It’s never a good sign when you lead off your post with a weather report. Perhaps I am running out of exciting blog post fodder.

But it’s true. Today was a very blustery day around here. Trees blew down. The power went out. When my neighbor and I went out walking at 6:00 this morning the storm was already a-storming. We walked down through the Village, past the Starbucks umbrella that had blown into the street, stepping over the small and not-so-small branches littering the sidewalk. I tripped on a hubcap. Let’s hope the wind wasn’t responsible for that.

First thing this morning, after braving the storm, I tried to register for the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat. It did not go well. The registration service’s server spat me out mid-registration twice in a row with a very helpful message telling me that ‘An Error Has Occurred’. Gee, thanks. By my third attempt the registration service was telling me that nearly all the classes were full, a mere 20 minutes after registration for the event had opened. I was… displeased. I wrote what I believe was a clear, concise, profanity-free recitation of my frustrations with the registration process and emailed it off to the nice people in charge of the event.

Whenever I do something like that, namely write a complaint email in the heat of the moment I start feeling bad almost as soon as I hit ’send’. I worry about whether my tone was too sharp, my email too wordy, or even worse, whether I had committed some terrible typo which made me look like a complete idiot.

Much to my surprise less than 2 hours later I had an email from the conference organizer. And, at least this time, I was very glad that I had sent that email. It seems that the registration service had run into some technical difficulties when presented with the hoards of fiber-crazed folks all trying to register for the same event at the same time. (I will refrain from all sarcastic comments here…) Happily, a few hours later they were able to re-open registration and I was actually able to register. This means that in a few months DH will be full-charge single parent for a few days.

Do you think I should start cooking and freezing meals for him now?

Hooray for me! I managed to finish my Rockin’ Sock Club Solstice Slip socks before the August kit arrived. Behold their glory:

These are definitely my favorites so far.

I had a wonderful time at Sock Camp. I met some really terrific people, learned a lot, and it was amazing to spend so much time actually knitting. And sleeping. The sleeping was pretty terrific, too.

I have to admit, I’ve been experiencing a little re-entry shock since I came back on Saturday. DH left for China less than 24 hours after I got home. Cue the violins, please… No more all day knitting. No more all night sleeping. Poor me…

I’ll just have to console myself by posting some photos of Sock Camp. Especially since I don’t seem to be able to come up with anything clever to write.

Sock Camp was on Orcas Island. We completely lucked out and had nice weather nearly the whole time.

Orcas Island, looking lovely

Orcas Island, still looking lovely

So many socks.

But they paled before The Chickens.

Christine’s chicken

The Great Cockereel

Mama Chicken

Stariel’s chicken

Chappy’s chicken

More later…

May I present, today’s Cupcake Art:

Anything can happen. They might knit up a double helix, or even a model of the human digestive system. The entire human digestive system, tongue to tail, so to speak. You can see a picture of the finished work here. Very cool.

Thanks to David Reidy of the Sticks and String blog and podcast for the alert.