AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

smu-pdate

NaSmuWriMo is still going strong sort of.  I'm desperately behind, but haven't run out of story which is more important.  I have retyped the first 30 pages (handwritten and double spaced) into the file, and I'm somewhere past 46 pages written.  Of course, that means I am just about where I was supposed to be at the end of last weekend.  This week will be a lot of writing.  Tons of writing.  Days of writing.  Not exactly a surprise. 

This weekend was pretty typical for me.  Saturday was baking for the last of the celebrations for my husband's birthday.  We got together with a group of friends and went to see the Harry Potter exhibit at the Museum of Science.  It was a lot of fun, though I am really bad with crowds.  Afterwards we went back to our place for dinner stuff and a Giant Cookie.  There were presents and the presentation of the best birthday card ever.  We played games, including Zombie Fluxx and Monty Python Fluxx.  The winning game for me though was playing a sort of Encore Light game.  A person would think of a word in a song and the other team would have to think of a song with that word in it.  There was no back and forth, but if the team couldn't think of a song with the word then they could challenge and the other person needed to sing part of the song that included the word. 

I was a bit chintzy.  I'm the only one that does a lot of Gilbert and Sullivan, so I used taradiddle.  I love that word, and they used it a lot (if both Ruddigore and Iolanthe are a lot). 

This morning I wrote smu and then alternated between writing smu and working on another chocolate peanut butter cake.  This one is the shallow Buckeye Cake from the Nestle Meal site.  I've made it before, but this time I replaced the ganache with the chocolate peanut butter ganache from last week's cake.  I'm going to bring it to work tomorrow, because it is just not safe to have that much cake sitting in my fridge.

Now it is time for loathing and maybe some more smu before bed.  It's been a tiring weekend.

happy birfday

My husband's birthday was yesterday.  I would wax horribly sappy and romantic, but that's not the kind of woman I am.

Instead I am just thankful that he can deal with my frequent irritated moods, my desire to cook things that are really bad for you (umm, the smitten kitchen peanut butter cake was the last one), and that he doesn't make too much fun of my coffee drinking.

For his birthday, I took him to see the Bruins v. Penguins game.  Before the game as part of his birthday present, he got to ride the zamboni.  The zamboni is one of the coolest things about hockey (I really do like hockey a lot, but blood on the ice is probably the coolest thing about hockey). 

There are two zamboni rides offered at a time: before the game starts and in between the first-second period and second-third period.  Because the other person who was signed up for a ride during our time slot didn't show up, I got to ride the zamboni too. 

Riding the zamboni is an unusual experience.  They look like they are just putting along when you are watching them work, but on the ice it feels pretty fast and sharp turns.  My hubby broke his zamboni.  The lever that releases the hot water had fallen to the wrong position, and one of the other members of the ice crew ran up to the machine and gave it a little percussive maintenance as it was moving down the ice. 

I love experiences like this.  It's just not your run of the mill: Hai, I made a cake for you, but I eated it.

Happy birthday, honey.  You deserve all of it!

Here I am - Knitter #3

Today (fine, yesterday), the Yarn Harlot commented about popularity and knitting patterns and broke knitters up into different categories based on their response to popular patterns.  Unsurprisingly to those that know me I am a knitter #3.  I see what is popular, but I have a tendency even for the patterns I fall desperately in love with to knit them rather late.

A case in point is the Bird in Hand mittens, which I saw all over blog land a year or so ago.  I bought yarn to make them, bought the pattern and then they languished unstarted.  I will probably get to them later this year or sometime next year.  Hopefully, if I am smart, before it gets too cold to even think about taking my time and doing a good job.  The endpaper mitts were also on my list of favorites, but have mostly met the same end.  My queue is full of some other examples of this phenomenon, though I eventually either take the item out of my queue or (slightly more frequently) finally knit it.

A non-knitting example?  Harry Potter.  While I didn't wait until all of the books came out to read them, I did wait until there was a fairly largish gap between books so the noise about the series could die out a bit.  I enjoyed the books a lot more by waiting than reading them at the top of one of the hype cycles. 

I know that my gut reaction to something popular is to go far away.  There is something about the cult of the popular that makes it (the book, the project, the tv show, what have you) feel to me less like a choice and more like a dictate.  Nothing irks me more than someone else dictating what I am going to like.  Heck, it is the sole reason why I don't like the Sound of Music.

Umm, and well, the image is unrelated but so necessary. 

mbta == stupid

Don't tell me it isn't true. 

Lately the MBTA, which for me is normally a reliable mode of transit, has had more delayed trains, accidents and what nots.  I got home fine last night, but my hubby who was traveling maybe 30-40 minutes later was delayed (upon delayed, upon delayed).  It's the type of thing that always makes me extra cranky.

Of course, I didn't knit while I was waiting, or do much cleaning, or anything useful.  Nope.  I read web comics.  I finished Girls with Slingshots.

This weekend I'm helping a friend warp her loom for the first time, which has me thinking about a nice weaving project that I can finish before I go on vacation next month.  I want something that is stole width, about 10-14 inches after washing.  It should use some of my nicer lace weight yarns, and maybe I'll knit an edging around it to deal with some of my wonkiness in the selvage.  Or maybe I'll figure out the selvage issue and just do it right. 

I'm panicking a bit about what to wear on the cruise (dress up dinners are making me nervous).

sitting in the dark

This past weekend was a lot of hanging out with friends (watching Glee with a friend on Friday, watching football with other friends on Sunday) and sitting in the dark.  Waking up early and reading books by flashlight, and one memorable run/walk from Quincy Adams T Station to Somerville, MA.

It was a great weekend, but strangely tiring given that I didn't stay up to all hours playing video games or watching Food Network.  I didn't even bake, which was a little odd.  Or play word games on Facebook to the exclusion of everything else.

A very surreal weekend.

Of course, now I'm in clean up mode.  My hubby is in laundry mode and I'm looking at the piles of dishes with this demoralized expression on my face.  Thankfully this weekend is not too far away.  I'll do some grocery shopping, some baking, and maybe even finish a pair of socks... after all, I am almost at the half sock to go.  It will be good to count another thing as done (other than reading all of Girls with Sticks).

I have a p-l-a-n

I can see my husband shuddering now. 

I have 4 different projects going right now, and more than that if I take all of the UFOs floating around the craft room.  They are Delphine, the Portland Tweed Vest, a pair of socks from Favorite Socks, and the ubiquitous baby set, which I obviously dislike or it would be done by now.

Now, the p-l-a-n.

Delphine will be what I work on during my lunch breaks.  I love knitting, crocheting or cross-stitching over lunch.  It calms me down a bit for the rest of the day and the time I spend crafting is time I am not spending eating.  A valuable point given that I now live close to Donut King.

The Portland Tweed Vest is my commute project for those days when I don't feel like reading on the train.  Yesterday I worked on the ribbing for the back on the train and as I walked down Centre Street.  I'm sure people thought I was crazy.

The socks are a home project, mostly because I am trying to not have multiple knitting projects in my backpack at the same time.  Multiple projects don't stop me from working on just the one project, and in the meantime I have yarn getting dirty, needles poking out of bags and the bags themselves developing holes.  Might as well just have the one project.

The baby set.  This is mostly for my husband's benefit.  This is my Saturday and Sunday project.  I have to work an hour on this project each of those days before I can work on any of my other projects.  Hear that?  Please help me stick to it.  What is left for this project is: weaving in ends, sewing up for the hat and the sweater, purchasing and sewing on buttons, crocheting blanket strips together and some embroidery on the edges of the hat, sweater collar and blanket.  Even if I just get a little bit of headway each day, I will be able to call it finished.  It's just an embarassment that this project has been in my Ravelry list so long.

After this, I'm going to add more weaving and cross-stitch back to the pile.  I have a queue of started projects large enough to keep me going for years in pretty much every craft category without a need to buy a large amount of supplies, and cross-stitch was my first craft so I have even more of it than even the knitting stuff.  It would be nice to finish a second piece this year... as soon as Delphine is done.

government forms aren't much fun

I finally got the last of my documentation together and went to the post office to apply for my first passport.  I finished filling the last few things out and then took my number and waited in line (the big post office at South Station has tickets like a deli counter).

I had the wrong form.  It was a passport application form, but apparently they changed forms a long time ago.  The post office I got the form from was still handing out the old form in May.  So, I took the new form (which can be scanned into a computer and results in faster processing) and filled it out and got back into line.

Theoretically, they don't start processing passports until 9, but they were taking people with passport inquiries earlier as long as there were 3 employees at the registers.  I gave them my name change documentation (it wasn't required, but I figured it would make things easier for them) and got my picture taken.  I should have my passport by the second week of September. 

To celebrate getting that thankless task done, I went and got some chocolate for my desk.  Just a little bit.  Hopefully it will last me a week or more.  Oh beautiful salted caramels.  How do I love to eat thee!  Om. nom. nom.

swish and flick

I'm rereading the Harry Potter books like a mad woman for the movie around the corner (and ignoring the fact that I won't see it until August after my friend is done studying for the bar).  In an attempt to not let reading the books stop me from cross-stitch, knitting, baking, and training for the half marathon, I went to the gym this morning before work to take my favorite yoga class and do some cross training.

I am apparently brilliant and forgot my work clothes at home.

I work in the Financial District.  Sweaty gym clothes are not part of the standard business casual attire. 

Speed shower, and a mad dash to the Marshalls for something I could wear during the day without feeling too much like a dork and without costing myself an arm and a leg.

Funnily enough, I must be good at speed shopping or the Marshalls had a good selection, because I got a lot of compliments about my outfit.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better though.  I'll do my speed work (there were intervals, and there was much rejoicing. yeah.) and get ready for work without needing to buy even more stuff.  Phew.

my friends are the best

Yesterday was our Housewarming Party (no gifts please edition, because we never finished all the wine from the housewarming for our condo).  The day was perfect.  The afternoon rain showers failed to materialize, and we were mostly able to enjoy our back yard after the obligatory tours of the house.

I had the Summer Entertaining issue of Cook's Illustrated (or Entertaining magazine), and I put together the stuffed burgers which I made slider sized.  I should have made more of them, because people seemed to really enjoy them.  I scrubbed down the grill and made grilled corn.  We ordered jumbo pizza from Spukies (28" round pizza, which is huge!), and generally had fun during the day light hours.

Eventually we all moved inside to eat the little ice cream pies (s'mores) and try our hand at the Gelatinis.  They weren't as strong as they were supposed to be, because we didn't have enough gelato for the 8 or so people still around at that point.  I will have to try again with a double batch of gelato (or fewer people, though it was fun to hang out with everybody).

We really did mean no gifts, so when my friends brought a huge polka dotted box with a bow out I studiously ignored it.  I'm pretty good at that.  When they asked what they should do with it, I said put it back in the car.  Eventually they had the Blackbird egg me on to actually open it, and my friends got together and bought me a Kitchenaid Stand Mixer.  My eyes are still huge!  It was one of the things I never put on my wedding registry, because I was uncomfortable putting anything that expensive on there.  I hated the feeling that someone might feel obliged to buy something really expensive even if it would be something that I would use constantly.  Thank you guys!  It's just in time for me to try my hand at making little individual cakes all prettily plated like you would see at Tartelette or Cannelle et Vanille.  As soon as I finish all of the dishes and rearrange the kitchen counter to give the stand a permanent home!

still painting

Last night I started masking the walls and painting trim, and I will definitely need to do a second coat around the windows.  The rest of the trim looks surprisingly good, but I was nearing the end of my patience by the time I got to the windows and they are not as nice looking as I would like.  Per normal, I had a case of duh! after I was more than halfway through, and so I've been painting the hardware (the stuff for the curtain rods), because I wasn't smart enough to remove it first.  Around 5:30, I think I will try and do a second coat on the windows, so I am not painting tonight.  I have definitely reached the point in the project when I just want to be done (and technically I have other painting to do once the windows are done, but I'm OK with waiting on painting the shelves).

Our house is coming together nicely.  Last night, my hubby did a bang up job on the dining room area, so we even sat down and ate dinner on place mats.  Virtually unheard of.  We still have a couple of big things to bring to the curb for trash pickup, and then I will feel like our house is ready for guests.  Thank goodness!

.... it is raining right now.  My little mini garden will soak it right up, so I am happy that it is happening.  I still wish that the rain would stop in time for me to walk to the subway station. 

I will admit that I haven't done any knitting in the last week.  I've been doing cross-stitch instead, because in the process of unpacking I found all of the materials I needed for a project for the house.  If I am dedicated then it should only take me about 3 weeks to make, because it is pretty small.  I'm not normally that dedicated to my craft projects (pretty obvious looking at the detritus of half completed stuff in the craft room), so I'm trying my best to make this a 1 month project instead of a 4 year project.

[Editing to add]  I went upstairs this morning after posting to do the second coat of trim paint around the window and saw four little white spots on the windowsill just the right size to be little kitty paw prints.  Poor kitty!  I'm sure she jumped up on the sill and went, "Ewww, this is all sticky and damp." Being a bad blogger, I did not get the camera and take a photo before painting over the spot.  I wonder if I will find more footprints when I get home tonight.