The Dweebmachine

 A year ago I had a plan. Around this time, I would be packing up my apartment, getting travel paperwork for Lucy organized, and finishing up a school year. In a few weeks from now, I was going to be moving back to the United States, buying a house with my sisters, and once again teaching in a public school.  Last summer, when I was in Virginia visiting my mother, I realized that Virginia was no longer my home. Guatemala was. I still wanted to go back, but it was only a weak longing. In September I was applying to schools in Virginia. In October I told my school here I would leave. In November, I told them I would stay. By the end of the month, things felt wrong. Everything in my being was telling me to stay in Guatemala. The economy was telling me never to go back to the United States. The principal of my division led me to think that maybe I should leave this school. I didn't have the words for it, but I was unhappy. I was so happy living here. In fact, nothing could have made me

This summer has been amazing! I am so sad to say that it will be over in a couple weeks. As soon as I got into Virginia, I hit up my favorite places to eat, along with a creative reuse center not far from my mom's place, and local yarn store. Food and yarn are my priorities. After about a week of knitting (and one blog post) my sister's came to town! We spent a day here then traveled to a couple southern cities known for being a little witchy and a lot fun. Asheville, North Carolina is a beautiful place. Lots of OG hipster vibes. There is a lot of good coffee, antiques, and a beautiful Folk Art Museum. We stopped at a little winery on the way there because we'd been driving a while and wanted a break. We even hiked a mountain in the rain! It was beautiful but exhausting. Then we hit the road and went to a rhyming town in Tennessee: Nashville. Nashville was a little more of a city than I like, but we had a great time. The old library is pretty muc

 My oh my, has it really been a whole month? I guess so! In the past month I finished the school year, tracked down paperwork to bring my dog to the US, flew back to Virginia, got a hair cut, and visited many of my old haunts. I love it here, at least I do for the time being. Once the weather heats up I will NOT like it so much. I fly back to Guatemala the end of next month. So, what are my plans for the summer? Well, I'm going on a roadtrip with my sisters, stopping in Ohio to visit my brother and his children, teaching a knitting class July 9, and selling at a sci-fi mini-con July 23-24. That brings me to what's on the needles: SO. MANY. THINGS. I found out I was going to be a vendor with only two months to plan. I gave away my entire inventory before I left, so I had to start from scratch. I have a goal of 5 scarves ✓ 10 cowls (halfway) 20 hats (5 to go) Bookmarks once I meet those quotas   As a part of this, I needed to make example projects for my knitting class. I am happ

 I have been so remiss in posting, but as I said in my last one, work became overwhelming so I retreated from everything. In fact, I was so stressed I couldn't settle on a knitting project and I started several that I didn't finish. Happily about 2 weeks ago I emerged from the doldrums and finished up a couple projects and even made a blanket! This will be more of a catch up post of things I've done over the past couple months. I finally finished that 40's waffle sweater! I love it on my friend I made a blanket using super bulky chenille yarn from Dollar City (Guatemala's answer to Dollarama) While binge watching seasons 11-13 of Doctor Who (Jodie Whittaker is my favorite Doctor), I had the idea to make a scarf using the 4th Doctor's pattern in 13's colors. Super happy with the result I started a sampler blanket using a random picker wheel for color and stitch The cotton mitered square blanket is still underway

I have had this post as a draft for ages because the life of a preschool teacher can never be predicted. I was in the doldrums for a long time, but I'm back! Hopefully that means more blog posts... Anyway Back in late January (just after my birthday) a friend of mine from Ireland came back to the US. She'd been stuck at home because of COVID, so she only just got back from Christmas. As a birthday/Christmas gift she gave me some beautiful Irish wool in dark speckled green and a grey-white. The quality is amazing and I absolutely LOVED working with it. Well, a few days after she gave me the yarn I had a dream...a song to sing...No. No going off with Abba lyrics. Okay, so I had a dream of the sweater I would make with it. There were a few variations in the dream, boat neck, long sleeves, no sleeves, mock turtleneck...but there was a deep green ribbing and a thick white, thin green stripe on each one. I thought about the weather here and decided to go with a sleeveless mock turtle

 I had a wonderful day today, what with the cool drizzly weather (a welcome change for the hottest February I've ever experienced; admittedly I am in Guatemala...) and an orchid exhibit just next to my apartment! A couple friend's (one was a member of the orchid society in Guatemala) and I met for a little coffee and a nice visit. The exhibit was small, but it had all local to Guatemala orchids! There were micro-orchids,  The orchids are growing in the center of the leaves! grassy orchids,  and of course the Monja Blanca, the national orchid to Guatemala.                 According to my friend it's a sort of albino variant of a pink orchid.  It was really nice to discuss the different things and a little about how many were discovered because of Orchidmania in the Victorian era. It's dark, but the petals are GREEN! And well, I've been watching a of 80's TV, so I channeled a Murder She Wrote