The Giving Flower

Well, I haven’t been for some time now, but we don’t have to say that too loudly. I’m just a bit older today. Just a bit.

Tradition has it here in Germany, on your birthday you do all the work. You throw the party for the world to come to, you spend the money on everyone else and you bring goodies to work so everyone else can say, damn I’m glad it’s someone else’s birthday.
Whatever happened to being spoiled on your birthday?? Well, that’s not how it’s done here, so being the good conformer that I am, I’ve made birthday sugar cookies for the teachers at work. Sheep sugar cookies, no less.

This picture was just the beginning. I have two schools worth of hungry cookie-eating teachers so the kids and I spent the better part of Sunday making tons and tons of cookies. Don’t you just love sheep cookies with pink, yellow, purple and flower sprinkles?? We do. I hope the teachers do too.

Jogging tidbit: I was jogging with the family two weeks ago when Alida decided she needed to take a break and sat down, completely out of the blue, on a bench next to the path we were on. I continued jogging with Alexander, which meant Mr. G had to hang back to coax her into continuing. It worked and she was soon back on her bike. Along the other side of the path were two men sitting on another bench watching the world pass by. Apparently they were also watching the joggers pass because shortly after we jogged by them, Mr. G came running up to tell me that he had caught wind of a small, yet important part of their conversation.

The one turned to the other and said, “There’s no way she’s hit thirty yet.” I don’t care what else they said, that made my day. And my month.

Tonight’s agenda: Mexican food because tonight I’m not cooking.

I’m trying to keep this a clean blog with kid-friendly posts but I just had to show you my pink tank that I knit on the plane and on the beach while on vacation. I love how it came out but I felt the pictures were a bit too risqué to show uncensored.

started: June 7, 2007
completed: August 8, 2007
pattern: Tank top from Junghans-I got the pattern from my lys
yarn: Schachenmayr Nomotta- Catania color-0143 about 4 skeins or 200 gr.
notes: I knit this a bit longer, as with everything I knit and I’m glad I did. I also knit eyelets along the top ridge to thread a cord, which I made out of the yarn, so that I could tighten it a bit. I love the pattern and the yarn but I’m a bit disappointed that it can’t wear this top without something underneath it, although I can imagine this will look great with a black tank top underneath.

My birthday is on Wednesday, can you guess what we made today?

Vacation tidbit: One of my nephews is now a sophomore in college and stays with my sister (his mother) all summer to teach tennis. While I was staying with her, he came home from work one afternoon and announced that his MP3 player wasn’t working and he needed one to listen to while jogging. He then looked at me and asked if he could borrow mine, seeing that I had gone jogging every other day with it glued to my ear.

I looked at him and said, “Sure, if you’re willing to listen to knitting podcast while you jog.” The look on his face was worth millions. Needless to say, he drove to his friend’s house to borrow hers.

Sarah nominated me.

Gina did too.

Oh gosh, I’m red. Thanks you guys for really making my day. It’s amazing how often we can say that it really doesn’t matter who comments or who says what about your blog, but it really does matter. My blog is for me to share what I’m working on and to hopefully inspire others as well, so it’s sure nice to hear feedback that I am inspiring you all.

Now it’s my turn to pick 5 rockin’ bloggers which I don’t find to be an easy task at all. There are seriously so many that I adore that this is torture for me. Just look at my list of favorite bloggers and you’ll see why. That lists is incomplete to boot.
I’m going to go with the first bloggers I met when I first started blogging over two years ago. We’ve all grown so much and are all just such rockin’ bloggers. Go check them out and you’ll see why they rock.

Linda, Rachel, Erica, Jojo and Lori (I’m cheating with one more Rosa)

School has started again in the way of a week of in-service with the kids coming in on Monday, so it’s been really tough getting back into the swing of things. My directors have given me two more classes which means I have the same time to get everything done, just more to do in that time. I’m afraid blog reading will have to take a back seat for a while until I get my bearings back. Blogging and answering comments will be sporadic at best, but then again you’re all pretty much used to that. My blog is my love and so are the people that read and comment, so I’ll do my best to get back to you all but please forgive me if I don’t get around to answering you right away or at all. I cherish every single comment and I’m sorry if I can’t respond the way I’d like. I had thought about giving up blogging all together but I enjoy it way too much to be able to do that. Please forgive me in advance.

First day back tidbit: I’m teaching in both the middle/high school as well as in the elementary school which makes it tough to get to all the meetings. On the first day last week I went to the middle school meeting and missed the beginning of the elementary school meeting where all the new and old teachers introduced themselves. Well, I walked in at the end and heard the last two people talk which meant I was off the hook and wouldn’t need to talk about myself. The meeting continued until the director politely interrupted to say, “Wait, I would like to introduce one more person.” He came over to me, put his arm around me and said, “This is Mrs. Gintar, she teaches Spanish, English, sports and swimming…..and advanced knitting.” Everyone burst out in laughter because they know I’m in the church of knit and I’m recruiting on a daily basis. The sports/swimming teacher I work with was quite embarrassed which compelled me to tell everyone that I learned everything I know about knitting from him. He was mortified. I loved it.

I have an FO just itching to be shown, so I’ll try to get that up soon.

Here she is all blocked and very happy. I really love how she turned out.
In case you didn’t know, the theme of this year’s stole is Swan Lake and one end represents a wing which makes the stole asymmetrical and really quite different.

pattern: Mystery Stole #3 by Melanie at Pink Lemon Twist
yarn: JaggerSpun Zephyr Wool-Silk 4/8 in white, less than 4 oz.
needles: size 4/3.5 mm
notes: I knit this according to Melanie’s directions and used white matte beads which don’t show up very well, but still add to the stole. I really enjoyed waiting for the clues to be published and not knowing what was coming. I’m definitely doing this again next year. Thanks, Melanie!!