surprise gift + meme

When I came home last night there was a large box waiting at the front door. Instead of running inside to take the dogs for a walk, I decided to open it right then and there-- Look at what was inside!It's an unexpected gift from Cathy-Cate -- a Sheep-to-Shoe kit in the Eggplanted colorway. She went to Sock Camp a few weeks ago picked this gorgeous kit for me. Thank you so very much. I just love it!

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Last week Carolyn at Yarn Therapy tagged me with a "Five things about you" meme, so here goes. Since I'm not a meme person I'll go ahead and humor you - but will follow just a few of the rules. I'm not going to tag anyone - but if you want to play along consider yourself tagged and read the rules here:

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1. In high school and through most of college I listened to a stellar radio station. Here's the honorarium website for Revolution Radio. Once it went off the air there was a very long and sad radio drought. Brian Oake ran to Cities 97, and Mary Lucia had completely disappeared... Then a gift came from Minnesota Public Radio – The Current is the best station that we've heard in the Twin since Rev 105 was taken off the air. Eclectic playlists are back! Who doesn't want to hear Patsy Cline with their Jayhawks and Atmosphere? Local Minnesota music is highlighted, DJ’s and listeners actually pick a good deal of the songs. Interested in listening online? Just click.
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2. Like Rosie Grier, my brother loves his needlepoint. As a video game aficionado (especially old-school Nintendo like Zelda), he has been known to design a pattern or two – a melding of two passions into one. He has zero interest in knitting, but thinks spinning is cool. His girlfriend wants him to stick to needlepoint only-- they live in a space-challenged one bedroom condo.

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3. I have two collections in my house- the first is obvious. The second: Dansko shoes. I’m now up to nine pairs, one of which should be thrown out from serious wear.

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4. One of my undergraduate majors was Art History. This gave me an excuse to visit Europe repeatedly throughout college. Man, was I spoiled! I never go anywhere now.

5. I grew up on a hobby farm in a small town in Minnesota. We had to drive 30 minutes to get anywhere. Now my brother and I both live "in the big city". (St. Paul really isn't that large. :) We had a constant revolving pasture door of animals. Chickens and wild barn cats were the only constants. Sometimes we had Holstein cows, ducks and geese incubated from eggs, few horses until the teenage years hit, and often had sheep. Two old neighbors would come in their overalls to shear the sheep, my parents threw the fleeces out. Hurts to hear, doesn't it?

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6. Well…. Here’s an extra one. (note: not following rules again. is that officially #7? :) Usually I read knitting/spinning blogs only. With the crazy US political scene around us, I was nudged by Erik to start reading Al Giordano’s “The Field”. (He's also the creator of Narco News.) Once you click and start to read, you’ll quickly find out that I’m an Obama supporter – as (nearly) all of us who devotedly read this genius of a blog are. Al has helped me weather the crazy storm of a primary season thus far with stellar examples of true journalism, spot-on predictions (check out his Super Tuesday picks – then the results. Wowza.), sarcasm, and a touch of reality when "Chicken Littling" started to set in. Seriously, he’s the best thing since sliced bread. If I could only read one website during the day, this would undoubtedly be it. (I also read Politico – Ben Smith in particular, and Mark Halperin’s “The Page” at Time.)

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Last night I finished spinning singles from Crown Mountain Farm's Blue Faced Leister roving in Stonehenge. I started to ply the two bobbins below together--and my driveband popped off. The cotton just split in two right by the knot. I'm going to take Angela's advice and will try a thin stretchy drive band from Paradise Fibers. It's the same one used on a Lendrum, but a great deal thinner. Anyone actually know what the band is made from?