Resurrecting the forgotten...

Completely forgot I had this. Well, not completely, but mostly.

Considering bringing this back. A knit-centric blog, I'm thinking. It'll be a nice addition to my Ravelry profile.

Knitting vs. Sleeping

I have GOT to get to bed at a more reasonable hour.

But lately I've been playing with new yarn, starting new projects (well, with the new yarn, you kind of have to knit something – and a swatch just doesn't cut it for me), and pulling out my stash and looking at it, trying to think of what to do with it.

And that leads to being inspired to do NEW projects.

And that's great and all, except I have a bunch of unfinished projects that are taking up space in this one bedroom apartment of mine. A baby blanket for a child that is now 2 years old (and she was a coworker from an old job, and we don't really talk), an afghan made out of HomeSpun (which sounded good at the time, but it's a bit of a pain to crochet with), and an afghan that I intended to make for a dude I liked, but he turned out to be a complete bastard.

The baby blanket is barely started – I can use that yarn (it's cotton) for something else. The HomeSpun afghan – I think I'll finish it and see how it goes. There's not a whole lot you can do with HomeSpun. And the afghan for my Intended – luckily I hadn't gotten too far, and my technique was horrendous, so it's going to be frogged.

I'll probably use that stuff for a blanket for charity or something.

The main goal here is to keep me busy and free up some room. I have a whole lot of acrylic, which isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but there is more to life than what the local craft store carries.

Meanwhile, I get to slog through another day in a fog because I couldn't put that new felting project down. And you know I completely intended to wake up early this morning so I could do a few more rows.

I think I'll do that right now.

Reflections of Earth Day

I didn't do anything special for Earth day. I bought light bulbs, but they were out of the CFL for 3-way lamps. So I had to make do with some regular light bulbs.

You know, Mom kind of raised us as somewhat aware of "being green."

She wasn't a hippie or anything, but she instilled habits in us that make us feel like we're not trying when it comes to conserving resources.

For instance, donating clothes. We ALWAYS donate clothes. I go through my closets every few months, and when I get a bag of clothes, I drop it off at Mom's house (Amvets stop by her house pretty regularly). Or saving those plastic bags to use for anything else. The way Mom always put it - if you can get one more use out of something, then that's good.

And I try to do that. I have lots of scratch paper, and I went out and bought blank white labels to stick on the tabs of the manilla folders I work with, so I can use them again.

I also quit smoking a while back. I wonder how much pollution a pack-a-day smoker causes?

Meh, I really feel like I need to do more as far as saving the planet. Some of the stuff I could easily do is thrown out the window on account that I rent. For instance, I think the wiring is faulty. Some of the fixtures in my apartment EAT CFLs. Which is great considering how expensive they are, and then you really should take them to a recycling facility because there's mercury in them. Then the entire boiler system could use an overhaul. I'm sweating my balls off over here, whereas my neighbors on the other side of the building are huddled together in their 50-degree apartment. The only solution - TURN UP THE HEAT! It's inefficient and really wasteful.

Oh, and the windows. I don't care if they're new, the draft is pretty fucking bad. Whoever installed them did a poor job. There shouldn't be a breeze when the windows are shut.

But there's only so much you can make the landlord care, and then try and fix what you can control.

Musing

Sometimes I sit around and try to figure out what the hell I was up to in my last life.

I feel like I’m inexplicably drawn to certain things in this life, and I can only surmise it’s something left over from my last one.

For some reason, I am intensely interested in the domestic arts. I’m talking cooking, cleaning, decorating… I’ve even picked up knitting with gusto.

Though my entire family crochets. Mom, sister, great-aunt… all crochet.

Here I am picking up a pair of knitting needles, making cable knitting my bitch, and finding comfort in all the knitting blogs all over the ‘net.

Where the hell did that come from? Seriously.

I do feel drawn to the WWII/1940’s era. I’m wondering if one of the things I did was knit socks for our troops or something.

One of my favorite war posters says, “Remember Pearl Harbor - Purl Harder!”

Fucking fantastic.

I think I may find some coupons for Borders and buy another knitting book or something.

Speaking of Borders and their “Borders Rewards Card” - I really wish that instead of 10% of my purchases into an account and giving me discounted shopping days they’d just give me points that I could then cash in for a bookshelf.

Wouldn’t that make a hell of a lot more sense? They could partner with Ikea or something - it would be fabulous.

Sometimes I have great ideas, and they’re just left to gather dust.

Burnin' the midnight oil

Working.

Going to be up late tonight.

Devising systems, getting things together, checking, double checking, listening to NPR while I'm at it.

I wish I had tuned into NPR earlier, 'cause it occupies the part of my brain that gets annoyed to all hell. And it's a lot less distracting than TV, and it's way less annoying than regular radio.

All in all, it was a good weekend. Especially these snippets of spring. Did you know that it got up to 78 degrees today? I know it's a tease, and I know we're going to have a few freezes, but I live for weather like today. After a long, cold, dark winter it is so great to have a day where you can throw your windows open and run around in shorts and take on a ridiculously optimistic view of the world.

Dog tired

I’m exhausted.

Unfortunately, I say things to myself such as, “I’m only 26, I should be full of life and energy!”

And I probably should, except that by saying the above to myself, I’m not taking steps to be vibrant and bouncy and full of energy.

I haven’t pulled an “all-nighter” in years. When I go out with friends and we stay out past 1 a.m., I know the next day is going to be a waste because I’m going to be exhausted. If I stay out until 4 a.m., the next 2 days will be spent recovering.

Not that this prevents me from going out and staying out. But I don’t do it every Friday and Saturday night. Once every few months when the groove strikes.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I need to make a couple of changes to my life here. Anything to keep me from feeling exhausted all the damned time.

None of this is unusual or frightening - as one gets older, one’s needs change. And then your body kind of nudges you a bit here and there when things start getting out of whack.

Ah, but how to implement these changes? Going to bed earlier is much easier said than done -especially when you have multiple factors such as work, the dude upstairs being loud as hell, anxiety, and/or the internet in general having so many shiny things to look at.

“Eating healthy” is another challenge. I do my best to cook a lot of my own food simply because I don’t want to eat all of those preservatives and such. That and I like cooking. I like taking bits and pieces from here and there and Poof! I’ve made something out of nothing. And it’s nice to know that what I’m eating is closer to natural than what I could get out of a box. And it REALLY cuts down on the sodium intake. Not that I’m watching that, but it’s always nice to avoid it.

And that brings me to mention my latest project - saving money at the grocery store. I found a website - thegrocerygame.com - that looks as if it can significantly bring down the cost of groceries. The basic premise is that it gets you to use coupons on items that are already on sale. There’s more to it than that, but I feel the website can explain it better than I can. It takes a few weeks of coupon clipping to really get rolling, but I gave it a go yesterday and did a little shopping.

3 of my items would have cost $15.13 at regular price. But due to sales and then additional coupons, I paid $5.49. Kind of awesome for a first go. This next round should be more interesting.

I should mention the service isn’t free - after the trial period, it’s about $10 for a 6 week subscription (if you subscribe to only one store), so that averages out to $1.25 a week.

Honestly, I’m a little excited about it. I’ll keep posting about it.

Also, I need a spice rack. I have enough spices that keeping them on a shelf is a pain in the ass ‘cause I can’t see what I have.

I would like a wall-mounted spice rack, definitely. But now the question is, do I get a rack that fits all of my odd-shaped bottles, or do I buy one of those nifty racks that comes with a bajillion empty bottles so everybody looks uniform? I’m leaning towards everybody looking uniform, because I can’t think of anything more cluttery-looking than 8 different companies’ labels competing with one another visually above my kitchen sink.

Or I can go real “Harry Potter” with it, get glass bottles, but then all the labels would be in calligraphy and I’d give them the old world names (where possible. I don’t cook with lavender, but one if it’s names was “Eye of Newt.” Mullien, another spice I do not cook with, is also know as “Graveyard Dirt.”) That could be a hella fun project.

General, all-over goings-on

1 - I’ve taken another step into the wild blue yonder of grownup-ness and subscribed to a magazine. I’ve never done that myself. I’ve usually asked my mom to do it, and then when I started making money, I decided it was a waste of money.

But I’ve decided that a yearly subscription to “Cooks Illustrated” is not going to be a waste of time, especially since I cook quite often. That and it’s a great way to celebrate my taste buds and sense of smell growing back.

2 - Back on the dog sitting wagon this week. It’s good stuff. Last week, it kind of made me consider getting a dog. But then I had to go around and pick up dog crap, and I changed my mind.

I love the dogs, I really do. We get along GREAT. But picking up dog crap EVERY DAY for 10-15 years? Sorry, I’m too much of a priss.

3 - And I’ve been wrestling my way through Lolita. Holy fuck, it’s a pretentious piece of work to get through. I was feeling kind of like a pervert when I started it (book club reasons), but after some discussion (and actually reading it), it’s not really pages upon pages of smut. But our main character is a real pretentious and delusional.

4 - I made a pretty yummy casserole-type dinner. It was pretty fucking good. Though the only thing I would do different is add some more noodles. But that’s because I’m a noodly person.

5 - I bought a clivia on Sunday. Not because I need another plant, but I’ve wanted one for 2 years and they’re impossible to find (and way expensive if you can find them out of catalogues), and the price was not too bad.
Supposedly these plants are indestructible. And they bloom, which is a plus.

That’s about it. The Doctor Who scarf is getting longer and more ridiculous. I wouldn’t be surprised if I had it done in a week or two. My current Doctor Who scarf gets quite a lot of attention, but nobody has ever heard of Doctor Who. I think maybe 10 people recognized it.

Go here for a thorough explanation of Doctor Who. Or you can arrange an evening with me in which I’ll tell you a bit and we’ll watch a few episodes.