And now for the funny part - there is a funny part, right?

That would pretty much sum up the last two weeks. At first, when so many things started to go wrong at once, I entertained myself by imagining a candid camera scene in which some guy in a plaid wool suit would jump jubilantly out of a closet and tell me to smile because it was all a funny joke. I must have been so busy giggling that I failed to realize we live in a house that we are building as we go and, duh! - we have no closets. Closets are something you build when you're done shuffling rooms around for each 'phase' of completion to begin. I don't know where the plaid wool suit comes in but I suspect that it is my repressed sinister nature wanting all men to suffer.

Clearly, I was so staunchly in denial that when I pinched my sciatic nerve, I truly believed that if I just kept on going, it would eventually heal. Because, you know, the way to calm a spasming nerve is surely to abuse it into submission. Actually, I can't take credit for this one. I know my self and knew better. I was just being proud. As is the tradition in this house, the formula we work from is Mom has way too many things to get done +getting a kid ready for a week away from home+she's in pain and wincing with every move= the other adult in the house decides to approach everything with cold calculation and inspire his overburdened partner to her greatness by reminding her to do her duty, or work through it, or some other such nonsense that, if said partner even had a scratch in his throat, would be received - should the same thing ever be said to him - with utter insult. Apparently, that wasn't thought of. Nor was the act of actually HELPING but we just won't go there.

So, I kept on keeping on and - guess who's still in pain? It is getting better, though. The good news is that sometimes I get so distracted that I simply forget to 'check' myself and make sure I'm living for health. So, there has been much in the way of reforming the nutrition (or lack of), thinking in the herbal ways again (which I sort of lost track of this last year), and generally working toward a healthier self. You know me - dump a truckload of lemons in my yard and, after I've delighted in the terrific smell of citrus - I'll set right to making buckets of lemonade!

There is one funny part to this week and that would be my last blog post. This is what I said I signed up for in the Ravelympics:

8 ozs. handspun in a natural gray corriedale X and cotswold X
8 ozs. handspun in white cotswold (which I will dye with plant dyes in the coming weeks - blog fodder alert!)
1 first year sheep puppet
1 fairy godmother sheep puppet
1 scawl of handspun pumpkin juice for the wip wrestling - less than 1/2 of it left to finish
oh, and the Philosopher's house socks.

However, a quick jaunt through my projects folder quickly revealed that, I left out 1 set of BMW batts and 4 ozs. of Esmaralda to spin up. Just for the record, I was sort of delusional by the time I added those and maybe also a little desperate to work with some other spinning fiber than white and gray. Still, a promise is a promise so I've gotten to work.

The socks are finished and I will refrain from judging them because, as you have probably realized by now, I am a bit cranky. Also, though, because I think I will try another pattern from this book before I say more. This one, well, it just doesn't work for me. But, I'm not really into short socks anyway so I should have known better. My greed and lust to make socks out of dk wgt yarn was instrumental in my completely ignoring the obvious- like that a heel flap is essential for my weirdo lusty calves on top of skinny ole freaky ankles. They're done and we move on...work through it, so to speak. There is one puppet and a friend in the works. See him? Awww, he's so sweet!

Around him are the 2 sets of 8 ozs each (totaling a lb) of handspun gray plus 2 (4 oz) sks. of handspun white. I found the missing needle to finish my scawl under the bed today so that is in progress and I'll be spinning in color tonight. So, foolishly optimistic or just plain blind fool, I'm still working toward the finish line.

So, other than that, the only thing slightly funny (and I suspect more so for others than for myself) was my attempt to pull off getting Thing 1 to camp 'without any stress'. Yes, if you must know, in private I like to dress up as Wonder Woman and pretend I can save the world. As you all know, directions and times are sort of a challenge for me. Certainly, I can read a map and tell time - it's more the concept of them that is puzzling. Thing 1 and I are in a most fun time wherein she gets to go on alot of show travels with me and we are finding we travel together very well. That is fortunate, as I hope to spend much time with her in the coming years. The unfortunate would be that we are discovering she has the same inability to conceptualize space/direction/etc. No problem, we are rule followers and, unlike OTHER people in our house, we trust in maps.

So, determined to not make her late, which, let's face it, is very stressful, we left 2 hours early, maps in hand, and headed confidently out for our many hours drive. Oh, things went so well! We cleared the 'within 50 miles of your destination' mark in no time. With nearly 2 hrs. to spare and our bellies growling for lunch, we pulled over and had some lunch. Deciding we had so much extra time and not wanting to be 'dorky' and show up too early, we decided on a little walk after lunch to loosen up my back a little. If you don't know, and I hope you don't, driving a car with no cruise control for hours with a pinched sciatic nerve is...well..... really effing NOT FUN! We ate, we walked....we had no stress. Our map proved well for us and all was funny clowns and laughter. We got back in the car, ready to make the last 1 hr. stretch of the drive - and that's when a torrential downpour began. At one point, I had to pull over because the windshield wipers were working their darndest and we still couldn't see a thing. We waited. It didn't let up. So, I finally concluded that we'd try again. Now, we were driving much slower than before, plus the time sitting there going WTF? and stuff - so we were no longer enjoying a leisure of spare time. I got another 10 miles before hail - and I mean lots o'hail came pouring down. Cars were either pulling over or Nature was whopping them off the road so we gave in and sat it out like good little girls. We showed up 40 mins. late. That's the funny part!

Now that I'm done swimming in the pool of pity - I haven't forgotten about the Great Giveaway. So, I did what I always do. In respect of my technological savvy, I wrote down every one's names and drew one randomly from a bowl - harmonyfb gets over 200 grms of match and contrast sock yarns! Ah, the yarn love works to make me smile every time!