Cherry Blossom Spring

Last weekend my mom and I went to a Cherry Blossom Festival/craft fair. The trees were absolutely beautiful, this was the first year I made it to see them and I never even realized how close they are to my house!

Knit Night!

In an attempt to meet new people in the area, I have been attending and hosting some events through Meetup. This is a lot of work and kinda scary but seems to be working. Tonight I hosted the first knit night at my house. A girl I'd already met came, and a couple of new people. It was loads of fun! We knit, I taught one new knitter how to start her first dishcloth, we ate cakey things and lemonade, and the two ravelry users proselytized it to the other two. Definitely worth cleaning house for. ;-)

Also, if you are reading this, and I know you, and you live near me - wanna come to knit night? The next one is May 14th and if you email me I'll tell you where I live...

More actual content coming soon... I have knitting and baking to share, I've just been mobbed with life and the above mentioned things.

Hey, Teach...

is done! I wore it today, and I love it. I didn't block it yet, so the button band is a bit ripply but I just couldn't wait. So picture it post straightening up. ;-) I followed the Yarn Harlot's lead and only put in three buttons on the top since I would only want to wear it buttoned that far.



The lace pattern took some getting used to, but once I "practiced" a bit (ripping out and reknitting...) I got it down without issue.

Hey, Teach

Another poem...

Hey, maybe this is BEO(ther)DA instead. We'll try for that. :-) I have another poetry post for you today because my photos are not handy at the moment.

This is one of my all time favorite poems. Note that I am not a religious person, this is just life advice, how to be happy and true to yourself, for me.

God Says Yes To Me
-Kaylin Haught

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

And, a few places where you can find poetry by delivery:

Poets.org (The Academy of American Poets) provides a poem a day in April by email, sign up here These are all newly published poems.

The Writer's Almanac (heard on NPR every morning) is available daily by email - sign up

And, my favorite, the American Life in Poetry I mentioned last time. This one is weekly (less overwhelming) and sign up is here.

(quick knitting update: I will hopefully have a completed Hey Teach to show tomorrow or Monday. I'm about halfway with the seaming but I also need to find buttons.)

BEDA and Poetry Month...

A few of my friends are attempting to Blog Every Day in April, something that the YA author Maureen Johnson is spearheading. I know I won't make every day (I already skipped yesterday!) but I'm going to take it as an attempt to get some of my posts-in-progress actually, well, posted.

Also, April is National Poetry Month! And I am of the opinion that if you think you don't like poetry, well, you haven't read the right poem yet. There's something for everybody in the world of poetry, my friends. I don't like a lot of poetry, but then there's the stuff that just does it for me. So, I'll be sharing some poems this month, and some links to places where you can find your own cool poems.

Isn't this year's Poetry Month poster great? The line is from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot. Not really my style of poetry, but a very nice poem.

I have one and plan on framing it to hang somewhere in the house.

O.k., today's poem is brought to you by the American Life in Poetry project. This is a project of the poet Ted Kooser who was the US Poet Laureate from 2004 - 2006. ALP provides a poem every week with a little column written by Ted that can be reprinted in a newspaper, magazine, blog, etc. as long as you register on their site. Registering also gets the poem emailed to you each week. He has been picking some interesting poems, I have a handful saved from the last year. This is one of those - a very simple but haunting poem by William Kloefkorn that puts me in mind of William Carlos Williams with its simplicity.

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American Life in Poetry: Column 147

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Our earliest recollections are often imprinted in our memories because they were associated with some kind of stress. Here, in an untitled poem, the Nebraska State Poet, William Kloefkorn, brings back a difficult moment from many years before, and makes a late confession:


I stand alone at the foot
Of my father's grave,
Trembling to tell:
The door to the granary is open,
Sir,
And someone lost the bucket
To the well.


American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2004 by William Kloefkorn, whose most recent book of poetry is "Still Life Moving", WSC Press, 2007, illustrated with pastel paintings by Carlos Frey. Reprinted from "Alvin Turner As Farmer," Logan House, 2004, by permission of the author and publisher. Introduction copyright (c) 2007 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

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