VanTracy

I sent my coworker a topless picture of Cullen from Hell on...

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 14:29:03 -0500

I sent my coworker a topless picture of Cullen from Hell on Wheels. She turned around and looked at me with this dreamy look and said “I just want to wash a shirt on his stomach” while dreamily pantomiming scrubbing a shirt on a wash board.

I discovered this series last night and it’s fantastic so far. I’m sucker for westerns though, so it could just be general affection talking.

I just found an old bucket list. It had two things on it. Ride in a hot air balloon. Drink a long...

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 15:39:06 -0500

I just found an old bucket list. It had two things on it.

Ride in a hot air balloon.
Drink a long island iced tea.

I can’t decide if it’s sad that there’s only two easily doable things or cool. It’s more likely that it’s really just incomplete and I need to think about it some more.

120 calorie breakfast + Benadryl = Zombie Tracy. I absolutely misspelled my own name just now.

Thu, 26 Jul 2012 11:07:00 -0500

120 calorie breakfast + Benadryl = Zombie Tracy.

I absolutely misspelled my own name just now.

Pinch point.

Fri, 20 Jul 2012 15:53:21 -0500

I’ll be happy when I’m on the other side of this particular problem.

That thing where you demote someone from “friend” to “handy resource?” Yeah,...

Fri, 20 Jul 2012 15:16:57 -0500

That thing where you demote someone from “friend” to “handy resource?” Yeah, that.

Last night in my mostly asleep, only vaguely awake state, I grabbed the dildo that’s been...

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 14:44:34 -0500

Last night in my mostly asleep, only vaguely awake state, I grabbed the dildo that’s been chilling under my pillow and tried in vain to use it as a flashlight as if it would illuminate things in my dream.

For no reason in particular, I feel like dancing. ::shakes booty::

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 11:35:47 -0500

For no reason in particular, I feel like dancing.

::shakes booty::

It’s very difficult to stay positive right now. Fears are becoming realities. I’m...

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 16:58:23 -0500

It’s very difficult to stay positive right now. Fears are becoming realities. I’m hesitant to say things can’t get worse for fear they will find a way.

Frank: I kinda want to serve the Daedra.

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 09:22:00 -0500

Frank: I kinda want to serve the Daedra.
me: LOL
Frank: Seriously. Those dudes are FUN.
TRACY!
I WANT YOU TO KILL 3 DUDES AND MAKE 2 PIES!
me: LOL
Frank: AND I'LL GIVE YOU MAGIC STUFF IF YOU DO!
...will ya do it?
me: Yeah, okay. ;)
Frank: YAY!
...you have to kill them a certain way, tho.
WITH THIS!
:: hands you a dildo ::
JUST GET 'ER DONE, YO.

annoyatron: She bribed him with cookies to make him sit...

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 16:22:46 -0500

annoyatron:

She bribed him with cookies to make him sit still.

Oh man. The mention of “sitting still” is reminding me I have another session on mine on Sunday. Don’t wanna. lol :)

Cupcakes

Wed, 23 May 2012 16:40:46 -0500

me: I would kill for a cupcake right now.
Tiara: Oooh, me toooo
I've got beet and goat cheese salad
me: That's not really a cupcake.
Tiara: not even a little

This is...

Wed, 23 May 2012 09:58:44 -0500

This is awesome!

http://www.retronaut.co/2010/06/smiling-victorians/

This article and video made me very happy and I think it...

Mon, 21 May 2012 23:04:17 -0500

This article and video made me very happy and I think it deserves a little attention. :)

********************************

“Listen, if I can do it, then anyone can do it.”

Every Thursday at five o’clock, you can find Lynn Zwerling and Sheila Rovelstad, needles in hand, providing encouragement and guidance to diligent pupils working on hats or sweaters.

As students and teachers settle into the quiet hum of the knitting circle, a cloud of relaxed calm falls across the group. Lynn and Sheila’s knitting class is like many others across the country. Except theirs takes place in prison and their students are inmates.

At the Jessup Pre-Release Unit (JPRU) in Jessup, Maryland, the relationship between the inmates and the women is like family, and the bond between inmate and knitting is just as natural.

Knitting Behind Bars grew from Lynn and Sheila’s passion for their chosen obsession.

Throughout a stressful career, Lynn found knitting to be much more than a hobby. “When I learned how to knit I saw that I’d think about it all day. I could get through most anything, any stress… because I knew I could go home and knit.”

After retiring and starting a knitting group that counts over 500 members, she saw the calming effect and atmosphere of camaraderie that knitting gave its members.

If knitting could bring together people who have nothing in common but a love of knitting, what could it do for people who had never been exposed to knitting, ever?

So she decided to take her knitting behind bars.

Wardens concerned with safety and doubtful of the interest among inmates repeatedly turned Lynn away. After five years of pounding the pavement, Lynn finally got her chance. JPRU gave her the opportunity to prove that Knitting Behind Bars could contribute to the prison population’s well being.

As participation, interest, and even a waiting list for the program grew, the prison began to recognize the value of KBB.

Just as Lynn had predicted, the men that attended the weekly, two-hour class immediately started to experience knitting’s calming effects. An atmosphere of focus and normalcy effortlessly interrupted the monotony of daily life in prison.

“They come in, they’re kind of worked up, they’ll sit down and just calm right down.”

There has been an additional benefit: the opportunity to practice social skills often cast aside behind bars. Lynn believes that knitting is an “opportunity to practice, to hone their social skills… there’s no such thing as socializing in jail.” The relationship Lynn and Sheila have developed with the knitters is almost like family.

With a broad smile, Ritchie Horton, a former inmate and member of the JPRU knitting circle, reflects that “it’s kind of like they’re moms coming in.”

Sheila and Lynn understand the value of treating inmates as people.

“There is no ‘them’ and ‘us.’ I think as members of society we have to understand that this line doesn’t exist.” She believes that Knitting Behind Bars provides a transition from the world of prison to the world outside.

Outside of the prison’s walls, Sheila runs a business dyeing yarn. At Wüllenstudio, she names each yarn’s color scheme after a different rock song.

Recently, Sheila saw an opportunity to use her business to help grow the Knitting Behind Bars program by developing a yarn inspired by the inmates. She developed a competition online, asking for ideas for the new yarn’s color scheme. Over fifty different yarn enthusiasts contributed their ideas for the special edition yarn appropriately named ‘I Fought the Law, and the Law Won.’

Sheila wrote each submission on the blackboard at JPRU. She then asked the knitters to choose the color scheme they wanted. Shocked to be given a choice, the members of the group were initially overwhelmed by such a crucial decision. They unanimously selected blue, green and black — blue for the sky, green for the grass, and black for the bars that keep them from the sky and the grass.

The wild success of Knitting Behind Bars shows that inspiration is waiting in the things we love. Lynn and Sheila’s passion has been a positive presence for the inmate population of JPRU for the past two years.

Sheila and Lynn’s energy and excitement is infectious. If they have their way (and chances are they will), Knitting Behind Bars will not only continue to flourish at JPRU, but will be the inspiration for similar programs across the country.

For more information on Knitting Behind Bars visit their website (knittingbehindbars.blogspot.com). Volunteers and those interested in donating to Knitting behind bars can put requests through their website. If you’re interested in purchasing Sheila’s yarn, ‘I Fought the Law, and the Law Won,’ you can visit her Etsy site (http://www.etsy.com/shop/Wullenstudio).

(full article here)

I have this stuck in my head. Again.

Fri, 18 May 2012 10:41:22 -0500

I have this stuck in my head. Again.

Feeling really low tonight.

Thu, 17 May 2012 21:20:12 -0500

Feeling really low tonight.

I just realized I was goobered by Jubilee’s icky bananas on my way out the door this morning....

Tue, 08 May 2012 10:06:13 -0500

I just realized I was goobered by Jubilee’s icky bananas on my way out the door this morning. I’m wondering if no one at work looks at me or if I so regularly have baby food smeared on my clothes anymore that no one thinks to say anything. O_o

Five Eight Twelve

Tue, 08 May 2012 08:54:00 -0500

That thing where I’m trying to cheer up a coworker with pictures of my fat baby, but have to carefully monitor how far the pictures get panned so she doesn’t see my naked pictures. Yeah, that.

This thing knows me well. via http://en.shindanmaker.com/219278

Tue, 01 May 2012 14:35:03 -0500

This thing knows me well.

via http://en.shindanmaker.com/219278

Five One Twelve

Tue, 01 May 2012 14:25:42 -0500

Hilarious. The way to get reblogged is to post a dumb picture.

Heh.

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 14:43:27 -0500

Heh.