Archives for January 2007

I’m tired, and happy. Have been up since 430am, and I’m loving being still awake. Really. Because soon, I get to go to bed, and it will be DARK. I love sleeping at night. All day, all twelve hours of my shift, I bounced up and down for joy. Days! Days! I had no idea I would be so happy to rejoin the day-work force.

No time for much, though. Walked the dogs. Must eat something. Perhaps a bath. Tomorrow I will fit in a run, but today, I’m a tired slob, and really, it’s quite nice.

Sleep well, won’t you?

Normally, I wouldn’t do this, cross-pollinate the Yarn and Run of the A-Go-Go, but I have a bra confession, and it’s over there.

I am better, thank you. Midnight shifts are OVER. I shall be more human again. I got some sleep. I have learned that there is possibly nothing prettier than a very black, very short dog running through tall shiny green grass on a hill overlooking the San Francisco Bay. That will improve any mood, no? As will a run around Lake Merritt, which I am headed for right now.

(Gratuitous red shot here. It’s more cinnamon than red. I like it — I forgot to keep the box, though!)

I am frustrated. I am a good completer-of-things. I get things done. I follow through. Why, then, why can’t I finish a book?

I would like to finish writing a book. There. That’s all I’m thinking
this morning. The long novel, the 500+ page one, is within fifty
pages of being done. Yes, I’m sure of it. The middle book, that’s
within a hundred pages. The Nanowrimo romance, that’s within perhaps
twenty or thirty pages of completion.

I know, of course, that these are rough drafts. First drafts. They can be changed, ripped apart entirely. I can get the ending done and redo it later. Why don’t I just do it, then? Aargh.

I won Nanowrimo, which means that I wrote 50,000 words in November. See? Completion, of a sort. But the book wants to be about 75,000 words, though, which is why it isn’t Done.

And so instead of sitting down daily to finish things up, I start things like Runagogo to distract myself. Wonderful, that thing has turned out to be. Scout was right to encourage the idea to have its own website. Now I’m hooked on watching it, watching people post. I’m spending time running. It’s a Project, and I adore projects. I need projects.

I just want my project to be writing, you know? I’m so easily distracted by shiny things or timesaving devices or the internet or knit-design ideas or chocolate, and it’s just so hard to sit down and write sometimes.

Also, I’m whiny. ONE MORE NIGHT and I’m done with midnight shift, possibly FOREVER. That is something to celebrate. Instead, I’m unreasonably irritated with my coworkers, with the temperature, with my brainwaves. My face is itchy from dryness. I want to brush my teeth. I would like to eat ice cream but I have none. I had the WORST RUN EVER today.

I have the mean reds. They’re not bad, and they’ll pass, but I will certainly be glad to get home and go to bed. I don’t even dare knit — I’ll screw something up, and how.

Perhaps yogurt with granola will help. I’ll give it a shot.

Hooray the sitting on of children! Especially cute godbabies. (Some limited knit-content to follow, but don’t get your hopes up too high — only a small baby-sweater-sighting.)

Dylan reached for Miss Idaho, over and over, and Miss Idaho kept pulling up one eyebrow and leaning backwards, pretending like nothing was happening. This was INSTEAD of just jumping off the couch and Lala’s lap, which, of course, she wouldn’t do.

DYLAN RIDING CLARA! I love this picture. And how patient lovely Clara is.

Seriously, when you ask your fairy godmothers to watch your son, don’t blame them if they think baby-in-sink is a good photo-op. It is.

And he only learned to turn the faucet on in the very last four seconds of this sequence.

If that ain’t red, I’ll eat my hat. Or yours.

We went to Pt. Isabel to look at the Bay and at all the dogs. Dylan played it cool in his new Christmas sweater from Auntie Rachael and his hat which matches Auntie Lala.

Look at them, would you? I totally, like, needed to use the phone the night before, but Lala was on, like, a two-hour phone call with Dylan, figuring out what they were going to wear. I know, right? Right?

Wave ’em in the air like you just don’t care.

I just got back from a run and I had a training class ALL day, and have another one tomorrow, so that is all. Ex and oh.

I’m going to dye my hair red in a few minutes. No more blonde. On to something new.

Tonight: The Devil Makes Three in San Francisco. They’re one of my favorite bands — kind of rockabilly pirate music. I see they’re on iTunes — try The Plank on for size, and you’ll be hooked.

I’m deliciously sleepy right now. Full belly, because I choose to the run the right way — I came home from my run and iMEEJiately made a grilled cheese sammich because my GOD, I burned all those calories! Mustn’t waste away!

It’s my weekend. I have no brain cells. I’m inordinately tickled by the response the Runagogo thing has received. I totally just meant it, in the beginning, to be a few knitting runners keeping tabs on each other. Now it’s spiralled into a HUGE group of people, moving in whatever way they like (we even have a swimmer!), and encouraging each other. People are good.

And so are you. Have a lie-in this weekend if you can, huh? We’ve got our godson tomorrow, and I can’t to squeeze him ALL day. I’m going to see if he wants to ride Clara. 

https://rachaelherron.com/im_going_to_dye/

Today, no talk of running, because if you want to hear about running, you should go to the exploding site Runagogo. Seriously, people, that site is a-freaking-mazing. Every time I go visit, which is ALL THE TIME, there are three or four more posts by members. There are ninety-nine posts in just a day! POSTS! And over a hundred comments! And the comments! So good! So encouraging!

I remain amazed by knitters. Always.

However. We’re talking about dogs again, because, you know, I rarely talk about knitting. So many of you are knitters, and yet you still come here? I’m not sure I know why, but I’m always ever grateful. Someday I’ll show you knitting.

I’ll even talk about it for a minute! Two socks at a time in the magic loop method! Dude! That magic loop is damn cool. However, as cool as two socks at the same time are, as fascinating and interesting as they may be, it’s not intuitive knitting and I like my socks to be totally brainless. Seriously, and this is truth, my regular toe-up on-two-circs socks I can knit completely in the dark excluding toes and heels. The rest, all by feel.

So suddenly having two balls of wool to deal with, or if you’re like me and started at work and didn’t have the means or motivation to ball a second amount of wool out of the Trekking XXL skein, and you are knitting with the outside strand for one sock and the inside for the other, then you’re effed when it comes to turning the needle around. Always messing with it, untangling, pulling.

I will gratefully finish two socks at the same time, bind them off, sew in the ends and relish in having, very suddenly, a pair. And I will never do it again.

The magic loop method, though, that’s rad.

OHMYGOSH! Look how you distracted me from telling you I never write about knitting! Nice job, you. Very tricky.

I was telling you dog stories! Boonie The Amazing Returner has endeared herself to the knit-world. And she’s done even more amazing things. I quote from Whosadele, who left this in my comments:

Rachael,
your story kept me going today. My dogs disappeared last night. At
11:00pm the gate was open and the dogs were gone without a trace. My
old, too old to be running around, Springer mix and our
one-year-old-on-Friday lab aussie mix. That girl has always been a
runner, the old boy will sit in the open gate and wait all day for
someone to come home and close it for him.

My husband went walking too
look for them, then went driving, then I went driving and calling their
names until 2:00am. Up before dawn this morning, I was thinking of your
wonderful Boonie story, I kept thinking: three days, three days, they
found her after three days. I stayed home from work. I remembered
someone called after seeing the posters, so I made posters, I waited
for a call, I looked out the window, I called shelters, I thought about
Boonie. I drove around more, I gave posters to every postman I saw,
stopped at the vet, went to the city shelter, the county shelter and I
cried. I ch
ecked every lump, branch, and garbage bag along the road, relieved that
none of the lumps was a dog.

I kept thinking of your story with a happy
ending, three days. I called the answering machine, there was a
message, “I have two dogs in my front yard with your phone number…”
Bobbie, as sweet a lady as could be, had seen them in her front yard
and decided they ought to be tied up and she called me. I can’t believe
the old dog made it that far, six miles, he pants after walking two
blocks. He couldn’t even get into the car, I had to lift him in, they
both fell asleep on the way home and then I had to lift the old boy out
of the car. I am relieved that they stayed together and that they
wandered into the yard of a sweet pet loving person. Thank you for the
inspiration, I needed it today.

Isn’t that the best? Yay!

And if you want more, I’ve been enjoying Erika’s How to Return Dogs Saga. Follow up story here. Seems she has a problem collecting dogs on accident, and has a 100% success rate in returning them to their rightful owners. We heart that.