Who knew it was light out at 6 am?

Happy Four and a Half Years, Job! I Love You!

Had a fabulous weekend. Finishing a project (see socks below) always makes me want to find a new project. I wish it inspired me to finish more of the projects that I've started, but not so. I've decided to design a cardigan. Not really "design" so much as start knitting and see how it goes. I tried to measure things but it seems really off-balance to me. I figure I'll just go for it and hope for the best, preparing myself beforehand to redo a lot of it. It shouldn't be too bad, though; what I have in mind is pretty simple.

On Saturday, after the BEST HOCKEY GAME EVER (GO OILERS!!!!!!!! GAME SEVEN TONIGHT!!! WOO HOO!!!!!), Job and I decided to celebrate by going to a movie. He does this amazing thing that I love him for: once in awhile, when I have no thoughts in my head of going out, he just up and says "let's go to a movie". And we do! I love this man. He still surprises me once a week. We saw Cars, which was awesome. The movie got out at midnight, so we went to 7-11 to satisfy our hot dog craving! I love spontaneous guilt-free dates.

I am up so early because I am off to a computer course at the University and I'm very very nervous. I was the youngest one there last year and likely will be again. Oh well. Hope someone else is wearing jeans! Yikes!

Finishing Touches

Ta Da!
Finished "Simply Lovely Lace Socks" from IK for Mom. The model feet are mine, so try to disregard the pasty whiteness and the hair. Yecch!

Pre-blocking:

Closeup of lace pattern (this wool has a little bit of black in it that makes it shimmery, but you can't really see it in these photos):

Post-blocking and post-Photoshopped tag:
Photoshop is another hobby of mine. The tag includes washing instructions. Yay!

Wisdom Teeth and Coffee Cups

Job had his wisdom teeth out today. I went into severe mother-hen mode, although he was far too groggy to be embarrassed by me. I think that this picture is kind of cool, although blurry. That's gauze in his mouth. I guess I should have taken one before we rinsed all the blood out, for maximum dramatic effect, but there you have it. He couldn't open very wide, what with all the swelling. We had to sit in the waiting room for an hour so that the drugs they gave him could set in. I think the people around us may have thought he was either drunk or mentally challenged, since he started to slur his speech and had trouble reading. He repeatedly picked up a Macleans magazine to read it, looked at couple of pictures, started talking to me and dropped the magazine, having forgotten he was holding it. Whenever I tried to take it to put it back on the coffee table, he exclaimed, frustrated, "I was reading that!" and the whole process began again. Poor guy. I would have laughed hysterically if I wasn't so worried. Anyway, he's asleep now, full of Tylenol 3. Whew. What a day.

These are the teeth they removed. You may be thinking to yourself, "there are five teeth here, and the average human being has only four wisdom teeth." You would be right. If you look closely, you may be able to see that there are in fact four teeth, and one has been cut in half. I guess this was the one he "felt." Job didn't want to keep them, but I asked them to anyway, since I think it would be a great way to torture our kids: "Here's what will happen if you don't brush your teeth!



I've decided to introduce my coffee cup collection to this blog. Now that I read that, it seems very little-old-lady of me and sort of boring. I hate coffee cup sets. We have one set of cups that came with our kitchen starter set from IKEA, and those hold only water or paint thinner for craft purposes. I started my love affair with coffee cups when I lived overseas. My family lived in Cyprus for 4 years, and we travelled a lot around the Middle East and Europe, since we were right there. I bought a souvenir mug in every place I visited, and I just continued buying mugs when I moved back to Canada. I've long since run out of storage space, but that hasn't stopped me yet. Our grocery store occasionally sells fun, colourful mugs of interesting shapes for a couple of dollars, so those are in here too. They don't all have a story or a great deal of meaning, but I love all the colour and the choice. My favourite part of morning coffee/tea is picking the mug I'm in the mood for. Today was a double-size robin's-egg-blue mug full of Murchie's Empress Afternoon Blend tea. The mug was a gift from Karen, my best friend who recently moved away. I'm going to be her bridesmaid in August. The tea was introduced to me by my boss/professor/mentor, who is a tea afficionado (at least compared to me) and once said, with such shock that I thought she might fire me on the spot, "You haven't been to Murchie's???" Thanks, Dr. J. When I get a new mug (or get misty-eyed about a current one), I will post a picture and share, whether anyone cares or not!

Sock is progressing (Job got to rent whatever he wanted, so I'm knitting Taken, which is actually quite interesting and has already made me muck up a couple of yarnovers!).

My Life is Almost as Blah as my Blog...

Well, that's not entirely true. I did convocate this week (can that be used as a verb? or just as a noun [convocation]?). I officially have a BA (Hons.) with distinction. Pretty nifty. And I'm settling into a routine at work, which is nice. My brother graduated from high school last weekend, and my cousin got her second degree the weekend before that (B.Ed.). So I guess it has been an eventful couple of weeks. But as far as knitting goes, not much has happened. There is, however, a reason for this:

DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION... The Mario Mix!

I've never played DDR before, and Job got it for me as a grad gift because we heard from a friend that it's a good cardio workout. I'm completely addicted. I think I'm getting pretty good, but we read on some message board that true-blue DDR-ers (?) find the Mario Mix far too easy. Oh well. It's fun. And when I finish a few levels at "Hard" and "Very Hard" I have worked up a sweat and didn't even notice! Is that the best way to work out or what??

For those in the world (could there be any?) who do not know what DDR is, it is a video dancing game. You need to step on the arrows when they flash on the screen at the right time. In the Mario Mix, you dance to remixes of all those Mario tunes... you know you know them... and you can play Easy, Medium, Hard, Very Hard, or Super Hard. There is also a story mode, which is kind of lame but pretty standard in any Mario franchise title. Somehow dancing becomes magical and you use your moves to melt ice, stop whirlpools, etc. I don't think the masterminds at Nintendo put a lot of overtime hours into the perfect way to work dancing into the story. But hey, that's not the important part of the game.

So, long story short (yeah, right!), socks are progressing ever-so-slowly, scarf even more so, sweater is at a screeching halt, but not expected until Christmas so I'm okay with that. But another grad gift (from Job's mom) was a $50 gift certificate to my LYS, so I think it's time to add another mess of yarn and needles to the "current project basket". Yay!

Anyhow, I'm experiencing severe Mario withdrawal... my feet are starting to twitch... so that's all for now!

Gloomy Day

We had two weeks or so of hot weather, and then it got all grey. Not cold, still warm, not raining, just gloomy. Yuck. Now it's depressing and grey out but you still get sweaty if you walk across the street! Gross.

I finished one of my mom's socks. It's beautiful and it fits my foot perfectly, but I have my dad's narrow feet. My mom and brother have wider feet, so I'm kind of worried that it won't fit as well. I'm sure it'll stretch, I just hope it doesn't look wacky. It is quite beautiful for a sock though, all lacy and blue. If she doesn't want to wear it, she can just look at it.

The scarf for my boss is going slowly. It is daunting because it is my first project that is completely lace. Not solid with lace sections, but all lace. It's lovely, but slow. I'm also concerned that when I finally finish it, I will want to keep it, seeing as it is my first lace project. Maybe I should think of something else to knit my boss; something quicker and slightly less precious. Hmmm.

I'm going to start reading Wuthering Heights today. I've read many 19th century novels, but somehow I managed to never read that one. Very strange. Anyway I'm looking forward to starting it. I'm taking next week off, so lots of time to read and knit. And maybe there will be some sun too, so I can look a little less pasty white for Karen's wedding in August.

Not much else to say. Bad cramps today. Sort of a blah day all things considered. Maybe tomorrow will be more interesting.

Working Girl

So I'm finished my BA now, and I don't start my MA until September, so I'm sort of in between purposes in life. I'm working over the summer as a research assistant, a job I love because my boss is like a more grown-up version of me. It's creepy, actually.

Still working on sweater/scarf/socks from last post. Sadly, knitting has taken a back seat because of exams etc. However, as soon as I finish this post I am off to watch TV and work on those socks, which have to be ready for June 4th, so they have been bumped to the top of the list. I've been avoiding the scarf because lace is new to me and there is a k7tog in there that freaks the hell out of me.

Job and I are off to Pender Island for the long weekend (Victoria Day is on Monday), so that will be nice. Job is working and taking classes this summer, so he has very little chance to relax. He always spends the first day of any time off saying "I can't believe I don't have to work... I can't believe I don't have to do homework!" So it takes at least two days for him to experience any kind of relaxation. He's a trooper.

Right now I'm reading Anna Karenina, but I'm thinking of reading other things at the same time, since AK has long chunks about farm technology that just don't interest me. My footnotes say that these chunks exist because Tolstoy had all of these revolutionary peasant relations ideas, but I just can't get into it. I am fascinated by the discussion of divorce laws, though, and the comparison of society's perceptions about adulterous husbands (Oblonsky) versus adulterous wives (Anna Karenina), including the idea that Karenin views his son as tainted because of his mother's adultery. He sees no problem in hating his son because of Anna's actions.

I do want to start reading Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters, though. It looks awesome. Fun with words/letters like the Thursday Next books are fun with the literary world.

Anyway, off to watch the season finale of Conviction (like Grey's Anatomy with lawyers! I love it!) and knit those socks! Wish me luck.

Starting Afresh

It's been a couple of months since I posted. I'd feel guilty, but since I don't really have a regular readership, the only one I'm hurting is me.

So classes are finished. I officially never have to take an undergraduate course again ever! I may teach a couple someday, but that's it. Hopefully I'll get accepted to the Master's program and I can stress again next year.

I did well with stress this term. I decided not to identify myself with one essay or one grade or even one class, and it worked out. I didn't let one essay or presentation or whatever make me feel stupid or even really great. A 'B' on a paper doesn't make me a 'B-student' and an 'A' doesn't make me an 'A-student'. There are more important things with which I wish to define myself.

One such thing is knitting!
I have three projects on the go for this summer, and I hope to add a fourth as soon as I find a good pattern (the colours are supposed to represent the colour of the project, but who knows?):

1. A sweater for Job. He's in on it, no surprises. He picked the pattern and the colour and has seen it grow thus far. I figure the more involved he is in the process, the more likely he is to wear or at least to like the sweater. I don't know if I've mentioned it on the blog yet, but Job (pronounced with a long 'o', like the guy in the bible) is my boyfriend of 4.5ish years. He's a history major. The sweater is the Saddle Seam Pullover from IK Spring '06. I like to put the name of the designer in when I say what I'm making, but I don't have the magazine at hand right now. I'll put it in the next post.
   
2. A scarf for Dr. J. She doesn't read this, or else I wouldn't put it in, because she doesn't know. Dr. J is my former professor, current boss, and honours essay supervisor. Over the past two years she has helped me so much and she has been through a lot too, so I'm making her a funky lacy scarf. I will post the name, designer, and a pic when it's done, I'm just a little paranoid about who could come across this right now.
3. Socks for me mum. She is in on it also, because I wasn't sure she would like them. I don't want to put a summer into lace socks that I think are fabulous but she will look at once and stuff in a drawer. No offense to my Mom, she would appreciate the hard work, but I'd like her to want to wear them, too. She mentioned last Christmas (when I made my Dad some hockey socks) that she'd like socks, too. So I ran a couple of patterns by her and brought a pretty jewelly blue yarn and she says she likes!

That was supposed to be a list, not an essay. Oh well, I guess it's hard to get out of that mindset.

Oh yeah! I finished the IK shrug, the dark red one. I need help to take a picture of it, however, so that will have to wait. I've also made a purse for a charity project for someone I bumped into at my LYS. Darnit I can't think of a picture I can post to break up the text, so I'll stop it there.