Happy 85th To Me!

Well, I had my birthday this last month (August!) and I turned 85. Practically. I'm such an old lady. This is what I've been up to in my month away from blogs and computers and all of this new-fangled technology:

1. Doing my genealogy. I know that not all old people do genealogy and that some young people do genealogy, but probably 85% of the people I talk to for work every day are retired folk. That's fine.

At work, they let us help them test a new publishing thing that we added to our site for almost-free. You can make your own full-color genealogy book with copies of census records and military records and all kinds of original source documents. You add photos and dates and places and stories, etc, and the wizard will throw time lines at you and family sheets...it all looks really cool. But my family's genealogy has been in boxes back in California, so there has been a lot of typing to do (the package of records from my mom weighed enough that I thought she might have sent an ancestor). I still have a lot to do, but I really have done an impressive amount of work. I'm excited to see my book.

2. Spinning yarn and knitting a blanket (but not from the yarn that I spun). I actually finished spinning the ball of wool that I had. My mom has been super excited about Jess and I going home because she's discovered several yarn stores that are pretty near our house that we didn't even know existed. (My mom loves that I knit and spin.)

I also finished knitting my biggest project ever, the baby blanket for my friend's baby. (Jess keeps telling me that I should keep it for my own unborn children. It came out a little small but quite nice. I keep telling her that I'll knit blankets for my own children when I'm pregnant. They'll be pink or blue. None of this white-business. She tells me she wants me to knit blankets for her children, too. I tell her we'll see.) I thought about knitting the baby blanket with yarn that I'd made (which would have been cool), but really, let's be serious--I hardly ever talk to my friend anymore and it takes a lot of time to make yarn, and it's for a baby that will spit and leak all over it. Meh. Maybe not.

Now that I'm done, I'm not sure what to knit. Should I knit a sweater? They sound so tricky, but I may actually be a good enough knitter to be able to handle one. A larger throw or blanket? Maybe. More scarves for this winter so that I have them in many colors? Probably, but those are quick and then I'll still need a new project.

Really, what I want to do is order a huge box of roving and go crazy with dying and spinning, but we'll see. The yarn store has been talking forever about doing a dying class and that would be helpful.

3. Enjoying nature and identifying birds. I finally ordered (and received!) a GPS, which has been loads of fun. I've been geocaching several times! I actually heard about geocaching years ago and thought it sounded like fun, but never tried it until now. I still haven't figured out how to download stuff to the GPS, or really gotten hard (hrad?) core into it, but I've ordered some of the little trackable things that people put into the boxes, which is a start. It's like treasure hunts for grown ups. Fun. A lot of them involve hiking, and it turns out that I like that.

On a somewhat unrelated note, I've taken up an interest in birds. Not sure where that came from. Often, when I'm outside I'll hear birds chirping, and I look for them and try to see what sort of birds go with which chirps. I have no idea why this interests me.

4. Taking walks. I'm training for my first triathlon, so I've been spending a lot of time at the gym lately. Especially with skybluepink, who is training with me.

5. Feeding the cat. Our cat is actually about to have a birthday. She was born in September, we're pretty sure. We're planning on throwing a party (of course), but it's all sort of ironic, I think. For her special day, we will invite loads of people to our house, and the one thing she really hates (aside from baths) is people. It will be fun, though.

That's pretty much been it, I think.