It's been a wonderful, busy weekend: Knitting with Louise on Friday night, a birthday dinner for Kathy at our house on Saturday, and a benefit performance for the MSU School of Music called "A Celebration of the Beautiful Voice" today. (That event was truly astounding, and made me really, really happy to be living here.)

All of which was punctuated by paper-grading, which I didn't finish, which explains why I'm still up at 12:30 am . . .

But wait, there's more. The BEST part of the weekend was my visit to a small yarn/weaving studio in East Lansing called Woven Art. In addition to finding a 60", size 4 circular needle ("Oh, you must be knitting a Moebius," said the proprietor, when I called to find out if they had them), I learned that this place rents weaving looms. And you can take lessons. The deal is, for $90, you get the use of a loom (in their back room) for six weeks, and Nancy gives you a beginner project which will teach you the basics. You can start whenever there's a loom free - which happens to be now. (Alas. I really can't; I just don't have the time to get sucked into this craft right now, which is exactly what would happen.)

Several years ago, back when we lived on Cumberland and I was at UM-D, I became interested in weaving. (We'd given Em a Brio toy loom for Christmas, which I liked more than she did; I still have it, in fact.) At that point, I fantasized that after I got tenure and we bought a house, I'd set myself a goal to weave every piece of cloth in it . . . curtains, tablecloths, dishtowels, placemats, you name it.

Well, we got the house, but . . . (And besides, the house didn't really have space for a loom.)

So fast-forward several years to now. I'm in my last semester of my probationary period at LCC, which means I'm on the verge of getting the equivalent of tenure. And we're living in a small ranch house, somewhat reminiscent of the house on Cumberland (only lots better, of course - a basement really helps!).

And we even have space in the basement for a loom . . . It'll be nice and cool in the summer, which is when I would weave; no time the rest of the year.

I'm going to see if I can get on the waiting list at Woven Art to start my weaving career in May. I can't wait; already I'm looking around the house at all the windows, thinking about what kind of curtains would look good . . .

This is all too cool for words. Makes me think again, "Til by turning, turning, you come round right." More and more, it feels like we have come round right . . .