Hell has frozen over

In case you couldn't tell from my last post, I had been at what I thought was the peak of frustration....Silly, me! The last two weeks have been two of the busiest and hellish weeks I've ever endured at the office. I won't bore you all with the details, but I can honestly say that I lost all possible zen I had gained while on vacation.

Speaking of vacation, I need to post pics and stories....That's still forthcoming, but today, I'd rather talk about the Michigan Fiber Fest. I had to work today, so didn't arrive at the festival until 4:30; it didn't help that I got lost while trying to by-pass I-94 from Marshall, so cut across to Allegan on M-96, M-66, then M-89. The hour to 45 minutes by highway bloated into an hour and a half drive.

Anyways, once I arrived, I immediately ran into Rachel at her booth. I surprised her by uttering the magic words she's been wanting to hear for the past few years: "I think I'm ready to give spinning with a drop spindle a shot...." Squealing with delight, she immediately directed me to stop by the Maple Row Stock Farm booth from Sherwood, MI and pick-up one of their 1 oz spindles.

[Note: I'll pause my story now to complain -- inserting the photo above was a complete and total pain! I can't believe the new Flickr photosharing is so stunted and not friendly at all if you have pics that you'd like to insert into a narrative. It totally sucks ass!]

So, yep folks, mark this date on your calendar -- my journey into spinning has begun.

I continued my shopping, but with the vendors closing at 6, I needed to make my choices quickly. I picked up two crochet books from Homestead Acres in Ionia: "Cute Little Animals" and "More Cute Little Animals" by Leisure Arts. I also bought 10 hanks of DK-weight wool from Shelridge Farm in Ontario; the colors are for Okemos High and the project that I have in mind for this are 3 ski hats knit by modifying part of Dale of Norway motif. The hats need to be done by early-November, in time for Sylvain's trip to Germany with his school's orchestra. Each of the students going on trip are bringing a gift for the host student, and Sylvain's gift will be one of the hats. I'd like to have something like "OHS Germany Trip 2010" embroidered on the inside headband of the hats, so if anyone has any suggestions for a good, local embroiderer, please let me know!

Well, that's all that I have time for, for now. Sylvain's chomping at the bit to use the laptop before Chuck gets home. The house computer is still not working right and Chuck and Sylvain really do fight over who gets to use the laptop (even though it is Chuck's laptop). I shouldn't complain too much about the computer not being fixed yet; I'm still not on my new computer at work and there's 3 full-time IT staffers there who work on....stuff....