{ LADYBUGS & YARN } Adventures in knitting, crochet, hand-dyeing, sewing, and other fibre-related crafts, with snippets of real life and gratuitous cat-related photo spam. { WINTERLIGHTS } Photos by an inexperienced, untrained shutternut. *** She's technically Krista, but you can call her just Kay if you like. She's a 29-year-old, blue-eyed, brown-haired, five-foot-tall Atlantic Canadian. She's a recent college graduate in limbo while she searches for a job in her field. She's a pharmacy technician and loving it. More than a decade ago, though, she started out with a Bachelor of Arts degree. She majored in English and minored in Sociology. She'd been intending to complete her studies with a Bachelor of Education degree, but came to realise that she wouldn't be content as a teacher. She's slowly learning to live by her own rules, instead of others' expectations--it makes her happier. She was a classical singer, a musician, a fountain of useless information, a figure skater, a dancer, a "smart kid"--she was a lot of things, years ago. She may be some of those things again. Time will tell. She has a couple of medical problems that she has to keep watch over, but she does not and will not allow them to direct her life. She's not in perfect health, but she's feeling okay. She writes like a fiend and has more than fifty short stories to her name. She thinks in film before pictures, and pictures before words. She’s often frustrated with her vocabulary, as it seems inadequate to express the depth and detail of her mental images. She’s a fibre geek. She taught herself to knit in January of 2006 and it was all downhill from there. She loves socks, lacework, travelling cables, and Handmaiden Yarns. She starts a lot of projects, but doesn’t let them linger–they’re either finished or frogged. She can hand-dye, but she can’t spin. She’s working part-time at a yarn shop and loving it. She’s an amateur photographer. A rank amateur, in fact. It started with candids of the cats, and now she’s sometimes found lying on the ground making use of her favourite macro settings, or framing a sunrise from the roof of her car. She’s a self-proclaimed arts nerd, and music creates film strips in her head. She’s a bit neurotic, a bit socially awkward, a bit too used to negative self-talk, and she finds it hard to let go of the past. She’s coming to believe that it's not about finding yourself--it’s about creating yourself. She’s never been much of an architect, but she’s working on it. What else? She avoids confrontation. Is an introvert, but not a hermit. Loves rain, and the moon. Hates the hometown she left behind. Adores early mornings. Names her plants. Appreciates diversity. Collects journals. Pulls all-nighters to read. Loves to travel. Talks to her cats like they’re human. Eats carbs. Sings often. Misses England. Prefers autumn to summer, and sunrise to sunset. Falls asleep at her keyboard. Likes peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Sticks her tongue out to concentrate. Finds it hard to make friends. Doesn’t “do” crowds. Sets her expectations too high. Dislikes sleeping in. Has a dictionary in her brain. Trusts and distrusts at the same time. She’s a little odd, that one. *** “I have played,” so he says, “every possible part, And I used to know seventy speeches by heart.” [T. S. Eliot, "Gus: The Theatre Cat"] Welcome to Seventy by Heart.

© SBH 2006-2008