I'm alive! That must have been some sort of flu because I was simply out of it for 9 days and I still am coughing a little now. The bad thing is I have given it to the Bear who is now coughing and spluttering like I was.

While I was sick, spring arrived. All our fruit trees except the pear are in bloom, the peas are up, there is about an inch of asparagus coming up, my Earlicheer narcissus are popping open and the rosellas are courting. The Imp and I both found the chirping and waggling of tail feathers by red birds with blue wings and tails quite entertaining. There is much weeding to do and I need to get the berry bushes up on their trellis but I thinks I will take activity a little slow today. Oh, and there is wattle in bloom everywhere. It's hard to describe how overwhelming all this yellow is. Entire hillsides turn golden, or lemon, depending on the species. And since there are so many species, when one stops blooming, another starts. We have 2 Cootamundra wattles in our front yard which were self seeders from somewhere. It can be considered a pest but I love the colour and when not in bloom it has sort of silvery grey fern-like leaves. They don't live long and the bigger of the two is already dying after 10 years.

I was listening to Cast On today at work wherein an old mill was visited, and I thought as the weaver described his tasks about a story on 60 Minutes last night about the gloom regarding the future of the petroleum-based economy. I had to think while I was listening that at least I knew enough about vegetable growing and textiles that we wouldn't go hungry or naked. I am glad I have a practical skill like knitting instead of whiz-bang computer graphics. And if we face cultural collapse due to a) running out of oil; b) global warming; or c) escalating ethnic violence, I hope by then I am on my farmlet with a whopping big garden, some sheep and goats and an ecologically sensible house with at least some solar power. All those years of reading Mother Earth News must count for something.

Round 21: The Swannies beat Brisbane soundly. We are sitting in 5th place on the ladder and on percentage are quite aways from the 6th. We play Carlton next week which is a pretty sure win. Adelaide plays Melbourne next week which could have interesting results for placings. Melbourne incredibly drew with Geelong; you would think in a sport where scores are over 100 points in many matches that a draw was unlikely but it's happened twice this season and there is no extra-time completion of the match.

I got out of bed yesterday and did exciting things like go to the chemist and have Bowen therapy. I got about 4 hours sleep the previous night. had a sore throat and was still coughing. As the day wore on I got more and more tired until by 9PM I decided to call it a day. I took a healthy dose of sleeping pills (don't worry, it was only my formerly usual dose which I had weaned myself off and now need back) and slept the night and finally woke up for sure at 1PM, still with a sore throat and the occasional cough. I think I'm glad I stayed home from work another day. When I got up yesterday I had planned to work today but as the day progressed that seemed like an imposssible challenge. Whatever this bug is, it's a persistent one, but my lungs are clearer so that's a good sign.

Peeked into the backyard and my peas are up! and we had TWO stalks of asparagus! I wish it would rain. Forecast says it might. My tomato seedlings are doing well. I planted Diggers 7 coloured heritage tomato selection, some beefsteak type red ones and some orange ones (my favourite).. I promise to do better with recycled water this year. I find it ironic that all the govt agencies are gung-ho on using recycled and grey water now when a few years ago it was illegal to use grey water on your garden. I must get the Bear to rig a plastic pipe from the washer out to the back.

While lying in bed I have been picking over the grey washed fleece. Yikes is it dirty. Not just VM but little hard black things scattererd here and there. The fleece itself is incredibly solf and fine. Some of the finest I';ve felt. But in many cases the tips of the locks have solidified like concrete. According the the gurus on the Spinlist, this can happen with fine fibre. So I am monkey picking this, removing VM and cuttung off tips where necessary. It is also shorter than I am used to, at the 2-3" length and softly variegated grey. It will make something very soft like a scarf.

Hullo? I haven't died, although at times I think it would have been easier if I had. I am finally out of bed after 5 days of a monster cold. I am still coughing but I have done not much of anything but blow my nose and cought for days. I will post again when I am truly back on my feet.

My cold is in full bloom: running nose, chesty cough. This is where I take care not to leap out of bed too soon. I could manage to get pneumonia, which I did once (and the Bear was in NZ without a contact number when I went into hospital. Dear J stayed with me in the ER until I was admitted). Alternatively, I can cough so much I can re-activate the arthritis I have in my sternum. Strange place to have rheumatoid arthritis, but I have it there. When it flares, breathing becomes painful.

I spent t some on my lying in bed time yersterday going over the fleece I had washed, This sheep had fine but shortish (3") fleece that varies between almost white to medium grey. There is lots of VM and the tips have solidified into concrete even after washing (only the tips as the rest is lovely and soft.)

Book report: One of the books I checked out of the the library was Bright earth by Philip Ball. It is book about color written by a chemist. I gather from what I have read so far he is concentrated\ing on colour in art, to discuss what pigments artists actually had access to and used through the history of painting. Since art history is one of those things hanging around from college days, it should be interesting.

Round 20: we lost to Geelong. I was worried about this match as Geelong have shown their (occasional) abilities this season and when they are playing at home it is dangerous. I didn't watch because our beloved local station doesn't think Canberra is in Sydney's demographuc and shows us other matches. Had I not been in bed I could have watched it on Foxtel. It may mean we drop out of the top 4 which has implications in the finals like getting a home final matchnbut let's not get ahead of ourselves

Snuffle. I am lying in bed with a box of kleenex and Della on my tummy. No points to those who guessed I have a cold. Still made it to see my GP at 7.30 but only because the Bear had to see him too. Unfortunately the GP was unwlling to change the dosage of one of my medications without my rheumatologist's blessing and I just discovered that said rheumatologist is in hospital and therefore unreachable. I do wish these doctors would notify all their patients before getting sick or leaving the country because it leaves us patients in limbo (I hope you know tongue is in cheek). I will have to muddle along not sleeping until I either see him or manage to beg GP to got out on a limb. Meanwhile other friend C is sick (as was my Bowen therapist) and I suspect one of them for giving me the cold. This is the only advantage to having friends who only contact you electronically. BFLB is trying to read between the lines of my blog, which even X2 says is written in my "public voice", rather than read the email I sent her saying what was going on in graphic detail. As I said befoe, you can't make people read email. After the dr visit I came home and went back to bed and slept (!) for 3 hours with The Imp on my tummy.

Had lunch with J where she looked at yarn from the stash to replace the scratchy stuff for her cardy. She chose some yummy wool/acrylic blend in blues and purples I bought for myself from Elann. (Do all the mentions of Elann in this blog give a hint to my yarn buying tendencies?) C discovered that "our" Patons now has a web site finally. Patons no longer has a mill in Australia because they decided just before knitting really took off that women don't knit anymore, according to the (male) manager. There is a mini-mill for sale in ebay Australia and we are all pining and then getting realistic. If I had the money I wouldn't be pining; .I'd buy it in a flash. Meanwhile I got some books on dyeing out of the Library to get ideas. The Dyer's Art is very inspirational especially when you think of the stunning results achieved in third world countries with little technological assistance (and no OH&S watchdogs either).

One of the things that's essential when you have a chronic disease is your support netowrk. By this I mean the medical professionals who understand your condition so you don't have to explain why you take all these medications and who know what you have been through already. Acute care is rare and I strongly encourage to have the kind of documentation rcclive mentions on her blog with you wherever you go. You can't anticipate where you might be when you fall or need to see an out-of-town medico and having this kind of information on you saves you trying to remember things while you are stressed.

I also mean those people whom you rely on for understanding and who don't recommend the latest fad diet/medication/herbal treatment that they are sure will cure you. The type who are there no-questions-asked when you need help and understand when you are a bit distant but are clued in to depression. Unfortunately I left those people behind when I left the States for sunny Australia. My darling Bear is a tremendous support and I couldn't function without him but he does have a demanding job. He's not a workaholic like my ex, but he's not easily budged when he's working and he does travel, altho not again as much as my ex. Email is not a reliable source of support because you can't make somebody email you or even read your emails. I'm still working on a support network here. I have a wonderful boss who is totally understanding about my unreliability but determination to work. I have a lot of friends here, all originating from the work environment but I'm still working on having that rock I can count on for shoulder-crying, bucking up, and reliability (not quite) 24/7. I don't come high enough on anybody's list of priorities yet so still feel somewhat isolated.

I publish this photo to prove I actually do knit. It is the front of S's Christmas sweater and since cables are my thing I am chugging along happily. It is in an Elann special superwash wool and is really what I would call British racing green. I also knitted a little bit on my summer weight socks and spun a little of the Brown Sheep mill ends. I sat down and finished my miniscule inkle braid in purple and pink crochet cotton which was done just to prove that the loom did actually work. There are 6 plastic net bags of fleece soaking in the washing machine which I hope didn't felt since this is the first time I've tried the machine method. This is the grey fleece bought in May and it turns out to be very dirty. The danger in buying a fleece in a bag is that you can't tell how dirty it is until you get down a layer or two into the bag. Here is some of my finely spun EL that I am so proud of. If it turns out to work in weaving I might be tempted to enter it in the Show (state fair to you in the US) considering it started with unwashed curly locks and ended up like this.
I am suffering the consequences of the craft show and then garden work. I slept very little Saturday and Sunday nights and was in a lot of pain during the day. Apparently that much standing was too much for my legs and the muscles are screaming. Neurontin had no effect. So I stayedl home today and slept and ironed and put wool in the washer. Some days are just write offs when you don't have control of your body.

Round 19 (and 18 since I forgot to post): two wins in a row, an unsurprising one over Essendon and a solid one yesterday against Melbourne which put the Swans in 3rd position on the ladder. This with Goldspink umpiring and even reporting Neitz for messing with Goodes. Will wonders never cease! I read in the paper yesterday that the defensive unit had studied videos of what and how umpires were calling various plays and altered their behaviour to be more effective. It's at this point in the season where I can easily become over-excited, consumed with footy and it is not good for my health (literally). Last year when it seemed unbelievable that we would actually go all the way after 72 years, it was kind of a dream, even though I knew they were playing really well. This year I know it could happen again and I must stay calm.

Yesterday I culled out the last of the dead berry bushes so the Bear could put up a new support for the trellis that they are attached to. The canes cane get so vigorous that they actually pull the steel lattice off the fence. It wasn't work that required a lot of strength or aerobic activity but a lot of stretching, bending, and pulling and my body paid a price for it. I slept very little last night because of the pain. I tried all my remedies except the alcohol taken internally (because I didn't want a hangover) but nothing really worked and I am still very sore. We also did some additional major pruning on the pear and the plumcot so the fruit will be within picking distance. Today I planted tomato seed.

I am making progress on the front of S's Christmas jumper but I worry that I have enough wool. I do according to the pattern instructions but it's disappearing rather quickly. Time to look for coordinating machine-wash wool?

I am seriously trying not to get too excited about the finals. Finals footy (what Americans would call the play-offs) is a whole different world where every game is crucial. We only have one potentially dangerous match left, against Melbourne this weekend and I know we can beat them, if we play well. At left is a photo of Michael O'Loughlin who is one of our true superstars (when he kicks straight). He is akin to Michael Jordan in that he can do impossible things with the ball and has great footy brain and knows when to do something unexpected and brilliant. A sneaky handpass to another player who kicks a goal while the other team is still concentrating on him. A kick from an impossible angle on the run. Picking up the ball and doing a 180 out of a tackle to kick a goal. He started playing in the seniors at 18 and is now 29 and one of the longest serving and highest scoring players we have. He kicked his 400th goal last weekend. And yes, despite his Irish name he is Aboriginal.

The first paragraph was written on Friday morning before I went the the Australian craft show where C and I trawled semi-quickly. I tried very hard not to look at quilting (but bought 3 fat quarters), skipped the scrapbooking, senciling, punchwork, sewing machines, embroidery (mostly). I was thrilled to see a small (and new) stall selling Procion dyes so I had to buy some. Then I caught a man explaining dyeing lace to somebody and butted in and asked if the dyes did wool too. Yes. Ozecraft dyes and they come in a wonderful range of muted soft colours because they are designed for people doing antique looking lace. So I collected 6 dyes from him. I don't think they go very far because he sells them to dye small items like fringe and lace but there should be enough to dye a small amount of yarn for a scarf. I bought two books, Stephanie's newest Knitting Rules! and Pat Ashcrofts No-pattern knits because I think it would be a new way to look at bits and pieces of yarn I've spun. There were so many beading booths and for the most part we by-passed them. With two exceptions: a Japanese guy selling the most gorgeous cloisonnee, glass, porcelain, onyx, etc. beads at ridiculous prices. I bought a pair of red cloisonnee earrings and a little pink cloisonnee jointed fish for A. At this point I called my boss who supposedly wants to do beading but turned down our offer to take her to the show and berated her for not coming because I was beginning to get sucked into beads and she would be in hog heaven. She promised next year (we'll see). Then there was a booth that was selling some already made up things like Christmas ornaments (which I am a total sucker for). While C was cruising I found one of the stall holders knitting with wire. Now I swore I would not do this but it looked so easy and the results were stunning. So I bought a spool of purple wire and a little kit for a necklace that has square opalescent beads in it. Can beads and cats co-exist? I think A would like a purple wire bracelet. I also bought some more scissors (can any craft person have too many scissors?) and a magnifier disc on a gooseneck that clips directly to your needlework frame. The magnifiers-on-goosenecks-on-stands didn't have necks long enough to get from my table to my needlpoint.

As an aside I went to Vision Australia a couple of weeks ago to see what handy hints and products they have. I bought a purse-sized magnifer that is much stronger than the one I have. This is for reading labels and instructions on boxes and bottles. I also got some marking do-dads so mark things like appliance plugs to tell you which way is up (Australian plugs have two prongs at a diagonal / and \ and a vertical prong centred below so up and down are important) and a lot of hints for coping. I was told not to drive at night (which I don't). They also had a magnifier light on a table stand. I wanted to see if there was similar at the show but there wasn't. I have one that attaches with a C-clamp (in theory) but it is unstable. The table stand one is the way to go and now I'll order it.

After the show C took me home and we talked to the cats a bit and then she left. I went to lie down and I slept for 2+ hours. My legs still hurt and my left knee has been very painful for the last week. I think a serious diet (like a liquid one) may be in the offing. Fruit season is about over and that's been my main thing. I went on the liquid diet in the states because of my knees and I may have to do it again. My "normal" genetically-induced weight (shape like my mother and sister) is not good for my joints and I am not ready for surgery.

This will be a image heavy post as I have a lot of things in the pipeline. Firstly a close-up of a lock of the new dark grey fleece. It is so crimpy and with the lanolin making it stiff it's almost like wire. I haven't seen such straight fine crimp very often. I will have to plan for this to bloom when washed. Might I even do a sample this time? Radical thought.
And here is the fabled inkle loom, properly warped this time although with a teeny warp of crochet cotton that will not yield anything more than a shoelace, if that. If you care, check out this site which is a help for inkling. I have bought cheap rolling kitchen stands with wire baskets underneath. I have one for the carder and one for the loom. I have lots of crochet cotton that I want to use and the English Leicester after I dye it.

Today also brought a box from Elann with a bunch of patterns, and this yarn Fibretrends lace scarf (lace? Maybe?), a pattern for a tote out of Himalayan recycled silk (in the stash) and a book of summer tops from Schachenmayr, most of of them showing much more skin than I would ever but there are a couple of intriguing ones: a jacket with lace sleeves and bottom edge and a lacey T-shirt. Lace is on my list of knitting resolutions and maybe with a DK cotton I can see well enough to do it? Other people produce lace shawls like it was easy. If I can spin, I should be able to knit lace. I have been in a knitting slump after the socks and need a kick in the posterior.

The house is fragrant as I have a pot of pumpkin soup on the stove, and a pot of veal & barley stew. When I came home from my Bowen therapy I went into the back yard to get some of the prunings to put in the trash pack and found a small grey cat on the back porch. It was The Imp! Somehow she must have zoomed out when I briefly opened the back door to decide whether to hang the laundry out. Which means she was out for hours! And she very definitely wanted to come back inside. I am heartened that she didn't think to stray. The yard is all fenced pretty high but we know how she can jump. Obviously curiosity didn't extend very far.

Round 18: Swannies beat Essendon (not surprisingly given their recent form) and are now 4th on the ladder. I am trying not to get excited about the possibilities for Sept. My friend J and I have a deal that we will go to the Grand Final together if we make it and this year there is nothing (aside from the expense) preventing us (last year we were leaving for the US in a few days and couldn't afford both). If we manage to stay in the top 4 we may get a home final which I would certainly want to go to.

Cognitive impairment. Two little words but boy they pack a punch. I used to be really smart. IQ130+, top of my class in everything, never took a course that was beyond me (except a couple where the sociological issues were the problem). Then I got FMS. I feel like I took a stupid pill. I have zero short term memory as well. I can't remember a phone number long enough to dial it. That's why I don't knit lace. How many stitches and how many rows? Arithmetic was never by strong suit but now sometimes adding one digit numbers is hard--I don't even know if the answer I came up with (13?) is the right one. It's doubly frustrating because I remember it wasn't always like this. I can still remember all the words to all the Beatles songs and most of the MARC I need for work but the little everyday things are really beyond me. And please don't give me, we're all getting older, because this happened relatively suddenly and I wasn't all that old when it happened. Those of you who can still do it (whatever the It is you want to do) be thankful that your brain chemistry isn't as screwed up as mine is. And BTW, that theory of FMS is the one I think is right, that the brain chemistry has gone kerfluey and your muscles don't do what you tell them to so you drop everything, etc.

What brought this on? I sat down and warped my new inkle loom this morning. And it just wouldn't work. I have a simpler inkle loom and I know how it works but this one just wouldn't. I looked at my book and the diagrams and I looked at the loom. I tightened and loosened. Finally I was getting so frustrated that I went out to the chemist and the P.O. (bye bye socks!) and came home and had lunch. Went back to the loom. Of course it wouldn't work. I had warped it the wrong way around. If you don't know how an inkle loom works I won't bore you but in the end I had to cut the warp off and start all over. If you cannot focus your brain, you can't see that your loom is not warped like the picture in the book. I now feel much more concern and compassion for those among us who aren't the sharpest tool in the shed. They aren't blogging and doing book reviews and it may not because of where they grew up or how their parents raised them. They may have been born with the stupid pill already engaged and looking at the diagram in the science textbook is not going to make sense no matter how long they look at it. So at least take pity on me when I can't figure out how to make change or remember your name even if I see you every day. There are some days when I wake up and don't even know my own name. I'm not really this stupid, really I'm not, at least not all the time (so far).

Am I making up for lost (blogging) time? Or more likely posting things I forgot the last time

For all spinners there is a great site I Can Spin which has videos of practically everything you ever wanted to know. The fibre prep I described earlier is there as are a lot of other helpful things. They were very helpful whan I was learning and they keep adding stuff. For all of yu who are learning on your own, this is a gold mine.

Round 17: Swannies beat Port in Adelaide in the pouring rain. Didn't watch again because Dr. Who is on at the same time as Saturday night games.(Just between us, I just don't get the whole Dr Who business. Maybe if you've been watcing it for years it it wonderful but I find it incredibly lame. Even now that the new Dr Who is David Tennant whom I absolutely love.) We are in 6th place on the ladder and I don't see any movement this week as top 8 teams are playing each other. If we don't finish in the top 4 we don't get a home final, but we managed to win the premiereship last year after an uneven season There is a new ad coming soon with website of Professor Barry Hall teaching you footy. It is very funny and be sure to put your mouse over the bear's head.

Why am I pining over some lovely Shetland fleeces? I adore Shetlands and there aren't any here so I drool over places like this. But with home repairs higher on the list of money outlays, I'd better wash the fleece I've got. I just got my copy of Spinning for softness and Speed by Paula Simmons (OOP; I havd to buy used via Amazon). I admire Paula's work but I didn't realize that the book is all about long-draw woolen spinning. Someday I will try it but I am now very happy with my inch-worm worsted spinning. I plied the CVM last night so I could spin more of something. Had half a bobbin of the Borwn Sheep mill end to did some more on that. It spins up surprisingly soft which makes it a real bargain. I may overdye this as I have lots of grey wool.

I also discovered that the real estate agent was partially fibbing regarding land in Victoria. There is a cutoff at 8 hectares but all it means is what you can do on land without a permit. Of course you have to get council approval for everything but there are several other blocks of land available (some he's even listed as agent for) so I think he was just pushing rural residential developments he was selling and we have to look harder. We also have to decide how far away we want to live. I decline the land with a beautiful view over the army's training ground as I don't want to exchange barking dogs for artillery.

Been quiet again. Been depressed again. Another death in the (extended) family. Generally feeling like I am always scrambling just to keep afloat. No progress on the things that I really want to do because I'm too busy doing laundry or catching up on sleep. I am taking another day off from work and hope I can warp the inkle loom before the siren call of ironing gets too compelling. I wish I could be one of those housewives who really didn't care. I know one who would rather read than clean and does so, and her house was past my pigstye level. There's a point when I can't stand how dirty the kitchen floor is, to use an example.That point comes a lot later than it used to but it still comes. The Bear could care less, but then he's a bear.

FO: socks. I'm going to start summer socks from Lana Grossa Cotton Fun. I discovered I had bought the same colour Regia cotton in both 50 gm and 100 gm balls. Maybe the Bear and I can have matching socks? The cardigan is a dead end. It was Bendigo Ready-spin of their "Rustic" red tweed. It's generally not very soft wool and the basket weave pattern emphasizes the edges and it was just too scratchy for the intended recipient. As soon as I manage to contact her to ask about a substitute (I will offer the alpaca and some other yarn from the stash) I'll start again. The Bear has managed to lose the jumper I knit him last. He claims he can't find it in the house; I am convinced he took it with him the China last December and it didn't come home with him. Gosh, I'll have to knit him another. The Rustic would suit him. I just wound off a bobbin of EL that I had spun & plied fine and I am over the moon with the results. I know you're not supposed to make handspun look as perfect as commercial yarn but this is pretty damn close, and considering it's a longwool taken from raw locks to fine yarn, I find this infinitely more satisfying than spinning some boring merino. It will make super straps for hard wearing purposes when dyed and woven on the inkle.

Spring is threatening to start early and I have paperwhites out already and the wattle is blooming. This prompted me to almost finish the pear tree's reduction in size but I need somebody taller to finish the plumcot so the possums don't eat all the leaves off it like they did last year.I pulled some weeds. planted 4 new strawberry plants, and some sweetpeas in the big terracotta pot. I bought pea seed and spinach seedlings and will dig out my lettuce seed and try and get them in the ground maybe tomorrow, although the work may come back to bite me tomorrow with sore muscles. I generally only care about my fruit and veggie garden and don't grow flowers except some spring bulbs and a few things in pots. I have raised beds for all the veggies. My fruit trees are: apricot, pear (packham), plumcot, and 3 plums, all late season. I also have raspberry vines, and logan-, boysen- and sylvanberry canes. The last are an Aussie cross of blackberries and boysenberries and are very vigorous. In December we are drowning in berries. My jam is known on 2 continents; I sell the excess at work and donate the money to charity.

First off, how many of you noticed that I didn't buy any yarn in Bendigo (except at the woollen mills and that's just because it's cheaper there)? I fondled some things but just thought about the yummy stuff in the stash and restrained myself. I have accomplished NOTHING today and am feeling cross. Well, I balanced the checkbook and brought it up to date from the trip and finished my article for Fiber Femmes but that doesn't seem like a lot. I put the new fibre away in the stash (The Bear added a new box for me that is almost Rubbermaid coffin sized).

Another poll
Bold the ones you've done..

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain (not a very big one)
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula (ick)
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said 'I love you' and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby's diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon (I want to!)
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse (greyhound yes, horse, no)
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly could
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer (3 even)
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was shit faced
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing (with my knees?)
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer then you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger's table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your cds
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Posed nude in front of strangers
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo (I want to)
81. Gone white water rafting
82. Been on television news programs as an "expert"
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music (if as part of a choir counts)
87. Eaten shark
88. Had a one-night stand
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror.
96. Raised children.
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
98. Created and named your own constellation of stars
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn't stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn't have survived.
105. Wrote articles for a large publication (only large in its context)
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Petted a stingray
110. Broken someone's heart (I hope not)
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a body part of yours below the neck pierced
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours (i had mono)
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone's mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Petted a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey
135. Selected one "important" author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you're living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn't know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146: Dyed your hair
147: Been a DJ
148: Shaved your head
149: Caused a car accident (technically speaking but it was a bad intersection)
150: Saved someone's life

The Show et al. I neglected to mention we made a stop at Bendigo Woollen Mills, actually 2 stops because I was so far gone on Saturday I couldn't think straight so we went back on Monday and I bought 1 kg of cream alpaca. Also a 200gm ball of 3 ply grey that I thought for weaving but socks for the Bear sound better, and a ball of their wool/angora blend because it's so soft.

The show has gotten bigger in that there are more tents, etc. set up for commercial exhibits. This is not a fibre festival the way, for example, Rhinebeck is. It is primarily an agricultural show, and the showing and judging of livestock is the reason it is there. It has accumulated other stuff around it. I saw no new sources of fibre than I had seen in the previous 2 years and aside from the tactile and visual experience of seeing fibre, you could do all of this online. Most of the main fibre exhibitors also go to the Canberra wool festival as the Old Bus Depot markets in May. I may go only one day next year as part of a visit to Bendigo and not do the whole shebang.

We looked at all the sheep except the merinos who are in their new exhibit hall, saw the goats, and lots of alpacas. I will be writing an article about the show for Fiber Femmes so I will not go into excrutiating detail here. There seemed to be more alpacas in this show but I wasn't counting. They are all adorable and there seemed to be many more black ones this time. I love looking at the rarer sheep breeds but unfortunately you don't find fleece from these breeds on offer in the commerical sites. I'd love to see Romney or Border Leicester cross fleece but we seem to be drowning in either non-breed identified (no doubt some cross with a merino in there somewhere) or specifically merino. I would have to contact a breeder if I wanted a fleece of a specific breed like Romney or as I did with English Leicester. The coloured sheep folks always have such lovely stuff and I once again succumbed to their goods, buying 2 kg of charcoal grey fleece (see photo at right) which has a staple length of about 5" and tips aren't very bleached. It was labelled as black but, even knowing we have no truly black sheep, I could see silvery hairs in this. The left is alpaca from Petlyn's who also make wool combs. The fleece feels light as air and has some darker streaks thoughout. I do love spinning and wish I had more time to knit so why am I blogging??? I am currently spinning some CVM (California Variegated Mutant) which came in a 1 oz sample of rare breeds I bought at Rhinebeck from Spirit Trail. It is dark brown and is spinning up very finely which I did not expect. I also now have a real inkle loom and now (I hope) can weave with cotton because this loom has a better shed opening than the one I had which could only handle fibres with give like wool and also had a much shorter length for the finished project. I also bought 100 gm lots of mohair/angora, Finn/cashmere, 100% cashmere (white), silk (dyed), Polwarth/silk (dyed), Optim (white) and lots of dyes, both Landscape and Gaywool, which were much cheaper than I found them elsewhere.

So where have I been for a week? Bendigo, Victoria, for the Australian Sheep and Wool Show. Well, that was Friday and Saturday. Wednesday we drove to Bendigo (ca. 6 hours), Thursday we drove to Melbourne (ca. 2 hours) to go to USA Foods where I stocked up on Jiffy corn muffin mix, Nestle butterscotch chips (and new white & dark chocolate chips!), A&W diet cream soda (they were out of root beer), etc. and went to a mega mall to pick up my new sewing machine that the clever Bear managed to get at a savings of $200. A Brother with probably more stitches than I will ever use but the companies insist on adding stitiches with other features like one-step buttonhole. I will give ever so much more detail and photos of the show in another posting so will just cover the outline here. We walked. A lot. And stood looking and things and talking to people. By the end of Saturday (after lunch) my legs were so sore that the muscles were starting to cramp and my feet were screaming. I had seen almost everything I wanted to altho I didn't take all the photos I had planned but I chose to retire to the caravan park cabin and rest my legs. Sunday woke up feeling really awful, lost my voice, started serious coughing and we decided to come home a day early.

I bought an inkle loom (Ashford), a set of mini combs, half a dark grey fleece (raw), a biggish bag of light grey alpaca, and smaller amounts of Finn/cashmere blend, 100% white cashmere, a small bit of silk, some more Polwarth from Wendy Dennis and when I described the trouble I had with the second lot of her hand-dyed she gave me free about 100 gms of natural Polwarth. Some Optim. Lots of dyes. There were fewer animals this time it is said due to the drought. There were very few angora goats but lots of alpacas. The special breed this year was merino and when you've seem 50 0r 60 merinos, you''ve seen them all. There were a lot more commercial displays selling everything from woks to socks.

We also got some bad news about our plans for relocating there and building a house on 15 acres. The zoning laws in Victoria really only allow "rural residential" developments with lots of 2-5 acres and "rural" which is over 20 acres. I have seen lots of ads for existing homes on the size of land parcel we want but finding vacant one is difficult. We did look at a couple that were in the 10 acre range but cost double what we want to pay but that also might be due to them being on the Melbourne side of town and are appealing to Melbournians. 10 acres was small, because they were close enough to other houses in these "rural residential" developments. Some were flat & treeless, some were very steep with trees. We need to look in other areas and perhaps reconsider the building option and look at existing homes when we are ready. There were many ads for existing homes that sounded just like what we want at lower prices than our home would sell for today, but we will have to see what happens in the years between now and retirement. I still really like Bendigo.

Roumd 16: Swannies soundly beat Richmond and looked good. Last minute inclusion due to injury was a rookie named Heath Grundy who kicked 3 goals. What kind of a name is Heath Grundy for a footy player? Don't care as he was remarkably composed for a 20 year old playing his first match. Kirky (pictured earlier) had a sickening injury when a Richmond player managed to kick him in the head in a high kick and Kirk was out cold. AFL players can easily kick over their heads and Kirky went down hard. Of course, once he came to, he was back out sitting on the bench, but that's the kind of player he is. I discovered that when you are in Victoria footy is everywhere but they forget that there are teams outside Victoria (or try to).

A wet dreary weekend resulted in not much activity from anyone. I spent a lot of time trawling real estate ads to no great result. I plied the 2 bobbins of grey wool from the Brown Sheep mill ends and finished a second bobbin of English Leicester. I managed to generate a bit more enthusiasm for the cardigan and knit solidly on it one evening. I also knit about an inch and a half on the second sock (the mate to the blue/purple Trekking one).

Quite a bit of furor this week in the Swans due to Nick Davis publicly objecting to being dropped from the side, which is something you are not supposed to do.Only idiots like Jason Akermanis do that. He seems to have calmed down now. He hasn't been playing all that wonderfully and we need him to kick goals and he hasn't been. The boys lost again to West Coast Saturday night. They did seem to play more as a team than they have in a while but still couldn't kick straight. The umpiring was appalling and even the commentators noticed that our dear friend McLaren in one quarter gave 9 free kicks to the Weagles and none to the Swans. The Swans were leading by 36 points about midway but the Eagles woke up in the third quarter while the Swans couldn't get a thing to go their way. The mid-field was trying hard but the ball wasn't going across the goal line. In the end they lost by 2 points in the dying seconds.

Book report: finished White Mughals by William Dalrymple. It was an interesting story but not the one I was expecting. Instead of being a summary of how some group of British in India adopted the native lifestyle, it was the story of a particular cross-cultural love affair, in sometimes excuriating detail. While the detail was impressive in its scholarship and was useful in painting a picture of the cultures in contact, it didn't make for gripping reading. Instead of a survey we were told of one story as an example, and a particularly sad one. What was interesting to me who has read a fair bit about the Raj was that this all occurred in the early days of the British in India, when the kingdoms were still theoretically independent. After the 1820's this changed and after the Mutiny in 1857 everything changed completely. The kingdom in detail was Hyderabad and I did learn that my favourite Indian dish (biryani) originates there. I'd love to eat may way through India if I though my delicate digestion could handle it. I have no problems with Indian restaurant food but the real thing might be different. My new BBBB (Big boring bedtime book) is Voyages of Delusion ; the quest for the northwest passage by Glyn Williams.

There is an absolutely wonderful spinning tutorial on FiberLife which says everything I wish I had been told when learning to spin. I am in a rut of wanting to spin much more than I want to knit and I have this cardigan that I promised somebody I'd knit. I pull it out and knit on it for about 45 minutes and then am lured back to the wheel. Maybe I need to hide the wheel or something.

The Bear has done all the comparison shopping on a new sewing machine and we will get one when we go to Melbourne next week. A Brother that of course does all sorts of fancy stitches I will never use, but also has one step buttonholes and a drop in bobbin. My cheap Singer was OK 15 years ago and I have a vintage Singer in a bentwood case but that is only for quilting. I bought it for $20 in a yard sale and had it refurbished.

It was agreed by all concerned at work that the stuff I am working on now is Important and therefore more valuable than cataloguing the bloody pamphlets. Thank G, because it's much more interesting and rewarding to untangle a mess and sort out a whole bunch of Real Books instead of cataloguing political pamphlets and teaching aids that clutter up the pamphlets and may be Important fram a Knowledge view but cleaning up Book Messes makes our existing material truly available to the reader and frees up shelf space which we desperately need. I am basically trawling the stacks looking for stuff that has been given a geographical Dewey ending and looking for the magic 994 which is Australia. I am up to 331

Does one sock qualify as a FO? Here is the first of the Trekking socks. I needed to finish something to make myself feel better. You may notice safety pins on the toes. Instead of finishing toes when I finish the sock I transfer the stitches to safety pins until I finish the second sock. I am one of those people who hates Kitchener stich (and don't tell me it's easy) so I turn them inside out, transfer the stitches back onto needles and do a 3-needle bindoff which I think is better anyway. Some of my vintage sock patterns even state that it is the preferred method, so there. Altho the pattern of the wool hides it well, the top is a boken rib (one row 2x2 rib, one row plain stocking stitich). I am not a person who tries on socks as she goes, since I knit to measurements, so you will only see socks once finsished.

I also got in the post yesterday a package from Elann with 10 balls of Portofino in red and a pattern for a summer top. I am a devote of Classic Elite and have knit so many of their patterns I've lost count. I ordered this forgetting I already had a red cotton top in Classic Elite Newport Cotton, but you can always use another cotton top. Portofino is almost a cotton blend boucle and seems very soft and fluffy. I ordered from Fuzzy Mabel some cotton sock yarn and 2 Elizabeth Lavold pattern books, figuring I needed patterns more than more yarn altho I really like this Portofino....

Spent yesterday working and listening to podcasts. I love NPR and Radio National podcasts and Andrew Denton's podcast of his show, this week it was Chris Martin of Coldplay (do I have to say I am a huge fan of the band?) and, as usual, it was a lively conversation. I also like NPR's Hidden kitchens as it brings back memories of all the pancake breakfasts, spaghetti dinners and other eating experiences of the US that don't seem to exist here. The only common ones are a sausage sizzle and a lamington drive. A sausage sizzle is simply somebody grilling generic sausages usually with onions and served on a bun or sometimes with just a slice of bread around it. Australians are extremely addicted to sausages. If you don't care to know what went into them, they are one of the cheapest meals you can make (before lamb chops went up in price). There are also many varieties of flavoured sausages from beef & onion to turkey with sage. My favourite was "traditional satay sausages" which gives you an idea of how far Asian tastes have permeated Australian cuisine if one can use "cuisine" when talking about sausages. A Lamington is a cube of sponge cake usually about 2" on a side that has been covered in chocolate icing (a thin cover, not a frosting) and rolled in dessicated coconut which is small, dry flakes. In days gone by, mothers made them to sell for fund-rasiers. These days if there is a drive to sell them, they are usually commercially made. As you might guess from the description they aren't all that simple to make and are best made in quantity.

My annoyance of the week was discovering that my sewing machine was broken again. I had it fixed relatively recently for the same fault (bobbin won't wind) and I am tired of pumping money into a machine that was cheap to begin with. I think I am in the market for a new one.

I haven't posted in a while as I have been feeling rather down and tend to turn inward when this happens. I have finished carding the white of the spotted fleece into nice fluffy clouds. I have almost filled a bobbin with EL quite finely spun. I have knit only on a sock while watching "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" on DVD. The Swannies lost to Adelaide and I didn't even watch. I finished reading Janet Evanovich's latest Twelve Sharp which was good as usual and am reading the latest Kathy Reich. As a matter of fact I am going to curl up under the doona (no doubt with a cat) and read it now. Am feeling sore and grumpy so I won't bore the world with it.