The Mountain, She Is Mine!
Before I dazzle you with every detail of my weekend activities, the blog tour is wrapping up with a few last posts and chances to win your own signed copy of Toe-Up! My friend Janet over at Musings On the Art of the Cable has a little interview and contest running. Next up, check out Nelkin Designs tomorrow and Independent Stitch on Friday. These are your last chances to score a free copy, so get thyself over there and enter to win!
I'm sure you all have been dying to know if I went skiing and, if so, am I currently in traction? I'm happy to say, I did go skiing last Thursday and enjoyed myself so much, I bought a spring pass to Mt Hood Meadows and went again this morning! It's unbelievably great to be back doing something I loved so much for so many years.
Here are my skis, getting ready to cross the parking lot and board that chairlift at Ski Bowl last week.
I'm frighteningly out of shape, although the skiing technique has come back to me much better than I expected. My main problems involve my feet cramping inside my boots and my thighs cramping due to the aforementioned out-of-shapedness. It doesn't help that Meadows has serious mountain skiing, which means the runs are looooong. So far I have managed not to crash and/or hurt myself (or others). I take that as a good sign.
Mt Hood is such a crazy thing. The area around Portland is relatively flat, but on a clear day, when you look to the east there's this giant snow-covered mountain sticking up out of the ground. If you look a bit further north, there's a similar mountain that doesn't stick up quite so high since it's missing its top (that would be Mt Saint Helens). It's not like Colorado or Wyoming where you have big mountain ranges stretching across the horizon - we've got these perfect little cone-shaped volcanoes poking up here and there. The effect is quite breathtaking.
I also managed survive the Weekend O' Parties in one piece. Saturday started with an 11 am showing of Walking with Dinosaurs, which is basically a huge narrated puppet show with impressive special effects. It was at the Rose Garden (where the Trailblazers play), and those were some big puppets! Sydney enjoyed it for the most part, and I absolutely loved it (former paleo geek that I am). Owen, however, had had enough at intermission and refused to go back in. He knew it wasn't real, but it was still too scary for him. Poor little guy! He's so generally fearless, it's easy to forget that he's only 4 and tends to get overwhelmed by large-scale events like that. He has no problems watching Jurassic Park on tv, though!
After the dinos, I headed to my mother-in-laws to help her throw a baby shower for my upcoming new niece. I was in charge of drinks (coffee and lemonade) and games. Since my sis-in-law isn't much of a game person, we only did one (my favorite from my baby shower). It involves taking the labels off of a bunch of jars of baby food, then passing them around for everyone to identify by color.
It's amazing how many different variations of orange food you can find in the baby food aisle! Squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, chicken noodle dinner, vegetable risotto w/ cheese (no, I'm not kidding)...
Yesterday involved a much crazier party, that being 17 first-graders at the bowling alley. Bill decorated the cake (Can you guess who's on it?):
The first-graders weren't bad at the bowling (here's the party girl decked out in her bowling shoes and fancy birthday dress):
Owen had a slightly different bowling style...
Everyone had a great time, but I was completely exhausted by the end. Getting everyone set up on a lane, showing them how to roll the ball, and dealing with computers that didn't want to register the soft rolls of a 6-lb ball thrown by a 4-year-old really wore me out. Sydney declared it a great success, though, so that's really all that matters. We decided that we're probably not going to have Owen's party there, though, even though he requested it. He bowled maybe 8 frames and spent the rest of the time begging for quarters to play video games.
I even got a little bit of knitting done! I've got deadline knitting up the wazoo, but I decided to start on a pair of Wavering Cables Socks for myself (and to use in new pattern photographs since the originals don't show the pattern very well). The yarn is from Simply Socks Yarn Co, one of their new line of solids.
I just didn't have the brain power to start charting stuff out over the weekend for new designs. I should've been doing that today instead of skiing, but what can I say - my boss gave me the day off! Isn't that one of the best benefits of working for yourself?
I'm sure you all have been dying to know if I went skiing and, if so, am I currently in traction? I'm happy to say, I did go skiing last Thursday and enjoyed myself so much, I bought a spring pass to Mt Hood Meadows and went again this morning! It's unbelievably great to be back doing something I loved so much for so many years.
Here are my skis, getting ready to cross the parking lot and board that chairlift at Ski Bowl last week.
I'm frighteningly out of shape, although the skiing technique has come back to me much better than I expected. My main problems involve my feet cramping inside my boots and my thighs cramping due to the aforementioned out-of-shapedness. It doesn't help that Meadows has serious mountain skiing, which means the runs are looooong. So far I have managed not to crash and/or hurt myself (or others). I take that as a good sign.
Mt Hood is such a crazy thing. The area around Portland is relatively flat, but on a clear day, when you look to the east there's this giant snow-covered mountain sticking up out of the ground. If you look a bit further north, there's a similar mountain that doesn't stick up quite so high since it's missing its top (that would be Mt Saint Helens). It's not like Colorado or Wyoming where you have big mountain ranges stretching across the horizon - we've got these perfect little cone-shaped volcanoes poking up here and there. The effect is quite breathtaking.
I also managed survive the Weekend O' Parties in one piece. Saturday started with an 11 am showing of Walking with Dinosaurs, which is basically a huge narrated puppet show with impressive special effects. It was at the Rose Garden (where the Trailblazers play), and those were some big puppets! Sydney enjoyed it for the most part, and I absolutely loved it (former paleo geek that I am). Owen, however, had had enough at intermission and refused to go back in. He knew it wasn't real, but it was still too scary for him. Poor little guy! He's so generally fearless, it's easy to forget that he's only 4 and tends to get overwhelmed by large-scale events like that. He has no problems watching Jurassic Park on tv, though!
After the dinos, I headed to my mother-in-laws to help her throw a baby shower for my upcoming new niece. I was in charge of drinks (coffee and lemonade) and games. Since my sis-in-law isn't much of a game person, we only did one (my favorite from my baby shower). It involves taking the labels off of a bunch of jars of baby food, then passing them around for everyone to identify by color.
It's amazing how many different variations of orange food you can find in the baby food aisle! Squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, chicken noodle dinner, vegetable risotto w/ cheese (no, I'm not kidding)...
Yesterday involved a much crazier party, that being 17 first-graders at the bowling alley. Bill decorated the cake (Can you guess who's on it?):
The first-graders weren't bad at the bowling (here's the party girl decked out in her bowling shoes and fancy birthday dress):
Owen had a slightly different bowling style...
Everyone had a great time, but I was completely exhausted by the end. Getting everyone set up on a lane, showing them how to roll the ball, and dealing with computers that didn't want to register the soft rolls of a 6-lb ball thrown by a 4-year-old really wore me out. Sydney declared it a great success, though, so that's really all that matters. We decided that we're probably not going to have Owen's party there, though, even though he requested it. He bowled maybe 8 frames and spent the rest of the time begging for quarters to play video games.
I even got a little bit of knitting done! I've got deadline knitting up the wazoo, but I decided to start on a pair of Wavering Cables Socks for myself (and to use in new pattern photographs since the originals don't show the pattern very well). The yarn is from Simply Socks Yarn Co, one of their new line of solids.
I just didn't have the brain power to start charting stuff out over the weekend for new designs. I should've been doing that today instead of skiing, but what can I say - my boss gave me the day off! Isn't that one of the best benefits of working for yourself?
posted by knittinmom at 5:40 PM
1 comments
