Happy Birthday to Me!

Friday was my birthday, and it was lovely. I turned 32 again. (I have to choose my age carefully, since I don't want my kids to outgrow me.) My family and some friends came for dinner, which the KH cooked. It was delicious! Filet mignon roast, yum. And Younger Son, who is eleven and a big fan of baking, made me my favorite carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, which was outstanding. As usual, my overly-generous hubby gifted me with some lovely things. My favorite was something I've wanted for a long time. He's tried twice to make me one, but without the proper tools, it just wasn't happening. I am now the proud--and excited!--owner of this:

It's a blending hackle! I have some...okay, a lot...yeah, yeah, TONS...of undyed fibers in my knitting room, including merino, pygora, alpaca, angora, silk, tencel, and, of course three different breeds of dog hair, which I acquired in the hopes of coming up with some beautiful, unique fiber blends to spin and knit. First on my list, for years now, has been the bag of super-soft Molly fur in my knitting closet. Miss Molly crossed over the Rainbow Bridge almost three and a half years ago. I tried a few years back to spin her fur by itself, but it wouldn't hold together. I have long wanted to blend her lovely golden fur with some soft white merino to make yarn for an heirloom sofa throw for the family to enjoy. Now that I have my very own hackle, I'm ready to give it a try.

My dear brother-in-law consulted the KH for a gift idea and gave me a gift certificate to Knit Picks, which I think is going to be used for a tensioned lazy kate for plying. I have an Ashford Traveler, which has a built-in lazy kate. Unfortunately, it doesn't work very well with my Woolie Winder bobbins, which have gears the Ashford bobbins don't have. I've thought about getting a tensioned lazy kate for a while to simplify plying, and with a gift certificate and a big spinning project in mind, now might just be the time. Anyone have experience using Woolie Winder bobbins on a lazy kate?

Happy Birthday, Mr. Yarnhog!

The love of my life.

This picture was taken at Civil Air Patrol Encampment this summer. He hadn't slept in a couple of days. He doesn't like this picture because he thinks he looks worn out. I love it because it shows his commitment to helping develop awesome young adults and his love for our kids.

"My Favorite Birthday Party EVER!"

Younger Son is 10 today! Happy Birthday, Noodle!

Since today is Super Bowl Sunday, we had his birthday party last Sunday. Being a typical ten-year-old boy, his idea of birthday party nirvana was a paintball party at the local Marine Corps base. And this ideal party included every member of his family playing on his team--including Mom.

From left to right, that's Younger Son, Older Son, Oldest Son, Mom, and Dad. (Please ignore my shaggy grey hair. I haven't been to the stylist in a while.)

I would dearly love to show you the great picture of our backs, but I can't because they have our last name on them and my dear, paranoid husband won't let me display them on the internet. They also each have an individual number. From left to right (youngest to oldest), the numbers are 00, 97, 85, 69, and 57. Any guesses what they represent?

The shirts were Christmas gifts from Oldest Son, who had them made for the whole family. I just love that he did this. Even if I never play paintball again (and let me tell you, I won't if I have a choice), it's so cool to have family team shirts. It's cool that he thought of it in the first place. And the younger boys are so proud of their "real" paintball jerseys!

The party was awesome. The kids absolutely loved it. The title quote is from one of the boys' friends who had never played before. The paintball park is boy heaven. There are multiple fields and hundreds of men and boys in camouflage--some of them waaaaaay too into it, too, let me tell ya--and lots of mud and paint and running and crawling and shooting. All day. From 7:30 in the morning until 4:00 in the afternoon. What's not to like? (I mean, other than the camouflage, mud, paint, running, crawling, and shooting all day.) I think I saw a couple of other women, but I'm not sure. They might just have been small, chubby men. It's hard to tell under all that mud and paint.

The saving grace, for me, was that my husband wisely scheduled us as a private party, meaning our group played on its own field instead of in the general melee of the walk-on fields. At one point, I looked over at a walk-on field and saw two groups of about 40 people each running at each other and shooting. It looked like something out of "300". People were screaming and falling right and left. It wasn't pretty. Our group was much, much smaller, and involved a lot more strategy. After the first time I got shot in the body--as opposed to the face mask, hand, or gun--which left a black and purple bruise the size of a tennis ball on my hip, my strategy mostly ran to hiding behind things and waiting for the time to run out. As a matter of fact, at one point, I...um...sort of...fell asleep behind a bunker and when I woke up, everyone was gone!

By lunch time, the crouching, crawling, running, tripping, shooting, and getting shot had taken its toll. I was sore, stiff, and bruised, most of the skin was worn off my knees, and I was covered in paint and mud. While the troops were enjoying their pizza, I quietly used my cell phone to call and schedule a chiropractor visit and spa massage for the following morning. That was a good decision, considering it took me three tries to get out of the car when we got home. And even though I went to bed at 8:30 that night, my kids still think I'm a stud for playing paint ball, so it was worth it!

The Coolest Thing Ever

My husband and kids gave me a Kindle for my birthday this year. It is--and I say this with all due respect to laptops, I-phones, spinning wheels, interchangeable needles, and awesome camera lenses--the coolest thing EVER. It wasn't exactly a surprise. I've wanted it ever since it came out a few years ago. But I was waiting for the second generation Kindle to come out, and its appearance was delayed and delayed and delayed.... It finally came out earlier this year, and I told my family point blank that they could get it for my birthday or I would buy it myself. I don't believe in subtle hints.

Although it's not something I talk about here, I love to read. I have been reading obsessively for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I had a deal with the local librarian. The library allowed a person to check out ten books at a time. But I only got to go to the library once a week, and ten books wasn't enough. So she gave me a brown paper grocery bag and told me I could check out as many books as would fit in the bag, as long as I could carry it. I filled that bag up every week.

My childhood friends shared my love for reading. We would "play" every day after school. More often than not, our play took the form of flopping on the floor and reading, side by side. When we weren't reading, we were writing our own stories and reading them to each other. I had exhausted the elementary school library before I reached sixth grade.

In high school, I spent a year in Germany as a foreign exchange student. I didn't speak a word of German before I arrived, but left completely fluent--largely because of the hours and hours I spent discovering all the great German literature that my new language abilities opened for me.

My first college degree is in literature. I started with English and German, but quickly added Russian to the mix. I worked at a software company when I wasn't in class, and I spent nearly every spare penny at Harvard Book Store and Schoenhof's Foreign Books. Graduate school, law school, and extensive travel only added to the mix.

All of this reading and book collecting has led to a house stuffed full of books. I have bookcases in nearly every room, and all of them are overflowing. I have books in baskets under my bed and books in piles in the closet. I have books in the bathrooms and the kitchen. When I had kids, I started buying children's books in earnest. And since the kids are turning out to be nearly as voracious in their reading habits as their mother, you can imagine how the collection has grown in twelve years.

But technology is a miraculous thing. This little device, which, complete with it's sturdy leather cover, weighs less than a pound, and slides easily into my purse, can hold 1500 books at one time, with unlimited storage of even more books online. And if you want a new book, you can press a button to access the entire Kindle library via broadband in only seconds and download any of its more than 300,000 books directly to the device in just a few seconds! It also has a built-in dictionary that allows you to click on any word in the text and get an instant definition. And you can make "margin notes", bookmark passages, and do almost all the things you might do with a paper book. It automatically keeps track of where you are in the text and opens to the correct page. It is not backlit, like a computer screen; the screen looks almost like real paper (no eye strain). And it runs for days on a single charge.

Just imagine the possibilities! Go on vacation with only one little device instead of packing four or five paperbacks (like I do). Stick it in your purse and you always have a full range of reading material at hand, whether you're stuck in traffic, waiting at the doctor's office, or have an unexpected hour free. Download children's books and have instant distraction at hand, wherever you may find yourself and the impatient little darlings. Instantly check out the latest by your favorite author--no waiting for it to hit the library or come out in paperback. Amazing. Just...amazing.

I will always love "real" books. I love the way they feel, I love the way they smell, I love they way they wear with time and reading. I won't be getting rid of my hard copy library. But being able to take it all with me, everywhere I go, in one little device--how can you beat that?

The Big 4-Oh My God!

It's true: Today I'm officially middle-aged. But isn't this a great cake? My darling husband threw an amazing surprise party for me on Saturday night--and it was actually a surprise! More pictures to follow...