bad blogger. no cookie.

Well, actually, I'm totally eating a cookie RIGHT NOW. Despite not having posted, or read anyone else's blog, for two months. My current excuse is my insane schedule: I work four days a week as a snowboard instructor (hello, dream job, my name is Cari, let's make love.), am taking twelve credits at my mom's university (not that she owns the place, just that she teaches there) toward my M.Ed., and have a ten-hour-a-week graduate assistantship at said university, working for some of my mom's lovely colleagues who totally intimidate me for two reasons: a) they are friends of my mom's and thus must not be let down, and b) they are middle-aged second-wave feminists, who may wear twee cat-motif brooches on their sweaters but are made of steel and will totally cut a bitch. (They are really nice though, and however demanding they may be, they always say thank you.) So my life is full to overflowing right now and the only thing keeping me going is the aforementioned dream job, which pays peanuts in actual hard currency but big bucks in all the intangible, meaningful ways. Naturally this means that I am getting enormous amounts of exercise and following it up with healthy doses of beer, which then takes a toll on the homework situation, which then takes a toll on the sleep situation, but I figure I can sleep when the snow melts.

Yesterday's all-day dumping made for a rare occasion in PA--actual powder. After my last lesson of the day I went free riding with a revolving assortment of fellow instructors (all of whom, well, most of whom are pretty fucking awesome) for four hours. Don't tell the rangers, but we poached some closed trails--it was the kind of indescribably great experience that makes me speak in all four-letter words because there's just nothing else strong enough. The phrase "better than sex" was tossed around. Several fucking times. Afterwards I could not stop smiling. (Well, not until I got home and had to shovel the driveway, since my dad is out of town and I dislike and distrust the snowblower.) I had to bust out the facemask, which is why you may not recognize me from the little cell-phone portrait there.

I don't have much time to knit, sadly. I'm still working on my dad's Christmas socks but I needed a break, so I started a Quant with some heinous self-striping Paton's Merino that I liked on the skein and now am hating. I'll have to get some pictures up and get some feedback, but the combination of the colors and the shortness of the stripes and the entrelac is just... no.