i've got lots of things to blog about, just very little time in which to do it. Check out the snow from yesterday, we ended up with several inches of very heavy, wet snow. lovely to look at.

tomorrow i head to D.C. and the marathon is on Sunday. wish me luck! i'm number 12,567,123. okay, that's an exageration. but i swear that i'm number 12,000 something. so if you're there watching, cheer for me!

onto some knitting - here's the french market bag. easy and fun, quick and satisfying to knit. i think i might do more for holiday gifts. okay, out of time. but check back next week for a marathon report!

pumpkin patch

i've been looking at a lot of gratuitous pumpkin patch shots lately. now, i have a cute baby and plenty of nearby pumpkins - but yet no cutesy shots of baby by pumpkins. so please see above for my pumpkin patch pic. it's a watercolor that i did several years ago inspired by the Charlie Brown Great Pumpkin theme.

I've had a lot of lovely orders for my store this week. i love getting orders. i love preparing and sending packages to all different parts of the country and sometimes to Canada too. tonight i'm in a bit of a bind. A couple of orders are waiting to be made up and shipped out, however, K. woke up 20 minutes after i put him down screaming his little head off. the only thing he wanted was 'mamas bed'. so there he is. and so are my supplies for the orders. well, they're in the closet, he's in the bed. if i go in the closet, he wakes up and then i won't be able to use the supplies. so, i'm working on a few other projects and crossing my fingers that the stars will align and i'll get everything packed up and out the door first thing tomorrow morning.

tomorrow i'll try to post some photos of the finished scarf and the market bag in progress. for some reason i keep dropping stitches on the bag which is really bizarre as i've never been a stitch dropper in the past...

rain happens

i haven't felt a whole lot like posting over this weekend. dh lost his job on friday. goodbye stable income. goodbye health insurance. goodbye free climbing gear. please don't say anything to try to pluck me up. nothing about 'when one door opens...' nothing about 'really, it's probably a good thing.' because right now it just sucks.

it rained all weekend. all weekend. every last moment. with two weeks to go until the marathon this was my big 20 miler weekend and i had to do it in the pouring rain, with winds gusting 30-50 mph. my gore paclite jacket worked for the first 8 or so miles, but then i was just wet. but i did it and i'm wicked proud and feeling like i can do this marathon.

the winooski river crashing over a dam after a weekend full of rain.

nice progress on the french market bag. i'll try to post some pics later this week when i'm feeling a bit more plucky.

not for the faint of heart

Mim is celebrating her blogiversary in grand, um, style with a contest in which you post a photo of your feet.

Before you look at my feet, i just want you to know that i know that they're not pretty. they never have been. they're wide and bumpy with a lump on each side that looks like some sort of 6th toe. at one point when and ex-boyfriend was a new boyfriend he was telling me how much he loved feet and toes. feet and toes. 'that's nice,' i said, 'but you won't find my feet very attractive.' 'no,' he said with a gleam in his eyes, 'i'm going to love your feet.' after he saw them i never heard about his foot thing again.

after all the trail runs this year my feet are in worse shape than ever. My second toes are still bruised from Double Trouble 15k trail run in June. My big toes are bruised from the Jay Challenge 1/2 marathon at the end of July. and marathon training is not helping with my third toe bumps. that birthmark on my left foot is a potential tool for identification if i were to die some horrific death. oh, and they're hairy. so after all that fanfare, here are my not pretty, not cute at all -- feet:



here is that Cherry Tree Hill worsted in what will become a french market bag. doesn't it knit up pretty?


after admiring so many lace projects (and finishing my complicated skull illusion scarf) i decided to cast on the Branching Out scarf and give lace a try. i'm using Rowan Kid soft, a discontinued yarn or color or something that i picked up from ebay for a sweater that i decided not to do. after frogging once and two pattern repeats, i think i have the hang of it. the yarn is really fuzzy and the pattern might look better on larger needles, or maybe once it's blocked. but for now it's a great learning piece.

8 miles

that's how far i ran today. i should have run 12 miles, but i ran out of light and time. it's good that i'm not following a set marathon training plan because then i would be upset at having messed it up. but my plan is to follow a non-plan so that i don't feel bad when training schedules get interrupted, which they will when one has a two year old.

we'll our trip to PA was quite a rainy adventure. we had a ride on a steam train which was quite a hit. then it rained and rained and rained and rained some more. i finished the knitting on the skull illusion scarf, fringe and blocking will render it a true finished object. And cast on my french market bag. I didn't do the dpn base as i only had three of my dpns with me. the other two are in my rock climbing back pack because i was working on a drawstring during lulls in my climbing last wed. must remember to get those out and finish that drawstring.

busy making stuff

i just poured a batch of Chamomile and Calendula soap, it's a lovely butter yellow color at the moment and i'm really interested to see how it sets up. i wanted to do something really gentle and without any added fragrances (but it still smells nice because of the flowers.)

Finally, I grafted the crotch of the HPY perfection pants that i finished in early August. I just put it off because we didn't need them right away. Now his pants are all getting too short so it's time to get these into rotation. They're finished and blocked, just waiting for me to finish the drawstring and they're ready to go.

We head down to visit the folks this weekend and so tomorrow night i need to decide what projects i want to take down with me. there will be some knitting in the car time and hopefully a lot of down time while I'm there. A cousin is about to have a baby, so there will have to be a cute little newborn hat and i think i have just enough of the Blue Sky Organic Cotton left in appropriate boy colors.

K. is going to be two years old next week. I wasn't planning on doing a party for him, I've already been to a party for a two year old and it's just chaos. But as it turns out, his birthday is on a day that I don't have to work, he's been talking about it for a week now and so we'll be doing a little shindig for his closest 2 year old friends. Between now and this party I have absolutely no time at home due to this trip and working, so it's not going to be the craftiest of events. but that'll have to do.

vermont sheep and wool show

today K. and i went to the vemont sheep and wool show at the fairgrounds. it was a hit. the sheep were very accommodating with lots of loud 'baaaaaa'-ing and the alpacas were funny in their alpaca sort of way. i wish that i had been there alone or with an assistant as it was hard to really take everything in while still making sure that K. was okay and not wrecking the displays. i ended up coming home with a skein of handpainted alpaca(left) from a very busy lady from NY state and a skein of handpainted rommney(sp?) wool(right) from VT. the colors in the alpaca are so gorgeous and it was the only one she had like it. i'm glad we were there early as by the time i went back to buy the skein her booth was packed and there were lot of others checking out what was to be my skein of handpainted goodness.


i'm trying to quickly knit a skull hat for K. it appears that i might be trying to knit too fast:

i think i'll just go with it for now.

and finally, it's autumn. time to celebrate the apple.