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.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

(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!!

The grand reveal!  The yarn is done!



This is the Fiber Optic 50:50 superwash merino and bamboo top, in "Catamaran Batik", that I bought at Sock Summit.  I finished plying it Saturday morning, and it has had a nice warm bath.  It is beautiful.  That's all there is to it.  It's beautiful.  I can't believe I spun this on a spindle.

 Can you SEE how soft it is?!



Anyway, the stats.  This is a 4 oz. (114 gram) skein, and is very skinny yarn.  Ready?

It contains 2,068 yards of 2-ply.  Wowzer.

I was just spinning as fine as was comfortable, figuring I would get about 1,600 yards, based on my previous two Kuchulu skeins.  Apparently the fine merino + fine bamboo let me spin extra-fine.



As a side note, I had a terrible time photographing the colors in this yarn.  All my pictures came out too dark or too washed out or too blue or too red or too yellow.  I did some extensive adjusting in Photoshop, so if the color looks weird on your monitor, that's probably why.  In real life, the yarn is mainly turquoise and purple, with some sapphire blue and sea green.  Really, really pretty.  Imagine it somewhere in between all the pictures that are in this post.



This yarn represents a pretty large time investment:

• ~38 hours to spin the singles on my Kuchulu (calculated based on the time to spin 1 gram, tested 3 times)
• 9.5 hrs to ply on my wheel
• 0.5 hr to wind off the bobbin onto the skeinwinder
• 0.5 hr to count the wraps in the skein
• 0.5 hr to rewind the skein after washing

I am thrilled with the final yarn.  It's so soft and has such a lovely sheen.  I can't stop petting the skein. I didn't take any special care to match the color sections as I plyed, I just let the barberpoling happen as it would.  It turned out with good distinct runs of color, and should look lovely when woven.

To close, let's just take a moment to ponder the fact that 2,068 yards is 1.2 miles.  Of yarn.  Of 2-ply yarn.  That means approximately 2.4 miles of singles.  From 4 oz of fiber. Spun on a spindle.

I feel empowered this morning.

When Emma and I were eating breakfast, I happened to look out the window and saw that the rear passenger tire on my car was completely flat.  Pancake flat.  Yikes!  What am I going to do now??!!

So I simply went out, took off the flat tire and put on the spare.  Emma packed up her bag, and was ready to go when the car was ready.  We took ourselves to the closest gas station, topped off the pressure in the spare and the rest of the tires, and off we went.  I called the repair place from the parking lot of her school, and they said they have time this morning to look at it.

Emma got to school on time, I dropped the car off at the repair place to get the tire fixed (and an oil change, also needed), and then walked half a mile to my office.  I was 20 minutes late, but I got here in time for my meeting.

All is well.  I am invincible.

RAWR!

TA  DA!  A major milestone was accomplished at 10:30 last night.  I finished spinning the singles of my 4-oz braid of Fiber Optic "Catamaran" merino/bamboo top!



I can't believe it's done.  I'm excited to see the finished yarn but also sad, because I so thoroughly enjoyed spinning this.  I started at the end of August, and it took a long time because I spun the fiber ridiculously fine and mostly had it as a travel project.  It was on the go for almost exactly six months.  The bulk of these singles were spun at our weekly Crafty Night at Anne's house.

I'll be plying these on my wheel tomorrow, and am plotting to weave a scarf/stole/shawl with the finished yarn.  Length and width will be determined based on available yardage.  I was debating about adding beads to the yarn while plying, but I think I'll forgo that and add beads only to the fringe of the finished piece since I want the yarn to take front stage.

So that was how I ended my birthday.  The rest of the day was equally lovely, spent in the company of good friends.  (I am truly blessed to have a friend like Anne.  And don't forget Rachel and Meg! Thank you!)  Anne took me and Emma out to lunch and then we went to another lampwork bead class.  Emma had to tag along and I set her up in an adjacent room with clay, drawing supplies, and snacks.  I was worried that the whining quotient was going to be high during the 4-hour class, but there was NOT ONE BIT of complaining.  (I am truly blessed to have a daughter like Emma.  Thanks sweetie, that was the best birthday present ever!)

I made another lovely pile of beads:



I concentrated on making sets this time, and smaller beads that will be made into earrings or necklace/earring sets.  I started off with some purple,



and did a couple variations of blue spotty ones,



a cute little pair of clear with blue bumps,



plain blue (rounds and flats) with a bumpy blue and white focal,



and a teal and white set.



Making glass beads is so much fun.  It was a wonderful birthday.

Today I turn 41.  When I was in grade school I read a book that had a female character who was "on the far side of 40."  That seemed so old. The phrase has stuck with me, and I remember my 10-year-old self feeling sorry for that character, who was so old and washed up, and certainly couldn't have fun like the children who were the main characters in the book.

Now suddenly, somehow, I find myself on the far side of 40.  Not very far on the far side, to be sure, but past the marker all the same. And I still just feel normal.  I'm tired, I have some battle scars (can you call them scars if they haven't healed yet?  proto-scars, maybe), I've learned some tough lessons, and still sometimes feel really bruised and raw, but I don't feel old.

I was going to write that I still just feel like me, but that doesn't really seem right.  Who is "me"?  I feel like I don't really know myself anymore.  The ordeal of my crumbling marriage over the past couple years has seriously shaken me off center from my grounded sense of self.  Self-worth, self-value, self-trust..... all seriously compromised.  I have a hard time trusting anyone anymore, including myself.  And I think that is what I regret the most.

I would like to think that in years to come, I'll look back on the year that I was 40 as the worst of my life.  Wouldn't that be nice?  If you knew that the horrible time you have already lived through was rock bottom, that it is all uphill from here?  To know that there are definitely bumpy ups and downs still to come, but that the valley you are struggling out of is deep as you will ever get.

I know that this is something one can never know for sure.  There are many, many things that are far worse than where I have been, and I'm quite sure that I will have plenty of problems in the next 40 years.  But a girl can hope, and maybe even learn to trust her own inner strength again.