Spring Break I, Day 1

Greetings, and Dear Cynthia,

We are entering our first week of Spring Break (five year old has off this week; seven year old not until next week). Today on the schedule is cleaning the basement. It shouldn't be too bad, because most of it is Christmas decorations which just have to be neatly tucked back into their boxes. This should have been done months ago....but I digress. Tomorrow I am taking my five year old to my step grandma's funeral. The day after that, the grocery store. I certainly do not know how his friends who will be spending this week at Disney World will ever compete with my plans. (It's not all gloom - I decided to take him to see Horton Hears a Who today. I want to see it myself, so this is the perfect excuse for me to go. Plus, it sounds like there are some fun sound bites in it, such as "A person's a person no matter how small." This reminded me of our current alderman situation... (Oops, did I just write that?))

WOW -- your suggestions regarding my SuperNova were so great, and definitely worth trying! And, I certainly wish I would have seen your comments and love for the style before this:Yes, I stopped feeling the love for it. It had a rocky start (a couple of errors in the pattern), and sewing it together was tedious, and the sleeves were really on the very snug side. When I tried it on a couple of times, I had to tug around on it a little to get things to lie correctly, and I was also concerned about that. I checked Ravelry, and it's listed only three times there, with only one successful completion -- Another one is in hibernation, and the third is being scrapped. I decided to cut my losses and convert it to a simple vee neck. It's fine up to the arm decreases, so I ripped the body back to that point, and am re-knitting the sleeves to be a little bit looser. I feel a little bit sorry that I "gave up" on it. At the same time, I feel relieved that I can see the end of this project now.

Finally, if you haven't already seen this, I want to introduce you to Randy Pausch. He is a 47 year old married father of three, a very popular professor at Carnegie Mellon, and dying of pancreatic cancer. He gave a lecture at Carnegie Mellon back in September which has been at the top of the video lists on the internet. He reprised it on Oprah in a version that is only about ten minutes. I encourage you to watch it -- very inspiring. One of my favorite messages from it is to choose to be a Tigger and not an Eeyore. Another is about having a sense of fun and wonder all the time. Another about not complaining, just working harder... Really, really worth a look. In case you're interested, here is the long version he gave on his campus.

Okay, I'm off to start cleaning the basement...

Warm regards,
Laura (YarnThrower)