Sunbeam Soapbox

Where did you go? I can’t believe that it’s almost July and I’m almost back in the States. I’m going to be spending the next 48 hours or so in transit, so I won’t be reachable by e-mail. Or phone, for that matter. I’ll just be a ghost. But on Thursday or later there’ll be some changes on their way. ‘Til then!

Sincerely, Stephanie

Quickly coming back for a short while to say: Happy birthday, Sunbeam Soapbox! I’ve been writing this blog for a year now. It’s had its ups and downs, that’s for sure, and I still don’t know what the future holds for it. I am definitely still trying to figure out my way and my groove.

That said, thank you to everyone who has commented here at Sunbeam Soapbox in the past year! I’d like to think I’ve made a few new friends through the blog. :) Three cheers!

I actually hadn’t meant that I was going to stop writing here for a while with my last post. I really meant that I wanted to change what I was writing about and how I was writing. But instead, life took its own view of things and forced me to realize how very little time I have. I got back from Krakow on Tuesday evening and until today I barely spent an hour a day at home. There’s just so much to do and see before I leave on the 30th! And I have less than a month!

So with that said, I am going to leave this poor blog hanging until July. Until then, you can read some stories about my adventures here:
http://abroad.lunsh.net/

I am becoming out of practice with the practice of writing out my thoughts. I want to tell a story (any story really, except the one that I have to edit 99 pictures and videos for), but I don’t know how to tell any one. I’ve been too busy, or too distracted, or too immersed in who-knows-what that has nothing to do with who I am. It’s just There. The Internet. I’m having a hard time extracting myself from it, even when I want to.

I need a week away from the computer: where I read and knit and listen to the birds sing, feel the sun shine on my face, listen to thunder clap and delight in the lightning. Where I begin, slowly, to write in my journal again, and to pass the time in a more creative manner, a more fulfilling manner. Instead I procrastinate on all my papers that are due in the next two weeks. (O! I have so much to procrastinate on. A ten page paper, two finals. A trip to Krakow and a trip to a wine distillery.) I don’t know how to balance: either I am completely relaxed or completely tense. And I can’t keep tense up very long.

But that’s not what this is about. That was stress, and there is another story today that I would like to bring up. One day, a girl with a blog was looking at other blogs, trying to see what she could see. She wasn’t very good at this magical act called blogging; she didn’t blog on a schedule, nor did she write about very interesting topics. But she was still obsessed with this whole new world, and the fact that it gave her an outlet to write in. When she got going she needed to write, desperately, daily. When she was in a dry spell, she didn’t know what to do with herself.

This girl had a fairly steady, small, loyal group of readers that she enjoyed hearing from, but she wondered what to do to make it bigger, or to really get to know these people. She had always heard of the “blog community” and wondered really, what was that again? Wasn’t a community people who did things for each other? What did she have to contribute? She tried to be a part of the knitters: but she didn’t knit enough. She had tried to be a part of the people her age who made pretty graphic art: but she wasn’t talented enough, nor did she write enough about her private life.

Really, she didn’t know what she was doing. So she looked into her drafts folder, and behold: some links, some pretty things to look at and soak up and wonder how it affects her life. For example, Blogging squared: bloggers blogging about blogging. But saying things that this girl needed to hear, like: We’re all doing our best, and some of us write a few words about it and put it on the internet. Not to be judged, just to share. Not to be judged. Just to share. How do I share? the girl thought. I am a quiet, private person, who never had many friends. What do I have to give?

Another blogger wrote a bunch of jumbled thoughts, trying to explain blogging to herself and how she sees it. The girl reading tried to understand. She remembered understanding it once, technically, but maybe not in effect. Or maybe there was something about blogs being too “nicey nice”. The girl thought about the knitting blogs she knows. Is that why she doesn’t fit in? Is she uncomfortable with that? Yes, many knitting blogs seem to be rather bleak of individuality, but not all of them. Is that why she doesn’t seem to fit in with them?

Is she going to be shunned for thinking that?

Maybe she needs to have the courage to think it anyway. To break free and be honest: isn’t that what she always was anyway?

Being accepted: the unattainable goal that gets in the way of honesty. Realizing that, the girl shut herself away from her blog for a little while and tried to figure out if she could handle that.

To breathe.

How YOU doin’?

I still don’t get why it’s taken me so long to post these. It must have been part of Spring. But now it’s rainy and I’ve been wearing them in the house (and out to the theater in my nice shoes that aren’t too warm like my sneakers), and I finally am taking some time (away from writing an essay) to post ‘em up.

I don’t even know when I finished these anymore! Or what to say about them, except that I am surprised Phoe didn’t like the yarn. Although it is fairly thin to knit with. It feels really thick on my foot though. I have since started a new sock with this yarn, although the only extraordinary thing about THAT statement is the realization that my sock mojo is finally back.

Socks must be my favorite thing to knit.

You’ve put a spell on me with those colors, that’s for sure!

witchy (Ravelry):
Pattern: Firestarter by Yarnissima
Yarn: Violet Green (Discontinued) Socrates Merino 4ply, destashed from Phoe
Needles: 2.25mm KnitPicks circulars, magic looped. For my next pair of socks I actually got out my Harmony DPNs, if you can believe it.

Off to knit er… write!

There was ZERO knitting this weekend, lots of insomnia (yes, that’s what I call staying awake until 4am hanging out outside with friends… insomnia…), a visit to a play that I had to review afterward, and a food festival in the city park with beautiful weather.

So of course the only thing I really focused on was the review and presentation I had to give, shaking myself up and getting so nervous about it that I had nightmares where the teacher was telling me what an awful job I was doing, in class, in ENGLISH so that she made sure I understood. (All of my classes this semester are held in German.) Then I went on to have other unsettling dreams.

Whenever I remember my dreams they’re unsettling. I used to think that remembering dreams was so cool, until I just kept having unsettling dreams rather than interesting ones. Now I don’t think it’s cool at all. I think it’s a sign of my restlessness. I am so tired and yet I can’t get a good night’s sleep. Something is wrong with me.

But instead of thinking about that, I wanted to let you all know about the contest going on at A Passion for Letter Writing and Blue Chair Studio. There are six different ways to enter the drawing and you get a set of greeting cards. Hurry–you have until the 15th of May to get in some entries! I would love to receive some of these greeting cards. They look so artistic! I want to be artistic!

Also, I got a Twitter account (syntaxoflife) over the weekend. It will be eerily quiet until I stop feeling so unsettled (and so stressed with school! I really just want everything to be over with so I can get on with making my own plans). Anyway, add me! I’ll add you back when I’m done being insane! (And memorize the password…)

I think that was it. I’m gonna go match a sock pattern with a sock yarn and maybe cast on for something. And then take a shower and go to bed! Whoo! See you when I can!

Fridays are for baking cookies.

I decided to use a German recipe, found here, so that I could find everything called for. Because brown sugar doesn’t exist here, and is in every English recipe. As well as other things, like vanilla extract, although there is “vanilla sugar” as substitute.

It didn’t work too well; I probably put in too much oatmeal. I don’t really have a scale and decided it weighed about as much as flour. Probably not.

I even got some daylight seaming done on the vest yesterday:

Now I know that if it grows when I wash it it will definitely be too big for me (all right Becky, you can have it), and I need to make the straps way shorter. 9″ is too big for the size small shoulder straps from the armhole. I mean, I know I’m going to add about 2″ with the ribbing, but that would still be too short, I think.

I wish I had someone to help me figure it out how it will work.