Nerdy Knitter

What a day!

Well! First, it's H.O.T. But anyone living on the East Coast knows that.

You know it's hot when, at 10am, your pooch is pulling on the leash because he wants to go home, NOT because he's so excited to be outside, off his property. Poor Goober--he was soooo tuckered! But we are excited about his reaction to using the Gentle Leader this time around--he fought it for a bit, then just put up with it. That's what we want (well, not the fighting part)!

Then, to top it all off, I brought the Beast to my beautiful office space (anytime he's super tired, we try new things because he's starting in a calmer state of mind), and dusted off my flute.

I played my flute for the first time since we've had this dog (2 years?), and he was not even curious about where that funky sound was coming from. What a good boy he is!

It felt so weird to play my flute after such a long hiatus. I thought I'd be rustier than I was, although I'm still pretty rusty, let me tell you. My mouth muscles hurt after just a few minutes. Those of you who know me & the amount of time I devote to talking and using hot air will find that particularly amusing.

And we played a fun new problem-solving game with Henry to prepare for graduation day (our last day of obedience class is next weekend): 101 Things to do with A Box. Funny! Basically, you congratulate him for doing any old thing to a box on the floor, then when he does the same thing the next time, you ignore it and wait for him to give you a different behavior, then you congratulate him for that one. The point is to make him work out what you want him to do. It was really funny to watch his little face while he tried different behaviors.

One problem I didn't anticipate: if one of the new behaviors is biting the corner of the box, the dog will think that's the appropriate behavior and destroy the box before you get a chance to get another behavior. No need to ask how I know this--I'm sure you've got the picture.

So did you notice that I played my flute today? Just checking. I'm very excited about this. I starting playing the flute in 4th grade, and never stopped until about graduate school. That's a lot of years of nonstop playing. Then I struggled to find a reason to practice--there are only so many times you can run through the same music just 'cuz. I played in a town band in NJ for a little bit, but was discouraged by the music the director chose (Band music often uses flutes for high, shrill notes, all played at crazy tempos). Then when I moved to VA, I played in the Municipal Band, but the rehearsal schedule finally took its toll. I was working a full-time day job, a part-time night job, and then rehearsing 1 night/week, in addition to the concerts. Too much! And I had the same complaints about the music (mental note: flute-playing Nerdy Knitters don't work well in bands).

So, short of finding some sort of chamber group or an orchestra that will take me, I don't really have a place/reason to play. But enough time has passed that most of my music is challenging again--I need some work on my technique, etc.

Let's see--I've had pooch news, flute news...AND I have knitting news: I finished sock #1 of the pair I need to finish by Saturday. Luckily, this pair of socks is for small feet (4-year-old feet, attached to a 4-year-old boy, as luck would have it), so I make pretty good progress.

I had a nice knitting afternoon with my friend, E, and was able to get close to finishing the 1st sock, then I came down to my cave (I mean office--it's in the basement, and is super-cold, which is heavenly right now) and finished it all up. Now I'm feeling the tug of wanting to work on something else since I was able to complete Sock #1 so quickly. No! I must finish these socks, darn it!

I have about 3" left to the armholes on the vest--that will be my reward when I finish Sock #2.

Speaking of rewards--I finally worked back to having my iPod Shuffle back. I have an arrangement with Nerdy Hubby that I get the use of my Shuffler when I walk/exercise 5 days/week. For each week I don't make 5 days, I lose the shuffler until I get another full week under my belt. Well, I wasn't very good with the exercise for 2 whole weeks, so I was separated from my Shuffler for 2 weeks. Today was my last day of separation--I get the Shuffler back. Yahoo!

So far I've only had one person take me up on my invitation to come & drive up/down my driveway...there's room for more than one (thanks, Carol--nowhere's too far if you're willing).

posted by Nerdy Knitter @ 6:29 PM