Personal

And now I’m just waiting for my dad to show up with the car so that we can drive to Aberystwyth. I’ve been up since 6:45… Feeling a bit nauseous actually. Then again, that is how I always feel when I have to get up really early. But I think a part of it is nervous-ness as well. I still haven’t heard back from the Accommodation Office (I’ve e-mailed them twice, letting them know that I won’t be arriving until today). I have no idea where my dad is right now. I know that he was supposed to get off the ferry at four a.m. and according to Google, it should take about four hours to get here. Which means that he should be here right about now. So…

I’m going to go back to enjoying the last few moments of Oliver’s company before he goes to work now that he’s up.

Let me just say this: a desire to start another project can really speed up your knitting, even when it is cables! I swear, I detest this intricate cabling because it takes up so much time. I’m really into instant gratification, which is why I knit socks a lot because I can pretty much churn out a pair in a weekend. AND it looks like I’m making a lot of progress. I know I can do shawls; I just finished one a few weeks ago. Plus, I’m a fast knitter. I’ve been called a knitting machine by several individuals. So why why why does cabling have to take up so much time? >_<

Anyways, I’ve gotten two Christmas presents done. The socks that I’m working on right now with all of the cables that are driving me nuts are for my mom and since they’re not a Christmas present, rather, they were supposed to be for Mother’s Day this spring, I figure I need to finish these before I go back to school so I can give them to my dad to give to my mom when he goes back to Belgium. Wow that was a long sentence; can you say long winded? At least I got the first sock done and all the ends woven in yesterday. I’ve almost finished the leg part of the second sock. So I’ve promised myself that I will not cast on for another Christmas present socks until I’ve completed at least the leg, preferably turned the heel as well. But, the Christmas socks are a part of a KAL I’ve joined with a couple of other knitters from the L&V message boards… Gah, the temptation!

Side note: Congrats to my lil sis who got into uni! She’s doing Illustration in Brussels. :D

And the shawl is done! o/

Go lookie!

Just click here and you shall see what I looked like last Saturday. It has pretty much washed out by now, though. If you don’t know the password, leave me a comment or e-mail me and I just might give it to ya. XD

I bought this fabulous knitting pattern from Cookie A called the Twisted Flower sock. Sure, the cabling can get annoying at times and my fingers hurt a bit and I’ve had a cable needle in my mouth pretty much all day, but all in all, I really like the pattern. It’s well written and the chart is easy to follow and after doing it for awhile, I just keep it there beside me as a security blanket in case I mess up.

Now, the problem that I’m having is because of the yarn. It’s 100% cotton. And at the gauge I’m getting, it’s so not going to fit my mom’s foot (because this is supposed to be a Mother’s Day gift). Grr. I hate cotton. But since I’ve put so much effort into it already (as in, I’ve spent six hours doing the leg!) I’m so not frogging it. Which means that I’ll probably convert it into a fingerless glove. It’ll be a darn pretty one, but it’s not the sock that I had hoped it to become.

Need to go buy proper sock yarn. Non-cotton sock yarn. On the bright side: Yay! A good valid reason to buy yarn from either The Loopy Ewe or Lisa Souza. And for a good measure, I’ll buy me some yarn as well. You know, as a consolation prize for doing cabling with cotton. ^_~

I think I know where I’d like to go do an MA if I decide to do one. Manchester offers an MA in Creative Writing where the “dissertation” is a piece of creative writing of 15,000 words. Sounds a whole lot better than having to do an actual dissertation. But the thing is, they only take 36 students. So I don’t really know what my chances are of getting in the program. I mean, I could do an MA at Sheffield, but they don’t offer Creative Writing MAs. Which means that I’d have to do an actual dissertation in literature or history or something. Just writing a 3000 word essay makes me feel like banging my head against a wall so the thought of writing something that’s five times the length of my previous essays… :( At least I’ve got until February before I have to hand in my application to Manchester. And, if I do get in to Manchester, then it’s only a 50 min commute by train from Sheffield (where I’ll be living with Oliver). So it’s doable. Knitting time! :D

Life’s scary. O.O

Yes, I know it’s been ages since I’ve updated, but I just haven’t been online that much lately. Right now, most of my time goes to knitting my “Japanese Kimono Shawl” (made with 100% bamboo yarn!). The pattern I got from Cheryl Oberle’s “Folk Shawls” book. Anyways, that’s taking up a lot of time during the day when Oliver’s at work (I get to watch the Crime & Investigation channel, The History Channel and Dr. Phil all day with Oliver’s mom Jill). Then when he gets back, usually a bit before six, we play Civ4 Beyond The Sword and then later watch a few episodes of ‘Allo ‘Allo. Good show that one, I recommend to… well, anyone really. It’s funny. :D So that’s basically what I’ll be doing until September.

Now, what I did before that is this:

+ Spent about a month in Greece (Pefkohori was the name of the nearest town if anyone’s interested). Swam almost daily, went boating, watched seasons 5-7 of Buffy with Jaz, got woken up at about 6:30 every morning by Mocca because she realized that I was the only one willing to get up that early to take her out. I miss Mocca. She’s adorable. I’ve got pictures (of both Greece and Mocca), but I haven’t transferred them onto my computer yet, but I’ll put some up eventually.

+ Jaz came over to England for a little over a week. She left this Monday. We shopped (my debit card is still cringing!). We both got these gorgeous coats from Dorothy Perkins (£50!!! That’s about $100). The first weekend we spent in London with Ryan and Oliver’s sister Anji (there are pics that Anji took during that weekend on Facebook if anyone’s interested). The following weekend Oliver’s parents went away, so Ryan came over and we drank while playing poker. I was the only one who did shots (not that I really expected Jaz to do any, but hey, two guys present! I feel like they should’ve at least had a shot each…)

+ I’ve been cleaning/packing a lot lately. It started in Belgium because I had to get everything together that I want my dad to bring over to Aberystwyth and then over here we needed to create space for Jaz to sleep in the small bedroom (I had been using that room as a place to put all of my stuff). So now everything that was in there is up in the loft. The one place I can’t go myself because I’m terrified of the ladder that I’d have to use to get up there. >_lt;

+ Books I’ve read: The House at Riverton by Kate Morton, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell, Shopaholic Ties the Knot by Sophie Kinsella. Those three I read in Greece. The Shopaholic was the quickest read (only one evening plus the following morning). The other two took about 2-4 days to read. All were excellent. Right now I’m working on Dan Brown’s “Angels & Demons” which I borrowed from Shaun. I’ve got a stack of books borrowed from him in June, so I figured I’d better get a move on those before I begin to read my own books (like the whole collection of Jane Austen I got for Christmas or the Little House books I bought in March…).

Now onto Annoyances that I’ve encountered here: Number One: Smoking inside the house. Number Two: Constant talking/making of noise. Number Three: Repetition of what has already been said. There are more, but those three are the biggest gripes I’ve got about being here. Still, I love Oliver and it’s worth putting up with those as long as I get to be with him. I just can’t wait until we get our own place. Then all of the laundry will be done the way I want it and I won’t have to worry about a shirt getting ruined by being washed in the wrong temperature or getting radiator stains on white articles of clothing.

I went to donate blood yesterday. Well, tried to donate would be more appropriate. When they pricked my middle finger to test my iron level, the blood squirted out and scared the nurse. XD But since they’ve got a high cut-off level (125) to make sure that once the blood has been donated that the iron levels won’t drop below normal, I wasn’t allowed to donate since I was at 120. First time that has happened. Ah well, after 90 days I can try again. And that time I’ll also see if I can donate platelets. ^_^

Shopped a bit too: two pairs of shoes and some yarn and needles. All for under £20.

Then in the morning before I went shopping and sort of giving blood, I baked! I made pulla and it’s got a lot of butter in it already… but everyone who tried it put some more on it! That’s compromising the wonderful taste of pulla and clogging up arteries. Bob even put butter and jam on it. *shudder* Pulla is supposed to be had like it is with either tea, coffee or a nice glass of cold milk. It’s got all the flavor it needs in the dough. I had fun making it though. Took me four hours. (But that’s because this batch took forver to rise!) XD

Okay folks, not much has happened since I got back to the UK. I stay in all day watching TV and knitting (and doing Hanjie and sometimes reading too…). Plus, I clean around the house when everyone else is out because I don’t want to get in their way, nor have them in my way. I disagree with some of the ways that things are done around here, but it is their house, not mine, so I won’t say anything. I’ve been out with Jill (Oliver’s mom) twice now since she has the week off work. A lot of walking around markets and such. Bought 900g of yarn yesterday in Barnsley, so I’ve got enough to make me a sweater. 80/20 blend of acrylic and wool, but it was cheap so I figured I might as well. At least I can throw it in the washing machine instead having to hand wash it.

I’ve also begun dancing. I go to a ballroom/latin dance class with Oliver every Wednesday night. My feet still get all muddled up, but I am getting better. Am seriously thinking of joining the dance team at Aber next year. Or at least taking more classes. It’s good exercise! Especially the waltz (I really feel that in my glutes for some reason). ^-^

yarn, knitting, dancing, ballroom

I can’t wait to leave! I’ve had a great time here, really glad I came, but right now I’m just feeling really antsy. I want to see Oliver!

Oooh, pretty lightning.

*waits*

And there’s the thunder. :D

Tonight’s gonna be fun though. Spending the night at Brandie’s. A bunch of us are going to order pizza and watch movies. Then she’ll drop me off at the airport in the morning. :) Hmm, maybe I can convince her to get up early with me and we’ll get breakfast at Denny’s or something like that. Dunno.

One more night to go!

Ooh, more lightning. It’s really cool when it happens and the still snow capped mountains are in the background.

leaving, movie night, Missoula, lightning, thunder