Pictures of FOs

Mari's Hat - Loops and Threads worsted weight 100% acrylic yarn




Reverse Rice Stitch Cowl - Rustic Wool in pinks and Caron Simply Soft in black




Cabled Armwarmers - Rustic Wool in pinks.

This is my yummy knitted goodies for winter basket. I'm putting it by the door so I can grab warm things to wear as I head out the door.


Guess I haven't done any sewing in awhile, huh?


New yarn. This is currently being made into a modified Felicity for me. I love that pattern. It's great for watching the Food Network. :)

Psycho Researchers, Buses, and Chicken Taquitos

Today I learned that DW (the professor in charge of my lab) also believes that one of the girls who occasionally pops into the lab is completely crazy. This makes me happy because she's gone all bipolar on me more than once, shocking the ever-loving hell out of me. Silly me, I assumed that people who work together should be pleasant to one another. My mistake.

I was supposed to pick up my portfolio from Glenn today. That didn't happen. So everyone else got cookies except for him.

I still love riding the UT transit system. Especially if one of my dear friends, Amanda, is driving. The Art Museum route takes you through some pretty interesting areas. I forgot how many homeless people there are around Toledo.

I have discovered a love of frozen chicken taquitos. I had five of them for lunch today. Yes, I love food and eating.

I found two dogs in my back yard this morning. They wandered around and played for a little while, then left. I took a couple of pictures that will be uploaded eventually.

I finished my cowl and started Mari's hat yesterday. His hat is more than half done. I should definitely be finishing it today. Then I need to start Mom's shawl. And finish Maeo's scarf. Ugh. I just want to knit slippers for myself!

I need to return The Third Angel by Alice Hoffman. It was kind of disappointing. And I need to check out a new audiobook so I can finish some projects today.

In fact, I need to get a move on because if I don't leave soon to go to the library, I won't make it.

Mood: Contented

I baked some delicious Snickerdoodles today. Soft on the inside, crunchy around the edges. Perfect.

I also finished my cabled armwarmers today. I love finishing projects. Such a sense of accomplishment.

Just started a cowl with the leftover pink yarn and some black yarn I had in stash. It's a reverse rice stitch pattern and it will be my first attempt at a picot edge.

I found the Nanny on TV. I have a pot of blackberry sage tea on my coffee table and a lightly cerebral knitting project (those ptbl are not something I'm used to). I'm hoping that Lee doesn't show up at my house at 4 AM again tonight (or tomorrow morning, for that matter).

I was dead asleep. Then I woke up. And I didn't know what woke me up. So I glanced at the clock to calculate how many hours I had left to sleep. At that moment, I heard something. Now, I sleep with a fan on and the AC had just kicked on (which is what I assumed had awakened me, even though it never has before...not even when I first got it) so I had a hard time hearing whatever it was...Then I heard my bedroom doorknob rattle.

I silently wished that I had a baseball bat. Or my throwing knife (which I'm not good at throwing, but which is still pretty big and mean-looking). I heard a muffled voice outside my room. I stayed in bed, terrified to move, grateful that I had remembered to lock the door to my bedroom. My next thought was of my cell phone. Which was in my bag. Which was on the floor of my bedroom somewhere.

Finally, I got out of bed and crept to the door and listened carefully. I heard shuffling still, but it was somewhat familiar shuffling...so, in a low voice, I said, "Baby...?"

"Yeah?" Lee said.

God bless that man. I was so bloody happy that it was him that I didn't care about being rudely awakened at 4 AM because one of his roommates was being loud and angry and he didn't want to be around that house anymore.

Let's just say that if that doesn't happen again tonight, I will be so happy. But I'm going to do a couple of things differently. For one, I'm making sure that I have my usual collection of weapons in my bedroom before I go to bed. For another, I'm going to make sure that my cell is in a more convenient location. For example, plugged into the outlet within reach of the bed. These seem like good ideas.

Also, I should probably come up with dinner. Haven't had that yet...just tea and cookie dough. :)

Baked Brie and Cabled Mitts

So I started mitt number two today. I'll have it somewhat done before I go to sleep tonight. Lee and I cooked steaks on the grill and had baked Brie with pesto as an appetizer. It was utterly fabulous.

Unfortunately, in the last few days before the move, I had to help euthanize about ten fish from our remaining system. The remainder of the fish (six 10-gallon tanks containing between 6 and 10 fish each) will move to the health science campus sometime this week.

Today was spent boxing books and preparing chemicals to euthanize fish. I have an early day tomorrow so I should probably head to bed soon.

Dad's scarf is coming along fairly well. I need to start Mom's wrap for her birthday (Sept. 3rd), and I want to start knitting a sweater for myself. The closest I've come to completing a sweater for myself was the Rose Shrug, which hardly counts (and was only a dubious success).

So, after I finish these mitts and Dad's scarf, I'm going to start those two large projects. I know I can work up Mom's birthday present in a week, if I push.

And my next few little projects are these: mittens (for running in the cold, which it turns out that I like a whole lot better than running in the heat) and slippers (because we still haven't insulated the house properly and because I can never get the kitchen floor clean enough to suit me).

I don't typically wear gloves or mittens during the winter because I desperately need my fingers to be free even when I'm outside. I'm constantly fiddling with things that need traction. My car is a stick for God's sake and I hate-hate-hate when my fingers slip when I'm shifting gears. I also don't typically wear slippers but since my house was so cold last winter and because my kitchen isn't carpeted...I think I'm going to start.

I also need to buckle down and sew herald tabbards for the day event early in August. I have the material and thread...I'm just tremendously lazy and distracted lately. I have recently taken a great interest in things which can be completed quickly and offer a sense of instant gratification. Small knitting projects, relatively small and easy sewing projects, packing up boxes of small things...I like being able to mark things off my To-Do list with speed.

Also, I finally got a library card today. And I love the little library that is closest to my house. It's on the way to and from school, actually. It has a fountain in the foyer and little green arm chairs and a delightful din of voices in the background. Silent places make me nervous when I'm reading for pleasure.

Oh, right. I was going to knit and go to bed. Time to go do that.

Saturday Afternoon

First goal for today has been accomplished: sleep in. This was a near-fail because I woke up for the first time around 7 AM. But in either case, I stubbornly continued to sleep until 10.

Further goals for today: cleaning everything in this house. I'm going to reorganize the kitchen, vacuum the living room and hallway, potentially my bedroom too. Definitely the office (so many pesky pins on the floor...I've taken to leaving my slippers outside the door. I'm going to sweep the kitchen after it has been reorganized and vacuum (not dustpan - sorry to make that a verb) up the cremains of my meal-making.

Meals have been especially good lately. With air conditioning, I can justify cooking because it doesn't heat the house up too badly. Last night it was homemade focaccia crust pizza topped with mozzarella and feta cheeses and jalapenos from my garden. The sauce was some kind of green-pepper containing sauce that I would never have been allowed to use at home (my mother loathes green peppers and will not allow them or any products containing them into her house...I, on the other hand, and ever other member of the family loves them).

The night before last it was four-cheese risotto with fresh minced garlic. Risotto is one of those things that isn't particularly hard to make. It's just time consuming and a little labor intensive because you have to stand there and stir the rice constantly while slowly adding the chicken broth.

I don't measure things, but here's the approximates: 2 cups sushi rice, 4 cups chicken broth, two minced garlic cloves, one large handful of shredded Italian four-cheese blend (Mom buys me the containers of cheese at Sam's every time I come home. I use it in everything that I can). I think the four cheese are Parmesan, Asiago, Romano, and Provolone. I could be wrong though.

I am also currently hoarding a wheel of Brie that I'm going to wrap up in pastry and bake with pesto at some point, but since I can't eat the entire thing on my own I've been waiting for someone to come over and help me eat it. Preferably Lee. I know how much he loves pesto. I haven't seen much of him lately, and it's making me a little sad.

I started a pair of cabled armwarmers the other night, but they (and all my other knitting projects) are on hold until the blister I developed on Stackhouse day heals. It's huge and right at the junction of my right forefinger and palm. I tried knitting but (1) it hurts and (2) my tension is off. So I'll just wait and try again later.

I think it is time to get some breakfast then get on with the work.

Stackhousing and Knitting

Today will be devoted to laying out in the sunshine with one of my dear friends, smoking hookah, drinking wine and knitting. Though, I just went through my notebook on Ravelry and discovered that all four of my in-progress projects are scarves. This immediately made me want to work on another project, so I'm thinking I'm going to make some slippers today or something along those lines. Something that's small and full of instant gratification.

The four scarves in progress are: Crankshaft (for Dad), My So-Called Scarf (for someone), Lace Oriel Scarf (for Maeo) and Wisp (for me).

I'm putting Maeo's scarf off until last because I need to have a book open and read a chart in order to work on it, and I hate that. I can memorize just about anything less complicated than lace patterns.

Another option is starting my sweater so that I can have that done for Fall as well. Mary Maxim had what I call "sweater bags" of yarn on sale for $10/each when I was last there. Each bag contains ten 50g skeins of yarn - enough to make a sweater. I've never knit a sweater before, so my mom picked out a simple sweater pattern for me to try out to get my feet wet with large projects. I've knit literally dozens of scarves in the more-than-a-decade that I've been knitting, but the largest single project I've ever completed was the Boneyard Shawl that I completed a few days ago.

I've been lusting over my paint set for days now too. Unfortunately, I still haven't made it to Michael's to get a new bristol board pad and more of my basic color palette. I want to paint on fabric, but I don't want to invest in canvases when I'm so out of practice. My middle ground thus far has been to stretch fabric that I already have over a piece of particle board and staple it in place and paint on that. Hardly as satisfying.

I did, however, pick up a sketchbook yesterday and discovered that my drawing pencils have also disappeared during the move. So I need to pick some of those up too.

Fortunately, I have money in the bank and I still have two paychecks to cash from the job I no longer have. I have a day completely open to do whatever I want with whomever I want and that is most delightful. I feel like today is truly the first day of summer vacation (sad, I know) because it's the first day that I haven't felt riddled with worry about something or other. I'm perpetually running from one task to another, but not today. Today is for fun things and making myself happy. :D

Completed Projects, etc.

Brick Red Boneyard


Felicity for Tori

Outside, in the garden:

Basil


Cilantro


Cantaloupe


Roma Tomatoes


Jalapenos






Pretty Flowers


New patio furniture.

July, July

Today has been an interesting day. It started out bad, cycled to good, and has leveled out to the level of introspective.

The day started with a passive aggressive semi-confrontation with the Blonde One in the lab this morning. She's a decidedly unpleasant human being who likes to take credit for work she hasn't done, which irks me to no end. To the list of things that still need to be packed, add this: mystery object that she claims that she's going to pack, but won't. Frustration.

I spent the good part of the day with my boyfriend, which was excellent because we don't get to spend large chunks of time together that often. I'm always running to the lab and he's always running to work or other things.

I used my grill for the first time, and ate most of my meals today out on my back patio. It was lovely out - cool, slight breeze, scattered cloud cover.

Lee just left for the night, and I checked my email. I generally try not to play with my laptop when Lee is here. In my inbox was the reply to an email that I had sent earlier today to my creative writing professor from this past Spring. I had asked him if he still had my portfolio and if I could have it back anytime soon.

He replied to apologize for not getting it back to me sooner and to tell me that his life partner died. I can't explain how much my heart goes out to him. During the class, a member of his family died. This has been an incredibly stressful half-year for him.

He is an immensely tough person and was an incredible teacher for the semester that I had him and will do amazing work in the future - both on paper and with his students. He took zero crap from the problem students and helped the students who wanted to learn to succeed...and all the while didn't let the bastards get him down. And in academia, there are so many bastards and so few good students. I am honored to call him a colleague.

Home for the Weekend

I finished the Boneyard shawl. It's blocking out on the deck as I speak. I'll take pictures here in a little while. I also finished my sister's Felicity hat and she loves it. There'll be pictures of that later too. I have to visit the grandparents before I leave today, so I'm anticipating a late departure (in any case, later than I would like to be leaving because I'd need to leave now to make it to dag practice). Dad is changing the oil in Beulah, so I'm waiting on that too.

I was reading Cloth, Paper, Scissors yesterday and I really want to hand-bind a book again. I used to do that all the time, but i've really tapered off in recent years. I want to take up painting again too. And drawing. And pastels. I dug up all my old brushes, paints and pastels yesterday and have packed them up in boxes to take them to Toledo. Cannot for the life of me find my bristol board tablet. So that, and the primary acrylic colors need to be replaced. I found a whole bunch of my grandmother's old oil paints. I have no idea if they're still good or not, but I'm going to play with them anyway. I found some old canvases downstairs too. They just became mine. :)

Mom is probably going to take me shopping today as a consolation prize for missing dag practice again. I haven't played dag since Ragnarok. I'm really starting to miss it. In any case, I hope that my consolation prize today is outdoor furniture in the form of a pair of chaise lounges. That would rock my day. My back patio desperately needs a little help (first I need to get rid of those pesky anthills though).

I can't wait to set up the gardens in the back. I can't wait to plan myrtle and day lilies around the patio. I can't wait to lay out my vegetable and herb beds. Mostly, I can't wait to eat home grown veggies.

I need to go check on that shawl. It's really hot and humid out, and while it was mostly dry when i put it out there, I worry about it and want to bring it in as soon as possible. The sun gets pretty harsh out there. I don't want it to get bleached or anything silly like that.

Oh, and I made this:

Cinnamon Rolls and Herald Tabbards

I made cinnamon rolls out of a can for breakfast today as a kind of special treat. I'm currently between eating those tasty little nuggets of goodness and hopping in the shower. Today is going to have a later start than usual.

On the To-Do list for today: Goodwill to try to find a bag that I can mod, Jo-Ann's for yellow tabbard fabric and thread, locating at either store a black shawl pin of some sort, and collecting various hardware for modding. I want the bag to end up looking something like this:
I'm poor and can't afford the gorgeous ones on Etsy. However, I'm very crafty and clever and will probably be able to whip something like it together eventually.

I've been really inspired by the steampunk style lately. Not to an absurd amount; I'm not walking around in bustles and tiny little top hats and fish nets. I love the accessories though: the refashioning of old objects into pieces of art.

I think it's about time for me to get going with my day. I have so much packing to do before I take my lunch break, and I won't get to go about it at a leisurely pace today. *sad face*

Officially Freaked

So...I'm a very, very meticulous and methodical person. I do things in a very specific way for very, very specific reasons. These reasons are always logical and well-thought out, though rarely apparent at face value. I get a lot of, "Why the hell are you doing that that way? Isn't it harder that way?" then I explain and get the, "Oooooohhhh, I get it now."

And I am the principal person in charge of packing up my lab for the move to the health-science campus. Now, in comparison to some of the organic synthesis labs, my lab doesn't have a whole lot of "stuff" to pack up. We're a biology-obsessed lab with very minimal attention paid to traditional chemistry.

I left the lab last night fairly late, around 5:30 or 6 o'clock. I had been packing up glassware and between the moving materials and such, there was not a lot of free space in the lab, so I put the unfinished boxes against one wall, and the packing materials on a cart in front of the back window. Completed boxes went into the other half of the lab, leaving room to open drawers if needs be (though I can't imagine why, they were all empty and marked with red tape to indicate that).

I am the last, or nearly last, person to leave the lab. In a fit of helpfulness, I don't lock up the lab so that the guys can get into it in the morning if they beat me there. Aside from that, only three people that I know of have keys to the lab: the cleaning crew (who are incredibly absentee), DW and myself.

And to the best of my knowledge, the cleaning crew had absolutely not business moving the things that were moved, and do NOT have a history of moving things in the past. I've been in this lab for more than a year. I know it's rhythms and tempos better than most.

I was the first person to arrive at the lab this morning. The door was locked. I let myself in and immediately put on my lab coat and went to get a petri dish for fish-egg collection.

The cart was in front of the sink. The boxes on the window sill were on the ground. The empty, not-yet-assembled boxes had been moved behind a defunct incubator. Both partially packed boxes of glassware had been moved: one to a counter and the other to the other side of the lab. Two chairs had been moved. The biohazard bins were moved. The trash can had been moved. A box of packed syringes and glassware had been moved.

To the best of my knowledge, nothing is missing. And I have a pretty firm grasp of what is supposed to be there and what is not. What confuses me is that there is no practical reason to move the boxes from in front of the window. Unless someone was trying to look out, but even then, it doesn't make sense. What point is there in looking out that window? It faces the soon-to-be defunct boiler building and, at a distance, Carlson Library and the Student Union. There is virtually nothing to see there. Also, why the hell would the cleaning crew move those? Why would they move any of those things?

I briefly entertained the notion that they were trying to clean the floors...but that's highly improbable since they put more things on the floor. The arrangement indicated that perhaps someone was looking for something, though I can't imagine what. My lab notebook and the lab notebooks of the guys were sitting out on the lab benches. They were not disturbed. The cabinets were all closed, and for all I could see undisturbed.

Moreover, the placement of the items in the lab as of yesterday evening was one that expedited movement into the areas of the lab which are frequently high-traffic. The two incubators which were in use were easily accessible, as were the cabinets and drawers which we used on a regular basis.

Only one box was moved from the floor to a counter. There was nothing in the biohazard bins that shouldn't be there. The trash cans were empty.

I have run out of theories as to the reasons behind the strange rearrangement. My best guess is that it has become in vogue for drunk students to wander around wolfe hall at night. It is summer after all and the building is open to any student with an ID card.

The interesting thing is that, of the people I have spoken to in the pharmacology department about this incident, no one has witnessed similar activity in their own labs.

I'm thoroughly tempted to set up a camera of some sort to take pictures every few minutes during the night. Though my digital camera doesn't have those capabilities and even so, i wouldn't want to leave it in the lab while persons unknown are bumbling around it at night.

My two leading theories are random exploration by someone who is considering moving into our lab space after we move or some crazy animal rights activist trying to collect information about our alleged "abuse" of animals. More likely it's the former. My university doesn't have a huge problem with animal rights activists. They exist the way all student organizations exist: perfunctorily, and half-assedly. Besides, they're far too interested in improving vegetarian food options at the student union than trying to stop the three rampant fish-researchers in the pharmacology department. It's not like fish are cuddly and cute.

In other news, my copy of Start Spinning arrived today. Now I'm just waiting on my spindle and fiber. I really want to learn how to do this. It looks so interesting and entertaining. I love mindless, practiced tasks because they help me to empty my mind (which is usually so cluttered with projects and ideas and plans).

It is storming outside at the moment, so I'm going to put off finishing the grass for awhile longer. My garden can handle itself for the time being, and I still have to obtain a new oregano plant. For now, I'm cleaning my living room and kitchen because I'm going to be hosting a meeting tonight for event planning. I'm looking forward to seeing my friends and hammering out the details for our upcoming event (I say 'our' even though I am not officially a part of that unit for simplicity's sake).

And one final thing. I'm so happy that I don't work in a retail pharmacy anymore. I am blissfully relaxed and perfectly content, and I can feel my belief in the human race beginning to patch itself up. I was reading an angry pharmacist blog today and I felt so sorry for the pharmacy staff instead of feeling exuberantly angry with the pharmacy staff. I'm already beginning to feel like I am on the outside of that profession, and I'm happy about it. Maybe I won't end up with an ulcer by the time I'm 25 after all. :)

House work

It turns out that there are ground hornets in my front yard. Poor Lee discovered them while he was cutting my grass (as a surprise, I was going to do it later that day after I finished working at the lab). We can't quite figure out where they are, so my yard is sitting half-mowed until I can get rid of them.

I've got about six repeats of the 12-row pattern on the Boneyard Shawl completed. I frogged the striped scarf and am trying to decide between a 1x1 or a 2x2 rib (if i do the 2x2 rib, I was planning to do a left-twist on the knit stitches).

Almost finished with the first Charlaine Harris book on tape (tape here meaning .mp3 on my iPod). I'm loving it. Such delightful brain candy.

Renewed The Garden of Eden at Carlson Library today. I love books so much.

I've been trying to find a cheap pair of outdoor chaise lounges. I would love to be able to sit outside and knit and sunbathe in my back yard. Or read.

But, on the bright side, the interior cleaning has been finished. I packed two more cabinets of glassware at the lab and set up two tanks for breeding tomorrow morning. The guys cleaned some tanks on the system today so I didn't have to, which was amazing. The breeders that are healthy are getting nice and fat.

We've been having some trouble with the animal research facility that is supposed to be in charge of caring for the animals. They're supposed to feed the fish twice a day and keep the tanks clean. Thus far, they haven't been doing anything that they're supposed to be doing. I'm appalled that the administrative body that is supposed to be protecting the dignity and health of these animals forgets to feed them and lets them swim around in filthy water which will only result in their getting sick and dying. We've lost half of the new fish that were in isolation for the first part of the summer (that's how new they are) to parasites that would have been prevented if they cleaned the tanks more than once every two weeks. Breeding group 5, our best breeding group, consisted of three fish: two females (inky and dinky) and one male (dot). Thanks to the animal research facility, inky died. And dinky is looking sick. And I'm so pissed that I could spit.

It's not that I'm an animal rights activist. I'm not. I am, in general, completely in favor of using animals for drug research because in my mind the benefits outweigh the costs. These animals would not exist were it not for the need for research, and they're treated better than their wild counterparts for a huge majority of their lives. DLAR is, in many ways, better than my first apartment. It's climate-controlled, there's an abundance of food (at least for the cute, furry animals) and comfy, generous cages. There's protection from predators. (Yup, it's the opposite from my first apartment in just about every way).

The hypocrisy pisses me off the most. When I was being trained, they treated me as if I was going to beat and starve the little fishies and abuse them in any way I could think of. Or rather, that I already had and that they were reprimanding me. In the fifteen months since I was trained, I've stewed every day when I walk into the fish lab and find that the stupid technician that is supposed to feed the damn fish has decided that it isn't important.

It's not that hard to understand that fish are different from cute, furry mammals. It's not like you can leave a dish of food in an aquarium. Feeding is not hard. Turn off the system, feed the fish, wait about 8 minutes, if they're still hungry, feed them some more, rinse and repeat until they aren't hungry anymore then turn the system back on. And it's easy to tell if they're hungry, because they swim around the top of the tanks and fight each other for the little bits floating around.

The retard that they hired turns off the pumps, squirts less than the recommended amount of brine shrimp into the tanks, then flips the system back on. The dumb broad never feeds them the tetra flakes (which supplies the NUTRIENTS that they need, since the brine shrimp only supply protein). She never lets them eat. She turns the system back on immediately, which doesn't give them time to eat and sucks the food up into the filters. Which further dirties the tanks. Which they don't clean. Bastards.

the ultimate irony is that when animal rights activists get all in a tizzy about animal research, they get angry at us. Us meaning the people doing research using the animals. They side with DLAR, whose mission statement says that they protect animals. Such a lie. Such idiocy. I'm sick of being the bad guy, especially when I'm not. I have never in my life hurt any of the fish in the fish lab. My experiments are run on fish eggs, which the fish would eat themselves if I didn't collect them (and I'm not kidding, even fish find fish eggs delicious). It's a thin point, I know, but it's an important point on my moral compass.

I know that I can't do research on mammals. I've injected mice with drugs before, and I hated it. Fish are an entirely different animal (excuse the pun). No injections (at least, I don't do them), no force-feeding, none of the nasty stuff. Just dissolve the chemical in question in egg water and put the fish eggs in it.

I've tangented. I'm going to go back to knitting and listening to my book. :)

Pt. Sanilac, Michigan 7/1-7/9

So while I was in Michigan, I visited my favorite yarn store and purchased even more yarn to use in projects this summer and fall. I made a couple of things while I was on vacation, including these:

Twisted Sister Armwarmers

The Felicity Hat
(I'm making one of these for my sister for her birthday in a gorgeous shade of sky blue)

I started this striped scarf:

But I'm going to frog it and start over because the curling edges irritates the crap out of me.

I also purchased two skeins of pink variegated yarn from the Piece of Ewe yarn store in Bay City, Michigan. I was going to knit a pair of slippers out of them but I don't have enough yarn. :(

All patterns (except the striped scarf pattern, which is retardedly simple anyway) are available on Ravelry.com. Friend me: VivecaAsima.

In other news, I now own a grill and can't wait to start grilling delicious veggies and steaks on it. My garage finally looks like a garage now that all the boxes from the move have been broken down and recycled. My tomato plants are heavy with fruit and the jalapenos love their sunny corner of my garden. My oregano died, but there's a local greenhouse running a sale on plants and I'm going to go pick up a new plant sometime this upcoming week. My lavender, basil, chamomile, and especially the cilantro are doing very well. I can't wait to make homemade salsa from the goodies in my garden. I'm reading Wuthering Heights and The Garden of Eden (by Hemingway) and listening to Charlaine Harris's Dead Until Dark while I work and drive.

I'm currently doing laundry, which is a much-needed enterprise considering that I had already accumulated enough laundry to justify washing before I went on vacation. The front yard needs mowed. My living room needs vacuumed. the kitchen and laundry room floor need swept (because the men who installed my AC last weekend tracked dirt everywhere and left little bits of wire and plastic everywhere). And it's Sunday, so many of these things need to be completed before I go to bed tonight.

I am currently working on the Boneyard shawl in a lovely shade of deep brick red. I've completed 4 1/2 repeats of the twelve-row pattern. I can't wait to complete this shawl and block it. I have visions of myself wearing this with those nifty circle-and-pin shawl pins once it gets cool out. I absolutely love the color of this yarn, which is a 75%/25% Acrylic/Wool blend. I'm tentatively planning to make my Mom one of these for Christmas.

Next big project is going to be a sweater. I'm liking this pattern a lot: http://knitty.com/ISSUEfall07/PATTcherieamour.html. I'm sure that I have some bulky weight yarn laying around here somewhere, waiting to be used. Not going to lie, I would wear that sweater all the time.

Time to go switch loads. :)

Productivity

So, instead of writing or sewing or knitting anything, I've decided to give my blog an overhaul and to download a bunch of open-source writing goodies from the internet. I'm now the proud mama of Gimp 2, yWriter5, FreeMind, Scribus, and StorYBook. They're fabulous. I'm seriously starving for a new story idea so I can play with them.

I have officially quit my retail pharmacy job after much thought. There was nothing quite as liberating as telling my boss, "I quit." I've dealt with her antics for far too long, and it's silly to stay in pharmacy when my career path is leading me elsewhere. Double silly when the amount of stress and distraction it caused is considered.

I'll also be going on a little vacation very soon and hopefully will have some new material when I get back. Or at the very least, I will have fodder for new material.

pf&bl.