Tricks With Sticks

Sick day and a healthy dose of reality...

I stayed home today with a lovely sinus problem of some sort.  Feels like someone is sticking an icepick into my forehead, which is aimed at the solid tumor of snot situated behind my left eye.  Otherwise, I'm good.

As I sat on the couch, unmotivated to do much of anything, and getting dizzy if I moved too quickly, I wondered what to do with myself.  Crafting of any kind is usually my go-to on sick days and weekends, making stuff keeps me sane and balanced.  Or at least, more sane and balanced than I would be if I didn't have an outlet of some kind.

I wondered:  what did I do before I began obsessively crafting?  When I was in college and too broke to buy supplies?   Before the knitting bug bit?  Well, I guess during college, I sometimes did schoolwork, and then there was the social life which I have very little of now.

I suppose I also probably actually did housework:

this is an actual photo of the dust on top of a speaker cabinet in my living room.  In my own defense, this may be the first day that I've seen the house during the few hours of natural light since, oh, probably October.  Before the dreaded grey winter.

I also probably had less housework to do - crafting accumulates a lot of stuff:

This is the state of my craft room at the beginning of the day.  Again I must defend myself and say that I have a large number of projects going on, and it would be silly to put away the stuff I need in between stages of these projects before they are totally complete.  Right?  But still, it's a disaster in here, and has been for a while.  It needs organization.  A system.  I've been contemplating options for shelving and such, spending time on the Ikea website, and I think I have a reasonable plan.  I also picked up the mess that was manageable immediately after taking this photo...

I also may have sometimes gotten some exercise, and probably (I'm sure of it, really) spent more time planning healthy meals, and cooking.

This is a bad number for me.  I'm not very tall.  My happy number would be nearer 125.  Maybe that's why the elastic on my underwear seems always to be conspiring to cut off circulation to my legs.  I also discovered yesterday that "control top" tights are the work of the devil - if you're small enough to not need any control, they're fine.  But if you have any amount of fat which may be "controlled" they seem to push it and mold it into very strange configurations.  My belly pooch somehow got pushed into another area altogether, lower down, and forming instead a pubic pooch.  Very attractive, indeed.  Much better controlled.  And then there's the fat muffin formed by the "controlling" band of tight elastic at the top.  That looks much better than the normal shape of my (still only slightly) pudgy body. 

Anyway, with all of these slaps in the face, these horrible realizations of my glaring deficiencies in life - what did I end up doing today?  Well, I spun a very little fiber while listening to an audiobook on my iPod, and then I took a four and a half hour nap. 

I guess I must have needed it.  At least that's what I'm telling myself.

And I'm also telling myself that tomorrow I'm going to scrub the kitchen floor...

Happy Valentine's Day...

I have a patient who drives down to Chicago to see me every month from The-Middle-of-Nowhere, Wisconsin, to receive an investigational drug for his leukemia.  He's one of those old-school badass type men.  He makes no apologies for his 2-3 pack per day cigarette habit, or for the caked-on mud on his boots that he aquired while deer hunting, which he does just about every weekend.  He always tries to give me gifts - once it was homemade venison sausage (I've been a vegetarian for 23 years), and several times he has tried to bring me different knives - not cooking knives, but hunting knives and pocket knives.  I need to protect myself coming into the city on public transportation, he says.  I graciously declined these gifts, knowing that in his mind, these items really do make most excellent gifts.  But also knowing that if I ever do happen to get mugged and try to pull out a pocket knife, the person who would end up getting stabbed would be me.

Recently his wife has been ill, and he's been bringing friends along for the long ride down instead.  Old war buddies.   Who are really excited about having someone new to tell their old war stories to.   They, like him , also have old-school and small-town ideas about the treatment of their women, too - flagrantly complimenting me, my pretty hair, etc., in a way that would probably be considered harassment in any workplace nowadays.  But I find it charming, which is exactly what it's meant to be, nothing more. 

Today he showed up with a new (to me) friend, Patrick.  He is 82 years old, and served in the Coast Guard in WWII, the Korean War, and Vietnam.    Patrick said that he'd heard the real reason my patient came all the way down to Chicago every month was "to see his pretty nurse".  And so, and because it's Valentine's Day, he brought me a gift, himself:

Now, he didn't know that I'm not a mom.  He also didn't know that I've been trying, unsuccessfully, to become a mom for the past  12+ months.  So, we decided together, that what I should do is to rub noses with this bear three times every night for luck. 

Can't hurt to try, right?

WIP Wednesday, the mystery edition

Because I'm sneaky.  And because taking full-sized pictures at this time of year is impossible.

February

Ah, look!  It's almost the middle of February already!  And no recent blog posts...

February is the worst month of the year.  Any novelty that winter may have held has worn off long ago.  Snow is no longer pretty.  Heavy sweaters and piles of scarves and hats are no longer charming.  My body has gone into full-on hibernation mode, and the alarm clock beeping at me at 5 a.m. is a hideous joke that the world plays daily.  I lack motivation to do much of anything - I don't care what we eat (and thus have no groceries in the house most of the time), I don't care if the house is clean (and it is far from it), I don't care if I melt into a big blob of inert jello-like goo, which is what I feel like anyway.  I just want to sleep and stay warm. 

I've been trying to fight against February.  I've made big plans.  Ideas and goals.  The vague notion of "spring cleaning" - but spring seems so far away, and the dust on the TV stand seems like an insurmountable task.  I need sunlight!  And fresh air!  But the windchill today is -20.

I've been crafting, though - the only thing that keeps me sane, really...

Finished 2.5 pairs of socks, 2 scarves, and the Jeckyll/Hyde-like thing for my co-worker's granddaughter.  Ditched the Trellis baby sweater idea - the baby has been born, and the mom won't be back to work for 3 months, so if I want to make him something later, I'll have time.  Currently working on a few secret projects for babies and swaps, and starting my first quilt!  I want to give it to my grandma for her birthday in June, but I'm starting very early because I'm afraid of horrible mishaps which are bound to be coming my way.

As for my New Year's goals for January:  well, there has been no yoga, and no general maintenance of order in the house.  I still clean on weekends, if that.  Been contemplaiting joining the gym at work, but don't have appropriate shoes, and shoe-shopping is again an insurmountable task right now.  As far as blogging, I think my shortcomings here are obvious.  I'll keep trying...

But, I have been good about working from stash!  I purchased NO yarn or fiber in January!  I did receive my Hello Yarn fiber club stuff, but nothing else!  I only spun 4 ounces of fiber in January, though, which is not very productive, and the plying was done very poorly (too much ETOH at the time) and needs to be fixed.  My yarn "out":  6.5 skeins - 1.5 for the "Witchy" scarf, 1 for the hand-dyed socks, 2 for the swap scarf, 2 for the Jeckyll/Hyde.  Not too bad, I guess...

Finally, because I don't want my few and far-between posts to be long-winded, whiny, and pictureless, here's the Witchy scarf:

It was knit from hand-spun singles from a Merlin-the-Cat "this and that" batt named Witchy that I spun for the October/Halloween Ravelry spin-a-long.  There's all kinds of stuff in there, various wools, mohair, silk.  It was a fun and messy spin.  I wasn't going for accuracy or consistancy while spining it, just enjoying the bright colors and tactile sensations of the different fibers as they came along.

And so, it was just as much fun to knit as it was to spin, like re-living the process all over...

Knitting along, and whoop!  There's a neon green nup of wool!   Then, Whee!  There's a teal run of blobby silk... so soft!

In the end, though, it's pretty scratchy.  A wear-on-the-outside of the coat scarf.  I love it anyways.

Friday Feast

It's been a very bad week.  I'll possibly explain later, but in an attempt to not completely abandon the blog (again), I offer today's Feast:

Appetizer
What is your middle name? Lynn Would you change any of your names if you could? Probably - it's always seemed like 75% of girls born within 10 years of my birthday are named Jennifer.  If so, what would you like to be called?  Now that's a hard question.  I think you really have to grow up with your name.  Maybe I wouldn't so much want to change my name if I could as I would have liked to be named something else from the start...

Soup
If you were a fashion designer, which fabrics, colors, and styles would you probably use the most?  Probably a lot of cotton and other natural fibers, natural and muted colors with the occasion bright accent, and loose, free-moving, and wearable comfortable styles.

Salad
What is your least favorite chore, and why?  I don't like cleaning floors.  It's boring, and I never really feel like I've gotten them completely clean.  Also, whatever degree of clean they do get doesn't last long at all...

Main Course
What is something that really frightens you, and can you trace it back to an event in your life?  I'm constantly afraid of being inadequate.  As far as I can tell, I've always been that way, nothing triggered it.  I'm also afraid of being late - it's the worst feeling in the world to me.  I don't have any real phobias, other than a bit of claustrophobia...

Dessert
Where are you sitting right now? Name 3 things you can see at this moment.   On the couch, in the living room.  I see my hubby in his PJs eating spaghetti, my cat licking his arm, and some evil woman on the television trying to sell me on some sort of wrinkle cream that "gently lifts wrinkles from below" the skin.

WIP Wednesday - the New Year's roundup

In an effort to remain honest in my plan to keep the WIPs to five or fewer, I just finished updating my Ravelry projects list.  I hadn't worked on anything in the past few months other than Christmas projects (Which all got done in time!) and a couple of swap projects, so I'd completely forgotten what I had on the needles before that.  So what did I do?  Cast on two pairs of socks!  I have a few long-term hibernators also - but they don't count, because they may or may not come back into rotation.

Here's the list:

1) Monkey socks for me, cast on after Christmas - already past the gussett on the first sock!

2) Generic stockinette socks also for me, also cast on after Christmas - on the heel flap of sock one.  I wasn't going to count a pair of go-everywhere, waiting-in-lines-work generic socks as part of my allotted 5 WIPs, but...

3)  Generic stockinette socks that I forgot about, using knitpicks bare yarn that I dyed.  I'm almost done with sock #2, but I did a round toe on the first sock that I need to rip and re-knit, because I hate it.

4)  Feather & Fan handspun scarf - 50% done.  Thinking whether or not to continue or rip and use the yarn for something else because I ended up with more yardage than I thought...

5)  Seed stitch handspun scarf - started yesterday.  Bad.  But I just couldn't wait to see how the yarn (spun from a Merlin the Cat batt) knit up.  Kinda scratchy :(

6)  Hat for my coworker.  I bought a hat while Christmas shopping, and immediately everyone who sees it wants one.  It should be an easy knit, but I have to wing it as I go.  And I have to make a second for another one of the nurses immediately after finishing the first.

And the snoozers:

1)  Mitered square baby blanket, started last January.  Baby born in warmer weather, didn't need to get finished.  Was going to be finished as Christmas gift, but wasn't.  Will now wait until another baby-to-be (girl), I guess.

2)  Sahara sweater.  Started last fall, just needs sleeves.  Body was fun, sleeves are boring.  Not sure I'll ever wear it.  Need to reconsider - frog or finish?

3)  Swallowtail.  Started a million years ago, I think.  Got sent to time-out for naughty nupp behavior.  No real reason to finish it though there's not much left to go.  Will keep around on the needles, though, in case I need a quick gift for a girl any time soon.

The immediate que with deadlines (other than the co-worker hats):

1)  Modified Jekyll and Hyde for my officemate's granddaughter who has very sensitive skin and needs to have her face covered in cold weather, but her pre-school teaches won't wrap her scarf for her.  Will start as soon as I receive head measurements from her mum.  Have yarn.

2)  Trellis sweater for co-worker who is due in two weeks.  Already told her the sweater won't be done in time for birth, but baby won't be going out in this weather, anyway.  Didn't tell her that sweater hasn't even been started.  Chrismas got in the way.  Have yarn.

Hmmm... since it seems that I have some pressing projects in que, I'll have to either:

A)  Pretend that less emergent projects hidden behind couch are "hibernating" and therefore removed from WIP status, or

B)  Suck it up and admit to myself that I am unable to maintain a limited number of active projects. 

Is my first New Year's goal ruined already?  On day TWO of the year?  No way!  New Year's "goal" would be better interpreted as just that:  a goal that should be considered occasionally, but does not necessarily have to be attained until the end of the year.  Right?

Oh, no.  I can't use that line of reasoning when considering my other goal of knitting with stash.  Much too dangerous.

Cards

One of the best things about the winter holidays are the few extra days off work.  Once the Christmas madness is over, there's always a little extra time to relax.  And craft.

I've made a bunch of ATCs over the past week or two.  Here's a few:

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone is having a peaceful and safe New Year's Eve!

I'm sitting at home, spinning and watching TV.   I've already finished my main New Year's Eve tradition, which is copying all the birthdays and special occasions into the new calendar.  This year's is from Nikol of The Disgruntled Housewife.  I was supposed to go downtown and see a band play, but I've been feeling yucky with a cold and lack of sleep, so I sent the hubby off without me.  I'm hoping to ring in the New Year in my dreams...

I've decided that rather than make a long, exhaustive (and completely unreasonable) list of New Year's Resolutions, on the first of each month I'm going to list a couple of new goals - some short-term, others with the intention of keeping up with them from that point on...  So here goes!

January 2008 Goals:

Crafting...  (1) Work from stash.  This goes for knitting, spinning, and sewing.  I can buy something if I absolutely need it to finish a project, but no more elaborate planning and purchasing for projects that I'll never even start!  (2)  Minimize start-itis.  I don't know how many WIPs I actually have right now - having worked on nothing but Christmas knitting for the past two months - but I'd like to keep it at 5 or fewer from now on.  Five even seems like a lot, but it allows for more than enough variety that I can't claim boredom as a reaon to cast on something new.   

Life...  (1) Maintain order in my house.  I have to believe that this can be done, despite my long history of failing at it.  Pick up clutter and do a wee bit of housework every day so that Sunday doesn't always bring about endless toiling.  (2)  Start doing those yoga DVDs I bought months ago.  I'm getting fat and stiff.  (3)  Either maintain this damn blog or end it.  Two months between posts is absurd!

There.  That seems manageable.  In 31 days, we'll see how I well I've succeeded...

Appetizer
Name a great website you would recommend to others.

recycledbags.com - save the world and stuff...

Soup
On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 as highest), how often do you dream at night?

Well, supposedly everyone dreams all night every night - but I almost never remember mine!

Salad
Did you have a pet as a child?  If so, what kind and what was its name?

We always had many cats, always at least 3 - BlackOff, Walter, Elmo, Rudy, Neil, Tommy.  I had a pretty white kitten that ran away.  I had a puppy for a few weeks that died.  When I was in high school I started with rodents - a couple of hamsters, several guinea pigs, and many rats.  They make great pets, but my husband has outlawed any more rats because they don't live long and I get too attached...

Main Course
If you had the chance to star in a commercial, what would you choose to advertise?

A bed.  I'd just lay there sleeping.  I'm tired today :)

Dessert
What is your favorite kind of hard candy?

Oh, the little root-beer barrels, by far!

Have a great weekend!

Friday Feast

My face is still swollen and I feel braindead, but I'm sitting here at work trying to type clinic notes.  It's about 18 degrees in my office.  Fun.  I will try to complete Feast #165 for a little break...

Appetizer
If you were a dog, what breed would you be, and why? 

I would be a Golden Retriever.  Stocky and built to last, quiet and slow-moving, observant and easy-going.

Soup
What does the color purple make you think of?

Unfortunately, that God-awful child-paralyzing beast Barney.

Salad
Approximately how long does it take you to get ready each morning?

45 minutes, usually.  10 minutes for coffee and eye-opening, 10 minutes for shower (or hair washing bent over the side of the tub - I really prefer to take leisurely nighttime baths), 10 for getting dressed, 10 for makeup and toothbrushing.  5 for bag packing and running out the door.

Main Course
How many cousins do you have, and are you close to them? 

I have 5 first cousins, and I'm not close to any of them, because my parents aren't close to their siblings so I rarely see them even though we live near them all.

Dessert
Take your initials (first, middle, last) and come up with something else those letters could stand for. (Example: SFO = Sweet Funny Otter)

JLW - Jolly Little Woman.  Except that I'm not.  Jolly, that is, at least today.  But I'm a fairly little woman, I guess!