Our Daughter, the Snake Handler

I am always talking about how wonderful the Wunder Kids are but I really should take a minute to talk about their mother. Today is her 42nd birthday and while I am sure that she probably will be mortified that I am telling everyone her age, she will just have to bear with me even if it is her special day. She was born while Captain Mark and I were still kids ourselves and in spite of us, not necessary because of us, she grew up to be a very wonderful mother, wife, sister, daughter, teacher, medical practice manager, special education advocate and dear friend to many. She has the patience of Job and I don’t think that I have ever heard her raise her voice in anger since those couple of minutes when as a teenager she wanted to stay out later than we thought was necessary.

As parents when our children are small we tell them that they can be whatever they wish to be as adults. I think this was especially true of my generation while raising daughters as the employment gender barriers imploded. Education and going to college was never an option in our household it was an expectation. The rule was always that as parents we would be responsible for the undergraduate degree but both Sam and Beth were on their own for advanced degrees. We were fortunate enough to be able to keep our end of the bargain as did both girls.

Sam is a teacher by education and training but instead of getting a Master’s degree in education, she choose to become certified in each grade level and almost every subject from pre-school through grade 12. I think the only subject that she is not eligible to teach in any of these grades is art.


She called us very excited one day last fall to tell her father and me that she had just obtained THE best job of her life – one that tops all the educational jobs that she has done previously and one for which she was immensely trained. She was hired by one of the best zoological parks in the Midwest as an educational liaison. Now I have been her mother for a long time so I cut through the fancy jargon and said “So what…you are going to be a snake handler!?” Samantha giggled and stated that “Yes indeedy, she would be the Jack Hanna for the northern tundra of Indiana. That she would be ever so cool as she drove the Zoo Mobile.”
She later told us that the snake was just fine to handle but the owl was pesky. As if to prove her point, we received the above photo within a few days of her call. AND we could not be prouder of our daughter, the snake handler. AND YES, she can be whatever she wishes when she grows up.. Happy Birthday, Sam!

Ravelympics

Ravelympics, you say…what is that? Well, it is the way that knitters, spinners, and those who crochet have fun during the Winter Olympics. If you notice on the left side of the blog, there is a link to Ravelry along with my id. Ravelry is an online social site for fiber people of the world. The last time I looked, there were in excess of 600,000 members world wide. One can participate in/on the Ravelry site as much as one wishes but the hardest part for most of us is actually leaving the site to do some knitting or fiber work. With literally thousands of groups available for every possible life interest, one could potentially spend the rest of one’s life interacting with fellow members and never knit again.


In addition to the groups, Ravelry provides a platform to inventory one’s stash (yarn or fiber), needles, books, patterns as well as linking all of these items together when making a project. Projects can then be shared (or not) with fellow Ravelers so one has a documented history complete with pictures and comments of the project. Because this history is online and not on one’s own computer, the worries about losing the data are reduced for those of us less computer savvy. Ravelry is a wonderful resource for determining if that really expensive yarn that you have been drooling over (and quietly transferring money from the grocery allotment to pay for) is really as good as your fantasy OR is it just overpriced? Is that less expensive yarn you have heard so much about even better for the project? With over 600,000 members you know that someone will have already purchased/worked with the yarn and will be more than happy to share their opinion.



So back to the Ravelympics…like the real Olympics that will be held in Vancouver starting on Friday, February 12th, we Ravelers have picked up the knitting needle torch to participate in our own form of winter games. We have divided into teams and entered events. While there are guidelines/formats to keep us in order and focused, there is only one rule to rule them all: We must challenge ourselves by starting and finishing projects during the 2010 Winter Olympics with the goal of expanding our fiber horizons above and beyond normal expectations.

I am a member of Team Master Seekers. What defines our team is not geography but the fact that we all are seeking to become Master Knitters. Members of our team may be working on any of the three levels and have the choice of what event(s) in which they wish to participate. I am working on the Level II certification and have chosen to make the argyle sock as my first project. Therefore, I will represent Team Master Seekers in the Sock Hockey Event. If I finish the argyle sock before the closing ceremonies, then I will participate in the Mitten Moguls by working on the required Fair Isle mittens. I have chosen to work on the argyle sock first because it truly will be a challenge for me. While I have made many a sock during my knitting years, I have yet to create an argyle sock which involves several non-routine knitting skills such as intarsia and the use of bobbins to make the different yarn colors behave themselves and fall into the proper location.

Mass Cast-On will begin at 9p (Indianapolis time, 6 pm PST) February 12, as the Opening Ceremonies begin in Vancouver. Anyone casting on prior to that time will be immediately disqualified – you know the knitting and Ravelympic police will be everywhere to make sure that no one has an unfair advantage. I did ask…drinking wine while participating in Ravelympics does NOT violate doping rules.

This is what my argyle sock looks like prior to the Opening Ceremonies:




Updates to follow.

Not a Good Day in Indiana

Yesterday (Sunday morning) when I got out of bed, the snow had stopped and the sun was brightly shinning. All atmospheric signs and the odds makers pointed to an excellent day for Indiana sports fans. IU (Indiana University Bloomington) was playing Northwestern at 2:30 and following that game all television sets would immediately be turned to CBS for the Colts Super Bowl game.

The IU basketball team is this year in what we Hoosier fans call a transition year. To those of you who have not followed IU basketball since the much revered Bobby Knight was so rudely run out of Bloomington, I will bring you up to speed by simply saying that having a basketball team comprised of wholesome players who actually made grades and attended classes was not a priority until Coach Crean arrived on the scene a couple of years ago. Say whatever you will about Coach Knight, but one can never accuse him of not having the grades and graduation of his players as the most important aspect of his basketball and life coaching requirements. It is much to Coach Crean’s credit that he too seems to be able to see the whole persona of a well rounded college athlete. During the recent basketball games that IU played against both Purdue and Illinois, Coach Crean’s team showed their stuff. While IU lost both of these games in the last few seconds, all of us Hoosier fans knew that we on our way back.

So it was that Hoosiers settled into their television viewing seats for what we all figured would be a slam-dunk day both for college basketball and professional football. As I watched the IU-Northwestern game I could not believe that this was the same team that almost beat Purdue on Thursday night…to allow Northwestern (of all teams) to take the lead and never look back? Those of us who refer to the Big Ten, which now has eleven teams in the conference, as “the Big Ten plus Northwestern” could hardly comprehend what we were seeing. AND Coach Crean, I thought he was going to have a hissy fit and possibly even throw a chair as he watched his team play in Evanston. I don’t think I would want to have been on that team bus travelling down I-65 as it returned to Bloomington.



We all had just enough time to refill our wine/beer glasses and grab the chips before it was time for the next chapter of Indiana sports. I think the only people in this country who did not think that the Colts would win were those people living in Louisiana. How could the Colts, not win? After all Payton Manning was a Colt and the only games the Colts lost this year were games in which the name brand players did not play so it just made sense that if Payton was playing then the Colts were destined to win.



The first half of the Super Bowl game looked like the Colts that we here in Indiana know and love…however, it seems that we all in Indiana had forgotten that valuable and vital lesson that the Milan, Indiana basketball taught us in 1954, never doubt or under estimate the spirit and will of the underdog.