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Embarking on the sixth year of Madness

March 20th, 2008

PTV Kyle Gilbert

Originally uploaded by pippikneesocks

Yesterday I attended a vigil in Montpelier, sponsored in part by IVAW It was incredibly moving. There was testimony and readings from Iraq vets, I shed many tears.
The madness is overwhelming.
It is incomprehensible.

Exactly five years ago yesterday I stood out in the sleet and snow and rain, with one baby on my back and one in my uterus; to say “Not in my name” only to have the man responcible for all of this bloodshed say “I don’t care what the protesters say”. Yesterday, in identical weather, (minus the children,) I did the same. The old saying is “insanity is doing the exact same thing over and over and expecting different results.” By that definition, I am clearly mad. But if sanity is the status quo; I want no part.
There are a few more photos over on flickr tagged March 19, 2008 and there will be more when I can edit some.

Five years too long

March 19th, 2008

This unjust war makes me angry. This unjust war makes me sad. This unjust war breaks my heart. And yet, I hold out hope that things can and will change.

Imagine there’s no Heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one  

Killing for peace is like F*ucking for Virginity

March 19th, 2007

1,461 days too long
Over 60,000 civilian lives lost

It’s time for this greedy bullshit to end.

(An aside, when I was looking for an image this morning, a google image search for “war is harmful to children and other living things” yeilded a photo of my kids :-0)

Sluggish & Buggish

January 23rd, 2007

What is worse than knitting 3 feet of I-cord?
Knitting 4 or 5 feet of it, yes…

It seems 5 can’t hold onto things. (Last week, she lost her snow pants at skool, HUGE bummer! I’m really hoping they turn up soon.) So, knitting all that I-cord seems like a time saver compared to knitting a whole new set of mitts.
The self striping yarn (in some of my favorite colors) came from my Dye-O-Rama swap partner, Monica. (& embroidery done with the same yarn….)
Knit on US 1s & 3s
I plan to line them with some fleece, as soon as I can convince Matt to get my 400lb sewing machine out of storage.
I’ve been patiently waiting for some things in the mail.
Yesterday when I went to the box, I pulled out a heavy parcel. In the short time it took me to see it in the box and pull it out, I had convinced myself that it contained a pipe bomb (heavy, thick, hard, odd shape… paranoid much?) Living on the edge like I do, I decided to pull it out anyhow… Then I recognized the return address to be Anna’s. (And I was pretty dern sure she wouldn’t send a pipe bomb to me.) Therefore, safe to tear into.
Much to my glee and amusement, it was packed, and I do mean packed (!) with post-it notes, memo pads & small notebooks of all shapes and sizes.
This is what 4 pounds of notepads look like (less what the kids made off with.)

Thank you Anna!
I’m so shocked when people actually read this here blog. Let alone pay attention to what I ramble about.
So, on that note, anyone have one of these sitting ’round? (I’ll pay postage!)

Now that you are asleep, or have clicked away it’s time for a bit of political spew.
As many a US citizen is aware, tonight is the megalomaniac’s State of the Union Address. I won’t be watching. (Or perhaps I will, if I want my BP to shoot thru the roof.) Watching the resident megalomaniac is like rubbernecking a train wreck. But, I wanted to make a declaration. For the past few years (since 2000) I have referred to that person (?) as the resident (I don’t quite get the whole respect the office thing….) For seven years that person (?) has tried my patience and compassion. It is insurmountably difficult for me to have compassion for him. Anyway, from this day forward I will no longer be referring to that war monger as the resident, he will be referred to as the squatter.
ITMFA, m’kay? Ahh, I feel better that is off my chest. (Thank Maude that this bill got shit canned.)

That’s all I got.
Oh, wait, I lied! I can see my laundry room floor!! (Aren’t you all proud?)
And aside from trying my best to keep up with housework these days, I’m going to do my best to get my yarn wound for an update this week. It has been at the top of my list for a few days now, right underneath take a shower and take my vitamins. (Guess which one I’ve also been neglecting?)

insanity di sabato

December 16th, 2006

Where do the days go? I woke up to find that it was Saturday!
*WHOOSH*
That was this year, flying past me!
Holiday knitting? You ask… HAHAHAHA.
Did you hear that sound of thunderous laughter from deep within the thicket?
It was me.
Hand things….
The devil may care attitude I spoke of, did come back to bite me right in the tookas.

They are being frogged. They will do much better as mittens. Or a yarn cake to be gently lobbed into the stash.
Grinch 1
Holiday knitting 0

It is on line ordering crunch time.
Some groovy things I got in the mail this week.
From RideYourBicycle
Stickers! I scream, you scream, we all scream for stickers!

I have good word that these

are gracing some company vehicles of a local ski resort. Not that I have any first hand knowledge of how they happened to get there, mind you.
Tee shits… Again, I scream, you scream, we all scream for tee shirts.. Well, in all reality, I squeal with delight when I have clean clothes… Especially clean clothes that conceal dye.(Yay, black!)

(And you thought you might see a full picture of me? Fat chance on a Saturday morning!)
For once, American Apparel is cut too big for me. This is a Medium, perhaps it is a bit big because it is a mens?
They also have these kick ass tees.
So, go get your shop on! & In the interest of full disclosure, I should add that I went to High Skool with the owner of the shop. I bet if you ask real nice like, he will throw in an embarrassing tale or two about me, for free.

Even tho the calender on the wall says it is December 16, you wouldn’t be able to tell that, here in Vermont.
It’s beginning to look NOT like X-mass.
Some Saturday sky

Dark & gray as far as the eye can see. No snow & a balmy 42f.

Today, I’ll be winding up yarn (to get the shop updated ASAP), getting some shipping done, frogging the rest of the doomed hand things, keeping the kids entertained, frying up some latkes, spinning some yarn, perhaps having a cocktail and a partridge in a pear tree.

Knock knock, who’s there…..

November 9th, 2006

It’s Don Rumsfeld & he needs a job… (oh, poor Bumsfeld….)
I highly doubt that he will be standing in line at any soup kitchen.
The only thing that would have made my day brighter yesterday, is if W would have stepped down…. (IMPEACH! NOW!)
How must it have felt for W to go crawling to daddy for help with his Residency, yet again?
Watch your backs, nations of the world! We have an ego bruised leader of these here United States, and he may come after YOU next. (Espeically if you have something he wants…)
I am semi-pleased with the outcome of the midterm elections.
A woman speaker of the house!!!
But, we still have a long way to go. (How long will it take us to repair the damage that has been done these past 6 LONG, years??)
After yesterday, 27 states now have rules that dictate who can marry whom… (or, who CAN’T marry whom.)
And, that makes me crazy sad. Love is Love. Last time I checked, Love IS a family value. (Funny, no? Love=Bad; War=Good. Something is terribly wrong with that picture.)

Anyway, enough said.

I’ve got a ton of work to get done today. (Shop update tomorrow.) And Bells the Eldest has been home from school, sick…. (yesterday and today..)
I best get on with all of it.

Midtacular!

November 7th, 2006

I understand that it is midterm elections, but I couldn’t resist posting this pic.

It makes me happy to think of Bill Haverchunk in office. The country in which I live, surely wouldn’t be in this state of crisis. Even tho Bill loved Dallas, he would not lead a nation into war for his own personal interests. Perhaps that is because Bill has a big rocket, and proudly dresses up as Jaime Sommers. I believe in my heart of hearts that Bill would have listened to me, when I gathered in the streets with hundreds of thousands of other US citizens, to say “NO” to waging war. If not, he would have succumbed to the peer pressure from other nations & the hundreds of thousands of people gathered around the world who shouted “NO” to this war.
It is hard to fathom all of the life that has been sacrificed to this cause. The families who sent their mothers, daughters, sisters, brothers, husbands, aunts, uncles, fathers, neices, nephews off, for what? Oil. To make a child an orphan? To make a mother childless; a widow?
Make no mistake about it War Is Not a family value.
For those of you who have friends or family fighting, my heart is with you. And as I cast my ballot today, I’ll be wishing them a speedy return home to you. (Not that our current Resident ever would listen to what opposition might lay in the House or Senate. This hopeful person likes to believe that in a Democracy, my voice may be heard…. Naive?)
(I can almost hear the nearly silent click of the computer mouse, removing my subscription from various bloglines…. That’s okay. I try my best to keep my politics out of my blog, as I know people come here to look at fibery goodness, rather than read the depressed political rantings of a person who has lost faith in her country.)

If you are still here and reading, you get fiber talk now. How lucky!
If you are a regular reader of this here blog, you may have guessed that I love color. Color is my favorite component in my spinning; followed closley by texture and fiber content, mostly seeing how many different types of fibers I can manage to cram into one yarn, and still have it “work”.{Not to be confused, with the whys of my spinning; which is if i didn’t make things with my hands, I would surely shrivel up and croak.}
And, if you haven’t guessed by reading this article. I’m pretty enamored with how color play works with different plying techniques. As of late, I’ve been pretty obsessed with multi ply. And the colorplay that resides within the layers of multi ply. The really fun thing for me about this is being able to predict accurately what my yarn (and fabric) is going to look like. I’m geeky like that & find it terribly exciting.
I don’t usually show these little babies off here in blogland, maybe because they are small, yardage wise; or something. But, I took some time out yesterday to spin a bunch of 5, 6, and 7 ply yarns. This was my favorite.

5 ply, mostly purples, lavenders and brown. (Lucky me, i was able to jam pack it with fibers ranging from A-W. ~alpaca, mohair, silk, nylon, merino) Fun fun! The idea of a yarn like this, is instead of being bold in color, it is going to have more of aura, and feeling of color.That becomes way more apparent when it is worked up into a fabric. Yay Yarn!

Speaking of great colored yarn, especially for you NoroVemberists out there. Let me direct your attention to the current issue of MagKnits, and this pattern by the beloved Boogie.
The month of November is choc fula fibery goodness, no? In honor of NaKniSweMo I will over come my deep irrational fear of steeking. I’m pretty behind the game, as I have yet to pick a yarn, let alone cast on. Maybe I can participate in spirit. In my mind I’ll be knitting a killer cardi. (In my mind I’m a phenomenal do-er! Clearly, I need more hands + hours in a day!)

& More with the color.
I recently sent a box of fiber & spindle kits to Scout; they arrived last night, and she already has them up in her shop. She is on the ball, that one.

If you are still reading; I’m impressed!
I’d like to thank everyone who got in touch with me about attending the talk I’m giving next month. I had no idea there were so many locals reading my blog! (I never know if anyone is reading unless they comment/email.) Anyway, with the local response I did get, it made me realize that there may possibly be interest in a local workshop. I’ve been toying with the idea for a few months, but I didn’t think there would be much of a local audience. Apparently, I was mistaken! So, that idea goes back on the burner. It would be good for me, to cut my teeth, so to speak, before the Lime & Violet retreat. If you are interested in any of the mentioned events, contact me for details. And/or, if you are here reading, leave a comment; I don’t know you are here unless you do!

I think there was something else I wanted to say (could you believe that, as if I hadn’t been long winded enough)
But, it is time to get gurl chile ready for skool. Plus, my computer fan has been running since I turned the sukah on. I find it so irritating, that I’m about to do the unthinkable and turn the thing OFF!

Remember today, vote with your head and your heart.

spinning to tibet

July 9th, 2006

i woke up the other day with a really kooky idea. and like with most of my kooky ideas, this one just won’t let go.
the autonomy of the Tibetan people has been threatened since the 50’s when china stomped up in there.
the united states supposedly went to war, in iraq, because of the gross human rights violations sadam committed. and the WMD’s supposedly hidden within that country. (and we give china most favorable trade status??!?! oh! china has no oil! that’s right…)
china is littered with violations of human rights. just check out this google search(or the more specific tibet google search)
speaking of google, i’m sure you are all aware of google, yahoo, msn, et al’s cooperation with the ‘great fire wall of china’)~~ i wish i were a smartie…. (just go to yahoo china or google.cn and type in anything about freedom and tibet, etc.. and see what comes up; or rather what doesn’t. translation made easy by altavista’s babel fish.).
last week wile those of us in the us celebrated our ‘independence’ Tibet suffered yet another blow to it’s.

now, i feel really small and powerless sometimes; as Tibet’s occupation has gone on for a good 20+ years before i was born. my heart, thoughts and compassion are regularly with my fellow humans. spinning in particular is very meditative for me. sometimes the abstract concept of thought following energy is just too intangible for me. sometimes it is good to have some tangible box, or measurement….. hence, kooky idea. since i spin a-LOT of yarn, and yarn is mostly measured in yards or meters, i wondered how many yards it was to Tibet. (mainly the Potala Palace, in Lhasa. ) well, from my little shack in the woods, here in vt, it is 7243 miles (11657 km) , or 12,747,680 yards (11,656,378.6 m)….. that is alot of yardage! (i did the maths and one yard is equal to 0.000568181818 miles) so, there for if i spun 2,000 yards of yarn a week; it would take just a hair over 122.5 years to reach Tibet (i suppose i have a lifetime or two left…) but, if i added dyeing yarn in there, i could get there quicker. if i spun 4,000 yards a week it would only take me 61 &1/4 years. not so unrealistic, considering people take entire lifetime pilgrimages prostrating from remote himalayan villages to Lhasa.

so, as part of ‘project new leaf’ i’m going to set forth on this journey. spinning my way to Tibet.
i need someone to/or show me/or help me make one of those WIP progress trackers for my side bar.(help???)
and i also need someone to show me how to get it in there; i’m still lost in wordpress. i can’t even add rings properly. sometimes i miss the old way. at least with hard coding html, i could see it better from the inside out… one day i added some div tags to an entry and my blog wound up upside-down and sideways. :0


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