I think I am beginning to climb out of the blah hole I have found myself trapped in. I just feel tired (like I could do with a month off from things I don’t want to do). The Husband keeps saying I look stretched thin (probably not a good thing).

I’m finding myself bored with my knitting… every project I have on the needles at the moment has some sort of complicated part to it. I just want to knit (which is funny cause I’m generally not a fan of garter stitch), which is why the Feeling hat was such a nice project, but I finished it too quickly. Even feeling this malaise towards all patterns that are not simple, I continue to try new projects that have something I have to pay attention to.

I went to Jo-Ann’s last night a picked up several skeins of Homespun (I know, now I’m even buying acrylic) to give an afghan for my mother a second try (why the first one went away is a long story). Why Homespun of all dreadful things, you ask. Two words — dog hair. I using to make one of the afghans off the Lionbrand site… it’s got a sort of wavy pattern to it, which means it’s got complicated pattern bits.

Why do I keep doing this to myself?

Maybe I am getting sick… it would certainly explain the odd food cravings I’ve had the last couple days.

Okay… so I’m still trying to figure out how a whole week went by without my posting a single thing. The reasons in the running are “too much other crap to do,” “too damn tired,” and “I better not be getting sick again.” *sigh*

Maybe it’s just a combination of my introvertedness being on the upswing (I so haven’t wanted to deal with other people to the point I haven’t even been reading other blogs) and the weather confusing the hell out of me (it’s 75 F today… it was like 60 F yesterday). And, of course, there are the above reasons… why do they all seem to be related to each other?

I think I need chocolate…

My quickie luxury hat was done a few days ago, so of course I have no picture as of yet. What was truely amazing is that it really only took one ball… well, one ball and a few yards off the second. Doesn’t that just piss you off? You have only like 7 rounds left, every other row reducing stitches, and you have to join a new ball. I guess I shouldn’t complain too much… it was quite fun to knit. I felt as though I was flying by the seat of my pants, yet it fits. And it doesn’t make my forehead itch, so I can wear it for longer periods of time.

Since I pretty much had the whole of the second ball left over I cast on Branching Out. This of course means I’ll most likely need to get at least one more ball… maybe two. Cause I may need to knit myself a matching pair of fingerless gloves as well. Yeah, I may go for the entire matching set because this is a rather nice yarn… but the real reason is I’m currently freezing my butt off in my cube. We’re talking fingernails turning purple here people. All I can think about it how nice another scarf (I’m wearing one right now) would be along with something to make my fingers less purple.

If you haven’t voted yet, please do. The polls are open till 8 pm. If you don’t know where your polling place is, you can find contact numbers at http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/elections_ppl.htm.

I just saw a bird flutter by the window next to my desk. For some reason it reminded me of somthing that happened recently (unfortunately, I can’t even remember if it happened yesterday or on Friday).

What I think might have been a bird flew into the window the other day. I briefly thought about going down to check it out (I’m on the second floor), but came up with some excuse not to. If the bird was alright, me poking around in the bushes would just frighten it. If it did hit the window at full tilt, then fell 2 stories to the ground, it was probably dead and there was nothing I could do about it.

I don’t know why I didn’t consider the three option of it being injury and unable to fly. If it was hurt, I could have gotten security to call animal control or something. But I didn’t even bother to go check.

Now I feel horrible.

Because it is Monday and I am feeling a great lack of creativity in regards to my blog entry I will respond to recentish comments.

Thank you again to those who commented on my pity party a week and a half ago. It was a craptastic week, and that Friday was the end of it.

Thank you to Kathy in San Jose, Lu, and Julie for their compliments on a finally finished and actually photographed Birch.

To Peggy, Kimberli, and Alyx… If I can ever remember what possessed me to do that to my poor hair (scorching it with the curling iron then gluing it in place with a shitload of hairspray) I’ll let you know. I’m sure it seemed a good idea at the time, just like the scrunchy socks (We folded our pants — fold the leg over to make it tight against your leg, then fold it up twice to hold in place — instead of pulling the socks over the leg… at least it came in handy come winter… made it harder for the wid to get up your pants leg).

To Rabbitch, I think I used only a fraction of the hairspray my classmates used. You could walk into the girls changing room after gym and there would be a fog of hairspray hanging from the ceiling. I knew girls who carried gigantic bags just so they could bring a full sized can of Aquanet with them wherever they went. What’s amazing is that there weren’t more horrible hair fire incidents as all these girls took up smoking in high school.

To my anonymous commenter (who I think is Erin), I will try to not be worried that I will be stalked now because you find my hair horror adorable and just say mmmm… Johnny Depp. 🙂

To Denise, I do hope you can whip your husband into shape and have him get your bike running. My scooter has a top speed of 55, too… although I did get it up to 60 one day with a good tailwind; of course, that tailwind turned into a headwind on the way back that didn’t let me get over 45 with the throttle opened all the way. *sigh*

To Erin, I am so glad you liked the book (for other readers, I finally was able to get a copy of At Knit’s End to my friend that I had gotten signed for her at Stephanie’s stop in Berkeley). 🙂 Definitely no more accidents (hopefully)… the class I’m taking is the Motorcycle Safety Training given by the DMV and the CHP. We’ve learned all sorts of interesting safety stuff so far, even good enough to make the blister on my thumb worthwhile (definitely not used to riding a bike for 4 hours straight — ow). Your boss sucks. Yea for lace! Just remember if the item you’re knitting can pass the galloping horse test there are no mistakes… otherwise, they’re design features. 🙂

Just as I was getting into a rhythm for posting stuff happens to throw me off balance.

I tried to avoid talking about my work for obvious reasons (it has nothing to do with knitting). But I came into work on Wednesday to find that important things had happened (if you really want to know, you can probably find out about it since it made headlines in the business world). Simply put, Wednesday involved three high level execs resigning and our stock falling dramatically. It was an emotionally draining day in which I spent several hours in meetings so they could explain to us what it all meant.

Yesterday, was my first motorcycle safety training class meeting. The Husband and I carpooled so that we could head straight from work to dinner, then class. We didn’t get home till almost 10:30 pm. I think this is definitely going to be worthwhile. And, the instructor we meet last night has a sense of humor, which certainly made the experience more enjoyable. Sunday is our first on cycle class, rain or shine.

I am blessedly close to being finished with The Husband socks… half an inch more and I can begin decreasing for the toe. I’ve been working on the hat slowly, but I think I’ve figured out how long it has to be before I start the decreases. I’ve even managed to figure out how many decreases will fit in a round and still leave me with 8 stitches at the top.

Now, to distract you from my bad Jersey hair, I will show you some current knitting. To the left you can see my Dublin Bay socks (warning: this link goes to a PDF) being made out of Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in the Birch colorway. Thankfully, this is a relatively easy pattern to follow without having to pull out the pattern everytime I want to work on them. Unfortunately, I realized over the weekend that I’m in a DPN funk. Two sock projects going at the same time… all those DPNs. *ugh* I just wanted to knit something that required even less thought… something with just straight knitting that doesn’t require changing needles every 24 stitches.

Something like this (psst, over there on the right). This is a quick improvised hat for me out of Lana Gatto Feeling (70% merino, 20% silk, 10% cashmere). I went to my LYS on Saturday without even bringing knitting with me. A few Tootsie Rolls later I found myself fondling this yarn and wondering what I could make with it. My Lavendar Twist hat is really nice, but if I have to wear it for long periods of time the mohair makes my forehead itch. A softer hat… a hat with cashmere… would make so much more sense. So, after swatching I cast on and got four inches into it before I realized that my gauge swatch had lied to me (gauge swatch: 5 sts/inch, actual hat: 6 sts/inch — just a little bit of a different on the order of 3.5 inches). Out came the needles, rip went the knitting, cast back on went the yarn. It’s quite nice to knit; it rivals the Bouton d’Or Ksar I used last year. The one problem with this hat is I keep imagining what I nice sweater would be like out of this yarn. I come to my sense each time when I think 6 sts/inch… would need about 2200 yards of yarn… 153 yards per ball… $15.50 a ball… *choke* Maybe it’s time to buy another lotto ticket.

I know the discussion took place awhile ago, but it took me time to track down a copy of this photo. The white stuff is just flash reflection off the picture.

This is for Rabbitch…

This is me in 8th grade in all my New Jersey hair glory… bad poodle perm… flipped up bangs (you have to spray them with hairspray while your hair’s still in the curling iron to get that crispy fried look).

No, I don’t know why I thought I looked good like this.

It’s only been finished since Sept 15, but I am pleased to introduce you to Birch:

I’ve worn it several times already (it’s been great for the NorCal fall), and get compliments wherever I go. Once I got the pattern memorized it was a great knit. Of course, after I finished it, I kept finding myself wanting to knit that same pattern. I don’t know if that was due to it being relatively easy, or if it became so familiar that it was hard to do without it. Probably the latter.

I must apologise for the pity party I threw for myself on Friday. It was the end of a long, tiring week. I don’t know why I care how many people I have reading my blog. I’m usually not that much of an attention whore… well, not for a large audience; I prefer smaller groups or one-on-one attention grabbing. (Edited to add: Thanks to everyone for all the comments. We can all have a good time without whoever it was. 😛 Of couse, they’re all welcome back when they see the error of their ways. *grin*)

I gutted a pumpkin last night, and The Husband carved it. It got a test run on the balcony for a few hours. I think my neighbors thought I was odd placing a pumpkin on the balcony (I haven’t seen any others in the complex), but then I thought they were odd for putting out Christmas lights this early (of course, then I realized that they were mostly likely for Diwali not Christmas). What’s kind of nice is with the pumpkin in a certain spot on the balcony, it can be seen from the street and brings in the trick-or-treaters (there is way too much candy in my apt right now).

I even managed to dress up this year for work. There was a Halloween picnic in our parking lot complete with a costume contest that I didn’t sign up for because several other costumes were much more elaborate than mine. I don’t know who won, but there was a guy dressed up as Jamie Hyneman… deadringer… made me do a double take. Of course, there were also 2 separate people dressed up as “cereal killers” — take outfit, tape on cereal boxes and knives… ta da… cereal killer. *sigh* (I prefer another friend’s take on the matter — wear what you usually wear, people ask what you’re supposed to be say, “Serial killer, we look like everyone else.”) I also saw an iPod, a dinosaur, a couple of doctors, a zombie/dead guy, and one person was dressed as one of my company’s products. Generic vampire(ss) seemed pale in comparison.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Halloween.

Let me leave you with this last spooky thought… I went to Target yesterday to get earrings and candy. While checking out what Halloween stuff they had, I turned down an aisle and got quite a scare… There at the end of an aisle filled with orange and black Halloween delights were Christmas decorations. BOO!