Wooly Woman does (and also survives) the holidays

Ok, first off, since this is supposed to contain knitting content, I must apologize. I took lots of pictures over the holidays, but forgot (yes forgot) to take pictures of Grandma's lacy scarf all finished, and the wedding socks. Hopefully the recipients of the gifts can send pictures later!!!

So instead is a picture of the newly dyed Lincoln fleece I will be spinning for my secret pal. She loves blue she tells me over email, so that is what I have dyed up for her.

I survived the holidays with a minor amount of drinking (a new craft friend said she is a Christmas alcoholic which describes things well- don't worry Mom I am laying off the sauce for awhile). One minor mishap cooking our first ever extended family dinner. I forgot (yes forgot) to cook the vegetarian dish, and half the guests were vegetarian. I remembered just as we were about to dish up! I had made perogies by hand for the veggies, so I can't believe I forgot to get them cooking! Fortunately they are easy to cook and were ready in no time. Here we are sitting down for a lovely meal. Everyone fit in the dining room, but barely! It was a hoot.

After Christmas we headed up to Ucluelet on the wet westcoast of the island to my cousin's wedding. She said "I do" amongst the roar of crashing waves on a beautiful gorgeous brilliant sunny afternoon. Her new husband sang her a love song on his ukuelele (sp?) and we had a roaring good party afterwards.

I love this picture of her hugging Grandma, so I will post it here. This is the couple I knit wedding socks for. I figured that the key to a good marriage is toasty feet while cuddling: on the top of a mountain (they climb), after surfing the waves in Ucluelet, apres-ski in the back country somewhere, and just in general while starting new loves in rainy Seattle. But no pictures! Sad!

Can you believe it is back to work tomorrow? SOOOOOO much work to do in the new year. The Honey made a New Year's list today, and #1 is Have More Fun. I came across this while talking to the Best Bud on the phone, complaining about back to work. We agreed that he has the right attitude, and since her husband is the same, are we not lucky to have loved ones to remind us of this? Happy New Year!

Rebel PhD does (and survives) Grad School

My holidays started with a trip to school to hand in the final version of my dissertation to Grad Studies. We were on our way to the Honey's parents for pre-Christmas frivolity, with a quick side trip to wind up 4 years of (painful, frustrating, agonizing) school, and expected no further problems from school. Wrong. They (THE UNIVERSITY) had to have the last word. Without going in to a long rant, doing a PhD has been a particularly trying process, with me somehow taking several unintentional wrong turns, never seeming to be able to follow the required protocol. So it should not have been a surprise that there was one final finger wagging to be had. Apparently, says Dr. Higher Up, I did not complete my final chapter as per "their" standards. They decided to let it go, seeing as how they still have a few "rebels" like myself in the system.

Hold on- Rebel? Is this an official addendum to my degree? Am I now a Rebel PhD? Wow, lucky me, I must be extra special to be granted such status.

Does it not make you wonder:
1) How they are planning on flushing the remaining rebels from the university system (since this appears to be their goal)?
2) Why conformity suddenly became a goal of the academic system which prides itself on innovation, creativity and leadership?
3) And most importantly (and yes most inflammatory and contentious) why is it that obtaining a graduate degree continues to be a process of degradation to the student who is constantly reminded that they are inferior to the more senior academics by a series of tasks, tests, and examinations which they will not pass if they do not show the "appropriate" degree of humility?

Cynical? Yes, so I have been told. Par for the course I retort. My experience in the past 4 years had a hand in shaping the cynic I am today. Pat on the back everyone.

I was going to include holiday news too, but I think now it should be seperate from my rantings. It was my choice to do a PhD, I survived, time to move on. As one of my cousin's said last night at a lovely wedding/party, I'm da Bitch now!!!

Christmas Trees for Foresters

On Sunday, The Honey and I took my parents out to get our Christmas tree. Christmas this year is at our house. Yay!

This is not the first time we have had Christmas. Two years ago in Flagstaff we had a lovely Christmas when my parents, brother and grandmother all flew down for a week. It was about the only week we didn't have snow that winter! Our tree that year was a juniper tree. It made the house smell like cat pee. Eww. But it was fun to get. We snuck out to a well known mesa and helped "improve" pronghorn antelope habitat by removing a wee juniper tree for our enjoyment. Actually, we topped it, so it probably lives on.

A sidebar: pronghorn antelope are one of the fastest mammals in North America, if not THE fastest. They are adapted to avoid predators by outrunning mountain lions, and wolves (when they were there), and thus have a high preference for wide open mesas where they can see the predators. Since we have stopped letting fires burn on the mesas, juniper trees (which would have traditionally burned) have started encroaching on the grasslands, shrinking pronghorn antelope habitat.

The point: cutting the juniper was helping the pronghorn.

Ok, so back to the tree on Sunday. It is a small Grand fir which is sometimes called (incorrectly) balsam fir. Grand fir is becoming increasingly rare on Vancouver Island, since forestry companies do not prefer it for harvesting (meaning they don't plant it back or encourage its regeneration). So wait a minute, why did we cut a Grand fir? It is ok, we got it under the power lines, which means at some point BC Hydro would have killed it with herbicides or by cutting it eventually. Conscience clear this year anyway.

Speaking of BC Hydro the power has been on and off 3 times in the past 2 weeks because of the snow and rain storms we have been having. One time it was out for 2 days which was tough when we ran out of propane, our back up heat. We have since stocked up on propane and candles so if it goes out again we are prepared. Another storm rolled through today, with another big one coming Friday.

I am getting good at knitting by candlelight though. Still working on the Angel Pearls scarf for Grandma and will post soon with the new yarn I have for my cousin's wedding socks. Yes! Wedding socks. Tell you that story next time.