Summer summer summer

My goal for the summer:  make peace with the heat.

I absolutely abhor Texas summers.  I have always lived within 100 miles of where I was born.  I have not experienced summers anywhere else for any long period of time.  I should be effing used to this shit.  My skin should not have to feel 100 degrees.  I remember once walking home from school in August when the temperature was 111.  I don't go outside during the day if I can help it, which is sad, because I love outside.

I really want to move.  The thought is pretty naive.  To avoid summers like this you have to make a certain sacrifice involving a certain fluffy white precipitation substance that I know absolutely nothing about.  I really like Texas winters because it never gets below about 20 degrees, and usually I think 40-50 is too cold.

I guess I need to buy more tank tops and some shorts that fit...

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Originally uploaded by Library Gnome

Imogen is a feckin' hoss! HELL YEAH!

Imogen

Tender Morsels

I started reading this book a few days ago.  I pulled it from the Young Adult shelf on the basis that it had been nominated for a Printz Award for young adult literature.  I am at the very beginning of chapter four and already have read about a fifteen year old who gets repeatedly raped by her father, forced to miscarry a couple of times, gang raped by a group of boys, gives birth twice.  Granted the author does not divulge gory details about these events.

I'm not sure if this is entirely appropriate for teens, but I just HAVE to keep reading to see exactly where this is going.  It's supposed to be a retelling of Snow White and Rose Red.  I have a feeling it will be a controversial/banned/contested book this year....

Seeds of discontent on the job...eh.

1.  I work part-time.  There has not been any opportunity within the past two years to work full time.  This is difficult when you are trying to support yourself and your unemployed husband, and I am tired of relying on so much help from the parents.

2.  Every fiscal year presents yet another possibility of being laid off.  Every year the library comes out over budget and hints about laying people off while at the same time building new libraries which will need staff.

3.  I feel like my creativity has been severely stifled.  This may or may not have a lot to do with working part time.  It is difficult to become very engaged in really working to change things for the better when I work only about 2 days a week.  Plus my boss likes to micromanage a lot of little things and does not like things to change, which is also hard to deal with.  It's easier to not give a crap than to have to deal with her nitpickiness.

4.  I am not outgoing or charismatic, yet I am supposed to lead teen programming at the library.  Yeah.  I am introverted and withdrawn.  I hate having a lot of attention on me.  I agree that teens need their own special programming, but I don't think I'm a good choice to carry that out.  The only reason I have been burdened with this is because we are so short staffed and there is no one else.

5.  I am going to get my Master's by the end of the year, and we are STILL in a hiring freeze and there are no new positions.  I do not want to be a certified librarian working as a part-time library assistant.  That just sucks.  I want to be able to support myself.  Ugh.

6.  I just feel completely unengaged right now.  I just don't a have a give-a-crap to spare for this job.

7.  Dealing with patrons feels a way too much like babysitting.  

All in all, I have definitely been looking for other library jobs in this wonderful country.  I desperately want to move to another state, just to experience something different.  Somewhere with a less sweltering summer.  Like Alaska.

So Anne Rice is Christian now....

So I tried to read an Anne Rice book for the first time in about seven years.  It was called Angel Time.  I could not finish it.  'Twas boring, even in audio book form.

I prefer those irreverent vampires.  Memnoch the Devil made me confront my skepticism of Christianity and ultimately abandon it.  Ms. Rice just writes about Jesus and angels now, and not in that blasphemous way I held so dear.

After returning Angel Time I checked out the audio book of The 19th Wife by David Something-or-Other.  It's about polygamous Mormons.  It really speaks to the sick voyeur in me, even if it is not a historically accurate depiction.  He really makes Brigham Young out to be a lecherous old man (that has to be true--he had dozens of wives).  Very entertaining.  Very blasphemous.

I am waiting for the new Sookie Stackhouse to come out.

I made myself suffer through all of the Twilight books.  My major beef with these is that they are very anti-feminist.  I HATED Bella.  She is a whiny, stupid, needy girl who accepts emotional and physical abuse from guys.  And let's not forget the bruise-causing pillow-biting sex and the disgusting demon baby rib-breaking pregnancy (apparently vampires have living sperm).  Ick.  I love Sookie because she is the anti-Bella.  Plus I think that Meyer ripped off Charlaine Harris in some ways.

Nest spilleth over

These are four big birds that were eggs a few weeks ago.  They're trying to get their wings ready for their first flights.  Each bird takes turns hanging off the edge of the nest and flapping their wings to keep from falling off.  I think they're adorable.  They are big birds that still have little bird mouths.  The parents have to fly back and forth to the nest all day to keep these little guys fed.  It is quite amusing.  The cat agrees.

Wheel wars

If I don't feel like an adult, that means I don't have to act like an adult.  Right?  Like, instead of putting my coming-soon tax refund into a savings account to pay for grown up things like food and gas and bills I could take out a little chunk and buy a toy to spin yarn with...

I think this will definitely be happening within the next few weeks.  Still, the question on my mind:  which wheel?

I mentioned the Fricke s160 in a previous post, which remains a possibility.  It's pretty ugly, though.  Not as ugly as PVC.  When I showed the picture to Oliver he said, "did they make that?  I seriously think you could make that.  Why is it so expensive?" 
 
I really like the look and capabilities of the Schacht Ladybug.  It's really pretty, and the wheel is red.  And the lines are really soft and pleasing, and it has handles.  It has the capability of switching between scotch tension and a double drive flyer.  And costs a bit more...

And then again there's the Lendrum folding single treadle wheel which not only looks gorgeous (it is made from actual wood all over whereas the Fricke's wheel is made from MDF and the Schacht's wheel is made from plastic).  Plus it folds.  The price of the complete kit falls between Fricke and Schacht. 

All three wheels are purportedly great for beginners, yet allow for skill advancement. 

The main question I need to sort through is just how important it is for the wheel to be pretty.

I think the Fricke might win because of its excellent value, and I can save over $200 which can be spent on fiber or my long awaited Ikea bed.

Gollee!

Memory Testing

I'm wearing my Minnesota Wild t-shirt today for the first time in several years.  Mostly because we don't have a washing machine and all my clothes are dirty. 

In high school I got a scholarship for computer art from the Imation corporation.  My mom and I (along with all of the other scholarship winners) had to fly (for free!) to Minnesota to accept this scholarship.  This trip was very memorable for me because 1) it was the first time I ever went on an airplane, 2) I had never been in the northern US before.  It turned out to be very hectic because we arrived on Friday and left the following Sunday, and the scholarship people had given us a crazy jam-packed schedule.

As soon as we arrived at the airport we were picked up and deposited at the Mall of America for five hours.  We ate at the Rainforest Cafe and then basically wandered and lounged for a looooong time.  My mom hates shopping and I didn't have any of my own money, so we did not go in very many stores.  I was wearing my Texas Longhorns t-shirt and someone jokingly told me, "you better be from Texas!"  I ended up buying my Minnesota Wild shirt to commemorate being in a place where people actually care about hockey.

Finally at about 7 pm after all of the winners and their parent had been picked up from the airport and left at the Mall of America, a bus picked us all up and took us to a hotel.  We had the option of going out to the movies that night, but we opted out from being exhausted.

The next day we had to wake up really early and go on a zillion tours.  First we were taken on a driving tour of Minneapolis and St. Paul which was very interesting, and then we went to a museum that had a viking exhibit and an IMAX where we watched a movie about Jane Goodall.  We went on a tour of an art school where they tried their hardest to entice us to attend after high school graduation.  Then they took us back to the hotel to get ready for the presentation of the scholarships.  Once we were dolled up we went on another bus to 3M headquarters and took a tour of that building.  We had a weird dinner followed by a presentation about something or other.  Then we went into a room where our art was displayed and loitered around there for awhile.  Finally we accepted the scholarships, took pictures and went back to the hotel.

That evening the scholars stayed up late visiting with each other, but I did not participate because I was (am) pretty antisocial.  The next morning we had the option to go back to the Mall of America.  My mom and I agreed on a big HELL NO.  We stayed around the hotel and walked to a nearby grocery store just out of curiosity.  Then we went back to Texas $1000 richer.  I had a good time during the trip even though everything was so crammed together.

And thus ends the story of why in God's name I am wearing a hockey t-shirt.

Singles Fail

I have never spun yarn with the intention of leaving it unplied.  My first 100ish yards of Thistle are entirely too twisty, even after being washed and weighted the whole skein tries to twist on itself and bears little twisty spirals and pigtails.  It does not feel like soft merino, it feels pretty hard.  I am modifying this in my next spindle-full.

This twistiness worked well in my plied skeins, since so much twist comes out during plying.  Lesson learned.

I am going to weigh my current spindles, and maybe buy a dowel rod and some lighter weight craft wheels.  The current spindle may be too heavy for fine fiber--at least it started feeling difficult to spin before the cop was a large as usual.  I suppose I also might have been drafting too slow.  Ah, beautiful soft wooly experiments. 

I bet the over-twisted skein will create interesting results when I knit with it.  I don't think this first skein will make it into my shawl, though.

I have begun experimenting with shawl creation.  The method of beginning seems really odd, yet effective.  I am definitely intrigued.