Thursday was a speed bump in my week.

I haven’t really been knitting. I worked on The Husband sock at the library talk I went to Wednesday night, and I think that’s the most knitting I’ve done in at least a week.

I don’t know if it’s the lack of knitting content, me talking of things knitter’s would rather not hear about, or if someone didn’t like my cursory review of KnitLit the Third, but I’ve lost subscribers from Bloglines. Oh well… I know a lot of people believe in the blog for yourself mentality; I apply that to what I choose to post. But, I do blog for the purpose of sharing with those people who choose to read what I write. And I do know I am far from entertaining. But, there is a whiff of wanting to feel special and/or popular online. *pout* I wanna be special… who doesn’t?

The Husband is actually home now (it’s been one of those weeks), so I have to think about what I want for dinner.

It’s all dark and threatening to rain outside and there’s no hot chocolate to be found in my building. I’m debating if venturing off to one of the other buildings is worth the hope of finding hot chocolate mix. When something runs out on both floors of my building it’s most likely been in high demand in the other break rooms around our campus as well. I want a hot beverage; I just don’t want tea. This sort of weather calls for slightly sweet, creamy hot chocolate… mmmmmmmm. Of course, I also wish I could have a nice comfy couch with a snuggly afghan in front of a warm fire while sipping on that hot chocolate… not going to happen, unfortunately.

I have the second Husband sock with me today so that I can work on it at a talk I’m going to after work. Jessamyn West is giving a talk on “The Information Poor and the Information Don’t Care: Small Libraries and the Digital Divide” at the King Library on campus. Since The Husband has to work till at least 9 pm tonight, I thought it would be more fun than being home alone. I also figure that The Husband sock will be a good project to work on while listening. I just picked up the gusset stitches last night, so once I’m thought the gusset decreases it will be non-thinking knitting for a good bit.

Another nice thing about tonight is I get to go to Peanuts (if it’s open… I’ve never tried to go there at night). Peanuts is down a little ways and right across the street from the library. A lot of people would probably be loathe to go in… it doesn’t look like all that much, and some people beg off cause I usually describe it as a greasy spoon (how else would you describe a grill that makes breakfast all day?). They make fabulous cheesesteaks (geez, my mouth is watering just thinking about it and I’m not even hungry at the moment). What is even better is they let me order my cheesesteak with chicken instead of beef and mushrooms instead of peppers. It’s hot and gooey and only $5. Since I don’t get downtown very often, these cheesesteaks have become a rare treat that I get whenever the opportunity presents itself.

I have to go wipe the drool off my chin now…

It’s time to accept that these will never be mine. (I wear a US 8.5, which is no where near a US 11.) It’s not very often that I feel such a strong need for a particular pair of shoes, but these called to me and my limited fashion sense. It doesn’t hurt that they would look awesome on my feet while I’m riding my scooter (I have a shiny dark red helmet that they would match nicely). *sigh*

It appears that Dr. Martens have become extremely hard to find. I used to know of at least 4 stores in the South Bay Area that carried them, and each of those stores has gone out of business. It probably doesn’t help that once Docs went mainstream their popularity declined, and you really don’t see goths or punks wearing them any more (these days it looks like they’re back to wearing All-Stars).

So, now I am reduced to pining for beautiful red vintage big-eyed satin ribbon-laced Docs.

Yesterday, I attacked the dining room. After three and a half hours of dusting, spraying, tossing out, and vaccuming, I managed to find the top of my horizontal filing cabinet dining room table. It’s kind of odd to walk into the kitchen now because all the clutter you could see from the kitchen doorway is gone.

I’ve gotten two of the main rooms in the apartment cleaned, and now The Husband is talking of inviting people over. He even mentioned names of people who are coming to town for business. The hallway is still cluttered, and we won’t speak of the condition of the main bathroom. *gah*

My Ribby Cardi is all seamed up and blocked (well, as blocked as I thought it needed to be). I even gave it a test run today at work. But it’s zipperless… I’ve never put a zipper in anything. I’m not sure if I want to try doing it by hand, or if I want to take it down to my parent’s and have my mom and her fancy quilting sewing machine help me. I have my own sewing machine, and I think I even have a zipper foot, but damned if I know how to use it.

I picked up a copy of KnitLit the Third on Saturday at my LYS. I’m not sure what I think of it so far. A few of the stories I’ve read so far left me thinking either “Why should I care?” or “Whatever.” Stephanie‘s story was funny, but she has a very easy going writing style. Several of the ones I’ve read seem to be trying too hard…. trying too hard to be funny… trying too hard to be different… trying too hard to be literature. I’ve had a hard time connecting with the writers and what they are trying to convey. Steph’s story is easy to empathize with… I can easily imagine the jitters I would get being forced to wait for long periods of time after my knitting had been taken away from me by airport security. But I’m still trying to figure out why I shouldn’t knit and drive as one of the stories admonishes readers. The first two KnitLit books had stories and essays that were heartfelt and invoked reading enjoyment through a shared sense of knitters as community. This third one feels as if many of the writers are writing to writing not writing to share their love of knitting.

I did it… I pulled out the Supersock, did a quick swatch, and cast on for the Dublin Bay socks. And now, after I got almost an inch of ribbing done last night, now I am thinking of ripping it out and using the Twisted German cast on.

I had not heard of this cast on until reading The Knitting Biologist‘s post today. The whole time I was knitting my ribbing last night, I kept thinking to myself that my cast on looked crappy (I used the knitted cast on instead of my usual cable cast on). It looks all loosey-goosey compared to the ribbing. I wanted an elastic cast on edge, not one that will fall down.

So, out it will come tonight. And I’ll get to try my hand at a new technique.

The Husband has gone out to dinner with people from work tonight. I fended for myself with Mu Shu chicken… tasty. I want to knit, but I don’t want to knit on either of the projects I currently have on the needles (The Third Incarnation and The Husband socks). What’s funny is I’m thinking of starting another pair of socks. I have a skein of Cherry Tree Hill Supersock in Birches and a copy of the Dublin Bay socks….hmmm….

Okay… that was greatly disturbing. My brain was just derailed from normal thought by a commercial for the new Charmin wet wipes — “The cleaner clean.” The truely creepy part was the commercial showing someone putting toothpaste on the back of their hand then trying to wipe it off with regular tolietpaper…. *ugh*

Must go wash brain now…

There is something terribly wrong with a grown woman using the word “titty.”

That is all for now.

The hardest lesson for me to learn in the 3 years I’ve been knitting is that mistakes can be fixed. This isn’t carpentry or sewing where you have to measure twice because you can only cut once (well, you can cut twice but only to make something smaller). Knitting has the benefit that you can always go back and fix an error, if you choose to.

I think my reaction to finding a hole chewed in my completed Ribby Cardi sleeve shows how far I’ve come. Three years ago, I probably would have thrown it and the other pieces into the back of the closet and forgotten it. Instead, it only took me a few moments to consider how to approach the problem before tackling it. It then only took about 20 minutes total to fix.

I didn’t blink twice as I pulled out my cast-off and ripped back to the hole. Then I ripped back a few more rows to get a tail and to figure out where amongst the sleeve decreases I was. From there it was rather easy to attach new yarn and reknit the top of the sleeve. My wanting for a wearable sweater overrode my fear of mistakes (both making them and being unable to recover from them).

What’s funny is that, for a hard knitting lesson, this isn’t one you see in knitting books. Oh sure, they cover dropping down stitches to make fixes or even picking up dropped stitches. Knitters on lists and in their blogs talk about ripping back or frogging projects completely. But, coming to an understanding of the semifluid nature of knitting itself is rarely mentioned — yes, you’ve spent a large amount of time knitting an item, but it can be undone in a matter of minutes. I think this isn’t usually mentioned because knitters shy away from the idea that it can all be undone. Yet at the same time, being able to completely unravel means that mistakes don’t have as much impact. You can simply go back, fix the error, and continue onwards. Of course, knowing this is not embracing it…

but I think I’m getting closer…

Okay… *deep breath* …that’s better… nothing quite like having your neck adjusted. Always seems to make me feel more like myself. Now, if I could just get warm (my cube is freezing… a slight purple color can be seen under my finger nails, so I know I’m not imagining it), things would be good. *brrr*

I am hoping to finish the second Ribby Cardi sleeve tonight. If that happens, tomorrow (or tonight depending) I can rip out the top part of the first sleeve to fix the hole (stupid, freaking buggies).

This weekend will see the beginning of the über cleaning of the apartment starting with the living room and maybe even the hallway. The most important part will be vaccuming the furnature, since that hasn’t happened in a very long time, and along the baseboards. I need to swing by the hardware store tonight to pick up dust masks — I’m guessing I’m going to be kicking up a lot of it, and the last thing I need is to clean myself into an asthma attack. Yeah, I know… with asthma you’d think I’d dust more, but I’m lazy when it comes to housework. I’m hoping that by getting the apartment to a high level of cleanliness, it will be easier to keep it decent instead of where it is now… you can stop laughing now…

I also have plans to try to get to a place that sells better plastic storage solutions than I have now. The lids don’t fasten very tightly on my current storage bins, which defeats the purpose. For these plastic bins, I’m going to give a mixture of whole cloves, lavender, and cedar chips a try (although I’m also considering other things like southernwood, if I can find it… anyone have suggestions?). Even perfumed, the smell of the moth cake I got from my LYS owner turns my stomach and makes me feel sick for half an hour after I go into my fiber room for just a couple minutes (I’ve only done this twice and it was bad), so stuff that isn’t made from a big, long chemical name would probably be better for my home. And there’s the fact that my brother-in-law is planning on staying with us a week out of each month for work come the new year. The stuff I’ve got set up in the closet isn’t supposed to be used in rooms where people spend a lot of time.

Finally, don’t mess with librarians.

The hockey game last night was amazing. The Sharks beat the Blue Jackets 4 to 1. By the end of the game, the Sharks had put about 40 shots on net; almost made me feel bad for Denis (Columbus’s goalie). They dropped the 2003-2004 Pacific Division Champions banner at the beginning. Unfortunately, the downside of hockey games made itself known loud and clear this morning. I awoke with a pounding headache and the rest of me felt as if I’d been beat up all night. See, being around thousands of screaming people with loud music and such sucks the life out of me through a Pearl Tea straw. It was fun… it was exciting… I’m exhausted.

Since I was at the hockey game last night, there’s no new knitting news and no new knitting pictures (I failed to bring a camera to opening night hockey after a season long lock-out, you expect me to actually take a picture of the shawl I’ve had finish for almost a month now?) I really don’t know what my problem is when it comes to taking pictures for my blog. Either I take them and it then takes forever to get around to uploading them, or I keep saying I need to take them and never do. *sigh*