Now Norma Knits

Wow. It's October 23, 2015.

I hate to start this post with a bunch of clichés, so I'm just going to jump right into it.

Hi! I see you. Can you see me? Knock-knock. Anybody out there?

I look over at the sidebar of this poor underfed, anemic blog and I see something like 300 readers, down from 5,000 or more back in the day. That is just.....sad. Isn't it?

Annnnd, I did it. That was fairly blogger-cliché, eh? Sorry.

I was prompted to write because last weekend... well, last weekend was the New York Sheep and Wool Festival, aka RHINEBECK! And our fearless foursome -- Leigh, Sandy, Jenn, and I -- met up and roomed together for the 12th year in a row, and had the most wonderful, recreational and restorative time together.

And we selfied....

We walked....

 We talked....

Oh hey, I'm not kidding about OVER the Hudson. This is where those oh-so-tame-looking photos above were taken. I've got some vertigo just looking at this right now:

 We shopped....

(Blimey, the festival is RIDONKULOUSLY crowded now. I believe the figure is something like 54 MILLION PEOPLE PER SQUARE FOOT, or something close to that. We can only stand it for about 30 minutes before we have to leave and get some air. And booze. So we spend a lot of our time and money in the nice little village, just pretending that we are actually at the Sheep & Wool. But I did buy that amazing granny square scarf at the actual festival before we fled to safer ground.)

We ate......

And drank......

 

(That is an apple cider mimosa in the glass.)

(You're welcome.)

 But here's the interesting bit:

We (or at least I) knitted!

For the first time in maybe forever, I was the first one to arrive at our hotel, so I had some time on my hands while I waited for my compatriots to arrive. And just before I left home, I had done a frantic -- and I do mean frantic -- search for some knitting to bring with me. Much to my surprise, I found an already completed Red Scarf:

 

...and another one that was started who-knows-when. So there I was, doing this VERY WEIRD ACTIVITY when Sandy arrived. Upon seeing me, she loudly exclaimed, "WHO ARE you?!"

Fair comment.

(Coincidentally, David just walked in while I was writing this and I said, "I'm blogging," to which he replied, "WHO ARE you?!")

It's been quite a long time since I've engaged in this either of these activityies. But it truly is like riding a bicycle! I remember how! And I even remembered how to execute this pattern, the ever-loved, ever-popular unisex pattern, the Corrugator, by our friend Paula Smith.

I've been knitting a few rows a day since then, and look:

Before I know it, if I'm not careful, I'll be finished.

So now I've been thinking about The Red Scarf Project and learned that they now have a wonderful thing called The Book Club, which is sort of an outcropping of our own Red Scarf Fund with a little bit of a broader mission. I've just signed up. The way I thought of it is this:  I drive a Prius now, and I'm not spending as much on gas for my car as I used to. I figure I can send $20 a month without it hurting a bit, so that's what I just signed up for. Maybe you wouldn't mind spending a couple of cups of coffees' worth per month to help out some students in need, even if you are not a knitter, but just my friend.

One thing I'd like to mention is that Foster Care to Success ranks very high on Charity Navigator. They spend almost ALL of their money on their mission, very little on administrative costs, and have excellent transparency. Plus, I know the people who run it very well, and they are darn good people.

Either way, I'm just wondering how you're doing and how many of you Red Scarf soldiers are carrying on.

Do tell.

 

DONE!

Hey Guys,

Remember when I said I had a little goal of running 12 5K races in 12 months? 

Well, I've failed.

Because here it is, only NINE months, and I've already DONE my 12.

That's me this morning, crossing the finish line at the

Clarence DeMar 5K

South Hero, Vermont

Time: 30:12

Place: 10/16 F age 50-54

73rd female in 251 total runners

 

Thoughts:

• A year ago, I never would have dreamed I'd have done this. 
• I'm so glad I did.
• I'm not stopping now, but I have no aspirations to run longer distances.

(Warning: This attitude could change at any minute.) 

But I really do love the 5K distance because:

• Long enough for me to feel like I've done something.
• Keeps me fit enough, and complements my strength training nicely, without wearing me out and tearing me down.
• Short enough to prevent injury.
• Fun and challenge without [much] misery.
• I love the people I meet and see over and over again at the races.

All that said, this morning's racing conditions were pretty darn good, and I really DO want to improve my time. I was hoping today would be the day that I came in under 30 minutes. Damn, so close!

Just after the Mile 1 marker (at which a wonderful GMAA guy was calling out times -- mine was 9:20), my left Achilles tendon started to hurt. Since, apart from near heatstroke at last week's super-hot evening race, I have not felt any pain -- and since I hold one desire paramount: I don't.want.to.hurt.anything -- I pulled back a bit on the pace. But at the turn-around mark, the pain completely went away, and there was a lovely cool breeze. I felt like I was sailing. 

So I was a little disappointed when I got to the finish line to find that I was finishing just about at my usual pace. I seem to finish at about the same time no matter the conditions. Awful cold temperature and hilly course? Flat course, deadly hot? Flat course, not too bad a temperature, and a nice breeze? 

Same time for all of them.

Not exactly, but definitely within the same range. I'm nothing if not consistent. So I'm reliable. That's a good thing, right?! But I haven't broken 30 minutes yet. And I want to.

So anyway, I'll just keep on keepin' on. At my next 5K, I'll be in a different age category. Gulp. 

5K No. 10 And We're Doin' All Right

I took 2nd in my age group! This is the fourth time I've done that! This one was hard! The heat was killer! Lots of exclamation points!

This one was slower than any race I've run since last November, I think. But I did it, and I also won a $25 gift card to a local sports shop in the raffle. So that right there was worth a little sweat. 

Two more 5Ks to go in my goal of 12 in 12 months. Next one scheduled for July 5th. 

What is going ON here?!

Savory-ing The Summer

Good morning! Happy Soon-To-Be-Summer Solstice! 

I'm in a bit of a slow-down where work is concerned, and I just came in from the garden, so I thought I'd take a few minutes to write you a note. 

So how are you all doing? 

Thank you all for your donations to my recent fundraising runs! They were a great success, and very much appreciated for all concerned. In the last few hours before the race for the Champlain Islands Parent Child Center a week ago Saturday, I made a Facebook challenge to my friends that if someone would donate, I'd wear my SL,UT t-shirt (You may remember when I got that.) to the race. Some people did, and so:

I haven't learned how much we raised for that little organization yet, but I know we did pretty well. So thank you again! I ran a respectable 30:39 5K. (Man, it was hot!) But there was a woman in my class (50-59 female) who beat me by quite a bit. David and I had to do a lot of explaining about the t-shirt all morning. But everyone agreed: Hey, if it brought in a few extra dollars, it was well worth it.

Then this past Saturday I did the Run For Empowerment in support of Women Helping Battered Women. I thought I was gonna smoke that thing, and I did shave 30 seconds off my 5K time from the week before:

 

But holy crap, we have some fast friggin' over-50 women around here! Look at the No. 1 female finisher! In all classes! 57! And she was ahead of me by the proverbial (nope, literal, now that I think about it) mile.

But anyway, we did a fabulous job with the fundraising for that; and they do such good work, they deserve it. So thank you again!

~~~

So by my count, that is 9 5K runs in the can toward my goal of 12 in 12 months. I fell a little behind in the spring, so I'm playing catchup. I'm thinking of signing up for another one this coming Saturday. I'm enjoying these things. (Did I just say that out loud?)

~~~

We got our first electric bill since installing our solar panels:

This reflects the first three WEEKS! So the way it works here is we have net metering. We don't get any actual cash. Credits are built up. And we are given credit by our utility for an extra 6 cents per kilowatt hour that we produce as well, because, you know: Vermont.

Our system was designed to meet our established prior usage (in our case, average $91/month). So in the summer we are cranking out that extra power (probably 130% or so of our actual simultaneous usage) and getting credit for it. Then, in the dreary winter months when we don't produce as much solar electricity up here, we draw down on the credits we built up in the happy sunny summer. So from now on, we should have a zero electric bill. Forever. Well, for the life of the panels anyway, which is about 20 years.

The credits have to be used up within one year of creating them, and if we have any left over at the end of the one-year period, we can donate them to another person on the same utility -- a family member or friend or neighbor -- or to a nonprofit or whatever.

Is that cool or WHAT?

~~~

The garden is going strong. Big parts of it are a bit unkempt at the moment, but that is just about par for the course, innit?

Yesterday when I was doing the heavy lifting of cleaning out and relayering the compost bins (my favorite garden thing!!!), I opened the door to one of them to be surprised by one of these guys chilling out (or warming up, more accurately) in there.

After my initial EEK! startled moment that I always have with snakes, I gently urged him to go find another place to hang out while I cleaned the bins and took care of the compost. I hope he didn't go too far, though, because according to Wikipedia, "Young milk snakes typically eat slugs, insects, crickets, and earthworms." I have had no slugs in my garden this year so far. Coincidence? I hope I did not push him too far away, though the environment in the bin is no longer the same since I cleaned it out. I hope he finds another suitable close-by home.

This morning's harvest included beet thinnings, spinach, parsley, thyme, and summer savory.

This is my first year growing summer savory, and I wondered this morning: What in the world is summer savory used for?

Everything, apparently. 

Hope you are savory-ing your summer, too!

 

A Rare Peek Into What It Is I Do For A Living

It's not often that I am able to show you exactly what it is that I do. It's so hard to explain it so that people understand. But because this is posted all over the net due to, I guess, Shonda Rhimes' publicity machine (or something?), I can show you a little bit of my work product.

Of course, no one knows who was the captioner, except for me and you, a few hundred of my closest friends, because no attribution is given to the captioner. This is a shortcoming that we need to address in our industry, and perhaps I will take that up as a cause. But I'm here to tell you: THOSE CAPTIONS ARE MINE! I was in a little horse trailer (really fancy digs, yeah right) attached to the production truck writing the captions live.

(Psst, don't look at the first seconds of the commencement ceremony -- or do. Whatever. I don't care. That is when I made my par-for-the-course, right-out-of-the-starting-gate mistake. "Ladies and gentlemen, the ack academic procession is about to begin!" ACK! That often happens with me, the out-of-the-starting-gate goof. Makes me cringe every time. Don't know why. But oh well. Keeps me humble. Makes me get my adrenaline under control RIGHT QUICK, and then I seem to settle in.

So without further ado, here it is. This is what I was doing last Sunday. The most fun part is, of course, the Shonda Rhimes speech that begins somewhere around 1:41ish in the video, on HuffPo WITH MY CAPTIONS! :)

She was FASTer than I expected! and she got away from me a couple of times. But I was pretty well on my game that day, I had been well prepared (thank goodness) and it was great fun.

I had been given no preparation materials or information about the commencement prayer, and thank goodness I know the local native people, and had "Abenaki" in my brain and my steno dictionary. Otherwise, that might have thrown me for a loop.