In addition to opening a yarn store, I also have an idea for a place that would be kind of like a gym, but instead of having fitness equipment and classes, there would be crafting equipment and classes. There would be lots of room to work, and you’d be able to get your hands on things to try them or that you don’t want to spend the money on just for this one project.

Well, there’s a place in San Francisco that’s doing sort of the same thing, but for building machines and inventions and stuff: TechShop. It’s set up exactly the way my idea would work, except that mine would be less expensive and for craft stuff. I just need some cash to start it up.

For kicks, I checked the Sockapalooza 4 database today, and there were actually a couple of pals there who didn’t get a pair of socks. So I have a pal to save! Yay! I looked her up on Ravelry, and it doesn’t look like she has any Sundara experience, so I think I can remedy that! I don’t think I’ll post any pics, though: now that there are so few people expecting socks, it’s that much easier to track down the person making them for you.

At work, we’re doing this Learning 2.0 project — encouraging library staff to become familiar with the Web 2.0 tools that our patrons are using and that influence the way people expect everything on the Internet to work. As part of the project, participants are asked to create a blog and post about their experiences there.

I now have a deep sense of camaraderie with my 3rd grade teacher, Mr. Gagliardi, who had us write in journals every day, and responded every day. I feel like I’ve been doing a lot of blogging, but it’s really been me reading my co-workers’ blogs and commenting on them, so that they know someone is out there reading. Blog on, friends. Blog on.

You wouldn’t know it based on this blog, but I have been knitting the last couple of weeks. I made quite a bit of progress on the Cherry sweater over vacation, and then put it down for a while, mostly because I dread that I don’t have enough yarn to finish it, even though I ordered another (not of the same dye lot) ball of the yarn from Webs. And I can’t tell if it’s a gauge problem or not. I knit and blocked one of the sleeves first, to check gauge, and I think I have it. Now that I’ve knit the back, though, I just don’t know.

I knit up the other sleeve to try and compare the unblocked version with the blocked version and get a sense of whether the yarn is there or not before I keep going.

I started a couple pair of socks: another pair of Sundara’s Calla Lily socks, but in the Hydrangea colorway yarn, and Nancy Bush’s Anniversary Socks in one of the many balls of Opal from Deb’s stash, pictured above. The purple were supposed to be a head-start on savior socks for Sockapalooza 4, but it seems the first call for saviors went out while I was on vacation, and I totally missed the boat, and now I’ve missed the second call taking Michelle back to the airport. I have no idea who either pair will be for now.

I also started a Baby Surprise Jacket, again from Deb’s stash. She had some single balls of solid sock yarn, and bunch of partial balls of colors, so I’m combining to use them up. It’s straightforward knitting that I don’t have to think much about, which is nice. I also know I’ll be able to finish it with plenty of yarn, which is nice, too. My cousin just had her second child, and I think I’ll ship this off to her when it’s done.

And then there’s a bunch of stuff on my to-do list, things actual people will be waiting for. There’s a turtle for Teresa, the pink and orange scarf for Kay, and another pair or two of footies for Dee. I had done such a good job of clearing off my plate before leaving for vacation, and now my plate’s all full again.

It’s a bit of a made-up word, millediversary. In case your Latin’s a little rusty, diversary is like anniversary, but for days instead of years, which makes millediversary a celebration of 1000 days.

Mike and I kept a countdown to our wedding on the white board on our fridge in the months leading up to the big day. It was fun and all, but it didn’t even occur to me to start counting up after the wedding. Mike started and has been doing it ever since.

We’ve been married 1000 days today. I still think he’s awesome and sweet and fabulous, and couldn’t be happier. Bring on the next 1000!

We brought Michelle back to the airport in South Bend Saturday morning, and afterward decided to hang around and explore a little bit. We expected to find some sort of campusy district with little funky shops and restaurants and stuff, and totally didn’t find it. So then we went to track down a game shop our friends Conrad and Heidi mentioned when we saw them last week, and thought we found it, and then discovered they didn’t open until noon. We had, like, an hour to kill, and nowhere to go until we drove back toward campus and I saw a sign for the Potawatomi Zoo. Being members of the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo, we got reciprocal free admission, and figured that would be as good a place as any to hang out.

It’s a lovely place, the Potowatomi Zoo. Having only brought our phones, we didn’t get many great pictures, but here are a few.

These koi freaked me out a little bit, with their big sucking mouths and frenzied feeding.

Ridiculously cute, this black and white ruffled lemur is curled up taking a nap with a friend.

The cotton top tamarin clusters with 5-15 others around a sleeping area. When we walked up to their exhibit, they were on the look out.

As soon as a loud bunch of people came through the door, they all got up and spread out across the exhibit to defend their home.

It was a good time. After the zoo, we made it back to the game shop, where we bought a bunch of 1-2 player games we can play together, and had a tasty lunch at Chipotle before heading home again.

I was just updating some stuff quickly over at Ravelry, and I realized that most of my projects at the moment fall into the gray/blue/purple range of colors. It’s weird. It makes me want to start the pink and orange scarf, just to have a little variation in color going on.

And then work happened. And Michelle.

My sister, Michelle, was in town last week — she took some time off to study for her pediatrics boards and decided that she would be less distracted here than she would be at home. I think she got quite a bit done. The big part of my job was to keep her on task: getting up at a consistent time, working on questions, going to bed at a decent hour. It just didn’t leave a whole lot of time for blogging.

The work happening is that I got back to work from vacation right at the launch of a big technology learning initiative that one of the committees I chair has been working on. We’re calling it Learning 2.0, a take-off on Web 2.0 because we’re asking staff to get some exposure to and experience of Web 2.0 tools so that they can find ways to use them in the library, and know what the heck people are talking about when they come in trying to figure out how to link to a picture from Flickr in their MySpace page. I’ve written a bunch of blog posts in the last week, but they’ve been all work related.

I still have a whole bunch of stuff to write about. Hopefully I’ll get some more time this week to work on posts and pictures and stuff.