Review: Misquoting Jesus, Bart D. Ehrman

Warning: this is very, very long. Really, I mean it. In MSWord, it’s 6 pages of single-spaced text. Yeah, that long.

Okay, perhaps using "review" is a bit misleading. I have a page full of notes taken while I was reading the book that I'll be discussing. So first, the general review of what you can expect from this book in terms of tone and content and what I thought of it. Then, those who aren't interested can be dismissed, while the rest of us talk about specific bits I found interesting.

Ready?



It seems like for the past few years, every time I saw a book that spoke to my interest on the early days of the Christian Church, or an analysis of the Bible, it was always written by Bart Ehrman. Finally, I threw in the towel and bought one. I didn't buy Misquoting Jesus the first time I saw it, but I did read the entire preface standing up at my local chain bookstore. Yes, that intriguing. (I bought it on my next trip through.)

The premise of the book is both simple and profound. The Bible, thought by many churches to be the absolute, inspired word of God, was written by human hands, preserved by human hands, and changed by human hands. Far from the divinely inspired message from God to his creations, the Bible chronicles the tumultuous days of the early church and a great deal about the men that helped found it.

The book is divided into intuitive sections and clearly written. It covers both intentional and unintentional changes in the Bible, and why they might have occurred. For example, a passage in the Bible might have been unintentionally changed by an incompetent or lazy scribe, or it may have been changed intentionally to make the divine nature of Jesus Christ more apparent. Or, it could even be a combination of the two. As Ehrman writes: ”Scholars typically differentiate today between changes that appear to have been made accidentally through scribal mistakes and those made intentionally, through some forethought. […] one can see how a scribe might inadvertently leave out a word when copying text (an accidental change), but it is hard to see how the last twelve verses of Mark could have been added by a slip of the pen. (p. 92)”

Ehrman’s style is down to earth, but immensely helpful. The love he has for his subject is evident in the enthusiastic writing. What really comes across in this book is that, while Ehrman believes the Bible to be changed from the original scriptures, he does not dismiss the changed version as worthless. Far from shaking his faith, his studies have in enriched it. If you’re a Christian and you were worried that this subject would be treated in a poor or irreverent manor, don’t be.

If, however, the Bible not being the unaltered, inspired word of God alarms you or makes you question your faith, you can either read it and stretch your faith a little, or give it a miss. If it brings you too much anxiety, then just don’t read the book.

A particularly telling quote:

What if the Bible doesn’t give a foolproof answer to the questions of the modern age – abortion, women’s rights, gay rights, religious supremacy, Western-style democracy, and the like? What if we have to figure out how to live and what to believe on our own, without setting up the Bible as a false idol – or an oracle that gives us a direct line of communication with the Almighty? (p. 14)

This independent thought can be difficult – and threatening – to some. I find it exhilarating, though. Of course, I’m not a Christian any longer, but even when I was, I always had a lust for learning.

Okay, that’s all I can give you as a short(!) review. Beyond this point, I’m going to be quoting text and writing down what I thought about it. All those who are disinterested may leave. :)

Now that I’m left with just the interested (or my own thoughts, who knows?), here are some of the striking things that occurred to me while I was reading. (This is by no means all of it – simply what I remembered to note as I was reading through the text.)

p. 11 ”…it would have been no more difficult for God to preserve the words of scripture than it would have been for him to inspire them in the first place.”

Gods help me, but this never even occurred to me. When I was younger and in church, I never believed that the Bible I was reading was the Bible that had been given to the writers through divine inspiration. I’m not sure that I was even taught that. But – I always thought that the Bible was divinely inspired, but that it had been corrupted over time. Even with the concept of an omnipotent God, I never thought that if He inspired it, He could preserve it.

p. 72 ”Until then, Christianity was a small, minority religion in the Roman Empire, often opposed, sometimes persecuted. But a cataclysmic change occurred when the emperor of Rome, Constantine, converted to the faith about 312 C.E. Suddenly Christianity shifted from being a religion of social outcasts, persecuted by local mobs and imperial authorities alike, to being a major player in the religious scene of the empire. Not only were persecutions halted, but favors began to pour out upon the church from the greatest power in the Western world. Massive conversions resulted, as it became a popular thing to be a follower of Christ in an age in which the emperor himself publicly proclaimed his allegiance to Christianity.”

The early church was made up of the poor, the infirm, and women. Small wonder that it was looked down upon by the wealthy, respected, intellectual members of the community – who still believed in the religions of their fathers. Try to imagine that world – the powerful elite, worshipping a polytheistic religion, while the poor and outcast found solace in the teachings of a messiah figure. For the Romans, that would be a bit of a stretch.

But once it became “popular” everything changed. Even today, it’s popular to be Christian, because our leaders are. How many Christians are there who are Christian in name only, giving lip service to a God they believe is out-of-date?

p. 82 ”They entered into the English stream of consciousness merely by chance of history, based on manuscripts that Erasmus just happened to have handy to him, and one that was manufactured for his benefit.”

This section of the book presents some of the ways in which the New Testament was flawed to begin with. Erasmus created the first printed edition of the New Testament from the few manuscripts he had available to him, which were not the best ones to be had, even in the 1500’s, and a Greek manuscript that was simply the Latin translated back into the Greek. His first edition became the version used in translating the King James Bible.

This gave me a bit of a hard time, actually. Of all the issues in this book, this was first that made me really have to stop and think. For, while I’m no longer a Christian, I was a very devout Mormon for much of my childhood, and I still hold many of those views as truth. 1 In the LDS church, one is taught that, yes, the Bible is flawed, but that the King James Version is the closest to truth. Here, I discover a theory that, not only is it not closest to the truth, it is, in fact, made up of equal parts shoddy research, slipshod editing, and even falsified source documents! Having only owned a KJV for a number of years, I suddenly find myself wishing I had an NIV or NAS Bible to compare them.

The faces of Jesus

Another facet that Ehrman presents are the differing ways in which each of the gospel writers portray the man that Jesus was, or his behavior here on earth. Particularly, he compares Mark and Luke. The two writers have very different versions of Jesus – Mark portrays him as charismatic, even angry, while Luke emphasizes his compassion and calmness.

p. 137 ”Jesus does not come off as the meek-and-mild, soft-featured, good shepherd of the stain-glassed window. Mark begins his Gospel by portraying Jesus as a physically and charismatically powerful authority figure who is not to be messed with. He is introduced by a wild-man prophet in the wilderness; he is cast out from society to do battle in the wilderness with Satan and the wild beasts; he returns to call for urgent repentance in the face of the imminent coming of God’s judgment; he rips his followers away from their families; he overwhelms his audiences with his authority; he rebukes and overpowers demonic forces that can completely subdue mere mortals; he refuses to accede to popular demand, ignoring people that plead for an audience with him.”

What a compelling image that is! And it rings true to me. Jesus was not the first man to proclaim himself the messiah, and the Christians were not the only messianic cult. But somehow, Jesus was a great enough figure that his legend has endured throughout the ages. Truly, he must have been a leader without equal. While I know many would say that his church endured because it was the true one, founded by the Son of God, that seems a simplistic answer. Truth is not necessarily popular or enduring.

Luke is the only writer to try to present the face of Jesus as always in control – the perfect calm of a martyr. In the other gospels a much more human vision of Jesus –terrified and in despair – is presented. And this was a bit of a problem for early Christians, as the orthodox view was that Jesus was divine and human both. In fact, the nature of Jesus was very much contended.

Intentional changes

p. 149 ”I try to show how scribes who were not altogether satisfied with what the New Testament books said modified their words to make them more clearly support orthodox Christianity and more vigorously oppose heretics, women, Jews, and pagans.”

The section on changing the New Testament to fit in with orthodox Christianity were by far the most fascinating parts of the book for me. Was Jesus divine, human, or both? Was his death and resurrection really a sacrifice, or just a symbol? Was Jesus in anguish about his fate, or was he calm and in perfect accord with God’s will?

The nature of Jesus

There were three heretical views that Ehrman presents on the nature of Jesus:

• adoptionist: “Jesus was not divine but a full flesh-and-blood human being whom God had ‘adopted’ to be his son, usually at his baptism.” (p. 155)
  
• docetists: “Jesus was not a full flesh-and-blood human being. He was instead completely (and only) divine; he only ‘seemed’ or ‘appeared’ to be a human being, to feel hunger, thirst, and pain, to bleed, to die. Since Jesus was God, he could not really be a man. He simply came to earth in the ‘appearance’ of human flesh.” (p. 163)
  
• separationists: “Christ not only as human … and not only as divine … but as two beings, one completely human and one completely divine.” (p. 171)

I’d never heard of the adoptionist theory before reading this book, and I still find it hard to believe. It states that Jesus was the real son of Joseph and Mary, but that he was so righteous that God chose him to become the Savior. To me, it seems a little farfetched. I can’t really discuss it without more knowledge, but Ehrman states that the Bible was changed in places so that it never referred to Joseph as Jesus’ father, so the adoptionists would not be able to point at scripture to support their claims.

The separationists are familiar to me as the Gnostics. They believed that Jesus was the man and Christ was the spirit – or aeon – that possessed him. At the time of his crucifixion, the spirit of Christ left the body, leaving the man Jesus to suffer and die. The crucifixion loses all meaning at this point, since there was no sacrifice of the divine on behalf of the mortal. Rather, the Christ spirit goes on to teach humans the “divine knowledge,” which is the real key to salvation for the Gnostics.

I think the docetists survived in orthodox Christianity, however. Before I was a Mormon, I was taught a sort of Protestant hodgepodge of belief. And I got the impression that Jesus never really suffered. After all, he knew he was the Son of God, he knew that death would only return his to the right hand of the Father. What was there for him to worry about? (I’m not saying this is what I was taught – it’s just the image that formed in my mind.) I always thought it unfair that preachers would tell me that Jesus knew what I was going through because he suffered as we do. I never bought it. Jesus knew the truth; we have to guess. Jesus knows nothing of suffering in darkness.

But the orthodox church really did try to stamp out this idea. Ehrman says: “[the unknown author of Hebrews] repeatedly emphasizes that Jesus died a fully human, shameful death, totally removed from the realm whence he came, the realm of God; his sacrifice , as a result, was accepted as the perfect expiation for sin. Moreover, God did not intervene in Jesus’s passion and did nothing to minimize his pain. (p. 148)”

Also, “Thus, for example, the early Christian apologist Justin, after observing that ‘his sweat fell down like drops of blood while he was praying,’ claims that this showed ‘that the Father wished his Son really to undergo such suffering for our sakes,’ so that we ‘may not say that he, being the Son of God, did not feel what was happeneing to him and inflicted on him.’ (p. 165).”

This follows a discussion on a Bible verse that may say that Jesus died “apart from God.” If Jesus died “apart from” God, that accounts for one of my chief problems, namely that Jesus still knew he was the Son of God. But if Heavenly Father truly, completely withdrew, then Jesus died completely alone – a much more worthwhile sacrifice. And then, Jesus would know what I was going through.

But how much anguish and agony did Jesus really experience?

The agony in the garden

As a Protestant, I was taught what most Christians are: Jesus died on the cross to save you from your sins. The death is the significant part of this – the fact that he died, nailed to a cross, for me.

But the gospel of Luke presents a different view: “For it is a striking figure of Luke’s portrayal of Jesus’s death – this may sounds strange at first – that he never, anywhere else, indicates that the death itself is what brings salvation from sin. Nowhere in Luke’s entire two-volume work (Luke and Acts), is Jesus’s death said to be ‘for you.’ […] Jesus’s death for Luke, in other words, drives people to repentance, and it is this repentance that brings salvation. (p. 166-167)”

As a Mormon, I was taught something different. I was taught that the true agony, the true salvation, happened when Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane. While he prayed, Jesus literally bled from every pore in his body, experiencing every pain of every sin that would ever be committed. Imagine the kind of trial that must have been! The reason for this is that Heavenly Father demands a blood price for sin. Jesus didn’t make him change his mind – he simply paid it all, all at once, for everyone. That is the true salvation.

BUT – for this to be true, the agony in the garden has to happen. And the only place that Jesus drips blood is in Luke – the same gospel in which Jesus is always in control and never, ever anguished or angry. Except here. Ehrman states: “”It appears that the account of Jesus’s “bloody sweat,” not found in our earliest and best manuscripts, is not original to Luke but is a scribal addition to the Gospels. (p. 144)”

So it may be that this idea of blood sweat is a late edition – to show those that believed (as I did) that Jesus was divine but not human that Jesus really felt pain.

Does that invalidate the Mormon view? I’m not sure on that yet. I have a lot of study and thinking to do before I can answer that. I do know that the other gospels present Jesus in agony, so he may very well have experienced the pain. Whether or not he did it in exactly that fashion … Well, that’s one unresolved question I have from the book. I imagine that will provide me with food for thought for years to come.

And, really, isn’t questioning a good thing? Obviously, Misquoting Jesus presented me with plenty to think (and write) about!

The role of women

p. 181 ”At best, then, this can be seen as an ambivalent attitude toward to role of women: they were equal in Christ and were allowed to participate in the life of the community, but as women, not as men (they were, for example, not to remove their veils and so appear as men, without an “authority” on their head). This ambivalence on Paul’s part had an interesting effect on the role of women in the churches after his day. In some churches it was the equality in Christ that was emphasized; in others it was the need for women to remain subservient to men. And so in some churches women played very important leadership roles; in others, their roles were diminished and their voices quieted.”

Ehrman goes on to show a few places in the text where the language was altered to diminish the role of women – in some places, a woman’s name was even changed to a man’s, to “prevent confusion.”

The nature of Jews and Pagans

You know what? I’m running out of steam here. And I suspect I was when I wrote my notes, too, because I didn’t underline anything in these sections of the book. Ehrman talks about how several Bible passages were changed to put the Jews at fault for the death of Jesus, instead of the Romans. Those verses would come back to haunt us when they were used for justification by anti-Semites around the era of WWII.

The part of the book devoted to changing information to thwart pagans should have been interesting to me, right? Not so much. Principally, Ehrman points to Luke’s calm, in control Jesus as a refutation of his humanity. That is, the pagans were given Luke as an example of the godlike behavior of Jesus. Which really, seems a bit odd. Most gods are NOT calm, collected, and imperturbable. Quite the opposite, rather. So I’m confused as to what the orthodox Christians were trying to accomplish. To me, the otherwordly calm of Luke’s Jesus seems very ungodlike.

Time to wrap things up before the behemoth gets even bigger. One final quote, in parting.

“The more I reflected on these matters, the more I began to see that the authors of the New Testament were very much like the scribes who would later transmit those authors’ writings. The authors too were human beings with needs, beliefs, worldviews, opinions, loves, hates, longings, desires, situations, problems – and surely all these things affected what they wrote. (p. 211)”

1 It’s complicated, I know. To sum up briefly where I’m coming from here: I believe Jesus was the Son of God, I believe the only way to go to heaven is to believe that we are saved by his grace and sacrifice. But I’m not on that path, going to that destination. I’m on another of infinite paths available to truth.

7 things I did with my Memorial Day weekend

1. I sewed: (Willy Wonka shirt done, with the exception of buttonholes for the cuff links.)



2. I laced: (First border done, first repeat of body lace done. 2 mistakes that I didn't feel like correcting.)



3. I revelled in the cuteness:



4. I finished reading Misquoting Jesus. But forgot my notes. So hopefully I'll have a review tomorrow or Thursday.

5. I started reading The Da Vinci Code. I'm witholding all comments on the book itself until I'm done reading it. And I'm witholding all comments on the lawsuit until I've read both this book and the two books by Lewis Perdue.

In the meantime, here's a pre-Everyday Gods comic from Dan. (Click the image to go to the full comic):





6. I saw X-Men 3:

While the loss of Brian Singer was felt, it was not a detriment. The plotlines they chose (Phoenix; the mutant "cure") were well done within the bounds of "realism" that they have set. They tried to make damn sure you knew this was the last one they did. And stay after the credits. Trust me.

Spoilerish review in spoiler text. Highlight to read. (And don't say I didn't warn you.)

One of my questions regarding this movie was how they were going to treat the Phoenix Force. Obviously, the entire plot with the Shi'Ar Empire was not going to work into their world. Making Phoenix into a multiple personality for Jean got around this, and was pretty well done. But she didn't burst into flames, either. *pout* I think they did a good job portraying her absolute lack of moral fibre, AND showing that Xavier has a dark side - he's just better than Magneto, not perfect. And staying true to the comic by having Logan kill her? Heart wrenching.

And Magneto ... I loved that they put him at his most diabolical in this one. Walking away from Raven after she'd been "cured" - pure pathos. I think the directors knew they had a bit of a problem with Magneto. If the people with the cure were the bad guys, that left the Brotherhood of Mutants looking pretty good in comparision. But NOT if the leader abandons his own team to their fates (which he does again and again).

Oh, and Dan and I were talking a few days before about how Xavier was so powerful that in the movies (and the comics), something has to get Xavier "out of the way" in order for the team dynamic to work. Otherwise, Professor X would just save the day. Even Jean reigns in her powers because of the Phoenix Force. We never expected to have this taken so ... literally.

So who thinks it's going to suck for Iceman when Rogue finds out the "cure" is temporary ... the hard way?

7. I had my first Blogiversary. Cake's on me:

Why am I here?

And I mean it literally, not metaphorically. I'm the only person in my entire department that's here right now. One woman who works with me put in a half day, and has already left. But I have to shelve the other half of the binders today, so I'll be here as long as that takes. I'm leaving when I'm done, though. (Of course, with the amount of work left to do, I may be leaving at 7...)

Yesterday I was so stiff from the first half of this massive project that I bought a sundress to lounge around in, and gave myself permission to enjoy an hour or so with friends:



That is Misquoting Jesus and ... a mystery. It's Johnny Walker Black Label. It was a nice treat, but. Well, I like whiskey. (I'm Irish, that should go without saying.) But this is not my bottle of whiskey. And Dan, prior to meeting me, didn't commonly keep whiskey on hand. So, my love, where did this nice bottle of whiskey come from?

Despite my tiredness and cranky back, I did manage to finish cutting out the pieces for Dan's Wonka shirt. The cats were, as usual, no help.




Also, I have discovered LibraryThing. Be still, my yearning heart. I have a strong desire to sit down and catalog all of my books. I won't, of course; I need to be sewing. But before the summer is over, I'm going to do my periodic reshelving of books, and catalogue them. Won't that be fun?

Coming up next week:

• My blogversary, woohoo!
  
• Review of X-Men 3
  
• Review of Misquoting Jesus
  
• Another installment of Reconstructing Wonka
  
• The official start of The Amazing Lace

Remember when I said ...

... that I would try to have my posts focus on one subject? This is not one of those days. The best I can say is that I have tried to label my thoughts coherently for your reading enjoyment.

Knitting

I was faced with a dilemma last night, albeit a pleasant one. People in the house, so I couldn't sew - what would I knit? Tychus? White Sapphire? Something else?

I gave in to temptation and (re)started the Mountain Stream Scarf (for the fourth time.)



Right. Tychus it is!



(Like Robbyn, I've modified that pattern somewhat. More on that when I'm done with it and can compile my notes.)

I might be able to sneak in a few more rows, but it's mostly going to be sewing tonight. July looms ever closer.

Fate

I have, in my list of "drafts," a post ready to be written about how I view fate vs. free will. I've been told that my view is interesting, unique, and rational. Someday, I will share it with you. At this point, I feel Fate gently (and sometimes not so gently) pulling on me, drafting me the way she wants like the roving I spin. It makes me irritable, because I have a general idea what She's asking from me, but Fate doesn't necessarily leave directions.

Diet

On again, off again, eh? I had to buy a new pair of jeans yesterday in a larger size. This irks me. Unfortunately, it's getting beyond the bounds of uncomfortable, and into a realm that I will not abide. So. Once again I shift my food intake around a little, try to move more, and see what happens. At the moment, I'm thinking trying to make sure that I get a serving each of dairy, fruit/veggies, and water at every meal is a good start. And I have ideas about how to stealthily add exercise to my day, but haven't done anything about them yet since I'm moving tons of paper at work right now, which is about all the exercise I can handle.

Mini-review: The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, by Patricia C. Wrede

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles consist of four books: Dealing with Dragons, Searching for Dragons, Calling on Dragons, and Talking to Dragons.

These are entertaining, witty little fantasy books that would be suitable for pre-teens - or even younger, depending on how precocious they are. The novels follow a large cast of characters that will be familiar to any fantasy reader: princesses, princes, knights, dragons, witches, magicians, and magic swords. The principal charm of the books, however, are how they stand familiar fairy tales on their heads. You meet Rupelstiltskin's descendents, "Rapunzel's" brother (and find out that Rapunzel wasn't her real name), and a host of other familiar faces. One particularly amusing incident concerns giants musing on why all the Englishmen that come to see them are named "Jack."

You can see this idea in the plot of the main book. Simply, a princess named Cimorene runs away because she doesn't want to be a "proper" princess, and hooks up with a dragon. You learn that dragons don't eat princesses - they're more of a status symbol, and kept around for cooking and cleaning up. As you might guess, hilarity ensues - or at least a good giggle or two.

Honestly, I could care less about the main characters, which is to be expected with a book aimed toward readers this young. Cimorene, far from breaking stereotypes of the perfect princess, serves as a stereotype of the arrogant, run-away-from-home princess that younger readers will encounter again and again in books written for an older audience.1 The enjoyment is from the sly ways that the author incorporates traditional fairy tales, using an offhand, matter-of-fact tone. It might be no more than "oh, yes, the last Jack we had here wasn't musically talented, so he took a flying carpet instead of the traditional harp."

All in all, I found them a fun way to pass a few hours, but I don't foresee the drive to reread them in the future.

1 Do not, by any means, think that I'm putting down young adult fiction. I read it when I was young, and I read it now with the same amount of enjoyment. However, as readers become more well-read, they will begin to discover that something which seemed a bit avant-guarde the first time around is really a standard archetype in this sort of fiction.

Finally, here's some cuteness for you to ponder. Apparently, when my sewing table is not in use, it belongs to Willow.

My toolbox is gathering dust

It used to be that I considered myself to be a virtuoso of personality manipulation. There were tools at my command, allowing me to present whoever and whatever I wanted. It may not be ethical by anyone else's standards, but I always knew what I wanted the world to think of me, and then tried to present it to the best of my ability. In reality, it's no more than "putting your best foot forward." My tools were many and varied:

• A strong command of the English language. You need to know both the obscure on both ends of the spectrum - the intelligent and the vulgar. Knowing only half the language makes you only half a person.
  
• Tone of voice. Along with this: pitch, pacing, volume, and accent. Your voice must be yours to command. Slang said with an upper middle class accent makes you look just as much of a fool as trying to discuss biology when your mouth sounds like it's filled with marbles.
  
• Knowledge of every muscle in your face and how to move them. Really, people are going to look at your eyes, the lift of your lips, and the tilt of your head. Know what they're looking for - and how to reproduce it.
  
• A good basic understanding of body language. Social psychologists have taught us that our posture, our hands, or even how we breathe send messages. Know how to make sure your body says the same thing your mouth says.
  
• A quick mind. Yes, this one you may or may not be born with, but you can learn how to make it even quicker. Use this. In a debate, you're going to have to analyze all of the above criteria from someone else, and then devise your own.
  
• Know what the written word looks like. How do short sentences look group together? How do a string of questions look? How does the eye scan the page?

With these, it's also useful to have at least some knowledge of: color theory, current and classic fashions, predominant religions and politics in your area, and the basics of proper logic (and the associated fallacies - it's just as important to know what to avoid!).

I used to have all of these at my command. Now? Not so much. I don't really know how I lost these skills, but I can make a guess that it happened during the darker years of my marriage. I didn't want to be very many things, and I was married to a man that ... let's say he didn't appreciate the finer points of personality management, shall we? He insisted on telling everyone exactly what he thought I was doing, with no regard to either the truth or my desires.

It may also be that it was a lot more work once I became older. My body does not always respond to me in the ways I wish, and the added weight makes it so that I'm not nearly as in tune with it as I used to be. My command of language has lapsed, since I'm not expected to use it much in the "real world." As for the rest, when pressed, I can still hold my own, but I find myself getting frustrated in debates more and more often than ever before - searching for a way to express my viewpoint, but unable to do so.

The same goes for writing. When the high level of skill I cultivated was not encouraged, I let it lapse. Why bother to write a cunning essay when a half-assed one will get me an A? Why write an email that is perfectly structured and eloquent, when the quality of reply I get is right around "yes. do it."

I've been told that body builders must continue to lift weights for the rest of their lives. If they don't, they quickly lose the muscle mass, and end up in worse shape than those of us that have never used anything more exotic than a paperweight. I feel that way now. Having failed to keep the tools in my toolbox sharp, I am left with the memory of being witty and clever, but not the reality.

So the question becomes how to "get back in shape." A large part of that involves attempting to reconstruct what a great many individuals were teaching me throughout school. I was incredibly lucky to be surrounded by people that knew how to teach children to think, not just be thought at. And now I'm trying to go back and remember.

Some of it, I know how to do. Reading is, and has always been, the key to the kingdom for me. The more I read, the more I think about myself and the world around me. And, not just reading, but reading non-fiction. Reading that actually forces me to grow, rather than just providing a quick snack. When you read, you get the luxury of putting the book down and having time to formulate your arguments with no one to interrupt you or challenge you. You can craft an idea just the way you want it. And, like most skills, if you can master doing it slowly and in a controlled environment, you can learn how to do it quickly and on the fly.

Eventually, I'll have to get out there and let myself get into challenging conversations or situations (like job interviews - talk about the worth of personality management!). Right now, you most often find me taking a rather wishy-washy response to many issues. Partly this is because, as a debator, you need to know both sides of the argument and how to present them. Not only does it make you more open-minded, it helps you anticipate what counter-arguments you may encounter. But part of it is because I've become fearful of having a strong opinion. I may hurt someone I care about, insult someone that doesn't agree with me, or - worst, for me - appear rediculous becase I can't back it up with either argument or evidence.

Bah. Enough of that. There are opinions that I hold strongly, and I'm going to stop backing away from stating them as such. If they are so important to me, than they're important enough to be passionate about. And if I can't back it up, I'm damn well going to go out and do the research to make sure I can. Maybe I'll learn something.

Still here? I'm amazed, and flattered. If you've stayed with me this far, you get the reward of seeing me get to the point of this whole tractate.

I love having my blog on Blogger. I used to have a LiveJournal. I liked LiveJournal for a number of things: small gems that I wanted to jot down, connecting with friends in far away places, memes, and quizzes. But Blogger is something different. Blogger is a place that's MINE, where I don't have to use cut tags because an entry may be too long on someone's friends list. I can write long, rambling essays about personality management. More to the point, Blogger encourages it. Whereas on LiveJournal I may have more than one post a day, often no more than a line or two each, on Blogger I feel the need to fill this space with something useful.

You may (or may not) have noticed that I'm making a concerted effort to cover one topic only in each post. I used to be a kick-ass essay writer, and I'd like that back again. Memes are my last resort, and only slightly about them comes the random stream-of-consciousness posts. While these have their place - and I'm certainly not saying that you, dear reader, shouldn't write them, nor that I'll cease to write them - I try to keep them to a minimum.

Why?

I'm in training.

Review: Dragon Jousters Trilogy, by Mercedes Lackey

The Dragon Jousters trilogy consists of Joust, Alta, and Sanctuary.



The story begins in Tia, a desert land with extreme climates that has been at war with the neighboring kingdom of Alta for generations. Our hero, named Vetch, is an Altan serf under the heel of a cruel Tian master. Serfs are even lower than slaves – slaves must be treated with some care, as they cost money to obtain. They even have a chance to win their freedom someday, even if it is a small one. Serfs, on the other hand, are tied to caputred land. When the Tians take Altan land, whoever wishes to own that land must take a member of the Altan family that previously owned it as a serf. You only have the land as long as you have the serf. Serfs are free, cannot be traded, and must simply be kept alive, not necessarily intact.

Vetch is saved by another Tian – one of the famous Jousters. Both Tia and Alta uses dragons as an airforce, and the Jousters are literally that – they joust with the opposing side, trying to knock the rider out, or off their dragon. Vetch goes to the Jouster compounds, and becomes a “dragon boy” to Ari, who is the only person to raise a dragon from an egg, rather than catching a fledgling in the wild. Because of this, he has the only truly “tame” dragon, since the dragon imprinted on Ari at birth. As a dragon boy, Vetch's duties are to clean up after both dragon and jouster, feed the dragon, repair harnesses, and other necessary jobs. Vetch cares for the dragon, Kashet, and thrives under the kind hand of Ari. Soon, he desperately wants a dragon of his own, even though he could never joust for the Tians…

If this sounds a bit like Pern meets Valdemar, you’re not alone. Though there are vast differences between McCaffrey’s dragons and Lackey’s, the similarities (at least for someone who grew up with the early Pern books) overshadow them, at least at the start. You’ll eventually shed that association, but in the beginning, you may just find yourself waiting for the Thread to show up…

If you are familiar with Lackey, you could pick up this book at any page and recognize her voice. Some of Lackey’s favorite archetypes show up here: a young boy, strong of heart and quick of mind, born to a lowly station, dares to right what’s wrong with his world. He’s aided by kind, open-minded adult mentors, and eventually a coterie of other teens. They fight against those who corrupt magic to get what they want.

And the heroes are aided by intelligent animal companions – though the dragons are not as intelligent as Companions or bondbirds, they are much like really helpful cats. Like the Valdemar books, the Dragon Jouster books showcase Lackey's love of, and familiarity with falconry. Her wild dragons are much like raptors in their behavior. Indeed, one of the dragon boys (an ex-falconer) uses this to train the wild ones.

Strong themes are also apparent – and familiar. open-mindedness regardless of boundaries or faith; personal determination and responsibility; stewardship of the land; righting the misuse of power; and the proper care of animals.

In fact, this is a typical offering from Lackey all the way through. They’re pleasant reads and good fun. If you’re looking for a lot of substance, or a more ambiguous view of good and evil, you probably want to look elsewhere. But if what you want is a good, entertaining, somewhat fluffy read, this is a good place to look. And because of Lackey’s deft touch with the few romances in the book, and the small amount of violence, this would also be a great trilogy to give to preteens or teens that are looking for fantasy to read.

Reconstructing Wonka, Part 0

Two entries for the price of one today, mainly since I'm starting two serial entries. The first you already saw, and was my entry for the first challenge of The Amazing Lace.

This entry starts the diary portion of getting ready for our CONvergence room party, Wonka's Night Out. The premise is that Willy Wonka, now having a helper for the chocolate factory, has decided to give CONvergence a try. We're decorating the room with various bits and pieces he could have taken from his factory and brought to the hotel.

My job is to cover whatever needs covering in fabric. That means, practically, a Willy Wonka costume for Dan, an Oompa Loompa costume for Ryan, skirts for Lyn and I, Volunteer Oompa Loompa T-shirts for Lyn, myself, Dominic, and Matt, chair coverings, wall coverings, and whatever else we can think of.

Unlike a normal costume diary, I won't have to document so much of my inspiration/thought processes because, well, you know the inspiration already, and I'm going to try to get as close to that as I can. But you'll be able to watch the process of getting everything done. And I might swipe pictures from our room decoration crew (that would be Dan and Ryan) to show off. This all culminates on July 7-9 when we pull off a hopefully spectacular room party, and I present a deluge of pictures.

For now, it's day 0 of Reconstructing Wonka. Why day 0 and not 1? Well....

The scene of the crime … My living room is going to look like a combination textile/home improvement center until July:



Preliminary steps had already been completed. I’m starting on Dan’s shirt first, since it’s one of the easiest pieces. Basically, it’s a simple men’s dress shirt, with alterations for french cuffs and a stand up collar. And it’s in the most horrid red paisley.

I was deeply surprised (but grateful) when I found a very close match at SR Harris. This is either 100% cotton or a cotton blend. Either way, it’s near perfect.

That pattern is McCalls (something), that I forgot to write down the number for. And this is the first problem I encountered. I carefully measured Dan, who takes a size “large” in McCall pattern-land. I had a pattern for … XL – XXL. Damn. I could go out and get another pattern …

Or I could say hang it all and get some fabric out of my stash to make a quick circular needle holder.



I’ll be picking up the right sized pattern tonight, so hopefully tomorrow will be Reconstructing Wonka, Part 1

Amazing Lace: Meet the Team!

(cheerful, over-the-top music)
(fade in)

ANNOUNCER: Welcome back to The Amazing Lace! We’re joined this hour by Team SilverRose, gearing up with some pre-race jitters. Ladies, welcome to the show!

COLLEEN: Thanks, good to be here.
MSS: Thanks.

ANNOUNCER: Can you tell the folks at home a little about yourself, and why you chose to run this race together as a team?

COLLEEN: Well, my name is Colleen, and I just turned 29. (HI, COLLEEN!) I’ve been knitting for a little while now, and, well, I’m a sucker for a good gimmick. And I thought, The Amazing Lace really fits in well with my summer Christmas project, so why not?

MSS: My name is Mountain Stream Scarf, but you can call me MSS. I’d been pretty jealous watching Colleen work on the Mountain Peaks Shawl, so I just had to have her pick me when she decided to make a team for the race.

ANNOUNCER: Now, MISS –

MSS: Sorry, that’s MSS. Like the susurration of water in a quiet streambed. It’s what I’m named for.

ANNOUNCER: Er, right. Now, ladies, we understand that it’s been a rocky start so far, but you’re still going to give the race a shot, eh? (looks at notes) I see here that you two have tried this relationship before, is that right?

MSS: That’s right! She’s toyed with me before. On again, off again. Colleen’s other projects warned me that she was a fickle partner, but I didn’t want to believe them. I’m hoping this race will help strengthen our relationship.

COLLEEN: Now, MSS, you know that wasn’t all my fault.

MSS: Oh, what, like it’s my fault that you can’t remember my charts? I’m written perfectly well!

ANNOUNCER: Now, now, let’s not get angry. We’re all friends here. Colleen, would you like to answer MSS as to why you have a problem committing to this project?

COLLEEN: I have had many wonderful, fulfilling relationships with projects before, but you’d never know it to hear her complain. And she just sits there all day, trying to pick out something to wear –

MSS: Well, of course I do! It’s an important decision! I’m a clever little pattern with the world in front of me. Susan gave me to you all made up, and beautifully charted. You don’t just cover that with any old laceweight! I deserve the best! She’s just planning on giving me away, anyway. Who knows what my new owner will want from me? *sob*

ANNOUNCER: Now, NOW! Let’s have none of that here! Ladies, do you have any parting (civil) words for our audience?

COLLEEN: I’m confident that our differences will be resolved by the time the race starts.

MSS: …

COLLEEN: *sigh* And I’ll buy you a new outfit, MSS, so you can have several to chose from.

MSS: Oh, thank you, Colleen!

ANNOUNCER: Well, it looks like this team might have a rocky road ahead of them. Maybe some Kidsilk Spray will cheer MSS up, Colleen. One thing for sure, it will be interesting to watch the development of this team and others on … THE AMAZING LACE!

(fade out)

(Transcriber's note: Amazing Lace posts are going to be archived for a bit over in the sidebar.) -->

All is quiet in blogland

Bloglines says only one or two of you have written anything today - wow, it's a quiet day around here.

Perhaps you're all getting ready to lace. Or visiting the mountains of Utah. Or finishing up something green.

Well, whatever the reason, it's quiet here, too. Which is why I don't have much to show you. (Thanks for the reassurances that the spinning posts are not boring - or, at least, not any more boring.) It's a nice, quiet Friday of work. Which will proceed a frenetic weekend of sewing. Ah, so.

(My virtue was unreliably last night, and I did not in fact cut out pattern pieces. Knitting Chatters seduced me away.)

However, it did lead to a conversation about white-knuckle knitting.

White-knuckle knitting: When the project you're working on seems to take both more time and more hands than you can spare. When you're gripping the needles to save your life - or your lifeline. When anything, and anyone that interrupts you is The Enemy. When knitting becomes an extreme sport.

Know what white-knuckle knitting feels like? Here, have a button:



(Standard rules of courtesy apply: no hotlinking, etc, etc. If you do decide to snag it, leave me a comment, k? I love seeing my buttons on other people's blogs.)

Mishmash of thoughts

Okay, so this will be the last spinning news for awhile. (Not that I've stopped spinning, nor is it any less amazing to me that I'm doing it. But I'm less inspired to take pictures of it.)

Here's the swatch I made from my very first handspun:



Some notes (in no particular order):

• I used a e-wrap cast on, which is partly why it's so fuzzy at the bottom. It's easily my least favorite cast on, but I couldn't really believe I'd spun actual yarn, so I was afraid that it would snap, or unravel, or something if I used my usual long-tail cast on. Obviously, it wouldn't have, but hey. New spinner jitters, I guess.
  
• I knit the swatch on US 9's, because it was so variable in thickness I wasn't sure what to use. The piece is a little floppy up top because of that.
  
• The bottom is the first stuff I spun, and the top is the last. You can easily see that I got progressively better, as the little tufts of excess fiber gradually went away. For those that know spindle spinning: those big fat sections came when I was trying to spin continuously, so I don't really have the control to spin freely yet. For now, I still have to park the spindle to draft out the fibers.
  
• The muddy colors? Not as bad as I thought. In fact, I absolutely love the colors. They remind me of a desert sunset.
  
• If you look at the little trail of yarn the hangs off the cast on edge, you can see little crimps in it. It looks like I spun the yarn TOO tightly in places, and when I set the twist it, well, stayed twisted. Again, new spinner jitters I suspect. It just seems so strange that I can twist some fibers together to make yarn.
  
• I'm going to spin up the rest, and then probably make something felted, like a bag. On one hand, I think the colors will be beautiful felted, and the inconsistencies in my spinning will be smoothed out. On the other hand, I'm vain enough that I want to be able to show off yarn I spun. Oh, well.

Okay, done with the spinning for now, promise!

Dan's going off with friends tonight to the mother of all arcades tonight, so I'm on my own. The responsible me would start on Dan's Willy Wonka shirt.

...

...

Okay, okay. At the very least, I'll iron the fabric and cut everything out. But I'm going to knit some, too. And not feel guilty about it. (Maybe)

Finally, my fearless baby boy - that's a tray table he's lounging on. And it sort of puts his size into perspective:

Et, voila!

(Edited to add: In non-fiber related news, I got a 4.0 this semester, raising my cummulative GPA to 3.81. YAY!)

Okay, I'm just going to annoy the non-spinners for a few more posts, then I'm done, k? It's just that - you know the feeling you get when you finish a really complicated project that you thought was beyond your abilities? Spinning is like that.

Nobody has ever accused me of having patience, so it should surprise nobody that I barely managed to wait until I had spun all the way down the roving once. No, the spindle wasn't even really full yet, but I could really tell that I'd gotten drastically better even in a day or two, and I wanted to see what it looked like.

So I skeined it up (on a rack that normally holds tray tables). It looks so even in the picture - trust me, it's not like that in person.



Then, I washed it in the bathtub to set the twist, and let it dry overnight. (Mm. Soup.)



This morning, I wound the skein into an itty bitty tiny little ball. I didn't even bother to get out my ball winder. (Okay, that may have had something to do with already being late to work and not being able to find said ball winder, but still.)

One tiny skein of handspun. I wound it so that I could start with the bad stuff, and end with the better stuff, so you're looking at the first, uneven steps in the journey. The center is much more impressive. (Not impressive to real spinners, but impressive to me.)Tomorrow, I'll have a swatch to show you!

Can't stop the meming

(Yeah, this is filler. Sorry. But, hey, you get to learn a little bit more about the "real me," right?)

Seven things to do before I die:

• Go back to Venice
  
• Get my CPA license
  
• Read the holy books of the world’s major religions
  
• Teach myself Gaelic
  
• Have a novel published
  
• Get Divorced
  
• Be okay with myself

Seven thing I cannot do:

• Garden
  
• Ride a bike
  
• Rollerblade
  
• Remember the number of the month without using my fingers (“Okay, it’s May. January (1), February (2), March (3), April (4), May (5). That means today is 5/16”)
  
• Swim underwater
  
• Stand on my head
  
• Roll my R’s (makes speaking French a real challenge)

Seven things that attract me to my mate:

• His absolute faith that I can do whatever I set my mind to
  
• His ability to just let go and be silly
  
• The little things he does for me that I didn’t even know I needed.
  
• His creativity
  
• He loves cats
  
• He has never once said I knit too much.
  
• His legs, and his hair, and his hands, and *fans self* Well, that’s all YOU need to know …

Seven books (series) that I love:

• The Summer Tree, Guy Gavriel Kay
  
• The Black Jewels Trilogy, Anne Bishop
  
• The Avalon Books, Marion Zimmer Bradley
  
• The Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan
  
• The Snow Queen, Joan D. Vinge
  
• The Belgariad, David Eddings
  
• Hyperion Cantos, Dan Simmons

Seven Things I say:

• Just sayin’
  
• Y’all
  
• Ya think?
  
• There’s irony in that.
  
• Thank god, any god!
  
• Too true.
  
• I’m okay with that

Seven movies I have loved:

• Dangerous Liaisons
  
• Dangerous Beauty
  
• Moulin Rouge
  
• Strictly Ballroom
  
• Gigi
  
• Elizabeth
  
• The Princess Bride

I'm not tagging anyone, because I probably got this from several of you. If you haven't done it and want to, well, have at it.

Shepherd's Harvest 2006

Ryan and I went to the Shepherd's Harvest on Sunday. It isn't Maryland, of course, but it's a heck of a lot cheaper, closer, and less crowded. And nicer because of it, I suspect.

We were only there for a couple of hours, and we were late as it was. (Had to find a bank. Had to go back home for camera...) But we did have fun while we were there, and I hope to be more organized next year.

My camera decided to crap out on my halfway through, so I have only a few pictures to share with you. Next time - more camera batteries! (Scroll all the way down to see my new toy)


Despite the fact that Llama Magic was being held at the same fairgrounds, this is the only picture of a llama I managed to take. Llamas, I've discovered, have good anti-picture mojo. The Force is not strong with this one, it seems.


The dulcimer and lumberjack duo. Those of you who actually know Ryan will not be surprised to learn that he bought a lumberjack, and immediately used it to annoy all our friends. It will be more pleasant when he gets a sense of rhythm. (Hey, it's not like I could play it either.)


Proof of the strong anti-picture llama mojo: this was taken in the sheep barn - AFTER walking all the way through the llama barn and having my camera turn itself off whenever I tried to take a picture.


We did spend some time listening to a very entertaining, no-nonsense sheep shearer. After some good natured backtalk from a woman in the crowd, he offered to let her try her hand at it (after looking around to discover that the owner of the sheep wasn't there). She managed to prop the sheep up on her legs properly, but he was stymied when she announced that she was left-handed. He immediately spend several minutes trying to figure out how to shear a sheep left handed, manhandling the (very placid) sheep this way and that, and holding the sheep's legs in various odd positions. Eventually, he got the shearer in hand, and took a few swipes at the (still placid) sheep. I think he had a real feeling of accomplishment.





While visiting the vendors, I had a bad case of lust for all the spinning wheels I saw. Ryan said the converstation went like this:

Me: Oh, see, I didn't know spinning wheels came that small. That's kind of cool.
(later)
Me: That one's pretty nice. If I ever got a spinning wheel, I'd like one like that.
(later still)
Me: See, that's the kind I need. May I have a brochure please?

Thankfully, I don't drop many hundreds of dollars casually, so I didn't walk out with a spiffy spinning wheel that I wouldn't know how to use. Instead, I got a new toy:

Brand new top whorl spindle from an Amish vendor, and some Blue Leicester roving from Sandy's Palette, both of which I will link to when I find the business cards I took. I got to talk to the dyer for awhile, and she pointed me toward a good fiber for a new spinner to start on, and showed me how to draft it out a bit. Wouldn't the roving have been great for the April Project Spectrum?
Figuring out what to do with it after that was something of a challenge. But, behold! My very first handspun! I'm terribly excited about it, even though what I'm doing to that beautiful roving is just short of criminal. The colors are muddly, and I can't maintain an even twist to save my life, but - still, isn't it cool?


Please excuse me, I'm off to look at secondhand spinning wheels...

There goes the neighborhood...

PSA: This is a rant. It may not be coherent, or even well written. You have been warned.

An article in today’s Star Tribune focused on the changes that Target is making to its employee health plans.1 Now, I worked at Target HQ for a short time, so this actually interests me. Plus, Target is so high profile that other companies will watch them to see what works – and what doesn’t.

We all know that health care costs are rising. When I was working at the Radisson, I was allowed to have health insurance – at $90 per paycheck. That’s $180 a month, and that’s just for single coverage. I elected to go without, despite having severe and chronic health problems. As a temporary, I have no access to health insurance, and I make too much for state aid. I have my own views about what can be done to stop this, but as they are not completely thought out, and poorly researched, I won’t air them here. Instead, let’s look at what Target is doing to address this problem.

Target is advocating a switch to health savings accounts (HSAs). The idea is that you, as a hypothetical Target employee, put money into a savings account, to be used as you see fit for medical expenses. You pay lower premiums, and you can use it for, well, whatever you want. The article also states that “Employees can comparison-shop among doctors and health care providers.”

Now, here’s my first question: how does comparison shopping work? Right now, if you have health insurance, you go to the doctor they tell you to, to get the work done they tell you to. And, you pay your deductible, and they pay the rest. Frankly, those with good health insurance probably don’t particularly care what it costs the company. Now, under the HSA program, you care, because its your own money on the line. As they say, you want the best care you can get for the best price.

But is this going to decrease the amount that doctors, clinics, and hospitals charge for services? I highly doubt it. So, basically, you’re looking for the best of many possible evils, and now you’re on a budget. How does this differ from just putting money in a savings account for a rainy day (or a broken leg)? Sure, you don’t have to pay all of it, after all, once you’ve used your HSA to pay the deductible, it’s (mostly) up to the company.

Here’s a tidbit from the article: “So a Target worker who incurs a $5,000 medical bill but has only $1,000 socked away in a health savings account must pay the remaining $4,000. Target pays 80 percent of expenses beyond the deductible and all expenses once a maximum out-of pocket level is reached -- up to $8,800 for families.” So, basically, if you can’t take enough out of your paycheck a week to cover your deductible, you’re in the same place you would have been without the HSA – unable to pay for the care you need.

And is comparison shopping the best idea, really? Here’s another gem: “A study last year by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota found that patients with HSAs made 25 percent fewer trips to their health care providers than with traditional comprehensive plans.” This is lauded, in the article, as an advantage to the program. But herein lies the rub – right now, I don’t have health insurance. Do you think I EVER go to a doctor? Yeah, right. Sure, I’m making fewer trips to my “health care provider” than I would be with health insurance, but does that make me healthier? NO. As a matter of fact, I use up a great deal of health care dollars. Why? Because the only time I receive medical treatment, it’s in an emergency room, where they HAVE to treat me. I endeavor to pay the multi-thousand dollar bills when they come, but frankly it takes me awhile. These emergency trips (like the notable time I had a kidney infection), could be prevented – if only I’d gone to a doctor sooner. Why don’t I go to a doctor? I don’t have health insurance and can’t afford it. See how cyclical this is?

Now, I’m speaking from the point of view of having no insurance at all. But answer me this: if you had an HSA that you suspected would not even begin to cover your deductible in case of emergency, how ready would you be to squander it on regular checkups and preventative medicine?

Target isn’t stopping anything with this program; they’re just shifting the money to a pocket that’s not theirs. The problem is not how much the employer is spending on health care, or even how much the employee is. It’s the absolutely blatant price inflation our country puts on medical care, the poorly run and antiquated system, and the fact that so many in our country can’t even afford the insurance to begin with. (By the way – did you know that most servers in your favorite restaurants aren’t even offered the chance to have medical insurance? I’ve worked at over 10 different restaurants, and only ONE of them even offered health insurance.)

Can you say PRICE CAP? Can you say INFRASTRUCTURE REPAIR? Can you say PREVENTATIVE MEDICINE? These are the real solutions, but by shifting the cost to employees instead of corporations that can bloody well afford it, the corporations are effectively blinding themselves.

After all, it’s not their problem anymore. We have HSAs.

1. The ideas presented in this little rant are understood to be as informed as I can be from the world around me. My research may be lacking. If there are areas you think I'm not aware of or not considering, please, let me know.

Grab Bag

I'm transitioning right now between stages, I think. Last week, it was all about finals and sneaking some knitting in where I could. Now, my time is taken up cleaning the house, worrying about cleaning the house, and making the very first preparations to sew the costumes that I know I'm already behind on.

Which is fine, but it doesn't leave me a lot to talk about. I did cast on a new project with some spare US 1's that were lying around (cast aside when I finished the Oompa Loompa socks). Wanna know what it is? I'll give you a hint. So far, the Koigu has been a dream to knit with. This is my first experience with it, and it lives up to the hype just fine. And, thanks to some friends that speak Japanese, I can now even talk about it. (It's pronounced "Koy-goo," in case anyone else out there is as phonetically challenged as I am.) Soon, I will have to go back to Oompa Loompa knitting (and sewing), but I'm enjoying the new project for now.

Hey, Minnesota knitbloggers (I know some of you lurk here...)! I'm going to be at Shepherd's Harvest on Sunday morning. I'd love to meet some of you in person - are any of you going to be there? I'm broke, but I'm sure I'll find some money somehow for goodies. With me will be St. Ryan-of-the-many-blog-appearances.

I'm reading a lot right now too (for pleasure!), but it's all fluff, so not really worth talking about.

I'll try to remember to take some pictures tonight so that tomorrow is a little more content-oriented, and a little less stuff-that-randomly-comes-out-of-my-head.

1001 Words (and one punctuation mark)

DONE!

I want to be witty and interesting, but ....

See this?



A 10-page analysis of a company's annual report. Due tonight at 6 PM. I'm on page 5. Yeah.

So, we'll talk tomorrow, okay?

TGIFO!

Thank God It's a Finished Object!



Specs:
Completed On: May 4, 2006 (while at Knitting Chatters!)
Yarn: Lanett Superwash, in White and Charcoal (it looked black when I bought it, honest!)
Needles: Trusty Susan Bates US 1's
Pattern: Yeah .... totally made up.

Some notes:

• The Lanett is super, super soft. I love it and would definitely use it again. However, it does have a strong tendancy to split, which I did not love. However, as far as a solid color sock yarn goes, this stuff is great.
  
• This was the first time I've done a short-row heel of any sort, and I used the Sherman Heel. The reason for this was that I didn't want to disturb the striping pattern with a gusset, and I wanted solid colored heels and toes. I like the look, and it was nice to not have to pick up gusset stitches, BUT it was fiddly and annoying, and really hard to do with (almost) black yarn. I think the only time I'll be using a short-row heel is when I need to preserve the pattern. But it's nice to know how to do it.
  
• This was also the first time I've ever done stripes. It wasn't as hard as I thought, but it was tedious counting rows to make sure that every stripe was exactly the same size. Still, not as scary as I was afraid it would be, and I'll definitely do them again.
  
• The great jog debate: I read everything I could online about how to get rid of the jog when you change colors. After reflecting on all of that, I decided t'hell with it, and just let the colors jog. What I did do, however, is knit the first stitch of every color change row with both the new and old color. Ostensibly, this was to twist the floats up the sock so I wouldn't have to weave in as many ends. I was surprised to discover that doing this also made the jog less visible.

Outside (the jog):	Inside (the floats):

It's been a long time since I was so relieved to have something done. Since last Christmas, I imagine.

(Shut up, you. Yes, you. The one in the back reminding me that I have another wristlet and a collar to do, not to mention stockings for Lyn and I. Just Shut Up. Let me bask for a moment's time.)

Do you see how cleverly I'm distracting you all away from all the sewing that's not getting done? Smoke and mirrors, I tell ya. Bask in the glory of the knitted socks. Tomorrow will bring ... well, more knitting, and fabric shopping. (And two three papers to write before Monday.)

And the winner is...

Y'all are big on duty, it appears. And, even though that wasn't the secret desire of my heart, I went along with you. Because I really should. And because I thought I could finish them last night. I probably could have, if I had been a little more dilligent.

Before:	After:

And if I hadn't inexplicably started doing toe decreases on the top and bottom of the foot instead of along the sides. *sigh* I suppose it's a good thing I didn't work on lace last night ... gods know what I would have done to that.

I may just be dutiful again tonight and whip out the rest of the socks. (After ripping the wonky toe. *sob* I asked, but Ryan said he wouldn't let me break his toes and rearrange his feet so he fit the sock.) Because, y'know, they're almost done. Then I'll do something more fun. White Sapphire if we're watching something mindless, and, uh, probably Loopy Lanscape if we're watching something fun.

Yeah, that's all I've got today. Maybe I'll be more interesting tomorrow. (Oh, and big thanks to everyone who voted - I knew you were out there somewhere!)

Knitting Roundup

Edited to add ... a poll! Cast your vote today! Entrants can be seen below.

What knitting project should Colleen work on tonight?
	White Sapphire
	Mountain Peaks
	Oompa Loompa socks
	Sanity socks
	Loopy Landscape
	Screw them - start something new!
Free polls from Pollhost.com

************************************
I'm having a terrible time getting motivated to do actual work today, so I'm posting early rather than late. Enjoy.

Cream and Fuzzy Grandma Scarf #2
Well, it's not much of a name, but it will have to do.

Specs:
Completed on: April 29, 2006
Yarn: Patons Divine, in Soft Earth
The Pattern: 3 x 2 rib, no pattern.



White Sapphire

Status: Temporarily stalled, but it looks like the best bet for my next Christmas project. Now that I'm past the solid part, it's just chains from here on out.



Mountain Peaks

Status: Also temporarily stalled. I've ripped back to my last lifeline, and I just have to find the fortitude - and quiet time - to start again. Perhaps I'll work on it tonight, and save the mindless knitting for another time.



Oompa Loompa socks

Status: Glaring at me accusingly. They've been passed over, and they know it. Nonetheless, they must get done, and soon. This is the second contender for tonight's knitting.



Sanity socks

Status: A little grumpy about just being carried around in my purse all day and not worked on, but they understand that, as sanity socks, they don't get the first and best of my time.




Pot Scrubber Landscape

Status: There have been some rumors that the landscape shawl may be making a surprise comeback at the SilverRose household, in an entirely new look. The knitter in question is reported as giggling to herself as she contemplates the loopy landscape.



Tune in tomorrow to find out who wins the competition to be tonight's knitting project! Winner receives a night of attention and love. All others get stuffed into the workbasket unceremoniously.

The Grand Project

The Sewing Room.

There's no way to convey to full grandeur of the cleaning that happened with Ryan's help on Saturday, so I'll let the pictures talk for me. (Ryan? Seriously a saint among men. And not your silly go-to-the-mountain-and-contemplate-his-navel kind of saint, he's the dive-in-and-get-stuff-done kind of saint.)

Before, from the door

The view leaving the room

I swear, there's a sofa under there somewhere

Quelle horreur!

But then, this:

Wow, a closet. And fabric storage

Sofa, found again

Simply, heaven