A Lentastic Blogstravaganza

Well, as promised, here I am! Irrespective of whether or not I actually have anything blog-worthy to report, I am determined to record the next 40+ days as a kind of Lenten discipline. Sounds like it's going to be a fun seven weeks, right?

So, here's what's been going down here in OysterGirl's neck of the ocean: babysitting, knitting, and music-making. Hmmm, sounds familiar. I am now fully back into the swing of my weekly babysitting jobs, which have been going great. At this point, I am mostly sitting for families that I know, which is really nice.

On the music front, I have been working on some new songs, and hope to do some recording at some point in the next couple of months. More on that as it happens. In the meantime, I have two more library programs coming up on March 6 and April 19--mark your calendars!

Before I get into what's been happening with OysterGirl knits, a brief hiatus to share some fun photos from last weekend. It was Michael's birthday, and we celebrated at the Strike'n'Spare bowling alley (no, not the one in Green Brook, New Jersey . . . there's apparently more than one! What a shock!) Karen and I didn't exactly bowl, but we did partake in . . .


. . . skee ball! Karen is very good at it.

I am very bad. (Shhh . . . don't tell the Jersey Shore or they might revoke my Garden State cred.) Of course, the best part of skee ball is really . . .

. . . the tickets, of course!


Ooooooh. Aaaaaaah. I wish I had pictures of what we redeemed ours for: two really stylish friendship bracelets (I'm pretty sure that makes us BFF), and five plastic army men for Michael.

The bowling alley is way out in West Nashville, and to get there you have to pass by this car dealer with a big pink elephant out front. We had to retrace our path in reverse to get back to the Hall, but we certainly weren't going to pass it by a second time:


And now, the knitting knews. In spite of the horrendous weather last night, a bunch of friends came over for the 3rd installment of "Knit Together," the knitting/fellowship group I am hosting at Casa de Lynn on alternate Tuesdays. Try and guess how many people were present by the remaining peanut butter rice krispie treats:


Speaking of which--I feel like every time I bring PBRKT to a gathering, I always end up explaining how simple they are to make in the microwave. But even as I'm explaning, I simultaneously fret that people aren't going to remember. So, for posterity, here is the recipe.

Microwave Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Treats

1/4 c. peanut butter (or substitute 1/4 c. margarine for regular RKT)
10 oz. mini marshmallows
6 c. rice krispies
cooking spray

Scoop peanut butter from jar with a microwave-safe rubber spatula. Place spatula in large, microwave-safe mixing bowl, and nuke on high power for 1 minute. Add marshmallows and stir with spatula until completely covered with melted peanut butter and mixed evenly. Return bowl to microwave, and cook 1 minute on high. While mixture is cooking, spray a 9X13 pan and a piece of waxed paper with cooking spray. Using spatula, stir cereal in to melted peanut butter and marshmallows until mixed evenly. Press into prepared pan, using sprayed wax paper to spread out evenly. Cut when cool.

It is not an exaggeration to say that if you have all the ingredients, these can be made in under 10 minutes from start to finish. And they are SOOOO good.

During last night's knitting session, I finally finished up a Valentine's Day-themed scarf that I have been trying to finish since Friday last week. I got it up on the store last night while the storms raged outside. Here it is, hanging off my nifty new coat-rack:



Tomorrow (Thursday the 7th), some of my items will be featured in Etsy's "housewares" showcase. This will be the first real advertising I've done, but it wasn't very expensive to buy a slot in the showcase for one day, and I figured it would be worth it to see what kind of response I got (if any). The only hitch is that I am going to the Hahns' new house in Indiana this weekend, so if anyone *does* place any orders as a result of the increased exposure, I won't be able to do anything about them until I get back on Monday. However, I'm hoping that Murphy's law will apply and the fact that I am not home to fill them immediately will ensure that I *will* get some orders . . . weird, I know, but that's how my mind works.

Here's one of the things that will be featured--my most recent tea cozy. I really love this yarn, and as you can see, it matches a bunch of my table linens.


Well, I guess that's it for today. I'm assuming that I'll be able to post from the road, in which case--see you in Indiana!

"Frozen" is not the same as "dry"

It has been really cold in Tennessee for the past few days. And I mean legitimately cold, not just what passes for "cold" here in the south (which for some people, consists of any temperature below 60). It has been just above freezing during the day, and well below at night. Sometimes with wind. BRRRRRRRR.

Today the low temps were accompanied by grey and damp (delightful!), but yesterday, it was really sunny. Cold, but sunny. And since I was at home with laundry to do, I figured I would hang it out on my lovely new-ish clothesline to dry.

Oh, yeah--did I mention that I have a clothesline? My dad built and erected it when my parents were here at Thanksgiving, and it is great! Here are some pictures of the work in progress (when it was only slightly warmer out that it has been this week):




About a week after Thanksgiving, when the concrete had time to set, I threaded the clothesline through and voila! I haven't used it a whole lot yet, mainly because I am only one person and can get away with only doing laundry every 3-4 weeks or so (yes, I have a lot of underwear).

So anyway, back to yesterday. I hung the clothes out in the sunny sunshine, figuring they should have enough time to dry by the time the sun went down. WRONG. Maybe if I had washed and hung them first thing in the morning, that would have worked. With just over two hours on the line, what they were when I took them down was not so much "dry" as "frozen."

To be fair, it's not like they were stiff or anything. I mean, they were *mostly* dry. I threw the machine-dryables in for about 20 minutes and they were fine--those I hung up in the bathroom were ready to come down by this morning.

Still, the lesson here seems to be that line drying in the cold, even the sunny, breezy kind of cold, requires a significant time investment. Good to know.

I finished a new song this morning, and then was unable to rid it from my head for the rest of the day . . . aargh! Hopefully, I'll be able to get some sound clips up online sometime in the next month or two, as well as some content for MissLynn.com (gasp)!

I'll leave you with a couple more photos from Thanksgiving, and my first attempt at felting. In a nutshell, this is a process using heat and water on wool yarn, which causes it to shrink and mat together. When you make the original item pre-felting, it obviously has to be larger than you want the finished product. Here is the hat I made to felt beside a normal-sized hat of similar shape:


And atop an average-sized head:


I was to discover that this endeavor was also to be a lesson in non-colorfast dyes, as you can see from these post-felting pictures:



My favorite detail is the swirly star-shape on the top.


More tales of lessons learned (life, knitting and otherwise) to come!

"Here's the story of a lovely lady . . . "

(Yes, that's a "Brady Bunch" reference.)

I am very excited about the fact that "LOST" returns with new episodes in less than two weeks . . . I love that show! Fortunately for me, ABC.com has made every episode up to this point, three entire seasons' worth, available in hi-def streaming video. It's a pretty smart move on their part, since it lets folks get caught up on what has happened so far, hopefully building anticipation for the series return on January 31. (On behalf of America, I'd like to tell ABC: "Mission accomplished.")

During the past week, I have rewatched all of season 1. I had seen it all before, and yet I was shocked at how many things I had forgotten. I wouldn't say I'm obsessed with "LOST"--let's say, "devoted enthusiast"? I could go on at length about the interlocking lives of the characters, the mysteries of the island, symbolic commentary on community and isolation in our modern world . . . I won't, but I could. :) But still, in watching the shows again, there were tons of details and plot points that I had forgotten in the two years since I first watched them on DVD (God bless the Williamson County Library). It has definitely been worth the time I've invested to be reminded of the rich story the writers have woven about these characters as I look forward to finding out what happens to them next. Everything that has happened up to this point informs--more than that, actually forms--what is to come.

And I realized that this principle applies even more strongly to my own story. Everything that has happened in the 35+ years leading up to today has played a part in who I am and what I do. That's a whole lot of stuff, and just as with the TV show, I've forgotten most of it. Or not entirely forgotten, perhaps, but certainly operate on a daily basis without keeping in mind where I have been, what has led me to this point.

This is part of the reason why it is so important for us to share our stories with others--to let people in to them, certainly, but also to remind ourselves of where we come from, of who we are. But the risks involved can be significant--to tell one's story is to risk rejection, ridicule. To remember the past can bring pain that we'd prefer not to reexperience.

I started this blog in an attempt to give others access to my own story. I know that it is an important exercise just to tell it, even if no one reads. But I have not always been brave about sharing the parts that are not triumphant, colored by pain, confusion and loneliness. No one wants to read about that, I tell myself. But the truth is that I don't really want to write those parts. I don't want to do what it takes to report honestly about the dark places.

But the reality is: narrative doesn't exist without the darkness. Think of any of your favorite stories, in any medium--without some kind of obstacle and struggle, there's no story there. It's basic narrative structure that most of us learned in school, and yet for some reason, I don't want it to apply to my own life. Which is a large part of why this blog lies dormant for weeks and months at a time, when I don't want to muster up the resources to tell the hard parts.

So, I hereby resolve to try and tell a more representative story here. Lent is coming in a few weeks, and rather than giving something up this year, I have decided to accept the discipline of writing every day during that season. Not every day will be easy to report on, which is largely the point of my promising to do it.

This entry is getting really long, and I haven't really said anything about recent goings on (with the notable exception of "LOST" watching. So here's a really quick update, which I'll elaborate on in coming days:

- I worked really hard in December, stayed up late lots of nights knitting and wound up getting pretty sick. (I am now trying to remember to take my vitamins every day and be more intentional about getting enough rest.)

- I have sold some stuff on the webstore, but not as much as I had hoped--at this point, I am not losing too much money on the venture, but am a long way from making any kind of significant profit.

- I've been working on some new songs, and hopefully will be recording in the next few months. I also have more music programs coming up at the Edmondson Pike Library in March and April.

- Having been inspired by my cousin Jen and her kids, I'm going to try and grow my hair out this year for "Locks of Love." If you are reading this, I need your help holding me accountable for this.

Time to go make mac-n-cheese for Sunday night dinner at KG's. It is really frickin' cold here in Nashville right now, but it's hard to feel too blue when there's cheesy goodness to be had.

The feedback thickens . . .

The ever-resourceful Kristen has obtained a translation of the mystery feedback, via her friend Janet:

"The translation says: 'It's beautiful. Even one of the owners of Izeder liked it very much.'"

Which begs the question, What's Izeder? Any thoughts out there in Interwebland?

Busy day today--lunch with Adrienne, bubble tea with Lindsay, caroling with the Belle Meade NFG (complete with ukulele!) Tomorrow is the annual Andrew Peterson Christmas Show at the Ryman, and I am very excited! I hope I can sleep tonight with all the anticipation.

I was reminded today in conversation with my mom that I never posted the photos Karen sent me from our post-library concert lunch on December 1. We ate at Toyama, and they should change the name to To-YUM-a! Har har har. Seriously, it was really good, and they even had an oyster roll on the menu, which I've never seen before. Naturally, I had to order it. Here are the pics:



Yummy. Well, the knitting beckons. More soon!

The "Hoff" of Knitting

You know how the Germans love David Hasselhoff? That's not just something Norm Macdonald used to say on SNL's "Weekend Update" back in the day, it's actually true--trust me, I was a German major. Well, OysterGirl is kind of like that in England. It's pretty much as if the Beatles were one knitter.

Well, now my legend has made it all the way across the continent of Europe to Spain. To which I say, por favor, amigos, there's only one of me to go around!

Okay, seriously, I made sales to two ladies in England, and one in Spain. The last of which yielded positive Spanish feedback on the store! I don't know what it says, but it seems very complimentary! If you can read Spanish and are willing to translate, I'd be interested to know just what it says . . . unless it's bad, and she was somehow confused between the "positive" and "negative" buttons.

Anywho, here is the link if you want to check it out.

I have to leave in just a minute for our last Tuesday night Bible study before Tracy moves. Sad, but it's been a great season to have her here in the 'Ville, and I know the Lord has great things in store for her.

In closing, the Peculiar People (aka the lovely Charlie and Ruth Jones) were kind enough to give me a shout-out in their most recent e-newsletter, so I'm trying to return the favor. They are very talented and have some pretty hilarious merch . . . I especially like the coffee mugs. Check out their webstore!

On the brink

I'm about || <-----this far away from being sick. I'm a little bit tired, a mite congested, and a skosh achy. I ought to have rested more today, but at least I didn't work the whole day after I got home from church. I didn't work the whole day yesterday, either. Hannah and I ventured to downtown Franklin for the annual Dickens of a Christmas . . . festival? Event? Happening? Whatever you want to call it, it was a doozy! This dude is my favorite part about DoaC. The instrument which he assembles and plays is apparently called a "glass harmonica." Last year, H and I got there early enough to see him actually set up and tune the thing, which as you might imagine is quite an arduous process.


Last year it was also quite cold the day we went, which makes a job requiring bare, wet fingers all that much more difficult. Fortunately for us all, the weather was extremely mild this year. A great part of the fun of watching him is his facial expression.


Okay, I just did a search for the glass harmonica player, 'cause it was bugging me that I kept referring to him without using his name. Turns out it's Donal Hinely, and you can visit his website here. He's apparently also a singer/songwriter--who knew?

OysterGirl knits has ventured into the realm of Webkinz-wear! The first outing is two custom-made loincloths (feel free to ask, but it's complicated). Since I don't have a Webkinz of my own to model, here's what one of them looks like on Captain Underpants.


Lots more to report, but seeing as I may have slightly underestimated my previously-mentioned symptoms, I'm going to wrap this up and head to bed. Happy 16 days 'til Christmas, everyone!

Come, Thou Long Expected Blog Entry

Boy, nobody like a librarian for being overdue. I have a couple of weeks worth of blog-worthy happenings to share, but a bunch of people just left my house, and I think I'm just too tired. Plus, Blogger is being stubborn about uploading pictures right now. So I think I'll keep this pretty short and try to update a couple more times in the coming days to get caught up.

STOCKING UPDATE: I finally finished all the stockings I was making for Blood:Water, and I'm pretty happy with them. Here are five of them before they got delivered to the office.

And here are all six "in action" at the BWM table in Rome, GA! Wow. Jars of Clay and Third Day still have several stops left on the tour, so if they are coming to a town near you, go check them out! (The stockings, I mean.)

Once this set of stockings were done and out on the road, I needed to make some more to put up on the store. Mission accomplished! Here are the photos.

EDMONDSON PIKE LIBRARY OVERRUN BY FACELESS PATRONS!!!!

After I rocked them all off, that is. Here's one picture of me from the music program I did last Saturday. It was really, really fun. No, that's not a teeny weeny guitar--it's a ukulele!

I still have to catch you up on my parents' visit to Nashvegas and Thanksgiving, but it will have to wait for another day. Thanks for reading and Merry Advent!