Yarn-A-Go-Go

Google This

I just noticed, using Google Analytics*, that someone came to my site searching for the term "how to unfelt a sweater."

Oh, poor thing. You unfelt felted sweaters the same way you darn your handmade socks when they get a hole (courtesy, of course, of the Yarn Harlot): You hold them over the trash can and then drop them in, saying, "Darn." (You can stretch them out a little, but a good felted sweater? It's toast. Or good for your eight-year old neighbor.) And we've ALL been there. (I hope you didn't knit it yourself. I hate it when I do that. And I've done it.)

We had a great Thanksgiving, with a surprise sit-down meal for ten (plus nephew Isaac, who at five months old didn't quite require a chair, but made that eleventh nicely) that no one really saw coming. I mean, we saw the food coming--cooking happened all day long. But somehow I thought we'd just roam the house, food in our fists, so when we actually put two tables together and rounded up enough chairs, it was really quite spectacular. And delightful.

 
And now, I have a few more days off to continue digesting. Thank god. And knitting continues. I like this time of year SO much.

*That Google Analytics, I like it. I am a Google Girl, that's for sure. All hail the Church of Google. Google Wave? I am not convinced I need it, but I'M GLAD I HAVE IT because it has Google in the title. That is all.

Pigeon Point Lighthouse Trip (With Photos)

I went to the coast for a couple of days, to be alone, to work on edits for my second book. I got the manuscript back from my editor, and I wanted to to have quiet, to just sit and think. I love editing. This was going to be great.

I thought it was a romantic idea. Go to a lighthouse hostel on the beach. Lala asked me if I was running away from home, and I said "No," but I was, really-- not from her certainly (LEAST of all from her), not from anything in particular -- just from life.

Then, when I was actually leaving, I didn't want to go. I wanted to stay home and watch TV and do ANYTHING to avoid work. I was having a blue day. I had no interest in being romantic or learning anything new about my manuscript, its plot, or its characters. I wanted to kick my heels on the floor and stay put.

But I went anyway. And it was amazing.

This was, literally, the view from my room at the Pigeon Point Hostel. Yes, it's a hostel, so my private room was small, without a desk (whoops, hadn't thought that one through), and I shared a bathroom with the male dorm (not bad, considering). My room was Dolphin 1, but it would be worth knowing that the dorms are not co-ed at this hostel, and in the Dolphin building, at least, the female dorm room has its own bathroom. The woman in that dorm had the whole 6-bed dorm to herself one night, with its own private bath, for cheaper than my private room with shared bath. Might be worth the risk....

And now to be completely self-indulgent in the photo department:

Me, at the end of the walkway, near the hot tub that overlooked the ocean (which I used one moonlit night with two very nice older ladies (because the hostel doesn't allow people in alone and the women took pity on me and let me come in with them during their time) who expressed surprise that I would even consider wearing a swimsuit -- they hadn't owned a swimsuit for years, darling).

Walkway

View of the hostel from behind the pumpkin fields.

 

From the other direction, with iceplant.

 

My building, Dolphin.

The very nice common area, deserted during the day, perfect for doing work.

Nicely appointed kitchen. One night some women made chicken, which smelled divine.

 

My work, spread out. What's the view on the other side of that window, you ask? Oh, just this:

Can you IMAGINE?

And this was my favorite, VERY favorite part. Wait, I'm going to pour myself a glass of wine and then come back to the computer to type this out, because I'm going to enjoy telling you so much. 

Okay, I'm back. Last night (was it only last night? Wow), I noticed the sun was dropping quickly, and I was happy with the great progress I'd made on the manuscript, and I was ready to take a break. A brisk walk, I thought! Perfect! I left the hostel, and walked up the silent road along the shore.

A half-mile north of the hostel, I came upon a completely deserted beach.

Now, I'm a California girl who's lived in the islands. I've seen approximately eleventy bajillion sunsets over the oceans and various assorted seas. Each one is amazing and I love them all.

But this one was something else. I can't tell you how BIG it felt and how small I was, and how perfectly happy I was to be right there with that shore and sunset and surf. So please, click for embiggening if you'd like to, or just skip all the nature shots. They mean a lot to me, though. Silly cell-phone photos. God, I adore them.

 

And here's the sequence that gets me. Right as the sun was about to dip down for the last time, I decided to hole up and really watch. Really concentrate. I wanted to put the cell phone down and stop clicking photos and be present.

So I found a little sandstone indentation in the cliff wall, and nestled in. I looked right and this is what I saw:

I looked left to see this:

Looking forward, the sunset was right in front of me (and not captured well, but you get the gist):

Turning the camera back on myself:

Then I put my phone in my pocket and watched the SLOWEST sunset I've ever seen. It was unimpeded by any fog, or any cloud. In my (albeit terrible) memory, I don't remember a sunset like that, with nothing getting in the way on the horizon. Usually there's that little part at the end, where the sun is refracted into little bits and jumps around, and dives, and comes back up as it's mirrored by clouds and tricks of fog. But last night? It just sank, slowly, slowly, until it melted away, and it took forever to completely disappear. A line of pelicans flew over the last sliver of light, just before it was covered by the water, as if the birds were going to try to lift it back out. 

It was incredible.

Then I walked back to the hostel. Oh, best hostel.

Today, I did more tide-pooling before coming home:

I did not fall in. Thank god.

I LOVE TIDE-POOLS.

 

I also love olallieberry pie at Duarte's in Pescadero, just five minutes away from the hostel, and I love how it is only an hour from home. One hour. And wicked cheap. I'm thinking this should happen again when I need to get serious work done.

But I'm really looking forward to seeing Lala tonight.

Fascinator? I don't even know 'er!

Sister Bethany and I had a great time at the NaNo Party last night, the Night of Writing Dangerously:

 

There should always be an excuse in one's life to wear one's fascinator, especially if that includes a writing party with an open bar and lots and lots of candy (I have to say, I did not overindulge in either vice. What was wrong with me?). 

It was held at the Julia Morgan ballroom, and it was GORGEOUS. There was a room for photos, and Bethany and I snuck in early and took our own with my cell phone. 

I love this one of her (it looks like a book jacket photo, doesn't it? for a mystery?):

And me:

And I passed the 50,000 words written in November mark! I passed it at the party, although I didn't make them toot the horn, because it didn't feel like a real win. Here's why:

17,000 of those words were written in one book, and 33,000 of those were for another book, the NaNo. Not exactly a Win. Yes, I'm calling it, for me, a win. I'm accepting my green winning bar over at the NaNo website, but I've decided I'm not going to upload the words and get the Official Purple Bar of Winningness (which happens after you upload your document and they verify the wordcount). That would mean cutting and pasting the two documents together, and I'm just not going to do that.

I wrote 50K words of new fiction this month. That is super-duper-awesome-terrific. Very proud of me. Yes.

But now I'm sailing off to revision-land, which is really where I prefer to live, and you know what? Woot! Right now, as soon as I post this, I'm running away from home. I'm driving down the coast, and checking myself into a hostel on the beach (a private room because I am old and do not want to share with the kids and their loud rock music and funny cigarettes) and I will look at the crashing waves and begin my edits.

I am so excited. I'm bringing music, books, MY BOOK, a pen, and LOTS of post-its. Oh, and wine.

Maybe I'll see a whale on the horizon.

Editing Letter

I just got my marked-up Book Two manuscript back from my editor! Huzzah! It's exciting! Book Two is necessarily the one writers worry about. Book One is the one that's all polished and shiny and ready to go out into the world. Book Two is the one written on deadline, with the niggling worries in the back of the mind (was the first one a fluke? will I have to move to Borneo?). But my editor has great notes, great ideas, and I can't wait to get back into it.

(I've been having the most annoyingly obvious dreams about getting my editing letter though -- last night it was a waitressing dream. All the glasses of water I served were cloudy. The night before I dreamed I found a baby snowboarding down a snowy slope, but I knew he would find his way safely to the bottom of the hill. I'm so dang LITERAL.)

So it is, therefore, time again to watch Lara Zielin's Editing Letter video:

Lara wrote a great young adult book called Donut Days, which I recently read (and I loved it -- highly recommended). We share the same amazing agent. 

The other video that I can't seem to get enough of is Bad Romance, by Lady Gaga. This isn't really my style of music, or video, or anything, but something about it caught me and I just love it. 

 

Lentil-Rice Happiness

I made the best... something in the slow-cooker last night, and I'm putting the recipe here so I don't forget it, and I thought you might like it, too. IT WAS SOOOO GOOD. It's a kind of stew/soup/dal, I think. Inspired by a recipe given to me by my friend Camilla, I just started throwing things in the pot, and then ran off to an Alcatraz night tour while it cooked. (It was the best tour ever by the way -- we made friends with the guy who was giving the tour who turned out to be a writer, WHO TOOK US BEHIND THE SCENES after his tour. Bethany and I got to up in the chapel! Into the gun gallery! Down into the dungeon of the original 1860s citadel to see the moat. We saw graffiti no one ever sees, left over from prisoners and from Indians. I got to turn the keys of Alcatraz. The real keys. We climbed ladders. It was freaking amazing.)

Rachael's Alcatraz Lentil Rice

1 cup lentils

1/2 cup brown jasmine rice

5 cloves garlic, chopped

1 onion, chopped

6 cups water

1 tbs crushed ginger (I had it in the jar, fresh would be better)

1 bag frozen spinach

1/2 bag frozen corn

any other veggies left lying around

1 tbs curry powder

1 tsp cayenne

1 tbs salt

dash to taste of cumin and turmeric

Throw all in the crock pot, turn to low, cook for 8ish hours, and YUM. It made a bunch, and it was so good. What's your favorite slow-cooker recipe? I just got this thing, and I'm loving it. 

New Sweater Photos and Napa Fun

Oh, my goodness. I'm useless today. I was a CHAMPION OF FUN yesterday. I wrote (FUN), and I adventured (FUN), and I went to hear music (FUN), and I slept (FUN).

Today, I'm plumb wore-out. All I want to do is screw around on teh intarwebs, doing absolutely nothing. And since I'm still on vacay, I might just do that. Although time and NaNo waits for no man, I've found. If I don't do my words, I'll regret it tomorrow. So I suppose I'll do that (FUN although I think I have a rock in my writing shoe. Shake it out, baby. Shake it out.).

I promised you new sweater shots. I LOVE THIS SWEATER.

BONNIE by Fiona Ellis, from Twist Collective

 

I modified it pretty heavily -- I made it in the round, for one. Size 44. And I did raglan sleeves, because I think they're flattering to all, especially me, with my rugby player shoulders (not that I play. But you'd never know that I didn't). I really hadn't liked the original version with the set-in sleeves that kind of looked rather haphazardly placed, so I chose to let the raglan eat up the stitches as we found them. Nom, stitches, nom.

And the neck. Well, we had words. But I was louder. I won.

I used Mission Fall 1824 Wool (superwash) in color 20. I used about 16 balls, on US3 needles (I know, I know). And you know what? This stuff is soft, soooo soft. And it's already pilling. I'm not sure I'd use it again. I don't trust it. But lord, it's soft and just the right weight, and I love the color.

Wanna see it again?

 

And I was trying to show its gorgeous color, but the light wasn't cooperating. But here's a Clara butt for you:

 

After I took these, I took off to explore Lake Berryessa, up in the Napa area. My NaNo takes place there, and since I'd never actually been there, it sounded like a good explore-y kind of thing to do. Which it was.

It was GORGEOUS, cool, but sunny, the grapes leaves turning. It should be a law that if one has a car and the means, one should be required to take a long drive at this time of year. Clears the head. (Click for embiggening.)

 

I love this one, so perfectly California:

 

 

Well, hello there! As someone pointed out when I put this up on Twitter (HELLO TWITTER, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH IT HURTS), my hair matches the vines:

 

And this won't mean much to anyone else, but this figures heavily in my silly little NaNo, so I place it here:

 

Oh, yeah. 

In other highlights of the day, I chased a bobcat off a cliff (he was as startled as I was -- no one was hurt -- we retreated to our corners), I did NOT buy yarn, I DID buy beer at Downtown Joe's, and I got my writing done, too. I wrapped it up by meeting Lala (whose rss feed is new, did you know that?), Camilla and Kirk Lombard (check out his great new blog, The Monkeyface News) at the Atlas to see the Shut-Ins play, which was awesome.

 

Freaking great day.

And today I'm a sloth. Must make up for yesterday somehow. I think I'll sit on the couch and think about starting something easy. Like a pair of socks. A nice, plain, non-threatening pair of socks.

This is a good life. I appreciate it. And yarn.

BREAKING NEWS! I am pill-free.

OMG. So much excitement over here at Chez Hehu. I was on my way to bed for a nap (ON VACATION, PEOPLE!) when I was bothered by the state of pills on my favorite sweater. You know the one -- you probably have one like it. My writing sweater lately has been my old orange one, the one I'm always trying to replace with new sweaters, but I always go back to it. I don't even like to take the trash out while I'm wearing it, because the neighbors know I knit, and it would be embarrassing. It's THAT kind of sweater.

It doesn't even fit that well. It's a little short, and it rises in the front, and swings in the back, and it's COVERED with pills. Patons, man. Cheap and soft and all, but give a girl a break in the pill department already, right?

I'd already asked Santa for the TOP OF THE LINE pill shaver for Christmas (no, I don't know what that kind of shaver is, but that's what Amazon reviews are for, right?), but I couldn't stand it anymore, so I went to Ravelry to see what My People suggested. (Added to my state of panic was the fact that the sweater I'm about to finish is in Mission Falls 1824 Wool -- lovely and soft, but it is pilling while still on the needles -- urgh.)

Someone on Ravelry suggested a disposable razor.

Like the kind you shave your legs with.

It was magic. I have now shaved all the sweaters in the house. I have a mad gleam in my eye. Nothing is safe. I tried the back of the couch -- you should have seen the fur that rose up off it. I'm thinking that Digit might look good with a haircut.

In the meantime, I have nothing with which to shave my legs.

But my sweaters are PILL FREE.

I love stay-cations.

Beer Emergency

For the most part, in the abstract, I'm good with death (as good as anyone can be in the professional sense. Please to keep it far from my loved ones, thank you very much). I'm good at giving CPR instructions. I can give them all day long. But this week was just damn weird. Sad stories, long days, odd grief, audibly witnessed, and I find my compassion is pouring out of me to the ground, constantly, and it's refilling at a rate that I can absolutely keep up with, but my sleep is suffering. My eyes feel empty. Does that make any sense?

So I'm taking the next ten days off! The time was available on the books at work (and that never happens), and IT'S NOVEMBER, my favorite (writing) time of year, and Bethany just sent this to me, and after a really rough week at work, this made my day. It reminded me of the astonishing things that can happen on 911.

Beer Bottle 911 Call sound bite  911 Calls sound bites

God bless that dispatcher.

(Aside: my coworker Janine just got a hairy-sounding call, so she was ready to go -- CPR? Baby drowning? No, it turned out to be just a guy having difficulty standing, but at the moment that his wife called, their dogs started chasing a rabbit. Result: Hilarious commotion. Heh.) 

You just never know, do you? I like that.

WOOT!

Okay, it's no secret I'm a HYOOGE NaNoWriMo fangirl. You might be getting a little sick of hearing about it, perhaps. (Sorry!)

And maybe it's true that I have a tiny intellectual crush on its creator, Chris Baty. Okay, with a glass of cheap plonk in my hand, I might have admitted that to him at certain past parties, and then run away, blushing to my roots. (You buying that intellectual part? Lala totally buys it, but then again, I'm very patient with her crush on Kelly Hogan. We're good that way.)

So when he agreed to blog for us over at PensFatales? I'm bustin' with happiness, folks. Please come visit and drop a comment, will you?

Here We Go!

Wishing all the writers well! This is my favorite time of year. Happy sigh.

Oh, Wow.

Bethany and I are GOING TO THE NIGHT OF WRITING DANGEROUSLY!

Thank you to all who donated. We know you, and we adore you. We can give you hugs and thank you in person.

But there is one person we DON'T know, and that person was instrumental in sending us last year, too. L.R., we'd love to thank you, if you'd let us. You've blown our minds AGAIN with your generosity, and I woke Bethany up this morning (she was quite hungover, from her annual Halloween bash) to tell her the awesome news. We'd adore it if we could send you a little Nano token of thanks. If you'd prefer to remain quietly anonymous, we'd understand, but if you change your mind, please contact me. You've made our month. Also, you've given us the motivation to WRITE OUR LITTLE FINGERS OFF, starting tomorrow. So thank you, so very, very much.

And speaking of Halloween, Lala and I went to Beth's party as Harry Crane and Joan Holloway from Mad Men. What do you think?

I Got Your First Draft Suckitude, Right Here --->

I've been looking back at last year's post at this time. Did you know that last year I thought that I had my Nanowrimo novel plotted out? From beginning to end?

DO YOU KNOW THAT BOOK ALMOST KILLED ME?

Good lord. I am so naive.

This year, though. I totally have Nano dialed. Dialed, baby. I've been plotting in dispatch with my coworkers, and it's been a total blast to plot with people who aren't normally writers but who are going to be for the month of November (I've corralled them into the Nano madness -- YIPPEE!). They're GOOD at it, too. I love to watch people's faces as they sit around saying "Well, what if this happened? And then what if there was a plane crash? Or if she was pregnant? And then there was a fire? And NINJAS?"

I love this kind of excitement. Remember, no matter what, if you're writing Nano with us, or if you're writing a short story, or if you're just idly thinking about writing something someday, it doesn't have to be good. At all. It can suck. It probably will and should suck. But then you have something to work with, right?

(As I was sitting at my desk this morning, at four am, wondering what in the bleeding hell I was doing sitting there at all (it was one of those mornings), trying to write a sex scene set ON THE BEACH FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST, I was telling myself that. It's okay for a scene to just be the worst thing ever. It's all fix-up-able. Later.)

Meanwhile, in Nano-news, my sister Bethany is fundraising again for the 2009 Write-a-Thon Fundraiser, and I'd sure appreciate it if you considered sponsoring her. HER LINK IS HERE.

All the money goes to the Office of Letters of Light, the machine behind Nano and the Young Writers Program, which is all about promoting writing for writing's sake, anywhere, everywhere, all the time. They are seriously rad and we love them and they do so much.

(If she raises two hundred, she gets to go. If she raises three hundred, she TAKES ME WITH HER as her guest. Ahem. I really, really want to go. So with all our hearts, thank you.)

 
Bethany as really cool sailor, ready to write. I'm holding on tight so as not to drown if the boat goes down. Not kidding.

Drumroll, please!

With two guest appearances:

The winner (J.A.) has been notified by email, and what I didn't say in the video (I was just so surprised!) was that she was in my very first ever critique group, back in undergrad days, almost fifteen years ago. She was one of the very first to ever, ever read my work. It's so . . . fitting. (But I also wanted it to be you.)

That was really fun. I think I'll like this giving things away gig a lot.

Kisses. And a growl from Digit, because that means love in his language. (Really, it does.)

Sign Up!

Last chance! For romance! No, not really. There's always more time for that. It's just time for you to sign up to be on my mailing list! I won't spam you, sell your list to ANYONE and every month I'll give a little something away to someone on that list, just for fun, because I think that would be fun.

And TONIGHT, I'll draw the winner of the How To Knit a Love Song ARC! In the meantime, you can sign up right here (if you haven't already):

Name:

E-mail:

Okay, come back later! I'll tell you who won! (I'll email the winner, never you fear. I hope it's YOU!)

NANO IS COMING. Feel the rumble.

Ahhh. It's getting closer. Can you feel it? The rumble of Nanowrimo, growing closer and closer, with every passing day.

That would have been a more effective sentence, had I not typoed at first the "fumble" of Nanowrimo, growing closer and closer.

And fumble might be closer to the truth.

I'm trying to get okay with the fact that I might not win this year. Since I first started this crazy Write a Novel in a Month thing, and this will be my fourth year attempting it, I've won every year (winning is writing 50,000 words, no matter if the book is done or not, which in my case it never is).

But this year? Ack.

I'm writing Book Three in the Cypress Hollow Yarn series, and I'm loving it, which is kind of weird. It's hard, naturally, because I find first drafts difficult. First drafts are like knitting really, really long sleeves. I don't like them. They are unwieldy and unnatural. Edits (and backs and fronts of sweaters) are where it's at.

I plan on hitting 50,000 words in Book Three this week (and I only started it 6 weeks ago! Woot! Cruising! See? And it's super fun.)

But to throw another novel on top of that one? AM I INSANE?

One word: Yes.

I heart Nanowrimo.

I love the energy of it. I love the craziness. I love the out of control optimism that is COMPLETELY gone by the middle of week two but comes galloping back by end of week three. I love Chris Baty and his tallness and I love the Office of Letters and Light and all the people that work there and make the world a better place. I love the refusal to believe by so many that it can't be done. Because it can.

I love that there will be people who will have won by the second or third DAY. Put THAT in your writing hookah and smoke it.

So this year: It's a Young Adult paranormal for me. IN FIRST PERSON PRESENT TENSE. I know. The form voted most annoying at her novel prom, right? (Second person wasn't even invited, so we can't talk smack about her, no matter how much we want to.) I'm so excited I could just spit. It's such a break for me, so far away from anything I've ever written, and I sometimes can't sleep for thinking about it. I'm going to write at night, and I'm going to write fast and hard, and not let it take away from my "real" writing which I do in the morning. But I know that there are a couple of really scary things this November to think about:

1. If writing the YA affects my voice in Book Three, I'll have to stop writing it. Period. (But it'll just put it off for a while. It will happen.)

2. If I don't have time, I don't have time. I've never tried working full time, twelve hour shifts (and plenty o'overtime as well), writing 2000 words a day on an ongoing project, and 2000 words a day on a new project. That's a lot of words. It might not pan out.

See me making preemptive excuses? That's not like me. I HATE to lose at anything. You might have already noticed. But I don't want to do what I normally do, which is to hurl myself at something so hard I end up breaking myself into little upset pieces. I'm going to have fun, that's all. If I'm not having fun, that's another good reason not to do it.

But I'm gonna give it my best damn shot. And I get my aim from my mama, friends.

Funny aside: I was emailing Erika and she mentioned she thought I should enter a challenge where the goal was to do nothing. After the screaming inside my head died down, I figured out the name of this challenge: Nono. HAAAAAAAAAAAA!

I Forgot To Tell You

That I blogged over at PensFatales about BLOOD (It's October. We were feeling gory). But that was a few days ago, so you'll have to read through a few other great entries by my fellows Pens to get to mine, and then I hope you'll keep on readin.'

I have this image in mind: Someday, we're going to be at something, an industry gathering of some sort. A writer's convention, RWA, or RT maybe. The Pens will be bunched up somewhere, laughing, probably admiring Sophie Littlefield's fishnets, and people will point and says, "Look! The PensFatales. Did you see them? They're over there. Man, is that a lot money, prestige, and good looks all in one place." Another person will say, "You go talk to them." "No, YOU go."

Meanwhile, we're just being dorks. But we'll look cool from a distance. That's a nice dream.

In closing, a parting knitting shot -- working on Fiona Ellis's Bonnie from the Twist Collective -- I'm doing it in the round with raglan shaping because I really didn't like those set-in sleeves. Using Mission Falls, and I'm adoring it. I just attached the arms, and now it's HEAVY and slow. I love this never-ending yoke time.

Proof I still knit

How To Win A Love Song ARC

I FINALLY HAVE A MAILING LIST!

You would think it would be easy, wouldn't it? I think people hire other people to set this kind of thing up. And I could have. But I'm stubborn and I like to do things on my own. Gets me in trouble sometimes. But now I have total control over that mailing list and you know what that means?

Next week I'm giving away a copy of HOW TO KNIT A LOVE SONG (in galley form).

 

Your chance to read it, far in advance of all your friends who sadly (VERY SADLY) have to wait till March 23rd. All you have to do to be in the drawing is sign up for my mailing list! You may have already received an email from me (in which case just click on that link in the email and you're all set -- Oh! and check your spam filter if you think you should have got one -- it might gone there) or if not, JUST CLICK HERE to sign yourself up.

BONUS: Every month I'll be giving away a little something, randomly, to someone on my list. Just for fun. Because, no lie, I love my readers. You already know that.

Not to get even more sappy, but I gotta tell you this. So this last week I've been making this email list. I didn't have a good method for keeping track of people last October, when I announced I'd made the sale to HarperCollins, so when people told me they wanted to be on my mailing list, I'd just label them in my gmail account with the label WRITINGLIST. Highly technical, I know.

A solid year later, I've been copying and pasting each and every email address into an Excel spreadsheet. As I've been doing that, I've been rereading each email. Oh, my goodness. You all made me cry again. I'd almost (but not quite) forgotten that giddy head-over-heels complete sense of disbelief I'd had when I'd made the sale. The lifelong dream coming true. Published. A real author.

You all made me realize that all over again. Some of you have been with me since the very beginning of this knitblogging journey and some of you are relatively new (hi! I'm nice! I like salt a lot and I'm not good at sleeping although I'm getting better!). But you're why I come back to this space, again and again, and I thank you. I adore you.

So once a month, I'm gonna put something in the mail to someone. It might be you. In fact, I hope it is. (Sign up! I won't sell or share your email, ever, I promise.)

I'll draw a winner next week, on Monday, October 26th. Yay!

CLICK HERE to sign up (or put in your name and email and hit JOIN again if you're unsure if you're subscribed -- it'll confirm it for you -- I'm the kind of person who likes a little extra assurance.)

Cravings

I have such cravings this morning:

• for sushi.
• for pot roast.
• for spinning something soft.
• for a ride on a vaporetto in the fog.
• for sleep.
• for writing.
• for more coffee (I can fix that one!).
• for scrambled eggs (that too!).
• for ice cream (chocolate, with caramel sauce).
• for sitting on a foggy beach.
• for an early night and sweet dreams.
• for popcorn and a movie.

Oh, that list just made me happy. What are you craving right now?

The last of the tomatoes and a very, very funny carrot.

Balance Ain't For Wimps

I'm working this month (okay, let's make it this year) on balance.

I'm not the best at balance. You may have heard.

I have a slight tendency to work too much. I overdo things.

Wait a minute. I just had a thought. Why don't I overdo fun? Why isn't that true of relaxing? Why can't it be that I say that about relaxing? God, that is SO NOT TRUE. I'm the queen of flipping on the television, watching seven minutes of something, then pausing it in order to go do something (vacuuming, or brushing the dog, or checking email). Then I come back and watch four more minutes before I stop to do something else.

I exaggerate a lot -- I do it often, and I do it well. But that, up there, is not an exaggeration. TiVo tells me exactly where I pause, and it sometimes astonishes me to find that after I feel like I've been watching TV for an hour that it's been literally seven minutes.

I put OFF relaxing. I find every single thing that has to be done and I do it. Therefore, the relaxing is often the thing that doesn't get done.

And I'm trying to get better at it. I have friends who cock their heads to the side and say with kindness on their faces, "Oh, Rachael. You have to stop." They're right.

Even now I'm postponing pleasure. I know I have an Amazing Race episode just sitting on my TiVo, calling my name, and I'm loving putting it off (but that counts, doesn't it? As pleasure? That delicious sense of anticipation? I always save the good stuff for last. Always have).

But hell. I'm gonna go watch it right NOW.

Balance. Work. And fun. In the right proportion. (Like roast chicken and potatoes and brussels sprouts! In the oven right now! Making the house smell delicious! Lala isn't happy about the b. sprouts, but she is just wrong. They are so good. And I will eat them all. Oh, happy night. And the rain is coming. Knitting. With a storm outside. While I'm on the couch. See? That's some relaxation, right there. Woot!)

EDITED TO ADD: It is exactly two hours later. I am NINE minutes into The Amazing Race. We have had dinner.. Lala ate a brussels sprout and did not die. She cut up the chicken, which she is a champion at, and at which I royally suck. I have had one glass of wine. There has been no knitting, but I've done a load of laundry, cleaned the kitchen, done the dishes, changed my Twitter picture and made my Twitter background page WAY busier than is good for anyone, and scrubbed the toilet. Headed back in to Relaxation Station. I mean it. Here I go.

Fall Roomba

Oh, god, this is the best time of year, isn't it? I can smell leaf-smoke right now, as a matter of fact, and I'm drinking it in. (Okay, it might actually be barbecue smoke, which is kind of more likely. But I'm telling myself it's leaf smoke, and I'm sticking to it.)

Just last week we had that first perfect day where the air never really got warm, and the wind kicked up, and the leaves blew in eddies on the ground. Now, I know I live in Northern California, and there are some that would argue that I can't lay claim to any kind of real seasons because of that, but I would argue this: I think that makes us better at season detection. We have to be. No great clues tip us off -- we just get the slightest temperature dips, and small color changes to tell us that changes are afoot.

And fall -- I MIGHT HAVE MENTIONED THIS -- is my favorite. How can it not be everyone's? That smell, the sound of the wind, the early nights, the look of houses in early evening with their lights on, people moving around inside (yes, I'm a peeping Tom, but not in the creepy way), the preparation for winter to come, the thoughts of sweaters to be made, the laying in of wool...

I seriously can't wait. Every year I feel like I want to dig my fingers into this time, to hold on tight, to not let it slip past without noticing every second. (It strikes me that that's part of fall knitting, isn't it? The urge to grasp and hold that feeling. Which is why we DON'T do it so much in the summer, I suppose. I'm trying not to hold anything in summer at all, except ice cubes and drinks made with gin.)

Makes me want to squeeze a Digit who might be getting a belly:

And in other not-important-to-anyone-but-me news I got my Roomba back! Life is so much better again! Mr. Roomba had broken for the umpteeth time, and for the umpteenth time, I'd taken it back to Costco to exchange him. God bless the Costco exchange policy, because as much as I love that machine, it's a badly made piece of equipment that fails often.

However, one day, Costco DIDN'T carry it. They gave me my cash and said goodbye. I almost cried. Tumbleweeds started to blow through the house again, even with the frequent aid of the Dyson.

(One favorite moment from when Cari was visiting last weekend -- they'd entered the house to raucous animal activity, and Thumper looked at the animals which were bouncing in their hordes as they do, and his eyes widened and he said, "It's CRAZY in here." Yes, child. Yes, it is.)

Then, one day, not only was the Roomba available online at Costco, but it was a hundred dollars OFF! AND, when it was delivered, they sent it with four extra brushes (the piece that always broke that necessitated the return). My theory is that they have my name flagged at Roomba HQ -- they saw it come across their desks and said HEY! She's back! For the love of god, throw in those brushes! It'll slow her down! (Really, though -- if you clean it out everyday when you get home, and speak nicely to it, it'll make you very, very happy. Even though it tends to shake itself apart every four or five months. I love it.)

Bonus Venetian gondolier hat shot!

Hat actually purchased in Venice! I'm sure it's totally authentic.