Maple approves of spring.

my addiction

I am addicted to knitting. I knit while I listen to lectures, while I listen to board review CD’s, while I watch TV and listening to music in coffee shops. But don’t worry I haven’t completely gone over the edge: I do NOT knit while driving, in church, in the clinic or in restaurants (which I have witnessed).  Part of my addiction is my love of doing creative things. The other part is how I manifest a pathology that Adam and I both share. This pathology is “how can we find a way to be as self sufficient as possible” ie: we love gardening, we want chickens, we admire (and use) our neighbors homemade honey and candles, we make our own beer and Adam on one occasion has said “When we have more space I want to grow my own hops (an ingredient used in the beer)” and I have once said “Maybe one day I can get an Angora rabbit and I can make yarn from it’s fur.”

It is getting a bit pathological, or we just need to live on more property- however you want to see it.

Here are some pictures of a sweater I finished about a month ago. This yarn was a Christmas gift from Arder. Thanks Arder. It is a really comfortable sweater, that I have enjoyed wearing so far. I felt a bit silly posing for these, but oh well.

The brown sweater is my current project. It is a empire waist cardigan that is knit in bamboo yarn. The sleeves will be three quarter length. The best part is it is knit in one piece. I discovered on the green sweater that I hate having to connect a bunch of seams- to many opportunities to make mistakes. I am excited to finish it so I can wear it in May’s spring weather.

I am actually feeling relaxed as I head into my last month of school. My praxis/thesis is virtually done- just waiting on the final “okay” from my advisor. All I have in between me and graduation is 2 finals, one more paper and exactly 24 more hours of clinical (which will be done by the end of April). So basically I feel like I have a light load right now. I am so happy I doubled up on hours at the beginning of the semester and did all that paper writing while it was still snowing outside. That leaves more time for knitting, cooking, trip planning and maybe some furniture refinishing once the weather is warmer- oh and then there is that looming job search I can’t forget about…. My financial aid exit interview last week reminded me of that reality!

I still plan on submitting my praxis/thesis for publication. It has the ever so sexy title “Developmental Assessment of Young Foster Children” and focuses on the developmental needs of young foster children receiving health care in a primary care setting. So alluring, I know. (I am joking, but I really did enjoy writing it and hope it will be useful to those who may read it) For all those family members who have expressed an interest in reading it- I promise nothing that you would call page turning. Remember it is a RESEARCH paper, yes, with practical implications and some good insight for primary care clinicians, but none the less 22 pages of text with about 10 pages of tables.

Here is a pic from today- just relaxing in the living room on Easter and talking about the stuff we still want to see on the East coast. Happy Easter everyone!