Cat House photos

I finally figured out that Snapfish is a decent way to share photos and tell a story at the same time, so I've been working on that in odd moments today. I've only got a few captioned. If you want the real story, check it out. When I'm finished. I mean, you don't want to miss a good story.

*UPDATE* The captions are complete. Enjoy. I mean, you certainly wouldn't know that the sixteenth photo of the carpet in the living room actually IS the carpet in the living room if I didn't tell you.

Wedding Stole pics

The Wedding Shawl. Not this color at all. Can't get the beads to show (so far they're just along the outside edges).


More accurate color. 55/45 cashmere silk lace. I'm heading out to buy a lace needle, something I never thought I'd need.



It's affishul.



Tom, after I hit him with the cast iron skillet.

Happy New Year!

Mountain road

I don't understand how trees and bushes hang on to the little bit of soil mixed in with the rocks where the road crews have blasted their way through rock. Yesterday we got caught behind a big truck going up the mountain, so I took the opportunity to take some (bad) photos of some of my favorite spots on the Virginia side.

One of these days we'll take the time to (carefully; the road is full of blind curves and idiots drive too fast) document my favorite spots on the way up the mountain on this side. It's really got some great rock formations.

Rain drops

Our slice of the mountain

Looking toward Virginia.

Zippy frolics on the "lawn".

Our stream.

Another view.

Whatever this is, it's really cool. I guess it's moss or (my mind has gone blank) "flowers"?

Chester covers his business. He looks a little too sublimely happy.

Mushroom forest.

The King is pleased with his kingdom.

Almost heaven

Yes, I know that the song was written about western Virginia, but I live in West Virginia and they long ago adopted the song as their own. *insert your own West Virginia joke here*

This is the road we drive twice a day. (Technically, Tom drives most of the time, but I'm in the car. Usually.) This is on the West Virginia side. The Virginia side is beautiful too, but the road's too narrow and even curvier, so it just isn't safe to stop for casual photos.

There's one spot, the last sharp curve, on the way down the mountain (where our XM radio always cuts out) that has the most beautiful rock formations that are going to come crashing down at any second, so I wanted to get some photos before they did.

I can't remember what kind of rocks these are; shale, maybe? I'm too lazy, as usual, to look them up.

If you look closely, you can see where the WV Dept. of Transportation or roads or whatever goes to great pains to cover graffiti. Out here in the sticks we've got a lot of wanna-be artists, or at least idiots who want to deface natural beauty. As soon as graffiti appears, WV sends out people to spray-paint the rocks closer to their natural color than the white or day-glo pink that Homer used to declare his love of Juniebug 4ever.

From a car, it's a lot less noticeable, but any way I look at it, it's a lot nicer to see than the obscene graffiti on the Virginia side of the mountain.

I'd show you some pics, but I'm not willing to stand in the middle of a blind curve and take them.

I got The Stupids

I sincerely believe that school systems should give out paid mental health days. I don't know exactly what has caused it, but I've got a bad case of The Stupids and am plumb out of sick leave this year. I could use a couple of mental health days about now.

I don't know if it's the long stretch between spring break (week after Easter, but we Must. Not. call it Easter Break) and Memorial Day with no days off, or if it's traveling so much on the weekends, or if it's this pattern I'm test-knitting for Claudia, but I'm Stupid. Nothing goes right. I can't think any longer. The simplest tasks become monumental disasters. I don't want to work.

Not that that's news. But after feeling so great since spring break, right now I just want to hide. The feeling started yesterday and is getting stronger. I don't want to do the things my boss asks me to do. I don't have any energy or motivation. I want to go outside and feel the sun on my face and do nothing.


I take that back. I do want to plant the flowers and herbs I bought last week. We have a great horticulture program here at school and they grew some particularly nice flowers and herbs this spring. I took home three boxes, bought several more at WalFart, and I want to dig in the dirt and see the color of the flowers and smell the herbs. I just don't want to do it today.






But the worst part of The Stupids is affecting my knitting. Claudia asked me to test-knit a pattern for her using her glorious Fingering 55, 55% silk 45% merino, in an earthy colorway (if I could remember what it was, I'd tell you, but The Stupids has interfered with my memory, which is bad on a good day). It's a simple pattern, garter stitch, yo, slip first stitch purl last stitch pattern. Wouldn't you think I could handle that? After all, I can knit socks. If I can knit socks, I can knit this with my eyes closed.


Well, knitting it in the dark certainly didn't help any, but I kept forgetting to purl the last stitch, and that's crucial to the look--and the blocking--of the piece, so I've un-knit more than I've actually knitted. Many, many times. I'm ready to throw the whole thing into the river. Any river. The creek at home will do. But that gorgeous yarn, and my fear of Claudia's reaction, plus the promise of much more yarn when I turn this finished piece in, keeps it in my hands or knitting bag where I'll give it yet one more try. And another. And another and another and another.

Because I sure don't expect the rest of this thing to go any better.

(This doesn't show the luminous beauty of this yarn at all. Maybe someday I'll get a photo in the sun--if I ever get out in the sun again, that is.)

Opportunities lost

Sorry, I just haven't had time or the motivation to write this week. Work has been busy, although yesterday we went to a workshop in Winchester at the Handley Library. I highly recommend visiting it if you're in the area; it's an architectural delight.

And of course I didn't have my camera with me (or my jacket, but I didn't think I'd need that, either). I always have my camera with me. It's one of those Don't Leave Home Without It things for me, but the new one is too big for my purse, and I've stopped carrying the old one because it made my purse so heavy, and I just didn't think I'd need one for a workshop.

Wrong. Wrongwrongwrongwrongwrong.


This isn't a great photo of the place. The second I saw it, I was in love. Inside it's even better. The rotunda is the entrance; it's three stories high and has stained glass inside. I can't begin to do it justice by describing it. I have to go back and photograph it.

After the workshop, Mary and I ate lunch at the pedestrian mall a couple of blocks away. We ate at a small bakery/cafe and sat outside. Again, gorgeous architecture all around, trees just beginning to leaf, lots of restaurants with outside seating, people walking by with their dogs. So many photo opportunites, and me with no camera.

We got back to school just in time for me to go to Claudia's to work, so I didn't go back upstairs to get my bag. (It's a long long loooonnnnnnggggg walk from the parking lot to my office.) It wasn't till I was on my way to pick up Tom that I realized that my camera was in that stinking bag in my stinking office (well, the office doesn't stink; I have my little Ionic Breeze on my desk and I forgot to turn it off before we left for the workshop, and there are lilacs on my desk.) and didn't have the stinking camera all evening.

Which sort of didn't matter, as it turned out. Claudia didn't need me to work, but she wants me to knit some test garments for her new book of patterns. I cleaned my glasses, which had been filthy for several days, and they. snapped. at. the. nosepiece. In half.

Now, I'm extremely nearsighted, and I really can't read just using my left eye anyway (macular degeneration, 20% blind in that eye, the rest blurry, blah blah blah), so I was fortunate (?) that it was the left lens and earpiece that broke off. I tried to superglue it together, but that didn't work. It glues my fingers together, so I thought it was worth a shot.

I could wear the right half of the glasses, since the nosepiece was still intact for that much of the glasses. I drove to pick up Tom, very carefully, and we went to Costco to see if they could fix them. I was sure they couldn't as they don't keep actual stuff there; everything has to be sent off for a week to ten days.

I couldn't possibly go without them for that long, and I'm not sure where my old glasses are.

Anyway, long story shorter, they were able to take the piece off another pair of old glasses they had lying around. I can see again. And I've made an appointment with my regular eye doctor (retinologists don't "do" glasses prescriptions) for another eye exam and prescriptions for both glasses and contacts. It's not till May 9, so I hope my glasses will hold up till then. I hope they'll stay clean till then.

And this time I'll buy a back-up pair of cheap glasses.

Happy dance

I got my new camera last night! As usual, I'm too impatient to wait; in this case, to wait for Mr. Bush to finish signing my incentive check and put it in the mail. So last night I casually suggested that we stop by Circuit City to check out the cameras.

I'd decided on a Canon S5 IS because it appeared to have almost everything I wanted in a point-and-shoot camera: good macro setting (even super macro), decent wide-angle and zoom, can be used like an SLR if desired, image stabilization (for those shaky days) and face detection technology, and other things I can't remember here. Oh yes, it had to be under $450, and this one was $329. I hadn't handled one, so that had to be a big consideration, the way it would feel in my hands.

I'd have loved to have a DSLR; some of them are reasonably priced, but with a telephoto lens, which I'd have to have, I just couldn't hold it steady. Since I take lots of photos of far-away stuff, that just wouldn't work. So I opted for a nearly-DSLR.

I've only taken a few photos with it; it was getting dark when we got home last night, and I really have no idea how to use it for even the simplest photos. I was trying to photograph the yarn on my desk but had a difficult time getting a clear picture, so who knows what I did to the settings when I played with it.

I took some pictures of it with my old camera, which will soon be on its way to J. If/when I learn to use the new one!!!

I didn't realize till I got it home that it has a USB card reader with it, so I don't have to hook up the camera to the computer and waste batteries uploading photos:

This is what I have to wade through in order to learn how to use this camera. Auuuggghhh!

What it came down to, though, when choosing a new camera, was the batteries it uses. I really wanted a Sony H7; it has really good reviews, has so many manual settings and longer telephoto plus 15x zoom; this one has 12x zoom, which is close enough. But the Sony H7 uses a proprietary (read: expensive) lithium ion battery, which no doubt will last a lot longer while shooting photos, but the expense is what stopped me. A spare rechargeable battery is $60. The Canon S5 IS uses 4 AA batteries, which I can find anywhere anytime. I know that in the long run I'll end up spending a lot more on AAs than if I bought the rechargeable, but AAs are just so much easier to deal with. And if I want to, I can use rechargeable AAs; somewhere I have some batteries and the charger.

So. I have my new camera. I've done my part to jump-start the economy. Now I just need to learn how to use the thing!