It's Fall!!

Yes, I will try and keep up to date on this blog...Life is good. I love being a black belt - although I really and truly miss my fellow brown belts. Chris, Christophe, Quentin (!!Oh, how I miss Quentin!) and Monday nights with my fave teacher Justin. Sigh. But now I get to work out with the people that used to teach me!!! It's crazy! At once exciting and humbling. I am trying my best to work on decluttering our home. I've already sold off some homeschooling books and next are the comics. Any extra cash I can make right now is helps so much.
Our new puppy Miley is so precious! I actually finished a project and began another, making great progress until I was sidetracked by some baby booties.



I bought the yarn just because it was a) the most beautiful shade of orange I'd ever seen and b) I really wanted to make the Ishbel shawl pattern and knew it only required a single skein of sock yarn. SOLD. I was so in love with both the pattern and the shawl that I finished the thing within a week! I love it! I am currently trying to figue out a pattern for some house shoe/booties that will fit me based on a pattern for baby booties. !! I'm almost there. I need to decrease, cast off, seam and see how it fits. From there, I think I'll have a workable pattern.

Black

Wow! I'm a Black Belt!! I can't believe it. It seems too good to be true! In two more days, I will attend my first Black Belt class. Granted I will probably get my ass handed to me (there's that darned "initiation" thing) but I truly feel like a new student again. That feeling is worth all the past effort, pain, blood, sweat and tears.
The test went well. I was a nervous wreck ALL WEEK. When we finally took the floor, I felt surprisingly numb. Grandmaster The' was there speaking and I was so enchanted by that I forgot to pay attention to what he was saying 99% of the time. The result of that was that I got a few forms confused and was doing something different than the rest of the testing students. WHOOPS! I rocked the rest of the forms and did even better on my second test which was to second Brown Sash in Tai Chi. The greatest bonus was the fact that so many of my fellow test-ees are good friends. It is a wonderful feeling to be with such a large group of people you care about and all be doing something important and fun together. Two words to describe the night: Gratitude and Relief!