Ishbel I

Hello again! The only internet source at my parent's house is not compatible with my computer, and I forgot my camera uploader cable anyways, hence the silence on the blogging front. But today I've gone all native Palo Alto and am currently plopped down at Happy Donuts with what appear to be several tables full of regulars that love this place for its free wireless, large green tables, padded seats, and mile high display of donuts.

I couldn't tell you for certain, but my guess is that the day crowd is the work-from-home, independent business type looking for productivity outside of the house [or, alternatively, the job hunters looking for fresh inspiration], and that the afternoon and evening crowd is mostly high school students tapping away at homework assignments, sprinkled with your occasional Stanford student. All I have to do is bike the ~5 miles here from my parent's place, and I'd be native for sure.

And then there are the families and couples that filter in, a white-haired grandpa with his 6-year old grandson. The grandson carefully picks out a donut smothered in red and green sprinkles and a Coke, the grandpa meticulously lays out a napkin next to his Orange juice. I wonder if the kid will remember these Saturday mornings with grandpa, years from now. I hope so. Not for the partially hydrogenated corn fructose aspect of the memories, but for that time with grandpa that cannot always be taken for granted given how often we move around for school, jobs, retirement homes.

//Insert non-sequitor//

Ishbel :: the mom version


Malabrigo sock yarn, size 3 needles, this took me forever especially since I would get off by a stitch and have to rip back the row. And then there was the time I was 7 rows from finishing and I lost my knitting. Oh, that was a heartbreaking moment. I actually called my mom and cried. Then I checked the lost and found at the Ed school library and spotted my little handmade black bag, and let me tell you, I have never been happier to see black fabric in my life.




The Malabrigo was incredibly soft to knit with [I so get why people go mad over this stuff], and worked up into a beautifully subtly variegated finish. I'm afraid it's a tad small for mom's liking though it's the perfect size for me. I think I'm going to have to retire this pattern and move on to other knitting projects, but Leslie is right, it's helpful to have one small and one large knitting project going at any given time, one for easy transport, the other inching along ever closer to a completed sweater or other such large transport.

Happy 2010 to all! My focus this year, although I would like it to be Crafting, is going to have to be Career, I'm afraid, but I will still be here, and definitely still be drawing inspiration from the many beautiful, talented, thoughtful, creative bloggers out there! Thank you all for keeping me grounded and bringing much joy and peace to my life.