Fidget

Loosely based on Bad Penny from Knitty.com, by Stephanie Japel

Yarn: Patons Grace, 100% mercerized cotton

I started this little knitted top ages ago, like several years, and I’m glad to have finally finished it. If I’d known that it was going to turn out so cute and well-fitting, I would have worked to finish it sooner! I’m very pleased with the fit, and pleased with the process to arrive at the fit - It’s knitted in one piece, in the round, from the neck down. So, I could try it on as I went, and also it’s seamless so I didn’t have to sew a single seam. The finishing consisted of picking up stitches for the neckband and armbands, and also turning under and tacking down the ends of my spiral-stripe magic trick - there is no messy join where I had to change colors, I just knitted around in a spiral, one color at a time, one row per color. Pretty sweet!

Well, I’ve been riding my bike!

I’ve worked out a route to go from home, down the more gradual descent, a residential-street shortcut, and back onto the main drag to get to the hub of my activities: grocery store, bank, copy shop, etc - and then home, which is a bit of a long pedal in low gears, but it’s manageable.

I love being out on my bike. You really feel a part of things, out on a bike - you’re not shut into your little bubble of car, going too fast to look people in the eye as you pass and hear and see the finer details of the day. I get a kick out of accomplishing errands AND getting exercise AND working off some of the self-employed-cabin-fever - all without using a drop of fossil fuels. Awesome.

Eugene is a pretty bike-friendly town. (except for the part where your bike could randomly get stolen at any time!) There are bike lanes on many of the roads and bike paths all along both sides of the river if you’re just wanting a scenic ride. BN and I have, on several weekends lately, ridden all the way up to the north end of town where there is The Jamba Juice (a little taste of CA!) and Guitar Center. BN recently got all set up to record to the computer with his electric guitar. (That’s why I haven’t been blogging that much lately… added to the fact that if I’ve worked all day on the computer, I usually want to spend my free time doing something else.)

Last weekend was our annual church Family Camp. It was the usual old-fashioned good time of sports and games, water-balloon wars, and baptisms down by the river. A highlight for me this year was that our resident jewelry designer, EL, had brought all of her supplies and held bead workshops for us crafty types. I was interested in making something with shells since I hadn’t worked with them before. Here’s my finished necklace:

The most-awesomest swimming area ever is about 20 minutes from the camp, Colliding Rivers. You can jump from the rocks, travel down the rushing stream, (deep, though - no dangerous rapids) and as we tried for the first time this year, riverboarding!

I didn’t really know about the existence of this sport before this week. The picture at left is not of anyone in our group, and we didn’t have any fancy equipment - just a home-made wooden board with a normal (non-bungee) rope and a water-ski type handlebar. But we surfed! I say “we” because I did give it a go, and almost got all the way to a standing position. BN basically rocked, getting up on his first try and staying steady for quite awhile.

Before any of this could happen, the guys had to find a way to anchor the rope well upstream from our chosen rapid (a perfect spot, too - smooth, fast-flowing rapids with no big rocks sticking out.) In order to do that they had to dislodge a huge log from its perch among the cliffs, get it floated across the river without letting it get sucked downstream, and get it firmly lodged with rocks on the side closer to the smooth rapids. I was skeptical that it would all work out and be worth the effort but the group got 2 days of riverboarding out of it.

After camp, BN and I drove to Diamond Lake (with a view of Mt. Theilsen)…

… and camped out one more night to watch the meteor shower, which was at its peak during that time, and there was no moon. It was amazing. I’ve never seen so many stars, and it was actually not that dark in spite of no moon. We didn’t need flashlights to get down to the boat dock where we got all cozy in our mummy bags with camping mattresses and even pillows. The trouble was, I was all worn out from our big day of swimming and I was too comfortable. So I wasn’t able to stay awake for very long. But we did see a lot of shooting stars (compared to most nights!) and I’ve never seen the Milky Way so bright, so clearly visible, and stretching all the way across the sky. Wow!

The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Psalm 19:1

For this summer’s main event, we went camping with my parents and four youngest siblings. They had never been up here to Oregon, except MA and RC who made separate visits within the last year. Our apartment was bursting at the seams for a few days, while we got all ready to go and enjoyed some local activities such as touring the campus, walking up Donald, swimming in our pool, and visiting the grocery palace. We also went blueberry picking!

It was fun to host my family in my home - something I’d never done before, even when I lived on my own in my studio apartment I don’t think I had more than 2 or 3 of my family there at one time. I cooked for 8, and they liked the food. I felt very gratified. I’m like the Italian grandma we never had - “eat, eat!”

We camped at Little Lava Lake. (With views of Mt. Bachelor and the South Sister.) Our campsite was just a short distance from the water and we did a lot of swimming and rafting. RC and GC swam all the way across!

A creek came out of the lake and passed right next to our site, and on the first day BN led us on a log-riding adventure. We each had our own log, except RC and HN were sharing a big one and they kept rolling off… We had to paddle because the current wasn’t much at all… there was a deep layer of ooze at the bottom, and lots of floating crud that was so disgusting it was hard to believe it was real. It was like… like… sea serpent barf. Or something. My stomach hurt from laughing and my legs hurt from scraping them on the stumps of branches sticking out of my log.

We took day trips to various other lakes:

Waldo lake is famous for being very clear and blue. It was beautiful, the weather was nice, and the water was cold but swimmable. We had an easy swim out to several tiny islands, and took turns with the swimming goggles looking under the water. Looking out towards the deep center of the lake was an intense shade of blue.

Waldo lake is also famous for mosquitos. I’m pretty sure I got my most painful bug bites while I was there. But other than that, it’s perfect.

We took a long hike (it turned out to be about 11 miles!) on a trail that passed 5 or 6 lakes. We stopped for lunch and a swim, and RC promptly cut his foot. Mom and I duct-taped him back together and he made it home fine.

Devil’s Lake was bright green and very, very cold. After a quick dip we were chilled through. Next was Elk Lake, which was big, popular for swimming and sailing, and quite warm, at least near the beach where it was shallow for a long distance.

Our last day of swimming was at Sparks Lake. We’d spent some time and effort getting our various rafts into my parents’ Suburban along with the 8 of us… We piled into the rafts and laboriously paddled out to the middle of the lake. Then we realized it was only waist deep! Almost the entire lake was shallow enough to take on foot. The only problem was the muck at the bottom - eww, gross!

Other excursions included:

A hike up Tumelo, a mountain that’s short in comparison with the South Sister or Mt. Bachelor, but affords great views of both of those larger peaks.

We also visited a lava-flow area, with big jumbled piles of black volcanic rock.

Scrambling over piles of loose rocks is one of my least favorite things to do, so I stayed at the base and explored the meadow/creek area below. On that big boulder by the creek I saw graffiti that was quite old - some was from the 30’s. You could tell it was authentic because who nowadays would chip into a rock, “Mr & Mrs C. Gaines” ?

A striking feature of this trip was the high number of close encounters of the wildlife kind. We were adopted by a duck named Winona, who had the distinguishing characteristic of a damaged foot-web. We weren’t sure if she’d lost her flock or what but she sure loved to hang around people. She would just come strolling into our campsite to say hello. Whenever HN was feeling bored she would take a stroll down to the lake to visit Winona.

Then there was the deer. It was after dinner, pretty dark already, and the lanterns were lit and a fire was going strong. Everybody was hanging around doing various things - Mom standing at the table doing the dishes, BN and RC sitting by the fire playing guitars, and I had just finished sitting near the lantern with HN, working to fix the jammed zipper on her jacket. Pleased at my success, I moved over to a free seat between BN and GC. Looking up, I saw a humongous deer standing right there, practically in the midst of us. I gasped, there’s a huge deer in our campsite! and everyone turned to look. The weird thing is how it got so close before we noticed. She was quite large, but obviously a she since no antlers… She stood still, gazing at us with large gleaming eyes. She slowly turned her head from side to side to get a good look at each of us in turn. We just stood there, gaping… wondering if she was quite all right in the head and trying to prepare for a crazed deer to charge us or something. Finally, she just turned and walked away into the trees.

Well, it sure was a fun trip. Thanks, Mom, Dad, and Kids for the fun times. Oregon behaved itself very well for my family, and I’m looking forward to next time.