Saltwater & Campfire Knitting

Fact of life. If you go to the beach, you'd better be prepared to get sand in everything. This includes, but of course is not limited to: your eyes & mouth, your wallet, your food, your cooler, your fancy {expensive} camera, the lens you borrowed from a friend, your insulin case, your boots... yep, I got sand in everything and then some on my trip to the Coast over Memorial Day weekend. Everything except for my knitting, interestingly enough. While I was at the beach, my knitting stayed safe in the car. With everything else I had to handle: my dog, my camera, all the items an active diabetic needs to tote around, and my quirky clumsiness - The car was indeed the best place for my knitting.

{My friend Jake, petting my
dog - He's a fun-loving,
relate-able kinda guy. He's
 done just about anything
you can think of, except
been to Montana}

My little brother and I spent the first leg of our trip on the Northern Oregon and Southern Washington Coast. We met up with a friend of mine in Warrenton, had an epic campfire on Crescent Beach (just north of Cannon Beach), then camped out at Fort Stevens. The next morning, we made our way north to Long Beach, where we stopped at a local coffee shop (a safe place to start my knitting!) and then had lunch at the beach. We then continued our jaunt a little further north and finally ended up at Bush Pioneer County Park to camp for the night - There were all kinds of winding trails, one that lead down to another beach where we could gather driftwood for our fire. Once we got our fire going and our dinner cooked, it was time to relax and I got out my knitting again!

I have been trying out many things with this particular skein of yarn - it's my Mountain Colors Twizzle in "Firestorm" - and seems appropriate to knit with it accompanied by a campfire. I finally decided on a simple stockinette stitch cowl to showcase the beautiful varagation of the yarn - from deep red browns to bright firy reds mixed with purples, blues and a little bit of green.

The next morning we woke up to rain, so we packed up and headed inland. While we were heading east on highway 12, we passed the turnoff for Mt. Rainier National Park... it took me about a minute to realize that I had no idea when I'd get the chance to see Mt. Rainier again, so we turned around and headed up north and into the park. We picked out a campsite at Cougar Rock then went on a short hike on the Wonderland trail. When we got back to camp, we set everything up, made our fire and our dinner, then it was some more knitting time for me!

Tuesday, it was time to pack up and head home. The drive through the mountains was incredibly scenic and I'm pretty sure I want to go back there again sometime!! Altogether, I enjoyed time spent with my brother - exploring in the car and on foot. I also fell in love with Ingrid Michaelson songs all over again - roadtrips are always good times to "rediscover" old tunes :)

~~~ Epilogue ~~~
Can a blog post have an epilogue? Well, mine does: Watching my little brother make fires and knitting my little campfire cowl got me thinking about this metaphor I heard a couple years ago - that marriage is kind of like building a fire in the rain. Now, we didn't have much rain while building fires this weekend, but it made me think of marriage and everything involved in building a fire in general:

• like marriage, a fire must have purpose - in order for someone to put in the effort to build it right, they have to have intent and a purpose in mind for that fire. In marriage, that purpose cannot be self-centered.
• It must be contained - the passion of a marriage without clear consistent boundaries will soon go out of control.
• There has to be some fluffy stuff (i.e. newspaper/cardboard/dry kindling), and a *spark* to really get things going.
• There also must be a substantial piece of wood that provides a good foundation of coals - keeps things burning even when some of the flames go out.
• The understanding that when you add new logs to the fire, like challenges of any kind, the older logs will bend and break, exposing new areas to be consumed and burned adding to the luminosity and heat of the fire. The fact is, challenges don't snuff out well-built marriages - they help marriages become stronger.

These all help me to ponder where I myself fall short. For one - I think I lack the fluffy stuff. I just feel the need to be strong all the time, so I have a hard time being fluffy and vulnerable and just me with people. At least at first - takes some serious quality time for me to be fluffy with people. This is currently reserved for family, my roomies, co-workers that sit next to me and BFF's. Also, the *spark* in me is lacking too. I've "learned" so much from my past... I just cannot put myself out there too much anymore. So that's when God's miracles come into the picture - He's that One that draws the *spark* outta me and really sets my fluff ablaze. And I can praise Him every day that when it comes to those miracles, I'm not willing to settle for less.

Craving something lacey & sweet

Well this is the second day in a row of 80° temps and its making me want to stash away anything that has even the slightest hint of fuzzy (save it for a rainy day!) and work on something light. I am at work right now, patiently awaiting my lunchbreak so that I can dash home and dig out this gorgeous merino lace yarn that i know is stashed away someplace. I've been peeking at some lace scarf patterns in ravelry and I *think* I've found the one - here's to hoping it's not too *cozy*

And so.

I've been saying that word a lot lately - the word "so".
Sometimes twice in the same sentence, or thought. Maybe I've always had a habit of doing that, but I just noticed it this week. I really don't know why I say it, except that maybe I just feel the need to explain myself; especially in light of the whirlwind of change that seems to be going on around me. Nothing is really changing for me - just for people of somewhat close association with me. I can't keep up, so I've just found myself content to just sit in the eye of the storm and observe everything happen around me. Since I've remained un-involved, I have to preemptively think up some creative excuses for my laziness, somehow making my life seem busier and more interesting than it really is, sitting here in my calm little bubble. That's where the "so"s come in.
So anyway, here are just a few of the little things that have gone on in my life as of late:

• I saw an alpaca today rolling around in a grassy field. This made me very happy.
• I got a Canon 5D!! I ordered it on Sunday and just received it yesterday. Bought it from a private seller on Amazon.. $845.00 - a screamin' deal for a full sensor camera. I was not prepared for the fact that I would need to invest in another type of memory card for it and that my Rebel kit lens would not be suitable for it. Just some of the details to work out :)
• I tore out the cardi I was working on, and started on another pattern: Concur cardigan. I don't want to have to explain why I did it. I shall have this done possibly by next Spring.
• A guinea pig got his sweater!! Yes, sweet little Mac finally got to sport his tailor made sweater about a week and a half ago. 

• Two very important people in my life got married just a few weeks ago!!! Josh & Rhianna of J.michel Photography. I had the privilege of photographing the event alongside two other inspirational and talented photographers: Natalie Braham of Natalie Bee Photography and Ifong Chen of Ifong Photography. I am now in the process of editing my shots. I hope I can get them all done soon!!!

• oh oh oh, and upcoming trips: 
• Coastal camping adventure with my little brother over Memorial day!! 
• My cousin's wedding in Wisconsin in mid June!!
• And a friend's wedding in Portland in mid July!!

So, for now, I feel pretty content to just remain in the eye of the storm. Something big is going to happen soon, I just know it ;)