Whee! A nice big box arrived today!

Normal-sized cat provided for scale.  Sorry for the blurry cat-head, Coco wouldn't leave the box alone or stand still... apparently this box is SO EXCITING, and Coco was required to climb it and head-butt it and generally run around like a crazy kitty.

It's amazing that while the box is fairly big, it doesn't look too huge.  Neither did what was inside, until I took it out.  Then the fiber magically expanded into a volume approximately twice as large as the box.  It might have gone bigger, but I panicked and stuffed it back in the box.  I'm home alone at the moment, and if I were engulfed in the expanding cloud of merino top there would be no one to rescue me. When Shaun brought Emma home later this afternoon, all they would find would be a living room full of wool with giggling sounds coming from somewhere in its depths.

What I found most amusing about this package, though, was the sticker that was carefully affixed near the shipping label.

Sunday afternoons spent sitting in my office are really no fun at all.

I know baby steps are good.  If I (figuratively) put one foot in front of the other, repeatedly, eventually I'll get somewhere better.  I know this.

I know this.

But baby steps are really hard.

And when I'm in that numb moment, a tiny little baby step really doesn't make me feel any better.  It just highlights how much is left to do.

In order for me to dye spinning fiber for sale as braids of top, carded batts, and as my handspun yarn, I have to buy fiber.

(See that? A brilliant statement about how business works!  Sheesh...)

So last night I bought a full bump of merino, and a quarter bump of alpaca/merino/silk.  A bump is 22 pounds.

So at the end of the week, I'm going to have a lot (a LOT) of fiber show up at my house.  TWENTY-SEVEN POUNDS of fiber is a lot of fiber.

Puffy, squishy, delicious fiber.....so many possibilities...

Yay!

(Breathe...)

You know what ticks me off?  Those commercials for automatic soap dispensers.  I'm not talking about the ones in public restrooms- I have no problems with those, since I don't want to touch anything in a public restroom at all. I'm talking about the ones targeted to go in your own bathroom or kitchen at home.

And actually, it's not so much the product that I have a problem with, it's the marketing.

Every time I hear the commercials that extoll this soap dispenser, exclaiming with relief that if only you buy this product your precious children will never have to touch another germy soap dispenser again, I just have to shake my head.

Think about it, advertising folks. You touch the dangerously toxic and flu-laden soap dispenser pump, or even (gasp!) a completely low-tech bar of soap.  So what?  You then proceed to WASH YOUR HANDS.  With SOAP.

Batteries or a plug to get some soap after you pee.  They think we're all idiots.

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(P.S.  Feel free to use this rant for the random gadgety product commercial of your choice.  Especially the ones featuring melodramatic portrayals of completely incompetent people who can't chop a carrot.)

(P.P.S.  Yes, I know that bacteria can live inside a refillable soap dispenser, and can cause serious health problems.  This product tries to scare people about just touching the pump, and doesn't address the bacteria inside the reservoir at all.)

(P.P.P.S.  Apparently this is what I obsess about when I haven't had enough sleep.  Sorry.)

(P.P.P.P.S.  Fourteen days until my Schacht-Reeves wheel ships!)

TGIF.

TGIF!!!

That is all.

Halfway through the countdown to the Schacht Reeves wheel!!