Trail Journal: Maryland Heights

Trail: Maryland Heights (Overlook Cliff Trail), Harper's Ferry National Historic Park
Date: August 15, 2009
Distance: 2.8 miles
Time: 2.5 hours
Elevation gain: about 1000', plus a 300' decent that you have to hike back up
Weather: 90 degrees, 60% humidity, sunny

Take a moment to assemble the above facts, and what you have resembles some sort of death march rather than a leisurely Saturday hike. (Except for the guy who was running the trail; clearly he was an android.) I'm not being dramatic when I say this was one of the most brutal hikes of my life. The terrain was so steep that I was leaning forward as I walked uphill. Apparently these people have never heard of switchbacks.

The upside was that I was not dragging a 9,000lb cannon nor wearing a wool uniform, which is what the Union Civil War soldiers did when building the naval battery on this mountain. Kudos, guys. How unfortunate that air conditioning was not invented in your lifetimes.

To get to the trailhead, you hike part of the Appalachian Trail, which isn't as cool as it seems when you realize that the trail is just a railroad bridge across a river filled with hundreds of drunken college students in inner tubes.

The whole point of this hike to reach the overlook, where you see:

At this point, I wasn't even all that impressed. I had drank a liter of water and didn't ever have to use the bathroom because of the intense sweat situation. The sun was beating down, and my view was being blocked by more college students (although thankfully these ones were not intoxicated.)

After making it back to the town of Harper's Ferry, we went into the John Brown museum. I didn't look at anything though, just sat in the lobby where the air was the coolest. I was obviously beat and cranky by this point, so we didn't look at any more of the the exhibits. History and extreme physical exertion do not mix.

I thought I was tough, but I can't handle August. All hiking is hereby postponed until October.

Finished: Ishbel

Despite knitting becoming much more popular among younger people over the past 10 years, the majority of the population probably still thinks of little old grandmas sitting in rocking chairs knitting shawls. Well, I am under 30, do not own a rocking chair, and just knit my first shawl! And yes, my friends, it was awesome.

I have been scared of knitting lace pretty much since I started knitting, but after finishing my February Lady Sweater earlier this yarn, I was prepared to try something more complicated. Enter my knitting group, who rightly has formed aRavely group called "Enablers Anonymous", where, unlike other 12-step programs that focus on preventing you from doing something, enabling is downright encouraged. (Witness my recent spinning activity.) All I had to do was mention I was interested in knitting lace, and I inexplicably found myself holding a very long, pointy needle and a triangular diagram.

I chose Ishbel for my first shawl because the stockinette portion was super-easy, and decreased the opportunity for me to royally screw up. (Which I only did once - go me!) The yarn was a silk and wool blend I got at Maryland Sheep and Wool from a random booth - I can't remember the name, and it wasn't on the label. I used size 6 knitpicks options needles.

Because it isn't the 18th century, the shawl in action will most likely look more like this:

I know now why shawls are knitters' crack. The whole time you're knitting, you have an amorphous blob on your needles. Then, as if by magic (magic = blocking), the whole thing flattens out and becomes light and airy and beautiful and warm, even though it's full of holes. You suddenly want more and more, convieniently forgetting the three hours you spent ripping out an entire night's worth of work because you made one extra freakin' yarn over. And when you're done, you'll sit out in your yard wearing a winter coat and a wool shawl in 90-degree heat, trying not to let your neighbor see you, even though he smokes pot in his yard and drives a sketchy van.

Home Improvement: Office

This is probably my favorite room in my house, and one of the reasons why we bought the house. I think this room was originally the master bedroom (it has a full bathroom and skylights), but we are using it as our office. The stairs go up to a loft, which the previous owners converted from an attic.

It's great to finally have most of (notice I didn't say all) my books in one place. Yes, I organized them by color. I like the rainbow effect against the turquoise wall.
My future plans for this room include curtains, a rug in front of the big bookcase, and maybe a different chair and reading lamp. Unfortunately I can't take credit for the wall colors, but I am glad the previous owners did all my work for me!

Next up: the garden.

Absence

I'm pretty sure that you all have nothing better to do than monitor the status of my blog, so you've undoubtedly noticed that I've been gone for-ev-er. I have a good excuse: I am now the proud owner of a full-time job and a 1.5 hour (each way) commute.

I have to say, I find my twice daily train ride to be quite amusing. There is the rather large woman who takes up 4 seats and every day can be observed eating something that is no doubt contributing to the severity of her condition (most recently, a giant pixy stix.) On Fridays, the drinking starts early. (I have seen many people drinking single bottles of beer; did they plan ahead for that? At 6am did they put their beer in their lunchbox and then store it in the work fridge all day?)

Oh yeah, knitting. It has happened. I was racing along on my Drops jacket, until I realized that it will still be several months until I will be able to wear a bulky, 100%-wool sweater. So that sort of put a damper on things.

My Catherine socks have been seeing the most action. They are small and portable, and the design is interesting enough to keep me motivated. I'm almost finished with one sock... but again, wearing sandals everyday doesn't necessitate new socks.

I also started this plain 'ol sock, and I'm getting tired of typing this post, so just look at the picture. You'll get the idea.

Ishbel: I is making one.

(I am now spending inordinate amounts of time thinking about random grammar issues; this apparently has impacted my ability to construct coherent sentences outside of work.)

Settling in

Is it wrong to want a vacation from moving? Unpacking was the easy part; finding places for all the things we unpacked is not so easy. It's also hard to put things away when your living room looks like this:
I'm pretty sure the cat is around here somewhere...

I've been tackling my long list of projects one by one. First up was to get my vegetables in the ground (or rather, in the dirt in plastic bins) because I got a late start this year. Beans, zucchini, green onions, and peppers have all sprouted. I'm excited to see these plants actually grow instead of withering and dying in 110-degree heat, like last year.

I also planted some flowers. I can sort of see how gardening might become addicting. Aren't the black leaves on this one great?

Here's the one room I have finished: my craft storage room. I'm not calling this my craft room, because I doubt any actual crafting will happen there because of lack of a window. On the walls I installed some eye screws and ran hemp string through them to serve as my revolving art gallery. I think this would be a really great way to display kids' art, since they seem to be mass producers.

In knitting (spinning?) news, last week my knitting group held its monthly spinning off-shoot. Just look at all those wheels! Somewhere many sheep are enjoying their summer haircuts.

Summertime

Summer unofficially starts on Memorial Day, which this year also happened to be mine and Jason's birthday. Whenever I tell someone that my husband and I have the same birthday, they usually say something like, "Really? That's cool/weird/neat/a coincidence!" What it really means is that every year I'm going to have to make my own birthday cake. The conversation usually goes something like this:
S: What kind of birthday cake do you want this year?
J: I don't know, what kind of birthday cake do you want?
S: Are you going to make me a cake this year?
J: What? I have to make my own birthday cake?
S: What? I have to make MY own birthday cake?
And then I bake a cake, because Jason says something like, "You are better at baking than I am. Your cake would turn out much better." (Apparently a statement he intends to use to get out of baking anything until death do us part)

That was a long way to say that I made an ice cream cake this year, and even though it turned out tasty, next time I'll remember to freeze the cake before layering in the ice cream. (Whoops.)

Yesterday I went strawberry picking, and came back with nearly 7lbs. Half have gone into the freezer, and half will go into my mouth. (But not all at the same time.)

There was also spinning! For years I have put off spinning for fear of acquiring yet another fiber hobby. But, many of the ladies in my knitting group are also spinners, and they made me do it. I believe there were threats of violence. So, I borrowed a spindle and mooched some fiber, and got to work.Above are my first and second attempts - not too bad! But, man, is this time consuming. I don't know if I will ever become addicted to spinning, but I am glad to be learning. When we run out of oil and the rest of you are cold, I will be wearing cozy hand-spun-and-knit sweaters.

A House!

Many of you who know me in real life know that WE BOUGHT A HOUSE! Tomorrow is closing, and we are moving in beginning at the end of this week. Yay, massive debt!

If you've been reading along dillgently, you know that I had a lot of plans for my new house, mostly in terms of paint colors. Much to my surprise we found a house that was already painted the exact colors I would have painted it. (Well, the dining area is only yellow, not yellow and teal. But, I'm sure I can find something teal to put in there.) There is not a white wall in the entire house! I'm planning on posting pictures as we get set up and I embark on the many projects that are already brewing in my mind, but I know you want a hint:

Trust me, it'll be more exciting this way. For a while now I have been keeping an inspiration file on my computer, where I save any images I come across that seem worth copying. I'm using this as I scheme. Apparently I like lots of colors, stick trees with few leaves, and collections of small things. Good to know!

February Lady Sweater (in May)

When was the last time I finished a sweater? (I don't know either.) But my February Lady Sweater is finished!! I started it in January, but quickly got bored knitting the same lace repeat for what seemed like forever.

This was essentially my first lace project, and it wasn't nearly as bad as I had imagined. I think it helped that the pattern repeats were short and it was easy to see where I was in a repeat based on the row beneath. It has given me the confidence to knit something more lacy (I even prepared for that by buying some silk/merino fingering weight wool at Maryland Sheep and Wool this past weekend. And it's red.)

I'm really happy with how this sweater turned out. It fits me near perfectly, and isn't too short, like most of my knitted sweaters. The only modification I made from the pattern is decreasing 7 stitches on each sleeve (after picking up along the arm hole, as the pattern tells you to do) in order to make the sleeves more fitted - and I'm glad I did it. I used Knitpicks Swish (superwash wool) and size 8 needles. I made the smallest size, but I don't know how much yarn I used. It was something like 750-850 yards.

Cat approves.

Quilting Mojo

Every once in a while I get a strong urge to make a quilt. (Don't we all?) The two quilts I have in progress weren't calling to me (one in particular because it is still in storage, in an undisclosed location.) A few weeks ago I armed myself with a 25%-off coupon for Joann's and went a little insane due to the fabric overload. After being stuck with the meager fabric selection at Walmart for the past few years, I was pretty excited to have access to fabric unrelated to John Deere.

This is a small quilt; I guess you would say it is baby quilt size. But, since there are no babies nearby, I will stick to my "small quilt" label. In fact, I started this quilt with the intention of giving it away, but I like it so much that event is not looking very likely. I don't really have any use for it, but then again, I don't really need anything I knit either.

As we begin month 3 in Maryland, the job search and the house search continue. I have become more patient as I've aged, which is paying off in this situation. I'm not one to compromise, and I know that eventually everything will work itself out. Meanwhile, I've been playing with paint colors using the Sherwin-Williams color visualizer. For the longest time, I wanted a cobalt blue kitchen. I finally got it, so now I have moved on to obsessing over a yellow and teal dining room. Whether or not I will eventually have an actual dining room remains to be seen, but it can't hurt to plan.

(And lest you think I'm smoking crack with my color choices, know that after I put the yellow on the walls, the color visualizer actually suggested teal for the accent color. Disregard the red on the walls in the background. Also, I would never put that style of furniture in a room this color. Think unfinished pine and Moroccan colored glass lanterns. Not that I'm a fan of pine in general... but I digress.)

Cherry Blossoms

As new residents of the Washington, D.C. area we were required to go see the cherry blossoms. I knew it would be crowded, but figured I should drag myself over there this year so that next year I can legitimately make sarcastic comments about the invading tourists. I know it is probably illegal not to be impressed by the cherry blossoms, but I was just "meh" about them. For starters, I'm not a huge flower person, and in general I'm suspicious of things that a lot of people like. (For example, Twilight. Seriously? That book sucked. As does American Idol.) There were also a ton of strollers creating a nerve-wracking situation, what with the crowded path and lack of barrier at the edge of the water.

You should ignore me and look at these pictures instead.