And one last post

Here it is. I’m getting set apart as a missionary tomorrow night. Which most likely means no more internet (and even if it is allowed, I won’t have time!).

So this blog is on a temporary hiatus, until I return from Sweden in a year and a half. However, in about December I will be able to start e-mailing my family every week, and my brother will post some of my e-mails on my special mission blog, Haley’s Mission to Sweden (http://systerhegstrom.wordpress.com).

Check it out. And if you want to write me, my mission address is on the “about” page of both of my blogs.

Vi ses!

One more knitting picture

I finally finished my scarf!

That’s my fifth and final of the summer. This is what became of that delicious Inca Cotton yarn (Joseph Galler, Inc.) that I bought at Green Planet Yarn. It took the whole twist, minus a few inches. I’m going to attempt to write a pattern for it at the bottom of this post.

The other thing I wanted to say was that I was originally going to take it with me to Sweden, but then I heard about the Red Scarf Project, and now I’m seriously considering giving my beloved scarf up. The Red Scarf Project takes donated homemade scarves and gives them to foster kids entering college. Did that just break your heart? It did mine. I just wish I’d heard about it a month or two ago, because I could have made an extra scarf just for the project. As it is, this is what I have. And it was fun to make, but I don’t really need it. I’m kind of a scarf addict, so I’ve got plenty. It’s always way more fun to make scarves for other people, anyways.

(p.s. I know my scarf isn’t red, but they accept any gender-neutral color)

The reason I mention the Red Scarf Project at all isn’t to make myself look good (remember, “considering” giving up the scarf means “considering” keeping it, too :p ). But I figure that the more links there are to this amazing organization, the more a few other ambitious knitters out there will find out about it. Even if I don’t give this scarf up, I might inspire some other people to donate to the project this year (The current submission period this year is September 1 through October 31, so you knitters out there better get started!). And now that I know about it, I have some good knittins to look forward to when I come back! Besides my goal to make a sweater.

Okay, here’s my attempt at writing a knitting pattern, so unless you’re really interested, you can stop reading now. :p

Haley’s Cable Scarf

Cast on 38 stitches.

So I started and finished with a little bit of ribbing just to make the ends smooth, so it’s about 6 rows of knit 1, purl 1, on both sides.

Then the cabling starts.

Row 1: Purl 2, knit 6, purl 2, knit 4, purl 2, knit 6, purl 2, knit 4, purl 2, knit 6.

Row 2: Knit 2, purl 6, knit 2, purl 4, knit 2, purl 6, knit 2, purl 4, knit 2, purl 6.

Repeat Rows 1 and 2 one more time each.

Then you do the same stitching for Row 1, except now you do the cable stitch-switching (I’m a great pattern-writer—you can tell I know what I’m talking about! :p ). It looks something like this:

Purl 2, put 3 stitches on cable needle, knit 3, knit the 3 stitches off the cable needle, purl 2, knit 4, purl 2, do the same thing with the cable needle, purl 2, knit 4, purl 2, do the same with the cable needle, purl 2.

Do the next row just like Row 2, then do the same Row 1, Row 2 pattern for 10 rows

When you feel like your scarf is just about long enough (for me it was when I could tell I was running out of yarn), do (I think) only 5 rows (Row 2, Row 1, Row 2, Row 1, Row 2) after the cable switcharoo, then 6 rows of knit 1, purl 1 ribbing.

Bind off.

I’m sorry it’s not more concrete than that, but I was just kind of figuring it out as I went along. You might have to play with it a little to get it to look right. Just remember that you do the cable switcharoos when you’re knitting on the front side and any switching between ribbing and cables is done on the front side. If that makes sense.

Good luck!

A note on politics

I don’t know if anyone’s noticed, but I’m going to be gone before the November election, and yet I’m encouraging people to vote on this or that (vote Obama! vote yes on California proposition 8!). Don’t worry. I’m a permanent absentee voter. I will in fact be perfectly capable of voting in this election. All of you staying home, it’s even easier for you. Don’t let your vote go to waste. Research the issues, even a little bit, and make sure you understand what your vote means. And then use it. I don’t care if you disagree with me. Just play your role as an active and invested citizen of the United States of America. Remember Dante: The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a time of moral crisis, remain neutral.

Don’t be a fence-sitter. Vote.

conta–whaat?? part 2

So I got contacts on Wednesday. Weird. Seriously, they’re really weird. I’m getting more used to them now, but it’s still weird putting them in and taking them out. I thought yesterday there was something seriously wrong with the prescription in my right eye, but I put the contact back in the cleaner and it was fine—I’d probably just smudged it with finger oils or something. The optometrist still thinks I’m weird because it’s such a weak prescription, but it is nice to be able to see street signs. And I think it’ll get better when I’m more used to them. Right now I kind of get a headache if I stare too hard at something. Well, if they still bother me after a couple of weeks I’ll figure I’m not meant for contacts. I guess we’ll see! The adventures continue…

yet another life step…

I went through the temple for the first time today and took out my endowments. It was a really happy experience. Overwhelming and kinda confusing, but happy. I can see the truth in what goes on in there, and I’m excited to go back and learn more. One of the nice sisters said it’s like reading the scriptures: the first time you read them, they’re pretty confusing, and there’s tons of information, and they’re even kind of boring. But each time you read them, you grow to understand and love them more and more. I want to go back again and again so I can understand and love the temple more and more. I’m not too worried that I didn’t quite “get” everything. I will. I’ll get there.

More needles!

So the knitting excursion to Green Planet Yarn yesterday was a success! I have brought another convert to the world of knitting, and she loves it too! I also made quite a bit of headway on my own scarf; I’ll have to put a picture up soon. And it was fun to see all the regulars as well as some new faces. I always like making friends! And I got to tell Gunilla the Swedish employee that I’m going to Sweden for a year and a half! She was jealous because she hasn’t been there in sixteen years but she was happy for me.

Plus it was fun to get to know my coworker better. We stopped at her house and I got to meet her parents, and I guess I’m not the typical friend she brings home (I’m like, clean-cut or something?). She got a kick out or saying “bye, we’re going knitting!” to her parents. Haha.

Good times!

conta–whaat??

In the seemingly endless chain of medical-type updates I’ve been doing to prepare myself to go away for a year and a half, today I picked up my new retainer and had an eye exam.

I didn’t need a new retainer through any direct carelessness of my own. The old one is in perfectly good repair and is still in my possession. But it no longer fits my mouth. Two root canals (and thus two crowns–two completely new teeth in your mouth) will do that to you. That’s right, in the past four years since I got my braces off and got my first retainer, I have had two root canals. Sheesh. Well after the first crown I could somewhat fake it with my retainer but after two crowns I had to throw in the towel and realize that the inside of my mouth just has a completely different terrain now. Goodbye, two hundred and twenty-five dollars.

Then I drove straight to an opthamologist’s to have an eye exam. I got my first pair of glasses two and a half years ago, and they’re just not quite doing it for me anymore. My eyes are pretty good—I can survive without glasses if I have to—but, being an English major who also likes movies and detail-oriented hobbies, it’s nice to be able to see things clearly. In my previous editing job at school I spent hours staring at text on a computer screen. Then for homework I would spend hours staring at printed words in a book. Etc etc. So I thought that, since it’s been a few years since my last prescription, and I’m going away for a year and a half, and my medical insurance will expire before I get back, I thought the eye exam would be a good idea. I went to a new doctor, and he was really nice (and cute. Seriously, they shouldn’t let good-looking people become doctors. Seriously. It’s too distracting.), but he and his assistant seemed surprised that (1) I had glasses at all and (2) I thought they weren’t good enough. I guess it’s a weak-sauce prescription to begin with, and only my left eye has changed since then, a teeny-weeny bit. I felt like an idiot. I’m not a hypochondriac, I swear! I know I can see the tiny letters, if I squint and kinda tilt my head, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to read them all the time like I have to do every day. So anyway, he wrote a new prescription and told me that any action was my choice.

But here’s something new: apparently I’m eligible for contacts. He said that since I just want to be more comfortable seeing what I can already see pretty well, contacts would be a good idea, since instead of sitting a ways away from my eyes, they would rest right on the cornea and, essentially, change its shape (the shape being the problem in the first place—I have an astigmatism). Weird! Contacts have always scared me—touching my eyeball is just kinda gross! Which seems kinda inconsistent for me, since my favorite exhibit at the Exploratorium in San Francisco was the one where they dissect a cow eye in front of everyone every half-hour. But then I thought about it there in the doctor’s office, and I realized that contacts really don’t seem so creepy as they used to. I even took out my roommate’s contacts for her once a couple months ago, as a joke, and it didn’t bother me. This is one of those moments where it’s like, pshh, what was I afraid of?? It’s strange what walls fall down for us when we look past them to something more important.

Well, they’re ordering me a trial pair just to see if I like them. Then we’ll see.

new old hobby

My grandmother taught me how to knit when I was a child, say, probably six. The first pattern she taught me was for a cotton dishcloth. As a result, my mom gets a kick out of telling the story about how I stood up in show-and-tell in school and announced proudly, “My gramma makes rags!” Well, over the past fifteen years or so, I made lots and lots of dishrags and the occasional plain-stitched rectangular scarf. I also learned how to crochet and made some pretty plain hats and scarves. My dishrag knitting turned into saving these similar-sized squares to make an eventual sort of patchwork afghan thing. Which I am still working on. But I love knitting! I always have. I have a habit of knitting during General Conference as a way to stay awake. I’m not bored; I’m just narcoleptic if I don’t have something to do with my hands.

I have a point to this. This summer I’ve been working at the Hallmark Store, and we carry a delightful book called Crazy Aunt Purl’s Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Cat Hair: the true-life misadventures of a 30-something who learned to knit after he split. Crazy Aunt Purl is the working nickname of Laurie Perry, the author. It’s kind of a self-help book, not something I usually go for, but the stories she tells are true and heartfelt and often funny. Basically, in her antisocial funk after her husband left her, a friend dragged her to a knitting class just to get her out of the house, and she got hooked. The knitting side of it was what originally caught my eye, but it talks about things that anyone can relate to. Starting to date again after the horrific end of a long-term relationship. Insecurities in growing older. Learning to be a whole person on your own. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

So her discussion of her knitting adventures, only a minor part of the book, made me think about my knitting, and how I’ve been making the same things over and over since I was six. And I thought, well, I’m on summer break and have nothing better to do, maybe it’s time to go back to my old hobby and learn something new. I already own The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Knitting and Crocheting, a fantastic get-started book that lets you go at your own pace (which, depending on my mood, can be rocket-fast or snail-slow). I bought it years ago (and by “bought it” I mean “asked for it for Christmas”) because it had both knitting and crocheting, so it was like a 2-for-1 deal. So I pulled that off the shelf a few weeks ago and learned how to purl, which as knitters out there know is basically the backwards of knitting. And then I learned how to do stockinette stitch (which, if you look closely, is the weave t-shirts are made out of), and then ribbing, and then checkerboard, and then (gasp) cables! I’ll take some pictures of my work soon and upload them because it’s awesome. It’s amazing what you can do just by alternating two very easy stitches (knitting and purling) in different patterns. Wow. I love it. I love knitting. I made a beautiful ribbed scarf, and now I’m working on a checkerboard one and a cabled one. After that, I want to do a couple more chapters in my book and learn increasing and decreasing and knitting in a circle, so I can make hats and that sort of thing. My brother really wants me to make him some mittens. We’ll see if I have time before I leave on a mission. If not, I’ll learn how when I come back!

I love picking up old hobbies and giving them new life. I’ve also considered painting again this summer, ever since I read Asher Lev. But I don’t want to overwhelm myself. I just want to have fun making things with my hands. It’s productive.

assurance

I don’t have much to say today. Except that I’ve been reminded through a few recent personal experiences how much Heavenly Father loves us and how much he really listens to and answers our prayers. And how the temple is a place where the noise and jumble of the world are left behind as you enter. And suddenly you can receive revelations and feelings of peace and comfort that have been waiting a long while to come. The temple is truly the house of the Lord, and it remains unspotted from the world. It is a tiny bit of heaven on earth.

book angel

I just read an article in the San Jose Mercury News this morning about a teacher who saves books that his school library throws out.

This week, Wright, 57, rumpled in sweatpants and a T-shirt, rushed to Morrill Middle School after the Berryessa school board had declared 686 library books surplus. The teacher browsed through volumes laid out on tables. He filled boxes until the custodian turned out the lights and chased him out. He returned Friday morning, his triumph mixed with amazement and distress.

“Why get rid of ‘The Yearling’? Or ‘Leaves of Grass’! How could anybody say there just isn’t room for ‘Leaves of Grass’?” he asked. “If they were throwing out ‘Captain Underpants’ I’d understand, but not ‘Leaves of Grass.’ “

Granted, I haven’t read Leaves of Grass, but I have read The Yearling. And one of the pictures showed a few of these reject books laid out on a table, including a book by Ray Bradbury. Which really got me riled. The article also mentions such titles as The Witch of Blackbird Pond and Anne Bronte’s Agnes Grey.

Apparently this guy takes the books home, puts them in his classroom, or takes them to another school library that is happy to receive them. All three are much better outlets than the dumpster. It’s too bad the school doesn’t have access to some kind of donation program for the books.

Here’s something else that’s scary:

He glances at the spacious library with empty shelves and counters of computers, and laments that the room that once held many more shelves of books now is labeled “the media center.”

I went walking past my old elementary school a couple of weeks ago, and noticed the same thing had happened to the library there. It was a “media center.” As useful as computers and other media can be, I find this incredibly disturbing. It’s a trend of belief that with the advent of the internet, books are suddenly obsolete. It reminds me of something Ben said on a recent post:

I’ve noticed it in myself, watching my attention span shrink as my mind reshapes itself in order to digest bite-sized meals instead of the full nine courses of a Tolstoy or a Melville or even the ordinary single-course meal of an Austen or a Hardy. I gravitate towards shorter books, I shy away from the long. (And “long” grows shorter by the day.) I’d rather read blogs than books.

But don’t worry, he redeems himself:

Wrong wrong wrong! Blogs are great, and the Internet’s a wonderful thing, but I will not let it suck away my capacity to enjoy books.

Let me remind everyone that books are the most enduring data storage device in history, our friend since the dark ages.

So this teacher is one of my personal heroes.

Only one thing:

At home he’s got bookcases, a steamer trunk in the basement, and soon plastic bins for his crawl space, all filled with books.

Packrat. Reminds me of me. And Ben. And Mike. Plus maybe a little OCD on the side. Let’s hope someday I have enough shelving so nothing has to go in boxes