Personal

I lurves my mailman. He actually knocked this time!

Okay, so yesterday I decided to buy some yarn (yeah, like I *need* more, but there ya go). The yarn is from The Knitting Goddess. Bought it yesterday, got here today. Love her service. Anyways, what I got was some 4ply 100% superwash merino in Cinnamon Trio and Indian Summer. The green hank is 2ply 59% cashmere/49% cotton in semi-solid Jade. Add in the shipping and the total came to under £25. Not bad. But but but! Joy, the owner, had included a freebie! It’s a lavender sachet pouch kit. :D

And at the bottom of the pic you can see my cupcake club. Yep, today was an excellent mail day.

Oh and everyone who asked about the yarn I’m using on my socks: it’s Lisa Souza’s Sock! Merino in Printemps. :) I’m using 2,25mm needles with it. Love the tight fabric that creates.

Just thought I’d share a few more pics with you all. (Yes, I’m procrastinating, still have to write something for teens that’s due tomorrow…)

It started snowing again this morning. The snow was falling when I took the pics (doesn’t really show, but I promise it’s there) and still falling an hour later.

And this is the Bayerische sock I’m working on now. All of those cables just make me do a happy dance inside. And it’s actually not that hard. Just have to pay attention every single round so that the cables don’t get twisted the wrong way. Which is what happened to me two days ago, but I was able to fix it. ^-^

Washing machine’s calling me. Need to go set it to drying mode. Yep, I lead a totally exciting life.

We’ve got snow. It started last night and still going on now. So this morning, I took these pics:

Last I checked, we had about 12 cm (5"-ish).

And because of all this snow, traffic and trains have been kind of a mess. I decided to go to Nottingham early, drop off my coursework that’s due today and come back straight away. Skipping class is so worth not being stuck at a train station late at night. When I got home, there was an e-mail from my course leader saying that because so many of the readers have cancelled due to the weather, the session has been cancelled. W00t! Now I don’t feel guilty about deciding not to go to class. ^-^

Oh and now the news just said that the Met Office has issued an “extreme weather warning” because of the snow. For some reason this amuses me very much.

The garter stitch has finally ended, now I’m onto the crochet edging. After that dark blue yarn runs out, I’ll use up the light blue and then add white until it reaches the “right” measurements. :)

The first pic has the correct colors, the second shows the edging.

I seem to be on a Batman kick right now. Watched “The Dark Knight” last night (which was just awesome btw) and now “Batman Returns” is playing on TV. That and playing Lego Batman on the XBox 360.

In other news, coursework is finally done. Good thing too because garter stitch is beginning to melt my brain and have it ooze out of my nostrils. Kinda like what Proust thought was happening to him (’twas because of syphilis). But luckily spinning brought back some sanity.

This brings me to my next point: I’ve just joined this fibre club!. Can’t wait for the first shipment. But I guess I’d better spin up some of my stash first, just to make room.

And now I’m going back to having my brain dribble out slowly.

Throwing up, diarrhea, stomach cramping up, chills… not fun. Not fun at all.

Messed up my plans for today. I was going to go buy need headphones for my iPod (current ones keep falling apart on me) and then hang out at my LYS until it was time to meet O for dinner. *sigh*

I blame the salad dressing I had last night. Throwing that out as soon as I get the energy to go to the kitchen to make me tea.

So yesterday, in the middle of my very exciting day of cleaning, I got a text from Lucy asking if I wanted to meet her for coffee. Of course I did!

I walked into Hillsborough and saw the very special variety of people that go to Java Lounge. We sat outside knitting and trying to have a conversation. Wasn’t easy, considering there was a group of parents with their kids. That in itself is okay, BUT the kids were misbehaving (throwing rocks, destroying the flowers, etc) and the parents weren’t doing any parenting. At all.

We then went to Subway for lunch. Lucy ordered first and she got her sandwich fairly quickly from the woman behind the counter. I, on the other hand, was served by the Guy Who Would Not Shut Up. I told him what filling and bread I wanted. Before he even reached for the stuff, he stopped and asked where my accent was from (always a fun question to answer!). Told him Florida (true) and then after a pause, I clarified that I’m not from there, but from Finland. That got him going on about how his friend is Swedish and his other friend’s dad is Finnish and they way Nordic people speak seems stilted (I beg to differ btw, Finnish is nothing like Swedish) and… then he asked if I wanted cheese. Oh the cheese. He couldn’t separate the cheese slices. Which lead to hearing all about how he used to work at a cheese factory and how cheese is sliced (something about cold air from behind making the slices stick together). By the time I got to pick the dressing for my sandwich, he was telling me about the Americans who drown their sandwiches in multiple dressings and how he didn’t understand how they could eat those because they couldn’t taste anything but the dressings and… gah. The people of Hillsborough. There’s a reason why I only go to the library.

Drat. Dratdratdrat.

I just got a message from my landlady. She can’t come over tonight to deal with the outside drain that keeps getting clogged up because her son is sick (which is sad and I hope he gets better soon). So she’s coming over on Friday instead. Which is fine. Really.

But it also messes with my people watching plans. I was going to spend Friday afternoon in Starbucks and hope I see/over hear enough to get me inspired to write again. I *need* my writing mojo back. It’s been on a longer vacation than my knitting mojo! So, Friday was the day I had set aside for that. Now, I have to stay home. I guess I could finish off my coursework that’s due in a week and a half instead, but still.

Drat.

You know how I said that I was sick?

Well, yesterday, things got even better. First, on the flight home, my nose started bleeding after I blew my nose. It’s not like I was blowing my nose really hard or anything, just lightly because I felt it dripping and bam! Blood. Then again, the flight attendants were really nice and gave me a whole empty row to myself to deal with the bleeding. It did stop eventually.

But the nosebleed was just a minor thing.

The thing that really gets me is this: I’ve got conjunctivitis in my left eye. It started with a pain & itchiness, then I noticed that there’s this white goop in my eye. This was around 3pm. And oh the swelling. Then by 10pm, it was less painful for me to just keep my eye shut. And around midnight, O looked at me and said that my other eye seemed to be swelling too. Argh.

So this morning, I went to the doctor’s (went over at 8:30 to see if they had available appointments and got one for 9am) and he just asked me a few questions about my eye (nothing about the coughing or drippy nose), then told me how to use the prescription he gave me.

Came back, climbed back into bed for a few hours, then sent O to the pharmacy while I cleaned the kitchen and tidied up the dining room. We still need to tidy up the living room and vacuum everywhere, but other than that, we seem to be set for the party.

I just hope I’m not contagious. *crosses fingers*

Just thought I’d let you all know that I’m sick. Again. The last two days I’ve had a fever (no thermometer so don’t know how high, but everyone agreed that I have a fever) which means that I’ve been sleeping a lot and just lying in bed reading or lying on the couch semi-watching TV. My throat is still really sore, kinda hard to swallow. So yeah, not dead, but feeling very icky. And I still have a ton of homework to do. *sigh* Going home tomorrow though!

I can’t seem to get inspired by my WIPs. I’ve got two pairs of socks and a mitten. Well, the mitten only needs the thumb and then the pair’s ready. I just so don’t feel like working on it though. And this whole having three projects at the same is driving me nuts. I prefer to be a monogamous knitter, two projects at the most if one of them is a bigger one like a sweater or a shawl. At least one of the sock pairs is almost done; both of the socks just need the foot and toe doing, then they’re done. The other socks just have half of the leg done on sock #1.

Plus I have homework that I feel I should do. There’s the first coursework piece that’s due in December, and now I have to come up with a story for 10 yr olds. And I’m coming up with nada. At least I know what I want to submit as coursework for Fiction and Children’s Fiction in January. Haven’t written it yet, but I do have ideas. And since I have no portable projects right now, I’ve designated the train commutes as reading time. I seem to be flying through The Duchess by Amanda Foreman (about half way through I think). I’ve also decided to alternate between non-fiction and fiction books. I’ve got two more non-fiction books (Alison Weir’s The Lady Elizabeth and one about the Mayflower pilgrims) but a ton of fiction books that I want to read as well. Now I just need to pick what I’ll read next.

O’s parents are coming over in a bit. I can’t wait until I get my own car so we won’t have to depend on them to give us a ride to the supermarket. I could walk to the supermarket get all of the food that I need, but O likes to buy lots of soda and other heavy and/or awkward things (like pizza and potatoes). And I can’t carry that stuff up hill in the awful weather we have here. I mean, I could, but then it’d take me all day (okay, just the morning) to do it and I feel it’d zap my creativity that occasionally strikes. That’s another thing that I noticed this week: I get the creative ideas of what I could write for class and stuff only to find out that there isn’t enough space in my notebook to write them down. I’ll have to start carrying around my peach colored multi-purpose notebook again. So far it contains sections of various knitting patterns, genealogy research stuff, writing ideas, general notes to myself…

Ooh ooh! I’ve got a picture of my first “proper” handspun! It’s all done on a drop spindle too. It’s about 180 yds in fingering weight (about 15 wpi) 100% wool. No idea what to make out of it though. Not enough for a full pair of mittens, but I might pair it up with something else to make mittens. Or I could add it to my scrap entrelac scarf I plan on making after I’ve gotten my WIPs done. With that scarf I’m basically trying to use up all of the leftover sock yarn I have hanging around. Still haven’t decided if I should knit up all of my sock yarn before I start it though. I’ve got about five skeins of various sock yarns hanging around (four of those will be socks, one might become gloves). We’ll see. Anyway, here’s the yarn.

The house is still a mess, but tomorrow I can finally vacuum again! Then it’ll be exactly 14 days since the exterminator came the second time and this time I hope the bugs stay away. I haven’t really felt like cleaning up when I’ve known that I can’t vacuum so tomorrow’ll be fun! And no, that’s not sarcastic. I actually do like to clean, especially when I’ve got good music to listen to while I do it. The first room I’ll tackle is the living room, then the dining room, then the kitchen and finally the bedroom & bathroom.

I’ve been trying out my Happy Housewife scents and so far I really like most of them. There are a few that I don’t like, but that’s the fun of being in a club. Get something new that I wouldn’t have thought of ordering and be happily surprised (lovelovelove the club exclusive scent! Will very likely be getting a bottle of that) and then there’ll be stuff that won’t work on me. And I don’t mind that, it’s just how body chemistry works. Like my sister has found her signature scent that smells wonderful on her, but when I tried it? Nuh uh. So I’ll be gifting some of my non-working scents to someone. I’ll offer them first to my sisters and if they don’t want them, I’ll have to find someone who does. :)

One more thing! I have dance shoes! They feel kinda low compared to the shoes I used to dance in, but I’ll get used to it. Lol, a 2 1/2 inch heel low. I used to think that was plenty high enough, but apparently not anymore. Anyway, at least these won’t have my slipping and sliding around the floor while doing the Jive and almost killing me. :D

Personal

Good mail day

Lookie, another post with pics!

Snow snow snow

A little bit of this, a little bit of that

Food poisoning sucks

Let’s hear about cheese!

Well darn it

Goop galore

Eh…

General update-y goodness