Reading, Stitching, and Blogging and a really cool gift

I have been reading, knitting, and watching high school LaCrosse games rather than stitching and blogging during the past couple of months. The reading has been rather obsessive -- I keep track of the books I read each year and last year I read fewer books than I had in any of the last 5 years. This year, I set a goal to do better and so far in 2008 I have finished reading 30 books; I listened to another 10 in the car. You can see the results on my Shelfari shelf at the bottom of the blog. I really enjoyed Graceland by Chris Abani. My local library had two more of his books and I am looking forward to reading them.

I have also been knitting and have finished the back and 3/4 of one front on my Noro sweater. I made the front of the sweater a little wider than the pattern -- both to make the pattern come out even and make it easier to knit and because I want the sweater to cover my chest without strain. Now it looks like I will need one or two more balls of yarn to finish the sweater. I have also started a new pair of socks. I visited a new local yarn store, Prairie Arts and Fibers, and bought a ball of borroco sox. I have started the Roman Rib Socks from the Little Box of Socks. I also got sock yarn from the Webs Skein of the Month club this month.

I have found a way to combine knitting and reading. I am moderating the discussion of Middlesex on the Ravelry Book Club and have joined a Don Quixote summer knit and read along. I fell in love with Annie Modesitt's Corset Tank, a Dulcinea like knit along project, and fell off the stash wagon to order the Art Yarns Regal Silk to make it.

The high school LaCrosse season is over. We are making plans for summer karate, summer basketball camp, summer football camp, and, of course, summer LaCrosse. I started yoga last week and got the blood work results back from the Doctor's office. It appears that I am anemic which may explain why I have been so tired. It will be a couple weeks before I can see the Doctor, so I bought some iron supplements at the store. Hopefully I will start to feel like I have more energy if I take them.

To finish with the really cool gift, my father sent me a Hopi Kachina. It is a clown with two dogs carved by Robert Albert, Sahkomenewa. If you look closely, you can see that they are my dogs -- Cain and Abel the lab/shar pei mixes.

CSA Shares Start Today

I picked up the first share of the CSA growing season this afternoon. It contained baby greens, pea shoots, new potatoes, tomato puree from last season's tomatoes, green garlic and chives. I bought a dozen eggs from free range chickens to add to my share. I thought about an organic, free range soup chicken but decided to wait until a different week.

It was tempting, especially since I have been reading Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma again. I finished the section about organic farming and have started on his discussion of foraging.

In addition to reading, I have also done some needlework. I finished SamSarah's Embrace and have been working on my Noro Sweater. Embrace was fun to stitch once I really got started on it. It will be added to my collection of snowmen. I posted progress pictures of the sweater on Ravelry. I will post here when I make some more progress.