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April 21, 2008: The Biodiesel Conundrum I went to town Friday afternoon to pick DD#1 up from a field trip, and on the way I planned to stop and fill up the truck. I headed over to get some biodiesel (the only pump is on the west side of town), passing lots of signs for regular diesel at about $4.18 a gallon. When it first came to Kalispell two years ago, bio was running about $0.25 a gallon more than regular diese ($3.25 to regular diesel at $3.00). I attributed that to the fact that it was new technology. Lately it's been about $0.10 a gallon less than regular diesel. Imagine my shock, then, when I got to the bio pump and it was $4.28 a gallon—back up to $0.10 more a gallon than the regular stuff. I decided to put regular diesel in the truck. Yesterday morning, as I was working my way through blogland, I came upon an entry in the Biodiesel Blog, which explained that the skyrocketing cost of soybean oil is what is helping to drive up the price of biodiesel (it might help if we stopped putting soybean oil in all our food). Add to that the fact that some bio refineries are shutting down in the face of the increased cost of raw materials and you have two pressures converging to drive up the price of an alternative fuel. Today I am kicking myself. When bio first came out and it was more expensive, I told the husband that I was going to use it anyway, because if no one uses new technology, opponents will point to that fact as a reason why it will never work. So bio at $4.28 gallon would cost me $2.80 more to fill my truck than regular diesel at $4.18 a gallon—that's less than the cost of a latte (not that I drink lattes, but that puts it into perspective). I should have filled the truck up with bio. And I will next time, even if bio is $0.25 a gallon more, like it used to be. I had a visit with my naturopath this morning. I just think the world of this guy. I had some bloodwork done before Christmas when I was on straight Armour, and my free T3 levels were too high. He wanted them lower, but everytime I tried to cut back on the Armour I felt awful. After Christmas we tried a combination of Armour and compounded T4. I felt fabulous—I had lots of energy, lost a bunch of weight, and basically felt really good. At the end of March I had another blood test. Both my free T3 and free T4 levels were elevated this time. I cut back on both the Armour and the T4 again, and although I felt okay, I didn't feel great. I want great. About the middle of last week I tweaked them again, this time eliminating the Armour and taking only straight T4. Again, I've been doing okay, but I'm suffering from brain fog and lack of motivation. I have stuff to do and I can't function like this. I explained all of this to him today. He listened and took lots of notes. I hadn't taken any T4 this morning, so I offered to go get another blood test to see what my levels were. I like data, and I want to know what's going on in my body as much as he does. He says I need the Armour to keep the brain fog at bay. He suggested that I add the Armour back in, but at a slightly lower dose than I was taking before Christmas, and when I get back from Wisconsin, he's going to have the compounding pharmacy make something up for me that has the right combination of both T4 and T3 to make me feel good but not overdo it. His wife knits, and apparently he went with her to Camas Creek yesterday. After we finished formulating a plan of attack, he said to me, "I was in the yarn store looking at your books and your patterns and your newsletter and your class schedule and I thought to myself, 'Holy cow, this woman has a lot of stuff going on. No wonder she wants to get her thyroid levels straightened out.'" I have always been a high-productivity person, and yes, I want my energy levels back up. But I also respect the fact that he doesn't want to risk any collateral damage to other parts of my body in the process. We'll get there. I've already made a lot of progress. And now, it's off to get something done!
April 20, 2008: What a Fun Afternoon My class at Camas Creek yesterday was almost cancelled earlier in the week due to low enrollment, but I decided to have it anyway with the three students who had signed up. When I got to the store, I discovered that one additional person had signed up, so the five of us hit the classroom and got to work. We spent the afternoon talking about fitting—ways to make sweaters fit your own individual shape. I love my designing classes because it's an opportunity for people to see that almost none of us have "perfect" shapes. We went through the material in the handout and spent the last hour of the class making swatches of bust dart shaping. The three hours just flew by. Two of the women just finished making the same sweater (a pattern from the Summer issue of Interweave Knits), so after I get back from Wisconsin next week, we're going to get together and I'll walk them through the assembly and finishing. On the way home I stopped at my friend's house to pick up my children. I guess the party was a success. Everyone looked pretty wiped out. I had a bowl of chili (yum) and some chocolate and then we all headed home. It was horribly windy yesterday (and cold), and the husband got called out on two out-of-control grass fires. I'm just stupified by the idea that anyone would start a grass fire in 40 mph winds and then be surprised that they couldn't contain it. I'll be so happy when May 1 rolls around and grass fire season is over. I am really looking forward to this coming weekend at Midwest Masters. It'll be intense—I am teaching five different classes over the course of three days—but I could use the break and I do enjoy teaching. I'll be gone over the husband's birthday, which is unfortunate. We can celebrate when I get home. Some time this week I need to decide what knitting project to take with me. It's supposed to remain cold and windy today (and for the rest of this week). I plan to make a pot of soup and knit.
April 19, 2008: Designing at 3 a.m. For some reason I was wide-awake at 3 a.m. yesterday morning. I get up at 4:30 a.m. most days so this wasn't a huge problem, but the extra hour and a half would have been nice to have. When this happens, I figure my brain is trying to tell me something and I should just shut up and come along for the ride. One of the frustrating (to me, anyway) things about publishing a knitting mag is that I am always working a season ahead. The Summer issue is almost finished and I need to start thinking about what is going to be in the Fall and Winter issues. But when I go into Camas Creek, I am confronted with all sorts of wonderful cotton and linen and hemp yarns and I want to design with them! I can't seem to get my brain to move in the direction of wool. So there I was at 3 a.m., lying in bed hoping Chester wouldn't hear me thinking (because then he'd want to go out), captive to a runaway brain that thought it would be fun to whip up a baby dress. Oh sure, why not? I have some pretty yellow cotton DK-weight yarn in my stash that would be perfect. It would help me be less depressed about snow on April 19. It would be small enough to be an instant-gratification project. Who cares that I need to start working on some cool-weather designs? Apparently not my brain. Which is how I found myself with yarn and needles yesterday, making a baby dress. I am halfway up the skirt and I think it's just adorable. If I can find room for it in the Summer issue, I'll put it in; otherwise I'll just format it as an individual pattern to sell. I adore the sunny yellow color—it's a color I can't wear without looking like death warmed over, but I love it anyway. But would someone please send a memo to my brain and remind it that I need to pull out some wool and get to work? And while you're at it, send one to Mother Nature and remind her that April 19 is not the time for a freak snowstorm. I am teaching a fitting class today at Camas Creek. My kids are going to our friends' house around the corner—their oldest daughter just turned 7 and her birthday party is today. The whole first-grade class was invited—all 23 of them. My kids know all the little kids and they'll be able to help with crowd control. I'm kind of sorry I am going to miss it. I think first-graders are just hysterically funny.
April 17, 2008: Taking Advantage of the Sunshine It's been a surprisingly lovely day. The sun is shining and it's about 60 degrees. This is in contrast to Saturday's forecast, which is calling for snow and a high of 38. One step forward, two back. I came home from town and decided I couldn't wait any longer—half the beds in the veggie garden are clear, so I mixed up some Roundup and sprayed them. I want to get strawberries and asparagus planted when I get back from Wisconsin, and the bed where the asparagus will go needs to have some additional dirt and steer manure added to it. I don't want to do that until it appears that the quackgrass is gone. I locked Chester and Rusty in the herb garden to keep them out of my way. Chester happily played search and rescue where the snow was still about 18" deep; Rusty, however, squeezed himself under the gate and went looking for something to chase. Here is Chester helping to move snow:
I've been hearing a pileated woodpecker in the front yard, so I went and looked at one of the big larches—and I saw a mama pileated woodpecker sitting in the crotch of the tree. They must have a nest up there. I am excited! We can always use more pileated woodpeckers. I bought some new hummingbird feeders and put them up (my other ones bit the dust this year). So far I haven't seen any hummingbirds, which is kind of weird—usually by now they are back and strafing us on the porch until we put the feeders up. They may be late getting back because it's been so cold. I decided that we're not going to let any robins build nests in the porch rafters this year. As much as I like to see them do that, we had such a hard time with Rusty killing baby birds last summer that I cannot let it happen again. And I won't put any food out for the grosbeaks, either. Darn. This is what happens when you live with two bird dogs. They chase birds. Imagine that. Our yard looks like one of the courts at Wimbeldon—Chester has located all of his missing
April 16, 2008: Epidemiology The American Heritage Dictionary defines epidemiology as "The branch of medicine that deals with the study of the causes, distribution, and control of disease in populations." When I was in college studying biology, and later in my short stint in grad school, I always found epidemiology fascinating. Why do some people get sick and not others? Why do some diseases spread one way and not another? My mother was interviewed by one of the TV stations in Cleveland on Monday. They are investigating a possible link between cancer deaths and the Engineering Building at NASA Glenn Research Center (which will forever be The NASA Lewis Research Center to me, as it was called when my father worked there). I was hoping that WEWS would put up the clip of the whole interview, but it's only a short synopsis. My father—Director of Engineering at Lewis—died of multiple myeloma in 1993, about six months after DD#1 was born. We've long wondered why he would come down with something like that. This may be an explanation. It doesn't explain, though, why I got leukemia barely a year after my father's death, nor does it explain why there is such a high incidence of multiple myeloma and other cancers in the area where I grew up—even on the very street where we lived. I have my own theory as to why I developed leukemia—high doses of radiation from X-rays as a child being my pet theory—but I am always willing to consider other explanations. The EPA closed down a styrene plant in the 80's about two miles from my parents' house for egregious air quality violations. There simply may not be one single smoking gun. But I wonder about this report from the CDC, the publication of which they attempted to block. I am pretty sure that sometime in the past decade or so, the state of Ohio has also done its own epidemiological study of the area where I grew up. You might ask why this information has not been more widely disseminated. Can you imagine the ramifications? And as tightly shoved down into the pockets of big corporations as our government is, I can't imagine that—if indeed they are responsible in some way—these corporations could be made to change their ways. The Libby vermiculite mine here in Montana is a perfect example. Nothing is going to change what happened to my father or to me. But it would be nice to know that our government actually has its citizens' best interests in mind, rather than those of the companies which contribute to campaign coffers. It will be interesting to see how this investigation at the Lewis Research Center plays out. I had a fairly productive day yesterday. The class handouts got updated, I collected the swatches and sweaters I want to take with me, and I cleared my desk of bills, orders, and other pieces of paper. The wonderful ladies at Mountain Colors shipped me a box of donated mill ends to use for my Colorizing Cables classes next week. They do that for me every time I teach that class. I also worked on the layout for the Summer issue of the newsletter, but I got bogged down in a couple of big charts. I am also waiting for a book to arrive so I can do a review of it. I'd like to get a technical article written; that may have to wait until I get back from Wisconsin, or I can try to get it done on the plane. Because both my tech editor and I have had teaching obligations this month, the Summer issue might be delayed by a week. But it won't be any longer than that.
April 15, 2008: Actually, Not a Full Moon Yet Huh. I just checked the full moon calendar and the full moon isn't until April 20. I hope that doesn't mean we have to endure five more days of this madness. Raye, thanks for the heads-up about Mars in Aries. Who knew? I choose to believe that today will be better than yesterday, even if it snows. Debbie, you asked about the Ravelry discussions; I was (mostly) referring to the one about Interweave's decision to take some free pattern offerings off its site. It's under "The Disappearance of the Pea Pod Baby Set" in the "Needlework on the Net" forum. I have no stake in the discussion, but I've been watching it closely. In a nutshell, Interweave removed some free patterns from its website. Knitters got upset because they believed that when they purchased the issue of the magazine in which those patterns had been advertised as being available from the website, they were also purchasing (unlimited, forever) access to those patterns. It's unclear to me whether Interweave removed those patterns because of contractual problems with their designers (the designer of the Pea Pod baby set says she had nothing to do with the decision), or if there is some other reason. I guess what bothers me most about that discussion is the vehemence of some of the knitters and their unwillingness to consider that the knitting-internet relationship is new and rules of engagement are still evolving. Did Interweave make some mistakes? Sure they did. However, I still don't know anyone who has a crystal ball and is able to foresee all the potential problems surrounding digital technology. Heck, I sure didn't, and we all know how that went. I think Interweave was between a rock and a hard place: they had to honor the contracts they had with designers, but in doing so, they breached an implied (or otherwise) contract with their readers. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I did the finishing on the last project for the Summer issue last night. It turned out beautifully and DD#1 will model it for the picture because it fits her perfectly. It's a cotton ribbed sweater with a central cable panel, set-in sleeves, waist shaping and a scoop neckline. One of my test-knitters did the knitting for me; I always like to do the finishing myself. The yarn is Classic Elite's Four Seasons Cotton and it felt lovely to work with. I have a few skeins left over and I am thinking that I'd like to design a baby blanket or hat with them. Today's to-do list includes packing up class samples and swatches for Midwest Masters. I like to ship my supplies ahead of time rather than taking them with me. I am always afraid the airlines will lose my luggage. I've got the master copies for three of my four class handouts printed, but I want to spend some time updating my Cables and Beyond class with some of the material from Cables 2. And now that the projects for the Summer issue are done, it's time to get back to some swatching. I have designs floating around that need to get out of my head. The husband asked if I was off to slay some dragons today, so I guess I'll get started on that.
April 14, 2008: Definitely A Full Moon It was a rather tough day today. I had one last auction item that needed to be dealt with. I think it's done, and I am pretty sure it was done right, by my friend Luann. I am very grateful that she took care of it so I didn't have to. It might very well have sent me over the edge. We're still waiting on a contractor to pay us, and it's really disrupting my cash flow management. I've had to be creative about moving money around this month and it's making me very unhappy. The husband says that he will call said contractor tomorrow and remind him that I will be happy to file lien paperwork against him if the money doesn't appear soon. I opened the mail to find a letter from the State of Montana informing me that they paid unemployment benefits on a guy who worked for us for about three months in 2006. This guy applied for unemployment benefits last April—despite the fact that he quit voluntarily—and I spent several hours on the phone with the state. The state ultimately denied his 2007 claim. In February of this year, we received a notice that he was applying for benefits AGAIN. I got out his file, copied all the correspondence from last year, and sent it to the state with a note saying, "We've been through this once already with this guy; please deny this second claim." They didn't (I have no idea why). So I spent an hour on the phone with three different people trying to get this straightened out. This makes me so angry. I am not opposed to paying unemployment benefits to people who really need them. We pay in to the system so that if one of our two employees—who have worked for us for several years—have to be laid off, they won't be without some support. What just torques me is these deadbeats who don't deserve the benefits but who apply for them anyway. We had one guy tell my husband in October of 2005 that he was going back to Michigan to work for his uncle because his uncle could pay him more than he was making with us. Not two months after he left (voluntarily), he filed for unemployment benefits. We found out later that he told one of our employees that he does this every year: he works over the summer, then takes the winter off to hunt and collects unemployment benefits to support himself. When I heard that, I decided there was no way that my husband was going to work all winter so that some idiot could sit on his butt and watch TV. I spent several months fighting with both the State of Montana and the State of Michigan and untimately, the guy was forced to give back the money that the State of Michigan had advanced him. I hope he had to get a job and wasn't able to go hunting that year. To cap off an already stellar day, I looked out the window after dinner and saw Rusty dancing around a deer in the front yard. I called the husband, and we soon discovered that it was a deer which had gotten hit by a car and dragged itself into our yard where it was slowly bleeding to death. The husband corralled Rusty and I got Chester and we put them both in the house. Then the husband went and got his rifle and shot the deer. Neither of wanted to see that happen, but the deer was badly hurt. It would have been cruel to leave it out there in the yard to die a slow agonzing death. Life in the woods. It's 7:08 p.m. I am hoping this is it for today, although there is always a good possibility that the pager will go off for some hideous car wreck or structure fire. Oh, and it's supposed to snow tomorrow.
April 13, 2008: Must Be a Full Moon What a bizarre weekend this has been. There are some contentious discussions happening on Ravelry, and yesterday the husband was called out on five fire and medical calls (the average is three per week). The first one came at 4:43 a.m., followed shortly by another which turned out to be in our neighborhood. The other three were grass fires out of control and kept the husband moving from lunch until dinner. I'm sure we'll have more of the same today. In other news . . . I had a visit with the new doctor Friday. She's very nice and made me feel very comfortable. I suffer from "white coat hypertension" because for me, going to the doctor is akin to going into battle. And my blood pressure was up a little bit, but nothing like it has been when I've gone to see the doctor. She said everything looked great and that I was clearly healthy and taking care of myself. What a relief to come out of a doctor's office with the validation that I was healthy instead of feeling like I was a medical disaster waiting to happen. (My previous doctor was a bit of a hypochondriac—she was SURE there was something wrong with me, except that she totally ignored what was REALLY wrong with me while she went off on wild goose chases looking for other things.). I consider myself very fortunate that I don't have a lot of medical issues beyond my thyroid problems. I belonged to a long-term cancer survivors mailing list for a while but I ultimately unsubbed because it was just too depressing reading about what other cancer survivors were dealing with. I did what I could with the garden yesterday—only two of the beds are clear of snow, so I turned the soil in them in prepapration for the Great Quackgrass Battle. Those same beds needed some TLC from the husband because the lumber making up the raised beds was falling apart in places. The husband doesn't like to garden, and my garden is the one place where he didn't do his usual job of overbuilding with great attention to detail. It was more like slap-dash-I-want-to-get-out-of-the-dirt-and-back-to-my-projects building. Stuff is starting to fall apart. I think he feels a bit guilty about this, as he came right over and fixed the beds in question when I pointed them out. It feels so good to be out there working. Most of this week will be devoted to getting ready for Midwest Masters next week in Wisconsin. I am looking forward to seeing Myrna Stahman, Lucy Neatby, and Margaret Fisher, who are also teaching there. I haven't seen Myrna or Lucy since about 2000; Margaret and I taught at Maryland Sheep and Wool last year. I've also got to get a newsletter laid out. It's probably good that it's supposed to rain a fair bit so I won't be tempted to play in dirt instead of working.
April 11, 2008: It's Getting Closer, I Can Feel It Today it is supposed to be 51 degrees. Tomorrow it is supposed to be 63 degrees. I plan to spend at least a few hours out in the garden tomorrow. The husband pointed out that it is still covered with at least a foot of snow in most places and I said that I would shovel it all over the fence if I had to. I've done that before. The only other plague of my garden happens to be these little devils:
It's a vole. One year they got in and burrowed under my plants and ate all the roots. When I went out to clean up that year, I pulled up several dead plants (or what was left of them, anyway), before I figured out what was going on. I declared war. The husband said he was glad I didn't have access to nuclear weapons. This year I am hoping that Rusty the Rodent Killer will aid me in my quest to eradicate these things from the yard. I figure if I let him loose in the garden for a few days (pre-Roundup, don't worry), he'll search and destroy them for me. Yesterday I stopped in at the local garden center for a few minutes. I said to the woman working in the greenhouse that it just made me feel better to be in there and she said, "We know what you mean." I was thrilled to discover that they have a number of the new echinacea varieties—I prefer to buy local plants whever possible instead of having them shipped in. They've also got two or three of the new bee balm varieties. If it stays warm through the end of April, I'll get all of those in as well as a few herbs. I got the afghan finished yesterday. It looks really cool. I need to wash it this weekend and lay it out to dry. This morning I am off to an appointment with a new OB-GYN. This is one recommended by my naturopath. Wish me luck.
April 10, 2008: Dirt Under My Fingernails I'm tired of being grumpy and I am tired of snow, so I decided to do some preliminary plant shopping. It looks as though it will warm up enough this weekend for all the snow in my garden to melt, allowing me to get in there and do some work. Hallelujah. I have two gardens, one for veggies and one for herbs and flowers. The herb one does really well, mostly because it's full of plants adapted to a short growing season. I have to really nurse the veggies along and it's always a toss-up if it's going to be warm enough in August for the tomatoes actually to turn red. The short growing season is the one thing I don't like about Montana. My garden has gotten rather overgrown in the past couple of years, mostly because my thyroid problems got to the point where I didn't have the energy to go out and look at the plants, let alone cultivate them. Last fall I went through and completely gutted the veggie garden. It has a serious quackgrass problem and will get hit with some Roundup in the next couple of weeks. I try to have as organic a garden as possible, but the quackgrass is winning the war and I need to bring in the big guns. The herb garden needs to have the paths redone and some plants cuts way back. Here's what it looked like about five years ago:
There are three kinds of flowers I am especially partial to: lavenders, bee balms, and echinacea. At one point I had over 40 different varieties of lavender, all labelled. Alas, the labels got ruined one winter and I no longer know what's what. The lavenders have also reproduced rather promiscuously and there are baby lavender plants all over the place. I have about 15 varieties of bee balms. The hummingbirds love them. If I go out to the garden and wait patiently, I will be rewarded with the sight of a one coming to feed at the red bee balms. The echinaceas need some TLC this year. I have some of your garden-variety (no pun intended) coneflowers, but I also have some rather exotic ones as well, such as the yellow Echinacea paradoxa. After I get the beds cleaned out, I want to add a few more. These are two that I have picked out:
The first is called "Tiki Torch" and it's nice and bright. Apparently, during my garden hiatus, a whole line of new Echinaceas has been developed, called—appropriately enough—Big Sky. This is the one I am most excited about:
It's called "Green Jewel." Have you ever seen a green flower like this before? I haven't. I think this is so darn cool and if it grows well in Zone 5 I'll be a happy camper. I now feel perked up enough to get back to work. I cancelled some appointments today so I could stay home and finish getting through my to-do pile. I have a sweater to put together today and I need to sew the middle strip of the Mystery Afghan to its two side strips. It'll be a good day to to knit and watch the snow melt.
April 8, 2008: The Auction That Would Not Die I spoke too soon about getting back to the paying job. It turns out that there is a significant accounting problem, so one of the other firefighters and I spent all of today combing through the books. We're plannng to go back tomorrow to finish the job. It mostly comes down to the fact that this is a volunteer gig and some of the critical tasks don't get done as well as they should. And even though I didn't cause the problem (I wasn't anywhere near it, in fact), it got punted over to me because I am the treasurer of the firefighters association. We don't think it's a matter of money being stolen; rather, it's a record-keeping and accounting issue. Bleh. It's the last thing I want to be doing right now. At least it didn't snow today. And by Saturday it's supposed to be 63 degrees and sunny. Great. Only a week late.
April 7, 2008: Back to the Paying Job We're working very hard to find/create a community group that will take over the running of the Creston Auction, or that will host some other kind of fundraising event. I have long insisted that it's ridiculous to expect the same people who respond to so many fire calls to do their own fundraising on this level. When I first became involved, our chief and assistant chief were in charge of running the auction. Our chief grew up here and has been to every single auction for the past 42 years. He runs his own business—as do many of us—and could not continue to be in charge of organizing this event. It's a full-time job in itself. A few years ago he tried to get me to take it over. It was around the same time that Aran Sweater Design came out, and I told him flat out that I couldn't, because I had my own business to run. Of course, being a man, he dismissed my "business" as "Janet's little hobby." I had to do quite a bit of educating for him to realize that it's gone way beyond hobby. As it is, I still have a pretty big job—promotions and PR. Beginning in January, I have to get all of the print, radio, and TV advertising in place, arrange for the mailing of 10,000 postcards to the surrounding areas, and answer the auction phone. It's a good job for me to do, because I can fit it in around all my other activities. But I find that a lot of stuff (like Cables 2) gets shoved to the back burner as we get closer and closer to the auction. And during the auction itself, I am home only to sleep. I am now looking at a pile of mail which has gone unopened since last Wednesday, I have a bunch of e-mails to respond to, no one has any clean clothes, and the house is a mess. I am supposed to teach a class at Camas Creek this weekend and next, and Midwest Masters at the end of the month. The Summer newsletter needs to be laid out, and I should get back to work on Cables 2. I think I'll tackle the house, the laundry, and my desk—in that order. I am not sure in which direction this auction will go now. A few of us were comparing notes and we agreed that the auction has changed a lot in the past few years. This is no longer a farm-based community, and what's basically a farm auction doesn't appeal to the more gentrified crowd that has moved in. The equipment part of the auction used to be filled with farm equipment and only a few vehicles, and was a big draw throughout the northwest. This year we had only half a dozen pieces of farm equipment, and a LOT of vehicles. In any case, Auction #42 is history, and I have to get back to the business of knitting.
April 6, 2008: Weather Forecasting Is An Inexact Science People who know that this is Creston Auction weekend always say, "I hope the weather is nice for you," (mostly because the know it won't be). All week we've been watching the news and the forecast was for sunny days in the 50's. We could hardly believe our good fortune. Then on Thursday we heard that a "small storm" would move through the area on Saturday. We finished consignment day Friday just as the wind picked up and a front started blowing through. By the time the husband and I got home around 9 p.m., it was snowing like mad (Hello? It's APRIL, for pity's sake!). The snow continued all night, and when I left at 6:30 a.m. yesterday morning, it was snowing so hard that visibility was down to about half a mile. There was 2" of snow on the auction grounds. This isn't my first rodeo, as we say around here, and I know how to dress for weather. I have a pair of wool hunting pants that I usually wear at the auction, so I had those on, along with wool socks, a turtleneck, a wool sweater, and my personalized Creston Fire Carhartt jacket (so people know my name is Janet when they ask me questions). Shortly after I got to the auction grounds, I gave up trying to be fashionable (not that I was succeeding anyway) and snagged a Nomex hood out of the fire station. Someone should have taken a picture of me. I looked so weird, but I WAS WARM. Our advertising says that only an act of God will cancel the auction (snowstorms apparently don't fall into that category), and I got several calls asking if we were still having the auction. Amazingly, the crowds were pretty good—on days like yesterday, people think no one else will be there and that they will be able to get some bargains. I saw lots fewer families than usual, though, and the people we hired to bring a bounce house just didn't show up. DD#1 and my MIL worked in the brat booth cooking brats and polish sausage and DD#2 was a "runner"—the kids who run the bid tickets back and forth to the cashier's office. I made sure both of them were dressed for the weather. DD#2 always has a good time being a runner because she is something of a social butterfly. She also takes her job very seriously. A couple of times I asked her how she was doing and she said, "Fine, and I am working, so I can't stand here and chat." The Creston Auction. A family affair.
April 4, 2008: Consignment Day at the Auction My life at the moment is consumed with the auction, so this will be a shortish post. I have to be at the grocery store at 7 a.m. to pick up today's load of maple bars and frosting. Maple bars are essential to a successful auction. The whole weekend pretty much runs on sugar and junk food. I just accept that and don't worry too much about my diet for these couple of days. Set-up went fairly smoothly yesterday. I helped as much as I could, although I am responsible for answering the auction phone (my cell phone). It rang every three minutes or so, and that cut down on my ability to do much heavy lifting. This year I got smart and bought a Bluetooth headset for my Bluetooth-enabled phone. I didn't have to keep taking my cell phone in and out of my pocket. That worked quite nicely, once I got used to having the receiver sticking out of my ear. The auction phone is my cell phone, so my cell number is plastered all over Flathead County. For about two weeks before and after the auction, I have to remember to answer "Creston Auction, this is Janet," when my phone rings. Unfortunately, my cell phone number being associated with the Creston Fire Department has unintended consequences—a couple of times I have received phone calls from people telling me their fields were on fire (grass fires) and could I send an engine? I am not sure why they call me when it's so much easier to dial 911, but it happens. I'm taking my camera today and will try to get some decent pictures. This is the day when we take in all the "saleable merchandise" and arrange the lot for tomorrow's auction. I think we're going to have a LOT of merchandise, if the calls I am getting are any indication. The worst part of all of this is the dust, because we're out in a field. I prefer to wear my contact lenses, but by the end of the day yesterday my eyes felt like they had sandpaper glued to them. I always have to sacrifice a pair of contacts for the auction—after three days of dust and wind I just have to throw them out. And we all come home covered with a fine layer of topsoil. This is not an event where fashion reigns supreme, believe me. But I LOVE donning my Carhartts and my boots and my leather gloves and being outside with the guys. It makes my inner tomboy very happy. See you after the sale.
April 1, 2008: I Am a General Casey put hats on all our Ravelry avatars today. Mine is a general's helmet, which I find truly amusing. I am sure the husband would tell you that's appropriate, given my propensity for ordering people about.
I am driving DD#2 to school early today. She and two of her friends are decorating one of the boys' desks as an April Fool's joke today. I hope they don't get into trouble. Tonight we're going to DD#1's "Marches and Medleys" concert at the high school. DD#2 has ballet beforehand, so the husband and I need to do some creative logistics to get us all to town at the appointed time. It should be a great concert, though, and I am looking forward to hearing the kids play. Some days I feel like a general, moving people where they need to be. My MIL arrives tomorrow to help with the auction. We started this one year when the kids had spring break the same week as the auction and I had no one to keep an eye on them. She came out to take care of them and it became a tradition. Now the kids are old enough that they come and help at the auction, so she does, too. She'll be here for about a week. It's nice that we have an extra truck—I leave her the keys and she and the girls can come and go as they need to. The weather has been so lousy lately and it just won't stop snowing. The weatherman says that it is supposed to warm up and be sunny and in the 50's for this auction. I hope so. We do this auction no matter what the weather, but we're all a lot less grumpy when we're not being snowed upon. One year it was actually very warm, and people drank so much water that we ran out of toilet paper in the portable toilets. The husband is Logistics Section Chief for the auction and portable toilets fall under his jurisdiction. I am the assistant to the Logistics Section Chief during the auction. My kids thought it was so funny that they could hear us on the radio (I have a scanner in my office) talking about how we were going to replace the toilet paper supply. Heck, the whole county heard that conversation. We're easily amused here. We have to laugh during this auction or we'd all be crying.
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