That’s what I keep telling myself.  I just need five minutes to pull the pictures off my camera, go through them, pick the ones I want to post, upload them, and then I can finally tell you all about my trip to Canyon Lake with my hubby, his sister, and niece.  I can then tell you about my niece’s wedding shower.  I can then tell you about all kinds of stuff (stuff that I can’t even remember doing, but know that when I go through the pictures will come back to me).  I just need five, freakin’ minutes.  The truth is… I had “five minutes” a few days ago and I, well, um… decided to knit instead.  I know, I know.  I’m a horrible and selfish person.  blah, blah, blah

Anyhoo, since I can’t give you a show and tell of my last week (or two??), I’ll let you know about my moment of insanity last night.  I was quickly cruising through a couple of blogs in my attempt to keep up with what everyone else is doing, when I saw that Karen has joined in on Pay it Forward (not sure who originally started this – does anyone know?).  I’ve seen others jumping on board and I’ve resisted the urge.  The urge to join.  I don’t know what it is, but it’s in my blood.  I can’t stand not joining in on the fun.  But there it was.  It was like it was taunting me.  And so… I joined.  For those who don’t know, here’s the deal…

By joining, I agree to the PIF pledge, which states: “I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what the gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.”

So, who else is as crazy as I am and hasn’t joined in on the fun yet??

(Edited to add: 1) Sorry for such a long post!  I’m planning to get back on the blog-once-a-day thing November and 2) Carol won the March of Dimes Walk prize - I still don’t know exactly what the prize will be, though I have a couple of ideas, plus I know that Eva was planning to donate a prize, so there might be another drawing!) 

I’m constantly amazed at how many places have wireless internet access now.  My niece-in-law and I are staying in a close-to-dirt-cheap hotel on the Historic Route 66 in Kingman, Arizona and I’m able to blog about our trip and the March of Dimes walk thanks to the hotel having wireless internet access.

Anyhoo… this weekend has been so fantastically spastic, that I’ve decided to call it spastastic.  We drove up yesterday and discovered that there isn’t a whole hell of a lot between Phoenix and Kingman except for a small town called Wikieup.  This is one of those towns that if you blink you miss it, and we were starving.  After passing a few places that made me prefer starvation over eating, we stopped at this bizarre little burger type of joint.  The food was surprisingly good, but the bizarre thing about it is that the entire place is covered in grafitti.  On-purpose grafitti.  I guarantee that there are people who are going to read about this and say “I’ve been there!”  Anyway, before we headed back on the road, my niece made her mark

and then I made mine.

We only had a ballpoint pen, so it’s a bit tough to read, but it says “Keep on Knittin!” and I signed it Nan and the Yarn Mobile.  See the car in the background?  That’s my Yarn Mobile!

Ok, so after another hour or so in the car, we finally arrived.

We didn’t do too much after getting into town except a little shopping and getting some dinner.  Oh, and did I mention that the shopping took place at… a yarn shop?!?

No pics of the merchandise, but I got some Green Mountain Spinnery cotton/wool yarn (in violet) and some superwash merino/alpaca roving (in a kind of heathered grey).

That was Friday.  In all honesty, while the day was long, it wasn’t actually spastic.  Today, however…

We got up bright and early and made to the park for the March of Dimes walk.  We had scoped out the park last night, so we knew exactly where to go.  Well, we thought so anyway.  We got to the park and there were no signs and no sign of March of Dimes people anywhere.  We eventually found out that the walk was starting out on the opposite side of the park.  Once we saw the ramada, I suppose we should have know.

I mean, this screams March of Dimes Walk HERE, doesn’t it?  The registration started at 8am, and the walk was supposed to start at 9am.  After it took about five minutes for all 10 of us to get registered, we sat around for a bit.  And we sat around some more.  Finally, the organizers told us to just go ahead and start walkng.  Only problem was that the people who were volunteering at the rest stops weren’t expecting us yet, so the first few stops didn’t have anyone around.  The walk itself was ok.  It certainly wasn’t the uplifting, motivating walk that the 3 Day walk was, but we did find some sidewalk grafitti that gave us some encouragement.

It says something about Kingman when you realize that they can’t even spell swear words correctly.

Since the walk was over around 11am, after a brief nap and shower, we headed back out into the town.  We discovered that they were having a small festival and not only was an alpaca ranch owner there with some yarn and roving (I managed to keep my wallet in check and leave without buying anything), I saw a baby kangaroo in a stroller.

I’m telling you, this has been the most spastastic trip I’ve ever been on.

I got weighed in tonight and I gained.  Granted, it was only 6 ounces, but it’s frustrating to see the scale go up rather than down.  It could be water weight, because it’s “that” time of the month and I’ve had some salty foods this week.  But, I’m doing this health assessment thing at work tomorrow that includes blood testing for cholesterol and such.  One of the options is to test thyroid, so I’m going to have them do that, just in case (I have some other things that might be thyroid symptoms, so it’s not just the weight loss thing that’s prompting this).  Ok, sorry to be a downer.  I’m a tad frustrated, but I’m fine otherwise!

We had storytime for the early childhood education group this morning.  Not sure if you remember how my initiation went (on my second day of my new job, no less), but this time it went really well.  Instead of being alone, one of our new librarians helped me out.  It was much, much less sttessful having someone else to alternate with.

Speaking of librarians, I joined that fantasy football league made up of librarians.  I don’t know any of them personally, just through listservs and such.  The league is made up of a bunch of guys who have been doing fantasy football for years and some even belong to more than one league.  Then there’s the rest of my group who are like me – clueless.  After the first week of the season, I came in… 11th place.  Out of 12.  The good news is that I didn’t come in last, I suppose.  The name of the team I beat is Defeat Autism.  So, really, I guess you could say that I did indeed defeat autism!  Woo Hoo!

The last bit of news I have is freakin’ awesome!  Well, if you’re a knitter, you’ll consider it freakin’ awesome.  I got my invite today!!!  If you don’t know what this means, then you don’t care.  But if you do know what this means, then come find me on Ravelry.  My username is goteweinstitches.  (I’ve only had time to set up my profile, but I’ll work on entering in my stash this weekend!)

I got up at 5 past too-early-for-me to go to the gym this morning before work, and then I went to knitting tonight so I’m beat and ready for bed.  However, I had to let you know that Pam helped me with the crab stitch that Emy recommended (I remembered her link this time!) on my Tivoli sweater.  The good news… it works!  The bad news… I definitely don’t have enough yarn. 

Which is weird considering I always (always) buy one more ball of yarn then I think I need.  So I’m thinking that I actually have enough yarn, but that I’m missing a ball.  Unfortunately, I worked on this sweater while in both PA and CO, so who knows where the ball could be.  Where oh where are you, you stupid ball of yarn!?  So my next thing to try is doing the crochet edging in black and then using the little bits of yarn that I have left to try and extend the length out as much as frickin’ possible.  Cause right now it’s too short.  Argh!

Ok, I’m done for the night.  Tomorrow’s weigh-in.  Cross your fingers for me!  (Of course, if I had a little more willpower and did a better job at staying within points, I would need you to.  Ha!)

don’t tell anyone, but I was bad and took yesterday off from blogging.  I also had pancakes.  Sweet!

So, I had thought that the new season of Project Runway was starting next month, but I just found out that it doesn’t start until November.  Darnit!  I was especially excited because I figured that while my hubby would have his football starting, I’d have my PR.  But I suppose that it’s best I concentrate on my fantasy football team until then.  I’m sure by November, my team will be in last place and I won’t care anymore.  So this way I can enjoy my team until then!

I’m giving my Tivoli sweater one last chance.  Emy suggested that I try a crochet edging around the neck.  Once I find a hook, I’m going to give it a shot.  And then, of course, I have to find my crochet “how to” book so I can figure out to actually do the edging.  And then, depending on how this works, I can decide the fate of the sweater.

The good news about teaching librarians is that they’re so nice, you could be sitting in front of them drooling and staring into space and they’d tell you that you did a great job.  Not that I was that bad, but today was certainly not my best teaching moment.

Look! An action shot!

I’ll be doing more of these sessions in the future, so the good news is that the hardest one is over and they should get much easier.

As you’ll notice, I finally took some pictures off my camera.  The one I’ve been meaning to share for a while is my in-progress-Tivoli.

Why is it that I questioned the rolling along the neckline the entire time I worked on this sweater (I mean, it’s a top down sweater for heaven’s sake!), but continued along in denial until I was essentially done with it and then tried it on?  I don’t like it.  I originally considered making it with the picot edging that was included in the instructions, but I started the sweater on a plane ride and I didn’t feel like figuring it out.  Now that I’m as far as I am, I’ve decided that I have a couple of options…

1) pick up stitches around the neckline and knit a couple of rows of garter stitch.  Problem with this is that I don’t have enough yarn left and I don’t actually think I’d like the look of this…

2) rip it out and start again with picot edging.  Problem with this is that I don’t have a lot of yarn left and, frankly, I’m sick of working on this damn sweater (this is my second time to knit it, since I had rip it out the first one after completely screwing up the shoulder shaping)…

3) rip it out and use the yarn for something else.  My only concern with this is whether Rowan Calmer can withstand being ripped out and reused three times.  If I go this route, I’m thinking of making Summer Sky. 

My final option is just to rip it out and put the yarn away until I get on Ravelry (only 1907 in front of me!) and see what others have made.

Anyway, there’s one last thing I’ve been meaning to show you while I stalled on getting photos up (I thought there was more, but I’m not seeing anything else on my card, so either they’re on another one, or I’m losing it).  I didn’t actually take this picture (I “borrowed” it from David’s Bridal), but it’s the bridesmaid dress I’ll be wearing in my niece’s wedding.

I was hoping to lose enough weight to drop down a size (David’s Bridal will exchange for a different size even after you’ve ordered the dress, but before alterations (obviously)), but the dresses are already in and I’m not sure how long they’ll let me hold onto the dress at home and still do the exchange (I had kinda hoped to have the weight lost when the dress came in, but they came waaaaay sooner than expected).  Next up… shoes for the dress and looking for a bridesmaid dress to wear in my friend Amy’s wedding.

Oh!  And speaking of losing weight, I was so proud of myself today!  The organizer of the training event today had a huge plate of cookies out.  I avoided the cookies and had a Fiber One bar instead (I know these sound icky, but they’re actually really good!).  Unfortunately, I was bad at lunch, although somewhat inadvertantly.  I ordered a sandwich, not realizing that it came on focaccia bread.  Not sure if it was that much better that I avoided the cookies, or if I was going to be bad anyway, to have just had the stupid cookie.  Sigh… you’re right.  Avoiding the cookie was the best thing. I’d forgotten how hard it is to do weight watchers when you’re actually trying.

Yep.  One month since I last blogged.  Sheesh.  It’s not like I haven’t done anything for the past month, either.  And it’s not like I’m so busy I don’t have time to blog.  I even think of entries I could compose.  Then I get distracted (ooh, bright and shiny!) and a few days go by and I think “well, I won’t blog about that now because the time has passed, but I could blog about ______” and then I get distracted (ooh, bright and shiny!) and well, you get the picture. 

After a while, it’s kind of like when you intend to email a friend you haven’t talked to in a while, but it’s been so long since you’ve emailed that you feel bad so instead of actually doing it you put it off a little bit longer, but then you feel even worse so you continue to put it off?  Please tell me I’m not the only neurotic person who does that?

Anyhoo, I’ve decided to challenge myself.  I’m going to attempt blogging every single day for the next month.  Be prepared for a lot of boring posts, because I’m not exactly sure of what I’ll be able to come up with each day.  I just want to see if I can do it.

I’ve actually done quite a bit this past month.  I’ve been knitting.  Although it’s been on Tivoli, which is stockinette in the round so I’ve gotten a bit bored working on it.  But I only have about 10 rounds left to go on it.  If I can just. stick. with. it. I’ll have a finished project.  Yay!

My hubby and I also broke down and got a Wii system.  We had intended to buy it as an Xmas present to ourselves in December, but I couldn’t stand it any longer.  So we celebrated Xmas in July.  We only have the sports bundle that comes with the system, but I’m having so much fun with it.  So far my favorite game is bowling, but I think it’s because I can kick my hubby’s behind in it.

I’ve also been working on getting my new laptop up to speed.  I still have to install anti-virus software on it (I know, I know), but I can’t decide if I should continue using Norton (I’ve had some icky customer service issues with them) or if I should try a program my boss told me about called Kaspersky.  It’s gotten some good ratings from some techie websites, but I can’t decide what to do.  (McAfee, by the way, isn’t even a consideration for me after a lovely incident I had with their software.)

My hubby and I have also been going to the movies just about every weekend for the past month.  I’m loving it!  I absolutely hate crowded theaters, so we’ve been going to the morning shows.  So far we’ve seen

The Simpsons Movie (LOVED IT)
You Kill Me (we’d never heard of it, but we were bored and nothing else was playing – ended up being a great movie!)
Ocean’s Thirteen
Spiderman 3 (saw this at the supper cinema)
Fracture (also at the supper cinema and a great movie)

Wow is that a lot of movies.  I guess it’s been over the span of two months.  Anyway, it’s hot and the theaters have both entertainment and air conditioning.  You can’t beat that!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there!  My kitties had a little gift waiting for me this morning.  Unfortunately, it was of the hairball variety and I was hoping for something else.  But they are cats I suppose, so you can’t hope for much.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, so I’ve got a lot of random thoughts in my head right now.  Bear with me…

Some advice, please?

Before I get to the fun stuff, I do have a question for the few who are still reading my blog.  For several years I’ve been having problems sleeping.  I have these weird dreams that I’m choking and nightmares (that I call night terrors, although they haven’t been “diagnosed” as such).  Anyway, I had a sleep study done, because I thought maybe I had apnea.  Nope.  So my doctor would like to me to see a psychologist, which is fine by me.  She recommended two different doctors.  One has a PhD and got her license in 1976.  The other one has an EdD and got her license in 1991.  When I’m looking for a medical doctor, I generally go to one who got their license more recently, my assumption (which I’m sure isn’t always correct) is that they’re more likely to be up on recent trends in medicine.  In this case, I’m not sure what to do.  The doctor who got her license more recently is an EdD.  I did some research (it’s the librarian in me, I can’t help it) and from what I can tell the degree is gained from an Education Department and is generally geared towards the administration side of a specialty.  This makes sense as this same doctor is also on the state board of examiners for mental health in family therapy.  My concern is… will she be as good of a psychologist because of her (potentially) adminstration specialty?  I’d really prefer to try her because of her license date, but I’d rather go to someone who will be better at helping me.  Any thoughts?  Help?!

Tasty fruit

Ok, onto fun stuff.  Michelle recently showed a picture of her garden, including a strawberry plant.  So I thought I’d show a picture of my little strawberry garden.

I had a strawberry plant when I lived in California and I loved growing it.  The only downside is the one little ripe strawberry you get a couple of times a week.  So I decided to try the strawberry pot so I could get more ripe strawberries at a time.  Sure enough, I had three ripe strawberries at once.

As you can see, they’re a bit funky looking, but they tasted pretty good.

I just like this shot.  And while I’m showing off my strawberries, here’s a shot of my roses before the heat kicked in and they went dormant.

I inherited 11 (count ‘em – eleven!) rose bushes when we bought the house.  I’ve been attempting not to kill them since we moved in, so I was amazed when this clump of blooms appeared.

Weekend fun

Last weekend was the Stitch n Pitch game.  I went with a friend who’s re-learning how to knit (I’ve gotta say, if you’re teach someone to knit, make it someone who learned when they were younger.  They pick it up in no time and you feel like the best teacher on earth.).  Her husband and my hubby even joined us.  I didn’t bring my camera, so no pics.  But the Diamondbacks won, the food was good, and there was knitting.  A good time was had!

The weekend before that, Eva came out for a quick visit.  I was lucky enough to have her stay with me so we were able to hang out together quite a bit.  On Thursday night we had dinner with blogless Karen.  It was at this little pizza place in Phoenix that had the most incredible cheesy, meaty appetizer.  It made the just as incredibly long wait for a table entirely worth it.  On Friday, we met up with Sarah and Heather for dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant.  I hadn’t seen Sarah or Heather for a quite a while, so it was great getting caught up.  Oh, and again, no cameras, so no pics.  Thankfully, Sarah had her camera with her, so you can check out the first half of this post.

The semester is done!

I survived my first full semester at my new job (I suppose after 6 months, it’s not really a “new” job anymore, but it still feels new.).  I attended graduation last night, and I got to sit with the faculty and staff in my Masters graduation regalia.  And, two of the student workers I supervised this semester were part of the graduating class, so it was great to see them walk.  I had a lot of fun!  I’m excited about the upcoming semester, because we’re hiring two new librarians (I might have mentioned that I’m on the hiring committee) and once we get the extra help I’ll have time to implement a lot of ideas I have.  Not sure if I’ve explained exactly what I’m doing for the library.  I’m obviously a librarian and so I help the students at the reference desk.  But I’m also doing instruction and outreach, which means I’m thinking of ways to help students learn how to research and making sure that the students that don’t come into the library (whether by choice or because they attend online classes) have access to our services.  I’m absolutely loving my job!

Heading East

I’ll be heading to Pittsburgh this week for my sis-in-law’s wedding.  We’ll be staying with my knitting mentor (aka mom-in-law), so I expect some knittin’ will get done.  At least, I hope some knittin’ gets done.  And maybe some yarn shopping.  Hee, hee!

How ya doin?  Up until this weekend I didn’t have a lot to blog about.  Once I was finally feeling better from my Baltimore bug, I hit the ground running at work.  We’re working on our next fiscal year budget, which has been both frustrating and interesting.  I’ve never been part of the budget planning before (at least not at this level), but we’re also doing a modified version of a zero-based budget that’s new to everyone at my organization.  Plus, I’m on the hiring committee for two new librarians.  I’m also in the process of starting a chat reference service for our students.  Next week will be the first week that we’ll have it.  I’m hoping I get at least a couple of students using it, but I’m nervous it’s going to be a huge hit and I’m going to be inundated with questions.  Anyway, with all of this going on, by the time I’d get home from work I just kinda zoned out on the couch rather than blogged.  (Ok, I have to confess that I have done some knitting while zoning, but I don’t have any pics of my WIP right at the moment.)

On top of work, this weekend was a bit rough because I found out that one of my cats is having kidney issues.  When I got her teeth cleaned they discovered that her kidney levels in her blood work were high.  I brought her back in on Friday for a re-check and the levels had gone even higher.  They were concerned that she might be in the beginning stages of kidney failure, but it looks like her kidney functions are normal at this time.  I have to put her on a kidney diet, which consists of low-protein and low-sodium food (which sucks, because she loves potato chips and all of her kitty treats have been deemed off limits).  We’ll re-check her levels in three months and with any luck they’ll have come down a bit.  She’ll always be on a kidney diet, but we can hopefully keep her kidney functions normal.  I don’t suppose any cat owners out there know of any kidney-friendly treats, do you?

The weekend was also blog-worthy when Maureen revealed herself to me as my YFC Secret Pal by sending me these goodies.

It’s Reynold’s Sea Wool yarn, which is incredibly soft, along with a really great sock bag that she sewed herself, a Reynolds sock pattern book, and coconut lime body butter.  The body butter is wonderful!  I had the chance to use it today.  It smells very yummy!  As for sock patterns, I’m thinking of making either these

or these.

I’m leaning towards the cabled socks, but the pattern is for a size 8 and I’m a size 9.  I’m still so new at knitting socks that I’m not sure if this is a big deal.  Are sizes based primarily on foot length or does it include width?  I figure if it’s just length, then I can simply knit it a little longer.

Oh, and if in case you’re curious, my YFC Secret Pal was Carol.  I have to say that out of all of the Secret Pal programs I’ve participated in, this was the one that I enjoyed the most.  It’s the first time I felt connected to both my Secret Pal and the person that had me.

I’m off to enjoy the rest of my Sunday.  Enjoy yours!

I hate being sick.  I don’t know how others knit while they’re sick, because all I can do is lay on the couch and zone out. 

In any case, I didn’t just get sick from Baltimore.  I also stopped by a yarn shop and bought som Baltimore yarn.  The shop itself is tiny.  It’s a teaching shop, so they don’t carry a lot of yarn.  But the yarn they do carry is nice.  And expensive.  I broke down and bought a yummy cotton/merino blend.  Due to its hefty price tag, I couldn’t afford a whole lot, so I’m going to attempt a summer cardigan from the top down.  I’m thinking cropped with short sleeves.

The majority of my time in Baltimore was spent in conference sessions about academic libraries.  I really enjoyed it, but it was exhausting.  I’ll try to think of some interesting highlights (ok, interesting to my fellow knitting librarians) and post about them a little later.  When I’m feeling better.  For now… I’m going to go take a nap.