Hello, My Name is Grumpy

I feel like I spend all weekend trying to Get Stuff Done for the coming week, only to then spend the week Trying To Catch Up.  No wonder I never want to do anything on a Friday night - my one and only chance to sit back and relax for a few hours, without feeling  guilty.

This is what I get for taking a crazy course load and refusing to sacrifice (all of) my sanity.  (Just most of it.)

In other news, the weather has been crazy up-and-down lately, going from beautiful blue skies one day to cold, damp, and rainy but still with hints of blue another.

notice the rubber ducky? He? She? lives on the dash of my car and I have not been able to figure out if it is a
 male or a female.  Shirt is cut rather ... risque for a female, but those eyelashes are just not male.

I just want spring - to be able to go outside and enjoy nice weather on my lunch breaks, to walk to and from Thursday nights without risking slipping on ice, breaking a leg, and freezing to death.  

That is the weather I want - picture is from something in the Philadelphia Museum of Art's collection, but hell if I can remember anything about it.  (Hrm, possible final project for Museum Informatics?  Upload your pictures from the museum, and the site will (hopefully) give you information about the art?)

In happier news, I have solved the problem in Print O The Wave, turned the heel in the second sock, and gotten around to ordering more yarn for Urban Aran.  And started OpArt, for the same classmate/coworker as Sheldon.  (The baby was born last night, 11:05pm, 7lbs, 7oz, 21".  How big does the blanket need to be then?)

Hrm.  I seem to be all over the place tonight, writing is uber-sloppy, AND I'm grumpy.  Hello, February, how are you?

why I need to buy more yarn:

I need a new project, and soon.

I ought to finish Sizzle, so I can wear it this spring/summer.  But eh.  I don't wanna knit 1.5" of seed stitch on the neckline and sleeves.  Plus, I feel like I messed up when sewing up the sides, so I'll have to re-do that as well.

I messed up somewhere on attaching the border to Print O the Wave, and have a devil of a time when I attempt to tink back, let alone rip back, the edging.  This, of course, is a fairly easy fix - I just need to sit down for a few minutes and take care of 16 stitches.  

I don't want to start another Sheldon, because that's TV knitting - I need to be able to look at the pattern, count stitches and rows.  

I ran out of yarn for Urban Aran, sadly - fronts and back are complete and I'm halfway done the sleeves.  I might be able to finish ONE sleeve with the yarn I have left, but that leaves me with half a sleeve and the collar to finish and Knitpicks isn't shipping more of that particular color until the 16th.  I should consider checking Ravelry, but I think I need three more balls and that might be hard to find there.

The gloves are frustrating me - I don't know the magical formula for knitting fingers and messed up.  But ripping back and starting all over is SO ANNOYING.   That one can just go sit in time out for a while as I try to figure out the trick.

The socks I'm currently knitting in class, at the movies, while reading, are coming along very well.  However, that means that I will soon be done and ... well.  Then I need to find another boring project to work on.  But I'll also have another pair of socks.  Hrm.

I swatched for a baby blanket with shiny new metal DPNs from Knitpicks... and I'm going to blame a certain young kitten for the fact that one of those needles is missing.  No idea where it is.  I even crawled along the floor for a while, checking to see if it fell into any of the cracks in the floor.

I came home the other day to find that he had pulled 13 of my bamboo DPNs out of my knitting basket.  THIRTEEN. Luckily, I managed to find all of them - most had been batted under the rug.  Of course, I'm missing three - but I think they are back in PA - and have no idea which ones are what size, between US 1, 2, and 2.5.  Now would be a good time to buy a gauge, I suppose.

Pictures to come later, of all my projects.  You know, when I'm bored and avoiding homework this weekend.

rambling, rather than reading for class

Today's high was something around 60F, and it was sunny.  I'd be completely ok with spring starting in early February.  Well, until I realized what, exactly, that might mean for the environment....

In other news, I finished Sheldon today - at work (baby shower at work today, for pregnant coworker/classmate).  I remembered to take crochet hook, needle, legs, black yarn to embroider his eyes, etc.  And COMPLETELY forgot to take anything with which to stuff his legs.  Quick thinking had me taking care of his eyes first and then using the left-over yarn from the leg tails and his eyes to stuff the legs.  However, he turned out uber cute.  As soon as I can figure out how to get pictures from the cell phone to the computer withOUT using up a picture message, I shall post pictures.  Or just knit another one, cause I require a Sheldon in order to live.

I will say this for the midwest:  it has some amazing sunsets.  UofI's Hartley Gardens is right near the office, and during nice weather, it is a great place to sit and eat lunch.  Far enough away from campus, the gardens tend to be fairly quiet.  And, they provide a nice open space over which to watch the sun set.  Lately, I've been getting out of work just as the sun is setting so I hang out for a few minutes and watch the sun set.  It is almost enough to make me forget about the cold for a few minutes.  You know, until I can't feel my fingers anymore.

I got a sony Cybershot DSC-S750 for Christmas.  I wanted a little pocket camera to take everywhere with me.  With 7.2 mega pixels, this one takes somewhat sharper shots than the Canon, but I love the manual ability of the Canon.  It is kinda hard to "trick" the sony into the aperture/shutter speed that I want AND have my subject still be in focus.  The start up speed is also kinda slow, but it is nice to always have a camera on me without carting around the big one.

This one, however, was taken by my cell phone.  I had forgotten the little camera at home and made due with what I had.  I'm actually fairly impressed and forced to think back to the first digital camera my dad bought, which only had 2 mega pixels.. same as my cell phone.  Weird. 

In other news, I have a kitten curled up between my arms on the computer desk.  I'm gonna need a bigger desk if this keeps up, as I am eventually going to run out of room for the random assorted crap I keep on the desk, the mouse, the keyboard, the pretty pretty iMac and a kitten.  Plus, he keeps sitting on the keyboard while staring at the mouse cursor.   I really ought to download one of those pet games and get a kitten and watch as his mind is blown by the noise as well as the sight.

And just because I can, one of my favorite shots from this summer:  A fairly cool early morning, right before bring the horses in, alone on the farm.  I miss those early mornings, just me and the horses, before it is hot and ugly out.  I didn't even notice the bird til I had uploaded the shots to my computer.

More Conversations with TheUrmily

You know, it's a good thing that it [iPod shuffle] is rectangluar.. otherwise, it would look like a tampon. And then you'd have a musical crotch... It would be kinda weird if you had music coming from your crotch... But then your vagina would have something to say. It could sing "Let's Talk about Sex!"
- a conversation involving tampons, iPod shuffles, and references to The Vagina Monologues.

Silent Poetry Reading Day

Today, along with Groundhog's Day, is Silent Poetry Reading Day.  (Details available here.)

Drummer Hodge

  I

They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest
  Uncoffined - just as found:
His landmark is a kopje-crest
  That breaks the veldt around;
And foreign constellations west
  Each night above his mound.

  II

Young Hodge the Drummer never knew --
  Fresh from his Wessex home --
The meaning of the broad Karoo,
  The Bush, the dusty loam,
And why uprose to nightly view
  Strange stars amid the gloam.

  III

Yet portion of that unknown plain
  Will Hodge forever be;
His homely Northern breast and brain
  Grow to some Southern tree,
And strange-eyed constellations reign
  His stars eternally.

-Thomas Hardy, published in his Poems of the Past and Present in 1901.  

Seen in the movie The History Boys.

Time to play catch up. Again.

Evidently, I am blogging again.  I think it has to do with the serious lack of free time.  What better way to actually fix everything in time other than to blog?

Wet kitty. Sad kitty. Cute kitty.

So, quick catch up:

• I moved to Illinois and started grad school.
• School is awesome, I love my classes, library studies was totally the right choice for me.
• My landlord everything that my classes are not.  In short, had serious electrical problems for the first month+ that I was here.  Despite calls every couple of days, they dragged their feet in solving my problems and attempted to make me feel like a jerk for being upset about the fact that out of an entire one bedroom apartment, three electrical outlets worked, along with four lamps.  Those four lamps were only located in two of four rooms, and same with the outlets.  Their solution was to run an extension cord from an outside outlet.  For a month.  And I'm going to stop writing about this cause my blood pressure will soon skyrocket. 

His favorite place to sleep, still.  I'm gonna laugh when he doesn't fit anymore.

• TheBoy and I broke up.  Maybe one day we'll figure out how to be friends, but not right now.  Long distance is tough and it amplified all of our problems and eventually, we got tired of fighting the same fights, dealing with the same problems and never seeming to get anywhere.  So, that's sad and stuff, but it is what it is and then you move on.
• Because I can't do anything the "easy" or "simple" way, my expected graduation date has moved up.  To August 2009.  Which means I will graduate with a masters degree at the age of 23.  Which also means that I'm taking 18 credits this semester.
• Classes include:  Adult Popular Literature; Higher Education and Learning Professionals; Libraries, Information, and Society; Museum Informatics; Medevial and Modern Manuscripts; and Rare Books and Manuscripts.  So far, I love all of them

Second favorite place.  Mostly so he can mess up the computer with those cute little feet.

• I got a kitten.  He's currently about 5-6 months old and very cute.  He also also very much trouble.  His (full) name is Indiana Schrodinger III, or Schrodie for short.  Or Little Man.  Or The Little Shit.  Or Trouble.  He responds quite well to "HEY!" by this point in time.
• Kit hates the kitten.  He doesn't get the whole personal space concept, but they're doing quite well.  They even occasionally curl up near each other.
• Over all?  I am happy.
• I hate winter in Illinois.  Hence the graduation date change.

Homework IS fun!

I may be doing homework on a Friday night, but I am still greatly entertained. See:

I'm reading about the role of the library, if libraries should allow and encourage fiction reading, and library usage. In the process, I've found these gems:

"Compared with library users, for example, nonusers are more apt to dislike change, do not want to try new things, avoid foreign locales, and are suspicious of communists and hippies." (emphasis mine)

And:

"Here in rank order are the activities, interests, and opinions that correlated most strongly with nonuse of the library by women:

1. All men should be clean shaven every day.
2. I get satisfaction out of cleaning.
3. TV is my primary source of entertainment.
4. I often wish for the good old days.
5. I like the look of a large lamp in a picture window. (again, emphasis mine.)
6. I don't feel safe outside home at night."

Those two statements have me snickering into my beer as I do homework.  Who says grad school isn't fun?

Quotes from: Ross, Catherine Sheldrick, "Ch.1.1-1.3. The company of readers", in Ross, Catherine Sheldrick, Lynne (E.F.) McKechnie, and Paulette M. Rothbauer, Reading Matters: What the Research Reveals about Reading, Libraries, and Community. Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited, 2006. Pp.1-27.

alive-ish

Um, hi. I'm still alive, though some might doubt my sanity more than usual.

Working and living at the horse farm again for the summer. Prepping for the move to IL. Attempting to enjoy my time with TheBoyfriend before moving. Getting an awesome farmer's tan.

And watching TV via my slingbox and wondering... what happens to the cakes that do NOT win on the Food Network Challenge show? (Just saw the end of the Princess cake and the start of the Villain cake episode.)

Also, enjoying the new washing machine downstairs.

Post-Brewery Blogging

Weee, tipsy blogging. Not drunk blogging, as I am still able to stand on one foot and touch my nose with my eyes closed and not fall over. Sober persons attested to this fact and thus, I am only tipsy. Which is sad, but tomorrow is another day. And next weekend is Blue and White Weekend, and not only will TheBoy be here, but a ton of other people will as well. And it shall be fun.

That said, I got a graduate assistantship. I think my references basically completed the interview for me, for I know they called at least one of my references before my interview. And I think they went into the interview planning on hiring me, so long as I didn't totally mess it up. So, I have a graduate assistantship for 20 hours a week in the fall. For those twenty hours a week, they shall pay me about $17 an hour. While I will need to dip into savings to pay tuition the first few semesters, I think I will mostly be able to live off of my salary and that includes paying rent.

Now I have to answer super important questions such as: TIVO or no TIVO? I think it is about $13 a month. I DON'T KNOW. I get the impression that TIVO is one of those things that you can't not have once you have it. Am I willing to make that leap, knowing I will be working for about oh, $30k a year after graduation? Hrm, I shall have to debate this one.

That said, I finished the second sock of a pair of socks of which I have not posted pictures. If it were not 1am, I would take pictures now. So, just know that they were knit out of KnitPicks yarn in the Waffleweave Pattern that I wrote and that lo, they are awesome.

And as a reward, I am attempting to start a sock from New Pathways for Sock Knitters - the riverbed sock. I really dislike toe-up socks, and I am remembering why. I attempted to start the sock at work last night and just massively failed. I could not handle the figure eight cast on, let alone Cat's LLink and LRink increases. I just gave up, used Judy's Magic Cast On, and used an increase that I could manage for the first round. We'll see how it goes from here. And for my self that manages to forget things, yarn is ArtYarn's Ultra Merino, 6ply, with US 1 needles.

And I picked up US 2 needles today, so now I need to decide if I will be knitting the Eagle's Flight socks again. As much as I hate the idea of frogging YET AGAIN, I kinda can't handle the idea of NOT knitting those socks perfectly. So, we'll see. If I can't bring myself to wear them as is, they shall be frogged and re-knit. I have proven to myself that I can knit a sock in about a week and I most certainly do have the pattern memorized by now...

Orts and Bits

Really, do I ever write anything that is not some sort of random collection of the things floating around in my head? Finished Object posts, you say? Those don't happen all that often anymore, so I'm going to say "not really."

That said, on to the random collection of stuff that is floating around my head:

Sleep: I have gone to bed after 6:30am more times this semester than I have before midnight. This is not cool. This needs to change. (I do not see how this could change in oh, a month and a half.) If I am not asleep by 1:30am, I am considering just not sleeping tonight. I woke up around 2pm, so really, it would only be at the start of a three hour class that I would be awake for over 24 hours - that's totally doable. And then I can nap for an hour on the way to a rock climbing field trip and then climb for three hours. I SEE NO FLAWS WITH THIS PLAN.

School: Ugh. Do not care. I graduate in a month and a half. GRADUATE. They'll give me pieces of paper that make it official and everything! (Fools.) However, there are some ... 55 pages that need to be written between now and then. GAH. On one hand, I want to graduate and not thing about papers or anything, on the other hand? Graduate? Only real people, ready to face the real world graduate. Also, those people have learned something in the last four years or so. Have I learned anything? I do not know.

Ballet: Was awesome. I probably would have gone to that show even if I weren't taking a class that required me to do so. TheUrmily, however, ditched me in favor of BATTLESTAR GALATICA. There is nothing more that I can say here, other than to also mention that she canceled Thursday plans for Mad Mex because it was raining. Just .. fail.

Apartment: In theory, they have mailed the lease to me. I have not yet had it show up in my mailbox, but they most certainly went ahead and cashed the check I sent them. However, we suddenly have a new problem: Any assistantship I might get would start on August 16 - the lease starts August 18th. Tomorrow, I shall beg them to let me move in three days early. They keep claiming that they'll have plenty of time to clean and paint and remodel between July and August 18th, so what would three days be, now really?

Running: After trying to be nice and offer someone an onion ring, I have been roped into a weight loss challenge. Apparently, the goal is to lose 9lbs by the end of April. That's about 21lbs a week, which I think is pushing it a bit. I think I have talked the rules committee into accepting a weight loss goal of 7lbs for me, which I fee is much more reasonable and also, healthy. But, if by the end of the month, you have not met your goal of 9lbs, you owe $5 per pound remaining. Those who do make their goal get to split the pot. (Also, I find it interesting that a) I am the only female involved and b) this is a challenge set up to work best if some fail and some don't fail. We don't like it when everyone succeeds, it would seem.) So far, I have no idea how this is going, as I have eaten chocolate in some form or another every single day. And on Monday I had a milkshake.

However, in hopes to not owe $45 at the end of the month, I have started the Couch to 5K program.  Someone else has already done all the thinking, I just have to follow instructions.  To help me do so, I purchased an Eddie Izzard show in CD and have been running to that.  I will admit, it is somewhat difficult to run when you are laughing, but it is much more fun.  Also, you get great looks as you jog along, giggling merrily to yourself.  As you pass all the frat houses.  Ah, college towns.

Knitting:  Oh, right - the theoretical point of this blog.  I stopped by the yarn store the other day to purchase what I THINK are the correct size needles for the ill-fated Eagle's Flight Socks.  Only, they didn't have them.  No, seriously- they did not have them.  WTF, world?  Apparently, US2, 2.75mm, have been on backorder for some time.

So I came home and very carefully redisprited the tail I had left myself during my cast on.  And now, I can wear the sock without cutting off circulation to that foot.  I am still debating if I want to rip out the toe and reknit a slightly longer toe, so that the foot will be the correct length.  I think I will end up doing so, I just can't face the idea of messing with that sock anymore.

I am also currently turning the heel of the second KnitPicks sock that I am knitting for Klunk- that one should be done in a week or two, and then I get to play a new pair of socks!  I am excited.

Time to wrte another to-do list.  I write a mean list - pity I rarely manage to cross anything off.  And I can't even add things like "eat chocolate" to my list anymore.