Just minding my own beeswax - chatting cooking, kids, knitting, travel, and life in general


Tuesday, February 28, 2006

i didn't podium

The Knitting Olympics have come to an end .... and I didn't quite finish. Part of my goal was to not procrastinate, and on that level I did pretty well. I did get one legwarmer done and most of the poncho though had to change patterns. I'll post pics tomorrow, no proscrastinating, just can't find the camera.....

Here's some of the excuses: messed up on the pattern, didn't have a snowstorm to keep me in, the yarn was harder to work with, blah blah blah. Here's the reason: I bit off more than I could chew in the short amount of time I had to knit. I was feeling a bit disappointed, but when I stopped by yarnharlot.com -- Stephanie Pearl-McPhee made me feel a-ok about it. It is so true what poeple say about Canadians being so darn nice! Here's what she has to say about those of us who kind of 'Bode-d' :
"Finally, for my chosen knitters, those who did not finish...

My deepest thanks and greatest satisfaction in the knitting olympics comes from you. Without trying there is no improvement or learning, without difficulty there is no striving. It was the sheer volume of knitters that gave this the incredible momentum, velocity and significance it has had for all knitters (and quite a few non-knitters who really were stunned.) More than anything else this ended up being about an international community of knitters...and there are no losers at the Olympics. Even if you dropped the pattern in a puddle the first day...even if you grossly overestimated your available time, or if you got to rock a baby instead of knit...you still made the Olympics memorable. It takes a village to freak out non-knitters...and there is strength in numbers."

It's very true -- and thanks again to Stephanie for bringing together this international community.

Friday, February 24, 2006

mink in the sink


If all has gone right, this should be a picture of Mink de Ville, kitty extraordinaire! Named for 80s Puerto Rican Punk, Mink has mink-like fur sleek black with brown fuzzy fur underneath. Mink likes hugging, talking to imaginary friends, gnawing pencils, bamboo knitting needles and basket handles.
This is my first successful picture post - I feel trimuphant.

Friday, February 10, 2006

knitting olympics - day one

Today I got everything ready for the next 16-day flurry of knitting. I will begin with a pair of legwarmers for Kitten, who's 11 going on 17. I will be using Joelle Hoverson's pattern from "Last Minute Knitted Gifts". It's a great book with fun goodies, it's broken down by what she gauges to be the length of time it takes to make the item. The "Super East Leg Warmers" are in the two-to-four-hour gifts chapter...oh I am so sure. You would have to knit like a fiend UNinterrupted to get two legwarmers done in 2 to 4 hours.

Uninterrupted knitting only happens after 1:00am at my house! Otherwise it's start/stop - find someone's head they forgot to screw on, start/stop - get in the car (and then there's DUK, driving while knitting -- oh, likeyouneverdidit!). Like just now: I'm minding my beeswax, cell phone rings it's Teenboy..."Mom are you on your way to the jam, can you pick up the guy's stuff at their houses?" Translation: "Mom, you aren't doing anything important, drop whatever it is, and do this for my friends. I know we said we don't like you and the other moms in our beeswax, but hanging out and consuming our body weight in candy is far more important than whatever you are doing, so could you go into their houses pack up the guitars, unplug the amps, load them into your car and drive them to us?" Do I need to be the master schlepper? It seems 'the guys' are being raised-by-wolves, wolves who don't drive.
I say no, one minute later, cell phone again: "Mom, uh hang on....." 73 seconds of dead air "Mom?" me: "Yeah" Teenboy: "Mom when are you coming?".......................... Why was I so thrilled when he learned to speak?

Back to the legwarmers: I'm using a yummy soft navy acrylic/nylon and mixing with either a combo mohair that's red or another dark blue. It's a simple knit/purl on 12-inch circular needles. I think I should have them done by the end of this weekend (maybe by then I will have figured the linking thing out). Kitten has a sports tournament all weekend .... and well, there's only so many games you can watch in one sitting. "If she sits, she must knit"

Thursday, February 09, 2006

i'm the happiest gurl in the whole u.s.a.!

I MADE THE U.S. KNITTING OLYMPIC TEAM. See why I like knitters, no judgement, just love. All that fretting about procrastinating ... shouldn't really get me off the hook about it, but I'll deal with that later.

Oh my -- I've got to get swatching, only about 24 hours to go. Here's to all the knithletes! "Citius, Alitius Fortius"

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

meet the neighbors

I thought since I'm new to the blog neighborhood, I'd get out and meet some of the neighbors. When I'm not minding mine, I am minding someone else's beeswax!

And let me say, to my new neighbors: I'm sorry if you land on my blog expecting apiarian advice, candle-making or even the latest statistics on the average lipstick-wearing woman's yearly wax consumption (ok, well maybe that one).

So I clicked on "Next Blog" to say hey. I have some very interesting neighbors: a music site: last.fm (interesting, though I will have to have teenboy explain it to me), a guy who collects trees that look like penises (no explanation necessary), several single moms and newish moms (where do they find the time! wtg gals!), and a few of those people you usually see talking to mailboxes (just keep walking).

I guess in the blogosphere there's no way to close the curtains: if I don't like it, I don't have to look.

What fascinates me is the number of people who have been fired from their job because of their postings on personal blogs. Of course, there is 'Dooce" Heather Armstrong, the most famous, to me she's the 'blogging Cinderella'. I liked the stories of 'Sky Queen' (fired flight attendant), Jessica (from Washington, can't help thinking she might not have been fired if she was a guy....puhleez it's Washington!), and Micheal who got fired from Microsoft after posting pics he'd taken of Macs in their offices. There's a ton of them out there! Miz Beeswax wishes them all well, and hopefully when I get a 'real job' I will have learned not to blog about what I'm not supposed to be doing. Oh, like I'm sure -- doing what I wasn't supposed to on the job is how I got Mr. Beeswax, but that's another story.

mister start, mister end - tales of procrastination

I missed the sign up for the Knitting Olympics, per usual. They have way more than 3,000 knithletes from all over the world, it's the brainchild of Stephanie Pearl-McPhee 'the yarnharlot' (I'll learn how to link soon, but you can find her at: http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/olympics2006.html).

I will still be knitting along, even though I'm not officially official. My goal -- which has a lot to do with my proscrastination issue -- is to complete a few of my WIPs (works in progress) and to knit a pair of legwarmers and a poncho over the 16 days of the Olympics. I really liked one of the guideline: "3. While this is intended to be somewhat difficult (like the Olympics) it is not intended to ruin your life. Don't set yourself up for failure. (Olympic athletes may cry, but they do not whine pitifully, sob and threaten members of their family with pointed sticks because they haven't slept in five days. ) This is intended to (like the Olympics) require some measure of sacrifice, and be difficult, but it should be possible to attain."

I'm training on a hat from what's left of a scarf (never give a delicate-thing-of-beauty to a 10 yr. old) that was a returned gift from last winter. It looked like it had been in a fierce tug of war! It sat in my yarn box for a whole year, back to procrastinating, grumpily not getting mended. So I finally ripped it out and am turning it into a hat.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

what's a nice girl like me doing in a place like this

I'm a blogging newbie, be gentle and go easy on me. I have been inspired and amused by the blogs I've been reading and thought, what the hell, if they can -- I can too! I can't get 'dooced', I don't have a real job. I knit, I have cats, I have kids, I'm political, I've never been shy with an opinion or conspiracy theory.....I'm perfect for the blogosphere! Howdy do, I'm your new neighbor, Miz Beeswax and I'll be minding it here for a while!