I know I'm going to pay for it later, but I still can't interest myself in getting very much done. It's driving me crazy. I have things that I want to make and things that I know I need to get done for Christmas. I keep thinking about casting them on. I even go so far as gathering everything I need - book, yarn, needles - into the WIP basket next to the chair, but I never seem to get quite as far as putting stitches on the needles. And it's not like I'm really doing much else. The past few weeks may have been some of the most unproductive weekends of my life. About the only place I'm actually getting any knitting done is on the train and honestly I don't think that's going to get everything done.
Thing is, I know that a day is going to come - and it's going to probably come soon, when the Funk is going to give way to a mad case of Startitis and I'm not going to be able to cast on fast enough.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Friday, October 12, 2007
Just a Phase
I've been feeling extremely unproductive the past couple of weeks. Nothing is working to get me out of it, I've tried everything - fondling the stash, organizing patterns, going through books, buying new magazines... Nothing. Not a single urge to cast on anything new. And forget the stuff in the UFO basket, it's all just sitting there looking forlorn and abandoned, waiting uselessly to be knitted, fringed, blocked or sewn together. (Or some combination of these.)
I have been knitting socks on the train (everyone is getting a pair of socks for Christmas this year)(That's not all they're getting, but everyone is getting socks)(I mean everyone in my family, not everyone in the world) but even those have just been YarnHarlot's Plain old sock recipe from Knitting Rules! in self striping yarn. I think it qualifies as pretty much the minimum effort you can put in and still call it knitting.
Whatever this funk is - and it doesn't just extend to knitting, I haven't been working on anything else, either - Let's hope I get out of it soon, otherwise people are going to be getting pictures of thier Christmas presents this year. Again.
I have been knitting socks on the train (everyone is getting a pair of socks for Christmas this year)(That's not all they're getting, but everyone is getting socks)(I mean everyone in my family, not everyone in the world) but even those have just been YarnHarlot's Plain old sock recipe from Knitting Rules! in self striping yarn. I think it qualifies as pretty much the minimum effort you can put in and still call it knitting.
Whatever this funk is - and it doesn't just extend to knitting, I haven't been working on anything else, either - Let's hope I get out of it soon, otherwise people are going to be getting pictures of thier Christmas presents this year. Again.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Whoohooo!!!!!!!!
I'm finally on Ravelry! I actually did a little happy dance in my chair when I saw the invitation in my in box last night. That is all that I did today. No laundry, no vacuuming, no grocery shopping. It's like crack. Happy, happy crack.
I've spent the day adding my books, stash and current projects. Adding future projects to the queue. There are a lot of patterns in the queue. Lots of patterns. I joined groups, I checked out neighbors. It's fabulous.
I'm going back in.
I've spent the day adding my books, stash and current projects. Adding future projects to the queue. There are a lot of patterns in the queue. Lots of patterns. I joined groups, I checked out neighbors. It's fabulous.
I'm going back in.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
So This is What We've Come to...
Besides the firm that I work for there are three other tenants on the floor of our building, which means that the other women I work with and I are sharing the bathroom with about a dozen other women total. Now anyone who has ever had to share a common bathroom with other women holds this one thing to be true.
Women are pigs.
Following is what is now hanging on the mirror in our ladies room. It probably won't take much imagination to figure out what led to this being hung up.
To the Person or persons who have been leaving “evidence” of your occupation of this bathroom (and you know perfectly well who you are so don’t just stand there getting mad or pretending you don’t know what we’re talking about):
We do realize that there is a certain freedom in anonymity and understand that since this is not your home you feel that you are not technically responsible for cleaning and maintenance of this room. However, we would like to remind you that the rest of us are forced to share this very small bathroom with you five days a week and would appreciate it if you would please observe the following niceties:
1. Flush the Toilet – No they don’t work particularly well and it frequently requires more than one flush. However, pushing a lever is not a complicated task and if you managed to dress yourself this morning you can probably handle it. Keep at it until everything has disappeared.
2. Stop Peeing on the Seat – If you must hover above the seat like a UFO from the Planet WeeWee, please turn around and look behind you when you’ve finished. If the seat is wet it’s because YOU have just peed on it. Please take a piece of toilet paper and wipe it up. Yes, it’s icky, but there is soap and water available to take care of that. Trust us; it’s less icky to clean up your own urine than it is to clean up someone else’s.
3. Stop Doing Anything Else on the Seat – If, as apparently was the case this past Tuesday, you are having – let’s just say “intestinal difficulties,” please refrain from hovering. On the off chance that you were raised in a field where it was considered acceptable to simply drop your pants and take a crap wherever you happened to be standing and so don’t realize that this is not considered appropriate here, we would like to offer this piece of advice. It’s supposed to go “In” the toilet, not “Somewhere in the General Vicinity of the Toilet.” There is no reason why an adult woman should be shitting on the floor of the ladies room.
As was mentioned earlier, no one else actually knows who you are, but you do. So instead of standing there being insulted or pretending that you have no idea that this is aimed at you, please do the rest of us the same courtesy that I’m sure you expect to have extended to yourself and stop behaving like some sort of farm animal.
Women are pigs.
Following is what is now hanging on the mirror in our ladies room. It probably won't take much imagination to figure out what led to this being hung up.
To the Person or persons who have been leaving “evidence” of your occupation of this bathroom (and you know perfectly well who you are so don’t just stand there getting mad or pretending you don’t know what we’re talking about):
We do realize that there is a certain freedom in anonymity and understand that since this is not your home you feel that you are not technically responsible for cleaning and maintenance of this room. However, we would like to remind you that the rest of us are forced to share this very small bathroom with you five days a week and would appreciate it if you would please observe the following niceties:
1. Flush the Toilet – No they don’t work particularly well and it frequently requires more than one flush. However, pushing a lever is not a complicated task and if you managed to dress yourself this morning you can probably handle it. Keep at it until everything has disappeared.
2. Stop Peeing on the Seat – If you must hover above the seat like a UFO from the Planet WeeWee, please turn around and look behind you when you’ve finished. If the seat is wet it’s because YOU have just peed on it. Please take a piece of toilet paper and wipe it up. Yes, it’s icky, but there is soap and water available to take care of that. Trust us; it’s less icky to clean up your own urine than it is to clean up someone else’s.
3. Stop Doing Anything Else on the Seat – If, as apparently was the case this past Tuesday, you are having – let’s just say “intestinal difficulties,” please refrain from hovering. On the off chance that you were raised in a field where it was considered acceptable to simply drop your pants and take a crap wherever you happened to be standing and so don’t realize that this is not considered appropriate here, we would like to offer this piece of advice. It’s supposed to go “In” the toilet, not “Somewhere in the General Vicinity of the Toilet.” There is no reason why an adult woman should be shitting on the floor of the ladies room.
As was mentioned earlier, no one else actually knows who you are, but you do. So instead of standing there being insulted or pretending that you have no idea that this is aimed at you, please do the rest of us the same courtesy that I’m sure you expect to have extended to yourself and stop behaving like some sort of farm animal.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Bad Blogger!
Wow. Sorry about that. It doesn't seem like its been a whole month since my last post. It just went by so quickly and so much has been going on that I didn't even notice.
In case anyone has been wondering all this time, I did stay in the city to get my copy of Harry Potter at midnight. I got a lot of comments from various friends and co-workers on Monday about a possible sanity deficiency on my part because "all the stores had plenty of copies." I wasn't afraid that they would run out - I wanted it at midnight! These people have all known me for a while. You would think that they would get the fact that I don't like to wait for things by now.
I met a woman, whose name was Karen if I remember correctly, in the knitting aisle at Borders. The two of us just sat on the floor, knitting and chatting until it was time to go line up, so it was a very pleasant evening.
There was this rather odd woman there with us - we did try to keep her included in the conversation as much as we could, but all she kept asking us was how how to knit a cape with a hood. She wasn't asking for explaination of a stitch or help understanding a pattern - she wanted me to tell her step by step how to knit a cape with a hood. She kept pulling books off the shelf, showing me patterns and asking "Would you recommend this?"or "How would you go about attaching a hood to this cape?" or "Do you think I can do this pattern?"
Not that I'm ever unwilling to help if I can, but does this ever happen to anyone else - complete strangers asking if you think they can do something? (The somewhat snarky answer is "If you have to ask, probably not.") I was really quite proud of myself for managing to not say that out loud at the time. Sometimes my mouth engages a second or two ahead of my brain. I'm sure that she was a lovely woman normally, but the whole encounter was just slightly to the left of bizarre.
Anyway, the rest of my missing month has been equally crazed. My aunt got married, I went on another camping trip with my mom and some friends, not to mention various barbeques, cookouts and get-togethers along with the usual level of insane busy-ness at work. I'm actually looking forward to the end of summer so that things will calm down and I can relax a little.
Oh, right... Christmas.
In case anyone has been wondering all this time, I did stay in the city to get my copy of Harry Potter at midnight. I got a lot of comments from various friends and co-workers on Monday about a possible sanity deficiency on my part because "all the stores had plenty of copies." I wasn't afraid that they would run out - I wanted it at midnight! These people have all known me for a while. You would think that they would get the fact that I don't like to wait for things by now.
I met a woman, whose name was Karen if I remember correctly, in the knitting aisle at Borders. The two of us just sat on the floor, knitting and chatting until it was time to go line up, so it was a very pleasant evening.
There was this rather odd woman there with us - we did try to keep her included in the conversation as much as we could, but all she kept asking us was how how to knit a cape with a hood. She wasn't asking for explaination of a stitch or help understanding a pattern - she wanted me to tell her step by step how to knit a cape with a hood. She kept pulling books off the shelf, showing me patterns and asking "Would you recommend this?"or "How would you go about attaching a hood to this cape?" or "Do you think I can do this pattern?"
Not that I'm ever unwilling to help if I can, but does this ever happen to anyone else - complete strangers asking if you think they can do something? (The somewhat snarky answer is "If you have to ask, probably not.") I was really quite proud of myself for managing to not say that out loud at the time. Sometimes my mouth engages a second or two ahead of my brain. I'm sure that she was a lovely woman normally, but the whole encounter was just slightly to the left of bizarre.
Anyway, the rest of my missing month has been equally crazed. My aunt got married, I went on another camping trip with my mom and some friends, not to mention various barbeques, cookouts and get-togethers along with the usual level of insane busy-ness at work. I'm actually looking forward to the end of summer so that things will calm down and I can relax a little.
Oh, right... Christmas.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Decisions, Decisions...
I had a plan for this evening. It was a simple plan, but a good one. I was going to kill the proverbial two birds with this plan. You see, sometimes, I like to work late on Friday nights. Everybody else is always quick to get out of the office on Friday so it’s quiet. No interruptions, and I don’t have to get up early the next morning, so it’s perfect. When I do this, I’ll usually stay till about 10:00 – 11:00 – get some of the backlog from the week out of the way then get the train and go home.
My plan for tonight was to work until about 10:30 then head across the street to Borders, shop until midnight (bookstores and yarn stores are about the only places that I can shop for two hours with no problem. Anyplace else, I’m in and out as quickly as possible.) pick up Harry Potter, get the 12:50 train and read on the way home. The 12:50 gets me home a little before 2:00 AM, but I don’t have to go anywhere tomorrow, so fine.
Small glitch in the plan. The 12:50 was the train that I ended up on last night due to some unforeseen problems with a file that was scheduled to close at 9:00 this morning. So, I was in the office until twenty minutes to 1:00 last night – or rather this morning – home at a quarter to 2:00 and back on the train to come in again before 8:00 AM. I’ve been mainlining coffee this morning but I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it to midnight.
I don’t know what to do. Should I stay in the city, attempt to force myself to stay awake and get the book before I go home? Should I go home, take a nap for a couple of hours and then go out around 11:00PM to be at a store on the Island at midnight? (The one drawback to that plan is that I have a feeling that the bookstore in the suburbs might be a bit more packed with overexcited children than the one upstairs from Penn Station. I was going to go to the store near my office specifically because this isn’t a residential neighborhood and I’m hoping it will be less crowded.)
Or, should I just go home, fall into bed and get up early to go get it in the morning?
Adding to my dilemma is the fact that I’m a clue behind on the Mystery Stole. Clue 4 is out today and I’ve only just started Clue 3. What I need to do this weekend is figure out a way to sleep, read and knit all at the same time.
My plan for tonight was to work until about 10:30 then head across the street to Borders, shop until midnight (bookstores and yarn stores are about the only places that I can shop for two hours with no problem. Anyplace else, I’m in and out as quickly as possible.) pick up Harry Potter, get the 12:50 train and read on the way home. The 12:50 gets me home a little before 2:00 AM, but I don’t have to go anywhere tomorrow, so fine.
Small glitch in the plan. The 12:50 was the train that I ended up on last night due to some unforeseen problems with a file that was scheduled to close at 9:00 this morning. So, I was in the office until twenty minutes to 1:00 last night – or rather this morning – home at a quarter to 2:00 and back on the train to come in again before 8:00 AM. I’ve been mainlining coffee this morning but I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it to midnight.
I don’t know what to do. Should I stay in the city, attempt to force myself to stay awake and get the book before I go home? Should I go home, take a nap for a couple of hours and then go out around 11:00PM to be at a store on the Island at midnight? (The one drawback to that plan is that I have a feeling that the bookstore in the suburbs might be a bit more packed with overexcited children than the one upstairs from Penn Station. I was going to go to the store near my office specifically because this isn’t a residential neighborhood and I’m hoping it will be less crowded.)
Or, should I just go home, fall into bed and get up early to go get it in the morning?
Adding to my dilemma is the fact that I’m a clue behind on the Mystery Stole. Clue 4 is out today and I’ve only just started Clue 3. What I need to do this weekend is figure out a way to sleep, read and knit all at the same time.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Into the Woods
A highly successful Mother/Daughter camping trip went off pretty well all around. We went to Harriman State Park, which is pretty convenient ot the city and we're familiar with the area. It's normally a 1 1/2 - 2 hour drive, but we got a slightly later start than we planned and got caught in the Friday evening rush hour, so it ended up taking about 4 1/2 hours. Bit of a bummer, but we got there okay eventually.
We got in, got the tent up, got everything in. I got the fire going (1 match- 3 minutes to full campfire glory) I put dinner on, Mom and I sat down to play a game of Scrabble while it was cooking - and then the thunder started. Of course.
So we go rushing around, getting everything either into the tent or stowed in the car, hurried to get the food cooked and everything into the tent. The whole time the wind is picking up and lightning is flashing and the thunder is coming closer and closer. We just made it into the tent as the first drops of rain started – and it sprinkled for about five minutes. Nothing was actually even wet. It actually ended up being gorgeous all weekend. Sunny, not too hot, nice breeze.
We hadn’t been to this campground before and we had sort of mixed feelings about it. The campsites were way too close together. Actually the people on the next site were literally right on top of us. I now know more about some of their relatives than I know about some of mine. The swimming area was much too small and barely hip deep. Okay, I’m 5’10”, but still, three feet of water is hardly a refreshing swim.
On the other hand, it was kept clean and the rules and quiet hours were actually enforced. Unlike the campground we went to the year before last where the bathrooms weren’t cleaned for three days, the trash was never picked up and the idiots across the road spent the entire weekend drinking and playing the 80’s Power Ballad Collection at top volume until 3:00 AM every night.
Saturday evening after dinner I was sitting, working on my Mystery Shawl, mom was working on the afghan she’s making for my aunt, it was just about twilight and I looked up and over to my left and there was a buck about ten or twelve feet away, just standing there looking at us. He just wandered by, nibbling on things and then I looked over to the right and there was a doe following right along behind him.
Definitely a high point of the trip – and, of course, the batteries in the camera had died about fifteen minutes earlier.
We got in, got the tent up, got everything in. I got the fire going (1 match- 3 minutes to full campfire glory) I put dinner on, Mom and I sat down to play a game of Scrabble while it was cooking - and then the thunder started. Of course.
So we go rushing around, getting everything either into the tent or stowed in the car, hurried to get the food cooked and everything into the tent. The whole time the wind is picking up and lightning is flashing and the thunder is coming closer and closer. We just made it into the tent as the first drops of rain started – and it sprinkled for about five minutes. Nothing was actually even wet. It actually ended up being gorgeous all weekend. Sunny, not too hot, nice breeze.
We hadn’t been to this campground before and we had sort of mixed feelings about it. The campsites were way too close together. Actually the people on the next site were literally right on top of us. I now know more about some of their relatives than I know about some of mine. The swimming area was much too small and barely hip deep. Okay, I’m 5’10”, but still, three feet of water is hardly a refreshing swim.
On the other hand, it was kept clean and the rules and quiet hours were actually enforced. Unlike the campground we went to the year before last where the bathrooms weren’t cleaned for three days, the trash was never picked up and the idiots across the road spent the entire weekend drinking and playing the 80’s Power Ballad Collection at top volume until 3:00 AM every night.
Saturday evening after dinner I was sitting, working on my Mystery Shawl, mom was working on the afghan she’s making for my aunt, it was just about twilight and I looked up and over to my left and there was a buck about ten or twelve feet away, just standing there looking at us. He just wandered by, nibbling on things and then I looked over to the right and there was a doe following right along behind him.
Definitely a high point of the trip – and, of course, the batteries in the camera had died about fifteen minutes earlier.
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