"Accidental Memory"

Warning...this is a bit of depressing prose, but this is what showed in my head when I read the challenge.  (This is from a challenge that was sent through The Writers Challenge Group, TWO on yahoo groups)

Take these 5 lines and work them into a prose or poem (and mark them):

shockingly gory
  highpitched and deafening
  noxious, rich odors
  trickled through my fingers
  sweet and sour

    The scene was *shockingly gory*, I was told. You could hear, from a good distance away, the *highpitched and deafening* sounds of metal crunching and wheels squealing to a sudden stop. As the scene grew older by the second, *the noxious, rich odors* had felt as if they were eating away at my nose hairs. I was disorientated. The car had flipped onto it's roof and I hung there like a rag doll. The windshield had shattered, and the pouring rain *trickled through my fingers* as I hung there waiting for assistance. It was odd because I did not hear the rain. I only knew it was there because of the wetness I felt on my hands and face. The only sounds that I could hear where the sounds of my own heartbeat rythmically, soothingly, beating away in my ears. My every muscle and bone hurt, and my head felt like it was gonna explode from hanging upside down in the seatbelt for...for who knows how long I had been hanging there. The *sweet and sour* taste of sweat and blood lingered in my mouth as I tried to muster up a voice to call for help with. I could not discern if any voice escaped me, but I could feel my breath come and go as I tried. So I hoped that I had made some sort of audiable sound that someone could hear.
    I prayed hard that day. I prayed like I never prayed before. I did not feel afraid that I was gonna die, I dunno why. I was rescued after a bit of time, I am told, that they had indeed heard my faint, scratchy cry for help.
    The memories precending the crash I am unable to retrieve. The docs tell me they should come back to me, with time.  Time has come that I can finally go home. I'd be excited about it if I did not have to take this new thing home with me. I left the hospital building watching, watching...watching those who were unable to leave themselves, as they were watching me with an unbearable longing that lingered in thier faces. Thier bodies did not make it through the injuries sustained in that horrible, horrible, accident, so thier souls stayed behind...trapped, in the hospital where they had died.

Some rights reserved, CC,  2007

 

Until next time...

More pictures of Lotti, my adopted lamb

Picture postcards arrived in the mail today from the farm where I adopted Lotti from. I don't have a working scanner so I took pictures of the pictures so the quality went down a tad. The two adult lambs are her parents, both are part Merino. And along with the photocards was a note on how she is doing....

"It's lambing time and so far there are 22 new lambs on the farm. Lotti's mother Belle had twins again. One black and one white, again. The black one looks just about like Lotti. There are 6 more ewes to go! One last night, Theresa, surprised me. I tried to pull her lamb that was breach and it's legs were not in the right place, I couldn't so I called the vet. By the time he got here she had managed to deliver the lamb on her own, and two more! He said that they usually cannot deliver them in that position either. Go girl!

About Lotti: She was born at 6:30 AM on Februrary 11, 2006. She was a twin and weighted 10 pounds. Her mother is Belle, a merino-columbia-lincoln cross. Her father is Arthur, a blue faced leicester-merino cross. She was a favorite from the beginning. She was so cute when she was borned everyone just loved her. My 1st grade daughter did a report and poster on her, and she has been spoiled ever since. For some reason Belle's lambs are always especially friendly, and Lotti was no exception. In fact there are times that she is a little too friendly. Sometimes when I am out in the barn yard doing something she comes and will not leave me alone unless I scratch her. She will come and paw at me until I do what she wants!

I've noticed that she is very interested in the new lambs. She will go into the lambing jug with them if I am not careful to close the gates. Their mothers frown on her joining them. I am sure she will have a good time when they get out and she can play with them. She still has her lamby personality and likes to run and bounce. And of course you've seen the photo of her being king of the mountain. I will email more photos as I take them."

Until next time...

Daybreak: 4 inches of snow overnight

We accumulated around 4 inches 6 inches of snow overnight, and this morning we have blizzard warnings with a huge band of snow heading our way. I better get my coffee before the weather turns bad.

Until next time...

Phantom Snow Storm? (Second Try)

I wrote this (via email) Friday evening before taking the picture of the snow dusting on the patio, but it never posted so here it is again.

 

Okay so I have been checking the radar on a regular basis today because they are CLAIMING that we are supposed to get snow. I see snow zipped across the city on the radar...but I have yet to see one flake-a-snow! *scratches head* It's showing has heavy snowfall too!! WTF? The whole southern half of Wisconsin is under a winter storm watch. Now where is it? LMAO!

If and when it comes I will be taking pictures as they are predicting (off the tip of thier noses) anywhere from 11-16 inches of snow in my area. The last couple of times they predicted snowfall...it was either little to nothin or a whole lot-a snow...usually opposite of what they predict. They aren't very good at predicting weather here.

 

Whew...I did me some major walking today. This morning I was up and at them, on my day off, at my regular time of 6:30 AM. The BF *shaking fist* was making a shit of a racket in the bedroom. I guess he thought I didn't want to sleep in. *FACE-PALM!* Sneezing, coughing, blowing nose, digging through drawers, comin and goin out of the bedroom...oye. Well, I was up to see the sunrise as I got dressed and went walkin. I wanted to get to the Staples store early so I could get myself that new MP3 player that they have a $20 rebate on. Makes it $50 when I get that twenty back. I got the Creative MuVu 100 2 Gig. I've had my little 128 MB creative MP3 player for three...four years. The only problem I have with it is that the software is not XP compatable...and because it is so old there is no customer support for it. *shakes fist*

But it's nice to get something new once in a while. This one, being more up to date, has an LCD display that shows what song is playin, how long it has been playin, bass-boost, a recorder, and a bunch of other goodies that I will probably never get around to using. The old one didn't have a display. So this is NIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICE.

 

So I got my coffee, got a muffin at the store, got my new MP3 playa (all within the same block) came home and installed it....spend three hours editing and loading the damned thing up with music, went back out to mail a package to the Mum (new MP3 player in tow), went down to the local Sushi joint for a take out order, came home ate, and now I could use a nap!

 

I think I will spin up enough two ply shetland lace weight yarn to make myself another wing of themoth shawl for when I am done with the one I am working on now. I have 20 rows to go to finish, but it takes an hour to do around 3 rows. *faints* But spinning from the combed roving is a snap! Takes about an hour to fill up the bobbin with singles...that's not long at all! Then I wind it into a center pull ball, ply the ends together, and dye it...all in the same day! WOW!

 

Until next time...

 

*snooooooooooooooooore, snort-snort....snooooooooooore*

 

 

It's HEEEEEErrrrrreeeeee!

The news cast is calling it the largest snow storm to hit this area in 15 years. We shall see. Is it not odd that I yell "Well, were is it?!" and then it starts snowing?? I must stop doing that. It's dark out now so I took a picture of the porch where the previous snow fall has melted away. I took it around 6:30 Friday evening.

Until next time...

O.M.G. I'm gonna do it...

I'm gonna learn Martial Arts!!! OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm excited, nervous, scared and everything inbetween! Karate America had a coupon in this weeks Dollars and Sense (a coupon book like thang) for a free full month plus free uniform and reward certificate upon completion. YAY! I called and asked if they had any adult programs, and they are starting adult self defense classes in TWO WEEKS! Good timing or what? I even asked if they had a wieght limit because although I am not HUGE, I am not small either and I want to do this for the added benifit of wieght loss too.

 

When I asked about how much it usually is, they said after the month trial they would "discuss the price" then. Okay....that scares me. I have no idea how much this will cost me but I sure hope I can afford it because I want to do this. I WANT THIS! Goddess? You hear me on this one right? I WANT THIS! I WANT TO DO THIS!

 

Until next time...

 

HI-YA!

 

 

 

Project Spectrum-Blues and Silvers

I tried a new dyeing technique that I learned from the Totally Twisted E-Zine (Cost: Single Issue: $7.00 +$3.00 S/H, Year Subscription: $20.00 +$10.00 S/H, email delivery available for no shipping charge).
The camera doesn't like the colors that much, which really dulls the colors on the finished skien but it glourious! I used turquoise, royal blue, and lilac purple in the middle. The top layer of yarn dyed lighter than the bottom and fives a nice varigation effect through the skien. It's sooooooo pretty in person. I wish I could get an accurate picture!

Until next time...

ThunderSnow?

I read this blog where she describes her incounter with "Thunder Snow". I've only heard thunder once in a blue moon during a heavy snow fall and I have only heard about seeing lightening during a snow storm. How odd! This articles says they are rare, but are becoming more frequent as climit changes continue to progress.

Inside the Mystery of 'Thundersnow'
Rare ‘Thundersnows’ Remain Mysterious to Scientists
By AMANDA ONION

Dec. 1, 2003 — - It was an afternoon eight years ago that David Schultz will never forget. Snowflakes were falling down as big chunks and bolts of light flashed through the snow-whitened sky. Then there was the sound of strangely muted thunder.
"It was a muffled rumble," remembered Schultz, who was then a graduate student in Albany, N.Y., and is now a meteorologist at NOAA's Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Okla. "It was brilliant."
So-called thundersnows are rare events that feature thunder, lightning and heavy snowfall. Despite their drama — but perhaps because of their infrequency — very little is known about them.
Schultz is one of the few U.S. meteorologists to have investigated the storms and now another researcher, Patrick Market of the University of Missouri in Columbia, hopes to learn more. Market recently received a $460,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to find out how often the storms occur and why.
"The thunder and lightning are the attention grabbers," Market said. "But they are really symptoms of a larger issue — sometimes these storms can generate an awful lot of snow over a small area."
Muted by Snow
Case in point: In January 1994, a huge storm deluged Louisville, Ky., in about two feet of snow. People throughout the city recalled seeing flashes of light and growls of thunder. A similar storm struck Columbia, Mo, a year later. Thundersnow storms are more common in the Great Lakes region and in the mountains, but remain rare even there.
Schultz has estimated that only 0.07 percent of recorded snowstorms are associated with thunder. And, among thunderstorms, only 1.3 percent of these storms in cool seasons feature snow. Part of the problem may lie in documenting the storms. Shultz points out that heavy snow has a way of obscuring sound and light — the telltale signs of a thundersnow.
"Where you might hear a regular thunderstorm from four to five miles away, you may not hear or see a thundersnow from a mile away," he said.
Despite the spotty record on the storms, ancient texts prove people have been witnessing them for centuries. Descriptions of the events date to at least as early as the 19th century in Western literature, says Schultz. And Chinese texts dating to 1099 A.D. reveal that Chinese warriors believed the storms were precursors to an enemy attack.
Thundersnows may have seemed mystical in earlier centuries, but now scientists understand a mix of warm air and moisture are required to brew them.
Churning Charges
As a storm cloud gathers up warmer air (such as air over a lake or ocean surface), the air rises in the cloud's structure and creates a churning of air masses within the cloud. This turbulence mixes snow crystals and supercooled water droplets in the cloud and the turbulence knocks off electrons from the water particles, causing positive and negative charges in the cloud to separate.
The negative charges collect at the base of the cloud and are attracted to positive charges either on the ground or in nearby clouds. As the negative charges rush toward the positive charges, the positive charges rise and meet them and this creates a bolt of lightning. The lightning heats the air to about 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit, causing the air to quickly expand. The air then cools and contracts, creating a "clap" of thunder.
That's what scientists believe happens, anyway. It's roughly the same process involved in creating a regular thunderstorm. But some questions remain. How, for example, does churning air cause particles in a storm cloud to shed their negative charges? And while it's known that at any time, 2,000 thunderstorms are occurring around the world, it's not clear how many of these may be thundersnows.
To try and improve records, Market has set up a Web site where people who have witnessed lightning or thunder during a snowstorm can describe what they remember about the event. Market, himself, hopes to contribute an entry in the near future. Ironically he has not yet seen a thundersnow.
"I hope to change that soon," he said. "It just seems like it would be really cool."
Likely Locations to Witness Thundersnow
Although data on thundersnow events remain thin, the data scientists do have suggest the storms are most common in the following states:
Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Oklahoma and northern Texas.
Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures

Until next time...

OOOO softy-lofty-yarny-p0rny-goodness(y?)

Okay I could not wait to try out the new skien winder so I started to spin up the HUGE ball of combed fiber I had been prepin here and there through-out the last week. The picture of the wound ball of fine shetland singles I had to sharpen up a bit to get more detail to show. Camera does not like blues, purples, and bright whites. This is a HUGE ball of singles and I stil have half of it to ply up because the bobbin was filled on HALF of the singles!

You can see the winder in use and it is tall enough that I can wind directly off the Kiwi with little to no assistance from me. NICE! We were watching a PBS special on the Blue Man Group. See them on the tellie (along with the cluttered mess? Can't help it. Two people living in a small apartment with all thier junk stuffed into every nook and cranny...a couples life). The yarn I got from these singles is luciously soft and lofty and oOOOOooo so yarn p0rny goodnessy! It is much easier to tie a figure right tie on the floor winder because it is about my hieght and I can easily turn it to tie the other sides. I cannot wait to dye it! I am thinking turquoise with a touch of royal blue and lilac purple...OOOOooo.

Until next time...

No Sheep for You! A yarn snobs NIGHTMARE!! HA!

OOooh I am in a hyper mood right now. Have you seen this? No Sheep For you is a book about knitting with all the OTHER fibers (including "modern synthetics") that yarn snobs hate. OOOoo it's a yarn snobs NIGHTMARE! Yarn snobs, this chuck is for you! HA! What is it with snobbiness with yarn anyways? What's wrong with synthetics? They are soft...sparkly, and sometimes right down COOL!

Humph! I am a Yarn Snob-Snob. Take that and rewind it back!

Until next time...

Skien Comparrison

Here is a picture of two skiens. The one on the left, turquoise, was made on the newly constructed floor skien winder. The one on the right, rust orange, was made on my homemade PVC niddy-noddy. The floor skien winder makes a skien that is slightly smaller. Both of these were hand-dyed by me.

Until next time...

Floor Skien Winder...from conception to completion

I have been, for the longest time, been trying to buy myself a swift. But, I've never gotten around to it because I think they cost too much for what they are. So what do I do? You guessed it, I went and bought some supplies to make my own. I took the plans for the Build a Little Great Wheel put out by Interweave's Spin-Off and adaped the connection of the wheel to the frame of the home-made wheel to the constuction of this floor model swift/winder/what-cha-ma-call-it. Now this is a super ruff construction, made only to be functional...not decor ready. But, it works and I spend under $10 on it's construction and all supplies were bought at the local Menards. The skien size I get from this is is 29 inches...plenty big for the average skien. If I ever want to make a larger skien for self stripping yarn, I only seen to go and buy longer oak boards and construct a wider cross. It works great the way it is, although I need a slightly longer bolt as one of the arms keeps hitting the body of it. The base needs to be a bit wider, or I need to make a stabelizer as it tends to wobble, but for now I can put my foot onto the base to hold it steady. I used two oak boards at 1/2" x 2" x 2' for the arms and mitered a small portion out of the center of both of them, then glued them together with Gorilla glue. You will want a dowel, I used one three foot dowel and cut it every 7 inches. This will give you 5 pegs with one being a little longer than the rest. This one will be your "handle" for turning the device. Find a hole borring bit that is the same size of the dowel you have chosen. I used 5/8th dowels and so used a 5/8th bit.

Before drilling a hole in the center of the boards you want to try and find as close to the exact center as possible without having to purchase further equipment (think frugal). Then measure from each end and mark one inch and two inches. Mark the center (as close as possible) between the one and two inch marks. This gives an inch of board sticking out to hold the yarn on the pegs. C-clamp both boards together and drill all the holes through both of them at once. Unclamp the boards and drill ONE MORE hole in ONE BOARD between the center hole and the end hole. This is where your handle peg will go.

Miter out (either with hand chisels or a dremel if you have one) a "thumb-nails" worth of wood...about 1/8 of an inch...or one quarter of the boards thickness. Miter them out so that the holes will match up when glued together. Sand the mitered portions lightly..ready, set, Gorilla Glue! Place a clamp on the glued pieces and let sit overnight. Love that gorilla glue!

While that is drying, construct the base. You may want to make something wider than I have, so I will not include the base construction here. For the main post, I used 2x2 square fence post boards that are super cheap, and super dry. You will want to seal these with some tung oil (or some other kind of wood oil) to keep them from splitting in the future. About 4 inches from the top of the pole, mark as center as possible and drill a hole slightly smaller than a 1/4 5/16 bolt. You want to pre-drill the hole to keep the wood from splitting, but you want it slightly smaller so that the threads will catch.

The next day gather up a 3 1/2 4 inch long 1/4 5/16 hex carriage bolt (preferably one that has about an inch near the top of the bolt that has no threads-if that cannot be found follow the intructions for making the "Wheel Shaft Carriage Bolt", page 3, of the PDF for making a little great wheel), two three regular 5/16 nuts, one 5/16 lock nut, and 4 washers that will fit the bolt. I drilled too big of a hole through the main shaft so I used wider than usual washers to steady the resulting wobble so I had to drill a slightly smaller hole above it with a 3/8 hole borring bit.

To put everything together, add a washer to the bolt, put the bolt through the cross arms (after glue has dried) first. Now add one washer andone two nuts. You want to leave a small space between the first nut and the cross arms so there is enough room for the arms to swing freely, but not wobble, then tighten the second nut snuggly up to the first one. This keeps the first nut from coming unscrewed with continued use. Now add one more washer and insert the whole get-up through the main shaft. Add the last washer, and the lock nut. Hand tighten only. Now slide the pegs through all the holes and take pride in your newly made yarn winder. (BIG GRIN). I did not glue the pegs in so that I could take it apart for storage if I need to in the future. The pegs did not fall out when I tested it-although one peg is pointing downwards slightly because I do not have a bench press to drill perfectly stright holes with. What I will likely do is simmply add some rubber O rings to the ends to help prevent yarn from rolling off. My test skien did not roll off.

If you have any questions on the construction of this nifty home-made thang, feel free to ask. Be as specific as possible because "It's not working for me." will not enable me to help you at all.

Until next time...

Revised: 2.22.07

Blog P0rn Addict

Blog P0rn addict...being addicted to the act of viewing only the pictures of fiber artists blogs...rarely reading any text.

HA!

Gotcha!

Yes, I am a horrible blog p0rn addict. I love looking at the pictures people post of thier knitted objects, spun projects, and all fiber-licious things inbetween.

 

 

I'm on Unwound!

I did a book review for a book I won through Unwound by participating in the listners poll that was for Victorian Lace today. It is in the current Episode 8.

 

Today we went to the BF's Dad's place for B-day dinner (for both of us). We had a home baked meal of roast beef, cooked carrots and corn, mashed tators with gravey, with a choice of THREE deserts-pumpkin pie, chocolate cake, or apple crisp. I would have had a serving of all three if I had enough room in my bellie! And the BF's brother was there....yackin away as usual. Blah-blah this and blah-blah that...I don't think  he knows how to shut up. We can't even watch a movie with his Dad with his brother in the same room because he is CONSTANTLY yammering on about how that is so fake, or they don't do it that way....or SOMETHING. He is a know-it-all wanna be and makes me completely insane. No wonder he is single!! NO woman would be able to stand him for more than two minutes without banging her head into the wall so hard it would kill her. I brought along my silk hankies to stretch into roving and roll into a silk ball to keep me busy. I hate being around that man. He never SHUT'S THE HELL UP! Sometimes he pushes everyone over the edge and ends up getting nipped at by everyone because we get sooooooooo tired of hearing him and his wanna-be know-it-all yammerings. OH gods....save me!

 

I got another bath kit. I like them but this one is so strong (rose scent) that I don't think I will be able to use much of it. I tried the hand cream but the rose scent was so strong I had to wash it off my hands. It was BURNING my sinuses....ugh. The BF got a 40 gig hard-drive, some memory chips, and a new CD RW. He installed the 40 gig onto the newer computer for the time being. He says he plans on buying a new computer to replace his majorly outdated and obsolete older one on the other side of the living room. I will believe it when I see it!

 

After he was done with that he went out to see his bro, this time at his home,  to deliver a package that he had sent to our address. He is a paranoid skits and has packages sent from his online lover lady to our apartment. I do not approve of this and have told the BF that I don't like it. Not one bit. What makes him think he can send his packages to our address?? UGH! So since they are delivered here, and are addressed to the BF, we open them. Most of the time it is a bunch of food....go figure. He got a bunch of coffee, crackers, hot chocolate, microwave pop corn, and a bunch of other crap. Wierdo!

 

And since no one was home I worked on trying to dye with coffee...which was a fantastic failure. I read that coffee has tannin which is a natural mordent...yeah...tell me another one genius. *rolling eyes* So I set those bunches of wool to set aside to dry and to someday over-dye. Then I set to work on combing some shetland cross wool. I want to try some spaghetti dying that is detailed in the current issue of Totally Twisted E-Zine . Spinning from the combed rovings is a breeze and three times faster than carding because it is already pre-drafted for the most part, and a lot less dense than a rolag so drafting goes much-much-much quicker.

 

Thanks for all the comments here recently! I seem to have some regular readers out there! Sweetness!

 

Until next time...