The week I have been waiting for

Events that I have been waiting for (for about four months) have finally transpired this week. After many trials and tribulations with various governments and governmental agencies, blue and I have finally received our work visas to go to New Zealand. So we finally started packing and are trying to tie up all loose ends here (which is still overwhelming even though I have been trying to work on that for the last 4 months). Blue just booked our flight today and we are flying out of Chicago on Saturday which means that we will get to NZ Monday morning.

One of the major loose ends that I have successfully tied up is finishing my thesis. Hurray I am a Master, a master of science!!! I am still working on formatting changes, which is a task I would not wish on anyone. There are so many little nit picky things that are a huge pain, mostly because word is stupid. But I hope to send in my last version tomorrow (but it probably still won't be right and they will send it back to me again...).

My mom also came down with pneumonia this week so I have been playing nurse and errand runner for her. She is finally feeling good enough to get out of bed today, she had quite a few rough days at the beginning of the week, poor mom. I was pretty relieved when her fever finally broke.

So, yeah, this week has been busy and stressful which is why all of my resent posts are just little blurbs. And I will most likely be really busy packing and settling into NZ for the next few weeks. However, I will have lots of time on the plane to knit :D Today was the first warm day all week so mom, kitty and I sat outside and watched the chipmunks.

mmm monsters

Your Monster Profile

Behemoth Enigma You Feast On: Pickles You Lurk Around In: The Empire State Building You Especially Like to Torment: Republicans

What's Your Monster Name?

* I found this on my friend's blog and wanted to play :)

Finally spring!

This morning I was awakened to the sound of a loon on the lake. It was such a beautiful way to wake up. I don't think it was our regular inhabitant, but instead a migrant passing through. Later this afternoon I saw one flying above the lake. They have such a unique flight silhouette, definitely more designed for swimming, rather than flying.
The arrival of loons is a sign that spring is finally arriving in the northwoods. Pretty soon there will be trilliums scattering the forest floor and spring bulbs popping up around the yard! We get the warmth and color a little later here than most places, but that makes it all the better when it finally gets here!

Round up the kids, it's time for ice cream

This is one of my favorite pieces of local eye candy. It makes me giggle a little every time I drive by it.

R.I.P.

stash enhancement

The knitting front has been a little slow lately, but the up side of that is that thesis productivity has gone way up. I recently ordered some lorna's laces sock yarn from this ebay store front. Her prices were pretty good and shipping (which is usually the clincher for me) was reasonable. I tried to pick a different color combo than I wouldn't normally (no blue or brown!) and think that when I get to it, this yarn will make some perty socks.
I am loving the artful yarns sock yarn I am currently making Roza's socks out of. I have one sock done and I am half done with the leg of the other sock.
The rest of the yarn is from the herrschner's retail store that I stopped at a few weeks ago and couldn't resist some of the bargain prices (I went in for the orange wool, came out with lots of sale yarn). But it was a nice bounty for $18.

It's snowing

The lake opened a week ago and it hasn't snowed in weeks.
However, we are now under a winter storm warning.
I think we will only get a couple of inches.
StitchK- I don't want to hear about how nice the beach is :-/

It must have been pirates

I got a mass email from someone who works in my department that went something like this:

            
There have been a few stolen wenches from Departmental trucks
in the parking lot within the past couple of days.  Please
be aware and keep your vehicles locked!  You may want to
write your serial numbers down from your wenches, etc.,
because the police will need this information if you do
have something stolen.

The question is, then, did she mean wench, as in a pirate wench???
Do wenches really come with serial numbers? At any rate, the pirates that have been stealing the wenches were probably just trying to retrieve what was rightfully theirs to begin with. I'm sure glad the local police are on the case of the stolen wenches. And how many wenches does the department have? I've never seen any around the building, maybe they just hide out in the trucks...
Or maybe she meant winch, as in that sweet device that rednecks put on their trucks in case they get stuck.

*this post was not intended to offend pirates, pirate wenches,
or rednecks who dig their sweet winches.

Library booty

After itunes recommended a Martin Scorsese presents the blues album, I looked at the online library catalogue to see if I could check it out. Turns out there is a book and a movie to go along with the cd(s). So I put them on my request list along with a few other items (including more bob dylan, and a paul newman vhs). I went to go pick up said items today and found that some new movies had come in so I got transamerica and madhot ballroom as well. I hope I can get great stuff like this in New Zealand (I hear that books are really expensive there and that there library systems are good...).

tan, not brown

I saw a red version of this sweater on a blog a while ago and when I found the blue sky alpacas pattern at kpixie, I snatched it up. Having no baby in mind, I started knitting the smallest size because it only called for one ball of blue sky organic cotton (which I had). However, after knitting the body, I was almost out of yarn. So for a long time it remained a trashy sleeveless baby sweater. Luckily stitchkommander came to the rescue and got me a second ball for xmas. So 3 months after that (which was probably 3 months after I started the thing), I finally finished the sleeves and stitched it together.

I haven't decided if I will gift it or squirrel it away in my stash for my own future munchkin.

brown on the brain

The poop brown socks are finally finished and have been gifted to my bro. The pattern I used was actually really easy (they could have been finished way sooner had I just worked on them). It was some free pattern off the interweave site, but I can't find it on there now (however, there is a thong pattern incase you have been searching for one and couldn't find one).

I had to make some adjustments to the sock pattern, the heel flap was written to be a stockinette flap and I wanted it to look better than that so I did the more common, k1, s1 and then purl on the wrong side. That probably has a name, but I don't know it. Also, if I ever made these again I would use a size smaller needle on the cuff (size 1 instead of 3) because the larger needle gauge seems like it makes it more likely to make a droopy sock top - nobody likes droopy sock tops. The rest of the sock is knit with a size 2 which makes it a quick(er) knit.

I think the yarn was this stuff from knit picks. I specifically chose this for my bro so he wouldn't have to worry about any hand washing.

Next up on the knitting list, a something green, and possibly something else brown... yeah yeah, I know I have an issue.

mmmm truffles

I got this delicious book from the library the other day and decided to make the easiest recipe: truffles. All I had to do was lightly boil cream, stir in some gourmet chocolate chips and let it cool in the fridge for a few hours. I toasted some hazelnuts, finely chopped them, made balls o' chocolate, and rolled them in the hazelnuts and cocoa powder. Mmmmm, they are so delicious.

storyboard

We had another beautiful snowfall on Tuesday.

Although it was cold, I strapped on my bionic legand snowshoesand headed down the trailI stopped to visit my favorite trees along the way.
Miss Hemlock:
and Mr White Pine:
During my trek, I listened to the snow fall and scared up a grouse.
My bionic leg did well and brought me back home safely.

F.O. Fo' Sho'

I finished the first side of this bag waaaay back last... May. Wow, I thought maybe last August, but I guess it was May, early May. Hmmm, well it only took me 10 months to knit the second side, weave in all the ends, sew it up, and felt it (the last 3 I did yesterday).

For the second side I knit the intarsia pattern in reverse so that the big green half-circles would match up. For the rest of the circles I switched up the colors, just for fun. There were lots of ends to trim after weaving them all in and stitchin' up all the holes. Instead of using the mattress stitch I sewed the sides together with a whip stitch. It was much quicker and appearance didn't matter since it was to be felted. So this long-term wip is finally finished. wwhhhew! I am happy with the outcome... now what shall I use it for?

I almost forgot! Because the two sides were knit at such different times, the guage was way off and not even close. The panel that I knit first was all pretty and tightly knit, while the second one was sloppy and knit very loosely - whoops. Once again, thankfully it was felted. I had to do some pulling and reshaping to get the sides to match, but I'm pretty sure you can't tell that there was a major size difference before it was shrunk!

music

When I was in the twin cities, my cousin turned me on to this great npr station that recently started up there. They stream their broadcast over the internet for all to enjoy. It is called 89.3 the current.

It has been snowing here for four days now and the snow is really piling up. Unfortunately it is that really wet snow which makes everything slippery (well roads, driveways, sidewalks etc). Yesterday morning I had to pull my dad out of the snowbank (his truck and trailer anyway). It was a fun task to start the day with and only took a couple tries. Oh, and I made $5, yes!

As soon as I can kick this flu that has latched on to me for the last 5 days I am going to strap on my knee brace and snowshoes and head into the woods, I can't wait!

blogger, shmogger; snow shmow

What's up with the updated blogger? It is supposed to be easier, but I can't figure out how (or where in the template) to add things with html code. Mainly I would like to add my flickr badge back in. Anyone know how to do that? Other than that I have made a few small updates to the blog appearance...(not very exciting stuff)

This weekend I went to the Twin Cities. The plan was to meet Blue (who was riding with a friend), and for us all to attend another friend's wedding. Unfortunately, the crazy winter storm prohibited travel starting late friday night (I headed over friday afternoon).
Another twist occurred; the friend I planned to stay with had a baby Friday evening (contractions started that morning). She wasn't due for another week, but they arrive when they want to. So I called up my cousin and arranged to stay with her and her family. I had a great time there, they fed me the best food and I got to play with their adorable baby the whole time.

I went to the hospital on Saturday (before the wedding) to check out the newborn. She was really cute (surprisingly- they usually just aren't that cute). Then I attended the wedding, stag. It was fun and nice to see old friends. There was no dancing for me, even if I had someone to dance with, I am pretty sure the new knee isn't up for it quite yet. I called it an early evening and headed back to my cousins, the accumulating snow made the drive back to my cousin's long and treacherous.

On a knitting note, a few petite gifts were given to the babies - small socks, little square booties, and a hat.

(delicious cream puffs made by my cousin's husband, photo by one of them)

Kiwi money

Blue's mom was able to finagle some New Zealand dollars (ordered from a bank, I believe) especially for us. She gave them to us as part of our going away present. Aren't they pretty? There are little translucent windows in them.

Old photos

My mom recently acquired some old family photos. I have no idea who any of the people are in these particular photos or when they were taken, but maybe I have some new found ethnicity that I never knew about??? Check out the birds on the wires!

Exchanges

Blue and I were across the state on VD, but exchanged a few items the next evening while we drank some delicious Zin and enjoyed each others company. He got me the most exquisite and well presented chocolates I have ever seen (or tasted) from Candinas, a small chocolatier in Verona, WI. I just had the chocolate raspberry truffle, mmmm.

I made him a few toys, the scotty dog, and a cow (or bull) finger puppet (Last year he got the burro). These little finger puppets are cute, and although not really that technically difficult to make, they are challenging due to their inherent smallness. So although blue's most prized knitted items are toys, he only gets them on special occasions. There are 10 finger puppet patterns (I think) in the Weekend Knits book, I only have 8 left... (maybe 8 more vdays will do it)

Things that made me laugh today

- after i got to the dentist this morning, i noticed my new coat still had the tags on it- oops :)

- thinking about a story my mom told me this weekend about a drunken trip to a brewer's game that had many hilarious twists and turns but the kicker was that on the way home, shortly after making bedroom voices to truckers on the cb, her best friend got sick. So they pulled over and she ended up misjudging her step and rolling, head over heel, down a steep and tall embankment (the bf, not my mom), oh it still kills me.

- yoga, and trying to do the splits... and seeing that only 2 people in the room are even remotely close

- a story i read a couple weeks ago about yoga and being banned from gyms because farting is still funny ( crazy aunt purl), it keeps making me laugh, especially when people start snoring during relaxation at class