Jeremy's Knit-a-bit

Weekend in Virginia

Last weekend was my annual trip to watch Carolyn play water polo. It is rather sad because she is a senior and will be graduating in less than 2 months. It could be the last time I see her play. Saturday, I got up at 3 a.m. to get ready for my 6:40 flight to DC. I got to O'Hare with plenty of time to spare. While waiting in the security line I ran into my sister-in-law and two neices who were on their way to Florida for spring break. Talk about coincidences! I proceeded to the gate and began working on the Lace Wings Fixation Socks that I decided would be my travel project. I found the pattern on Anna's, Finallay Waking Up site. And promptly ordered 8 balls of Cascade Fixation from One Fine Yarn. I guess I like the idea of not haveing to pay over $20 for sock yarn (I do like the expensive stuff). A comment on One Fine Yarn, their service is fast, the yarn came in two days, and 3 Werther's Originals were included!

Once I got to DC via Allentown PA and a turbo prop plane, boy are they loud, I rented a car to drive to James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA. Because Carolyn lost her cell phone, I couldn't call her when I got there but she did call me not long after I checked in. Then I needed a nap before the 5:50 game.

The weekend ended up being great. Penn won all their games, not one of them was close. They are the only undefeated team in their conference. Hopefully, the will have a clear road through the conference championship to the national tournament. On monday Carolyn and Penn's other goalie were named co-players of the week.

I also managed to read my copy of Interweave Knits and pick up a copy of the new Vogue Knitting.

After arriving home at 1 a.m. it has taken a few days to recover. Fortunately it is my spring break so I can relax and DO MY TAXES. (I don't think it is proper english to have the words relax and taxes in the same sentence). What do you think?

Too Much to Do...

...And Not Enough Time! That is just one of my excuses for not posting. I have had a lot going on at school and professionally. Ryan (my teaching partner) and I were asked to present our problem solving presentation at Northern Illinois University last weekend. This was the second time we presented this particular presentation and I had some minor changes that we did that I liked much better. We also had an opportunity to see other presentations which inspired us to teach swing dance to our students next week. Last week we did a partner warm up where we ask girls to partner with boys and boys with girls. It was fun to see their reaction. Although they responded as expected with a lot of groans, our students are really great kids and you could tell that most kids were fine with it. There is one boy that I am worried about because I could tell that he was having a hard time. I am hoping that frequent partner changes will help him get through the girl/boy thing.

I continue to work on three knitting projects, the waves of blue afghan, socks for Lily (I started the second), and the ballband dishcloth I keep in my car. I am not going to post progress pics because they won't look much different from the last. I brought my afghan to my last Knit-a-bit class and the girls thought it could be made into a skirt. Progress has been slow this week because high school water polo has started. Joy and Lily had games on Thursday and Friday. They each scored on Thursday (Lily's first high school goal!) I love this time of the year because water polo is a great sport to watch. Joy, who is a phenomenal player got mentioned here. You have to scroll down to just above the Wednesday recap. (A side note for all you bloggers, the comment is only in bloggers text only version, it didn't get updated on the regular blog, Oh Blogger). So I spend a lot of my time here enjoying every minute of it. Lily is in the blue cap in the middle of the picture. (Yes it is challenging to get good pictures of polo games with my camera that is why I only took this one).

While on the subject of polo, Carolyn's team is doing well. UPenn is nationally ranked 14th this week! They are on their spring break trip playing some California teams and staying here. I never stayed at places like this on my college spring breaks, I seem to remember sleeping on the floor of hotel rooms, yuck. Their next tournament is at James Madison University at the end of the month. I book a flight to DC so I could watch. It could be the last time I see her play polo. I am hoping the team makes it to Nationals because I would probably go. My spring break is in less than two weeks. YEA!

Catching Up

February has been a busy month. There were two big events on February 9th the day started at 6 am with my arrival at school to set up our fouth Jump Rope for Heart. It is an educational and fund-raising program sponsored by the American Heart Association. All of the children participate in the jumping and heart health. The fund-raising is optional and not emphasized. Everything went great and it was a lot of fun!

The children were able to jump in honor or memory of someone they knew who had been affected by heart disease or stroke.

Amidst all of the preparation I get a phone call from Joy on Thursday night saying the coach thought she broke her nose during practice. (For those who don't know Joy plays water polo which is a very physical sport. So that she can practice at a comparable skill level she plays with a masters group which is co-ed.) This caused much anxiety, more on my part than hers. First and most important was that she was hurt. Fearful of what it would look like I was releived to see only minor swelling when she got home. After a few phone calls, I knew it was OK to wait to have it checked so off to bed we went. Since I had to be at work early there were several phone calls before she went to school to she how her nose was. After talking to the doctor's office we decided to wait until Saturday morning to have it checked. This made her happy because she was supposed to compete in a swim meet that weekend and made it impossible on Saturday. After rushing to get a x-ray Saturday before the radiology clinic closed we had to wait until Monday to find out it was not broken. This was all good because she flew to Ft. Lauderdale Thursday night to play in the South Florida International Water Polo Tournament One of the highlights was playing the Russian team yesterday. What an experience. Here is a picture of her listening to her coach at last year's tournament.

Also on the 9th we celebrated my dad's 83rd birthday. With every event I always think it may be his last. I forgot my camera so no pictures.
On the knitting front. I left the socks I started knitting for Lily out of the Kool-aid dyed yarn at the Doctor's office. I couldn't pick it up until yesterday. I had also made minor mistakes on my ballband dishcloth (total car knitting) and the afghan. Because I was so tired last week I didn't feel like tackling these problems until yesterday. So now with everything fixed I am back to knitting full force. Yesterday I rented the last disk from season 1 Prison Break. There were only two episodes. I need a new knitting show. Suggestions are welcome.

Today's to do list:

• exercise
• count Jump Rope for Heart dontations
• carry boxes downstairs
• find my Sam's Club card
• Knit

I am planning to finish most of this by noon today so that I have the afternoon to knit or maybe take Lily to a movie.