drumroll, please...

Welcome to my world....

FIONA!!!!!!!!

Not the name I'd originally thought for her, but a gal can change her mind, right?

I was inspired by a movie (three guesses here) about a woman who is a princess... but doesn't always look like one. And I thought, my wheel may not have those fairy tale princess looks, but she sure spins like it...

Then I did a little research on the name (gotta make sure it doesn't mean "tangles yarn into big knots" or anything!) and discovered that it is a very contemporary scottish name - I'm scottish myself - that was made up in the 1800s for a story, and they suspect it's based on the gaelic word fionn for "pale, light-colored". The Lendrum is a very pale maple... couldn't fit better!

We had her up and running last night, and I was making LOVELY yarn with some superwash merino I have, just oohing and aahing over the fantastic colors I was getting, and played around with different positions for about 2 hours until I started getting worse instead of better, then went to bed, after tucking Fiona safely in her carry bag... Now I have to come to stupid work and I just want to spin spin spin spin spin!!!!

She's HOME!

I find I spin finer yarn when I spin right handed, and slightly thicker when I spin left handed. But when I was spinning right handed, I was getting quite a little clip going, and then the yarn broke off (my fault - over drafted) and wrapped around the bobbin, and then I couldn't find the end! So I spent several minutes trying to find it before giving up, breaking off part of what was already wound and pulling that through and getting going again. (BTW, lesson number 1 of spinning, as I discovered last night, is this: if you must spin in shorts, shave your legs. I was looking quite sheepish by the evening's end...)

It was brilliant, too, because I was in a foul mood yesterday, really disliking GB and all men a great deal (I'm sure I was so subtle with my feelings that no one noticed, right?), came home and took Oscar out for a walk near a school by us. There's a small marsh where we went, and he suddenly became pitbull/pointer, as he POINTED to the Baltimore Orioles that were flocking by the marsh - little leg cocked and everything. We walked around for a while, he was obviously enjoying himself so much it was contagious, and then "raced" around the parking lot for a bit (he won) since he so rarely gets to just run. Then when I came home, already in a better mood, I found that our neighbor had taken two large boxes off our step because it looked like it was going to rain (sure, he's literally got a psychopathic stepson, but this is a really thoughtful neighbor) and so MY WHEEL was home!!! We immediately got things up and running, and it was SO exciting...

Tough to come into work today when I just want to spin. But we're having a girl's night today, since Heather and Eilene and I are going to dinner, so that's something to look forward to. And when I got here, my boss (the one who I generally like but has taken to asking me to stroke altogether too many egos lately) told me he was taking me out to lunch to thank me for all my hard work, and to let me know that just because S is coming back, doesn't mean he's in charge, that we are now on equal footing (frankly, I think I rank higher than equal by now, but I suppose beggers can't be choosers).

And I just have to get through tomorrow here, and then I'm going to spin ALL WEEKEND LONG! (Isn't that an AC/DC song?)

Thoughts for the Day:

Proverb - “God gives no linen, but flax to spin.”

Lord Alfred Tennyson - “Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.”

Mevlana Jelalu'ddin Rumi - “We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust.”

George L. Griggs - “Exasperation is the mind's way of spinning its wheels until patience restores traction.”