So this happened...

Every so often, I get to experience something that reminds me I definitely live in Hawaii.  Sometimes it's a local/cultural thing.  And sometimes it's something like this.

I was running on Saturday on a trail near where I work.  The trail loops around a series of saltwater marsh ponds, and (though sometimes smelly at low tide) makes for a rather calming run, away from roads and still convenient to my daily routines.  Anyhoo, I came around a bend and saw this in the water:

Hadn't seen anything like this before in the ponds, and these bumps were only a few of the ones I saw breaking the surface.  Being a good little Southern girl, my first thought was "Gators?" followed immediately with "But they don't have gators in Hawaii, do they?"  Dismissing it from my mind as mud sticking up at low tide or probably something I didn't want to consider poking out of the water, I kept on my run.  Until I rounded the next bend and saw a face breaking the water.

 

 

These are sea turtles!!  There were a couple dozen of them just hanging out in the ponds!

Needless to say, my run got put on pause!  Sometimes you saw their fins breaking the surface of the water first, often in parallel, like a butterflyer's stroke.  More often you just saw their faces coming up to get some air.  The sound they made as their faces broke the surface sounded like a whale spouting or a diver's noise on surfacing and clearing water from their snorkel - kinda a wet puff-and-splash sort of noise.  The trail is set back from the roads at this point, so there wasn't a lot of background noise, other than birds and bugs.  I hung out for probably a good ten minutes taking pictures and listening to them swim, just me and the turtles.

This particular one was hanging out right underneath a footbridge on the trail, so I was able to get a few good pictures as he floated about.  He was with another one, a little guy, whose shell was only the size of a dinner serving tray maybe?  Much smaller than the other ones I was seeing.  So cute!!

 

Growing up on the East coast, I've seen sea turtles before.  I've seen them both in the wild and in aquaria.  I've never seen this many at once though!  Apparently it's a thing they do from time to time,.  A friend (who's lived here on O'ahu a lot longer than I) said that they are also often seen at a couple other saltwater ponds and estuaries through the islands.  First time for me, though, so extra exciting :)

As I finally broke myself away and got back to my run, I passed two families heading in on the trail.  The parents in each had seen the turtles and were bringing their kids back to see too :)

Vocab lesson:
honu = Hawaiian word for the green sea turtle (don't know if these were greens, as we have a couple species around here, but the greens are the most common)
bale = a group of turtles (yes, same word as hay bale)

I did take a video too.  It's over on Flickr.  You can hear me narrating and trying to not squeal!

So what ELSE are you doing in Hawaii?

If you were just reading my last few posts, then you might think that we moved all the way out here to Hawaii, and then I do nothing but knit.  Well, you'd be wrong ... at least a little :)

Quite honestly, it is WONDERFUL being in a real Place again.  Our last 8+ years have been spent in very hot, very dry places, where you have to drive a good bit to get to almost anything one might want to do.  I mean, in CA, we were 40 miles from the closest town; 73 miles from the closest Target, bookstore, and movie theater; 2 hours from the closest Chick-Fil-A (important landmarks, you know); and a bit over 2 hours from either a lake, beach, or wooded mountain.  In Texas, things were a bit better (Target and bookstores were in town, at least) but we still were looking at several hours of driving to get to decent hiking, museums, or most events or activities we wanted to do.  This is really the first time in almost a decade where we're in a Real City again.  Let's face it, the Army doesn't really send you to cities all that often.  The Navy at least almost has to send you to a port (which will also be a City 95% of the time) but the Army... they like their space to drive tanks around and practice blowing stuff up.  Being in a city doesn't really give you that sort of space.  So, we're in a city for now, and we plan to enjoy it!

 

Being in a real Place again, we are facing the relatively unfamiliar position of having to make choices about what to do on a weekend!  I mean, more than one thing might be going on that we want to go to!  Craziness!!  There are cultural festivals, plays, concerts, independent movie theaters, museums (plural!!), sports events, historical sites... plus tons of hiking and beaches and natural activities too.  And people to do it with!!  It's a really nice feeling to be able to get out of the house and do stuff again, without tons of driving to plan in.

 

Even with driving to plan in, though, it's still not ridiculous (assuming traffic cooperates).  My commute to work is across the island, and it's still only about 25-30 minutes (usually).  I have blocked off that amount of time just to get across town in some of the places I've lived. Some people plan on that time (or more) just to commute within Honolulu, and I know people in TX that commuted up from Austin or its suburbs, and they had a 45-60 minute commute.  But the fact that I work "all the way over" on the Windward side... I think it's the mental distance more than the time.  I had to pick something up from a business over in Kailua (Windward side), and when the lady called to tell me it was ready, she said that it could be mailed to me, if I couldn't pick it up myself.  She didn't actually say it, but that "all the way over there" was certainly in her voice.  Coming from driving-happy Central TX, where driving "just down to Austin" (90 minutes away) is no big deal, it really made me chuckle.

 

In total honesty, yes, Honolulu traffic is a bear.  One accident on the H1 and it will back up for miles.  But, as I remind myself, we have traffic here because we have people here.  People are here because they want to be here, because there are things to do here.  So if I want the one, the other comes with - hard to escape it.  And then I turn on my audiobook or the radio (we get NPR again!) and try to relax a bit.  Traffic is what it is, not much you can do to change it.  Years of driving the HRBT taught me that!

 

And just because this post needed some pictures, here's a shot from a sunset hike I did back in the fall.  Several groups around here head to different trails to go hike at sunset on full moon nights.  This one is the view from the trail to the Makapu'u Lighthouse, looking back toward the sunset over Hawaii Kai.  Very, very pretty.

 

A finished project to celebrate a new job!

This was knit up in the fall, so still pretty recent, compared to a few of these others!  I wanted a quick and relatively mindless project as I was going through my Netflix queue, waiting to start my new job.**  This one was waiting in my Ravelry queue, and it just seemed like the time to do it.  Yes, I do realize that it'll probably be in my cedar chest for a while until we get somewhere with enough winter to be able to wear heavy wool again.  But living in Hawaii isn't going to stop me from knitting, sorry!

 

 

The Yarn

Plymouth Yarn Trabajos Del Peru.

A thick-and-thin yarn, which Plymouth has unfortunately discontinued. I seem to find those a lot - yarns I like and have no issues with, but that have been discontinued (possibly as trends and fads change, making way for new textures or materials or colors).  Part of shopping sale bins, I suppose!  Still good finds, great for one-skein projects, and of course more affordable - just disappointing when you find you can't work with the yarn again.

This one is nice and soft and doesn't split.  It's a single-ply yarn, though, so you can inadvertently stick your needle through the yarn itself; something to be careful about.  Like when using most thick and thin yarns, it's best to use a simpler pattern.  The texture on thick and thin yarns tends to overwhelm more intricate patterns (or, alternately, the texture of the yarn is lost, and you might as well have used a smoother, less 'fancy' yarn).

The Pattern

That's One Sexy Librarian! Neckwrap by Brian Atkinson at An Excellent Source of Fiber.

Yes, I totally made this one for the name!  I've graduated, have my degree, and will actually be working IN my field in a few weeks time (something to celebrate for any military spouse!).  So, like with quirky race names (here's to you, Santa Shuffle), the name was a factor in my decision :)  I don't know the story behind his naming of the pattern, but I like it.

The neckwrap's a pretty quick knit, mostly garter stitch, with the loopy X's for something of interest.  It's a great pattern for yarns that you want to show off, ones with some character or texture, but that you don't necessarily have a lot of.  I used the thick and thin yarn, while other Ravelry users knit with tweeds or homespun yarns.

It's truly a neckwrap - or a scarflette, if you prefer.  It's a great one-skein project, but one-skein projects don't make for very long scarves.  So, this one's a nice cozy tuck-around scarf, rather than one that you loop around multiple times.  With the soft wool yarn, though, it's still nice and cozy.

Thoughts, Notes, Alterations, etc.

The only real change I made was in needle size.  I started on US 8, as the pattern called for, but with this yarn, that gauge was making a very tight piece. So, I went up needle sizes to US 10. This created a little bit softer fabric, a little bit more drape, and you can see the thick-and-thin of the yarn more than on the 8s.

I didn't count my rows, the way the pattern called for.  But, using a different yarn than the original pattern, I had slightly different yardage in my skein.  To make the scarflette balanced (with mirror image ends), and still use as much yarn as possible from the skein, I pulled out my kitchen/postage scale and weighed my skein repeatedly as I worked along.  Then, with a bit of math, I could figure out when I needed to start the X's on the second half of the scarf.  Yeah, I'm that knitter :)

**This project was finished back in October, while I was indeed celebrating a new job.  All hired and signed and everything, but had extra time before actually starting to work.  I had to wait extra time for my background check paperwork to clear, since there was a software upgrade at my new workplace right as I was being hired.  So, new job, plus still Netflix & Knitting time - trying to finish up some series I'd started while my toe was healing after the move!

Knitting Done!

Yup, one of those "more knitting posts to come" :)
 

This one is another one-skein wonder with a skein from a Yarn Crawl: Stormcloud Shawlette (I call it my Stormy Greys shawl).

 

The yarn:

Mini Mochi, colorway 307, which looks in my pictures like a lot of relatively uniform dark gray, almost a solid color.  It's not; it was just bad lighting.  The color is really several shades of grays, including some teal-greys and burgundy-greys.  It's really pretty!  You can see it a little more clearly on the color card at Crystal Palace, but even there it's only a glimpse.  The picture where my shawlette is blocking is probably the closest you come to seeing the stripes. 

 

 

This stuff is soooooooo soft!  I loved working with it.  Some people have mixed opinions on Mini Mochi, but I really like it.  The biggest complaints are knots (but Crystal Palace has a pretty good exchange policy) and that it's a rather loosely-spun single-ply yarn.  That might make a difference for socks and how they wear, but since I don't really make socks (and even less so, now that I live in Hawaii), the single-ply is just fine for scarves and shawls.  Yes, I do still wear those living here - I work in a notoriously AC-ed environment after all.  Humidity is bad for books, not just for curls!
 

The pattern:

Stormcloud Shawlette by Hanna Breetz.  It's a free pattern available on Ravelry or at the designer's blog, Ever Green Knits.  It's a semi-circle of extended garter stitch (one row, k1 yo; second row, drop the yarn overs) with a bit of a ruffle at the edge.  Nice and basic, and a perfect one-skein project - just keep on going until you run out of yarn!

The shawl is fluttery and drapey and makes a nice warm little scarf at the size I made.  You can see in the pictures, it's just a little flip-around-the-neck sort of shawlette.  The single ball of Mini Mochi yielded 74 rows of knitting, just barely past the last increase row (the one where you need to knit straight across).  So, I have a teeny-tiny little ruffle.  If you have a bigger skein, you will have a bigger ruffle and a bigger shawl overall.  Like I said, it's one of those patterns that you can just keep going til you run out of yarn. 
 

Notes, Adjustments, Overall Opinion:

A nice, easy, mindless pattern that's been perfect for binge-watching Netflix.  I made this one as we were watching old Law & Order episodes (seasons 1-8 available were on Netflix - we missed the window when they had more seasons to stream). 

No adjustments, really.  To get a gauge I liked, I used size 8 needles with the sock-weight Mini Mochi, and then size 10 needles to bind off.  I also used a lace bind off (k2tog, slide stitch back to first needle, k2tog, all the way across).  You want the bind-off as loose as possible so that the ruffle doesn't pucker up oddly.  Remember: loose, ruffly, drapey!
 

And here's a clearer shot of the stripes, though it still kinda blends into my grey blocking mats.  And as you can also see, I block aggressively.  With a loose stitch pattern like this one, that actually worked very well,  The resulting scarf feels very light and airy, but being Mini Mochi (i.e. wool sock  yarn) is still nice and warm.

My project is raveled here.

 

While I was playing with my beads...

So, was playing with my beading stuff anyway (the bookmarks), and decided to knock out a few stitch markers as well.  They are such a simple project to do, after all.  This is just a quick post highlighting a few that I made.

 

One of the most common souvenirs here in Hawaii (besides food stuffs) seems to be plumeria jewelry and hair pieces.  Lots of stores selling little silk or foam or clay flowers on necklaces, bracelets, paired clips, hair ties... you name it.  Some hibiscus pieces too, but mostly plumeria.  I took a bracelet and a set of earrings that I found on sale, and repurposed them into stitch markers.  With some headpins and silver beads from the stash, ta-da!  New stitch markers, Hawaii-themed!  The smaller flowers are from the bracelet, and the larger one is from one of the earrings. I haven't decided what I'll do with the flower from the other earring yet - a pendant for a casual necklace maybe?

 

 

And while I was making Hawaii-inspired stitch markers, I pulled out some flower beads I had, and made a set with rainbow-colored accents.  A bit more muted than the other set, but still all flowers and rainbows (yes, that stereotype of the islands is very accurate). 

 



Now this was unexpected

Over the last couple years, I've started getting into Geocaching.  For those who don't know that hobby, it's like an Easter egg hunt for adults, assuming the Easter bunny is rather quirky and (sometimes) sadistic in his hiding spots.  Players use GPS handheld devices to locate the caches (the Easter eggs), and with the advent of smartphones, everyone has a handheld GPS now.  The caches can be big, like an ammo can or lunchbox.  Birdhouses are common too.  Or they can be small, like a film canister.  Or they can be evil, like a bolt that's not really a bolt, but a magnetic hiding spot tucked underneath a bench.  Caches will all have a log for people to sign once they've found the actual cache, and you can record your finds online too.  They can be very involved too.  Some are puzzles that you have to solve in order to find the coordinates to the actual log.  Others can be multiple steps, finding one cache that leads you to the next, which leads you to the actual log.  Like I said, if the Easter bunny was quirky and sadistic.

I've enjoyed it though, because they get you looking at the places around you in a little bit different way, noticing things you might not.  Or making average places (like boring suburban Central Texas) seem a little more interesting.  Caches might be up hiking trails or in the middle of a shopping mall.  Often people will place them near landmarks or points of interest or scenic views.  Pretty fun to do as you're travelling about.

And now all of this has been background leading up to the point of this post: the Berlin Wall. 

No, seriously.

Geocaching does challenges every so often, asking players ("cachers") to find caches with x-many favorites (like Facebook Likes for geocaches), or find one that's a puzzle cache, or whatever.  This time it was finding one that had a certain number of favorites.  Near where I live in Honolulu, this was the closest.  It was also really cool.

Honolulu Community College has a piece of the original Berlin Wall.  The piece of the wall is incorporated into a memorial, the Berlin Wall Freedom Monument.  The wall was erected, protected by glass, with concrete wall sections extending out from either side, to give a greater impression of what it must have once been.  A bit of trivia, they oriented it the way it was in Germany: plain side facing east and the graffiti covered side facing west. When they set up the memorial, this was only the third piece of the wall in North America, so something very unusual.  And it's still there on the HCC campus, tucked away between academic buildings behind the library. 

And on a more somber note, in the 20-odd years since it was set up, the Freedom Monument has expanded.  Right near the wall in the same little lawn, is a memorial to the 9-11 Trade Center attack, with pieces of rubble from the towers and from the Pentagon. 

So, if you're in the area, it's worth the little detour as you drive to Pearl Harbor from Waikiki (or whatever other tourist stops you're hitting).  And I wouldn't have found it if someone hadn't hidden a cache there!

And things are finally settling down. Maybe??

This year has been a crazy one, even by our standards.

There was the Big Move, of course, and finally graduating with my Master's.  A new niece was born in the summer.  These all would be enough to make any year pretty eventful.  But of course, things didn't stop there.

It has also been the Year of Broken Things.  In order:

• I broke my toe the week before we moved.  Not fun spending the first several months of our time in HI in a boot or walking shoe.  Besides being hot, it also meant being unable to hike or go to the beach (walking on sand is hard!!) or spend time just walking about playing tourist :(
• Two computers have died and been repaired (both thankfully within warranty, but one did die the DAY before we flew out from TX - I nearly cried)
• My car arrived in HI and immediately needed repairs
• The cat is starting to have some age-related problems (manageable, but still...). 
• And the stress caused my eyes to start showing their age.  Apparently I've always been far-sighted and just never needed glasses before, but the stress of this summer was the breaking point.  When I can't focus on the stitches on my knitting needles, that's not good.

And yes, this was all surrounding the move out to Hawaii and Zach being immediately posted to Korea for an extended temporary duty (he'll be back in Spring).

And all this has been in addition to the craziness outside in the world.  Several of my favorite actors have passed away this year, as well as a favorite children's author (Anna Dewdney, of Llama Llama fame), and of course the election with it's toxic build-up and post-election fall-out.  The world outside has been a pretty stressful place too.

I'm not trying to sound negative.  Lots of good has happened this year as well.  The move, graduation, new niece, new job (actually in my field!!).  I've had a bit of chance to explore, get involved, meet new people.  A chance to travel out to visit Zach in Korea too (still labeling pictures from that trip).

So, if anyone was wondering why I haven't been writing much this year, this is why.  Life has been quite a lot this year.  Every time I sat down to write here, I was either too tired to think coherently, or I'd been on my own too much and it felt like everything I was thinking was just pouring out, and it felt like I was oversharing.  It made it hard to find that balance where I was just comfortably writing. 

Hopefully 2017 will be a bit calmer and a bit saner, but still with some adventures to be had. 

Happy New Year everyone!

PS - one thing they don't tell you about moving to Hawaii is the extreme love of fireworks!  We had 6 hours of fireworks going off in the neighborhood yesterday!!  Not fireworks shows, just firecrackers in the neighborhood - and we live in a quiet neighborhood!  Started about 7-7:30ish as the sun went down, and was still going at least until 1:30am when I finally was tired enough to just pass out, despite the noise!  Scruffy and I BOTH slept in this morning - way too late for us.

I blinked and Spring happened...

Well, I knew this spring semester was going to be a doozy, but I didn't realize how big until I sat down to write today and saw my last post was from DECEMBER!  Yipes!!

But, lots has happened in the meantime, so for a quick catch-up:

• I am in my final semester of grad school, and almost done with that (only 5 more weeks now!!)
• I finished my End of Project Exam in February.  This is the capstone exam for my degree program - Written Comps/Comprehensives, some might know it as.  Basically a looong week of writing papers, trying to demonstrate in your answers that you are fully synthesizing what you have learned over the past three years.  Pretty draining, with the way I write papers.  But all is good; I've been notified that I've passed.  One more box checked off before graduation!
• I finished a pair of blankets for my niece and nephew.  THE blankets, if you've heard me talk about them.  Quite the project, but finally all done and being enjoyed by the little ones :)
• We had a whirlwind trip to New Mexico with Mom for a marathon.  There are so many pictures from this trip, that it will have its own set of posts.
• And the big news (as if all that wasn't enough): Zach and I have moved!  We are now in a hotel in HAWAII looking for housing as Zach in-processes at his new job. After 5 years in TX and 3.5 in the desert, we are in Hawaii!!  Water!  Mountains!  Trees!  Very very exciting!!!!  But more on that in another post, since the whole move has been a saga unto itself.

So, yes, a few more posts to come over the next few days, with plenty of pictures.   I've time to write again, now that the semester's winding down and I'm not working at the moment.  Just consider this a teaser for now, so stay tuned :)