And miles to go before I sleep...

Well, I did it. I successfully defended my dissertation late Monday afternoon. The presentation went as well as I could hope for. Everyone was in a good mood and my committee was absolutely fabulous both in their support for me as a person and in their feedback of ways I can improve my work. The presentation was too long, something I knew going in but didn't know how to cut it down without omitting something important. From developing the presentation I saw some pretty glaring mistakes in my last chapter and some bugs with the way I had thematized my results. Let's just say that I got so caught up in the trees that I forgot to step back out again to look at the forest! I sort of forgot that the focus was on hope, and not all the other stuff that caught my attention ;-) I got some good help in the discussion with my committee afterwards, help I desperately wanted! I still need to read all the notes in the manuscripts before I can proceed with rewrites. I need to get started but I've been miserably sick all day so that's been a problem. I figure I can read and brainstorm and takes notes tonight, then start the revisions in earnest tomorrow. Let's just say I have miles to go before I sleep-- many miles.

When I got home form the University on Monday evening I was greeted with two surprises--well, that is in addition to the smiles and hugs from Mom and Dad;-) My dearest friend Wendy Shea-Messler called my folks to report on my successful presentation as she was driving home so they knew a bit of how things went. I thought that was incredibly sweet of her! Wendy's baby, Mason, also sent me good wishes and baby kisses for luck in the form of a tiny stuffed Winnie-the-Pooh bear. Pooh sat at the head of the table next to my notes and presided over the proceedings. I sure hope my other bestest pal Peter Rabbit wasn't offended by being left at home! Surely such things as this could only happen because a preemie nurse was presenting!

But... I am digressing, aren't I? I had 2 surprises waiting for me. After I got home I quickly changed clothes and slipped on my gardening clogs and headed out to the yard the breathe and cry and offer my thanks to God in prayer. Gardens are good for these things, so I wandered out. We've had strangely warm weather and everything that normally blooms in April is already in bloom in the 3rd and 4th week of March. It seems as if my perennials double in size literally overnight. But on Monday night I walked out and was surprised to find the first blossoms on one of my bleeding hearts. I couldn't help but be struck by the irony of the timing as I stood shedding tears of gratitude for coming through such a momentous life event. I thought it rather quite symbolic of everything I have been through these past 9 years.

My other surprise was the two packages of lace yarn that arrived in the mail. The first I had been waiting on for a couple of weeks, 3 balls of white Zephyr from The Knitter in CO. I figured the delay was related to demand as many folks want white lace yarn this time of year, and with free shipping I wasn't about to complain about yarn taking more than a week to arrive. I think I do get spoiled sometimes by fast shippers and besides, it wasn't like I had time to do any new knitting anyway! As expected, the yarn isn't pure white, but is rather a creamy white color--the color you would expect to see in fiber that had been bleached. I think it will make for a lovely intricate shawl or stole, although I haven't decided exactly what to knit yet.

The second package of yarn was from the YarnPlace in CA. Now they shipped it out speedy fast! I bought 2 balls of Gentle, a 5% cashmere/95% fine Australian Merino blend. Gentle is a good name as this stuff is exquisitely soft and beautifully spun. It's also very, very fine--cobweb weight fine. It takes 2 strands of this stuff to make it laceweight. I played with it a little and knit a couple of rows on 2.75mm needles. It's tiny, but very easy to work with. I'll have to think on what to do with this pretty stuff. I bought one ball in a rich buttery yellow and the other is my favorite blush shade called Ahhh Pink. Each 100g ball has ~1350yds which is enough for a modest sized shawl. I may consider ordering a second ball and double stranding one of the projects though, as this stuff is just so fine I might be knitting forever to finish a decent-sized project. I don't want to spend the time it would take to tat a shawl to knit one I suppose.

What a Relief!

Whew! What a relief! From the dialogue that ensued here and on the Lace Knitting list after my last blog entry the consensus is I'm not a yarn snob after all. I am, it appears, what one would call a yarn afficionado--one who appreciates fine quality yarns, a connoisseur. Yeah, that would be me. I appreciate the finer things even though I may not have them. I cannot afford to buy the super expensive wonderful yarns that are out there unless there is a bargain source like ColourMart or I opt for only one or maybe two skeins for a small project. Anyway, I'm so glad my knitty pals helped me get my terminology straight--I wonder if they want to volunteer to do like wise for the big D???? LOL

Speaking of the Big D, my defense is on Monday afternoon. It's at the College of Nursing on the left in the picture, Neyland Stadium, home to the TN Vols football team is on the right. I put together a rough version of my PowerPoint presentation and went to campus yesterday afternoon to do a practice run with the computer & projection system. It was a very wise choice since I've never successfully done a PP presentation. My one previous attempt failed when I got to the college and the computer wouldn't open my saved file. I have since learned to not use the "pack and go" feature and just take a saved file on a disk or flash drive with me. Pack and Go=No Go apparently, although I have no idea why.

Anyway, I now know that I need to cut a whole bunch of stuff in order to fit my presentation into the time limit and that I won't be able to use the notes feature at the bottom of the page because it projects on the screen. That's disappointment as I was hoping to avoid needing to use paper notes and just put everything on the computer. Oh well, it beats the old days of laboriously inputing text for slides on the computer, having the computer tell the camera to shoot the slide film, then whisking the roll to the Photo Pro shop down the street for 1 hour developing, then dashing back to the hospital to make the presentation. Yup--don't miss that one little bit!

To reward myself for exceptionally good behavior I stopped by Loopville on my way home. Late on a warm sunny Friday afternoon in March, the place was quiet--just me a Piper. I haven't been by in more than a month and Jinka has gotten a ton of new stuff in. It's a wonder they find room to cram all the yarn and etc in that tiny little shop. Most of the stuff is pretty high end--silks and Claudia handpaints and bamboo, etc. She had some new handpainted lace yarn from ArtYarns--pretty but not enough to tempt me at that price. I did buy another 2-ball box of the Kaalund Classic Two lace yarn that I bought on my last visit and am knitting with now. This is great stuff! I also splurged on the new issue of Vogue Knitting which is loaded with lace! This is the best looking issue of VK I've seen in awhile. Most of the patterns were reasonable, knitable, and wearable garments--a combination rarely found in recent VK issues. There is a nifty lace top which is labeled "oversized" meaning "will fit normal-size people without clinging to every curve or bulge" that looks like just the ticket for a summer knit top for me. The pattern calls for a dk wt silk yarn, so Richard's silk will be just perfect! Yippee!

Beware the Ides of March...

Or perhaps "Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble" is just as suitable an expression for how I'm feeling at this stage of writing the big D. Did Shakespeare have to labor as hard as I am to produce his literary works? Did he have to battle with exhaustion and wicked headaches and muddled thoughts? I haven't even started writing chapter 5 yet and my brain is so fried I can't think of what to say at this moment. Of course I'm not quite awake yet, so that may have something to do with it, but I'm so fried I can't even knit. Now that is bad!

We've had remarkably warm spring weather the past several days. When I needed a break all I had to do was stroll around the house, watch the birds and admire my flowers. The yard guys came and mulched the flowerbeds yesterday so they look especially wonderful this morning. The Bradford pear trees started to bloom yesterday and even the hydrangeas are beginning to leaf out. So far it looks like most of the perennials that I planted new last year are still alive and kicking so that's good news. I even found the bee balm I relocated to the north fence bed alive and thriving under a huge mass of weeds. That bed is a big mess, but it'll just have to wait another week or two before I can get it properly weeded and prepped for planting this year's crop of tomatoes. I haven't had time to deal with starting seed this year, so I may have to settle for buying my tomato plants this year. It's a small sacrifice to make for graduating, but it just had to be done :o)

Madness Continues

When most folks talk about March Madness these days they are referring to the NCAA basketball tournaments. Well that's all good and and fine. I love B-ball and I love the Vols and Lady Vols---and I want them to win it all! I think the Lady Vols have a much better shot at it frankly, but the men got a great seed and bracket tonight so there is hope.... But when I say March Madness I mean dissertation madness or the Big D. And tonight my mind is Big D as in Dead from overuse the last several days. I have a headache. I'm exhausted. I'm not nearly close enough to done with the manuscript and I have 3.5 days left to write before it must go to my committee. Yikes!

You know, getting a PhD is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. It's taken more courage, more tenacity, and more effort than anything else, ever. True lace knitting is a piece of cake by comparison, even with tiny patterns and cobweb yarn. But then I've never felt so supported by people everywhere in my life before either. These last few years have been something special. I have come to know the genuine goodness of ordinary, or in my eyes, extraordinary people who ask for nothing more than the opportunity to share their talents and be of help to me. That's what happened this weekend.

After much thought and stress, I finally arrived at the the climax of my research--the analysis of my interviews with mothers of premature infants about having hope while in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit or NICU. The key themes from the study emerged and I conceptualized them in the form of a 3-D pyramid with 3 sides: Hope and the baby, hope and the mother, and hope and others (NICU professionals, family and friends). The pyramid was inverted to show the precarious and uncertain nature of being in the NICU. I needed to find a way to draw this image so I could present it to my committee and include it in the final written reports. I'm not very experienced at this sort of thing--like not at all. I'm good with scissors, tape and cardstock but not with computer graphics. So I'm worrying about what to do Friday night when I get the impression that I should email my knitting pal from the EZasPI group and proprietess of a photography and graphics publishing business, Diana Cooper. So I sent her a short email explaining what I needed and asked for suggestions on what to do. The next morning I boot up my computer and boom! There on my computer was an email from Diana with the perfect graphic enclosed. See how nifty it is! I almost cried I was so thrilled/shocked/delirious with joy.

People are good. I've found the folks online in the knitting and tatting communities to be especially kind, thoughtful, and generous with their time, talents, and resources. Now I'm a woman of deep religious convictions and I'd like to think that I would share whatever I could with others in need (and there are lots of kinds of needs out there that can be met without money). Diana's generous gift to me was yet another reminder of the importance of asking for help when you need it (and sometimes when you don't think you need it but you do). I have learned that there are lot of people in my life who are eager to show their kindness to me. All I have to do is present the opportunity, invite it, and then graciously receive. I can't help but think of a favorite passage of scripture from the New Testament:

"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
"For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." Matthew 7:7-8 KJV

Thanks Diana! You are one in a million--a million little miracles that have blessed my life in recent years. It's because of folks like you that I'm going to graduate in a few short weeks and go on to mentor the nurse of tomorrow. Your goodness will never be forgotton. You're the best :-)

Making progress

My woolly friend Ewe-nice graciously agreed to pose for the camera to show off what's been happening on the knitting front lately. After taking yet another sanity break from the Hidcote garden shawl I am at it once again, this time knitting furiously on to the finish line! Since this is the one year anniversary of the Knitting Olympics and the completion of my first lace shawl, a red Kiri, I decided to go for the gold once more and see if I can finish Hidcote before the end of the month. As of this minute I have 15 rows left, very long rows, like more than 500 sts long rows! While I love this shawl and look forward to wearing it proudly, I am sick to death of knitting it! Whew! Confession is good for the soul, isn't it?

OK, so I'm making fine progress on the Hidcote shawl. I'm also making fine progress on my dissertation and graduation plans for May. I presented another one of my interviews in the phenomenology research group at the college yesterday and had a really insightful experience. It really does amaze me how the use of the interpretive group brings out nuances in the text that I didn't notice, even after spending hours reading and transcribing the dialogue myself. Then to top it all off, my major professor, the wonderful Sandra Thomas, handed me a copy of the letter she wrote to the dean of the Graduate School requesting the waivers and extensions I needed to be permitted to graduate without further adieu even though it's taken me many years longer than the rules allow and there were many semesters where the rules dictated I register and pay big bucks but I didn't 'cuz I was too darn sick to do school stuff and too poor to keep paying tuition when I wasn't working on the degree. Yes, it's a miracle I don't have to come up with a several thousand more dollars, just a relatively meager graduation fee. Hallelujah!!! Amen :-)

In light of all the anxieties produced by the aforementioned University stuff, and the fact that it has been blessed cold here the last couple of weeks, I continued to work on refining my fingerless mitts design. They now have a name---Miss Melly---and a story to go with it (it's still a secret but think "Gone With the Wind"), but the pattern is still under written construction. Since I already made the faux pas of publishing a picture of the design online I can't submit the manuscript for consideration to be published (but at least I know the rules now), so I've decided to offer it as a freebie here on the blog when I get it finished. I figure the feedback will also be instructive and a good experience for a budding knitware designer. In the meantime Ewe-nice, whose paws are too small to wear the mitts, decided to humor me by wearing my latest Miss Mellys on her ears. Well ears get cold too you know? The yarn is Plymouth's Baby Alpaca DK, which is wonderfully soft, comes in delightful colors, and is a joy to knit with. Or, and the wearing ain't bad either--esp. when it's late at night and I'm rewriting that dissertation chapter one more time >:^{