Secret Pal contest

I'm participating in Secret Pal 11, if I haven't mentioned that a million times already. My hostess is having a contest so we can get to know our pals a little better. And it's a super easy contest, talk about yourself by answering a few questions, and what blogger doesn't love to talk about themselves. So, here goes:

1. What is the one knitting accessory you could not live without?
My knit picks chart holder. I just learned how to read charts and this thing has been a god send. It's really speed up my knitting since I don't have to constantly figure out what row I was on.

2. If you're heading on vacation, do you take knitting with you? If
so, how much and what type of project?
Of course I take knitting!! I take only one project, usually the smallest thing I'm working on. I like to think I'm going to do stash enhancement each trip so I don't have to think of running out of projects while I'm gone.

3. Where have you travelled to that you'd consider your favorite spot?
I have done a lot of traveling. It would be really hard to pick my favorite spot. I think I've got 2 if that's ok. One would be the Amazon. I spent a month living in the rainforest, well 2 weeks in the rainforest and 2 weeks on a boat on the Amazon river. Being in the rainforest was probably the most comfortable place I've ever been. Usually I'm very afraid of being attacked by random wild animals, but for some reason I was amazingly calm and just in complete awe at what I saw around me.
My second favorite place is Heart Lake in Canada. It's a small lake shaped like a heart. There are houses on one half of the lake and then all the owners of the houses got together and bought all the property on the other half so they will continue to have very few boats on the lake and a great view. It's a great community of people there. I went there because a man found a leech, which is what I study, and he offered to have me and my advisor come stay at his cabin for a week while we looked for more. That's some real hospitality and everyone I met there was just as nice and accommodating as he was. The only problem was I don't speak French and we were in a very French area.

4. What is your favorite knitting book at the moment? Do you own it?
My favorite right now is Favorite Socks. I do own it. I don't really look through many books I don't own so I can't really have a favorite that's not on my shelf.

5. Do you listen to podcasts? Which is your favorite(s)?
Do I ever!! I listen while I walk my dogs, while I'm commuting 90 minutes a day in my car, when I'm running errands, when there just isn't anything good on TV, when I'm doing chores around the house. I listen to just about every knitting one I can find (and some other ones like NPR's wait wait don't tell me). My favorite is stash and burn. I think that insubordiknit will become a favorite once she starts putting more episodes out.

Well that's it for right now. I'm off to walk the dogs and listen to some podcasts, maybe I"ll get some knitting done. We've got house guests right now and spent the ENTIRE day yesterday at Busch Gardens so I didn't get anything done. Although had I thought it through a little better I would have brought my knitting with me. I get violently ill on roller coasters so there was quite a bit of me sitting with all the moms with babies while everyone else stood on line for 45 minutes for a 2 minute ride. I seriously think I could have gotten 3 hours of knitting in. It would have gotten soaked on the roman rapids though and the sweat dripping off my body (it was 95 degrees yesterday with over 90% humidity) would probably have felted the sock.