psst...I'm still here!

I'm sure by now you are all wondering what the heck I have been up to. Or maybe not. Either way I'm now going to give what will hopefully sound like a decent excuse for not blogging in ages.

Our situation last semester was this: DH was teaching at the university here and in the meantime was offered a very swank job in Washington DC at the German Historical Institute, which would offer a nice secure position for at least 2 years, and would open lots of doors carreer-wise once those 2 years were over. Luckily he was able to take the job without too much hassle from Bloomsburg U (we still appreciate their understanding in the matter!.

This is all well and good but it would also mean that we would have to pick up and move during the Christmas break. Um, that would be very yucky. Plus we would have to take the kids out of school halfway through--both of them are in their first year of school--Eva at preschool and Sebastian is in Kindergarden.

So we came up with the plan that I would stay here with the kids and hubby would move to DC and just take a room somewhere that could be lease-less. We will be joining him once school is over. That way he can already put some feelers out for a place to rent and we could finish out the school year without incident. And with the rent being what it is, it would cost about the same for us to be apart than if we would all be in DC together. Hubby visits over the weekend, which is flipping good 'cuz otherwise I'd go completely insane!

SOOOOOOo where I am going with all of this? Well I am pretty much constantly busy. When I do have a free moment I don't really feel like hanging out on the computer as much as I used to (in other words, I don't ravel as much!). After the kids are in bed I just zone out, watch tv and knit or spin, or play Animal Crossing. Blogging was somewhere under the surface of my mind, but first and foremost I just wanted to shut that mind up and give it a rest.

I have also been developing a healthy respect for single parents. A note to single parents: YOU ARE ALL AMAZING.

I did craploads of knitting since we last got together: I finished my Icarus shawl (YAY! FINALLY!), knit a few hats, some cutie patootie Valentine heart pins, and of course Christmas gifts. I'll gradually post them all, but since Icarus has been the longest on the needles I feel like I gotta share:


Icarus, freed and unpinned from the sunroom floor:

A close-up of the bead work:

I also have pics of Icarus being blocked on my Flickr account, but they are kind of sucky. Feel free to take a look if you are interested, however: here they are.

I am not entirely happy with the way the beads hang. When I got them I didn't realize that there would be a few rows of knitting *after* you place them. Its definitely not what I envisioned. But I had the beads (and even ordered more from the very gracious and understanding Bead Goddess) and really wanted to use them. I tried others that I had in my stash , but they all looked wierd. The end result is just ok. I'm not dazzled by them,b ut I think they definitely add something to the piece.

I haven't done much spinning lately. When deep winter hits I tend to knit more than spin. I finally finished up a couple of skeins of Spunky Fiber of the month--the November selection as a matter of fact, which I actually started in the month of November. Gulp. How embarrassing! I do plan on spinning up some more Spunky stuff tonight--I think the colorway is called Lame Duck. Its a lovely bfl in browns, greens, and yellows.

Well I don't want to overwhelm you with pics of recent FOs. I'll let those trickle in through the next few posts. I do promise to post more often. Now that things are calming down and we are settling into a schedule I'm a bit more myself. I'm aiming to do another post in the next few days with more pics and hopefully some new handspun! Until then, here is an excellent video tute on corespinning to keep you occupied (which I will be trying VERY soon!):

Corespinning tute by Colorbomb Creations

See you soon!