caracolina

I’ve yet to upload a photo but I managed to spin two bobbins and ply them, my very first 2-ply! I used some pink dyed stuff from yarn school and it looks nice for a first effort. Unfortunately the singles were kind of loose so that they kept falling apart during the plying. I better practice a lot more!

I am done with my Chemistry midterm (92%!!!) and have submitted all homework up to the 7th of January so we can escape to Santa Barbara over Christmas. I can’t wait to  be done with these classes!

For the last two years we have attended the lumaria nights at the Botanical Garden and loved them. We would stroll through the park and enjoy all those different musical groups, most of them acoustic. There were people playing banjo, viola, guitar, American Indian flute, harp, a gospel group, a handbell choir, a barbershop quartet (our favorite), and a jazz band (the only act with electric amplification).

We bought our tickets for tonight long ago, looking forward to reliving another evening of seasonal joy, no matter that the prices were raised noticably over last year (from about $16 to $25 per person). So it wouldn’t be much of a surprise that we were shocked to find that most of the performers we new and loved were not in the park this year. Instead of most of the acoustic performers they had brought on 3 jazz type bands and a flamenco guitar player, all with electric amps, so that all could be heard simultaneously from the center of the park. Gone was the barbershop quartet, the cowboy singer, the gospel group. Only the handbell choir remained to serve holiday cheer. We were so disappointed! No fans of modern jazz we felt alienated by the overpoweringly loud music. After only twenty minutes I let John talk me into going back to the entrance to find someone to complain to. He talked to a very friendly and professional woman who basically told us that since this was an anniversary year they thought they’d try something different and it was only natural that some regular visitors would be turned off by it. Amazingly, she agreed to give us a refund, which was nice since the tickets were so expensive. We still love the park (we’ve been members on and off over the last years), but I don’t think we’ll bother coming back for luminaria nights.

So I finally made it. I turned 40 years old today. I am my old man’s old lady, one could say. But frankly, I feel great, better than ever. And John came up with a huge surprise that really helped sweeten the deal. Yes, in spite of giving me the speech a couple weeks ago that I better not be disappointed because he didn’t have any presents or surprise for me he went all out and showered me with gifts that go beyond the monetary.

In the morning he gave me a present, a cute Hello Kitty lap table, for making sandwiches in the car. That was a really nice idea since usually I end up spreading mustard over the map, my pant legs, and whatever the knife or the mustard bottle decides to roll over. The odd thing though was that John handed me a card that was decidedly unromantic. It just had a big 40 printed on it and there were no personal words inside AT ALL. I thought that was a bit fishy, but oh well, at least there was a card, right?

Hours later at the office, the engineering team piled into Alan’s truck to go for lunch. Alan had worked on me for weeks to decide where to go for my birthday lunch, so I relented and voted for Pei Wei. At some point though I noticed that we were still on the 101, heading for our exit at Cave Creek, which meant that we had overshot our destination. Innocently I asked “what are we doing here….?” and Alan divulged that John had wanted to join us for lunch and asked to be picked up. Oh well, no reason to become really suspicious – yet. However, as we pulled up to our apartment and I didn’t see John outside I was beginning to have second thoughts. After all, why couldn’t he meet us somewhere? Wouldn’t we have to drop him back off at he house after lunch? We pulled up in front of our stairs and Alan said “Go, grab him.” But as I was halfway up the stairs, the truck sped off. Well, now something was certainly up and I resolutely stepped up to the landing. What I saw was that our door was covered with a long printout with remarks about turning forty, including to take a deep breath (40 if I needed), close my eyes and come in, so I followed instructions and opened the door.

When I opened my eyes I couldn’t believe what I saw. John had strung several pieces of fishing wire across the room and presents were dangling from them. Tons of presents. They were numbered with star-shaped post-it notes. I got to open them one by one starting with #1, a huge, custom-made, beautiful, super-romantic card which made me cry. Then it was on to books and magazines about spinning and dyeing, all the tools and gadgets that I had talked about buying but hadn’t gotten around to yet, tons of fiber, cotton, flax, hemp, silk. I welled up a few more times when I carefully opened all those beautifully wrapped presents (all different paper, too).

Finally, the last present was outside. John had sanded and finished our old gardening shelf in the last weeks and stocked it with everything needed for dying fiber, gloves, masks, pots, bowls, even a microwave, hotplate, and crockpot. He made me my own dye lab! I can’t believe I didn’t realize that I hadn’t looked out on the back balcony in weeks! The amount of intelligence that went into this is staggering. I feel incredibly lucky, not just because I just got a load of presents (and I here I was in the morning, explaining to coworkers that I don’t care much about material things, ha!) but because I have a guy that cares enough for me to go through months/weeks of secret preparation to surprise the living daylights out of me. Needless to say EVERYONE else knew but me. He chatted with a number of people at the local yarn stores (LYS) as well as out of state places to get me the best of everything. I love you, Jaanu! Thanks is a word that seems small in the face of this huge effort.  

I was back at work for the full day today and mostly fine except for some extensive sneeze and cough fests. My favorite moment was on the phone with a colleague were I couldn’t get out an entire sentence because of the coughing and tossing the receiver back and forth so I wouldn’t cough into her ear, juggling with tissues, cough drops, pens, etc. It basically went like:

“And also because …hold on… *coughcoughcough*”
“Sorry, so because he said …one moment… *COUGHCOUGHCOUGHCOUGH*”
“Hang on, I have to take a cough drop…”
“So, as I was saying …hang on” *coughcoughCOUGHCOUGH*

 I love those Ricola honey lemon cough drops, but I swear they make those rough and edgy on purpose for that “rustic and handmade” look instead of thinking about people’s mouths. The roof of my mouth and my tongue are sore from trying to get those cough drops to dissolve faster to suppress  the coughing urge. Maybe next time I’ll try Robitussin after all.

Actually, I found out they still make the cough syrup of my childhood, which I loved. It was measured out in drops on a teaspoon of sugar. Maybe I should ask my Mom to bring a bottle or two when she comes to visit.

John got a cold/cough after we came back from Oregon. I thought it would pass me by even thought just about everybody in the office was sniffling. Well, now I’ve got it. In true form, it started on Friday and I’ve been in and out of bed all weekend. I’m trying to finish a couple more chapters/labs for Chemistry to be able to prep for the midterm… but I also wanted to get a little spinning in. Probably won’t happen, though. Bummer.

I finally got some quality time at the wheel today. After several hours of frustration, struggling, handwringing, and nearly freaking John out, I reached the point again where I get a continuous thread (not very even, yet, of course). Predrafting really helped, because the roving I’m using has some felty spots. And I don’t just mean splitting the roving in half lengthwise, but actually tugging the fibers gently to ensure that they would spin smoothly. Doing this really fluffed them up a bit, too. Thanks for your patience with me, sweetheart! I promise to get better.

My Fricke spinning wheel was delivered today by UPS. John and I put it together after dinner. I tried it out, but it is obvious that I need a lot more practice. I’m getting some books from the library tomorrow to help me with potential pitfalls. I don’t really have that much time to indulge in practicing right now, unfortunately, because I have a bunch of assignments due. I hope to be able to spend some quality spinning practice time on the weekend, though. Right now I’m really tired, so it is off to bed.

Today my big box of fiber goodies arrived from Harveyville, Kansas. Some of it I ordered, some of it Nikol sent as a thank-you for ordering my Fricke from her (thank you, Nikol!) John is feeling a little overwhelmed with how much stash I have now, I’m afraid. There’s a lot of undyed fiber, and I’m hoping to get a chance at some dyeing soon. I’ll probably practice spinning with the dyed stuff I have first, though. My wheel is scheduled to arrive tomorrow…

I’m so excited because tomorrow we’ll be on our way to the Oregon coast. This seems to become an annual thing with us and I can’t wait. Now I only have to shove odds and ends (mostly knitting) into my backpack and then try to find some sleep, because we have to get up around 4 AM.