A little theme update. I think this one is easier to read. What do you think? Last theme was clean and simple. But it was quite difficult to read the post, I think.
In other news, there’s a big family conflict going on right now. It’s BIG. Sibling rivalry. It can affect the outcome of the hotel project. I feel caught in the middle. That’s all that can be said now. Things change so fast that I can just wait and see.
We had super strong wind in Southern California last Thursday. I had some Thai food delivered. The smell of burning fire was immediately noticeable as soon as I opened the door when the delivery guy showed up. I thought it was weird that someone had a fire going. The delivery guy commented, “strange that people are doing BBQ in this crazy condition.” BBQ? It turned out that the wind blew down a power line, started a brush fire and burned down a house in Beverly Hills. Yikes.
Few things I want to enter in this online journal before I forget them. First, I want to thank Ted for turning me on to the idea of a vertical swift. I wouldn’t have known about it if he didn’t send me all kinds of info on the various styles of swifts. He truly is a walking knitting encyclopedia. A fiber Guru.
I’ve been knitting quite a bit. I am doing the Four Corner Hat for mom. The crown is made up of four panels. The photo shows the first one that I completed.
You can work the panels separately then sew them together. Or join while you knit. I choose the second method of course. The brim for this style is a slip-stitch pattern, which is much easier than the fair isle pattern for the Nordic style. I am almost done with the third panel of the crown. Yay. Also, the yarn from Blackberry Ridge is very soft and stretchy. Quite enjoyable to knit.
I also started a simple lace project with KnitPicks’ lace weight, Gossamer. I know. I mentioned that I won’t blog about this one because it will be a gift. But this person doesn’t read my blog. So why not?
The pattern is the Candle Flame Shawl that I bought this yarn for. I thought about doing a more challenging pattern. But decided, heck, go with the original plan.
I am also knitting Afghan squares for Marianne’s friend Julie. I am not liking the yarn that I am using. Time to make a trip to A Mano to get something else. Any excuse to make a trip to the LYS, right? 
But seriously, I also need to get some cotton blend for the next hat project for mom.
Speaking of A Mano, remember the taping of the Men’s night TV segment at A Mano? Yeah. That aired some time ago. And to my horror they used part of my interview. I sounded like Miyagisan in The Karate Kid. Eek. Anyway. A Mano wants to continue Men’s night. Please let them know if you are interested.
Mac users, have you heard of Quicksilver? I discovered it recently. I absolutely love it. It’s an amazing launcher app. Go take a look.
Next topic. I made some changes/improvements to my blogs. First. I decided to end My Project 356 blog. With all the things that have been going on, I stopped taking photos regularly. Keeping a 365 project just doesn’t make sense at this point. I will just keep my Flickr account and make that my photo blog. It is also subscribable if anyone is interested to see my less than amateurish photos.
Speaking of subscribing. I was able to find a way to combine all my blogs plus the Flickr account into one feed. So, if you are interested to read EVERYTHING I post, like my tarot journey, Buddhist practice, and of course, knitting, you can subscribe to this feed. It doesn’t necessary mean that you will get a lot of reading material though. 
I also added a feature called “Subscribe to Comment”. I always wonder if anyone who asks a question on my blog would return to look for a response, or would they expect an email instead? This will solve the dilemma. If you expect a response or want to be notified of new comments, just select to be notified by email. As long as you provide a valid email address, you will receive an email for any future comment to that post.
Do you see that new section in my sidebar that’s powered by Twitter? It’s a social networking thingie that I discovered yesterday. I don’t know if it will be useful or not. But definitely fun to try. It lets you use web, IM or mobile phone to send an update of your status, which gets posted on the network and sent to everyone that you consider a friend. The idea is to let friends follow what each other is doing, strengthening the relationships. It’s also used to send updates like news, etc. Go check it out. Read the TIME article. Let me know if you sign up!
A little update on my mom. Her condition is stable. But she is not able to walk around much. She uses a wheelchair most of the time. And her hair is mostly gone. Thank goodness that I finished the first hat. I was going to post more about the ridiculous things that my sisters did. Yes. Sisters. I don’t just have one wacky sister. I have two. And I don’t mean the one that I am working with to find help for mom. I have another one that’s making the matter more difficult. But I am just too tired of talking about them. I’ll just focus on the positive things for my mother and hope that she gets back some strength so she can have better quality of life.
Yesterday I started looking for a different theme for my new WordPress blog. Not that I hated the style of the last one. It was just too darn difficult to read. For me anyway. So I searched and searched and found Subtle by Glued Ideas. It looked quite nice and compatible with WordPress Widgets. Yes, Widgets. Little blocks of codes that can be dragged and dropped into the sidebars. No source code editing. Just drag and drop. How nice is that?
That was just the beginning…
I started playing with different configurations, different add-ons. WordPress is so flexible that I keep finding things to experiment with. Things to learn. In other words, I got drawn into the world of widgets and codes. And here I am, still tinkering. The best discovery so far was from within the theme options. I was asked if I wanted to configure FeedBurner. Hmmm… FeedBurner. Sounded familiar. So I followed the link and paid them a visit. Wow! What a great service. Basically they take your blog feed and make it readable by most blog/rss readers. Plus they give you the option to immediately pin many popular services when you update your blog. Services like Bloglines, Technorati and Ping-o-matic, so that you won’t have to wait for them to come looking for something new. This discovery came just when I started noticing that Bloglines was having problems reading my blog feed. Probably because of the modifications. With FeedBurner, now I can feel assured that the feed is in a standard format and updated frequently. Plus I was able to merge my Flickr feed into the blog feed, which means that people will know when I add new public photos. AND, FeedBurner makes it easy to subscribe to a feed. I have it configured in the sidebar. Take a look and click on the icon and see how easy it is for people to subscribe to your blog. I highly recommend FeedBurner’s services. I think everyone should try it.
No, I am not being paid by FeedBurner.
On to something else…
My dear friend Mariko gave me a couple of bags of unginned cotton. Big bags. (Thanks Mariko!) I started playing with separating the fiber from the seeds. It is quite easy to do. Only a few stubborn ones here and there. I’ll probably all of it by hands and card it to make punis. Ah, the thought of that just makes me so relaxed. I hope that we’ll find a nice rental house with a nice backyard when we move norht, so I can sit in a comfy chair with a big basket of fiber to work with.
Here’s a little fella that I’ve noticed hanging around in the neighborhood since last year. I think it’s home is not far from here. I like to whistle when I see it, and it always seems to be very curious and listens intently.
