No, not this kind - we're in a different kind of war here. And it starts on May 9.

The war is conducted with these sticks and some very fine and beautiful string ... er, yarn.

Yes, it's time for SOCK WARS III!!!

I know, who would imagine that factory farms could have an effect on anyone besides the animals themselves? But according to the recently released Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, industrial animal farming has quite an effect in many areas. You can read the full report at the link above.

Here are some excerpts.

On Public Health:

Over the past five decades, the number of farms producing animals for food has fallen dramatically, yet the number of food animals produced has remained roughly constant. It is the concentration of farm animals in larger and larger numbers in close proximity to one another, along with the potential of IFAP facilities to affect people, that give rise to many of the public health concerns that are attributed to IFAP.

The impacts on the health of those living near IFAP facilities have increasingly been the subject of epidemiological research. Adverse community health effects from exposure to IFAP air emissions fall into two categories: (1) respiratory symptoms, disease and impaired function, and (2) neurobehavioral symptoms and impaired function.

We've been enjoying our weekly WAYWO chats for a while now. Well, except when my real life intervenes (or my increasingly spongy brain forgets) and I don't post it like I should. Therefore, I'd like to open WAYWO to a rotating schedule of hosts.

I've made a Gmail calendar for the rotating hosts' reference. Please message me through the Yahoo! WAYWO Group if you'd like to host. If you are not already a member (and you want to host) you must join to send messages.

Now, housekeeping done for the time being ... Let's talk about what we're working on!

Happy Friday, everyone! I think it has been a long week a lot of us, so it's time for a little fun.

How do you define fun? Snuggling with someone soft and comfortable?

Playing sports?

Drinking til you can't drink any more?

Yep, I'm back. Didja miss me?

We've been across the country and back, and have seen a lot of beautiful countryside, and we've met a lot of friendly people. But, I must say, it's good to be back home.

I had hoped to get my act together enough to upload some pictures to Photobucket for you, but, alas, I am a slacker. So, no photos this week. I'll try for next time.

You know what the number zero is - it's a placeholder. I wanted to write a TC tonight, and have discovered that I have nothing to say, really. Nothing that's ready for prime time, so to speak.

So, it's a placeholder diary.

A zero.

Here's why.

Well, kinda. ;)

Yup, it's a sunny Sunday afternoon in Tucson. I'm thinking how much I will miss the mild winters here, since we'll be leaving Tucson for Delaware on the 29th of this month.

Even though I have tons of packing left to do, and plenty of purging, too, I have still managed to get in some knitting time.

I made a cute little Feather & Fan facecloth for my mom:

This afternoon, I received an email from my very wingnutty stepfather. This is not surprising; he sends me wingnut missives on a fairly regular basis. Today's ACTION ALERT is regarding the attempts by certain Arizona legislators to define marriage as "between one man and one woman", and was excreted originally by The Center for Arizona Policy; a very very scary organization.

They tried to pass this in 2006, under Arizona Proposition 107, but it failed to pass. I may be moving from Arizona this month, but I would like to leave it somehow better than it was when I arrived. This narrowminded amendment needs to be shouted down. These "Protect Marriage" people are incensed that some large employers, including state and county entities, do cover some domestic partner benefits. I'd like to give them something to chew on - that all the people of Arizona are not such bigots as to support a renewed charge for a marriage amendment.

I've spent the whole day trying to eject a lung, and, as a result, haven't been up to spending the day working on a subject for my diary tonight, or even mining for comments.

I think it's lack of oxygen to my brain.

Maybe it's all the pulled, strained, and sore muscles in my neck, chest, and abdomen. I might have pulled a muscle in my arm, now that I think about it.

Maybe it's the overload of cold and cough medicines I've been taking. Can I just say that Robitussin tastes awful? And I am so sick of tea I could puke. On second thought, I'd better not. With my luck, I would inhale it and end up with aspiration pneumonia. That would REALLY suck.

At the end of this month, my husband, two cats, and I are moving across the country, returning to Delaware. Thank goodness it's a leap year - we have that extra day!

Unfortunately, we are moving back to assist Rich's elderly parents, and will be living in a makeshift apartment in their house until we can determine how much distance is possible. ;) In the meantime, our style will most definitely be cramped.

To prepare for this move, and the attendant downsizing, we are going through a major purge of our possessions. This is, I think, a good thing for us. Like most Americans, we really have too much "stuff'.

Except for the craft stuff.

There's a good reason I don't read romance novels - I grew up on Harlequin Romances.

They were awful. Those books required a suspension of disbelief that I was ultimately unable to maintain. I also can only take so much of "heaving bosoms", ya know?

But there is a candle in the romance novel darkness. Bear with me, here. I am not recommending that you read ANY romance novels. No, I would not do that to you, I promise.

Not that I couldn't use some escapist fiction, but I prefer to escape in other directions. Stephen King and Dean Koontz are more to my taste.

Hi, everyone!

It's a last-minute, late edition of WAYWO this week; I am just now home from helping my sister with some of her packing and moving. She's moving to Seattle on the 15th. Then I got to come home, write this quickie little WAYWO, and get back to my own packing; we're moving to Delaware on the 29th, if not a few days earlier.

I'm still finding project time, however! My first sock is still merely a half - I've turned the heel, but not picked up the gusset stitches, so there is no foot. I have a sun facecloth half-done for my mom's February 25th birthday, and I picked up yarn to make hats and scarves on the way to Wilmington.

I've been doing Top Comments for a while - over a year now. Our faithful recordkeeper (or search maven) sardonyx tells me that I have done at least one Top Comments diary each month for the last year, and that this diary is my fiftieth!

FIFTY Top Comments diaries?

I remember doing the first one and how nerve-wracking it was to get all the formatting right. No gremlins on my first try, though, so it was relatively easy. And I nearly fainted when I read who recommended my first effort - Meteor Blades!

One day, a few years ago, I was browsing through Off Fifth with my now-ex sister in law. For those who don't know, Off Fifth is Saks Fifth Avenue's outlet store. We had fun, saw lots of things, but we bought nothing.

One thing that caught my notice was a hand-crocheted sweater. It was hand-crocheted (I don't think they've been able to teach a machine to crochet yet, have they?) of tiny granny squares. It wasn't something I would wear, to be sure, but it was on the cute side. It was priced at $80.

Even at the time, pre-Daily Kos, I wondered - who actually made this sweater, and how much did they get paid for their labor? I'm guessing they didn't get paid much, and that they weren't working for union pay, either.

Recently, I was introduced to the concept of 101 Things in 1001 Days, and I am embracing it. The basic concept is simple - you make a list of 101 definable tasks to do in 1001 days. People's lists are available to view on the website, and it's really interesting to see what constitutes a "task" to these people, what they really want to do.

The Mission:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on my part).

Okay, I knit. I know many of you WAYWO'ers do, too. But I never considered knitting to be an extreme sport.

Enter Sock Wars.

Sock Wars is a twist on the game Assassin, whose other variations require participants to shoot assigned target players with water pistols or Nerf weapons or tag them with spoons. Such games are played a lot on college campuses.

Julie Gardner, a freelance TV and film production manager near Belfast, Northern Ireland, got the idea for Sock Wars last year after hearing a radio report on StreetWars, an urban Assassin-style tournament involving water guns. Gardner, 31, was planning a follow-up to an online knitting contest she had run and immediately was drawn to the idea of pitting knitters against one another like assassins locked in mortal combat.

No, the players aren't challenging each other with knitting needles - at least, not the way you think.

Yes, I know. We're all watching Iowa for the first indication of the direction of the Presidential winds.

Well, I'm not.

I certainly DO want to know, but don't want to hang out for the blow-by-blow. My poor head has been bursting half the day, and I don't think having my melon explode all over my living room would be very healthy, do you?

So, I'm sitting in my living room, curled up on the love seat and watching non-political TV. On purpose.

This is Starbuck. He is my sister's pet cockatiel. Starbuck is just adorable, and very friendly. His favorite toy is any sparkly piece of jewelry you happen to be wearing.

Don't mind the poop. It's a compliment - isn't it? Besides, it washes out.