busy busy

I've been so busy that I kept saying, I'll just wait for one more photo, one more thing...before blogging again. Shame on me, so much has been going on I can barely keep up. First, things are growing and it's exciting. This here is a flat of cukes and canteloupes, but we've got herbs and tomatoes and even eggplant and peppers all making beautiful little seedlings. I'm excited about my garden this year!

OK, turn your head to the side, I can't figure out how to rotate this thing! Yup, those are the little plant darlings. Oops.

I'm also getting ready for Passover. That entails a lot of cleaning, a flight to visit family on the East Coast for the first two seder nights, and ...a couple of work details. The joy of working for yourself is that when you want to talk about, and work on, things related to your religious tradition, there is no one to censor you or get upset at you. Hurray! (I used to have such a hard time explaining why I had to take one day off to prepare things for Passover...even when I was having a seder for 12 (2 nights in a row. Now, thank goodness, I don't have to explain myself to a boss.) So, I've come up with a new, improved kipah pattern that is available on my website, since the Interweave Knits pattern is in a magazine that is out of print. That could also be called yamulkah (that's Yiddish, kippah's in Hebrew.) The English version would be skullcap, I guess. Here's a photo--hop over to my website if you want to make your own! Passover preparations also include things like cleaning the house and getting rid of all the flour, yeast, bread, etc. It's a lot of work and changing of dishes. This is

work anywhere, but in Kentucky, it requires some extra effort to find what you need to observe the holiday. According to a recent NY Times article, there are over 5,000 Kosher for Passover products available. In Bowling Green, KY? Hah. Try one store in town, which now stocks some of the basic things like, uhh, matzah. Want anything else? Drive to Nashville 70 miles away. Ask your family to buy it for you. Do without. So, I wrote a Letter from Kentucky about Passover. It's in the April 7th hard copy issue of the NYC Jewish Week -the link to the article is here. I'm trying to educate all those lucky big city Jews about what's it's like to live here as a Jew...this is pretty edited down from what I submitted, but that's ok. This is a series--there will be some upcoming letters on things like church and state issues, etc.

Now, lest you think that this is all I am doing, here are some other things of note:
I have an essay coming out in the May 2006 issue of Belle Armoire about button collecting. I'm finishing up a design for the July issue of Magknits. I've just submitted a sexy little camisole design to Knit Picks for the summer time, and I'm hoping to sign a contract soon to work on an article for another big knitting magazine! I'm a busy gyrrl! Now, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the Raleigh News and Observer newspaper is running a feature on crowns for Mother's Day. I've designed this:
for the N& O crowd. This is a knitting pattern for a whimsical crown hat with removable yellow crown points (note the buttons) for when the Queen wants to go undercover! This is going to be available on my website soon, I promise. I've also snagged another freelance job locally, doing some work with the Western Kentucky University dept. of Curriculum & Instruction. It's all about promoting education and educational research--something I really believe in, as a former inner-city teacher. I'm looking forward to that, too.

Spring time is hard work for dogs--all those squirrels, garter snakes and bugs to catch and holes to dig-- so I'll leave you with one last image of my guys, Harry and Sally, hard at work. Yup, this is what we do all day around here. This is what it looks like, working from home. We bark a lot. We chase things. We dig holes. Best of all--We sleep.