Busy busy car car

That's basically been the monologue in my head this week. With bits of "Hindi Hindi" and "free time, what's that?" thrown in.

A typical day: Wake up, eat, shower, bike 12 miles to work, workworkwork, bike 3 miles to Hindi class, act like a sponge for 3 hours, navigate home via metro and bus with bike in tow, feed cats, call Taz, fall into bed and sleep upon contact with the pillow. So that's the "busy busy" part.

The "car car" part is because our dear little '97 Honda Civic has finally reached the point where repairing her transmission will cost way more than we could sell her for. So for the past couple weekends, Taz and I have been doing a lot of car shopping (yay for test drives! boo for clueless salespeople!). We have narrowed it down to the Honda Civic Hybrid and the Toyota Prius. I think we are leaning toward the Prius for a number of reasons (mileage, cargo space, leg room, available extras), but I'd love to get some feedback from all of you, if you have personal experience with hybrids. What hybrid do you have? What do you love and hate about it? What made you choose the one you did? Would you choose the same one if you could do it again? With luck, we'll be able to figure out the money part and make a decision within the next week or two.

In knitting news (I know, it's been a while, hasn't it?) I am now officially within two rounds of being ready to bind off Taz's second sock. Nice dark wool socks, just in time for the hottest part of the summer. Do I have good timing or what?

p.s. Sorry for the dearth of pictures lately. There are pictures, I swear. They're even on my computer. At some point they will actually make it onto the blog.

In which a lapsed blogger is reborn thanks to fiber fever

What is this, you say? Who is this freakishly out-of-it blogger who has suddenly reappeared? Where the heck was she all that time? And why on earth would she just randomly reappear now? Either that, or you're asking yourself "Why should I care?" (if you're even reading this at all).

Excuses aside, a lot of newsworthy stuff has happened in my life in the past four million years six months, but only now have I finally gotten it together to write. At some point I'm sure I'll get around to telling you about my second India trip, and my second wedding while I was there, and my new job, and my summer plans. But right now, what I really want to talk about, the thing that some how managed to penetrate the haze of endless writer's block, is the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.

I am no fiber festival virgin. I've been to my share of county fairs. I've done Rhinebeck. I've seen the insane people at the fleece tent. But from what I've heard, MD S&W blows the rest out of the water. And now that I finally live close enough to contemplate going, well, let's just say it didn't really take much contemplation.

Now, some people are crazy. Some people plan to get there extra early and storm a certain booth with several of their co-workers from a certain LYS. Me, I'm fully aware that since this is my first time, I have about a snowball's chance in hell of competing with the experts. And anyway, until I get there and see the remains of their pillaging, I won't know what I'm missing. I am going early, but for the enjoyment, not to compete. Instead, I've begun researching patterns so that I know what types, weights, and quantities of yarn I should be keeping an eye out for. My budget is pretty limited, so I am trying to be very picky. Perhaps too picky, since so far I've only come up with one project I'm sure about. But it's a beauty:


Lucie from last fall's Knitty. © 2006 Axelle de Sauveterre.

And who knows? Maybe I'll luck out and Axelle will have a booth there too, and I can just buy the exact yarn the pattern calls for. Now I just have to figure out if there's any other yarn I'll be able to afford after I buy enough for Lucie.