Tempus Fugit, encore

OK, it's April! Where did March go? All of a sudden Maryland Sheep & Wool is coming at me at an alarming speed! I think I'd better get the last of my orders done tonight.

The first two boxes from Fleece Artist arrive on Friday, and the yarn and rovings are, as always, just breathtaking. Yum, yum.

And speaking of lovely, this post opens with a photo of my favorite tree: a venerable weeping cherry tree that stands beside Route 7 at the edge of the Shenandoah River bridge. Every spring, I watch attentively for this tree to bud and then bloom. This year, we have been favored by lingering cool weather, so my tree has been at peak loveliness for over a week! Isn't it wonderful? Just say yes.

Now, I promised a report on my John C. Campbell Folk School week, and photos, too. I saw my first daffodils of the year, strewn generously through the woods along the paths (look up). I was teaching a class called Knit to Felt. I brought lots of yarn for us to play with(look down)
I had seven students, including an intrepid debutant guy knitter. This is Andrew. He had a 20 minute knitting lesson the night before class started. He did a great job on his laptop bag and started a hat.
We had lots of laughs about just how big things should be Before Felting:
and how lovely they can be After Felting:
One Fabulous Fish of Wisdom:
The lovely Laura ( crashing our class from her scrimshaw class)with her needle felted mouse
Our lovely class display in 2 shots:

and a group photo of the happy knitters - I'm in the middle of the back row in the green.Can you tell we had a wonderful week? We sure did! This class had a great group dynamic, with a nice balance of talk and laughter and teaching, lots of visits to the local Yarn Circle shop, the excellent Folk School food...

I had a bit of a debacle driving down because I had planned to stay the night in Bristol VA/TN without consulting the NASCAR schedule - silly me - and I had to drive about 90 miles more than I wanted to before I could find a motel with a room available. Amazing. And a looong drive home all in one day because I taught an intarsia class at the Yarn Circle on Saturday morning. I don't mind driving all the way home in one day if I have a nice long retail therapy break in Asheville, but it turns out that I prefer more of that driving to be in daylight hours.

Otherwise, uneventful journeys. It's been busy since I got home. We are spending lots of time with our parents these days, and Peter & I have 3 sets between us. But you gotta do it while you can - spend time with them.

I've also been running a medical gauntlet. I turned 50 back in November, and since then I have had a physical, a female annual exam, a mammogram, a colonoscopy, a shoulder x-ray, some blood tests and a bone scan and an MRI of the same shoulder. Whew! The x-ray showed an abnormality, lucencies or bright spots - which are apparently a primary marker for multiple myeloma, so we had ten days of waiting for results to the blood tests and bone scan. The results were are good - no cancer. I do think it's a good idea to examine one's mortality from time to time, but I prefer it in smaller doses.

The MRI showed 4 different tears in the right shoulder, and the bone doc said I could try some alternative therapies or go for surgery with an 80% likelihood of improvement. Them's pretty good odds, but after thinking for a few days about what it would be like to do without my right hand & arm for 4-6 weeks, I've decided to put off the surgery until at least September and return to my acupuncture & Chinese medicine friend and look into physical therapy and some carefully selected Qigong - exercises that don't involve shoulder rotation!

I'll let you know how it goes.

Next post - knitting updates and probably some yarn porn!