Long long time, no blog

There are times in a person's life where she feels creative - prolific, even - and wants to tell the world every juicy detail of the ideas bursting forth from her brilliant mind. Every day is full of action, adventure, and cinematic close calls that it has to be shared. She waxes nostalgic about her glory days.

Or, she is just full of herself and has delusions that people care what she does on the weekends.

And then there are other times, ladies and gentlemen, where she is just. working. too. much, barely has time to knit or go to the gym, is having a knock-down-drag-out with the Homeowner's Association about the height of a garden shed, is trying to keep her basil from dying and is helping her equally overworked husband take care of a cat who has temporarily lost the will to live while he's wearing the Cone of Shame.

During those times, there are some who will rise to the occasion and turn their mundane struggles into brilliant prose.

And then there is me, and I said "Aw, to heck with it. Something's got to give. Blogging it is."

"... and housecleaning."

So, here is a brief and lazy recap of my summer since the guild retreat, or at least the parts that don't involve work:

Six 5k races and two fund-raiser walks:


My parents came up to visit this summer and built a shed in the back corner of my patio:
(5/31/09)
Twice:
(7/11/09)
(I still haven't finished painting the trim on version 2.0)

Took a couple of days off, went home and hung out with my family, and showed off my Dork Dancing Cred:

Went to see A.'s new apartment; had some adventures involving chutney, the roof, unpleasant-tasting sake, and getting lost (not necessarily all at the same time). We also made a mess:


I got a couple of haircuts and took off-center pictures with my dinky little phone:

(May) (July)

Oh, and this movie came out, and my friends and I debated for awhile about whether we should bother seeing it, because it wasn't something we were particularly interested in, but in the end we decided we had nothing better to do:

It was just a fluke, really, that we left two hours before the movie started at midnight and that we were wearing wool in the middle of July, and such looks of glee on our faces:

That last bit brings me to about the only knitting I've completed during this great expanse of time, and thus the reason there hasn't been much blogging. I'd promise to finish more and thus return to blogging, but it's still a little bit down the priority list. My hindquarters have been spending too much time in my office chair, and the last 5k was a month ago - plus there's all that painting, housecleaning, cat-sympathizing, and husband-supporting that I've been neglecting.

Here's hoping that fall will involve lots of long walks and time spent snuggling on comfy couches with a cup of hot tea, a couple of contented felines, a non-stressed husband, and a basket of yarn.

Cute attack

HPIM1800
Originally uploaded by sonnetstitches

Ronnie, say hi to the camera!

(More to follow. Just wanted you to see who I hung out with at SSK at Harveyville last weekend.)

Giant Entrelac Afghan

The Giant Entrelac Afghan is done, wrapped, and ready to go in the mail!

I have pictures blocked and unblocked. I ended up having enough yarn to make it a little bigger, but it is pretty heavy and I think it's a nice size for curling up in the recliner with a book or curling up on the couch with someone, which I'm told newlyweds like to do (not at my house - the spouse thinks the couch is uncomfortable. The cats tend to agree with him, so they all crowd onto the recliner and blink at me).

Anyway, for those who haven't been watching me for the last couple of weeks as I carry this thing around in a plastic bag for fear of White Yarn contamination... this was a wedding gift for someone Back Home, the daughter of a very good friend of ours who is, apparently, obsessed with the color red. I had originally picked out what I thought were "safe" colors (grey, cream, black, and one skein of purple), but after I realized the extent of The Red Thing, I knew I needed to change course. My brain is so attuned to only seeing certain colors on the shelf (Green! Rust! Teal! Orange!) that either of those combinations was a brain adjustment.

This was the first time I've done an entrelac project that wasn't on the bias. It went quickly, and my backwards-knitting skills are now approaching ninja level. If I'd had to turn every 20 stitches on a project made out of bulky wool that fits across my bed, I would still be knitting (and probably swearing, which is not the sort of energy one wants to exude into a wedding gift).

So, now it's done, and just in time: It's going in the mail tomorrow, and the wedding is Saturday. I wrapped it up in a red and white box and tied ribbons on it before sending it full of good wishes for a lovely wedding surrounded by friends and a long and happy marriage.

That out of the way, do you think it's time I did something about my entrelac addiction?


Na. . .

Entrelackluster

First, you make a shape. Then you pick up stitches along the side of the shape, and you make another shape. . .



It's addictive. Kind of like Tetris.

Gym-nastics

Tomorrow, I'm joining a new gym. The timing is good. The three-year, sell-your-soul contract at our old gym expired last month, just in time for me to make some new exercise buddies on www.sparkpeople.com who happen to go to a gym that couldn't be closer to my house unless it were actually paying dues in my HOA.

I'm a little bit sad. There were a lot of things I disliked about my old gym, and it was rapidly going downhill. The chain is in bankruptcy, the class schedule was being whittled away to nothing, and the locker rooms were gross even for locker rooms. But it was familiar. After 3 years of hanging out with people while you're sweaty, you feel comfortable around them, and it was kind of a bummer to just let my membership expire without even realizing it (I got a nasty automated e-mail that said "Our records show you used your card on this date. Your card is expired. Nice try, sucker - it's now been deactivated.") Also, the 2 or 3 remaining classes that I liked, I REALLY liked. One of my weird and useless superpowers is that I'm pretty good at step aerobics, and I enjoyed being in an advanced class where the music is fast and the combinations are complicated without being nonsensical (except for the rare occasions where we had that dumb sub with the notecards). I haven't yet been to one of the step classes at my new gym, but I'm already afraid it's going to be boring. Granted, one of the draws is that there are a bazillion other classes I can take, but still: I like step class. And I really liked MY step class. So, regardless of whether this one's OK or not, I'm kind of bummed.

I'm not one of those people who hate change, but I'm also not one of those people who get bored and want change for change's sake. I wish I could find a gym that had the best of all possible worlds (meaning that the pool schedule at this new gym wouldn't suck so bad, and that when my old gym finally goes under that the instructor I like would get a job at the new one). That's not going to happen, and so I'm moving on. This place is clean, reasonably priced, ridiculously close, has a packed class schedule with lots of spinning, and I already have friends who work out there. Plus, in addition to being practically on my back doorstep, there's a second location that is close enough to my office that I can actually get there and get changed in time to make a 5:30 p.m. class on a weekday. So, it'll be good. It was definitely time. But I'm still a little wistful about the things I can't have.

In other news, I am terribly behind on knitting pictures.

Have finished, but not photographed or put on ravelry:

1) Brown heathered Cascade hat with a lining and matching gloves for the spouse
2) Lime green Kathmandu aran hat with weird yellow Lavish alpaca lining for me (love it)
3) Hat identical to the above except with black flecked Kathmandu and black Lavish. That one was duplicate stitched on the inside and mailed off to a friend... without being photographed or ravelry posted, because I am L
4) Long green lace-paneled arm warmers out of camel yarn that I'm not sure I like
5) Violent purple cabled handwarmers that I knit while I was talking and therefore paid not nearly enough attention to construction and design
6) Green sweater for my husband that I'm thinking about surgically altering because I hate the way the neckline fits and wish I'd planned ahead. Problem: I knit it top-down.
7) A miniscule messenger bag for a toy. Also mailed without photography, again because I'm lazy.
8) One of my toe-up Trekking entrelac knee socks, after I did major surgery (i.e. complete amputation of the toe)


I have so many things in progress right now... a couple of pairs of socks, a shawl, two sweaters, a blanket. There are more things in my head and in my stash. I actually did take pictures of some laceweight for purposes of ravelry destashment, but again, not posted. I'll get to it all eventually.

... sort of like blogging about things that aren't dull. sigh.

Oz gets fleeced

DSC02762
Originally uploaded by knitjoknit

The Jo are in yr yarn shop, buyin all yr Peace Fleece

A little wanderTrekking lust. . .

Discontinued ombre colors of Trekking XXL for which I would pay you in cash and eternal devotion for helping me find, in order:

Color 96 (green/grey)
Color 149 (green/tan)
Color 90 (green/olive)
Color 101 (browns)
Color 102 (greys/naturals)
Color 69 (browns)
Color 61 (green/teal)

Surely with some of the hey-look-I-found-Wollmeise magic we have in our circle, someone can just accidentally happen to find me some green sock yarn. . .

Too much knitting, not enough photography

Happy 2009 from your favorite procrastinator, who intended to spend her day off today cleaning house. So far, she's gone grocery shopping, forgot to buy hand soap refills (which is why she went grocery shopping in the first place), done some dishes, cleaned cat boxes, and called the post office about a package that's gone missing.

Knitting-wise, last month was busy, but I didn't manage to photograph most of the results. Again, blame the procrastinator: Most of the items were Christmas gifts that were finished at the last minute and gifted immediately. I made a cowl for Cheeky that I cast on in the morning on the way to visit friends and bound off that same day 10 minutes before she pulled into the driveway at my parents' house. The same with the fingerless gloves I made for a friend deploying overseas: I got the message duplicate stitched on one cuff a few hours before giving them away.

I finished another sweater for the spouse, which has not been photographed because a) I'm lazy and b)it needs blocked. I'll get to that right after I finish cleaning house. . .

I have been on a glove kick. I need to take a picture of all the mateless gloves lying around my stash room. One is a fingerless mitt with a jolly roger on the outside (for a friend or her teenage son; haven't decided which). Another is a fingerless mitt with blue and grey lattice stranding that I knit on the last guild yarn crawl and out of scraps left over from something or other (those were for a friend but after finishing the first one I decided they'd be way too big, so they're now mine). Yesterday I spent most of the first day of 2009 finishing a dark brown glove for the spouse. He's still wearing the hideous dark green acrylic ones that were my first attempt at glove knitting 4 years ago. Judging by the first one, these are much better.

You would think that, after December 08, I would be sick of gloves - after all, a chunk of the month was taken up by 000 addi turbos and 00 hiya hiyas, making these:



But no. Those just made me appreciate my trusty six-inch US 5 bamboo DPNs and how miraculously fast I can knit gloves on them.

This year I'm vowing yet again that if I'm going to knit Christmas gifts I'm going to start earlier, but so far my track record is none too great. I actually had to buy one of those camping lights you clip to your hat so I could finish those black gloves while we were driving across the state in the dark. I texted Cheeky that I was knitting on the highway with "a spelunking lamp" and I think I almost killed her. I'd been meaning to make those gloves since October (it's a long and nerdy story that starts out with LOLcats and, in my world, ends up with size 000 addi circs. . .) but of course I didn't actually cast on until two weeks before I was going to be seeing the intended recipient.

Cheeky gave me this book and three (!!!) skeins of Malabrigo laceweight in greens and browns. Can. Not. Wait. to get over my glove obsession and knit a humongous, intricate, delicate shawl. Note to self: Order a magnetic chart keeper. . .

I don't know about you, but I am happy to put 2008 behind me. It was a difficult year, on a personal as well as a global scale, and there are some dates that will stick in my mind forever.

Obviously it wasn't all bad - there were a lot of rewarding moments, and some opportunities I had that I would have regretted had I not taken them when I had the chance. I spent the last week of the year going home to see family and friends, most of whom I see far too rarely. I thought about how you never know when such a visit could be your last with someone. I don't mean that in a morbid way, it's just... something to think about. I want to do better about making such things count. Time goes by so quickly while I'm not paying attention. My friends have babies and then suddenly they are friending me on facebook and blogging about silent movies and early 20th-century fashion trends. . .

Anyway, as usual I get self-conscious when I get mushy, especially regarding people who have no interest in my yarn obsession and therefore don't read my ramblings. Thank you all who made 2008 fun with KITH, yarn crawls, UFO night, and other fiber-filled adventures. I wish you all many blessings in 2009.

Next up: Team Jo collaborates on a narcissistic 2008 minute trivia quiz. . .