Via the_reader's entry:

01. Anyone who looks at this entry has to post this meme and their current wallpaper on their LiveJournal.
02. Explain in five sentences why you're using that wallpaper
03. Don't change your wallpaper before doing this! The point is to see what you had on!

01. There you have it.
02. Because it's damn cool, obviously. The idea intrigues me, and I have a thing for random umbrellas ever since reading Leave it to Psmith. (Please note that the umbrella storyline occupies approximately half of a page in the first chapter, and is more of a passing reference than anything else. Still, I like it.)
03. Erm, well, obviously.

(Also - the phone screen I was spazzing out about yesterday went reasonably well. I got my ears re-pierced this morning by a reputable piercer (Noelle @ The Enchanted Dragon in Arnold MO, for those wondering), and am seriously contemplating a cartilage piercing once this heals. I now am within cheering distance of completion on my bat shawl, have a chicken roasting in the oven, biscuits ready to be made; ditto honey baked carrots. Rather good times, in all.)

Bored. While Dan's off on the guys' annual float trip, I'm working both on a sweater and The Bat Shawl; the latter of which is nearing completion surprisingly quickly. Possibly I shouldn't be so surprised, given that the differences from my last shawl and the only thing I have for comparison include 1) this is in sock yarn, not cobweb and 2) this is mostly stockinette and incredibly repetitious. In any case, it's awesome and I'm going to love it like candy.

Working on my Snow White right now as well. Contrary to my original thought, it's not dark red. I may make another onein oh fuck this, typing in wrist braces is awful.

*Envision the sound of velcro being torn.*

OK, now then. I may make another one in Burgundy or even Glamour, but for now this one is in a sort of grey-blue called Marine.

There'll be another pair of socks on the needles soon, too...I have some pretty Claudia Handpainted sock yarn in a dark purple/black that is burning a hole in my stash. On the Procrastination List, I still haven't finished the Mini Mochi ones, and considering how much I loathe the yarn it's not surprising. (Adding insult to injury, I screwed up the toe in one of the socks, so I can't even give the silly things away. Undecided on what to do with a pair of reasonably decent handknit socks that aren't perfect but that I kind of hate.)

It'd be spiffy if I had something to blog about that wasn't knitting, but .. I kind of don't. Garden's doing fine, considering how much I ignore it in this "growing, pre-vegetable" stage. Haven't weeded the areas out front in weeks; they look kind of awful. Maybe someday when it isn't 80+ degrees I'll pay attention to it again. Still unemployed. It's great.

Ugh. Here's the thing of it:

Last Wednesday, I was persuaded to see a doctor for the problematic fingers-becoming-numb, dropping things, hands hurting problem. On Friday, I actually got in to see said doctor, who (to sum up) said that I have carpal tunnel syndrome, of the moderate variety, and handed me a prescription for twice-daily NSAIDs and wrist braces "to be worn at night without fail, and at other times during the day when convenient." Which it really isn't, ever, but I got myself into this mess.

Friday night things cheered right up when poppins17 and I went to see RENT at the Fox, with Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp, live and in person, strike me dead if I'm lying. In some ways it was beyond awesome, and in other ways ... well, I think they may have been doing this show a bit too long. It's fresher, somehow, with the kids who haven't been doing it for the better part of a decade. With Adam especially he seemed like he was doing it by rote rather than with enthusiasm... but I think it was noticeable more in the times between songs. He certainly pulled out a kickass One Song Glory. Angel, Mimi, Moreen, Collins and the rest of the cast were their usual stellar selves. (There was NOT, thank goodness, a repeat of the Angel Issues incident at Proctor's from quite a few years ago.)

I really wanted to nick the RENT poster from outside the Schnucks here, but I didn't get to it soon enough. Curses.

Caught a nasty cold, probably at the doctor's office. Saturday I was unsure, Sunday I was death on toast, and Monday was slightly better. Today is slightly better still, although I still have an inexplicable sore throat and stuffy nose.

Also today, that would be Tuesday, I bombed an interview. I'm really not sure exactly what part of anything the interviewer objected to, but after two hours I was informed that I was not a good fit. To quote, I was "damn insightful" and "if [he] had a developer position open, he'd hire me in a heartbeat." Of which I don't believe a word: he'd subject me to exactly as much scrutiny for a dev job as he would for this tech support one, and I know perfectly well that I don't possess the language skills that they use in that shop. But I digress. I'm trying not to be insulted by the notion that I'm more suited to dev than to work on the other end of computer support, but rather look at it as if he was able to tell something about me that I can't see myself. Maybe he's right... I really don't know.

Anyhow, in disappointment I came home, ate White Castle for lunch, knitted on my Sabine until my fingers started to go numb, took a 15 minute break and then went to tonight's raid. (I know, I know, I'm stupid.) They're still tingling, and I ought to go put my braces on, but I'm being stupid and stubborn. I will once I finish typing this. And finish my dailies.

What's that?

Could it be?

Yes, it is!



It's a SWATCH! For Sabine (Rav link) as a matter of fact. It's my very first, and as it happened my gauge was wonky. Not unexpected as since I'm not using the yarn called for by the project (helpfully, it's been discontinued), and I don't have the needles called for by the project. I re-knit it on 6's and came out about right, but since I'm planning to ignoring the project's instructions to knit the sleeves on straight needles and seam them later I'm going to stop by Hearthstone Knits and get some small circular 6's.

Owing to my car acting up and the only appointment being at 7am today, I am now running on about 2.5 hours of bad, dream-filled sleep. Good times.

On the plus side, I have an interview next week with a company for which I would rather like to work, so that's something. Wish me luck. On the negative side, er... well, car repairs and no sleep. Also my cats are insane, and the dog is hyper. Again on the positive balance, the storm which came through yesterday has spared the power lines to our subdivision, thankfully. At least one friend that I know of was not so lucky.

I went strawberry picking on Saturday with a group of (I hope) new friends, and came home with a good experience and 6 pounds of fresh gorgeous strawberries. I decided to make strawberry-rhubarb jam with them, and turned out to only need about half - for a double batch! So now I have 9 half-pints and 2 pints of jam on my counter, and another 2.5lbs of berries still in the fridge.

The next venture, once I wake up sufficiently, will probably be strawberry balsamic jam. You all know my weakness for balsamic vinegar and even though I'm assured that the tang doesn't really come through in the finished jam, the color and a slight darker flavor still will.

Although I knitted for an hour and a half this morning at the mechanic's, I had noticed on my way in the rather characteristic pain in the soft part of my hand below the thumb which can really only come from whatever type of RSI to which I'm prone. So... the second Maeby sock may not be finished today. And although I really want to work on the Harper Hall shawl (given that it's 145 rows of 491-and-not-appreciably-decreasing stitch counts, I feel like I have to make some progress every day of it'll never be done) I may not be able to do that either. Curse my wrists.

Of course, cursing them while typing is probably not my brightest idea ever, is it?

It's dark and dreary today, so of course I am curled up on the couch reading The Nine Tailors. Nice and atmospheric, wot?

OK, so I wasn't going to be one of those people who came home and was all "Star Trek was awesome!!"

...


Nevertheless: Star Trek was AWESOME!

The lighting could be better, but the bread smells damn good. It's still cooling; I'm going to freeze one loaf and use the other. The recipe is from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook; no fermenting, just straight-up kneaded white bread. I used the kitchenaid for most of it and only kneaded by hand for a couple of minutes before proofing. Hopefully it was enough... I don't have a good knack for the timing yet, but it felt alright.

For now, I've got butter chicken simmering away on the stove (and somehow, I am out of brown rice. WTF is up with me?). Owing to some rather unprintable scheduling on the part of his boss he won't be home 'til late tonight and probably won't even be able to go to the baseball game with me tomorrow.

The Colinette Jitterbug that would have been Nebulas is now becoming Maebys.

I don't have the 20 years handy that I think it would take me to knit the Nebulas, and how the test knitters did it in one week I will never know. Too much damn fiddly k1tbl and "cable 1 in back, but knit it from the back loop, and then purl the next one, or maybe you could purl it and then knit it tbl off the cable needle, or maybe you'd like these other half-dozen ways to move two tiny stitches around while you spend two entire socks never looking up from the charts because repetition is for losers."

Screw that. Pretty, but not worth it. Enjoying Maeby so much more.

I finished the "Hedera" socks, and they're quite nice if I say so myself :-) Going to be starting a pair of "Nebula"s with the Colinette Jitterbug that I bought in Springfield... the drive up to Chicago this weekend will probably be mostly in the dark, but you never know.

The Nebulas are partially my reward for making progress on the linen dress that I'm making (Vogue 8358). It's a fairly simple dress and I bet that an experienced seamstress could have it done in a day, but while I enjoy sewing I have a very short attention span for it. And not having a proper work area does sort of hamper things... I have to pen the dog in the kitchen and confine the cats to the office to prevent them from declaring my pile of fabric their new favorite sleeping spot.

While I knit and sew I've started watching Battlestar Galactica. I'm about halfway through the first season right now, and I'm still not sure what I think of it. Well, maybe that's not quite accurate: I definitely think that it is quite good, but I'm not sure that I personally am enjoying the knowledge that there is a Cylon aboard the Galactica, knowing who she is, and having to get emotionally attached to her anyway. It makes things very muddled. Plus, Gaius Baltar and his vicious blonde Cylonic hallucination is driving me straight up the wall. He's vague, he's greasy, he vacillates, and completely fails at evoking any sympathetic reaction whatsoever. I have the most irrepressable urge to fast forward through any scene in which he appears (to the point where I looked up the series on IMDB to find out when he's killed off, praying it would be soon. Appears that he's not - damn). I'm not annoyed enough to stop watching, yet, though I didn't feel like tackling it today.

For the record, things which I have ceased to watch: Fringe, Dollhouse.

Still looking for a job.. I've started applying to other types of things; software support and actual prod support, as opposed to prod support development. We'll see. It might be nice to do something more varied for a change.

Timm took me to Sam's Club today. I like Sam's, I really do, even if I have to be careful what I buy because you always get so much of it. It's almost not worth it to buy anything perishable. But their frozen fish is really decent, and some of their canned things are neat. Pasta sauce we can always use. They've started carrying a line of pots & pans, so I picked up a cheap large skillet. It's not what I want, but it'll do for awhile 'til I find it.

Almost to the end of this madcap round of weekends.. Chicago this week, 2 baseball games next week. Then, hopefully, breathing.

The whirlwind continues. We left for & got back from the emergency trip to NY on April 16th through 18th, respectively. Left again on the 25th to hit up the destination birthday party of one of Dan's best friends, which was a lot of fun but also a blessedly short [day] trip.

Mom was in town this past weekend, and we really covered a lot of ground. On Friday it was drizzling rain, but we dodged between the raindrops and created a really nice new flower garden around the mailboxes. It's edged with scalloped blocks, and all mulched in - really, it looks fantastic. If some of my veggies would start to come up in the back, all would be well.

Saturday we took off on a road trip to Springfield, MO. We stopped at a yarn shop and picked out some really pretty yarn for her to knit into a scarf. (I picked up sock yarn - no need to look so surprised. Colinette Jitterbug in the colorway "Morello Mash" - dark purpleish reds, that would be.) We spent a few hours wandering the World's Largest (tm) Bass Pro Store, and had dinner in the restaurant located in the Bass Pro Store. Then I got coffee from the Starbucks also located in the Bass Pro Store, and we had a doomed expedition to see a glass blowing demonstration (turns out the hours on their website had been wrong).

Sunday we went to Mansfield. On the way to the Laura Ingalls Wilder house/museum we got distracted by signs for a Garden Show at the Baker Creek Seeds museum. Little did we know that it would mean a 2 mile long line of cars, mud up to our ankles, a really neat experience at a pioneer village (yarn! handspun!) and seemingly infinite varieties of tomatoes and peppers. It would have been neat if we'd been more prepared, but since technically my garden is already in anyway and plants don't exactly fit well in a carry-on, we escaped with minimal monetary loss.

We saw the museum, which was neat. I don't know why, exactly, but I think I may have preferred the idea that the stories and the people were made up. Well, not made up exactly, but .. more abstract and confined to the pages of a book that one can always pick back up again. It's sad, reading about the endings to things.

She's back on a plane this morning. This week is relatively back to normal - I plan to spend today with my feet up on my desk, eating cheetoes, knitting my Hedera 'til I'm blue in the face, and surfing Monster.com.

Until Friday, when we head off for Chicago. Calm weekends, where have thou gone?