making of me.

By the time my year in Austria was over, I realized that the only thing you need to be "one of those people who travel" is simply money, a passport, and an open mind. You don't have to be born into a certain class or to a certain family. And what a vast level of enlightenment to see myself in a world context! To learn about America through the eyes of others--to see for myself how we are perceived by the outside world. It was so humbling at first--I had been taught a strictly positive view of American history and American foreign policy, in which what we did was for the good of everyone. It was eye-opening to see it all from another perspective. It was also difficult for me, as so many people I met in Austria expected me to explain and defend Reagan's policies (which I couldn't and wouldn't do!).

To cut a long story short--and to bring it back to the topic of knitting--some of my most treasured memories of that year are about making connections with people. We speak different languages, eat different foods, live in different kinds of houses. We may have different politics and different views on the world. But somewhere, there is something we all have in common. So I love to see that people in so many nations have stopped by here--just as I stop by the blogs of many people in nations I've never visited yet. We may connect over knitting, then find we have other things in common too.

And if more people would realize how much we have in comon, the world would be a much safer place.

How long is it until January 20, 2009?

Eye of the hurricane

My aching back can attest to the fact that it is definitely moving time. We've had days and days of packing boxes, hauling out the trash and recycling, driving to the Goodwill drop-off point, and ordering more boxes...and more boxes. Yesterday was the big day--loading the truck. We hired the most excellent Zeke and Johnny of Intelligent Labor and Moving to load the truck. Those guys were amazing! They worked quickly, smartly, and kept a sense of humor the whole long, hot day. (If you are moving in the Boston area and are looking for responsible, efficient, and friendly movers on a budget, I highly recommend these guys! Give them a call!!)

It probably didn't help that we were still packing when they got there--I have to admit that I'm absolutely embarrassed about that. I've never been less than ready for moving day--I've always been so compulsive that I'm ready a day or two early. But not this time. This was the first time that I've been involved in moving a whole house, with children, and even though Tim and I shared the work, there was just...so...much...to...pack.

But in a "short" ten hours, the truck was loaded, and this morning off it went to the wilds of the Finger Lakes. Meanwhile, we're camping in our house--the closing for our new house has been delayed, so we decided to stay here in the Boston area until the closing on the house we're selling. It's a quick reminder of my college days, with lawn chairs in the living room and boxes serving as chairs, tables, and desks. But what are these children doing in my dorm room...? They're enjoying our in-home camping trip (complete with air mattresses) and love the space to run around and chase each other without fear of being impaled on the furniture.

It's going to be an interesting week. We're taking it easy, relatively speaking--we have the final cleaning of the house to do before we turn it over to the new owners, but for the most part, we're just hanging out. I'll actually be working from home next week before we leave town--good thing I don't do video conferences, because it would be hard to keep up a professional editorial presence when I'm sitting on the living room carpet in my shorts and t-shirt with my computer propped up on a box.

Ah, but then this is the eye of the hurricane. At the end of next week, we'll have the other half of the saga. Moving into the new house. Going from a cramped 4-room bungalow to a spacious two-story house with garage and workshop. I won't know where to put anything....

Now, let's just hope my back holds up!

blogging break

With our upcoming move and all the chaos that comes along with it, this may be my last chance to blog for a little while.

First, some knitting news. Some actual knitting news! I'm making good progress with my new tam, using the yarn from Bear Farm in Burdett, NY. The colors are so gorgeous in their natural woolly brown and woolly tan, with a touch of red to spice it up. Pictures to come....when I find my camera again.

Other knitting news--I was in the mall the other day and wandered through the Discovery Channel Store. The store is closing soon and is selling everything at rock-bottom prices. They had a toy knitting machine similar to this one:


...for $6, so how could I resist? I took it home, wrestled with the nasty eyelash novelty yarn in the kit, gave up and started using some variegated yarn I'd bought in England years ago, and before I knew it, I had knit a 6-foot tube!

Now, I don't know what I'm going to do with tubes--they're too small for hats (despite the fact that the instructions say you can make hats--they'd be too small even for infants.) But I could make lots of skinny scarves, or perhaps braid a bunch of skinny scarves together? Wind them up as a turban? Whatever, it's fun, and boy, is it fast!

Of course, there will be no substitute for hand knitting. Never!!

stress, but a good kind

There's no such thing as moving house without stress. Especially when you're selling a house in one state, buying a house in another state, and coordinating a move from one state to another, while working a corporate job and taking care of kids and cats.

Deep breaths. Take lots of deep breaths.

We're heading into the final days of the house-buying journey. All we need is for the title work to be done and the closing to be scheduled. But then I found out today about a 2-week delay in the title work that makes our schedule just a little too tight for comfort.

Need to find out more information, take more deep breaths, and remember that it will all work out.

We're also so close on selling our house here. After lengthy negotiations with the buyers, we should be signing the purchase and sale agreement today.

Knock wood, cross fingers, more of those deep breaths.

Then there is all that packing to do. We have ordered and received our packing materials--boxes of all sizes, packing paper, etc. Now, of course, those materials are in the middle of the living room, making the house feel even smaller and cramped. I've packed a whopping six boxes so far...

It'll happen. We have time. Not much, but we do have time.

And today? My going-away lunch at work, then Douglas's checkup, then dinner at the Rainforest Cafe (my kids' favorite). Somewhere in there, I need to figure out how to go sign the purchase and sale agreement, which is due today. I need a few extra hours in this day....

It will be so nice once we've moved and settled in.
It will be so nice once we've moved and settled in.
It will be so nice once we've moved and settled in...

Cowtown on the blog

I'm just so tickled this morning--I got up to read my favorite blogs, and what did I see but that Jo of Celtic Memory Yarns went on a weekend trip to my hometown, Fort Worth! What a wild and strange paradox--in 1999, I went from blistering-hot Texas to Ireland on a pilgrimage in search of wools and sweaters, and now she just went from Ireland to Fort Worth in search of the same (well, in search of a dyeing class).

I hope Cowtown treated you well, Jo!

Ravelry invitation!

I'm so excited--I got my invitation to Ravelry this morning! They are really working quickly through the waiting list. Just last week, there were 400+ people ahead of me, so they're getting people signed up fast.

Now, to find time to get going!

Life here is getting busier, but it's all seeming to fall into place. We had an offer on the house yesterday! Finally, after all this waiting!! I knew it would happen, but these kind of things always seem so impossible until they happen. I love this house--I have always loved this house--so it's not a crazy idea to think that someone else would love it, too. But until that actually happened...

I've been hearing such pessimistic news about the housing market here in Boston--prices plummeting, house sales down, qualified buyers evaporating. How different it all is from the time I bought this place! Back then, in the balmy pre-9/11 days, buyers were fighting for property in Boston. Houses went on the market on a Friday and were sold--with multiple offers--by Monday. People were even skipping inspections in order to get an edge over other buyers. It was so competitive.

Fast forward seven years, and it's a very different landscape. Houses are sitting on the market for weeks and months. I've known people to give up and take their houses off the market because they aren't selling. And I've had a well-meaning co-worker asking me all too frequently if the house has sold yet, and I've had to tell her again and again and again that no it hadn't, and no we had no offers.

But that's all changed now! Hurrah!! Now, to get on with LIFE!

I'm in the middle of two projects--the first is the famous French Market bag. The knitting is complete, but I haven't felted it yet. (Does anyone but me have a problem with the usage of "felting" versus "fulling"? What everyone calls felting is actually fulling, and there seems to be no correcting it. Grrrrr....)


My next project is one I started planning back in a former life (or so it seems), long before we began considering our move to the Finger Lakes. Last summer, we'd been there on a visit, and I stopped into what was then a brand-new LYS, Finger Lake Fibers. How friendly they all were! What a great shop! I was ready to plan a new tam (I love tams!), and I bought two skeins of a lovely local yarn from Carole and Mark Harth's Bear Farm in nearby Burdett. Lovely natural shades of Oatmeal and Dark Sheep's Grey. I also picked up a skein of Elsebeth Lavold's Silky Wool in a rich brick red for an accent color. Now I've been sketching and planning a tam of my own design. More to come!