Amazing, I Tell Ya!

It's 6:30 on a Saturday night as I peck away at this post and I am simply amazed. This makes absolutely no sense unless you are aware of the event held today in Maine known as "Academic Decathalon."

I have been associated with this nationwide organization for 7 or so years...it's a bit of a blur. I am only called to active duty once per year and that "once" usually makes for a veeeeeery long day. While students labor over academic challenges, coaches chew their nails awaiting scores and the media anxiously observes from the sidelines (well, sort of) The Sheep and a merry crew of busy elves are typically running their tails off collecting tests, scoring, answering questions of the relevant sort, answering questions of the downright stupid sort and calming the nerves of the various participants. This has been my once yearly experience for many, many a competition.

This year was a pleasant break. The former State Director of the event (and personal friend) retired last year in order to be more of a family sort of guy. He was called back into service to do the scoring and asked if The Sheep could assist. My dance card is rarely full so there was little to get in the way of my saying, "Okey-Dokey."

And, may I say, that we set a new record for scoring the various tests and speaking evaluations! Everything was done, printed and ready for the awards ceremony well before the usual time and we were packed and outta there! Normally, it is at least 7:00 before we could even begin to think about packing up and wandering out the door. So you can see why it is so downright flabbergasting to find myself home, fed and in my jammies by 6:30!!! Credit for this really all goes to my partner in scanning and scoring...I was more of a cheerleader.

And, with fewer responsibilities, there was an inordinate amount of time on hand to knit! I had several projects in the running as "busy work" for the day. The Great Shawl Experiment won out as it is such a simple pattern repeat and could be easily set aside when there was work to be done. Despite the internet vote on this project (which was on the negative side) I have continued to work on it. While it photographed badly, it has gotten rave reviews from people in the "real" world so I think this is actually going to be a decent looking thingamabobbie when all is said and done. If not, then I will say it was stolen or burned in a tragic fire or that I used it to staunch the bleeding of a random gunshot victim. I can fabricate with the best of 'em.

Tomorrow will be a day of rest for The Sheep and devoted to a couple of my latest "stashbuster" projects. I am determined to forgo the buying of yarn and such until I have found a use for what I have here...well most of what I have here. Since alot of this is stuff that's been lying around for a while now, I am attempting some things that are really not in my usual genre. We'll see how they work out and decide if they are worth further blogging when the final ends are woven!!!

SA