Silky Doll

Why I love the weekend

2012-01-28T09:35:00.001+11:00

I get woken up by cuddles and faces like this.

And then get to spend the weekend knitting with this for company.

Home life is pretty great.

I think I need a nap now.

2012-01-01T10:41:00.002+11:00

So it the New Year. 2012 will be an exciting year for me I think. This will be the first year without any of my family living in the same state as me with my mother moving literally to the other side of the country for her job. It's not so scary though, mostly I think this will give me an opportunity to find my own feet better. And of course, the Big Day is happening in 3.5 months. I am pretty damned excited about the wedding. When my headache (sadly not related to a fabulous New Year's Eve, I've just had this bloody headache for 4 days now) calms down a little, I plan to make some wedding invites and see how my second idea looks.
So looking back on 2011, I actually achieved all of my goals except losing weight and I've made some really healthy steps towards that lately. I have a full time non retail job, I knit both hanami and La Cumparastia, I even designed my owl lace shawl, which I am in the process of happily knitting. The wedding planning is going well. My craft room is pretty damned awesome, I even made myself a skirt in there over the last few days, which I am wearing right now! It doesn't have the lemon yellow curtains, but with summer here, I am slightly relieved that the nice heavy blackout curtains are in place.
So my 2012 goals:
1) Minimise - minimise my weight, minimise the amount of crap I buy, minimise my spendings (and maximise my savings). These are 3 things that continue to be an epic nightmare for me. At least with the weight, I have a very clear goal of the wedding and getting into my dress. The others are just something I have to really work on. I did up a budget last week and know how much play room I have each fortnight now though, and I honestly think that will help a lot.
2) Knit more of my own patterns - I have all these ideas, a lot of half started projects and I just kind of stop with them. So this year, I want to keep on it, and keep producing my own patterns and really get it moving.
3) My etsy store. I reopened my etsy store Here a little while ago, so I want to try and update it at least fortnightly.
4) This I think is the most important one. ENJOY THE WEDDING! I want it to be a happy and fun day with no stress. I am really excited about marrying Dinosaur and enjoy every minute of our life together.

Be happy in 2012 everyone!

What I did on Friday night.

2011-12-17T09:54:00.001+11:00

So Its been a while

2011-11-14T19:55:00.002+11:00

So I forgot to blog one week and then life happened in a big way. My mum accidentally ran over my dog, and sadly she lost the battle with the 4wd. So that was really sad and painful and horrible and was only the beginning. Mum had surgery, which whilst not unexpected, was still stressful and tiring and long. Then the cat got into fight and got very sick and had to have surgery. So that's been a whole lot of fun. Also wham surprise lady stuff. So that was all a bit of suck. So I didn't make the gym as much as I wanted, but I also didn't turn to food as a comfort, I maintained smaller portion sizes and lost weight instead of gaining it. Overall a satisfactory outcome.
Today I went to the gym after work and really pushed myself with the C25K. And then I actually did weights. I had a lovely personal trainer come and help me because I was trying to read the instructions on the weights machine, and it was really helpful having her help me with it, so tomorrow I am going to call and find out all the details and give it a go.
So that is where I am at.

Success, failure and strategies.

2011-10-23T19:42:00.002+11:00

So this week had mixed results. On the one hand, I made it to the gym 3 days and successfully completed week 1 of the c25k program. This success was tinged a little on the final day because of the ankle injury. It flared up after 2 runs and I wasn't smart enough to strap it before the third run which means I had to run a bit slower than the others. So before tomorrow I will strap my still sore ankle. I realise running on an injury is potentially dangerous, but at the same time, I've been putting off exercising for nearly 2 years now because of an ankle. So I plan to continue on and if necessary slow the running pace on bad ankle days. Despite this, I actually managed to gain 1.4kg. I'd like to pretend this was muscle growth, but the reality is I had a shit food week. On Sunday night we went to Nandos with friends, on Tuesday we ate Italian with friends, on Thursday (and then I may have eaten left overs for the next 2 days) we got pizza and then last night was the Nara festival, so I ate tako yaki. On the upside, I had salad and tuna for lunch most days last week (I think there was one day where I ate crap but I honestly don't remember).
So onto a new week. Last week having prepared salad that I could add tuna/chicken/goats cheese to really worked for me. So when I did the groceries, I made sure to buy more of the prepared salad. One of my major problems last week was snacking. The increase in exercise meant that I was a lot hungrier. So I've got 2 plans to tackle this. 1) I bought a big box of single serve instant porridge. This is the good carmen's stuff, so it's got fruit and nuts and tasty things in it, and I can prepare it at work after the gym. I did this on Friday and it got me through until lunch. So I'm going to start having porridge at work every morning. 2) Prepared healthy snacks. I find that I struggle to eat a lot of fruit. I like fruit, but I get easily bored with it, and don't really like apples, the difficulty of peeling oranges in work clothes, or bananas when they go brown (and I'm sure you're now all thinking good god woman, grow up and stop being a baby). So yesterday, I bought 1/2 a honey dew melon, a rock melon and a big piece of watermelon, and cut them up. They are now in a container in my fridge. It means that at night when I make my lunch, I can put the fruit in a smaller container, and when I'm at home I have an easily accessible healthy snack.
So those are my strategies for this week. Along with drinking lots of water, which is actually very easy when it's this hot.

On a totally different note, I bought a hand held butane torch this week, which inspired me to go back to making stitch markers and jewelery. So tonight, I reopened my etsy store. It can be found here.

Broken Record

2011-10-16T20:31:00.003+11:00

Well as everyone knows, my weight has been a topic of much concern for me for a couple of years and i seem incapable of staying motivated enough to stick with anything long enough to lose more than 5kg before I go bouncing back up again. Which sucks and is stupid and I know the block is all mental. So I ordered my wedding dress 2 sizes too small. This gives me 181 one days to shift 2 dress sizes, which is a completely manageable feet. Realistically if I'm motivated, it can be shifted in time for Christmas and New Years. So I've joined the gym that is on the way to work, and will go in the morning before work. This was a strategy that really worked for me when I was shifting weight for a friend's wedding, but I stopped after I hurt my knee and then life just kind of happened at me.
So I am currently 86.3kg. Tomorrow I am going to start with run 1 of the C25K run, I'm about to set up a playlist on my phone to help keep me going. My plan is to go at least 3 times a week, but I'm hoping as I adjust to working out again I'll go more.
So to keep myself motivated, I am doing 2 things. 1) putting a picture of my wedding dress on my phone, and 2)every 5kg (although 6.3 the first time because I am a little ocd and would like the numbers to be pretty) going to treat myself to a back massage and then when I hit my goal of 65kg I'm going to buy myself some shiny new clothes (because I will need something to wear when I am skinny and cute again).
This is the plan people, let's see how well I stick to it :P

Seriously?!

2011-08-02T18:21:00.002+10:00

If someone resigns from a job and explains to you that they had deeply unpleasant experiences with 4 different departments and do not want to work for the company at all EVER again, do not, I repeat DO NOT, try and get them another job there. I don't care how shiny the company thinks they are and how much the company would love to have them back, IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

END

Getting a job

2011-07-10T12:16:00.002+10:00

So I've been job hunting for about 7 months now. I've had temp Contractor roles for the last 3 months and was pretty sick for the months leading up to that, but really I'm just a stupid head. I finally worked out this morning that maybe I need to re-jigger my resume and cover letter and just generally try and alter my writing style.
I've found that since writing most of my essays in Japanese for 4 years, my ability to write in English has suffered somewhat, although writing has honestly never been my strong point. I'm much better verbally discussing something. This was evidenced all through high school and university where my average oral mark was something ridiculous like 20 points above my average essay mark.
So I've been sick for 2 weeks and realised in a panic early this morning that my current contract ends in about 2 weeks and that because I've been so sick recently, I missed the cut off for most of the jobs I was applying for. This morning, I got up, made a cup of tea and set about the process of regjiggering my resume. So I've put all the practical bits in, done most of the formatting (it looks so shiny and dot points are my friend) and now I am trying to write that pesky paragraph at the top that essentially says this is why I'm shiny and you should hire me. And all I can think of is a song by Charlotte Martin called the Stalker Song. Specifically the line "I'm normal, Please date me". That's the same as I'm shiny, please hire me, right?

Funny

2011-05-24T15:13:00.001+10:00

So until close of business today I work for a large phone company. One of my duties recently has been answering calls and transferring them to the relevant department. Not normally a great aspect but generally not unpleasant. Yesterday everyone I spoke to was grumpy. Today everyone seems a bit vague.
My favourite call was a clearly confused lady.
Me: large telephone company, how may I help you.
Lady: I'd like to talk to your complaints department.
Me: No problems at all was that for business or residential services?
Lady: residential. There's been a trailer parked out front of my house for a couple of days now.
Me: I see. And is it a large company trailer?
Lady: no it's my neighbours
Me: ah. I think you have the wrong number. You've called large telephone company. We handle telephone accounts
Lady: oh. Well I was put through to you.
Me: right. Well we can't help you with that, you'll need to call the road traffic authorities.
Lady: can you transfer me?
Me: no I can't. You'll need to google them.

Laundry and other things

2011-04-14T10:34:00.003+10:00

So things in the new place are going pretty well. I managed to par down my crap quite a bit, although some further parring would be advantageous (from where though, I have no idea). I still have about 4 boxes of clothes and fabrics to drop off at an op shop, and then a huge box of bear fur that I need to put up on ebay (It's all the good stuff, so I'd like to make some money back) and some dresses that I should figure out what I'm doing with. Currently I'm finding the over riding problem here is lack of storage/display stuff. I need a filing cabinet to get all my filing out a plastic tub and into some kind of order (it all got very jumbled in the move, and I find as we become responsible pet owners and maintainers of our home, there are more important reciepts and invoices that I'd rather just not throw away). Plus we definitely need another couple of bookshelves. There are books, plus I have my collection of fancy barbies (just shhhh). I did however realise the other day that we had a shed out the back and have set Dinosaur the task of de-spidering it for me so I can store excess plastic tubs in the interim (only seal-able ones so nothing gets in them by accident). I have also developed a ridiculous collection of bags around my knitting corner (active projects, have a whole craft room for the other stuff).
One thing I was not expecting was the sheer amount of laundry Dinosaur and I seem to be able to produce. So last weekend, I did a kind of half assed job of the laundry because we were both sick, but I needed pants. So today, because I am feeling vaguely more human and the more importantly, the sun is out. So this morning, I went through all of the rooms (we're sleeping in several rooms atm due to the ensuite being renovated) and collected all the various rogue socks and found some linen I thought had been washed, but clearly hadn't. Altogether, this has equated to 3 (3!!!) loads of washing, and that's not even going near the plastic container full of bed linen that I somehow still haven't washed (don't judge, we somehow acquired a metric tonne of linen from my mother when we moved, and our linen cupboard is over flowing at this stage).
In other news, the never ending job hunt continues, which is frustrating. I get interviews, I go to the interview, I make it through to the second round of interviews and then I don't get the job because I'm either too qualified or under-qualified. So it's all supremely frustrating and I'm at the stage now where every time someone says you're overqualified I want to yell at them if I didn't want the job I wouldn't have wasted my time by applying for it. But I continue to apply for various jobs, spending my days knitting and writing selection criteria. Mostly I've been working on Hanami for the engagement party and I'm just over half way through, which is not a bad effort for a week and a half.

On the design again

2011-03-09T11:02:00.002+11:00

I have been in a mad sort of place, where I am having heaps of ideas. It's wonderful. Because not only am I having ideas, I am working very little, so I have a lot of time. It's wonderful. In the last 2 weeks, I have finished a chart for a double sided cable ribbed scarf, charted and began a scarfy-cowl thing that essentially converts into a wrap, charted a new sock, charted and started a sock in sparkly yarn (my current love), finished and released a new pattern, finished but for measurements another, and drafted ideas for a cardigan and 2 more hats. It's wonderful. I am seriously loving this whole time thing. Also my sparkly socks.
I would have photographed the sparkly socks for you, but I'm using a purple yarn so dark it's almost black. It's Dream in Color's Starry in the colourway Purple Rain. It's fingering weight superwash merino with a silver spun through it. It is amazing. I am always skeptical when I order yarn from the states. I ordered some yarn about 3 years, after lots of people went on about how wonderful it was and when it got here, it was beautiful in terms of the colour, but frankly, it was lacking in any of the qualities I admire about Australian yarn. Our wool is apparently squishier than theirs. It has a smoosh factor that I love working with, and it feels softer to the touch. But this yarn, oh this yarn, I am so glad I ordered it in 3 colours. I am already thinking about ordering more when I next have the money to order yarn. It feels like it's going to wear relatively well as well. It has a nylon componenent, so whilst its still soft, its not so soft it's going to felt the second I look at it. This makes me happy.

Moving

2011-02-06T13:44:00.001+11:00

So yesterday, I moved for what may actually be the last time in my so far nomadic life. Dinosaur and I are now in our own place, although it resembles a disaster zone more than a house. The move itself was somewhat traumatic which was then added to by my mother. The truck we hired broke down half way between yass and Canberra, while full of stuff. This involved transferring everything to a new truck and going again. Fine. What ever. It happens. After this, we had to go out for dinner with my mother for her husbands surprise birthday dinner. She rings me at 6:10 when I'm loading the last of the stuff into the truck with Dinosaur's dad and bil to tell me I had to come back and shower for dinner right now and then decided to tell me off when I explained we are moving. I will be back when I can. Dinner itself was painful and long and ultimately resulted in me not having a coffee cup this morning. A fact that was a bit hard to bear at 6:30 when we had to take the truck back.
We made it though. Over the next few weeks we'll unpack and it will be wonderful. Honest. In the meantime I'm off to find my coffee cup.

See you later, Alligator.

2011-01-04T15:49:00.001+11:00

Well it's that time of year again, where I think about the previous year and what I want to achieve the following year. Nit so much my resolutions, as things I want to attempt.
So in 2010, there was a bunch of things I wanted to do. Mostly, I didn't get there. No big deal though. What I did achieve was the really important thing. I learnt to handle my Mother's crazy better. I found the power to say no, I need to do my thing now and not then ruin my thing by guilting myself into doing what she wanted. Honestly, I'm pretty damned pleased with myself. Ultimately, I think 2010 wasn't the greatest year, but I was pretty happy.
Bad things:
Falling over and rupturing the stabilizing ligament in an ankle. Honestly, this is the main source of my not achieving my goals. It's really hard to lose excess weight and exercise regularly when you can't weight bare on one leg for the better part of 6 weeks and then have a fairly long process of getting to a point with it where work and uni and the bare minimum of what you need to do don't result in you being in agony all evening. I found the whole recovery process to be exhausting and it really resulted in me rearranging my priorities for a Jutes chunk of the year, and really valuing quiet time by myself or with Dinosaur.
Mum getting married in th middle of a party I'd arranged and ran without telling me she was going to kind of sucked. But again, resulted in good things. That was the turning the point for me to be able go no actually, you know what, I don't need that. This also prompted me to move in with Dinosaur a few months earlier, and honestly, living with him is amazing.
Glandular Fever. This was not needed whilst being 2ic and acting manager in the last 2 months of uni. But I survived. And am also finally starting to feel mostly human.
The ankle and glandular fever were the worse. It meant that I ended up behind on uni work, and that the work I was producing were not up to my usual standard. And that's just frustrating. Its also one of the main reasons I did not achieve the goal of getting more of my knitting patterns up in the last year. I finished a total of 0 patterns, but I have a sock pattern, 2 hat patterns and a fingerless mitt pattern ready for test knitting, editing and photos.
So, the Good Things:
Graduating uni. Even with the ankle and the glandular fever and the too much work, I did it. I have photos, a degree and the smug knowledge that damn straight I'm that good. still not sure exactly what I will do, just that It Is NOT Retail.
Standing up to my Mother. This was hard and continues to be a work in progress. I'm getting there and ultimately I feel saner for it, and I think our relationship is beginning to improve as she sees me as an independent woman, rather than her child at her beck and call. It's also resulted in my relationship with my Nan improving too, which I really love.
Dinosaur. He continues to be a wonderful feature of my life, and I am very much so looking forward to marrying him. We spend our time together joking and laughing and making plans for the future and enjoying each other's company. Our first holiday together is going beautifully and we already have our next planned for March next year. He is kind and sweet and we are together and independent of each other. He doesn't mind when I go do my own thing, and he isn't clingy while I'm gone. He gets that I need space and handled the stash taking over his bedroom with remarkable grace, which I only hope that I can reciprocate next year when car parts fresh from the mail inevitably take over the kitchen table.
I finished 3 cardigans. I finally finished Vivian, which was one of my goals for 2010. I think that I learned a lot from that project, in particular don't try and knit charts and decreases when stoned out of your brain on the good painkillers. I also knitted Meg the Briar Rose cardigan and a Whole Wheat Cardigan for myself. these were both much simpler projects and went off without a hitch really.
New House! Dinosaur's mum bought us the cutest house ever to live in. We move in about a week after we get back from Fiji, so mid January. We're going to grow tasty things in the garden, and get kittens, a lizard and an axelotle. I also got a fantastic heavy bottomed blue pot for Christmas and a bunch of really nice baking dishes, so I cannot wait to get into the kitchen and create tasty things.
I joined a gym. I've only managed to make it about 6 times in the first month because December in retail is awful, energy sucking and soul destroying. But I am hopeful. And sides, this is totally a positive start to the goal of getting fit and getting my weight under control.
So 2010 kind of sucked. But I am happy. My family and friends are all healthy and ultimately it's all going to be awesome.
So, onto 2011. My goals are:
Get to the gym at least 3 times a week. As much for getting fit and gaining sanity as for weight loss.
Find a full time job that is not in retail or hospitality. Using degree if at all possible.
Set up a beautiful and inviting craft room, with soft buttery yellow curtains.
Make said curtains yourself.
Grow, and not kill, at least herbs and strawberries in the new garden.
Try and make something new to eat on a regular basis.
Continues with standing up to Mum. I think this will be doubly important this year, whilst planning the engagement party and wedding.
Plan the wedding dinosaur and I want, not the wedding other people want.
During times of stress, be aware of what I'm eating. Rather than going oh my god the world is too hard and eating cheesecake for dinner, try and continue to eat in my regular healthy pattern. This includes getting on top of my breakfast situation and making sure I get up early enough to have a nice, sustaining breakfast before work everyday.
Like last year, I want to try and get more of my knitting patterns up. Rather than letting it go, I will get those patterns re-knitted, edited and test knitted and up. I will do it this year!
Last year, I wanted to knit Vivian. This year, I want to knit lace. I am going to try the Hanami Stole and the La Crumpersita shawl.
With uni out of the way, I feel that 2011's goals are fairly achievable. I hope everyone has a happy and safe New Year!

Merry F**king Christmas

2010-12-08T18:58:00.002+11:00

I am currently the manager of a retail outlet. This in itself is not a stressful thing. What is a stressful thing is how badly the previous manager managed to fuck it up just before he left (I am beginning to suspect on purpose as well) and how useless one of my new staff (who was meant to be a solution to our availability issue, which was all good and well until 3 weeks after she started she decided to tell me she's away half of december and all of january)actually is. This has gotten me thinking today and I have lists
A way for Staff to get through Christmas in a relatively sane manner:
1) Tell your manager when you are going away, preferably if being hired as a CHRISTMAS CASUAL before your employment.
2) When your manager says please do this, don't stand at the counter playing with your fingers and then look hurt when you are told off and told to go back to work. If you had been doing what you were meant to, you wouldn't have been told off.
3) Use your damned brains. If something needs done, don't look at it, do it.
4) Do not expect your manager to change the ENTIRE month's roster to suit you because you're family has decided to leave the city for the month. Guess what hon, you are a casual and its not my problem. I will not stuff everyone else's shifts up to suit you. You are 100% replaceable for those 3 shifts a week. Do not piss your manager off by telling her you want the shifts changed. It's not going to happen. If you piss them off too much, you will find yourself completely bereft of shifts. It is a fact.
5) As a casual, if you would like your day to go smoothly, do not tell your manager when they can be back from lunch and then walk out of the shop when they are standing at the front, lunch and bag in hand talking to a friend for your lunch. It will a) piss your manager off to no end, b) result in an ass kicking when you get back from lunch and you are confronted with a hungry grumpy manager who's lunch has gone cold
6) At any level, your weekly hours are non negotiable. If you are rostered on at a certain time and certain day, do not turn up 2 hours early and expect to be allowed to start work and leave 2 hours early. This is retail. Rosters ensure enough cover at any given time. Your rostered times are not interchangeable for any equivalent time period in that day.

Customer:
1) DO NOT BE RUDE. We are doing everything we can to help you. If you are rude or dick, this will stop. We can be very unhelpful if you rub us the wrong way.
2) If a staff member is clearly at the register SERVING ANOTHER CUSTOMER, do not summon them over like a dog.
3) For that matter, at not time at all is it appropriate to summon a sales assistant like a dog. If they snap and flip you the bird, you had it coming.
4) If a staff member is clearly talking to another customer, wait your turn. Do not interrupt. You are no more important than the other customer. In fact, by being rude, do not be shocked if the sales assistant spends more time than necessary with the other customer.
5) If you are in an outlet, and there are sizes out there, rather than asking the assistant to find you your size, open your eyes, look in the pile. You might be pleasantly surprised. It's usually there.
6) If you are in an outlet, don't ask for further discount.
7) If you do ask for further discount and are refused or pointed to the stores sale, do not try and get more discount. Your assistant may very well walk away from you completely.
8) Finally, if a sales assistant is by themselves in a packed shop and they are running around like a headless chicken, do not go up and demand their attention and get snarky when they say they will be with you as soon as they can. They will honestly come and help you just as soon as they can. In this situation if you feel yourself getting snarky at them, refer to rule 4. You are no more important than any other customer in the store.

By following these rules, I feel I could like people a lot more over this challenging time.

Very Good Weather for Ducks And How I Wish That Had Not Included My Bedroom.

2010-12-02T22:05:00.002+11:00

Canberra has been wet and disgusting for a very long time now, with brief patches of sunshine, usually on days that I am stuck inside, at work. I personally am getting very sick of this and more importantly, am running out of clean pants. Today is my last day off that I will be able to spend entirely with myself for a little while, as Christmas and graduation and the need to run errands for Fiji happens. So I got up and sighed because it was raining, then I got dressed into gym clothes and made some coffee and breakfast and watched Glee while I dealt with the business that is the morning. And then I went to the gym. At the gym, I did a full hours workout and left feeling very pleased with myself.
I went to the grocery store on my way home and picked up some tasty things for lunch. Once settled at home, I put on a dvd and half watched it whilst I worked on a big girl job application. Then oh noes! My peanut sized bladder struck and I had to pee and I had to pee now! So I got up and much to my confusion put my foot into something wet. I looked around and Shock! Horror! My room was flooded?!
I then spent the next 3 hours with Dinosaur's Dad as we tried to get the water (and apparently all resident Dust Bunnies) out and dealt with. Thankfully other than my quiet afternoon and the unfinished job application, causalities were fairly minimal (although there is a much loved over priced handbag recovering from the ordeal).
But so whilst it is great weather for ducks, I do not particularly like Ducks and would prefer my bedroom to not become a duck pond.
I'm also working the next 3 days and my washing has tripled.

And Life Goes On

2010-11-28T20:27:00.002+11:00

Sorry about the Emo-wangst post. Uni is over and I had that awful slamming realisation that I have absolutely no idea what to do next. This is the first time I've not had a plan for what's happening next. Which was then compounded by a general hatred of my current job. It's not all that bad, but I am coming to the conclusion that retail and I don't really get along, and the sooner I'm out of it, the better I will be. I have now recovered my shit, and I am applying for various interesting jobs. I am trying to find things which are more likely to use my planning skills, and preferably involve less rude customers, and with any luck, more opportunities than store manager.
So lots of things have happened lately.
I've finally finished uni. It took me 4 years, but I had my last assignment on the 8th of November at 9:15 am. I have graduation on the 10th of December.
I was acting manager for a month, and concluded that yes, I can do it, but no, I don't really want to.
I went back to the gym. I did get sick the same night I started, which through me out for close to 2 weeks, but I am starting to feel much better and intend to go at least 3 times next week. I will get on top of my weight, which I know I have been moaning about for goddess only knows how long (well I know, but I don't want to think about it)
I finished my 3rd cardigan for the year, photos another day hopefully.
I've gone back to reading for pleasure, and I think its pretty rad. Books and comics again!

And of course this:

Dinosaur asked me three weeks ago tomorrow. There will be many months of planning ahead.

In another life

2010-11-25T22:01:00.002+11:00

I'd have more energy
I'd want to travel
I'd be a qualified translator
I'd have an amazing job as translator
I'd have managed the Japanese skills to actually be a translator
I'd have the motivation to improve
I'd at least be able to work on the knitwear designs I keep pretending to be able to do
I'd have finished my webpage
I'd be able to save money
I'd be skinny again

Why?

2010-10-28T20:36:00.001+11:00

Inner Voice: I think we're doing too much.
Me: I have no idea what you're talking about.
Inner Voice: You know, 2 4000 word essays, 2ic, followed by an acting manager role
Me: Well its only for a few more weeks
Inner Voice: it's twenty to nine and you're 1400 words in paper due at midnight and you have to work tomorrow and oh, the next 5 days.
Me: Shut up
Inner Voice: I'm just saying
Me: Well don't.
Inner Voice: Why weren't you more organised and started writing last week?

Why indeed. I am beginning to suspect because I secretly hate myself.

List

2010-10-10T20:14:00.000+11:00

Well, I have a morning off. And I am in a house with no internet, which is okay, because I am writing a blog post to post later. Things are kind of yucky at the moment. I am in my final 3 weeks of university and have ran out of motivation to study or do anything. Plus I am doing too many things are work. So, I am making lists.
When I have my own house:
• I will have a cupboard dedicated to tea. I like to collect tea, and so I will have a cupboard where all the different kinds of tea live in there own little boxes and containers with the pots of tea and all the related tea paraphernalia. That way, when I want tea, I can make it happen without foraging.
• Still on the subject of tea, I will have 2 of those plastic tea jugs that keeps the leaves in one section. This way, there can be big or small jugs of ice tea in the fridge whenever.
• There will be no television, computers, consoles, or laptops in the bedroom at night. I enjoy this sleeping business.
• We will have a room for computers and media. This room will be as far away from the bedroom as we can manage.
• In my kitchen, I will have neatly organised cupboards and drawers which have specific things in them, in an easy to find manner.
• There will be an endless supply of tang and chocolate milk powder.
• I will have multiple types of muffin trays in all different sizes.
• A room, even just a small one, dedicated to fiber and related paraphernalia. There will be plastic tubs for fiber and then pretty blue shelves for yarn. They might apple green though.
• There will be somewhere nice to sit and have people over, possibly with a bbq.
• Lots of cats

Checking In

2010-07-21T13:54:00.002+10:00

So two blog posts in one month. Anyone else impressed by this? I thought that a check in would be a great idea. So I've been doing the whole no spending thing for about 2 weeks. The first week was a bit of a fail. There was an incident that involve me going into JB Hi-Fi and finding tv series for $25 or less in the buy 2 get 1 free bin. So I bought Dead Like Me Season 1, Dresden Files (I'd like to see anyone convince me I didn't need to walk out of the shop with that one, they wouldn't have won) and Angel season 1. I'm actually pretty impressed by Angel. I kept putting it off because he just bugged me in Buffy. He was so bloody whiny, but without her, he's actually pretty cool. Plus the side character spend a lot of time making sure he doesn't have time to brood. I'm pretty pleased with the whole thing. Other than the JB Hi-Fi fall down, I've done pretty well. The only other stuff I've bought is some bras that actually fit (all women will understand why that was important) and uni stuff. I realised about a week before uni started back, my pacer was broken, and I may have some slight issues when it comes to my stationary and need specific tip sizes. So this involved not only a trip to Officeworks to get the basics like books, an erase and the all important stapler (helps for physical submissions), but also some time on ebay ordering my silly pacer and the inks for my pen. Overall though, I've been very good about the whole thing. I haven't bought yarn or any random crap for the sake of buying.

I moved out on Sunday. It was about a month earlier than expected, but it all went fairly seemlessly. I still need to go back to Mum's to tidy some last minute stuff up, but no big deal really. Just putting remaining stuff in boxes to go out to Yass until the apartment is built. Living with the Dinosaur is going quite well.We were both a bit worried that it would involve huge amounts of social contact in the evenings, but we have quickly discovered that we're about as social as the other at night. So our interaction tends to involve sitting in the same room together. Although last night we watched Bubba Hotep. If you haven't seen it, and you're a fan of silly B Grade and Bruce Campbell go now! Find a copy! Enjoy!

Uni has started back this week, I am currently doing 3 subjects, although one of them is because it seemed interesting. It goes from 5-8 pm, so I'm not sure yet. Lots of really interesting sounding assignments though, so fingers crossed for a great last semester!

Huh? June? Where'd it go?

2010-07-07T11:06:00.005+10:00

Well life has been am absolute blur. In the last 2 months, I have finished uni, organised most of an engagement party for my mother, worked an average of 25 hours a week, finished the knitting of a sweater, made a Jayne hat, bought new shoes, spent too much money, cut my hair off, survived an engagement party that turned into a wedding, cleaned the house top to bottom (twice!), cleaned my room out in a pretty impressive fashion, book an overseas holiday and have managed to keep mostly sane.

1) Uni - that almost killed me this semester. I managed to get behind (funnily enough what with the incredible ankle injury and all). So the last few weeks were absolute hell. It did not help that Dinosaur went to Japan during this time, so I couldn't even go hide at his house when it was really bad. The final group assignment was just a joke. We had a group member that just for whatever reason would not do anything, and when she did, she did a half assed job anyway and ended up producing more work for the rest of the group anyway. When I submitted that final write up after the presentation, it felt like a huge weight had been lifted. I really hate group work and that really did just cement that sentiment. In the end, I survived, and got pretty good grades and am quite pleased with my second last semester of uni.

2) I ended up getting another hair cut. It's even shorter this time, but I actually really love it.

3) Spending too much money has been fun. Except for the bit where you're going huh?! What? Where did it all go. So I have decided that from the 4th of July until the 6th of August I am only going to buy essentials. Essentials include birthday presents, petrol, and bills obviously. I am including a couple of drinks and 1 eat out meal a week into this. I know that it would make me cranky not too. And really, it is okay to buy 1 or 2 coffee's or cold drinks while I'm at work. It's part of the point of working. I also have a couple of bags out of clothes out the back at work, so because we are expected to wear clothes that are actually in the shop at the time I have decided that 1 item from my bags a week is allowed. I might even eventually catch up and not being putting more in my bag than I am buying :P So this is the plan. Maybe I will actually succeed in the savings.

4) Engagement party. Mum and her partner got engaged on mother's day. Which pissed me off. But we won't go there because that is just an angry angry rant. Anyway, it was their engagment party on the weekend. So I've spent most of the last month organising and cleaning and sorting out guest lists and making invitations and making sure the girls are all appropriately dressed etc. And they go and get married in the middle of the engagement party without telling anyone but a couple of people who needed a better reason than an engagement party to travel from Melbourne. So now I have more family. It was a good night, but am still holding it against them somewhat.

5) Vivian! Vivian is almost finished! She is currently lounging in the sun drying off after a lovely wash the other day. When she is dry, I will sew the zipper in and parade around in her. It's a pretty cool cardigan and will get it's own post.

6) My room is pretty freaking clean right now. There is a couple of spots that I have tidied up (like next to my bed and the top of the computer desk). I did a massive clean out and cull of all my stuff. Partly because I really needed to clear some of the stuff out and stop hoarding, but partly because I will be moving again. Obviously now that she's married, Mum will want to actually live with her husband. So I need to find a new home (I'm not living in Yass. just no). So I will be living with Dinosaur and his family for a couple of months and then Dinosaur and my friend from primary school will move into an apartment mum is having built. But my stuff is now far more manageable than it was a month ago, although I do still need to cull the wardrobe. It's a bit much.

7) Overseas holiday!!!!! Dinosaur and I are going to Fiji a couple of days after Christmas! I'm a bit excited. We are staying at some really fancy pants resorts and it's going to be awesome fun!

Life. Don't talk to me about Life.

2010-05-19T11:46:00.002+10:00

It's assessment time at uni. So in the next 2 weeks (13 days rather, what with not actually having classes on Wednesday anymore, especially not after managing to sleep through the last one today) I have 1 2000 word essay, 1 25 min interactive group assignment, 1 11 page written document associated with the writing on the group assignment, 1 semester long learning portfolio (that shock horror is not up to date) and 1 terms worth of archaeology notes (which bizarrely is up to date and even typed nicely), before getting a take home exam on the 1st of June. I keep telling myself I can do it, while simultaneously wondering how inappropriate it would be to take my laptop and knitting to the pub and work on my essay while drinking beer and then turning up to the group meeting pissed and unprepared. At least I've slept this time though, so there will be no hysterical suggestions about sock puppets and hiding under the table.
The ankle is still heeling, I feel like I've hit a wall with it. It's mostly okay. I can walk, I can jog a little, but it still feels quite unstable and it aches in the morning and in the evening, and some days I can go up the ladders at work and other days I can't. I guess it's just one of those things I am going to have to be extremely patient with. It is however, giving me a good excuse to go buy some silver flats. I have several things coming up which require pretty clothes and still can't wear anything higher than my everyday docs for more than about 5 minutes.
The knitting is looking forward to uni break. I have 2 sock designs I want to actually knit (even if I only knit one of each to begin with) and some other things to finish. I've also started designing a shawl, although has come to a halt with the brain melting out of the ears and struggling with anything more complex than stockinette. Which has led to me holding Vivian and saying fuck fuck fuck a few times while I rip back yet another 8 rows. I keep thinking I need to get a proper folder for me to stick designs and associated papers into. I have a habit of designing on the back of whatever is at hand, and then working the finer details out on that and about a million other pieces of paper and then typing the patterns up on my laptop (and never apparently getting photos of them to post them). So I really should put everything in the one place so the bits don't keep getting seperated.
Anyway, on to the essay. I must discuss linguistic evidence for Lapita coming from Taiwan.

Ooops

2010-04-14T09:00:00.003+10:00

I know I've fallen off the face of the planet for even longer than usual, but I have an excuse this time, I swear.
Uni has been full of reading! I ended up deciding to do Pacific Studies and an Archaeology course. I'm loving the Pacific course and wishing I'd discovered them earlier in my degree. It is amazing and awesome. I didn't realise how much of an effect colonisation still has in the region, because it gets so heavily pushed under the mat here. I wish I could figure out how to coherently write about it all. Archaeology is a bit meh, I forget I only enjoy it until the science kicks in and then it makes me nervous. But between the 2 course, I'm doing around 400 pages of reading a week as well as working and trying to knit.
The other reason why I've been a bad blogger is that I've barely left the house in a month and spent the first half of that time on very good painkillers. I tripped over myself and ruptured the lateral ligaments in one of my ankles. So stupid. My doctor doesn't think I need surgery and I can weight bare now (took 3 weeks to get there). I'm even walking without my crutches a lot, although less when I go outside. I start physio tomorrow morning, and so it will be interesting to see what they see about the healing and if they think surgery is something that needs to be considered now that I don't have a tennis ball attached to my ankle.
Knitting hasn't been all that productive in the last month because of the painkillers and how exhausting getting to the bathroom has been. I've held my knitting a lot though. Although I've finished a hat, 1 sock, part of a different sock, finally up to the yoke on Vivian, most of a sleeve and most of the ribbing of a new glove I'm designing. And it unfortunately probably won't be done much in the next few weeks either. I'm funnily enough behind a bit on uni, so trying to catch up now, although with the reading aside, doing fairly well getting on top of assignments and assessment. I've also got a job application to do in the next week because of the places I'm interested in ending up after my degree next year has released their graduate applications, so I'm working on my application. I really hope I get this one, it's the one I really want, and I'm feeling pretty good about it.
Otherwise, I think the only other things going in my life right now are I'm trying to get one of my many budding photographer friends to take photos of my designs for me (as in nice shots) so I can finish the patterns and put them up, I'm hoping to go through my stash one night this week and donate a bunch of stuff to the Salvos, and I'm going back to work next week. So hopefully once I'm back at work life will start moving again and feeling less like I'm on hiatus, which has definitely been the feeling the last 4 weeks.

Back to Uni

2010-02-18T17:14:00.004+11:00

Uni starts next week and I think I am dreading it more than usual. I suspect in part because I am only going to be studying part time, so I feel extra pressure to work more hours and generally feel more productive. I am also trying to decide whether or not to continue with Japanese this year. I'm not convinced I can keep up with the work load for Advanced Japanese and think that perhaps I might actually benefit more from self study on my own for the time being.
There has been some knitting going on as usual, although somewhat slowly. I tidied and re-arranged my room, formatted my computer (unplanned as these things often are), I've been designing some, which is exciting. I have a few things on the go, including this hat here. In the photo there is only the ribbing and the first 2 bits of cabling, but the hat is looking quite lovely. I doubt I will actually wear it, but that's more because I am horrible at remembering to wear hats and instead whinge about having cold ears. So I bet Moo will have a really great hat this winter. I am planning to write the pattern up when it's done. I've made some hand warmers, which I rather intelligently gave away before photographing, but I will be knitting 2 more pairs to get sizing right (small people and big people), so there will be photos and then another pattern. Vivian is continuing slowly but surely. I am over half way through the body now which is great, although I am starting to feel nervous about attaching the sleeves to the body (yes, I realise I need to knit the sleeves first :P)
That is life really. Although is anyone wants to throw a job with 25 hours that I can work around uni my way, I'd be really grateful.

Hello 2010

2010-01-01T22:16:00.003+11:00

Well 2009 is finally over. It was a pretty crap year and I'm glad it's over. I'm looking forward to 2010, I think it will be a much better year, things will be happening and there won't be so much pointless and silly waiting.
2010 Goals

1) Take better care of myself - both physically and mentally. By the end of the year I want to be back in my old size 12 jeans. I have about 8 pairs of them and I intend to get back into them rather than buying yet more fat jeans. I need to spend more time looking out for myself and being less considerate and understanding of other people. Sometimes fuckwittage happens and I need to stop taking that on myself and trying to fix things that I have no control over.

2) Graduate - I am graduating this year, come hell or high water. I am getting out of ANU and away from all the crap that is the Japanese faculty. I am at this stage not studying Japanese this year and I am actually feeling really positive about that. I think what I will do is continue to study Japanese on my own.

3) Get a more professional job - I am only going to be studying part time this year, and so I want to get a more professional job in order to gain experience in office environments rather than retail and hospitality. I am hoping to find a part time job in DFAT or somewhere similar. I might even find a career path I enjoy and am interested in.

4) Knitting goals - I want to learn how to make toe up socks, I want to finish Vivian, and I have a an idea for a lace shawl that I plan to make.

To Do

2009-12-15T11:26:00.002+11:00

Currently I am laid up sick (I've been in bed more or less since I got home on Saturday), but have a million things to do. Today I am feeling slightly more human, so I am very slowly starting to work on it. As in I do 5 - 10 minutes of something and then need to sit down for a while, but it's something. But My list:

1) Finish last Christmas shopping - need to get a cardigan, a pair of earrings from the chemist (special request), some stuff from smiggles, and possibly something else, but I'm not sure yet if the person is getting another thing

2) Finish tidying my room - this is pretty mammoth, especially since the kitten decided to help and I now need to fix my clothes hanger thingy before i can really progress.

3) Finish the Christmas knitting - this involves weaving some ends in, sewing some buttons and finishing a stole. I'm not sure the last one is entirely achievable.

4) Wrap presents - this will happen when I have everything. I have this thing about not wrapping my presents until I have everything.

5) Sort through my stash - as part of my room cleaning, I am going through the stash and weeding out all the yarn I don't like, won't use or am allergic too.

6) Finish setting up my tv and DVR in my room and clear the couch so it can all be used. I am possibly thinking about figuring out how to set my Macbook up to the whole thing

7) Organise my music. It's a useful thing to do. It's all messy and I don't like.

8) Sort out my clothes. I have a lot of clothes. I like to try and go through it fairly often just to keep it under control.

Brief Update

2009-11-25T16:14:00.002+11:00

Hey All, this is just a brief update whilst I convince my sleepy butt it really does need to shower between jobs today and that yes a new black t shirt is a reward for showering.

Uni results - still waiting, but didn't fail Japanese, which is important. basically the only unit this semester it turns out I had to do and I would have cried if I failed it and had to spend another semester with my Japanese teachers from hell.

Work - I'm on uni break now, so I've picked up a christmas casual job. So far (two shifts in:P) it's okay. It's just a retail job so it's nothing terribly exciting or special. For example, today I spent three hours putting new price stickers on things. It's retail. But my colleagues are lovely which is nice.

Tori - Tori was wonderful, although it was an accoustic concert, which I don't like as much as when she has the band. Mostly she played Earthquakes and Scarlett and the older things and it made me happy. I was so happy when she played Silent all These Years and Leather. They are songs that make me happy in some deep and silly way.

Knitting - the Christmas knitting continues. So far I have a hat and a pair of gloves requiring buttons sewn on. I have one mostly finished pair of gloves for a friends birthday in early december, which should get done tonight. I have 3 pairs of partially knit gloves and a partially knit shawl. And if i have time I want to knit Nana the Yarn Harlot's Pretty Thing, but failing that, I will buy her yarn and the pattern. I have about two weeks to figure out which I'm doing though. I also made a choker a week or two back, and plan to post the pattern for that soon.

Life, the universe and everything else - continues. I'm doing pretty well. Keeping busy, bumbling about and being me. I am in the process of cleaning out my room and applying for JET program. And I'm going to my Dad's for the weekend which will be interesting.

There will be photos.

Coffee for Two

2009-11-03T10:38:00.003+11:00

It has been a month. And I am okay for the most part. He decided to be very uncivil in the end for whatever reason, and I have to some extent made my peace with that. I'm not angry, but at this point in time, I don't really wish him the best either. Mostly I just wish he stays somewhere away from me. Which is okay. I'm doing okay, emotionally. I just keep going and manage not to feel too sad or lonely most of the time. I am completely and utterly exhausted though, and I think that helps, because I'm struggling to focus on anything much for long periods of time, which includes being aware of how I'm actually feeling. I get the odd pang when I go to do things I am used to doing with him. On Fridays before we work, I would usually make coffee for both of us. Before work, when I was tired and pre Friday afternoon coffee I was on autopilot and then had two cups of coffee. That made me a little sad. But I drank both cups and went to work and put on my happy face and did what I had to do.
I am re learning myself. It's been a while since I really had to know who I am, so it's interesting re- discovering this. I'm finding that I enjoy spending time with my friends and that I have a tendency to forget my phone exists. I don't like driving, but I like being places. I like coming home from work at the end of the day and taking my socks and bra off and getting a cold drink and just sitting in peace. I don't like a lot of noise. Not even music I like. It distracts me from whatever I'm thinking or doing.
I am finding my creativity is coming back as well. I noticed vaguely that it disappeared and that it was becoming hard to even mod patterns I was using, let alone come up with my own designs. For someone that used to be constantly drawing and designing, even if not actually making, that was challenging. It was frustrating and making me doubt myself even more. But in the last month, the ideas are coming back and they are coming faster than I can knit them. It's exciting. I'm drawing and writing and labelling everything. I keep casting on and swatching and playing. After exams and after Tori, I am going to buy some really soft, thick, squishy royal blue yarn and start working on the reversible cable scarf that I have been swatching for.

Hoo Hoot!

2009-10-21T21:42:00.004+11:00

Well, recently I've been doing a lot of designing, and thought I would share one of my designs with you all. It's a set of gloves with cables like owls on it ^^. Anyway, click here to download a PDF of the pattern.

I want

2009-10-14T19:48:00.002+11:00

I want someone who makes me coffee in the morning and remembers that i like not quite two sugars and that i have zymil rather than regular milk so i don't get an upset stomach, I want someone who remembers I don't have sugar in a soy latte, in fact that it's a soy latte I drink when I'm out. I want someone that will run me a hot bath and fill the bath with candles and bring me a cold glass of wine and sit in the bathroom and just be with me. I want someone who doesn't need asked or reminded all of the time. I want time. Time to knit, time to sleep, time to relax, time to just sit quietly on my own without stressing about uni or work. I want perfect hair when I get up and not to look pale and drawn in the morning and for most of the day in fact. I want the energy to spend with my friends so they know how important they are in my life. I want someone that doesn't expect so much from me, that get's that sometimes I just want to sit quietly and do my own thing while they do theirs without having to touch.

Move

2009-08-30T10:14:00.003+10:00

Well I've moved back in with Mum's because of Year In Japan. I got Tokyo U of Foreign Studies (TUFS) and need to really start saving and it's easier to do when I'm not constantly having to spend money. So at the moment, I'm sitting in the middle of a huge mess not being quite sure where to start. Mostly I think I need to find my bed so I can sit and study for tomorrow's exams. I have both my written and oral Korean exams tomorrow, which I'm not looking forward to, but it means that I don't need to worry about studying for 2 sets of Korean exams within a month.
There still hasnt been much knitting. I started designing a pair of socks with some yarn a friend gave me for my birthday, but I'm six rows into the leg. I hope it works, so far it looks really pretty. I finished Boy's birthday socks, almost a month late, and have resumed work on the 2 ply lace scarf for Rachel's birthday (more late than I care to admit to). But for the most part, life revolves around study.

Some days

2009-08-27T13:46:00.001+10:00

Some days I realise how dopey I am. I got in with the intention of going through my Jap vocab whilst I ate lunch. Instead I ate cold pasta and read about a squirrel who photo bombed,

Why I bought a Mac and other things

2009-06-09T09:34:00.003+10:00

Wow, it's been almost two months since I last blogged, which is kind of embarrassing, but never mind. Well since then, I've bought a mac book, which I'm using to write this blog post. I've been having sagas with my old laptop, because it is a piece of crap. All i can say is NEVER BUY MEDION. So since about 4 months after I bought my laptop, it started spitting screws at me and driving me insane. And between now and then, a panel fell of the back and if you move the screen too far back the whole laptop freaks out and turns off. It really sucks. And I bet you're sitting there thinking why don't you go and get it fixed, its still under warranty right? Well I tried. There was a couple of weeks of emails and phone calls back and forth. To which they concluded that "It can't be the laptop, you must have dropped it. Medion's don't break". That is exactly what the Tech guy said. I was horrified and flabbaghasted and annoyed. At this point we've more or less given up trying to get them to fix it. At this point I'm going see how much it will cost to get looked at to find out how much it will cost to get fixed, and from there will make the decsion whether or not to sell it on Ebay the way it is or if it's worth getting it fixed and selling it from there. So my solution to this whole mess was to buy a new laptop. Now this might seem excessive, but part of it was that regardless of this laptop completely dying, I was getting to a point where I needed a smaller laptop for uni. But the real point of this rant is not that i bought a Mac and i'm madly in love with it, but THAT MEDION SUCK. They have no customer service and their product never really worked right from the get go.

Anyway, from here I have a few things to talk about ^^

1. Wash Sweater and Cashmere
Well work on the Wash Sweater continues. I'm yet to take any photos (but we all know I suck at the photo thing, it's hard for me), but i've finished the back and the front and am 40 rows into the pattern on the first sleeve. It's very exciting and I'm really enjoying it again. The last sort of 20 rows before the shapping on the front, it was starting to really get to me, and i was getting itchy to start two million other things, but other than doing the first half of the leg of a monkey sock, finishing a moslty done scarf (3 hrs work), and a few rows of a second scarf, I've done fairly well. Especially given my habbit of working on a million things. I also found Knitter's Addiction and their delicious cashmere. They had a 30% off sale, so I bought 2 balls of it for Boy to knit him a scarf (the scarf I've done a few rows of) and it's wonderful and soft and squishy and delicious. So, when I found out a friend's 21st is coming up, I bought another ball, this time in the 2 ply to knit her Halcyon (which won't bloody well hyperlink), which arrived today. So just time to knit it.

2. Uni and Exams
The knitting however, is going slow. First of all this semester has been crazy busy, but right now it's exam time, so I should be studying more so than knititng. But it seems to be going well. I found out I got a HD for the midsemester Linguistics exam.

3. Moving in with Boy
Yes, it is finally happening! After exams, I will be sorting my stuff out and we will be moving in together.

Since last we talked...

2009-04-14T09:16:00.002+10:00

Life got a crazy. Well I got the essay finished, and then I got the next half a dozen essays and assessment pieces done. On top of that, we moved although it didn't go particularly smoothly. My mothers bf moved in with us, and he's turned out to be a total ass. Well okay, I knew this, but he's turned out to be colossal lazy pain in the ass. In the end, Boy did more unpacking than he did in the end.
At the moment, I'm on uni break. It started on Wednesday when I walked out of my Korean oral at 12:15. I'm fairly sure that I did fairly well on all three of my exams, although I'm waiting for my marks still. I got a HD on my last Japanese assignment, which has made me endlessly happy and has made me feel a little better about the rest of this semester with Japanese. I was so relieved when when uni break started. I was totally worn out by the time it came around because most nights for the last3 weeks, I'd been studying until I crashed out.
The other thing that's happened recently, my old laptop has pretty much crapped out, so I bought a new one. I ended up deciding to buy a Macbook, because from what I can figure, they're actually better for laptops. And let's face it, its small and light, which is great for my shoulder.
On the knitting front: The Wash Sweater is still going, I'm about 25 rows from the end of the back. Ultimately it's not that much progress, but as I said before, the last three weeks with uni have been completely crazy pants. I'm three weeks behind in most of the tv shows I watch, and I usually only knit when I'm watching tv, so that kind of shows how much time I've had lately.
Anyways, I'm off to meet someone for a Korean Language exchange.

Life?

2009-03-15T18:31:00.002+11:00

Moving again. Have had serious troubles with the neighbours of the call the cops, cant go out to washing lines/bins without being abused, need to move variety of trouble. Which sucks. Especially because we're moving in the middle of term and I have a million and 1 pieces of assessment and h/w to be doing, and its all a bit messy and maybe not getting done as quickly or as on time as had been hoped. But despite the 6 million things I'm trying to do, I'm slowly getting there. I have three small boxes full of stuff and one large box half packed. I have an idea of where to go to get the research I need for the essay I need to have done by 9 am Saturday. I am falling behind on the Japanese vocab just a little and am more of less completely fraqed when it comes to Korean vocab (which I hope magically appears in my head by tomorrow morning without me actually having to study). I even managed to put a pattern up to get test knitted, although that seems to be more trouble than anything because I have a particularly obnoxious test knitter and I'm about ready to snap and tell her to fuck off or that if she has so many goddamned problems with it she can either design gloves herself or shut the hell up. I also have an essay plan for the essay that relies on me getting slightly more solid information on Javanese honourifics, but as I said, I know where it's at. I put my resume in at a pizza shop/restaurant, so hopefully they call me back and I can add another layer of pressure by doing more shifts :P. Although honestly, I think it will help ease the pressure a little, because money won't be such an issue for me, which means when I run out of printer ink or my printer starts squeaking and jamming, I can go oh well and buy a new one. And new socks. I need new socks, but can't seem to find the time or money to get new socks. Although personally, I'd love to know where the ten damned pairs of socks I've bought in the last 4 months have gone. Seriously!
The other downside beyond the stress and brain breaking going on is I feel like I'm constantly doing stuff but don't actually seem to be achieving anything. I feel like whilst I'm constantly working on things, nothing is actually getting done. I got like this a while ago with my knitting when I had 9 things on the go and I'd do a little here and a little there, and eventually I had to sit down and work solidly on a few things, but because Japanese and Korean are progressive things, I'm not sure I can really do that here, where I just sit down and go right! This is what I'm going to do today, fuck you world if you don't like that. Having just said that though, I think I need to stop guilt tripping myself about not getting as much packed and cleaned as mum, especially considering she had a Moo and work free day to it, and I went to work and have a billionty things to do, and just sit down and work on the damned essay. It's only a thousand words. Seriously, if I get my research and reading done tonight/tomorrow, I can probably have this baby finishing by Tuesday.
Anyone else want to scream?

Stasis

2009-02-22T21:27:00.003+11:00

It feels like I'm in stasis. Waiting for something. Anything really. I feel nervous about this year, like I'm waiting for it to end. I am waiting to find out if I can pass Korean this time around. Waiting to talk to my manager about having to change my hours. Waiting to hear from a lecturer about when a course is happening. Waiting to see if I have enough money to do everything. Waiting to apply for Japan. To find out what uni's to apply. Waiting to see if Japan is worth it or should I just take my translators test at the end of this year and see. It's tiring. I'm waiting for so many things, most of which are just simple emails from teachers or introduction to course lectures or seeing someone just for a few minutes to talk to them about whatever it is they're in charge of. I want something to happen. And I know it will, because this year is already flying by, but still.

I bounce!

2009-02-18T08:58:00.002+11:00

Yesterday morning I had two wisdom teeth out, and other than a slightly sore (yes slightly!!!) and some swelling, the only thing really wrong with me is I'm tired and I can't really eat much. So I'm quite pleased with this, although also being incredibly sensible and still taking painkillers at regular intervals (bouncy not stupid) and trying to do some knitting whenI I'm awake/upright long enough.
I finally finished my monkey socks on Sunday night. I knit them for myself out of Lime n Violet intentions yarn in the Balance colour way and they are very pretty socks. Which I am yet to take photos of. In one of my next upright stages I might do some photo-ing, because I have three pairs of socks and a pair of gloves I want to take photos of. For those of you that have caught the ramblings in the last few months, I finally made (and finished!!) the pink cashmerino silk gloves with the buttons on them and I love them. I'm excited about winter, if only to wear my awesomely cute gloves. I'm going to write up the pattern and get some friends to test knit them (I want to make sure my instructions are coherent to people that aren't me) and then I will post them here and maybe even on ravelry. We'll see though ne?
Something I realised I forgot to mention in my last post is that Moo got a kitten. He's very very cute and named Biscuit, although Mum and I think he should be called Tigger (he's orange and stripey and bounces and jumps a lot). He's a beautiful cat though and very, very affectionate. He fits right in with all of our other animals, although Belle (the 40kg lab) is scared of the kitten. We're not sure what's going on there. But he spent most of yesterday curled up with me giving me cuddles and looking after me, so I was happy.
Well I rather think its time for another nap, so I'll be back hopefully with photos later ^^

End Radio Silence

2009-01-30T12:48:00.003+11:00

Well it's been a busy month or two. There was Christmas. Went down and met Boy's family and saw my family. Did the typical Melbourne shopping thing. Then came home and started my new job. Which I am for the most part enjoying. It's a nice change from the doughnut shop and I like most of my colleagues. I'd like a little more time off, but having said that I have a whole heap of bills just before uni starts and then there's the start of uni with the parking and the textbooks which is always expensive.
And there was new years. Boy and I had a bbq, and whilst not many people turned up, it was a great night. I think everyone had a lot of fun, and honestly, I hope to do it again next year. It seemed the perfect way to spend new years eve. Surrounded by a few friends, drinking and eating and enjoying it. It was fantastic. And with new years comes resolutions. Although, I don't like making new years resolutions, because I know I never ever quite manage to keep them. So instead, like a lot of people, I set myself goals.
My goals:
* Post some of my designs on my blog
*Upload some of my FO pictures in Ravelry
*Knit Vivian and the Wash Sweater
*Not fail Korean
*Figure out what I'm doing with this Japan thing next year
*If I don't go to Japan next year, start organising the Wedding.

2008-12-07T18:31:00.006+11:00

I'm back for another update. It amazes me how people can update frequently. I mean I blog constantly in my head, because I'm a dork. But when it comes down to it, I have no energy to actually sit down and blog most days. And when I do have energy, there's always a million other things to do, or at least some knitting :P
I got all my deadline knitting done on time. And then didn't have the time to send it away because of the monster hours at work due to everyone resigning and the new manager not being so great with the actual managing. But, I've had two job offers and I applied for a third job and find out about it early this coming week. I'm hoping I get it. I would like a nice retail job where I don't have to run around like a crazy. Also, it is with the old manager who I like and can manage. So *fingers crossed*. My goal is to weave in ends and then to put everything into parcels with post it notes with addresses and go to the post office tomorrow and send all my parcels. I'll also take some photos, because some of it I'm quite proud of.
I started my Christmas knitting as well. Although, I'm only knitting one thing and the recipient knows about them and has been told when it comes down to it, if I don't get these done, you will be getting the half knitting socks wrapped and then you can give them back to be finished. I'm using the Yarn Harlot's Earl Grey sock pattern. I'm actually knitting to the pattern and not doing my own thing (any one else deeply impressed?) and they're chugging along quite nicely. I'm 2" into the foot and I only cast on a week ago. This is pretty good for me, especially given the fact that I worked two 9 - close shifts, haven't actually done more than a few rows since Friday and did a serious de clutter of my room. I'm using the Mi Inca 5 ply alpaca I picked up at Floriade in a navy blue, and it looks good, although I wish I'd used slightly lighter yarn, the pattern isn't showing as much as I would like.
I'm also fawning desperately over Vivian in the new Twist Collective, but am trying to convince myself I cannot afford the yarn and pattern (also that with the amount of sock yarn and socks in my rav queue plus the four sweaters worth of yarn and 4 planned projects out of it that I will not run out of knitting between now and when I go back to work after Christmas) because as of the 19th of Dec, I am on holidays until the 2nd of Jan. No study. No work. Just Families (Um, oh god kill me now?). Boy and I are going down to Victoria to visit our families for Christmas and then coming back. And then I am house sitting, which I am truly looking forward to because the house is nice, the people are nice and it's not my house. Also, I am allowed to have a party. So I am trying to decide if I want to have a new years party. There is a spa and a lovely deck for a bbq, so I think it would be nice. Although I'm not good with the big scary parties. I find them tiring and also, a little overwhelming. I'm not great with the crowds. But it will be figured out.
Oh, I almost forget. I finished uni *dancing*. I got my grades back last Monday, and was very happy with them. Now, it's just a matter of enroling in next years courses, digging up the money to pay for my parking space, which I'm actually considering not using. $400 is a lot for parking. Esp when it's just over a hundred for normal parking and I am getting crap all hours at work. But then next year when I don't start until 11 I will be griping about having to leave home at 8 to get a park. So I'm not sure. We'll see I guess.
Anyways, I'm going to head off. It seems dinner time-ish and I'm sitting in the dark and feel it's time to locate my knitting.

Oh god Oh god, we're all going to die?

2008-11-03T08:36:00.002+11:00

Well no, not really, but its the first official day of exams/study vac type time and it sure feels that way. I had my final Jap oral last week, and now have a three day take home essay (which meant that I can't come to Warratah Fibers with everyone this weekend and I am not a happy camper) and then the written/listening part of my Japanese, a final Webct quiz and my Modern Japanese exam (which may very well kill me). But I think I'm going to be okay. Other than the MJS exam, I know I'm not going to fail any of them. I have actually studied etc (MJS just keeps walking out of my brain) and I have time. My take home is on Thursday, so I have three days to read and absrob and take notes on three articles. I can do it. Then Japanese is Tuesday week, my updated study notes are almost done, just adding final stuff and MJS is Thursday of next week. So I have a detailed and awesome plan for the next week and a half. I have my last shift at work for a week and a half today (money is my friend, so you know, one five hour shift was not going to make or break exams, seriously), so this morning is going to be dedicated to eating, going for a walk if the weather holds and watching Dogma while I finish my Japanese study notes and then print them and the three article off. I will then use whatever remaining time I have before work to read the little red book. The little red book is Japanese history from the Tokugawa through to now. I maybe should have read it over the holidays... But I didn't, so no point freaking out now. Give me till this time next week. Then tomorrow, I will read the three articles and take notes on them. When that is done I will read a little bit more of the little red book and also review my Japanese notes, do some vocab practice and make some sample sentences. Somewhere in there I will go for a walk. On Wednesday: Get up, read little red book, do some Japanese study, go for a walk, then, most importantly, RE READ the articles with my notes and see how they are related to each other, write notes about common threads (I'm positive this will help with take home essay. Positive. stupid IB training >.<). Thursday - Saturday breath take home exam and article till its done. Go for a walk each day. On Friday, I'm going into work for a couple of minutes to say good bye to the manager who is leaving, get coffee and probably at this stage jelly beans or cheesecake (possibly both) and maybe meet the new manager if he's there. For study breaks on these days, I will go for walks, read the little red book and work on the various simple projects I have going, or possibly spin. Saturday night, I plan to go to boys and enjoy his company and possible do something nice for a few hours on Sunday morning, then I am going to go home and get my MJS notes sorted (I have to pick three particular time frames from Meiji to now and write about it) and relax. Monday will be shared between Japanese and MJS. Tuesday is all about the Japanese exam. After that exam, I am coming home, having a drink and relaxing for a little. Wednesday, all about MJS notes. And then Thursday. Thursday, well I may very well die. MJS exam.
I can do it. Honest.

Thought I'd share.

2008-10-25T15:22:00.001+11:00

This is just a quick entry, its almost exam time and I'm supposed to be finding statistics to prepare for an oral. But, I found this link on Ravelry, and thought it was very beautiful and that everyone should see it.

We Are Not the Enemy

I hope you enjoy it.

And its back to uni

2008-10-13T08:36:00.002+11:00

This is just a quick post because i need to go and find pants and things to wear to uni this morning, but school holidays have been and gone. I had had productive plans and a lot of them simply didnt happen and im somehow still going back to uni totolly warn out and ready to go back to sleep. thank god its only a three week term. I did get a lot done, I got my Japanese study notes done, the research for the essay i need to churn out this week, the spinning of the Glenora fiber, a hat, a baby blanket, 2 tams, a glove, half of a second, but slightly different glove (the initial one didnt work out quite right so im getting there) most of my ironing (huge achievment, its been growing for months) and I finished The Intimate Diaries of Belle Du Jour. So this is what I'm going to focus on while I sit through class today going ugh. I dont want to be here.

Update!!!!!WHEEEEEEEEEE!!!

2008-10-01T17:37:00.003+10:00

Wow I suck at the updating. That 2000 word essay I was talking about? Yeah, well its due date got dragged out massively. By the teacher not by me, and in the end I got it all handed in and dealt with and boy did that finally feel good. It just seemed to totally drag.
I was working more or less instantly after I resigned, starting the following thursday at a local ffast food place two min from home. I work less hours, earlier finishes and can tell them I want more/less hours and will get it. It's not a great job, but its a job.

The knitting. Oh the knitting. I've finally finished the baby blanket, I got to knit the River Tam (and I fell so madly in love I cast another one two days after finishing the first) and I've started and am about halfway through a Printemps scarf (she can be found on ravelry, I'm kinda lazy today, so you can go look her up yourself if you want). And have plans to knit onigiri mittens and a hat and a cute lace ended scarf. I'm in a lot of swaps and so far it seems to be working for me in that it's a lot of small projects that are really fun and allowing me to be creative outside of what I would normally wear for me, without the pressure of knitting for family. But all this productivity even with uni (although its uni break for this and next week. I have study plans. They're already not happening) is feeling really good. Except last night, when I was trying to sleep. I'm in a sushi themed swap (cool ne?) and I think onigiri is just the best food ever, and an idea for an onigiri beanie and mittens lodged itself in my brain last night, but I'm going yarn shopping with HappySpider tomorrow so you know, its all good.

As well as knitting I've been spinning lately as well. I decided that I'm giving the merino/silk blend I bought from Glenora on Fiber Day to my Nana for her birthday, which is in ten days, so I've been frantically spinning and plying that to get it all ready to be sent of to Nana in time for her birthday, but it sure does look pretty, and I'm thinking when Glenora comes to Kingston markets on the 13th the extra holiday hours pay will maybe be buying more than just bobbins :P
I'm trying to think what else, but life really has been uni work and knitting mostly. Oh and of course The Boy. He's so wonderful and yet sometimes utterly frustrating. But mostly wonderful. The new work arrangements for me mean we get time over the weekend to do things during the day and all day on a Sunday if we want. So we've been going to the markets and we spent a day at floriade and went to the Nara festival and its all good in general really.
And now I really should go make some study notes while I wait for mum to finish getting ready and before I head over to The Boy's to help him with his Japanese h/w.
Ja ne!

Happenings about the place.

2008-08-27T08:58:00.002+10:00

I'm beginning to realise that I blog so infrequently, that when I do, its this huge convulted thing that encompasses nearly a months worth of news. But never mind, and I'm sorry but this one will be the same, although hopefull as of next week it will all change.

1. My Birthday: First of, to everyone who came to the Pancake Parlour with me, THANKS! It was a really great morning, and to me, the perfect way to cap off what had been a pretty spectacular weekend.
Firstly, the boss gave me the day off, which was great. I slept till quater to 8 (quite the sleep in on my birthday for me) and then I had snuggles in bed with mum and meg, and then we did the present thing and I got stuff for my spinning wheel. I have some new bobbins and a lazy kate, skein winder and ball winder. It was quite awesome. Then we had a yummy breakfast and got home just in time for me to fix Meg's computer and for the boy to pick me up. We went to the zoo to pat CHEETAHS! It was reallly aweosm,e they're kinda just like big cats, cept if you pissed them off they could tear you to shreds, thankfully not something my cat can actually do. Then we got to go out to a farm and play with alpacas. That was really fantabulous and awesome! I made friends with a baby alpaca named Mr. Mackavoy, who i got to hold. And he snuggled into me and sat in my arms talking away, it was so cute and I am nowmadly inlove with Mr. Mackavoy. Then the family dinner, for which my mother called a truce, and invited Boy along to. It was very exciting and a lovely meal.

Next, some of you know, that lately I've been getting more and more stressed and more and more exhausted. I'd hit a point where between balancing Mum, Boy, Work, Uni and study, I had really overdrawn on my resources. I've been trying to sleep for 10+ hours a day at the moment I'm that exhausted, which is leaving less and less time for everything. But after yesterday, I talked to mum and then I resigned. I'll start looking for a new job in a few weeks once I have my bearings back. But I feel a lot happier having resigned. Work was getting really stressful, with upper management putting stress on our centre to pull more clients and then upper management putting stress on me because "the other uni students in sydney can work more flexible hours". Yes, she said to me. After that comment, I really wanted to tell her just where she could jam it. I was feeling less than civil. Because that, that was the final straw for me. It was said when she called me on MY DAY OFF when I was feeling sick. And I told her when she called I am at home sick. I have been throwing up all morning. I am not interested in talking to you. And throughout the whole conversation she didn't bother listening to me, or anything and then said she was cutting my hours in half and hiring someone to cover the other hours. It was all very stupid and made me very angry.

I've put all my stitch markers up over at etsy . And next week when I have time, I'm going to start putting some more up and hopefully some of my beaded jewlerry if I can locate next week, otherwise as soon as I locate it. I have some other ideas for other stitch markers, but I just need to get through this week first. I have a 2000 word essay due on Friday night and the draft may only be 180 words because of yesterdays somewhat meltdown. But that's okay. Worst case scenario, it gets handed in late or just not as pretty as it could otherwise be. 2/3 have been cancelled for the week, making my life a lot easier. Although a lot of the not in class time is being taken up by on the bus time this week because my car is finally being fixed from when that woman drove into me all those months ago.

So yes, that is my life up to date again. Hopefully I will resume more regular bloggin soon.

Photo blog.

2008-08-03T17:09:00.003+10:00

I totally suck at figuring out how to do pictures and words in my blog at the same time, but the first four pictures are what my swap pal sent me from the Winter Warmer Swap. I absolutely love the gloves and have been wearing them pretty much daily since they arrived. There's also a thing of chibi's there which are just awesome to weave in ends with. I definately like them better than normal needles. Then there is a random picture of Chai and Maggie having snuggles. I was having a bad night so I got the piggies out for a good dose of cute and then snuggled upto each other next to me while I studied. It was most adorable. Then there are photos from Starbucks on Wednesday night. I'm going to miss Starbucks. It's been home for me for 8 years. It was my home. I spent a lot of time sitting there wasting time, studying, knitting, hanging with friends, finding my sanity and just generally exisiting. I remeber meeting people there, saying good bye to people there, letting people into my life. It was a good place and a big part of my life. I'm going to miss it and the staff there who were always friendly and kind, but never too perky and always always made the perfect Venti Skinny Caramel Machiatto.
The last photo is of The Boy and I. It's the first photo of us together. We met at the Starbucks for the first time, so went together for the last time. The scarf is the scarf I knitted for the FMIL. I met her this weekend, and she seems really nice.
Anyway, back off to the monster uni readings.

Gloves

2008-07-30T20:53:00.003+10:00

I figured I'd post this pattern, I always seem to be making gloves from it.

Silky's Basic Glove Pattern

Materials: 8 ply yarn (usually takes a 50 gram ball of 8 ply for a pair)

about 30 cm of contrast yarn for thumb

4mm 8” dpns

Gauge: 4 stitches and 7 rows to an inch

Men's in brackets

CO 36 sts (40 sts) and divide between 3 needles, even number of stitches on each needle.

Work 18 rows in 1x1 rib (same for men and women)

Then work 15 (18) rows in stockinette

Using the contrast yarn, knit 6 (7) sts, then slip them back to the left needle and knit them again using main yarn.

Work 6 (8) rows in stockinette.

Then work 6 (8) rows in 1x1 rib

BO loosely

Thumb:

Remove the waste yarn and put the live stitches on two dpn's. There should be 6 (7) on the bottom needle and 5 (6) on the top needle. Using main yarn, knit the stitches on the lower needle and using a third needle, pick up and knit 3 sts from the space between the two needles, then knit 3 stitches from the top needle. Using a fourth needle, knit the remaining stitches from the top needle and then pick up another 3 stitches from between the original needles.

Knit 6 (8) rounds and BO loosely.

Weave in ends.

so i dont explode

2008-07-20T22:36:00.002+10:00

I feel like I'm going insane and am being pressured from all sides. The entire point of the degree I'm doing at uni is that you work your ass off for your language major, you complete said major and then go overseas to that country for a year. Obviously, this program ain't cheap, and I'm probably the worst saver ever (I'm doing better though, I'm spending less and less on random crap and actually thinking purchases through). But I've worked out for Boy and I too move out together (which funnily enough is pretty high up on the priorty list) I need to earn at least another $200 a week. And it's driving me insane because it's like I can have one or the other and I feel like I'm chasing my tail and never ever fucking getting anywhere. I get that to get money you have to earn it, but I have to pull an extra ten to fifteen hours a week to get that kind of money and I have no idea where to start looking and it's just totally maddening. We're so happy with each other, we look at places to rent and look at cutlery and stuff for our house and we're building this life in our minds and its just not happening and I want to be there so badly.

It was going to say it all.

2008-07-11T21:39:00.001+10:00

What was going to happen, was there was going to be a photo up here and the photo would seriously explain everything that was supposed to be this big exciting post. However, I cannot find a USB cable to attach my phone to my computer to download the pictures.
I'm engaged. And he's perfect and wonderful and simply amazing.

I'm still alive (barely)

2008-06-25T11:46:00.003+10:00

The last month has been huge. I haven't had internets for a month because we moved house. We now live in Gunghalin. The house is nice, although somewhat smaller than the other house. We haven't had internet for about three weeks, but I'm hoping to have that sorted out in the next few days.
Just before the move, our cat Tabatha had to be put down. It was sad. And then on Monday Mum gets home and other cat was unwell and ended up having to have emergency surgery on monday night. we got to bring him home yesterday and apart from being sore and sorry for himself and somewhat pissed off at us, he's okay. We've had to put him on a low sodium diet and he's not impressed.
Kniting wise not a lot has happened. I'm still working on the boyfriend scarf. It's almost finished now. I was in another car accident two days after we moved to Gunghalin. An idiot tried to exit the round about through my car, which was not cool. I ended up in hospital. Had soft tissue damage and muscle strain to my right arm and shoulder. It's been about two weeks now and it's just starting to feel better. Thankfully my car is driveable. But for those of you who are wandering, that's why I wasn't at WWKIP. I was nursing my arm and sorting out the accident with the police.
I'm currently in two swaps on Ravelry. The third Australian Swap and I'm planning on making two pairs of gloves for that one. I want to make my swap pal another pair of the Time Traveller's gloves and also a pair of gloves using a cables rib from Cables Untangled. I'm also in the Brother's Grim Swap from the Odd Ball Swap community. I'm still not sure where I'm going with it, but I'm thinking a hat or gloves (my swap pal likes them) and figuring out how to do colour work to make a pretty on them. I'm still day dreaming about my River tam and the baby blanket for my friend, and given that it's now uni break, assuming my arm holds I should totally nail it all.
I also have some really big news, but you all get to wait until I have internets and can post pictures.

wordy post

2008-05-22T21:50:00.003+10:00

things have been okay lately. i've had my med's changed and they seem to be working for me. i've found a new boy, one who looks after me and i can talk to you and just generally makes me happy. this last week has felt like a kick in the teeth with yesterdays accident and the boy being in the wrong state, but that's okay. ive been managing and smiling and being okay. and then d. decides to tell me that he misses me and still loves me and i feel like the evil bitch monster because i've hit a point where i have had to accept that i need to look after my mental health because otherwise the build up of little things is going to destroy me rather than just be something that rolls over the top of me. and seriously, im at a stage right now where i can sort of shrug off d. leaving me and d. not being sure if it was just a physical thing and i'm starting to make healthier choices for my headspace. but this has thrown me. d. was one of the really good things about sale, and i was always happy to see him and hang out with him. i remember one day he played hookie with me just before i left sale where we caught the six am train into melbourne and we spent the day shopping before mum drove us back to sale that night. and so having to say to d. i need to move on for myself and so i can be okay and to have him apologise for all the shit he put me through and all the times he wasnt where i needed him to be and for me to hold my ground was hard. im proud of myself for making a good decision for myself. but at the same time im really sad because he said good bye, and it was a very final sort of good bye. and i feel like ive had a piece of myself ripped away and gone forever, and i really really hope that one day d and i can be friends again, but who knows.

Post with words. And Sentences!

2008-05-22T07:57:00.002+10:00

I went up to Sydney for the week for work and I'm now a certified consultant. Last week was my first week of consulting clients and I think it went okay. This week is a lot busier (seeing nearly twice as many clients), but I'm really looking forward to it. So that is work.
On the knitting front, I've gotten quite a bit done. I made it up to the shoulder decreases on my alpaca jumper, but have decided to rip it back and do something else with it (read use a pattern that im not modifying every other second), I finished the comissioned Yorick, a pair of gloves from my own pattern, a my so called scarf, meg's mermaid tam, and have started a broken rib scarf for the new one out of wool/alpaca i got at wool day, and have gotten completely stuck on the sleeve shapping for the shrug.
wool day was awesome. there was much shopping and socialising and the likes, which was great, proper completed update when i dont realise its time to get dressed

Random Photo post.

2008-05-20T08:36:00.002+10:00

Dog
Bag Swap!!!!!! Look how pretty everything is! The bag is my current all the time bag, and it fits everything!

And today due to tiredness and laziness, you get a blog post full of photos. You will get news soon, but look pretty things!

A much over due post

2008-05-02T09:10:00.002+10:00

Many things have been a happening in the land of Silky since I last posted. So I apologise that I'm going to try and stick a month's worth of news in here (also, there are no pictures today due to extreme lazy)

Two of my wonderful friends (there is a whole why I have the best friends in the whole wide rant that I will try and spare you from, cos you know, I love my friends to bits and think they are totally awesome and amazing), Taphophile and Happy Spider gave me a spinning wheel. It's so pretty and I've named her Paige. I've been practicing with Paige for the last couple of weeks and I'm getting yarn that is mostly even and fairly thin. It's really exciting. So Thank You Taphophile and Happy Spider. I really do love it and it means the world to me that you were both so kind.

I've left KB and now work for a weight management center doing consultancy work. I have to go to Sydney next week for a training course and then the week after I get to start actually talking with the clients. Having to wear a suit is taking some very serious getting used to and I will have to eventually go out and get suits of my own (currently wearing my mothers). I have my heart set on this one is Portmans. It's sort of grey on black fabric, and theres a jacket and pants and the cutest little flippy skirt ever. It's a stupidly expensive suit all up, but they do layby and I figure I can probably manage that, but I think we'll say. I'm half hoping to talk myself out of it. Damned flippy skirts.

And of course there has been knitting. Honest. Let's see. In the last month I have started a mermaid tam, a My so called scarf, a pair of gloves and Yorick. In that time, I've finished the pair of gloves, and Yorick, and mostly finished the mermaid tam and the scarf. I've also gotten to the arm shaping on the back of my alpaca jumper. So I'm happy. I'm hoping to get the scarf and tam done on the bus to and from sydney and maybe some of the jumper. I figures its gotten too bloody cold for the shrug, so it can wait until the warm things are done.

And the not so shiny aspect of my month. We lost two of our rats. One expected, one unexpected. So that was sad. But they had good lives and were loved.

1 pair of feet: Found

2008-04-07T18:58:00.004+10:00

Since I last posted I've found my feet and I feel like I'm doing better now than I have all year, which is nice, because this year has been hard so far, and it's nice that it seems to be looking up. I'm still having a lot of difficulties with my meds (not sleeping, nightmares, nausea, headspins), so I'm going to the doctor again on Friday after this week is over (the four exams on Wednesday are somewhat more pressing than nightmares).

I've had two really good weekends in a row. Last weekend, I went over to the Happy Spider's place on Saturday afternoon and we had a lovely night drinking and knitting and watching tv and life felt very very grand. And the weekend last gone was the wedding. I never ended up finsihing the wedding shrug, but borrowed a couple of shawls from Happy Spider (they were a total life saver. I changed my dress at the last minute, and the purply one was just perfect and much admired all night) and I ended up getting very very drunk, but it was fun. I was really lucky though, all the shoes I had that would go with my dresses were somewhat large and scary looking, but I managed to get the cutest pair of kitten heels the day before at DFO.

The Bride looked just beautiful and the ceremony was truly special. The Bride and Groom both had a child each before they got together, and in the six years they've been together, they've had two children together, so they made of point of uniting the two families when they got married. It was really wonderful.

I started crocheting a scarf for the Moo (she thinks its the coolest thing ever), although now that I'm home I've put it down in favour of my Caspy socks and the alpaca jumper (one project for travelling with, one for knitting in bed) and rather enjoying it all.

The image above is my pop and me. That was after 10+ champagnes

Maybe it's time

2008-03-23T17:47:00.005+11:00

I just realised I havent posted here in a month, and not for lack of meaning too. I guess things have been busy, it's definately been a big month.
Uni
Uni is insane, but a lot of fun, it's four weeks in and I still feel like I'm finding my feet, but I think I'm getting to the point where they are firmly below me and on the ground. My Korean and Asian Studies lectureres are both absolutely amazing. So much energy and passion for the subjects they are teaching. It's good, I feel like it will be a good year learning with these two men.
Work
Work is icky. I've started looking for another job. Work is getting to the point where it is insanely disorganised and it's painful to work there. They're not respecting when you say you can/cant work (have been rostered on when I said I couldnt work and have been asked several times to work a shift I turned down because of Nana coming up for Easter
The bag swap bag is still waiting to be finished being sewn together (I will be doing that later tonihgt) and lined (either later tonight or tomorrow). I have all of the goodies for it, which is nice.
Mum's socks are finally done. It feels good. She loves them, and its getting cold enough that she can wear them. The shrug for the wedding is going really well, although it looks like I wont be wearing that dress now, but I'm still working on the shrug because it's pretty and i want to wear it. The alpaca jumper has been put on hiatus as I work on the shrug. I also made a big decision this week. I am going to frog the jumper I started for William. It's not very good and there is no reason whatsoever to be keeping it. I don't want to finish it and it's not like it's going to a loving home or anything. So it can be frogged.
New additions:
We got a new pet rat. His name is Tom. He's rather cute, but a bit bitey. Photos eventually.
New phone. My old one died, so I bought a new one. It's very very shiny. A nokia n95 8 gig, it's been named Paige.
I made a podcast. I have 2 episodes. If you listen, please don't laugh where I can here you. If you like it, tell other people.

Sheep!

2008-02-23T21:46:00.003+11:00

Well since having last posted I have more or less fully recovered. I managed to get simultaneous sinus, ear and chest infections, but am mostly recovered from that, just sort of last half hearted remenants of all of them now, so nothing terribly dire pre uni. I've also gone back to work. Valentines day was not the day to be working in a chocolate shop. I ended up having a crash course in waiting tables and ended up in the bar as well as the kitchen at one point because we were that understaffed. The upside to this is that one of the floor staff (the girl I want to knit for just because I adore her) got into the kitchen when it was quiet on the floor before I started the following day and had it more or less completely under control by the time I got to work. I've also picked up my Japanese textbooks (need to remember to order/go in and pick up my Korean text books and remind Simon about the Asian Studies ones). I've sorted out my timetable, and it looks pretty good, although Wednesdays will seriously kick my ass (9-4, 1 hour off in that time), but I have Friday off, so it doesn't seem as bad.
There has been quite a lot of knitting. But it's been on various projects, so it doesnt seem like much. I've finished the front and back for the bag swap (also already have the lining fabric and the closey things), the first of mum's sock and I'm just past the ribbing for the second. I'm about up to the armhole decreases on the shrug for Susan's wedding, which I'm actually rather excited about now that having to count things isnt so scary (that will probably last until I have to actually finish the back :P) and I've also unravelled my small piece of Mariah sleeve and started turning it into the back of a much less complicated, but also probably more comfortable and go with everything sort of cardigan. I'm rather happy with it, although its slow going because between the serious hatred of ribbing right now (everything seems to be bloody ribbing) and the serious desire just to stroke the alpaca I spend more time staring and stroking than actually knitting. I finished weaving in the ends of the little heart, felted them and then decided it was too much effort to sew the little bastards up and they are still sitting in the underwear bag waiting to be put together.
I also took to the box of fiber I have acquired. I was given a packing box full of a fleece. It was completely raw and sheep smelly. So yesterday during the day before work, I started washing it. There's about 100 gm of fiber drying on the floor. I suspect it's going to need a few more washes before I can card it, but that's okay. I figure if I slowly work on the box like this it will usable by the time I'm ready to use it. I'm being pleasantly surprised by all the beautiful colours it is though. At first I just thought the whole thing was a chocolate brown with the odd wisp of cream (was still utterly pleased with that) but as I opened the fleece up to see the best way to tackle it, I found that there are sections where the tips are a beautiful caramel colour and other parts are black as well. It's quite pretty.
So, that is life for now. More updates once uni starts or something happens.

2008-02-06T16:05:00.000+11:00

Because you all need to know: I shaved my legs! It's taken a week, but I can get down to my legs and I shaved them so they are now not all hairy and gross. And I haven't taken pain killers today, not because I'm being stubborn, but because I don't feel the need to. But I'm starting to feel normalish again, although still really tired. Mum and I took the dressings off last night because I could smell them. But they all look good, but the one under my belly button is like an inch long! There's another one about an inch long above my belly button and 2 smaller cuts. But they all look really good so that's nice.
I've gotten a lot of knitting done with the time off, which has been nice. I'm about 4 rows from the heel of the first sock for mum, I managed to muck up the Kaylee sock (I still have to rip back a bit and try and salvage it before I rip back to the toe), but theres too big bits of knitting news. I finally finished knitting the hearts. So I have 24 little knitted hearts. I've woven in about 10 of the hearts ends, but I decided to work on that later. I also cast on the bag swap bag yesterday. I have close to 2" of bag. It's looking quite pretty. When I find the camera, there will be pictures, because the webcam won't take pictures that show the stitch pattern.
But yes, that's rather my life. Damn this whole not going out thing >.<

Hi again!

2008-02-03T09:58:00.001+11:00

First of all

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY SPIDER

I survived the surgery. They let me come home on Thursday. I spent Thursday and until 6 am Friday morning throwing up and feeling generally sore and sorry for myself. On Friday after 6 am, I felt pretty good and Alex came over and kept me company until the evening when I went a bit strange and completely crashed for about twenty minutes and so they went home and I tried to sleep but ended up making stitch markers. Saturday was bad day because I was so bloody sore because I moved around in my sleep and today seems to be a good day. I haven't done a great deal of knitting because I've been pretty much out of it on pain killers. Although I did finish Meg's pink acrylic beanie (and will photo just as soon as I find where mum put my camera) and I'm upto the calf decreases on Mum's sock that I cast on for hospital. I've also done some of the amigurumi hearts. Although I am totally fed up with all the red yarn (the shawl is red, the sock is red, the hearts are red) so I've cast on one Kaylee, one of Momma Monkey's sock patterns in the tofutsies. This is in part because I really wanted to knit these beautiful socks, but also because I found out Momma Monkey has died and so I'm knitting these socks in honour of her. I've been on the same message boards as her for about a year and she was always really friendly and lovely to people and she will be greatly missed. My condolences to her husband and children and the rest of her family.

Bugger this for a lark

2008-01-30T05:58:00.000+11:00

The thing I am noticing about being awake before 6 am because you need to eat before the fasting begins is that the existance of other people who dared to wake up before sun is downright offensive. My grandfather got up and went to the bathroom about five minutes before I got up and fixed myself a bowl of cereal and cup of tea with the last remaining lactose free milk (which someone has been drinking on me again, because I know I havent gone through 2L in week. I've had cereal 3 times). And now I can hear him pottering around and making noise and it's really getting up my nose. It could just be that I am tired and cranky. But I doubt it. And as for the tired and cranky? Completely justified. I've had less than 2 hours sleep. I couldn't get to sleep last night. I'm kinda freaked out about the surgery today. I really really don't like hospitals and haven't as of yet been able to locate my lucky underwear. I know that sounds silly, but I'll be a lot happier once I have the underwear. They are going to make me take my anhk off and I tend to feel naked without it, so I need to at least have the underwear. I know this is silly and that they will do their job just fine regardless of whether or not I have the right underwear on, but still. Makes me happier you know.
Also it's irritating me that they're still here. The grandparents were supposed to leave on Monday. Now they're leaving on Friday. Which means I have to be in the house with them for a day of my recovery time. And it pisses me off. I suspect I might lose actually lose it if they're here on the weekend still. Nana seems to have a strange need to vacuum and wash the floors everyday. Which makes the sleeping thing kinda hard. Like impossible. And neither of them have any concept of anyone else in the house. And Poppy's chair in the bathroom is really pissing me off. I get that he needs it in there, but the bathroom is not large. He should take responsibility for his chair and move it out after he showers. Also, they need to stop using towels all willy nilly. You have 1 towel. You use it for a week. Then you get a new towel. You do not use other people's towel. You remember which colour your towel was so you don't use other people's towel. If necessary you put your towel somewhere Special so you know it's your towel. But not my grandparents. If its there, they'll use it. And I'm rather over this as well. Also, I suspect if the first thing that happens when I get home on Thursday is pop asking about the computer and the internet, I suspect I might actually finally snap and tell him on no uncertain terms to fuck off. He needs to learn that when my foot is barely off the bottom stare from work or whatever is not the time to ask about the internet. Especially as it's our connection and he can bloody well learn some patience. Right, I should stop ranting and eat my breakfast. See you in a few days.

Crochet, startitis and SPINNING!

2008-01-25T12:25:00.000+11:00

It's been a really big week. I had a lovely time off, but was actually kind of glad to get back to work. It means money and audio books (I only seem to listen to them at work). Last Thursday I went and had a play day with Happy Spider and I got to meet her bunnies and she taught me how to spin ^^ It was very exciting and now I have super pretty yarn. As you can sort of see in the picture we plyed it with blue shiny thread which goes really well with the dark green ^^

There was also Alex's birthday and it was lots of fun. I got to see Irene and Kelly again and that was good. I have lots of fun with those three. Also, Alex gave me my Christmas present, which made me feel guilty because I managed to get forget to get hers. But it was a new copy of Good Omens, the best book ever, but now I have a copy I can read again. My copy has been signed by both the authors and is starting to fall apart because of being over loved. So it's nice that I have a copy I can read again. It's the white one with Crowley on the front.

Well, I still haven't found any more of my stitch markers and I seem to have managed to lose the cable needles I bought on Monday. It's making it even harder to work on Mariah than it already is because I'm so freaking brain dead this week. I got put on anti depressants a week ago and it's really messing with my ability to think clearly. but on the upside I'm starting to feel a lot better and I'm not bursting into tears and strange little things anymore. Although it has meant that Mum's shawl and the lace choker have been put on hold as I'm finding ribbing to be a bit challenging.

Nana is also teaching me how to crochet. My first project is going to be a hat for Meg. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. I get really obsessed with it when I'm working on it/holding it, but I pick up the knitting again I forget about the crochet. So you know. It's like that.

The bag swap bag isnt happening. I put it down about a week ago after the multiple cast on/froggings. But I've picked a pattern and the yarn, so I will work on it after I finish the amigurumi hearts. I'm suffering from startitis this week and am having a hard trouble fighting it. Mostly I suspect because I'm braindead the second a project seems complex, I cast on something new. The acrylic hat for meg is still about 2'', the gloves are almost finished now, just thumbs to go. The shawl and jumper are on hiatus. I'm trying to convince myself not to cast on new socks.
There will be photos of new yarn (Cassidy's sale and the tofuties and bamboo) soonish. I'm wondering about casting on socks for when I'm in hospital though. I like socks. And hospitals are scary. Surgery is next wednesday. I have to be there for 11:30. So you know, expect drugged up blogging end of next week :P

I mean, Seriously?!

2008-01-19T14:11:00.001+11:00

Okay, I've just gone to cast on a pair of gloves for my friend's boyfriends birthday. Now I know I'm a tad on the absent side at the moment, but seriously, how can I lose that many row counts. I have ten of them. Currently, only two are accounted for. But the other 8 are just gone. Disapeared. Vanished into thin air. I bet they're sitting off somewhere with my big cable needles and laughing at me. Given the current status with the bag and the way i keep having to frog the fucking thing, I'm beginning to think this all just a giant conspiracy to drive me insane, like mum buying new tea and then HIDING IT (new brand is quite nice when I found the tea).

But yes, expect another post soonish because my Get Knitted order arrived (oh so very very pretty) and I had a play day with happyspider and it was all very awesome.

Hmmm.

2008-01-16T10:23:00.000+11:00

Right, I've just realised I've spent about 700 in a week. I know. Excessive. I owe my mother stupid amounts of money. Had I just given that to her, I would only owe her about 400. Yes. Also surgery. Means no worky. Still have bills though. Also this months phone bill. Um Mammoth. Most of that money? Yarn and trinkets. Trinkets I don't need, but bought because I thought I wanted them AT THE TIME. So conclusion. 6 month yarn diet (from last wednesday, the last purchase), Which means, no yarn until July 9. Everytime I buy yarn between now and then (not that I'm planning on it) I add another month on. Also, must stop buying trinkets and spendng stupid amounts on hair products I don't use. Also, I don't need to eat out every time I go to work. That's just stupid.

EDIT: As is apparent by the tone of the above post, I was hella freaked out. Now that I've sat down and I've budgeted and I found $50 in my purse, which will go on Petrol (the only thing other my phone bill I need to pay for until I work next week and the stupid that is parking, which is tac deductible and I keep reciepts for) and I'm feeling in general more calm and reasonable, no yarn for 6 months, even with my stash, seems a little silly. I buy yarn as a treat when I'm proud of myself or as a pick me up when things have gone horribly wrong for no reason. So rather than taking my treat away, this is my conclusion, no more yarn until I have paid my mother back, and then I can have a LITTLE treat, say 1 skein of sock yarn. After that, no more yarn until I've gotten into the habbit of putting some money aside each week. It doesn't have to be much, even if it's just twenty dollars some week, a little bit of money is still going to add up in the long run. Then, as long as I don't go crazy (read buy yarn for the sake of its on sale) I can buy yarn again. Also, as I am planning to go start at the gym after the surgery, it is okay to buy small treat (i.e sock yarn or enough of something nice to make hat/gloves/scarf) when I hit my goal weights (65kg then 60kg). So I think now that I'm thinking more logically, this will be okay.

Maybe problematic?

2008-01-10T09:55:00.000+11:00

After reading this post here, I ended up clicking links and ended up here. Drooling over Bamboo and Tofuties. At 12:30 last night, I rang ENGLAND to pay for my order >.< because my credit card wouldnt work. But now I have bamboo in a colour called Serendipity on its way and i think 5 different colours of tofuties heading my way. I'm really excited.

Big promised update

2008-01-09T14:49:00.001+11:00

This is the promised update from the other day with photos and things. Plus fun things have happened since then. But to begin:
1. Christmas time. I was totally going to do a photo update to show off some of the cool things I got for Christmas. Because it was very much a Hello Kitty themed Christmas and I love Hello Kitty with a passion.

But yeah, those are some knitpicks options at the bottom as well. I've cast on the slowly progressing kimono shawl on them and have also made a couple of the amigurumi hearts from mochimochi land with them and they are an absolute delight to knit with, just like my knitpicks sock needles, which I want to get more of just because they're so lovely. But Christmas was quiet and sedate and I spent much of it knitting and in the evening I hung out with a friend from high school and we talked and it was nice.

These are pictures of the RPM-esque gloves I knit for a friend. The gloves are finished but MIA, I think Meg stole them, she rather liked them. I've also made gloves for Dad out of some Vero wool I picked up at Mawson just before Christmas. It's his birthday in a couple of days, so when I finally get his address again I'm going to send the gloves to him. I didn't end up taking pictures of the super girlie beanie, because it is also MIA, although I suspect my bedroom ate it rather than it was stolen by Meg. Although I plan to clean and rerrange my room when I have time off end of this week.

Work continues on the kimono shawl. It's unbelievably slow and I'm coming to the conclusion that lace shawls just arent my thing. I'm now 6 and a bit rows through the first repeat. It's looking good though because the pattern is so far perfect. I have my markers in place marking out each repeat and funnily enough it's making a huge difference to the quality of the knitting. I'm also knitting it on 4mm rather than 3.75 and that seems to be making all the difference with the give, but it hasnt made the pattern look overly loose, so I'm feeling quite please with it.

These two pictures are some of what I ordered on ebay on an eeee! I have lots of money so much spend it! type of a mood. Yes, that is a hello kitty frying pan. It theoretically makes hello kitty eggs. If you can get them out of the pan. And I loves the corset. It's so pretty and makes me happy and I just wish I had an excuse to wear it anywhere. It's Alex's birthday on the weekend, so maybe I will wear it when we hang out. I bought 2 corsets, but the other smelt funny, so its being washed. There was a hello kitty belly bar too, it was so damned cute. It's yet to be photographed though.

And of course finally, there was yesterday. Ended up going to Young with Nana. Originally was going to go with HappySpider and her grandmother, but it didn't suit and so then nana and I weren't going to go, but then we did. We got in my car with the gps and set off. The gps got us lost several times BEFORE we got to Young. Then I got us lost by turning the wrong way in Young. We eventually parked the car, which was also novel because in Young you have to park with the butt of your car to the curb. Which meant I made Nana park. But we got to the yarn store and it was wonderful. The lady was really nice and I bought lots of Patonyle and something called Argyle. They were evening having a 25% off sale ^^ I also got 3 balls of Jet in red to knit my hearts, so I far I have 3 pieces knitted, which is about a heart and a half. The trip back was good, we didn't get lost, although the GPS still screwed up a bit. But all in all it was an awesome day and totally something I want to do again, although maybe with someone to share the driving because after a 350 km round trip my ass was numb and my foot sore.

The top picture is my me from about a month ago. I cut my hair and that's what it looks like. The bottom is the bottom of my freezer with my collection of frozen left over dye, some margarine and garlic bread.

Just a quickie

2008-01-06T09:38:00.001+11:00

This is just a quick post before I run off and have more breakfast as I try and find food for lunch and pants for work (I know I'm not the only one who is so fantastically disorganised they spend their morning looking for their 1 pair of work pants only to find their still wet because somebody didnt hang them up to dry before bed). There has been knitting with interuptions of this strange thing called quilting as Nana helps me to finish my WIP's. Talking of WIP's, I'm 2 and a bit rows into the lace pattern on the Kimono Shawl! It feels like an acheivment to me. But I've also done Dad's glove, to be photographed tonight and mailed tomorrow, the girliest beanie ever and started working on the commissioned choker. There will be photographs now that I'm living in my house rather than the really nice people's house I was looking after. But I do want to start toe up socks in my Alpaca/cashmere, but I haven't. I've also decided to be insanely corny for valentines day and make a whole heap of the little love hearts on the bottom of the page here, and turn them into a bouquet. But I own my dorkhood, so its okay.
But anyway, to work and a real update will come later, maybe on Wednesday when I have time off.

Token New Years Post

2008-01-01T19:30:00.001+11:00

I welcomed in the new year with a burrito. It was the best burrito ever. So yes, I had a nice evening. I wandered around Civic with my friends and had a thouroughly enjoyable evening which ended with the awe inspiring burrito.
But to the New Years type stuff. I don't do resolutions, I set goals. Hopefully achievable goals.
1. Finish the damned WIP's.
2. Lose the 8 kgs of accumulated fluffy
3. Go back to training.
4. Be less terrified of everything new and strange
5. Get everything under control

Can I have John Cusack for Christmas?

2007-12-20T15:02:00.001+11:00

So today, I have done what any self respecting depressed Sarah would do. I woke up, rang in sick (the dishwasher spending the day conversing with the dishwasher machine and her own feet whilst crying isnt KB.) and stayed in bed and work on the damned socks in my pj's and oversized lavender acrylic sweater that my Nana knitted me. I assure you the sweater is as charming as it sounds, but my Nana knitted it for me and its my damned sweater. There was a lot of crying over my knitting and laying aound hopelessly when I ran out sock to knit and kitchener. Eventually I realised I was something resembling hungry and still had to go to the post off. I put my jeans on under my nightie, and when I realised my nightie was visable under teh jumper, I peeled it off from under the sweater and that is how I went down the street. Tear stained, be sweatered and bra-less with unbrushed hair or teeth. And I posted the parcel and then went to the dvd store where I hired out season 1 of Roswell because I have a friend who loves it, so I figured why the hell not, they dont have the Buffy I wanted or s7 of Gilmore Girls, but I also got 'Must Love Dogs', and some turkish bread and beetroot dip. And when at home, I ate my bread and dip and watched 'Must Love Dogs'.
I have reached a conclusion. John Cusack is my ultimate man. He's kinda cute in the way I seem to like that (not attractive, just cute), he babbles, he talks, he tells you what he's feeling and like me is totally off the deep end. I walked out Serendipity wishing I was that Sarah and I finished Must Love Dogs also wishing I was that Sarah. There is a trend here, John Cusack's characters end up with Sarahs, so I might be in with a chance for in a John Cusack of my own.
Also, for those people who have seen Serendipity and wondered about the book A Love in the Time of Cholera. It's by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and is one of the most beautiful books I ever read. I picked it up in Borders one day. I was trying to find 'Pleasure: An Almanac for the heart" by Nikki Gemmel and found A Love in the Time of Cholera instead and picked it up on a whim. And it is romantic and sweet and beautiful.

Today is not going to plan.

2007-12-18T14:30:00.001+11:00

Right now, the being sick means I don't like to makes plans, because I will inevitably end up in a lot more pain that I was prepared for that day and my plans will go awry. For example, on Saturday I was going to have a nice relaxing day and I was going to sleep in and do my housework and I was going to go for a drive and do lots of knitting and have a nice day and then I was going to go to work. What actually happened was this. I didn't sleep on Friday night because Panadeine Forte couldnt get the damned pain under control. Until about 6 am. Which meant I didn't actually sleep because at that stage the sun was up and I was awake. So I got up and I did part of my housework and then spent large chunks of the day alternating between knitting, dozing and laying on my bed feeling utterly miserble. Sunday, I was going to work and then coming home and relaxing. I got through half of my shift before I went home in so much pain I could barely stand. Today: I was going to get up, get dressed, go to Domayne, buy new thumb drive for uni, finish Saturday's housework, deal with the kitchen, do some knitting, hopefully watch Grey's Anatomy in the process, ring surgeon to find out what time my appointment is on friday, shower, apply make up so I look like I have some colour in my face (if my hair was darker I would currently look dead I am that pale) and then at about quater to 6 I was going to drive to my friends house for some thing he is throwing. It is now 2:30 in the afternoon and I have watched Grey's Anatomy, worked on the sock (about 1.5cm off starting the toe!!!), pulled things out from under my bed and stared at them, showered and applied make up. Also, not going to friend's thing till later because am now apparently going to go see Housework and kitchen and cleaning my room seem like an awful lot of effort because well frankly, I have to move to do that and I am in enough pain that if I didn't know what it was I would be wondering if I had somehow cracked a rib in my sleep. And the other thing, being in this much pain is exhausting and I need another nap. Despite sleeping from 11-9.

Aaargh!!!!

2007-12-15T21:16:00.001+11:00

I need to get my Dad's christmas present and send it off, not to mention to mention picking up my mother's christmas present and get Pamela's and Daniel's Christmas presents. I'm feeling so damned flustered. This being sick sucks.

Ooops...

2007-12-05T09:20:00.000+11:00

Well I had these glorious plans of not buying anymore yarn until i had made a sizeable dent in my stash. I've managed to dent about 7 balls out of it, which all things considered isn't much. But I fell off the bandwagon last night. We have a friend who we met about 3 months ago and she is the mother of an incredible family. And they have done all they could to help us (they have Meg, and say she's a good playmate for their son etc) and they are wonderful. And she spent an obscene amount of money on a scarf (wool/ac, v. pretty but not a scarf worth as much as she paid) and so I said I'd knit her another one for winter. So onto Bendi I hop to get an idea of colours to keep an eye out (my stash is almost all v. brightly coloured and fun) for. But Bendi sells Alpaca now. Yes, Alpaca. Alpaca is my one true weakness where yarn is concerned. I love Alpaca's cos they're so damned cute and after knitting my lace alpaca scarf last year I'm madly in love with the fiber and I can't think of a better fibre. So I ordered alpaca in Havana for our friend's scarfs and having been bit in the ass by inspiration after the last cast on and actually going and looking at the stitch pattern over on the blog, I figured out an idea for a scarf in my head. So I ordered some more alpaca in Oceana, because I am somewhat snobby where my scarves are concerned and simply prefer Alpaca. Then Mum ambled into my room and announced she wanted a shawl to go with her ball gowns, but couldn't figure out if she wanted a neutral one like my scarf/wrap or a black one. So I'm somehow knitting her a neutral one (the twin to mine in ALPACA!!! *dances) and a black Kiri shawl in 5 ply wool from Bendi. But thankfully she gets that these won't be happening for a while.
The christmas knitting is continuing nicely. I finished Em's glove yesterday and cast on the first glove for Poppy. I'm most of the way through the ribbing for that. Once that's done, I need to start work on the dog jacket for Grant and Clarrissa's puppy. I'm planning to use the Penny pattern from Knitty for it.
Today I went and got my bloodtests to see if they can give any indications as to what exaxctly is wrong with me. So I just have to wait now until the results are back to see if they say anything. If not, I have an appointment with a gastroenterologist on the 31st of Jan. Unfortunately the somewhat annoying timing of the appointment means that I've had to cancel my Japan plans because I simply don't have the time to save up and for it not to clash with the appointment. The other thing is going after the appointment does work because apparently after the initial appointment there's a second appointment during which they knock you out and stick a stube inside you and have a look at everything inside you. So I guess we'll see where it all goes.

Travelling sock

2007-12-03T21:59:00.000+11:00

I've spent about an hour trying to get this to load up here, but can't and im tired and cranky and I've given up, but anyways here's a link to the image http://anuedu.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=274471&id=204400064&l=8cceb
It's me knitting a jaywalker with Tori Amos in the background.
The christmas gift knitting continues. I'm decidedly glad that no one reads my blog that I'm knitting for. I'm currently knitting the second glove for Em, with plan to knit gloves for my pop, dad, and daniel.
Anyway, I should probably finish up and get back to the christmas knitting.

Drugged up and almost pain free

2007-12-01T21:01:00.000+11:00

On Thursday my gall bladder played up insanely. In the middle of a shift at work. It was bad. Then on Friday there was on an oncoming migraine. So i spent friday very drugged up. then on friday night, my gall bladder started hurting again. and today i felt like crap and then my gall bladder started again. im not sure if this is my body telling me that im over doing it or what. but it sucks. and so i took today off work. and feel a little better for it. i spent most of the day sitting or laying down because the pain killers make me nautious, although i did manage to get derek's sock finished. im feeling very pleased with myself too. i kitchenered the toe (well duh) but it looks really good and i feel really proud of myself. and i even cast on the second sock today. and im terribly sorry about this odd post but ive just taken the pain killers and they make me a little woozy and somewhat drunk feeling. so working on the ribbing is probably stupid, but i want to finish this sock. for someone reason i always find the second sock goes faster than the first.
hmm, in other news my amazon order arrived. the quilting book i bought for nana is absolutely awsome. i cant remember what its called and i can't find it write now. but its incredible and i hope she makes me a pretty quilt. i hope so because nana made things are the best in the whole wide world. i also got cables untangled and last minute knitted gifts. and i love them both. cables untangled has beautiful stitch patterns and i love the pattern for the sampler afghan. i suspect something of that magnitude will take me forever. i also suspect that last minute knitted gifts will be sanity. there are so many patterns in there and i love most of them. i wish i had a baby to knit for or a boyfriend who would wear scarves and the money to buy cashmere more often. or ever really. and i want the alpaca blanket because i am turning into a total alpaca whore. it rocks my world completely and utterly. and i want to knit my mum the camisole, although i suspect ouf of something somewhat cheaper than silk and hopefully less bitchy to knit with.
im thinking i should really stop babbling because im sure this slightly drugged up post isnt awesome and should stop before anyone who reads this blog realises that they dont want to read anymore and that they dont love me anymore.

2007-11-26T16:45:00.001+11:00

I'm back after the absence. Right in the middle of exams, my laptop decided it didnt want to work properly anymore. So last week I bought a new laptop. It's very shiny. 2 gig ram, 160 gig harddrive, in built webcam and microphone. The only problem is it has vista on it. So just as soon as there are camera batteries there will be photos.
Anyways, knitting news. I have one glove, about a 1/3 of a wash clothe and I'm up to the heel bit of Derek's sock. I'm up to picking up the stitches along the heel flap. It's driving me insane. I can't pick up the edges without leaving silly little gaps. So I'm going to try and make it all perfect and pretty. I usually have this problem when I knit socks. So I'm determined to over come it and make my socks without the unsightly little gaps. So yes.

Summer of WIP's

2007-10-21T09:45:00.000+10:00

My goal for between now and the end of the summer holidays is to get as many of WIP's off the needles, finished and where relevant actually given to the person they are being knitted for.
This is includes
The Green Shawl
Mum's Kimono Lace Shawl
Pamela's set
Derek's socks
My ac mohair bag (its pretty!)
The Pirate Jumper (it's laying around like bad feelings and I need it finished)
Meg's feather yarn scrapghan

I also plan to make
Socks from Caspy (he's so pretty, but due to lack of batteries again, yet to be photographed)
My Shadow Tweed Jumper (in time for the cold)
Monkey socks using my Cherry Tree Hill
Gloves for Margaret, Cameron, Poppy
A set for Meg

I also need to replace my notions case and it's contents, IT WENT MISSING! So I'm hoping to do that after I get paid next week. I need to get all the bits and pieces again, but I have another case, one that isn't broken, so that's something.

Anyway, off to work, it's my first proper shift at Koko Black. Not going to make it to SnB today probably, but never mind.

Down the rabbit hole

2007-10-18T14:53:00.000+10:00

Following links instead of studying seems to be what I do. Anyway, last night in my link following I found this post and it set off my creative brains. I've been itching to knit with bamboo since January when I made the Intolerable Cruelty skirt on knitty using something that was not bamboo, but made a decidedly delicious winter skirt. And then this post lead me in this afternoon procrastinations to go have a looksie at the Cleckheaton bamboo and I've fallen in love with the fawn colour way and have decided that I want a low v neck tank with lacing over the chest to make it a little low cut, but still pretty. Because I can't help but feel that it would make a very lovely summer top to go with my jeans and sometimes 3/4 jeans. I felt I would share this because I can't do a damned thing about it. I have my final exams for the year coming up (one tomorrow, and basically one a week for the next five weeks), and a whole lot of gift knitting to do. Due to the mammoth amounts of study, Pamela's set is progressing a lot slower than I want (Like a week and a half to get it off and I have a beanie, a bit of scarf, and about 1/3 of a pair of hooded gloves).

2007-10-14T21:55:00.001+10:00

It doesnt seem like too long I honestly thought Will and I were going to make it this time. Things were good, well not towards the end, but I thought that's because he found a friend of his had cancer and then just as he was getting over the shock of that my period decided to be hideously late, and because I was stressed with exams and quite simply needed someone to tell me it was all going to be okay, told him. Even when I was unhappy for whatever reason (not very often were he was concerned) I was always happy with the relationship itself. And yes, I got upset when he turned up at my house late smelling like another girl, but stupidly told myself it was okay. I thought it was going to work out still, for a full 24 hours after, right up until he said the words 'I'm sorry, but I realised I'm still in love with Noni. I only used you to fill the void in my life she left when she left me' because I figured we could be friends and he could sort himself out and it would be okay. And for a while I tried to blame it on the jumper and I thought maybe when I could face it without crying all over I would finish and it would all be okay. The jumper is still waiting for that to happen. I'm not sure I am going to finish it. I'm just not ready to thorw it out yet.
It was about 3 weeks after that, shortly before the Jessica Rabbit red hair, that Derek and I hooked up. He came over because Mum wasn't coming home and I still couldn't handle being home alone. I was 2/3 of a bottle of vodka drunk when he turned up. We talked, he sat with me while I through said vodka up and then we crashed in my bed together, completely clothed, becaused I was too drunk to figure out any other sleeping arrangements. One thing led to another, and it happened on the proviso, what happens in the bedroom, stays in the bedroom. He left the following morning and I figured well that was a pleasant interlude to the more or less constant pain. I figured that would be it, I might here from him again in a little while, we were suposed to be hanging out the following friday, because I wanted Iori and couldnt really handle many people and didnt want to go on my own and look like the single loser I was.
Then he texted me, and it somehow became more than a one night stand. It happened whenever we got the oppurtunity and I found myself thining about him more and more often. It felt kind of crazy. He was D. I 've known him since I was like 14. The thing that amazed was he was blowing off friends to spend time with me and he actually wanted to make something of it. I was far from ready for serious. I'm still not sure I am. I'm not doubting I care deeply about him, because I do, but it still freaks me out. I'm blonde again, and that led to me freaking out the other night because I felt completely and utterly exposed. And I couldn't explain it to him. It was weird, but I wanted to. And it's been awhile since I actually wanted to explain to someone that this is what's happening and this is why and that I'm scared and vulnerable and please don't break me. I didn't but its a start. And that in itself terrifies me.

Follow up

2007-10-13T09:43:00.002+10:00

This post is a follow up from yesterday. I had my trial shift at Koko Black. It was just dishpig work, but you know what, it pays more than supermarket, everyone there is really nice, I get to listen to my ipod while I work and I got the job. Also I don't have to deal with customers. So it works. I start officially next Sunday at 11. I'm going to have a perment Thursday night and Sunday day shift, which means I won't be making it to Sunday snb's, but I haven't really managed that for a while now anyways, so never mind I guess. I'll do my best to get to some more of the evening ones now that I'm driving and things.
I do have to say though, yesterday totally kicked ass. When I got home from work yesterday, I checked the mail, and my new yarn has arrived. I ordered some cashmere/alpaca sock yarn from www.yarn4socks.com in a colour way called Black Orchid, and it arrived! It's even prettier than it was in the online photos and its so soft and lovely and I spent most of yesterday afternoon stroking my yarn. I can't wait to knit with it. I need to finish all the other gift knitting first though that and find an awesome sock pattern.

Giant Chocolate Christmas Bauble!

2007-10-12T13:40:00.000+10:00

Well, not a great deal of knitting has happened this week thanks to a 2500 thousand word essay which is now written. Work on Pamela's scarf continues decidedly slowly, and I have started her gloves as my take around project, figuring the green shawl can just go on hold for a little while, at least until deadline knitting is done. I'm begining to think about Christmas knitting at the moment. It seems that I want to knit just about everyone a pair of gloves, they're quick, simple and stash busting (my stash is someone enourmous). I'm trying to work out what I can knit for my step mother though. I havent seen her in something like 11 years, so yeah. I'm currently leaning towards something like a wash cloth and just making a little pack with a wash cloth and some nice bath products in it. Nice enough for a Christmas present, but generic enought that I don't have to really think.
I have a trial shift at Koko Black today. I'm really excited. If it works out, I get to say bye bye to the supermarket, which I really can't handle much longer. I need the money, but I do not need to be abused by my manager and the customers. The managers behaviour is unprofessional and I'm totally over it. Also, Koko Black has the coolest Christmas bauble ever. I'm usually objective to Christmas in stores before mid November (people need time to buy Christmas decorations, and well I need Christmas displays to stare at when I'm stressed through end of year exams), but I do have a serious love of Christmas decorations. I think it's because they're so shiny and bright coloured and beautiful. Whatever the reason though, they make me smile. Koko Black has an enourmous (maybe 75cm diameter enourmous) christmas bauble made out of little heart shaped chocolates all stuck together in a ball. It's so very cool. When I went in to hand in my resume, the guy who I was suposed to be seeing was hanging it up, and I totally embarrassed myself by going 'oooh' and getting a bit mesmerised by the giant bauble (It's awesome okay?). I honestly feel that whenever people are next in Civic they should go check out the bauble and buy some of the Milk Earl Grey chocolates. They are totally awesome and delicious and good.

Oops

2007-10-07T09:24:00.001+10:00

Just a quick entry before I run off and make my lunch for work and then go to work (8 hour shift on a Sunday, its good money, but ugh!). Anyway though, the meeting with the subdean went well. I'm changing from Specialist Asian studies to Translation (Asian Regions), so next year I will drop linguistics and archaeology and start Asia and Society and Korean. Which will be exciting. I still need to write this damned linguistics essay though. It's driving me insane, I can't bring myself to do the reading for it, because it's just so damned dry. I'm going to take it to work with me today in the vague hope of doing some of it during my lunch break. I've got a thousand words written (they still need to be referenced properly because I am a dolt), but need to have written another 1500 - 2000 by Thursday. I know if I sit down and do the reading I can have the writing done in a couple of hours, I just don't want to. The whole knitting just isn't helping either. I'm working on Pamela's set still, which I had to restart the scarf of because it just wasnt working. I'm also having the period from hell, which just isnt helping eihter. I want to do nothing but take pain killers and sleep. It's rather annoying.

Another entry?

2007-10-01T15:02:00.001+10:00

I know, two entries in under a week. Something's gone wrong.
Actually, I finished my Jaywalkers on Saturday evening and thought I'd say look, the bloody hideous things are off the damned needles. I also found photos of the gloves and socks I made for Alex when she got back. The gloves I designed myself because I couldn't find a pattern that did exactly what I wanted. The socks are modified rpm's because I didn't feel like knitting in the round. I'm like that sometimes. So anyway, to the pictures!

Because I'm having picture issues again, we have
1. Alex's RPM's
2. The gloves I made and designed for Alex
3. Catherines Jaywalkers.

It's been awhile...

2007-09-29T10:52:00.001+10:00

It's been awhile since I had a chance to post here. I tend to find when life gets chaotic, life gets chaotic. But there have been things happening for me to post about, so that's always something.

1. *drum roll* Al is finished! I finished him a couple of days into uni break. It took me about two weeks to put him together because I hate seeming that much. He turned out to be way to big for Daniel, which totally blows and is a tad embarrassing, but he is my first sweater. And I don't claim to be a fantastic knitter, merely a knitter. Given that its my first big project other than my Doctor Who Scarves though, I'm happy. And it gives me hope for the other jumper OTN (its in haiatus though until further notice) and the two others I plan to cast on, so its all good really.

2. I got sick. Again. This is actually the reason for the chaos and the lack of updating, even during uni break. I ended up in hospital with severe abdo pains and nausea after a couple of days of mirgrainey fun and stomach pains. I went to the doctor who tried to tell me it was my ovaries and prescribed me ponstan. The pain was up near my ribcage. And I have PCOS, I know what ovary pain feels like and this was not ovary pain. But the general consensus was gall bladder. So, I'm too avoid fatty foods and if its really that much of a problem I can have it taken out. It's been all sorts of fun though. It's involved a total overhaul of my diet, which whilst not unhealthy or fatty on the whole, did involve a lot of high fat things like yoghurt topped muesli bars, avacado and the occaisional ice cream. I'm the process of finding out what I can and can't eat and it can be extremely unfun. And it's knocked my body totally out of whack, so it's gone back the days of my childhood where I was lactose intolerant, which means all kinds of fun all over again as my body adjusts to soy products. Also, soy yoghurt is just plain nasty.

3. TORI AMOS! Lizzi and I have had Tori Amos tickets since the day they came out in July. And despite the getting sick, I made it! We stalked the stage door in the afternoon and she came out and did a meet and greet and SHE HUGGED ME! I WAS HUGGED BY TORI AMOS! Tori also signed my book as well, which was just totally awesome and made me happy. She's really really lovely and I can totally believe all the stories you hear about her being fantastic and lovely and wonderful and cool. The concert itself was mindblowing. Lizzi and I had seats two rows back from the stage and it was so freaking cool! She sounded incredible with the band. Like even better than when we saw her in the accoustic tour for the Beekeeper two years ago. And she played Take to the Sky and Little Earthquakes which are two of my make fix songs. Little Earthquakes just has incredible power behind it, and Take to the Sky has the lines 'I dyed my hair red today, Just need a little passion, To hold me in the dark'. And well, W. left and I got drunk and dyed my hair red. 'Nough said there really. She also played Me and a Gun. It was amazing. The audience went dead silent and while she was singing the only noises you could hear from the audience was people crying. It took the audience a few seconds to react when she had finished singing and we were even louder than before when she did. It felt so incredible intimate.

I've almost finished my Jaywalkers for Catherine. I've got about 11 rows before the toe. I'm really proud of the other toe, I did it perfectly! This is a big deal for me, because I simply do not get along with kitchener stitch at all. I hate it with a passion, yet socks really do need a kitchener stitch toe to look proper. The beanie for Pamela is started. Theres still the gloves and scarf to do after that though. The silver thread through it looks totally incredible though. I wasnt entirely sure how it was going to work, but I'm really pleased with it. It looks great.

Uni is continuing. I have an appointment with the subdean on Tuesday to talk to him about changing my degree from Asian Studies to translation though. I can't do linguistics. It makes me want to cry and it's driving me totally insane! So I want to change into a translation degree, which will actually be more relevant to what I want to do in the future.

Anyway, I think that's about it for now, I'll try and get the photos into this to sit where I want them, but no promises, they might all end up down the bottom like last time.

Maybe One Day...

2007-08-19T18:14:00.000+10:00

There will be photos. Eventually. I have batteries now. They might even make it into the camera soonish. Then photos will be loaded up eventually. Don't hold your breath though.
I've gotten my car up and running since last time I posted. It was a busted wire in the regulator, which is apparently part of the alternator. But it's all good now. It runs. I drive to and from uni. It's great.
I also had a birthday. That was last Thursday in fact. I went out with my friends and it was a lot of fun. Alex (who's put me on a yarn diet after meeting the stash) was rather annoyed that Jason bought me yarn. But it was fun, we all had a great time and drank too much and we ran into Ryan and Josh and Tandy and spent most of the evening with him. Then the New Boy, D., Alex and I all crashed back at Daniel's place. It was lots and lots of fun. And we have to do it again. Also, there will be photos soonish of my Johnson Brothers Blue Willow dinnerset that my family put together and bought me. It's beautiful. Complete with tea cups and saucers. I'm in love. OOer and I got Addi Turbos! 3.75 bamboo dpns and some 6mm 80cm circs.
There was also a craft fair last weekend. I managed to find a jumper quantity of shadow tweed in the colourway I wanted for HALF PRICE. So I bought it. It's very pretty and I'm showing great will power in not casting it on. I am going to finish Al, the stockinette scarf, Marty's mum's shawl and quite possibly even mum's shawl before I cast it on. I am trying to finish projects rather than constantly start them.
Having said that though, I designed and cast on a pair on men's thrummed fingerless gloves last weekend. It was D's birthday yesterday, so I decided to make him gloves. I've known D. for five years now, and one of the times we talked awhile ago, he was complaining about cold hands in the Canberra winter. So I said I'd make him gloves, which I'm fairly sure he forgot about because he hasn't mentioned them since. But, true to my own style, I finished them today. But I won't be seeing him until sometime later this week, so it doesn't really matter. They look good, I will photograph them before they go off. You can't really see the thrumming at all because I dyed the yarn and roving with the same dye. I wanted the warmth of the thumming, without too much of the appearance because he is a boy and not one prone to wearing large amounts of bright colour. So I kept it neutral to stay safe. I'm happy with them though. Very Happy.
The Jaywalkers need to be frogged, but they will be recast on. I put them in my handbag one evening when I went out D. and then my handbag out them. So there are stitches where there shouldn't be and no stitches where there should be and its a total mess, so I will frog and restart.
Al is continuing along. I'm onto the final sleeve. I'm feeling quite pleased with him. I'm looking forward to sitting down and putting him together. With any luck that will be happening on Sunday because I have the day off.
I went to Brand Depot and Spotlight yesterday with Mum and Meg. I got the cutest pair of yellow ballet flats. They have little yellow flowers all over them. I don't normally wear shoes like this, I find flats somewhat uncomfortable usually, but these ones seem to be okay. But I bougth them for a reason. I plan to get a tattoo soon. When it warms up. On my foot. I have a scar that covers most of my left foot. So I'm planning to get a shooting star tattooed across it. So I'll need shoes like the new ones for the first few days while it heals up. I also got the fabric for my Saber skirt, which I'm going to have to start sewing.
Apparently it is dinner time. Maybe, just maybe, next time I update there will be photos. I hope so.

2007-08-01T08:15:00.000+10:00

My Saturday sucked royally. It was my one chance until Sunday to sleep in. So work rings me at TEN PAST 7 IN THE MORNING asking me what time I was suposed to be coming in. I growled half past one and was about to hang up when they asked if I wanted to come in earlier. I growled no, I will see at half past one and hang up. Ended up half dozing, but not really sleeping for the next two hours. I got up and sort of floated around the house and managed to get a few things done, which was good. Then at five past one, thinking I was so good leaving ten minutes early to put petrol in my car, I go to turn my car on. It wouldnt start. So I rang mum panicking. She told me to take her car. I couldnt get her car out of the drive way because I was so panicky. It ended with mum's car hitting the back of my car. I cracked the plastic cover on her headlight, scared the crap out of myself and cut my finger open on the jagged plastic (the cut needed two hello kitty bandaids to cover it up!). Work was thankfully pretty good, I think I was giving off the vibes that warned people how close to hysteria I actually was, so everyone was really really nice to me. During my break I rang mum to tell her about the car, and she told me my alternator was dead. Then my phone battery died. After work civic. That went really well until I got a migraine and my evening finished with me taking strong painkillers and maxolon after getting to know my friend the toilet bowl. Saturday was not a good day. Monday wasnt much better. Everything seemed sort of sucky and nasty on Monday and my head still kinda hurt and my hand was playing up and nothing worked out for me on Monday.
Yesterday though was better. I made a point of trying to be cheerful. Alex and I watched V (good casting, horrible film). I worked on Daniel's jumper. 9 cm till I get to do all the shaping and things for the collar and underarms, but I am so over the dark blue plain yarn. I am so ready to do something else. As a result, I succumbed to the Jaywalker socks. I cast one on in this really really bright yarn I bought in Melbourne. It's a Patonyle sock yarn, but its pinks, oranges, yellows and whites. It was about half ten when I cast on last night, so I cast on, joined, did part of the first round of ribbing and put the sock down. And slept.
Today will be a good day though. It started with a ten minute run on the treadmill, which felt good. I'm going to try and run everyday and try and inrease the running time to twenty minutes in the end. And once I've done that, make it faster and faster and then play with the gradient. It was a good way to start the day. Particularly when it was followed by a hot shower and then some toast with the really yummy blood orange marmalade we have.

Driving

2007-07-28T11:26:00.000+10:00

A lot has happened since the last post. I went down to Melbourne for the holidays, where I bought far too much yarn, but still feel quite pleased with myself. I managed to get horribly lost in the part of the city I know trying to find somewhere to buy socks and ended up finding myself in a fabric store in the middle of a yarn sale. I got lots and lots of the Patonyle sock yarn for 1.95 a ball and was ovely pleased with myself for it. I havent started knitting any of it yet.
Alex arrived from England the other day, so I put aside the jumper (again) and began knitting for her. I knitted a slightly altered pair of rpms from knitty, and then a pair of thrummed gloves with mitten hoods, like the other ones. I did them slightly smaller because I found my math was off and they were too loose for my hands. I also legnthed them a bit because I have tiny hands. I think the coolest thing about these gloves however was the fact that they had dinosaur buttons. Yup, dinosaurs. I found cute little dinosaur buttons when I was in Melb and bought a whole heap of them.
Uni has gone back this semester. I'm taking a unit called Archaeology in film and fiction. It's quite cool. We have a three hour lecture on Mondays, which consist of an hour lecture and a film. We get to watch some very awesome films (Indiana Jones!!!). Plus, its being run by the lecturers I had last semester, who is really good.
I reorganised my stash last sunday and was amazed to find how much yarn I actually own. It's a little unnerving. I bought these two huge baskets and was totally amazed when not all my yarn would fit. And that's not including yarn for various WIP's. I'm going to attempt to not buy new yarn until it all fits into my baskets at least.
Daniel's jumper continues to go well. I have completed parts. I've also named it Al. Not sure why. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I need more fandoms though. There's no new Torchwood, Doctor Who, Grey's Anatomy or Battlestar Galactica for a while, so I have no shows to knit too :(
I also go my P's this week. That's right, I can drive. I went for my first solo drive last nigth and got home all safe and stuff. Quite pleased with myself for that!
Anyway, I should go, work soon and some bits and pieces to do before then.

Socks and Gloves

2007-06-18T19:47:00.000+10:00

Well, I meant to update after that Linguistics exams, but it just didnt happen. So I'm updating now. Exams are finished. The gloves are finished. The wavy lace socks are finished. And I have been knitting other things.
A friend of ours was diagnosed with a brain tumour about a week and a half ago, so I did what all knitters would do: Cast On. I initially cast on a shawl in mohair (this was before we knew what was happening beyond Ros having been admitted to hospitals and the ominous phrase of "tests are being run"), however that really hurts my hands (bad allergic reaction to the handwash at work, hands still healing, mohair bad), so its still going, but once we had more information (about 48 hours later), I found my way into Lincraft and under suggestion from Miss Penny (thank you!) bought two balls of Zhivago and made a beanie. I did what seems to be what i do and cast on for one thing then did something totally different. I used the basic beanie pattern I used when I was learning to use DPN's and instead of doing 34 rows of ribbing that would be folded up, I did 16 rows of *yo, k2tog* and then continued on as the pattern said. It worked. It looks great. It feels great. And most importantly of all, Ros loves it.
Aside from emergency gift knitting, I've been working on Daniel's jumper. After unravelling it again, I cast on using different balls of yarn from the lot I bought for it. I decided to cast it on in two pieces rather than one. This seems to have worked. I'm doing the bit between the shoulder decreases and the armhole decreases of the back. I'll be done before bed at this rate too ^^. I think that once the back is done I'll do the sleeves simply because I'm heading to Melbourne on Saturday, will probably get a lot of knitting time there and would rather not have the worry of live stitches on a completed front in a suitcase the following Thursday.
Because I've been sick lately, I haven't really done anything since uni has finished that isn't working or knitting. This currently suits me. I'm meeting up with a good friend in Melbourne which will be incredible. I havent seen him in a really long time, so it will be really great to catch up again. We're going to go amble about the place. It shall be nice.
Because I can't get blogger to do what I want, all the pictures I wanted to put in here are in no pretty arrangement down the bottom. But, there is the socks, a close up of the lace of the socks, a picture of the gloves, a picture of the beanie on the kitchen tiles, and a picture of me wearing the hat.

2007-06-12T09:36:00.000+10:00

Well WWKIP day was a total disaster. I sat in Glebe park for twenty minutes with a non knitting friend who just wouldnt go away (I use the term friend here to mean someone I usually like, but am not currently in the mood to deal with) and the usually drunk scary people that seem to inhabit Glebe Park. And to top it off, it was cold, and windy and yucky. It even started spitting at one stage. Seriously, WWKIP was a total disaster from this end of it. So I came home and studied and knitted in the warm safety of my house. Much better. I didn't take any photos despite having my camera because there was no point.

The gloves I've been designed OTN are looking good. The handspun all knits up really well, and the colours go really well together. I'm hoping to have them finished by Sunday's SnB. It's looking good. Mostly I want them finished ASAP so I can wear them. I do not like having cold hands. That and I'd like to show Miss Penny what I did with the handspun she gave me.

There will be photos. I know I keep saying this. But bear with me. It's exam time! I have an exam this afternoon. A linguistics exam! Working out photos on my blog is a scary scary idea. K? Yeah.

Although, as you can see, that is a photo. The half knit sock and ball of yarn in the background is the half knit second Wavy Lace sock. You can't really see it, but I'm working on the first rounds of the gusset. The ball in front is the ball of handspun which I've been using to knit the mitten hoods, cuffs and thumbs of the gloves. They're quite cute. And of course, a much loved cup of tea.

Having just rambled about exams, I should you know actually get dressed and stop fluffing around and make food to at least eat before the exam. And some miso soup because I feel like miso soup.

2007-06-08T13:33:00.000+10:00

I finally finished those Wavy Lace socks, and they're comfortable. I would take photos and post them, but I'm silly and didn't take photos and now they're wet from being washed (nearly a total disaster, I seemed to think washing them in the HOT shower was a good idea with pure wool, thankfully realised before they started felting...), so there will be photos when they've dried. I've mostly finished a glove, and have started on the second glove. I'm using a ball of handspun from miss penny and a ball of handspun I picked up somewhere else and then dyed black. I started the second glove because I'm not sure if I'm going to have enough of the handspun to do what I want with them (I want a hood in the handspun damnit), so thought I should knit the bits of the second one I wanted done in the handspun and then figure it out from there. I'm thinking if all else fails I do something cool with stripes mixing the handspun and black. It might just work that way. We'll see. Maybe I will photo and blog more regularly than once a month. (heh yeah maybe).
What else? I'm casting on the jumper for Daniel (again, 6th time *screams*) and will endeavour not to twist it as I join in the round this time. The jumper for William is on haitus as our relationship succumbed to the bloody sweater curse and I simply don't want to work on it right now. I have noticed that I haven't either thrown the whole thing out or unravelled it though, and do still plan to finish it, just not in time for his birthday anymore. I'm not why though, so we'll just leave it in its bag in the corner.
I'm looking forward to the WWKIP day picnic, and am thinking about taking my camera, but not sure if should/would be wanted/appreciated by anyone. I'm baking bao, and I suspect there will be other baking done tonight, although how much of it is actual desire to bake or just procrastination is anyone's guess. Anyway, the lecture I'm listening to is almost finished, so I'm going to shower and finish cleaning up in the kitchen and then I am going to sit down and work on a past paper. Really I am. Not gloves and not Daniel's jumper. Really.

2007-05-13T21:39:00.000+10:00

For my imaginery readers, I apologise. I have been a bad blogger. I began a knitting blog to stop tormenting the poor people who read my usual blog and have no interest in knitting, and then promptly forgot to update this blog.
As well as a bad blogger, I'm also a bit daft. The link in the last blog for the podcast Cast On is wrong. It should have been www.cast-on.com my apologies for that. I'm listening to old episodes of Cast On just to sort of zone out and relax before bed (I swear it feels like a Monday night even though its Sunday), and I'm enjoying Franklin Habbit (of the Panopticon blog) talking about his stash. It makes me feel better because my stash is slowly taking over the back half of my study and my desk. I've been designing some things, a lot of things using yarn from my stash. So when I get through the Wavy Lace socks, the kimono lace shawl, the bag full of what look like identical guage swatch squares which will day get sewn into a bag, the hot water bottle cover, the jumper (which will be finished by the end of july damnit!) and daniel's much reknitted jumper which just makes me want to scream. so basically in time for summer:P
Well, heres my plan. I've just downloaded some podcasting software, and I'm giving making my own podcast some very very serious thought. Obviously featuring knitting, but I think it will largely be a discussion of knitting and books and ramblings about uni and whatever else comes to mind.
Anyway I should get back to the sock and all the rest of it.

First post

2007-01-26T12:28:00.000+11:00

Hi, this is my first post. I figured it was time to start a knitting blog rather than just an everything blog. As I begin this I'm listening to the cast on podcasts found at www.caston.com They're quite entertaining. This week I've been knitting the intolerable cruelty skirt, which is thankfully almost finished because I'm getting rather fed up with knitting it. There is something wrong with nearly 100 rows of straight knitting. I've been dyeing some of the silk in pink and green because I'm planning to make a green lace scarf and little pink flowers to make it look like a tree in spring. something pretty and cheerful for winter. there will be photos next time i post, because due to laptop programs, my laptop isnt currently speaking to various bits of my technology and im not game to find out my camera is one of them yet. And sides, I'm going to dye the rest of the silk just as soon as ive finished this decrease set.