skittermagoo!

Random Wednesday . . . in list form! November 12, 2009

1. It is not actually Wednesday, it is Thursday.  Random.

2. My coworker (whose desk shares a common front wall) is driving me crazy with his throat-clearing and expectorating and random sick-sounding noises.  If I get H1N1 flu this year, my bets are that he will be the origin.  I asked him if he wanted a cough drop and he seemed very offended . . . probably a cultural thing, but still.

3. I have not been able to knit or spin in AGES because of stupid tendinitis in my right shoulder.  This makes me cranky.

4. My job in general is also making me cranky lately . . . this week in particular.  Come on, weekend!

5. I really don’t want to be this annoyed.

6. There is a new local radio station here that is making me very happy.  If you are in the Dallas/North TX area and you hate all the commercial radio stations but are sick of listening to nothing but grim news on NPR, tune in to KTX 91.7.  It’s an offshoot of KERA but they play all kinds of eclectic music.  Love.

7. The picture above is from a camping trip B and I did in October.  Just below our cabin was a rocky trail down to the beach; the water level is usually higher, but because of the drought we got to benefit from some really cool rock formations.

8.Maybe, just maybe, I will have something fiber-related for you here next time.

Refocusing August 5, 2009

I have an admission that will likely come as no surprise to any of you (seeing as I am always the last to know) . . . lately I have been, for lack of a better word, Unfocused.

This happens to me from time to time: I lose my knitting mojo, or my (ahem) blogging mojo, or whatever.  But lately, it’s been my Mojo in general that I’ve lost.  Completely.  I go to work, I come home, and I don’t seem to have the energy or motivation to do much of anything except stare slack-jawed at the TV and think about how I don’t want to go to the trouble to cook dinner and do the dishes.  Or when I do muster up the energy to do dinner and dishes, I end up cranky because I feel like all I do is work at work and then come home and work at home.  Laundry day is especially bad for this.

In any case, something has to change.  I need to re-inject Hobby into my life.  Actually, I think “hobby” is the wrong word, but I’m not really sure what the right word is.  “Art” is maybe too high-falutin’ . . . “Craft” conjures up images of macaroni art (not that there’s anything wrong with that).  Also, it is not just about Art and Craft, it’s also about other non-chore things in life.

I’ve got it . . . I need to inject Life back into my life.  To find a way to spend some time each day doing things like playing with yarn, drawing, stretching, cooking, and yeah, keeping the house if not clean, then at least not dirty.

I think this past weekend may have had something to do with this line of thinking.  I spent the past weekend at a Quilt Retreat, where I spent the first half hour feeling like a fraud because I don’t quilt anymore (or at least I didn’t think I did — more on that later), but then spent the rest of the weekend really enjoying the freedom of having no demands on my time other than to make stuff.

I would love to have that freedom all the time, but alas, being a grownup means working for a living and paying bills and cooking dinner and cleaning up cat puke.  Sigh.  HowEVER, there is no reason that I can’t find a way to inject some of that make-stuff freedom into the hours I have left over after the make-money time.  After all, this is what people do — a lot of them with less “free time” than I have.

So there it is.  I’m going to spend some energy to try and refocus on what it is I want to DO with myself, because taking a clandestine (albeit short) nap after work and staring at the tube just aren’t cutting it in the “Personal Growth And Expression” category.

Not Noro November 30, 2008

Wait, did you guys really expect me to knit something with Noro yarn during Norovember?  HAH!  If so, you don’t know me very well . . . I’m an abject failure at all things knitalong-y.  Actually, this year I did pretty well — I put some Noro Kureyon in a bag with some needles and carried it around with me in my knitting bag for the whole month.  Does that count?

I’ve also been monkeying around with some Monkey socks this month . . . damn, that pattern is addictive, especially the no-purl version!

I just finished the first sock last night, and I started the second right away . . . I’m knitting these on my Lantern Moon ebony DPNs, and it’s like buttah.  Really.

In other news, I feel like a bit of a home-fixit badass because yesterday afternoon our toilet flusher thingy broke (the “lever arm” to be precise, which was made of flimsy plastic), and after a quick trip to Lowe’s, I ran upstairs and fixed it in less than a minute.  Okay, I know it’s an easy peasy thing, but still.

Also, I had such a good thanksgiving weekend (stories and pictures to come) that I have no interest at all in going back to work tomorrow.  None.  Sigh.

on the lack of recent knitting content . . . June 26, 2008

Some of you may have noticed that this knitting blog has been thin on actual knitting content lately . . . and you’d be right! I admit it, I haven’t been playing with the sticks and string much lately. I’m not sure if it’s the weather (it’s damn hot here — that’s the name of the season some of you people in other areas call “summer”; here it is called “damn hot”), or what, but I seem to have misplaced my knitting mojo. I have two projects on the needles: the Neverending Cardigan (which hasn’t grown since last time I posted a picture, I don’t even remember when) and the KFN socks (which even though I haven’t worked on them, I carry them with me everywhere I go). Or maybe it’s because the garden has been getting so much of my attention and time? Or my recent reinfatuation with my spinning wheel?

Ah, speaking of that, I have a wee picture! I spun up and plied 1oz of gorgeous merino (or was it BFL? I’ll have to check) from the sampler I bought when I got my wheel a couple years ago. I made a 2-ply yarn with it, but the picture turned out all blurry, so I’ll show you this instead . . . I of course had a bit of singles left over on one of the bobbins, so I chain-plied the leftovers.

I won’t bore you with another garden picture today (maybe tomorrow); it mainly looks the same as before but the plants are a little bigger. I may have a baby zucchini growing, but it’s still so small that I can’t really tell if it’s going to pan out or not (fingers crossed!)