ow

Sorry! Sorry, sorry, sorry for not writing. There are plenty of drafts saved on the Blogger server, but I haven't had the time to finish up a one. Here's a knitting update, anyhow:

Not much knitting has occurred since the completion of the Hermione hat. I did manage to pull out the Wave Skirt from the pile where it has been residing for many a month. I worked on that a couple evenings and on the bus a few days.

Right now my right wrist hurts incredibly. I don't think it really has anything to do with knitting, although there is always that possibility. I noticed it on Saturday night after my hockey game, and I have since concluded that the pain is probably due to one of several things:

*driving
*pipetting
*hockey
*typing??

I don't know, but it hurts. I am going to give it a couple more days' rest, I think. I might have to knit on something for a little bit here and there, though, because it's way-stressful week at work -- the completion of the mouse vaccination, which means long hours and lots of manipulations of cells in a 72-hour period.

best face forward

Take a look at the awesome photo of my old high school, being proudly displayed on their website. Do you think you could find something a little bit better than that...?? In case you're wondering, no, it's not a new school - my dad went there!

knitting - in the bag, in the mail, and on the web

...And, just out of the wonderful red knitting bag is...

wouldn't hermione be happy?

It's the Hermione cable and bobble hat! I just cast it off the needles. I need to weave in a few ends, sew up the brim, block it, probably line it with some sort of fabric, and eventually add some ear flaps. But...for now it's "done!" Being critical, I'm not too happy with how it knit up - I mean, it's great, the cables and stuff look nice, but perhaps this yarn wasn't quite right to use - there's little holes because the stitches aren't close enough. Thus the lining. But it looks good...! I am happy with the pattern, and with some lining, the hat will be nice and toasty warm.

It turns out that the Hermione hat is very vogue right now. Not just this particular pattern, but cables and bobbles themselves. How do I know? Well, I picked up the latest issue of Vogue Knitting, and there were cables and bobbles all over the place. I have to say that I am very impressed with this VK issue. I'm not always very crazy about their patterns, probably because I'm more of a "classic" person than a "vogue" person. Anything that looks like it was made in the 1950's is my kind of thing (for example...take a gander at the sweet sweaters in the movie "Liberty Heights," which I saw not too long ago. It's not that bad of a movie, either.). I don't ever rush out to buy the new VK. But, I really liked at least 80% of the items in this issue. So I bought it. From the store. That's NOT the knitting in the mail.

The ITM knitting arrived yesterday...! It was the prize from the holiday knitalong - some Rowan Kid Silk Haze to make a lovely scarf pattern, which was included. I even like the scarf pattern (scarves are growing on me...)! I'm not sure when I'll sit down with this new, great yarn, but I certainly like it. I was so excited! THANKS, Alison and Stephanie!!!

And...finally, once again thanks to Alison - she set up the third (annual? I think - I didn't know about it until last fall) "Sockapalooza" - so it's sockapalOOOza. I get to knit some more socks for somebody!! Yay!!! I am really looking forward to it, and I hope I can find a nice pattern that my secret pal likes...not just me. Hip, hip, hooray for online knitty-folk!

attitude

Attitude is tough. Once upon a time I thought that if one has the sense enough to tell that he or she is having a bad attitude, one would be able to easily take actions to correct that problem. There are all those quotes about "Attitude is everything" and "Stuff will go better if you just have a good attitude about them," but unfortunately there aren't many quotes about how to get a better attitude. It must begin in the brain, because that's where attitude comes from anyhow. But, the act of taking on a better attitude than the current one is really not very trivial. So I was wrong. Having a bad attitude is not something you just easily say about: "Oh, goodness, this isn't correct. Let's take off that bad attitude and put on a good one." It's not sweat pants. It's a lot more like a 5mm wetsuit.

I'm not sure if you've ever put on a wetsuit, but it's an experience. Wetsuits are designed to protect skin and keep bodies warm. That means they're made of thick, strong fabric. Thick, strong fabric that has SOME stretch, but not much. Last summer when I was being trained in scuba diving I had to try on a 5mm wetsuit to wear when I went for training dives in fairly cool water. It took me no less than 15 minutes to get the thing on. Getting it off was a completely different story...once the suit is on, it's really hard to get off. The material seems to suction to your skin. I believe I broke a nail to two in the process of removing the suit. And, the best part was...the first wetsuit I tried on didn't fit right, so I got to try on a second one! While I was in the first one, I had half a mind to declare, "This is good enough - no sense in taking it off and trying one that might be better." Often this is how it goes with me and my bad attitudes.

However...the second wetsuit I put on wasn't as bad as the first. I had learned a few things while I fumbled with the first suit. Fortunately for humans, we have some capacity for learning. With each attempt at putting on and taking off the wetsuit, I learned how to make it easier and how to make it fit more comfortably. During the course of the weekend of my training dives, I had to put on and take off that bulky wetsuit so many times... Wearing the wetsuit in the water is great, but keeping it on in 90 degree weather in between dives is NOT a good idea, and you certainly need to remove it when you go to the bathroom. By the end of the weekend, I had learned to identify when I needed to get out of the stifling suit, and I could do it must more efficiently. Then, when I needed the suit for the dive, I was able to get it on a bit easier.

I hope that with some practice I can learn to take off my bad attitudes and put on the good ones more easily than I do now. I know that I have grown to be a person with a lot of cynicism deep down in my heart. It has been painfully obvious the past couple of days as I consider things about the government and the church and the state of the world. I don't like the attitude that I see in my heart, but it feels very comfortable. It seems like too much work to remove the bad and put on the better. What I want to do it take off the bad attitude once, put on the good - learn from it. So, the next time I see myself with a bad attitude, I can take it off a little easier, and put on the better one a little easier.

My simple prayer is this: God, make me aware of how my mind affects my words and actions. Show me where my attitude is not pleasing to You. Give me the strength to exchange the bad for the good, and give me the wisdom to learn from it. May it become easier and easier to recognize when I'm going wrong and to correct it.

That, I suppose, is what they term "growth" - learning something from experience.

happy feet and happy hands

Giving is so great...! Yesterday at Bible study I gave away the Socks to my dear friend Jen. She promptly pulled off the socks she was wearing and put on the new ones, then proceeded to show everyone her new treasure. What a nice compliment!!

one satisfied customer

When I got home from the study, I dragged out my long-forgotten Starry Night Sweater. I felt like it was being very abandoned, and my fears that more work on it would be a gauge nightmare have been lowered by the fact that by the time I reached the bottom of Sock Number Two, I had to lower the needle size, indicating that I was back to normal with my knitting tendencies (WHY did they change?!??! That I do not know.). So out of its bag came the sweater, and...oh, my hands had forgotten how nice and soft this garment is!! I only got one row done, which felt like absolutely nothing when I consider how quickly a row of a sock or the current hat take, but it was so lovely to know that I had given a little effort to the beloved sweater and it was one row closer to being wear-able.

see the trees?

Now, if only I had some time to sit down with the lovely Starry Night and knit, knit, knit it to completion...

random information

This was on the inside of the wrapper of a chocolate candy I "stole" from my co-worker's stash (that I think is for general consumption...but I'm never quite sure):

Which laundry detergent keeps clothes clean in Uzbekistan - Barf, Puke or Spew?

The answer, of course, is Barf.

knitting and a fat lip

The Second Sock is finished!!! Delivery of the finished pair will occur tomorrow. I forgot to bring my camera/pictures to work (a.k.a. internet connection point) today, but I'll try to remember tomorrow and edit this with pictures of the socks and my new project...

here are the socks!! nices stripes that line up - yay!

The new project is a Hermione hat, as seen in the third Harry Potter movie. Alison just made one, too, and I think that sort of inspired me. Mom also inspired me in that she got me the yarn I'm using, she helped me rip up the sweater that the yarn was knit into, and she said it would make a great hat and scarf. I always think that if it started as a sweater, it can be knit back into a sweater...but that's never true. Mom has pretty good sense, so I'm going with the hat, scarf, and mittens, too. I started thinking about making an outdoors-accessory set during Christmas break, but it was was incredibly warm then, so I decided not to...but then it got cold again...and then warm again. I finally decided that since the gauge is all screwed up (probably) on my other projects, I'd go with this - make something for myself that's small and fast, so over the long weekend I started. It is SO FUN!!

a tweedy hat for me! the tweed makes the cables and bobbles not show up so well...too bad

The goal with the hat is to make it per the pattern (I lucked out - my yarn knits to the same gauge as the written pattern with only one needle size decrease) and then add ear flaps starting from under the ribbing. Then I'm going to make mittens...and then a scarf with the same cable and bobble patterning. I do hope I have enough yarn for all of that. I think I will. I hope.

edit 6:24p.m.

Um...yeah, maybe I should make some sort of comment about why "and a fat lip" is in the title of this post, huh? I forget fast...

I went to the dentist today to get a filling redone. I was pleasantly surprised that it was not at all painful. A little background on dentists and me...I went to the dentist A LOT. You know that you went to the dentist a lot growing up when he sends you birthday cards when you're in your twenties (it also happens that the University of Michigan vs. Michigan State University football game is often close to my birthday...and Dr. Ellens went to U of M and I of course went to MSU...and Dr. Ellens likes to make a few snide remarks about my school in his birthday card). I've had lots of fillings done, not because I don't brush my teeth (and probably not because I like candy) but because it's genetic - Mom and Dad are also visiting Dr. Ellens a lot and giving him lots of money (thus the funds for sending birthday cards/rivalry mail to patients). Dr. Ellens took care of my teeth for the first 21 years of my life, and then...I had to move to Pittsburgh where I am fortunate enough to have dental insurance. However, when I went to my new dentist, I realized how incredibly frightening it is to go to a new medical professional - the office was very different from Dr. Ellens', nothing went the way I was used to... Granted this was a university dental school, and the people working on me were students, but STILL!! Even when I asked for things that would make my visit more normal, it was impossible to get. And then was the kicker...the dentist-in-training told me I needed to have one of my old fillings redone and a new cavity in a separate tooth filled AND two other teeth drilled and filled.

The fateful day of my 4-tooth-drill didn't go nearly as well as planned. First, I was late for my appointment due to some lab thing not going quite right. That meant the guy didn't have time to do all four teeth, so I only had to get two mutilated. And good thing, too - because this was the MOST painful experience ever in my life. Not that I've experienced much pain, but this was B.A.D. The first mouth-numbing injection didn't work. So I got another one. That one also didn't work very well, because I could feel everything the guy was doing as he drilled my teeth apart. Aagh. I thought I was going to cry and die. I began to wonder if Dr. Ellens had some special talent, if every other dentist in the world made it hurt so bad - that would explain why people hate doing to the dentist so very much.

I got myself out of that dental office real fast after that - never rescheduled to get the other two teeth worked on, because I could not go throught that horror again. I decided that if worse came to worse I'd have Dr. Ellens do the work some time when I was back in Grand Rapids. The new dental office I got in Pittsburgh seemed great - and the dentist there couldn't figure out what it was that the previous guy had thought was wrong with my other two teeth (now THAT was a bit annoying. Not, that's an understatement).

All that to say that today when I got to the dentist for my first drilling since the terriblehorribleawful experience, I wasn't too sure what I was getting myself into, but I was prepared for the worst. BUT!! Lo and behold, this was not bad at all. As usual, the worst part was the actual injection of the anaesthesia into my cheek. (That was even worse than the fact that it cost me six times as much as I had expected thanks to some miscommunication and lack of coverage by the beautific dental insurance company...) That left me with a big, fat lip the rest of the afternoon and is forcing me to eat soup for a while. In the midst of my awaiting my doom, waiting for the anaesthesia to kick in, waiting for the dentist to finish with another patient...I got some respite with my knitting. Oh, it was lovely to sit and think about the cables and bobbles and how many rounds I have left on the hat and NOT think about drilling noises and nerves under enamel and other awful dentisty stuff.

It's over. It hurts a little, but it's certainly NOT bad. And I knit. My dentist thought it was really crazy when I asked if I could knit instead of read the magazine he offered.

product review: waterproof bandages

How boring can you get, Ruth??? Reviewing hair-care products is one thing, but BANDAGES!!!?!?

I know, I know - it's lame. But I REALLY like these bandages!! Nexcare's waterproof bandages come in a variety of sizes and work amazingly. When they say waterproof, they mean waterproof!

I chanced upon these guys when I got one of the many stupid little injuries that often occur to me around the house. It always happens on my fingers, and that's the worst body part to try to keep a bandage on. I was running around the house trying to find where I had put my own box of bandages, and Michelle offered some of hers, which are always located in the same spot (what a novel idea...). I popped on one of the waterproof guys, and it was awesome. There's an adhesive seal around the absorbant pad, so I could fully cover the little cut and still have flexibility of my finger - and I could tell that nothing would creep under the bandage and infect my cut. Not only could no dirt get in there, but when I washed my hands later on, neither could any water! I was sold.

These little bandages are astounding - they cover up exactly what needs covering, they flexibly seal flat against the skin (even on joints!), the extra part is completely clear so you don't have to go walking around with a huge brown thing stuck to your skin, and they stay on through hand washing, through showers, through hockey practice. I don't know if this is a very good idea, but they can withstand several days of being on without coming off or needing to be replaced. Plus, when you're ready to take them off, the adhesive isn't that completely painful sort that rips off all your arm hair.

I must admit that I'm not experienced in other brands of waterproof bandages, as normally my bandages come directly from the dollar store (and they don't carry such fancy items), so perhaps a store brand would be equally impressive. However, when I last checked on bandages, the store brand's waterproof bandages didn't appear to have quite the sealable surface area as Nexcare's, and the price for the Nexcare ones was only about 40 cents more. So...maybe 40 cents is a big deal. You can buy a whole on-sale candy bar for 40 cents... Perhaps the next time I'm at the store and need to buy bandages I'll try out the store brand and buy myself a candy bar.

a new man in my life

Part of the deal with myself for the B.C.D. was that if I cleaned I'd get a pet. My good friend Sarah had been extremely thoughtful this year and purchased me a fish-kit - a tank, stones, plant, food, water conditioner - and some money for a fish. I was soooooo excited - I've wanted a pet for a long time.

Thus, in the midst of B.C.D. I went out to PetCo and adopted this little guy:

a man all for my very own!

Hee. :-D I like.

I named him Sheamus, and he seems to be liking it in his new home well enough. He doesn't eat a lot, but he has eaten, so that's a good sign. I picked out Sheamus because he kept looking at me in the pet store. All the other fish were just sitting there, being bored, but Sheamus actually looked interested. So...I thought I'd do better with an interesting fish than an boring one. And I got him.

The cats haven't seemed to have noticed a whole lot yet. Let's hope it stays that way.

...In other news, I went to the dentist today and mentioned that my teeth hurt when I ate hot, chewy foods (like...Hot Pockets...), and it turns out that the filling in one of my molars is damaged, and it has cracked my tooth, and it needs to be replaced. Uuuuugh! Normally I'm not that concerned about fillings - my teeth have always been very prone to cavities, although the past ten years haven't been so bad. BUT...getting and old filling taken out and having a new one put in - I've had that done once, and it was the most horrific experience of my life. WORSE than braces. WORSE than getting teeth pulled. WORSE than a root canal or oral surgery for wisdom teeth removal... Granted, I don't think that the person who was doing the refilling was extremely GOOD at what he was doing...it still left a bad taste in my mouth.

No pun intended.

more problems

It has been suggested by more than one person that January is a good time for a frog-a-long where you rip out the knitting you've messed up on in the past year and get back to a workable piece. I seem to be screaming for one of these as it seems everything I try to knit recently becomes a disaster.

"Everything" just means two items, which is all I've worked on in the past several weeks, which is probably good because otherwise I'd likely have many more messed up objects.

The first big huge mistake is the poncho. After careful inspection and comparison with my poncho that fits, I've decided that I either measured wrong or gauged wrong or calculated wrong - the two rectangles are each at least six inches too short, which means I'm missing out on a foot of circumference, which means that the poncho will never be correct the way it is. I'm going to have to give up, rip it all out, and think of some other way to create the poncho. It's probably for the best anyhow - the brick stitch pattern isn't as awesome as I thought it would be, and it curls dreadfully at the top and bottom, which I did not anticipate. Fortunately, the gift-recipient can wait for her birthday later this year to receive it.

The second big huge mistake is the second sock. This was a very NOT anticipated mistake (are mistakes ever anticipated???). I was knitting along happily, decided to check to make sure the stripes on the second sock were the same height as the stripes on the first sock, and when I held the two socks up together, I discovered that the stripe widths were fine, but THE FIRST SOCK WAS A HALF INCH WIDER!!! My gauge had changed!! A lot!!! Two needles sizes!!! I've managed to fix the problem...which meant ripping up the entire second sock (not that I had gotten very far to begin with...) and starting all over again. It's looking okay now, although the "fair-isle" patterns aren't identical in the two socks.

the socks travel in this great bag given to me by amber! it is a happy sock bag.

One thing that really worries me about the changing gauge is that this might mean my gauge for EVERYTHING I knit has also changed. This is really not very nice, and it means I'm going to have to proceed with extreme caution when I go back to pick up work on my projects that got tossed aside before Christmas - like the Starry Night Sweater and the Wave Skirt. I am really hoping that my knitting will loosen up again so I'll be able to keep the needles I had started those projects on.

And...oh my freaking goodness!! I won something!!! :-O My name was randomly selected from the holiday gift knitalong, and I'll soon be the happy recipient of some beautific Rowan Kid Silk Haze. I totally don't deserve it, so I think I shall knit it into something to give to a more derserving person. One of these days I'm going to have to gripe about how I don't like giveaways... I mean, I like them, I just always seem to win something, and I feel like that's not fair. But hey - there's nothing wrong with regifting a prize!

a b.c.d.

My first real job was at Woodland Veterinary Clinic in Kentwood, Michigan. One of the best and worst days of the year at the vet clinic was B.C.D. - Big Cleaning Day. It was nice because we didn't need to do our regular work (very much - the animals in the hospital and the ones who were boarding in the kennels obviously received care, but there weren't any newcomers or regularly scheduled patients) and we got paid for a whole day of work and we got lunch. It wasn't nice because...well, it was big CLEANING day, which meant we cleaned the entire clinic from top to bottom until it sparkled.

I was recently reminded of B.C.D.'s of years past when I was out searching for a geocache in a pet cemetary with Mom and Dad over Christmas break. I found the gravestone of Trak, the black lab that belonged to one of the veterinarians I worked for. It was touching to read about him, and it brought back lots of great memories.

And thus...I decided this weekend to embark on my own B.C.D. in my bedroom.

Cleaning my bedroom is much more like an excavation. There are piles of stuff all over. It's a good thing that my room is tiny, because if there were more space, I'd probably just fill that up with stuff on the floor, too. Here's what it looked like on Saturday morning...

can you see the floor anywhere?

And I must admit that it is still not done. However, I was able to wash and fold and put away all the clothing. And I went through every single paper document in the room (this took the majority of the time) and decided to toss two black garbage bags full of papers I don't absolutely, positively need. (I know, I know...should have recycled...but it's unbelieveably difficult to recycle office paper in this community unless it's from your office or unless you have a job that doesn't require you to work between 10a.m. and 2p.m. Maybe I'll take the trash bags in to work someday...)

I unearthed a check from my grandpa for my birthday in 2004...I also found some tax documents that it turns out I need to get some more money from the I.R.S. if I send in an amendment to my 2004 tax return. (Note that recurring date...2004...which means I haven't thoroughly cleaned my room since 2004...!!!!!) I sadly did not find any additional intact socks, but I found every place where I had at one time decided I would house my socks with holes until I felt like fixing them - there are around 10 pairs of these type of socks. (Perhaps I'll have to have a B.S.F.D. - Big Sock Fixing Day.)

When all was said and done, I had at least moved some things around to spots that made more sense. Like my alarm clock to the far side of my dresser so I have to get out of bed to turn it off. This is to aid in the waking up on time element of my life. Unfortunately, this morning I woke up, turned it off, and set it for another half hour later (and also inadvertently turned down the volume, so when the alarm went off 30 minutes later I didn't hear it...) - so that's not quite working yet.

The work still isn't done, and I'll probably need a couple more B.C.D.'s to thoroughly de-clutter my room, but it's getting there. You should see the enormous new pile that is my knitting stuff...

a good deed never goes unnoticed - even if the motive is less than pure

It was a cold, dark December evening. I was getting out of work and it was already pitch black. It was too late to go catch the Standard Time bus because it doesn't come very often, so I went to the Daylight Savings Time bus-stop and hunkered down in my coat with my mittened hands stuffed in my pockets and my scarf tightly wrapped around my nose and mouth to fend off the sub-20-degrees-Farenheit chill.

The DST bus-stop is, as mentioned previously, in front of a Starbucks. To my utter surprise, as I was shivering on the sidewalk, the front door of S'bucks opened, and a barista appeared with a huge tray full of espresso cups topped with whipped cream and red peppermint sprinkles. "Would you like some hot chocolate?" he asked to myself and the others huddled around me.

!!!!!!

Our obvious answer was

"YES!!!"

, and I grabbed a cup of the rich, warm drink. As I sipped it, I pondered what motivated Starbucks to extend such a kind gesture to the people who crowd around their door and likely scare away customers. Was it pity for we cold ones in the below-freezing weather, tired from a long day at work? Was it the holiday spirit, being only a few days before Christmas?

But then it dawned on me... It was what was happening across the street. You see, a few days previous, Caribou Coffee opened its doors directly across the street from Starbucks. Many people were going into those doors... I suspect that a large motivation for the fine hot-chocolate-deliverer of Starbucks was to entice the recipients of his free drinks to enter into his establishment and partake of his coffee more frequently than Caribou's.

I must say...despite the perhaps tainted reasoning behind the hot chocolate gift, I certainly am encouraged to visit Starbucks. It was a good deed. And I did appreciated it very much on that bitter evening.

I never thought I'd say this, but...support your local Starbucks - even if they are contributing significantly to the caffeine crisis!

a fun new toy!

It's black...it's powerful...and it's sitting on my desk right now! My new computer has arrived and is working just fine. Yay!!! And this blog post is the first thing I'm doing with the new Dell Optiplex GX280 - whatever that means.

My, oh my. I forgot what it's like to have a new computer that doesn't have a zillion things sitting on the desktop and loads of programs you don't know how got there. Of course, I don't have any files with data for work, either, and this is my new work computer, so...that'll need to happen eventually. I'm going to add that to the growing list of things that need to be taken care of around the lab.

Speaking of that...I am off to go autoclave a bunch of things!

knitting disaster in the making

Uh oh... There's good news and bad news...

The good news is that I finished knitting the poncho for my friend.

The bad news is, when I pinned it together to see how it will look when it's done, it looked horrible. It's simple - two rectangles, sew them together poncho-style, and it's done! But for some reason when these two rectangles get together, they create a strange tube-neck and make the garment extremely short. I think I'm missing something, but this is another project that may require some creative sewing. Grrrr! I'll attempt to tackle that tonight.

In other knitting news, during the waiting for the wedding on wedding day, I took out the cast-on edge of the sock, and then last night I cast-off it loosely. I think it might be better now. Will have to check with the recipient, Jen, to be sure. I cast on the second sock last night, and it's REALLY loose. So loose that I'm afraid it won't stay up. Ugh. I think that all in all, this week hasn't been very fortunate in my knitting life. But I'll keep trying!

OH - and speaking of socks, I bought Sensational Knitted Socks with a gift certificate to Barnes and Noble from my grandparents. WOW!! This book is everything that a sock-knitting book should be. It shows me how to make every kind of heel and toe I'd want to, and when I get better I can use the patterns to make pretty socks with lace or cables or motifs or whatever I want! I'm very much a fan.

Also speaking of socks, look what I found in my sock drawer when I got back to Pittsburgh last night...

Zoe!

one girl's resolutions

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I'm not a big fan of making resolutions, so I call them goals. Here are my goals for this year...

• Read through the Bible by the end of the year.
• Spend time with God every day, which to me translates to journal, read and answer questions about a devotional (Our Journey, to be exact), and pray. I must admit that over the past couple months I have been extremely lax in doing this normally daily routine. Something about November and December does that to me. Not good.
• Memorize some Bible verses. Not sure how many or which ones yet, but I have several lists of possibilities.
• Learn Dutch for my hopeful trip to Amsterdam in late August/early September
• Finish a series of short stories that I've been working on for years. Then I want to revise them again and have people actually read them.
• Meet with my mentor Rose once a month. I tend to make that not a priority.
• Exercise. No specific goals, no weight to be lost, but I have been utterly inactive except for hockey since the summer. Ucky.

How will I make sure I do any of these things? I'm aiming to make a commitment to accountability with one of the girls in my small group as part of our proposed monthly girl meetings.

That's the plan! We'll see what happens. Happy 2006, everyone!