Handspun, merino/silk, approx 18-19 wpi, spun on a drop spindle. Spiffy! ( ETA: )

Excerpting from porcinea's post:

charlottezweb's house burned last night. Everyone is fine, but they have lost *everything*. The Red Cross has set them up in a hotel for 2 nights, and given them vouchers for food banks & the Salvation Army (and teddy bears for the kids!).

She has her laptop, and the clothes on their backs, a change of clothes, shoes, a diaper bag, their wallets, a cellphone, chargers, the wedding album and their car.
[...]
She wears a 22 (18 on top) bra size: 40DD-ish, her husband wears XLs on top, 40" waist (30" inseam), the younger boy is in 6-9 mos. and the older boy in 4T. Loves trains, puzzles, art, dress up, trucks & blocks.

Anything you can imagine a geeky family might need and you have to spare would be *GREATLY* appreciated. If you have anything you can spare, please check the post linked above and the comments for mailing addresses and a Paypal address if desired.

Today's culinary academy bounty. NOM.

I've been pishposhing at people saying "Oh, don't predraft your fiber, just spin it and it'll be more even." (referring to fiber that's nicely prepped and not compacted, that is) and also a little afraid of spinning from teh fold which looked difficult and not like what I'm used to at all... and I just gave both a try at once and holy shit, if I didn't get the most evenly spun, perfectly drafted single I've ever done in 3 years of spinning, which then plied up into the most perfect 2 ply sock yarn.

And of course, I have no idea HOW because I just sorta.... went ahead and did it.

This is how I learn everything. I do it, have some quantum leap with my hands figuring it out first, and then I have to go figure it out with my brain and backwards engineer what I did.

I am supposed to be cleaning the refrigerator, not having inspirational spinning distractions.

Sweet Peas. It was these or a cauliflower.

Who says one must be practical all the time?

I love watching the kittens react to the horses that clop up and down our street. They always RUSH to the window and stare, as if to say "OMG. WTF???" every single time like they've never seen it before. It cracks me up. :-)

South Pasadena Farmer's Market.

WIN.

Nice to get up out of my funk and get out in the sun around people for a while. I dragged Sorcha out with me too, though Em refused to budge. I feel better for it.

I am sure everyone has watched a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY">Susan Boyle on Britain's Got Talent</a> already but I'm sticking it here in case one person in particular hasn't. The look on Simon's face, hell the look on all those smuggy smugerson's faces is just... priceless. I must've watched it 5 or 6 times and I still tear up every time.

WIN

This was in my box at Dreamwidth this morning: "We are still in our closed beta deployment phase -- this is why invite codes are so scarce, why there are so few journal style options, and why some things are missing or not yet finished. We have a lot of people working on the last details, so hang tight and things will get fixed. We're adding more people in a controlled fashion to test our hardware load, which so far (*knocks wood*) has been looking pretty impressive."

I haven't got any codes, I guess I signed up after they gave them out to beta testers, but I saw that several folks asked in my last post and if I get 'em, they're yours. But, you know if you can find one elsewhere first, I'd jump on it.

If you want to check it out in a read-only mode (you can actually leave comments) you can log in under your LJ url username.livejournal.com and explore.

Oh, hey, some random person on Dreamwidth in the knitting comm gave me a code! I'm in. As soon as I get some codes, I'll ask who wants one. I checked, I haven't got any yet, but I'll totally pass it forward when I do ok?