Back home and kickin'

I did survive the trip home for Thanksgiving. It was great to see everyone and my brother's new house! The travelling wasn't too bad for the most part - there was some weather in Chicago that delayed our takeoff in LA on the way there, but that was about it. Now if I could just find my mp3 player again - how do I always lose those things???? It's a curse, I tell you!

It was gorgeous the first day I was there - 60 degrees and sunny - then Mother Nature decided to remind everyone that it was November in the Midwest and the very next day hit us with rain, sleet, and a tiny bit of snow. It was 26 when I left on Friday. Only in the Midwest. You don't like the weather, wait five minutes and it'll change. (Of course, it's exactly that changing that gives them the coolest thunderstorms ever, which I *do* miss, so I guess it's pick your poison.) After about thirty seconds in that temperature, I was ready to be back in California. The warm sunshine on the tarmac at LAX was one of the best feelings ever!

Friday was a VERY long day - getting up at 2:00a PST to get to the airport, travelling for eight hours, then landing and going straight to the theater to do Act Two of the matinee and all of the evening performance. Chrissy did cut me loose from doing the rest of the matinee, but at that point it wasn't enough time to get any sleep before the evening show anyway, so it didn't make a whole lot of difference. It was a big weekend in general, so I totally slept in on Monday. (I know, some of you will ask, "How can you tell if you slept in? You don't get up until 10:00a anyway!" to which I reply "I normally sleep eight hours a night, just a different eight hours than most people. If I sleep more than that, I've slept in, just like you. So there! =P") I really wanted to get up for knitting, and actually got on the road around 11:30a before realizing that by the time I got there people would be starting to leave. Sigh. Maybe next week, if I'm not in LA.

Speaking of knitting, Mom had some interesting stuff while I was at home. She went through and dug up some of the handmade sweaters her great-aunt and grandmother had made for her! Beautiful stuff! As Mom says, they'd had a lot of practice by that point - they used to knit sweaters, hats, and mittens for all fourteen grandchildren for Christmas and they'd start in October if they wanted to start early! Two really beautiful Arans and an intarsia snowflake pattern - I'll get pics up soon. I might try to copy one of the Arans. I think I could pretty easily replicate at least one of the patterns already. Mom also has one more Fair Isle (she thinks) sweater that she couldn't find that was her favorite and got, er, shrunk, in the wash after she and Dad got married. I'd have to see it to decide if I could replicate it or not, but I'm actually pretty certain I could figure it out. How cool is that? Not only are these gorgeous sweaters handmade by my family, but I've learned enough that I might be able to do them, too!

Some knitting was actually accomplished on the trip, too - I started a new sock about two weeks ago now, out of some STR lightweight I'd picked up in some destash or other on KR. It is one of their semi-solids in a colorway called 24 Carat, which is a really pretty combination of golds, but I had a hard time finding a pattern for it that I liked. I really wanted to do a Pomotamus with it, but I settled, instead, on Wendelin the Weird Socks, which are not weird at all, and work very very well with the yarn. I'll try to get a pic up soon. Even Chrissy and Aleah have admired it. Anyway, I turned the heel on the first one before I left and was looking forward to finishing the leg and maybe starting the second one whilst travelling. An excellent plan, to be sure, until one takes into account the one-and-a-half-year-old Lab mix my parents rescued over the summer. I left the sock on the couch on Thursday while we went to my grandparents', and when we came home, we discovered that, to his credit, he did not harm the yarn nor the cable, and all of the stitches had been carefully slid back onto the cable so they weren't dropped, but my beautiful new Harmony needle tips were in chewed pieces all over the living room floor! Beware the lure of the Harmony needles, it apparently works on canines as well! Sigh. Luckily, I do have a nickel-plated KP circ of the same size here at home, so work is not paused (pawsed? get it? *groan*) on that like it is on the broken-needled Broad Street gloves. I'm going to have to put in an order this week after payday, I think.

The afghan is progressing slowly but surely. I'm on square 20 right now and am planning on working on that tonight after I get some dinner and a shower. I've done four classes so far this week - two tkd, one kickboxing and one Haganah. I didn't get lunch today, and I can't eat right before kickboxing, so I skipped that class in favor of getting food and going to just tkd instead. I'm planning on doing tkd and Haganah tomorrow. Okay, so even if I hadn't been planning on doing Haganah tomorrow, if I'd shown up at tkd, Sir and Ma'am would have badgered me into staying anyway. I'm saving them the trouble. And then sparring on Friday!!! Can't wait!! Mr. M was hassling me today about going for pizza and beer afterwards, and I owe him one anyway. (It really should be illegal to let pizza smell waft through the parking lot after class. It's so not fair!) I was actually expecting to be pretty sore today after the long break away and then doing so much, but I actually feel really really good. My only problem now is that we started our new board breaks today. Mine is a jump side kick. I rolled my ankle on a jump side kick in a one-step a couple months ago, and am still scared of them. I know it's completely a psychological thing. Other jump kicks don't scare me. (Although Mr. R did find my blanch at the jump crescent kick that's in my form rather amusing.) Ma'am and Mr. M suggested wearing a light brace or even just wrapping the ankle to make myself think it's stronger. I did break the board tonight, but I know the motion wasn't right. I hope we work on these a lot, because I'm going to need it! The new form, Choon Jung Il-Jahng, is really interesting. It's the first time I've had to do any tension techniques, and there are a LOT of hand techniques in this one! It's actually the brown belt form; I don't know why Sir's having me skip In Wah Ee-Jahng, the blue belt form, since I've gone in order with everything else. Oh well. I really need to start going back through all my forms and relearning them again. I'm now the highest color belt that regularly comes to class, so I get asked for help a little more often. Just gotta make room in the brain for all the information!