Hey there folks. Sorry for the long absence. I’ve lost my blogging mojo, mostly because all I do is spin spin spin. And there’s not too much blogging excitement in that - here’s roving, here’s yarn. Tadaaaaa! :) I also apologize that I haven’t been very good with reading my favorite blogs and flickr pics too, I’m terrible!

But mostly, I’ve been focusing my energies into running. I am kind of going through a mid-life crisis of sorts and decided I need to get off my lazy butt and exercise. I started back in November, kind of casually - about 2 or so times a week. I am ashamed to admit that I couldn’t go more than a block or two without getting winded. Then I became more serious whenever I went to Hawaii in December, upping it to 3 miles/3x a week. When we came back to Munich, I continued on, through the rain, snow and cold.

In March, I decided I needed to have a goal other than “run 3x a week”, so I signed up for the Munich half marathon. It was really overwhelming at first and I thought I would die just training for it. But as the weeks went on and I started doing longer and longer runs, I now feel like it will be a piece o’ cake. Ok, not EASY, but finish-able. On my birthday, after a few glasses of wine, I decided I needed yet another challenge, so I signed up to run the Loch Ness Marathon in Scotland in October. YEAH! I think the idea of the marathon being somewhere I’ve always wanted to go, as well as being such a famous area, makes me really really excited. I will run the full length of the Loch (maybe catch a glimpse of Nessie while I’m there) and then end in Inverness. For part of my training, I will run a full marathon a month before the actual race. So really, I will run 2 marathons this year, one official, and one not. One in Munich, one in Scotland. It will be the most physically demanding thing I have ever done in my life. But I am actually ENJOYING it, which is really surprising me.

I am currently able to run 8 miles, with only a few stops to walk. It is amazing how fast my cardio has developed. As a nice side effect, I lost 20 lbs so far and am able to fit some pre-pregnancy jeans! That in itself is keeping me going!

I am going on vacation for a couple of weeks, first to Paris. I’ve never been there before and since my parents will be watching the boys, I will fly and meet my husband, who will be arriving by train from Brussels (he works for a company there and goes 1 week a month). We don’t have much plans, other than visiting with our friends, shop for Maille mustard (mmmmmm) as well as stuff at La Drougerie, and I’m really interested in going to Le Refuge des Fondus, where you drink wine out of baby bottles. And we’re also going to do a 10 mile run through the city that will take us on a little sight seeing tour - to the Eiffel tower, along the Seine, and end at the l’Arc de Triomphe. Fantastic! I’m really looking forward to it. After we get back, we’re going with the whole family down to our favorite parts of Italy - Bolzano and Gardasee. Paris, Brussels, Italy, Scotland…we sound so european! :)

One last note, I wanted to thank Robin of Robin’s Nest! I won a contest on her blog and she sent me an amazing package filled with a bunch of patterns/pattern books, lovely citrus-y soap, a stitch marker, sheep note paper and sticky notes, and a wonderful calming “Peaceful Pond” CD. Ahhhh…it’s like a day in a knitting spa! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

That’s all the news fit to print…until next time!

Wow, I can’t believe it’s been a year already since I’ve started spinning! In that time, I have created 60 skeins of yarn, about 18,000 yards of handspun. Wow…that is a lot! I am a true spinner, don’t want to knit anything anymore. How crazy is that?! Of course, I do have some babies to knit for soon (my sister is due to pop any day now and have I knit anything yet…??? ummm…yeah, working on it!). Here are a few highlights of my spinning year.

Here is a picture of my very sad, sad first yarn, totally overspun and plied and feels so stringy rather than soft, even though it is merino. I will forever treasure this yarn because it was the beginning of my whole spinning obsession:

Here is my 5th or so skein of yarn and when I really felt like I was getting the hang of spinning. It was still over-plied, but it was knittable!

After 2 weeks of spinning almost non-stop, I decided I just HAD to get a wheel, so I ordered up my Kromski Minstrel, who is named Seamus. He has been a real work horse…gone through 3 drive bands, had one of his whorls damaged (and not yet replaced) and still going strong.

My first Navajo ply. It was waaaay too tight and very stringy. But the colors are so pretty! After this skein, I was so scared to do N-plies for a long long time!

Then in September, I learned Bowerbird Knits 2 step Navajo ply method and it has really made a big change in my spinning. It has made me into a N-ply convert and now I mostly do N-plies! Here is the first one of those skeins.

I have spun with merino, extra fine merino, superwash merino, merino/bamboo, merino/alpaca, merino/tencel, merino/seacell, merino/silk, bamboo, falkland, silk, BFL, superwash BFL and soysilk. I think my favorite is still superwash merino, for it’s softness/bounce and right amount of slickness. But of course I will spin pretty much anything! :)

And last but not least, here is the last skein that I finished up yesterday. The fiber is from All Spun Up in the January 2009 Spin-A-Long colorway. If I had to pick a “perfect” colorway, I think this would be it! A fitting end to a wonderful year of spinning!

Thank you guys so much for the wonderful reception to my etsy store! I am just overwhelmed with the “hearts” and nice messages from you guys, not to mention the sales. It made this homey housewife feel like I’m worth something! :)

The store opening has done a lot for my confidence - I am spinning like a mad woman! I am constantly spinning and/or thinking about spinning. I even got up the energy to do a full overhaul cleaning of my office. It was embarrassingly messy and I just never had the energy to do anything about it. So this past weekend I bit the bullet and threw away a lot of junk and I can see the floor again! It makes me have so much more energy, what a difference!

So there’s not much going on just spinning spinning spinning - I finished 9 skeins since I last posted! Gah, I can’t believe it’s been almost a month! How time flies!

After wondering if my handspun is good enough and getting encouragement from Naomi and Opal, I finally opened an etsy store - http://bockstarkknits.etsy.com. I had to do something with all that handspun! Would you do me the favor - if you have an etsy account, would you please “heart” my store so that at least I feel like people are looking??? :) Yeah, I’m easy.

I was lucky enough to meet up with KnottyNaomi while I was in Hawaii this year! She doesn’t go every year at Christmas, so I was just lucky! If you don’t know who she is, she is a spinner/photographer extraordinaire and one of my spinning heroes! She creates gorgeous yarn and is known for her bulky “ropes”. We met at a fellow knitter/spinner’s house - Opal, the AkamaiKnitter. I met Opal last Christmas at the Aloha Knitters meetings and we’ve been in blog contact ever since! She also creates amazing yarn at the other end of the thickness spectrum - laceweight! Seriously, this girl can spin 2ply laceweight and get 1000+ yards from 4oz - 2ply!!! Sheesh!

Opal, Naomi and me

Anyways, we spent a few hours in the afternoon showing each other how we spin. It is a real learning experience and I wish there were more spinning gatherings. And I wish I had a traveling wheel! :) Luckily, Opal has 2 wheels so I spun on her Lendrum while Naomi spun on her Majacraft. Before this, it has been next to impossible for me to spin thick, consistently, that is. But for some reason, after watching her do it, it just clicked. Maybe it’s seeing how much twist she puts in? I dunno. So after I had a 2 month spinning hiatus, I sat down and channeled my “inner Naomi” and created some rope. Man, the fiber goes so fast!!! I can make a dent in my stash for sure! :)

Channeling my inner Naomi yarn!

Then as if that wasn’t enough, on my way back to Germany, we had a layover in SFO and Stephen of Y-Knit fame came out to meet me and the boys. Have your heard his and WonderMike’s super uber-professional podcast? My god, it puts everyone else to shame!!! But the instant he arrived at the airport, we were non-stop talking about all kinds of stuff. He was such a hoot and I enjoyed his company immensely. And his hugs…oh his hugs…they are the BEST! He gives those really tight hugs that makes your jaw hurt from smiling so big and you really feel loved. I cannot wait to see him again, and I hope next time we’ll have more time! I’m trying to convince him to come out to Germany, especially since his husband speaks fluent German!

hizKnits and me

hizKnits corrupting my baby!!! ;)

And he was such a sweetie and gave me a whole bunch of yummy clif bars (most of which we consumed on the plane) as well as a skein of STR Monsoon. I sold off all my STR whenever I took the spinning plunge, so to feel the squish again was nice. When I got home, I cast on for a Kid’s Cowl since my boys need one. And it stripes up beautifully! Thanks Stephen!!!

So anyways, that was the excitement from my vacation! :) Now it’s back to spinning spinning spinning!

I started spinning again!!! After 2 months of no wheel (1 month because I was away and 1 month because that’s how long it took for me to get my shit together and clean up my desk), it feels good to have fiber between my fingers again. I don’t have pictures or anything yet. So to avoid writing something new, I’ll post the 25 random things about me from Facebook. I like to recycle. ;)

1. I normally don’t do these things but enough people tagged me to do it so I am. But I’m not tagging other people since I don’t want them to feel obligated to do it. If you’re reading this and want to, then do it. If not, no biggie. (oh, and if you tagged me, then I curse you!!! nah, just kidding!)

2. Related to #1, I don’t like making people feel obligated to do/buy things. Like having a birthday party - I like throwing a party, but don’t like people feeling like they have to buy me a gift. That’s why I never had a baby shower or wedding shower.

3. BUT, I do love getting gifts from my husband!!! :) Maybe it’s the fact that he has to painstakingly figure out what I want then figure out how to get it. And it’s cute when he tries to hide that he writes a note to himself (and then forgets that he wrote it seconds later).

4. I met Michael when I was 18, in my first semester at USC. But he wasn’t a student, he was a guitarist in a rock band (Avant Garde/Zoom) and I was a sunset-strip-hanger-outer every weekend. I did not go to football games, I went clubbing!

5. Our first date was a walking tour of Hollywood for a class project (don’t even ask) and we ate ice cream. Michael impressed me with his innocence, wit and talent. He is an incredible guitarist and it made me go weak in the knees. What I love most about him is that he has so much passion for what he does - first it was music/guitar, then it was school (computers), and now climbing. He doesn’t do things half-assed. It’s all the way or nothing.

6. Michael and I broke up for a month about 3 months into our relationship because “guys in bands shouldn’t have girlfriends”. Yeah, uh huh. But I was very persistent and still hung around and eventually he saw the light. HA! I always wonder where I would be if I walked away.

7. I got married when I was 21, and it was stressful because my family did not want me to get married. And they thought I was pregnant. We were poor but wanted to get married in a church. So we had a 10 minute ceremony in a Unity church in Houston and rented renaissance costumes. Had no honeymoon. The only thing I regretted about the whole affair was that we didn’t hire a professional photographer.

8. Because we had no honeymoon, we would take big trips (like going to Europe twice) and call them our honeymoons. I loved that! Now with kids, we can’t afford them anymore. :( But since we’re living in Europe now, we can go to exotic places much cheaper!

9. I played the piano, cello, guitar (rock and classical) and flute and have taken lessons for all of them. The only instruments I wanted to play was the guitar and flute (piano and cello was forced by my parents). I played the flute as an adult and wanted to play it for my children one day. But I stopped before I even got pregnant and now my flute is rotting on my shelf. I hope to one day break it out again. Michael and I did some really cool Stephen Collins Foster guitar/flute duets.

10. I love to spin yarn. It is my absolute favorite hobby next to wasting time on the internet. I used to knit a lot more, but spinning is much more satisfying to me. I still knit though, mostly socks, gifts, baby things, scarves, hats, small things.

11. I hated facebook at first, and now I’m addicted to it. I love getting back in touch with people from my past and seeing what they’re up to now. But I’m embarrassed when someone remembers me and I don’t remember them. I won’t say who those people are! :) I also am pretty good at keeping in touch with folks - every year we send out 250 christmas cards! I have been sucky with email lately though…I’m working on it! :)

12. As if you couldn’t tell, I’m an internet junkie. Being a stay at home mom in a foreign country has made me kind of a hermit. I used to be comfortable in social situations, but now shy away from them and sometimes dread them. Not because I don’t want to visit with people, but because I’m afraid they won’t like me or that I won’t have anything to say. But give me a glass of wine or five and I’m so there!

13. I like to go barefoot. I have a lot of hand knitted socks and I very rarely wear them. Even in the winter. The Germans stare at me like I’m a freak. I kind of am, I guess. My kids are as well. When they come home from school, they take off everything except their shirt and underwear! My husband says “you can take a girl out of Hawaii, but you can’t take Hawaii out of the girl!”

14. I have a cavity on almost every tooth in my mouth. But I haven’t had a new cavity in over 10 years. I fear getting more crowns not because my tooth is rotted, but because they’re damn expensive.

15. I am a Coke girl. I love Coke. I love Coke Zero. If a place only has Pepsi, I will drink 7Up or Rootbeer or just water, anything other than Pepsi. I also don’t drink coffee or tea. This is the reason why #14 exists. But since I mainly drink Coke Zero now, I’m ok.

16. I wanted an adventure all by myself before we had kids, so in 2003 I went to Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands for 3 weeks. In the months prior to that, I got my scuba certification so that I could go diving in the islands. I loved that trip and have many fond memories. I signed up to learn spanish and lived with local families in both places (Quito and Puerto Aroya). In the mornings, I had 4 hours of spanish learning, then in the afternoons I went exploring. I even visited Microsoft in Quito! They were really nice. Quito was a little scary, but I still enjoyed it. The Galapagos islands was a big party! I loved it there, even though there was no hot running water. The diving was phenomenal and I will never forget swimming amongst the turtles, fish and seals. After 3 weeks, I felt like I could speak Spanish as well as I can in German now (after 3 years of living here!). I still keep in touch with the Galapagos family as well as a couple of the other students that were living in the house.

17. I wanted to be a veterinarian up until I was in the 6th grade. I used to study dogs and knew every breed of dog. We had dobermans, and I trained the first one (Kimi) and did the whole obedience training show thing. I was one ribbon away from her being a champion dog (you need to get 3 ribbons and we had only 2). We even knew the dogs (and trainer) that were on Magnum, P.I. One of them was named Nohea, so we named our next dog after her. But then people always thought her name was “no hair” and that drove me crazy. We also had chickens and rabbits and I would run to their cages every day to check for eggs. I named my animals all the same - “Kimi” was a popular name, don’t know why, as well as “Peppermint Patty” and “Marci”. And I also named a chicken “Saimin” and my favorite rabbit “Guess”. I’m just happy we managed to give our kids fairly normal names.

18. I do not have a college degree. I went to USC for 2 years then I was supposed to go to art school in San Francisco - even got accepted into San Francisco Art Institute and the California College of Arts and Crafts, but got a job at UC Berkeley Space Sciences Lab as an admin and worked instead. I do not regret making that choice at all.

19. I believe in things happening for a reason. So far, all the bad things in my life has resulted in some good. (Of course, not deaths or sicknesses or anything like that) For example, when we moved to Houston, I was so perfect for this one job at Rice University. I did super well at the interviews and I was crushed to find out I didn’t get the job. I was depressed for days. Then I got a job at a place called Cogniseis Development and that’s where I learned about scripting/programming and that led me to more and more technical jobs rather than administrative. So I think had I gotten the job at Rice, I would’ve been forever in admin work. OK, maybe not, but it sure feels that way.

20. I grew my hair past my butt and then chopped it all of when I got a job with Microsoft. It was 24″ of virgin hair (the hair was virgin, not me! heh!) and I sold it to someone online though a hair board. I found out that there were a lot of men who have fetishes for cutting women’s hair off. And would pay big money to do it themselves. Ewwww! The guy who bought my hair seemed very professional about it and I think I got $250. But he also could be rolling around naked in it. I guess I don’t care, as long as I’m not involved.

21. Michael and I are both risk takers. We are not rich because of it, but we do live a pretty full and satisfying life. We are adventurers at heart (Michael more so than me) and hope that our boys will be too.

22. I hate doing housework and exercising, but found out with the right playlists, I will pretty much do it all. I will cook and clean and do dishes without complaint. And will even run for miles. I must always have an iPod with me for the rest of my life.

23. When we both were working at Microsoft, we had a cook. The cook was awesome, she came to our house and made 40 servings of food (per our menu choices) and then stored it all in our freezer. I miss her.

24. I was a tomboy when I was little and loved to do stuff with my dad. I felt bad that he didn’t have a son, so I tried to be one for him. We went fishing, played softball, volleyball, tinkered around with stuff in the garage, it was fun. I was even a score keeper for his softball team for awhile and I had my little score keeping book where I wrote down the plays. And then puberty hit and it was all over.

25. I am a night owl, always have been, always will be. I remember when I lived at home, I would calculate how much I could sleep in based on how many times my mom banged on my door and how angry her tone was. I can get ready pretty quickly. I sacrificed makeup and hair for sleep. Ok, not so much in my high school years, but as much as I could.

I just saw this video and couldn’t stop cracking up. Was this really sexy back then? I wonder if he dances around his bedroom like this when no one is looking. My favorite part is when he rips off his flashdance shirt and then puts on another flashdance shirt. Freaking hilarious! You just gotta love Billy Squire!

Warning: Anyone not comfortable talking about circumcision can skip this post! I’m not debating whether it should be done or not. Hurtful/spiteful comments will be deleted.

I was very sad to find out yesterday that one of my boys needs to be circumcised (he’s 4). Not that I’m against it or anything, but to put him through the pain is upsetting. I don’t know any of the details yet, I still have to meet with the doctor to see exactly what the procedure is.

Other concerns are that none of the other boys are cut at school (the exact opposite problem from the US), so I hope it doesn’t give him a complex about it. I’m sure I’m making a bigger deal out of this than I should, but I worry about these things!

If there’s anyone who had their boy cut “after the fact” contact me? I have questions!