Do we need New Years Resolutions?

Yes, I think we do. I love new beginnings. Monday is my favorite day of the week because I get to start over 52 times a year. Did I blow it last week? Oh well, it's now a new week. And the ultimate new start is the start of a new year. So here we go. In 2009 I resolve to:

• reread "The GI Diet" book by Rick Gallop. My low glycemic eating habits have begun to slide; they need a jump start


• knit one charity hat per month.


• knit one Christmas gift per month till my list is done. Of course, that will involve making the list.


• listen to the entire Bible. Here I have a head start because I finished early last year and am already at the end of Numbers.


• simplify our family meals and make more bulk meals. Kitchen cleanup is becoming soooo boring and tedious. Over and over and over we clean up from cooking supper. I have better things to do with my time. So menu plan and meals-in-the-freezer, here I come!


• be more organized with my knitting projects by keeping better notes on when I started, yarn used etc. A friend is putting the ball band in hers and I think that is a great idea. Also, a sample of the yarn used.


• learn one new knitting skill per month. I plan to order Lucy Neatby's Essential 1 and 2 DVD's to help out here.


• try one new alpaca yarn per month and become an expert on alpaca. Why? I have no idea. It's just a passion right now.


• make good use of my 4 month gym membership by going 2-3 times per week.

OK, that's a good beginning. I'm going to print this out with space at the bottom to add things in as they occur to me.

What I like best about the resolutions I have come up with so far is that they are measurable. At a glance I can see if I'm following through or not. That's important - or so the "experts" say.

The first thing I've read in 2009...

Wayyyy too early I'm up and reading ravelry.com.

My husband ski patrols today, which means he's out the door at 6:00 am. Usually I roll over and go back to sleep after the alarm. Today, however, a shot of adrenalin kept me awake. He set the alarm for the wrong time, so it was "yikes! I'm late!" Even after he left in a flurry my blood was still racing, so I decided to check out my groups on ravelry. Then the phone rang. Now I'm still checking groups and thinking that if I am going to go back to bed it had better be soon. I can't even count on a nap later either.

What have I learned from my reading?

• There are a lot of great looking hats out there that I would like to make.


• There's an interesting looking fair isle workshop taking place in April at Sun Peaks that is much too pricey for me to go to. I can buy a lot of yarn for 300+ dollars. I do plan to learn fair isle this year, though.


• you can press the "more" button on the forum list to see even more posts!


• I can't get enough reading about knitting to satisfy me. I'll even go without sleep for it :) Is that called an obsession?

Moses....is that you?

The Year of Living Biblically has to be one of the most hilarious books I have read in a long time. The premise of the book is that an agnostic journalist wants to explore the spirituality of the bible and figures that the best way to do it is to truly live it for a while. He has an ulterior motive - by writing a book about his experiences, he might make some money. So he vows to follow everything the bible says to do for a year straight and keep notes and do research along the way. As he lived he kept a journal which became this book. To keep things linear, first he "became" Old Testament (that's the point where I am at right now). Then he "became" New Testament. I'm learning a lot right along with him as he shares the results of the research he is doing reading and interviewing biblical scholars of all kinds.

If you like the humour of Dave Barry or John Knox, you will enjoy A.J. Jacobs. No...you will crack up with his jokes! And along the way he is making some pretty profound discoveries as well. I'm hoping that because I found this book on the shelf of a Christian bookstore, that the good news in the end will be that he is no longer an agnostic, but a Christian.

Can I really say I've read this book?

The book lies abandoned on the shelf. It gave its owner many chapters of enjoyment, but in the final gasp (ie the last chapter) she just couldn't continue. The first few sentences of the final chapter threatened....tears.

I could just tell that Stephanie Pearl McPhee was going to reach into her past and tell a heart-warming story of such emotional depth that tears would flow and eyes would turn red. So I quickly slammed the book shut and there it sits. When I get to a place in my life when life is stable and hormones settled, I will happily pick the book back up and warm myself with the words of a great storyteller.

Free Range Knitter is a legacy book - a book that her children and family will treasure as an heirloom, just like her knitted items. It made me roar with laughter, and cry with heart-felt emotion. I want to knit like her and write like her...in my next life in heaven.

So I cracked another book cover already!

Or at least, I popped the CD in the computer. A novel even! "The Chrysalis" by Heather Terrell and Timothi Graham was a very interesting "read".

Loving historical fiction as I do and enjoying also the technique of combining the past and present in alternating chapters, this book satisfied both of these and went one more. It spanned three time periods. The Chrysalis is a painting done by an obscure painter in the late 16oo's (if I remember correctly). Therefore one chapter takes place there with the development of how the painting came to be. The second time period is just previous to WWII when the painting mysteriously disappears when its Jewish owner has his property confiscated (or does he???). The third time period is the present day story of an art auction house that is investigating the true owner of the painting. So there are many layers of plot development to the storyline and much to be learned about art, WWII, art auction houses, investigation and more. It carried me along nicely with my knitting click, click, clicking away.

The one thing that disappointed me was the fact that the artist and painting were fictional. There really was no painting called the Chrysalis that I could find.

A Cozy Read

I had been feeling guilty over the fact that I haven't been reading many books lately. For the most part, if it doesn't have anything to do with knitting or Sunday School, the cover hasn't been cracked. And then it came to me...I have been reading (some would say obsessively) for over 40 years. Rarely a day has gone by (can you do the math to figure how many days that would be?!!) when I haven't read pages, if not chapters, of books. So I decided to give myself a break. It's my knitting phase, for as long or short as it may last. I feel better with that guilt load off my back.

The latest book I have read is "Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines". I loved this book. The authors write as if talking right beside you, in a homey and comforting way. They enthuse and inspire you to greater knitting heights. The format is essays interspersed with patterns, with technique thrown in as needed. It truly is "outside the lines", or box. One of the items I want to make is the fair isle blanket knit in the round and then steeked. To get me thinking fair isle is really a stretch, so you know how persuasive they can be!

This book will give many years of fun knitting and hone your knitting skills at the same time.

I'm back....for the time being

Well...I discovered how easy it is to travel from Ravelry to my personal blog. Maybe I'll be able to update now and again after all :).

Speaking of traveling - my latest book was about time travel. Time travel is a concept that sci-fi has developed in different ways over many, many years. I've always been a fan of sci-fi, but the more recent books have put me off, so I don't often go there. This latest - "Found" by Margaret Peterson Haddix is actually a teen book, but I have quite enjoyed the twists. It was a very easy read, with very simplistic writing. The premise behind the book, though, (which I will not reveal) was interesting and not one that I have encountered before. Since the book is the first in a series I will have more reading ahead of me.

The other book that I'm reading (on my ipod), is Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Here is literature at it's finest. I'm really enjoying this story, which I don't believe I've read before. If I have I don't remember a thing about it. Years ago in elementary school I directed a play written by her sister Emily - Wuthering Heights. For two spinsters who lived in the boonies they sure had some deep thoughts on men and women and their love lives.