Pre-Festivalling aka a Hike on Burger Hill

Want to know what is wonderful? A trip to the NY Sheep and Wool Festival with my mom during peak foliage season. That is what is wonderful.

In October my mom came to visit for a week and a half, joined by my dad for the half. This will be the highlight of my year. My mom flew in, got to see my apartment, and then we took the train upstate for a fall trip. We went up a day before the festival started so we went for a hike on a place called Burger Hill. This is the highest hill in Rhinebeck and it looks out for miles and miles, over cute New England houses, red, orange and yellow trees, and purple mountains at the horizon. The hill itself is kind of funny, there is about 1 tree and a few stark stone benches, making the hill itself look minimalist like a Hopper painting.









Check out these insane clouds. And a shout-out to my camera for actually capturing them!

Finally, a different topic.

The past three months have been consumed by politics, as I am sure my readers know. I spent many many nights watching hours and hours of news. Because I cannot just sit and watch without doing something with my hands, I was left with ample time to knit away the political anxiety, which by the way, is all gone, replaced with giddy happiness and hope. The #1 project on the needles was my Rhinebeck scarf. I had purchased this gorgeous wool and mohair from a company called Decadent Fibers from Rhinebeck last year. It was a wonderful fall mix of deep oranges, reds and purple. I only had one skein which was too small to do anything with so it sat on my shelves. Later this year I had purchased a purpley skein from Wool Girl to be used in a Christmas scarf with a skeins of red and green. One day I was "cleaning", used in parenthesis because cleaning for me usually means playing with my yarn and reorganizing it, and I happened to put the purple and fall skein next to each other and it was like magic. They were meant to be together even though I would never put them together normally. I finally figures out what I was going to where as my knit piece to Rhinebeck this year. Here are the results.








All pictures were taken in Central Park by my mom and I after a wonderful trip to Zabars. More on that visit next time.

Happy Election Day!!!!!

Today is a very exciting day. I have my special election day outfit on, my Obama shirt from Moveon.org, my Obama HOPE pin I got from one of the dozens of Obama themed vendors in Union Square, and I've got my super silly pink sunglasses with Obama written across the lenses in rhinestones (these were a hit on the subway this morning). I am all set to celebrate the election. Forgive the really horrific picture of me, I will have more flattering ones from Rhinebeck to post soon.



On as equally a silly note as my sunglasses, I am an emotional wreck today. Everything is making me tear up. There are happy tears for stories of thousands of college students getting in line at 6am to vote, or seeing the long lines of New Yorkers wrapped around the block waiting to vote, or getting the menu that is always faxed to us with the message "Vote Vote Vote Vote Vote" written across the top, or the happy pictures of Obama holding babies, or the video of Obama voting with his kids, or standing on the subway platform with a dozen other people also wearing Obama shirts and pins. There are sad tears when I watch the video of Obama speaking about his grandmother.

I am not sure yet where I will be tonight. I can't decide whether to find an election night celebration or to have my own celebration at home where I can watch Rachel Maddow, Chris Mathews, and Keith Olbermann. One thing I am sure of, is that I will be celebrating an Obama victory tonight!!!