Beginnings

Hey Flan,

I hope your Christmas went well and that your plans for New Year's are all in place. We're going to have a fondue party tonight. These are the exact same plans we made for last New Year's. However, tonight will be fundamentally different than last year in several ways. First of all, I will not have food poisoning and will not be very very ill.

2007 pretty much sucked. I'm hoping to chalk it up to "life experience" and, after tonight, never ever think of it again. Thankfully, we have some good looking plans for 2008.

1. I plan on applying to Graduate School! After hauling myself out of bed extremely early I began the process. Turns out my complete ignorance of GPA- overall, the last two years and within major- means that I have to order myself a transcript so that I can do math before continuing on. I also picked a date to take the GRE (Feb 1, in case you're interested). Fun stuff ahead.

2. I found the most wonderful book. It's a 52 week plan for going on walks almost every day. I love this author and am very excited. You know how much I love a plan. I figure I might as well give this a go and see how the next year turns out. Last year resulted in me having to purchase clothes in a larger size than I ever have before, so a new plan seems to be in order.

3. Moving! You were there for the last (traumatic) move. Somehow, moving always seems to be exceptionally bad- sleep deprivation combined with totally too much stuff and not enough places to put them combined with a deadline... However, this move could be different. The date arbitrarily chosen by me is July 31. The calendar is marked and the countdown (147 work days) will begin tomorrow. We may not choose to move, but we have a date in case we'd like to.

4. Knitting. This is going to be the year of me. While my own made up rules do not say that I have to knit for myself, I won't accept any commissions I don't want and will be selfish when it comes to general projects. I suppose those things should be self evident when considering a hobby, but I'm re-imposing them for a year.

Some random news:
EZ got me through Christmas. I worked on the February sweater whilst the family was here and finished it a couple of nights ago. Granted, it needs some buttons but all the knitting, seaming and end weaving is done. I love her and I love this pattern. The Hubby thinks the sweater is so cute he won't let me give it away. I kind of agree.

I have a grand total of ONE project on the needles! Can you even believe it?? If I resist the urge to cast on a million things I will have Naked Needles by almost the beginning of '08.

Happy New Year's!

Merry Christmas To ALL

and to All a good night.

Merry Christmas from the Southern half of America.

Love,
Kathleen

Ho Ho Ho...

Hey Flan,

I'm done with work for the day and don't have to return until next Thursday. That's Christmas present enough and if nothing else is under the tree I'll be happy.

So I've wrapped some gifties in anticipation. I've told The Hubby that two of them are for him. While I put tags on all the packages I have not yet written on the tags, so there are no distinguishing marks other than the tags themselves. The Hubby is getting quite excited and would really really like to rattle his gifts. He says that I will forget whose is whose. I told him to have more faith in my memory and that Christmas Eve is the day they will receive names. He told me I was mean.

Oh, Kathleen's Quote of the Day (as uttered by Kathleen at work): "Every Christmas Needs a Grinch and Today I'm IT."

I did not throttle or otherwise bodily injure the person whose presence brought forth this utterance, but all the same it's probably best that I do not have to clock in for another 6 days.

I'm all out of knitting!! I don't know how that happened! That is NOT to say that I'm out of yarn. Just current WIPS. I need something that's exciting but not too exciting- portable but not socks... I was thinking about possibly a hat for The Hubby, but I'm just not sure. I think I'm going to have to go stash shopping.

Off to watch Love Actually and finish painting my toes before making a cake. The Parents arrive tomorrow night and I am elated. Now if only I can get to all 4 grocery stores, whilst managing to clean the car, go to the bank, pick up some gifts while dropping off the cake, purchase The Grandmother's gift, print some photos, have my hair cut, finish cleaning the house, clean the other car and make dinner all before remembering to meet The Parents at the airport on time everything will be hunky dory.

Christmas Knitting Finished

Kathleen-
Grandpa's socks are safely off in the mail. This picture was taken immediately after casting off, and pre-blocking. I wove in ends on the plane, and blocked these in my hotel in Seattle. I didn't get another chance to take a picture before I sent them along. They're beautiful and cushy, and I'm pretty sure they'll fit well.To review, the green is Smooshy in Blue Lagoon, and the heels and toes are Louet Gems Pearl in Caribou.

As this was my only Christmas knitting this year, I'm now done, and I'm working on two things:

Jeanie. I'm just past the first dropped stitch row, and I'm loving this pattern and fabric.
This is also Smooshy, in the color Nightwatch. That bit of green you see at the bottom is my provisional cast on, which I did with one of my ends from finishing Grandpa's Socks, which was all I had on the plane.

Also found on the camera: a picture of our Christmas tree.
I'm just starting the Embossed Leaves Sock (also in Smooshy, this time in Visual Purple. I think I'm in love with this yarn.) Nothing to show yet, as all I've done is cast on.

I Could Blog

Kathleen-
I could blog about the lovely job we did decorating our Christmas tree, which makes me smile every time I walk in our front door,

or

I could blog about casting off for Grandpa's sock #2 last night,

or

I could blog about swatching for Mike's hat,

or

I could blog about my new knitting project that's all for me.

But. The pictures documenting all of these things are on either the camera or one of our house computers....and I'm in Seattle.

Hmm. So. In order of mention:

We decorated the Christmas tree, and bought our ornament for the year. I love it. It literally puts a smile on my face every time I walk into the room.

I cast off Grandpa's sock last night, and wove in all the ends on the plane this morning. All ready to go, and quite handsome, if I do say so myself. :)

I seem to have forgotten how much yarn it takes to float across the back while swatching in the round. Swatch attempt #1 got ripped on the plane.

I started Jeanie! I had a serious mental block on the setup row, and I can already read the knitting well enough on row 5 to be able to only glance at the pattern for each row.

Calm Before the Storm

Kathleen-
Warning: long, picture heavy post to follow.

I believe we've now reached the calm before the storm in my job. After a chaotic late Nov/Early Dec, we've now got a touch of downtime before craziness starts again in the New Year. I'm off to Seattle at the end of this week for 4 days for work- anything I shouldn't miss in my downtime in the evenings? Several people got the dates of my Seattle trip mixes up, and therefore called me during last week's flooding to make sure I was ok. I was completly confused until I figured out that they thought I was in the NW!

I've been VERY focused on Grandpa's Socks. Current progress:

That would be sock #1 done! And sock #2 only needs 2 repeats of the pattern and couple inches of ribbing to be done. I'm beginning to think this is going to happen on time. In the past week, I've knit on these socks at home, at work during lunch, on the bus, in the car (as a passenger!), at knit night, while bowling, while playing board games, at a really excellent concert, and at a party. They've been quite promiscuous about being knit in public.

Here's a closeup of the texture- the color is inaccurate in both the pictures, as we're officially experiencing "dreary" weather.

Friday Mike and I picked out a Christmas tree. It turns out I have an interesting relationship with the size of our living room, but it worked out. We'll be decorating it tonight:
Friday I also experienced credit card slippage at Borealis:
That would be 3 skeins of Smooshy in Nightwatch for Jeanie from the new Knitty: I'm hoping to cast on before heading for Seattle (as soon as Grandpa's Socks are done). Here's a closeup of the shade:
I also ended up with one more skein of Smooshy for socks for me, this one in Deep Seaflower.

Today once I finish cleaning up the living room and start dinner, I'm planning on working a bit on the following secret project... not knitting, blocking!

And last, but certainly not least. I won a contest on Shelly's blog, and the prize was a copy of the Knitter's Book of Yarn, which is fabulous! I've already read most of it since it arrived yesterday, and its chock full on interesting information about yarn.

Made it to the Weekend

Hey Flan,

I hope things are going well. I was felled yesterday by a massive migraine followed by another massive migraine. Instead of calling it a migraine I chose to name it a "tension headache"- much different ring, don't you think? If you have a migraine you have to sleep it off, but if you have a tension headache you just do all your errands whilst trying to ignore the pain that is your head.

Friday's Accomplishments:
1. Picked up The Hubby's vehicle from the repair people. This means we each have cars to drive.
2. MAILED the FINISHED gifties to the people taking them to The Sister. I honestly did not think I was going to meet that deadline. Massive relief.
3. Had the tires on my car rotated. Fiercely ignored the tire people who wanted to do $135 of superfluous stuff to my car. Wanted to ask why on earth they were looking at the state of my windshield wipers and then JUDGING that state when all I asked them to do was to fiddle with the tires.
4. Made hugely significant progress on The Mommy's gifties.
5. Took a nap.

At this moment I am exceedingly happy I am no longer at work and am looking forward to a relaxed night of movies and knitting. Hope yours is equally nice.

Random Wednesday

Hey Flan,

I hope things are going well in the midst of the massive piles of work you have.

We're having a cold snap here. It's in the 60s in the day but the 30s at night. Our floors are chilly, so out come the felted slippers I made all those years ago.

The Pacific Northwest had a crazy major storm. There was extensive flooding on both sides of the mountains. Here's a photo from the Seattle Times. This is not my hometown, but one over the mountains where I've been. It's stunning what mother nature can do.

On a slightly happier note, I've found the most adorable gift to give any child under the age of 5:

This cutie can be found at over with the fabulous people at LLBean. I think it's so adorable I'm considering getting knocked up just so that I have an excuse to buy it.

I do have knitting news to report. The Sock Marathon is almost over!! I have approximately 3 inches to go and it will be done done DONE!! During Knit Night last night I was very disciplined and knit on the remaining sock for about an hour. After I just couldn't stand looking at the sock anymore I switched to a super secret project on size 6s (such a relief after 1.5s) and was very happy.

Today the goal is to get to the ribbing. Tomorrow the ribbing and blocking if it's warm.

Productive (?) Weekend

Hey Flan,

Way to go on the Plo Bloggy Thing. It certainly was nice to hear from you every day.

This weekend is mostly a blur, much like many of my weekends sadly. However, the Christmas bug has bitten and I actually did some shopping. I am very proud of myself that I waited until December 1 for the non yarn purchases.

I purchased a Birthday Gift for The Hubby whose birthday is inconveniently two weeks before Christmas. I also purchased gifties for a friend and some stocking stuffers. I purchased The Hubby's Christmas giftie as well. Today, I purchased The SIL's giftie and had a delightful brainstorm so far as her stocking is involved. Additionally, I made headway on developing a circular needle case. I made one last week but it is so flawed I'll probably rip it all out- way less fun with sewing than with knitting.

The Sister's socks are finished and are drying on sock blockers (graciously lent by Gracie). The other pair is going well. The first sock is done and the second heel got turned tonight (!). I found out the couriers don't leave the country until Dec 15 which seems to be a very very long time from now.

Wow, this is turning out to be really really boring. I'd apologize but I'm way too tired.

Oh yeah, my ultra fun idea! Guess whose birthday is on Mardi Gras this year? MIKEY'S!! Y'all should come down!! We get time off work and I make good gumbo. Also, it'll be 75 and Sunny here whilst it is -75 and icky there...

Back from NC

Kathleen-
Less than 36 hours in NC, one very successful wedding, and some knitting too! Although I had work to do on the planes, I knit quite a bit in the airports.

I'm currently at this point in Grandpa's socks. Two heels turned, remaining yarn split in half, and I've commenced knitting up the first leg, and it's going fast! These are still the priority, since the dreaded date of Dec 25th is fast approaching.

The morning of the wedding, Mom and I had some extra time in Asheville, and we went exploring, and found a truly excellent LYS: Purl's Yarn Emporium. This is a little gem of a store in downtown, where the yarn was organized by color, which is quite a sensory experience! Not one to turn down souvenir yarn, I ended up with 2 skeins of Malabrigo Worsted in Azul Profundo.

The skeins are actually slated for different uses. I'm planning on using 1 skein to line Mike's snowflake hat, and to knit it at an extremely tight gauge (goal: virtually windproof, and super soft). The other skein I think I'll turn into a really soft wristwarmers for me!