Knits

Happy 2009.

I’m back on British soil. It’s dark and cold and wet here — business as usual really. I did nothing but drool on my pillow to ring in the new year. I was far to exhausted to attend any new year festivities so I just stayed in and went to bed at 6pm. I briefly woke up at 1130pm, saw some fireworks out the window, said ‘Woohoo’ and went back to bed. Unfortunately I then managed a lot of sleep with a few periods of briefly awakening which have done me in completely. This jetlag is AWFUL. Absolutely awful — just like it always is when I travel during this time of year. Oh and the cold I’d managed to avoid the previous 6 or 7 weeks, I GOTS IT!

Anyway, my trip home was pretty good if a bit busy and rushed, but isn’t it always? Santa Fe had a lot of very nice food (we only had one bad meal) and a lot of snow for this time of year.

I was smart and did decide I wouldn’t return to work when work reopened on the 5th… I’m heading back in on the 7th. Hopefully I’ll have managed to get past the worst part of the jetlag by then.

And hopefully I will now be better about posting things here — knitting-related or not. Oh and I’m not doing any year end wrap-ups… 2008 was mostly awful.

I’m on the north american continent now. We had snow in the surrounding hills the other day. For my UK friends, despite the sunny skies, the temperatures are not all that different from those in the north east of England.

Tomorrow we start our Great American Road Trip. I hope I get some good pictures. I am very out of practice with the camera.

Have a great Christmas/Kwanzaa/Festivus.

So here’s the scoop. I am just completely out sync with everything. I haven’t finished the blanket and I won’t before I go. I should be able to finish the hexagon bit and get it washed and dried, but the edge will have to wait. I’ll take it with me and work on the edge when I’m back in the US. I still enjoy it and love how it’s come out, but it’s taken all my knitting time except for the few train journeys I’ve had where I’m working on the same sock I started back in August…

Here’s my plan. Give up on 2008. It won. In so many ways 2008 won.

For 2009, I will have a fresh start. I am going to make this blog still heavily knitting focussed but if I’ve not got anything knitting wise to talk about, I’ll find something else. I mean I won’t tell you what I had for lunch today (caramelised onion and fancy cheese tart haha) or anything like that, but I’ll keep up with reading and posting on a regular basis.

We’ve had a wee bit of snow - enough to give everything a pretty, white sheet and to make that satisfying crunching noise when you walk through it - and the weather has finally turned more wintry. I’ll be headed back to California soon for a few weeks, but won’t be staying there. Nope, we’re road tripping it to New Mexico.

Hope everyone is well and isn’t stressing about gift knitting.

Just to warn you I may have to take my blog down if I keep getting the amount spam in the comments I’ve had in the last 24 hours (150 of them!). I have checked that my Wordpress install is up-to-date (it is) and Akismet (it is) so I’m not sure what’s going on other than someone has found a way to hit my site with one spam comment after the other.

Anyone else running Wordpress 2.6.3 and Akismet 2.2.1 having this problem? I’ve turned off the comments so you’ll have to email me directly if you do have some insight!

You know, we’ve all had those little accidents where a finger gets pricked on a straight pin as we block something (how rare an occasion) or perhaps you’ve got some rather pointy knitting needles you’ve caught yourself on. Well last night I decided to go one better.

It was about 1130. I’d finished doing something or other (not knitting) and then decided to finish up the last couple of rounds of a hexagon. Got it finished, cut the yarn, threaded the needle to weave in the end, DPNs in my lap as they generally are at this stage, and then… well I decided to do something I do all the time too: Bend forward a wee bit to grab something off the table several inches in front of me. Then I heard it. POP! And then I saw it. The tip of a rather blunt 4.5mm (US7) aluminium DPN hanging out of my wrist. I’m not a person that gets queasy very easily, but the sound made me feel a wee bit queasy.

Great. A puncture wound. They’re the worst. I was bitten by my Dakota cat in 2002 and spent three days in the hospital on IV antibiotics because of the puncture wounds he gave me.

I immediately rang NHS Direct to find out if I should seek medical attention. It wasn’t too bad so they said to just do the common sense thing - keep it clean, if it starts bleeding again, hurts, gets pussy, ring in again - until a nurse could get back to me in 6-7 hours (it was a busy night what with it being Guy Fawkes). So I washed it and went to bed w/ my phone. Almost exactly 7 hours later the phone rang only minutes after I’d woken up and started to inspect the wound. I was advised to see someone for an initial consult. It looks okay at the end of it - just need to do the common sense things and put some antiseptic ointment on it.

It’s quite sore - feels bruised and tight - but I am keeping my eye on it. Watching for swelling, changes in colour, that sort of thing. Shifting the gears on my bike? Actually a bit painful. Typing while wearing my watch? Rather uncomfortable.

The funny thing is I was talking to someone the other day about the fact that I haven’t had a visit to the ER (A&E) in 4-5 years which is quite a feat for me since prior to that I’d gone to the at least once a year for at least the prior 5 years for some reason or another. I mean I didn’t end up at the ER, but it was a goofy accident and it has been many years since one of those.

And because I’m me. I took a picture. After the needle came out though. It’s not impressive at all. Boo.

It’s an old picture, but that’s how I felt today. Once again happy to be American. I was honestly scared to look at the news this morning. Luckily I was really, really tired last night so I slept otherwise I think I would’ve been awake off and on all night wanting to check the news.

I’m back amongst the living. I have fallen way behind on my knitting. I may not resurface for a bit again. I will try though.

A whole months since my last post! And guess what? Nothing has changed. It has been a nightmare situation trying to get a phone/internet in my new house. Actually I think I’ve been paying for internet for almost 3 weeks now, but can’t use it since there is no phone line. HA HA HA. (That’s sarcastic laughter.)

As another promised date slipped past on Friday, I was on the verge of tears. There’s nothing I can do except call and harass them frequently (which may very well not work in my favour). I mean, it’s not like if you get bad service at store A, you can go to store B. I can choose a new provider for my service, but at the end of the day, it’s all down to the monolith that is British Telecom. I can just choose not to directly pay them… I’m just tired of customer service agents guaranteeing me dates of service, phone calls to update me on the status of things, etc. and not one of them being true. I’ve given up on crossing my fingers and holding my breath.

Work has been so busy that I don’t even have time to do much personal internet stuff. I’ve been tired a lot lately (perhaps trying to keep the cold/flu that’s begun its autumn circulation at bay).

I’m back to cycling a wee bit every day, but it helps.

I’ve filled in my ballot for the US election and am about to go put it in the post.

I have been working on the blanket, fell quite a bit behind, but think I made up for this weekend. There’s still an awful long way to go. I’d show you a photo, but for some reason I can’t upload photos right now. Obviously I got a photo up. I don’t know that I mentioned that I decided I didn’t like the way it was turning out so I ripped it all out and started again. In a weeks time I made up for the fact that I’d started again, but fell behind and am caught back up. It’s bigger now than it is there. The 5th ring is awaiting 6 hexagons (yarn on its way) and I’ve therefore started on the 6th ring. I’ve knit 56 hexagons. I’ve got over a hundred full ones left plus a number of half and third hexagons to square it up AND THE BORDER. OMG. Maybe I’m not caught up…

I obviously haven’t read any blogs in some weeks now and am afraid to actually look at my RSS reader. I might have to declare blog bankruptcy and close my eyes while I click ‘Mark all as read’.

I hope you’re all doing well.

Hi - I haven’t forgotten you. I went off to Italy, came home very tired, had planned to upload my pictures and post a bit about my trip. Unfortunately I chose to ring the internet provider to tell them I’d be moving in a week and arrange my account be moved in a week’s time. After telling me that I was ringing on a Sunday (I knew this) and therefore they’d have to put the order in for the following Monday as they couldn’t do account things like this on a Sunday, I hung up, and 30 minutes later, no more internet. Oh well. So I am currently sans internet at home (I’m at the library - yay council taxes) and won’t have any again until the first week of October.

I’ll have to update then as I’m also not in the office much (and when I am, in meetings - bah) and yeah.

Hope you’re all well. I had caught up on my blog reading and now I am clearly way behind again. Sigh.

Ruined. That sums up my weekend. I pulled out some knitting I hadn’t worked on in awhile just so I could use the bag. Inside I found one of my Addi 2mm circs with a very bent needle — that’s straightened out there. Damn. But I moved on. Packed my knitting, made sure I had snacks and all the things I’d need for a very long day out and went to bed. It had been raining pretty steadily for about 24 hours — that actually isn’t normal around here believe it or not. Sure it rains a lot, but it’s generally not heavy or steady like it was.

I woke up Saturday far earlier than one should ever wake up on a Saturday morning (this was earlier than when I go to work), showered, and then set straight out for the train station where I grabbed a very large coffee and muffin. My train arrived, I boarded, it was all well and good. We get down to the next station, pull out, and, not even a mile later, came to a stop. And we sat there. For ten minutes. Then the train manager came on to say that the line is down between here and The South due to flooding. We sat there a few more minutes and the manager came back on to say that the service is returning to the station we just left and we’d receive further instructions once there. By the time we get back to the station, a matter of minutes (we went slowly), the service was cancelled. Pretty much all trains headed directly south were cancelled as were those heading directly north. If I wanted to get to Manchester I probably could’ve, but that wasn’t my plan.

I was meant to be going to London for the day. For this. Yes, the Yarn Harlot. And I missed it because of weather. I was really annoyed about it. This was not a free event (nothing is free in the UK) so I was now out £14. I may also be out my train fare since I didn’t feel like hanging around in the giant queue. I’ve claimed unused tickets before, but via post — it seems there might be different rules for cancelled services as in you have to do it RIGHT THEN. I’ll investigate.

It’s not like the YH comes to England ALL THE TIME. This was the first time. I was really looking forward to hearing her speak and seeing various knitterly friends down south. It was not to be. Sigh. Hopefully she’ll come back. Or I’ll be some place she is…

Instead I came home and did more work on the mystery project. The picture previously was not the real thing. It was a practice run with the wrong yarn. I now have some of the right yarn, but I’m not entirely happy with my choices. They’re too dark and very little variance. Well what is it? HEY MOM, IF YOU READ THIS BLOG (I DON’T THINK YOU DO) YOU SHOULD LOOK AWAY RIGHT NOW.

Right, well it’s going to be a throw blanket. It’s Bobby’s Garden [Rav link] by Megan Rogers. It’s going to take a long time. I am so slow. I hope I’m done by Christmas. I don’t want this to be the only thing I work on for the next three months. Obviously it doesn’t make good travelling knitting because the point is to attach the hexagons by picking up stitches and not seaming approximately 209348209348 hexagons at the end which would make anyone go completely mad. So I’ve stuck with the Noro Kureyon for a blanket in the end (I had been considering the Lizard Ridge) despite the worry that she won’t really want to hand wash something like this on occasion.

Tuesday morning I’m off to Italy. Have I mentioned this? I think I mentioned I was off somewhere, but maybe wasn’t specific. Well it’s Italy. To give a talk. On libraries. Holy Moses. I’m okay right now, but the night before, and the morning, and during said talk, I will be really, REALLY nervous. I do not like speaking in front of people. I likely won’t have any internet access until next weekend and even then I might not have it… I have had a tremendous time with utility suppliers recently. I’m also in the process of moving. And giving another talk next week, but that one’s okay since I know that group pretty well.

Right, this is really long. I’m going to go eat dinner now.