New Year’s Eve is always an interesting day. Thinking about what has happened over the past year, dreaming of what will be in the year to come and then realizing tomorrow isn’t going to be much different it’s just a number. It’s sort of exciting to think of tomorrow being a fresh start, more of a fresh start than today was. Today we’ve had a relaxing and busy day. We decided to stay in this year for New Year’s Eve. I started an Italian loaf last night, made the bread dough this morning, started a loaf of wheat sandwich bread for Bryan and decided to try a new pizza crust. After three batches of dough, my food processor decided it needed a break. I had a lovely lunch with S and went to her house for tea afterwards. Bryan has enjoyed just reading on the couch most of the day.

We wish you all a happy and healthy 2008!

More of my year. Read the rest of this entry »

I had a whole post written and ready to go to show you the fingerless gloves that I knit last weekend with some of my handspun yarn but my camera batteries died, then Bryan started to feel sick and the dishes started to really pile up because I had to work and then today he went to the doctor and I felt like I didn’t have a chance to breathe between getting him home from the doctor and my sock knitting class tonight and…and…and you know how it goes sometimes.

Fortunately with Bryan being home sick yesterday, he was here to get the mail, I was out getting soup and bread for the poor sick boy. When I arrived home, he said, “Sit down, close your eyes and hold out your hands.” So I sat, closed my eyes and held out my hands. He gave me an envelope from the University of Illinois, which was slightly thick. It had wonderful news inside. “Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you that we have recommended your admission to the on-campus option of the M.S. degree in library and information science.” !!!!!!!!!!! Wow! I was so ecstatic and all at the same time feeling like it was a bit anti-climatic, I had to get in on my third try or there would be riots at my library. In celebration, I whipped up some Mocha Chip muffins, minus the coffee, to take to my knitting group and on my way to the group dropped off some for my co-workers who were working last night.

Today, when I got home from work, I had a call on the voicemail from a florist. About 4pm, a beautiful bouquet arrived, it was from a co-worker and dear friend L. It was so sweet of her that it made me cry, just when you think things are wonderful and they can’t get any better, your friends prove you wrong and they do.

Bryan is feeling better. He went to the doctor today and we’re waiting on the results from his chest x-ray to find out if he has the real flu or pneumonia. He’s been out of it for two days with a fever off and on and just feeling like he’s never felt before. Fortunately, the medicine they gave him has him on the mend and I’m trying to take good care of him. Now if the dishes would just wash themselves, we’d be great.
Update on Bryan (Feb 23) - We heard from the doctor. He has influenza and just has to wait out the illness.

About the fingerless gloves, they’ll be posted soon.

Yesterday and today I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather. No one particular symptom stands out, it’s not a cold and not the flu. It’s like something wants to attack and my body keeps saying, “No way are you winning sickness.” I’m just taking it easy and trying to keep my stress level as low as possible at work to keep whatever is trying to attack at bay.

This weekend was a busy one for us. Friday evening we had a co-worker of mine and her husband over for dinner. We made pizza and garlic bread with our own crush and fresh baked bread and they brought salad and an amazing apple tart, which I want the recipe for. All last week we made an extra effort to get our place in order. So far our apartment is holding up quite nicely. We had so much stuff that just needed to be dealt with and we weren’t taking the time to do anything about it until last week. It’s amazing what you can get done when you give yourself a few tasks a day and devote no more than an hour and a half a day to getting your place in order. We’re trying to stay on top of things from now on. With all of the cleaning, I still managed to get a lot of knitting done and finished plying the candy pink yarn. Saturday, we went over to one of Bryan’s classmate’s houses for a night of board games.

All of my knitting in the last week was on Bryan’s Cider House Rules vest. I love the yarn I’m knitting the vest with and for some unknown reason I’ve decided that I’m determined to finish it by Christmas. I was expecting it to take me a year to finish this vest but I’m more than 3/4 finished in just one month’s time. As soon as I finished the back the other day, I grafted the shoulders together. I figure it will make the neckband fit nicer. The part of this vest that I love the most is the hem, it gives the vest such a lovely finished look. I know what will take me the longest to do is not the knitting of the major three pieces but the knitted and sewn on edging around the buttonband/neck and armholes.

We’re heading to Kansas for Thanksgiving. For those of you in the U.S. have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Those in the rest of the world, have a great week and a lovely weekend.

I have an interview on Thursday for the circulation position that I mentioned in my last post. I’m so nervous that I’m starting to drive myself a little crazy with the possible questions they could ask and the questions that I need to ask them. Now I know I’m as qualified as any person applying for this position, heck I even typed 55 words per minute (wpm) on the typing test when they only require 25 wpm, I’ve worked in the library for seven months, including special projects for the circ manager and I really want this job but I feel like I’m going to screw up the interview somehow and be disappointed in the end. It’s not the end of the world if I don’t get this job, but I haven’t wanted something this much for quite a while. (I think I might even want this job more than I wanted to get into school, which was pretty darn much.) So I ask you once again (hey, it worked in December) cross your fingers and needles for me on Thursday. It could be a long wait to hear about the job though because the circ manager is on vacation next week, so I might not hear until she gets back. Wish me luck.

I have just made myself a promise, you are all my witnesses. I promise, I will NOT, I repeat will not start any more ball-band washcloths until the log cabin blanket is finished, at least there are no more baby showers to attend. I have 3.1 stripes left to go and then I just need to do a little border around the edge. For the border, I’m going to just knit two and a half garter ridges around the edge of the blanket in red. It will be beautiful but my idea of knitting an i-cord around the edge is no longer. I don’t want to deal with knitted on i-cord and I think the few garter ridges will be easier, plus I have half a gazillion ends to sew in. This baby is due any day and I want to get it out the door the day or so after he’s born. (Still trying to be artsy with the photo just so it doesn’t get too boring, for those of you wanting the progress photo here it is (click on the image to see the larger photo). See, I have made a little bit of progress since June 17.)

Speaking of babies, the bibs were once again a hit at the shower. The mom is a new knitter and I think she really appreciated getting hand-knit gifts. I did manage to finish the third bib Saturday morning, I even bought and sewed the button on that morning.

My other project that I’ve been working on is putting together a big project that our knitting group has been working on. I’m in charge of crocheting the pieces together and then knitting a border around the edge. Saturday, I decided that I was going to make it my goal for the week to get four of the 13 pieces together by the end of this week. I had four pieces together last night! That’s all I can say until it’s finished and ready to go.

I haven’t even touched the sleeveless sweater since I last mentioned it, I’ve been too obsessed with baby bibs, washcloths and the log cabin blanket. I also haven’t done any spinning in over a week and I don’t remember the last time I knitted on the pair of socks I’m working on.

Yesterday morning, I got up and made peach bread. We bought a big bag of peaches at the farmer’s market and some of the peaches need to be eaten quickly or they’ll go bad. So I tried a bit of an experiment. I took a blueberry muffin recipe, changed the fruit to peaches and the muffins to bread. It worked out quite well and was delicious, except I didn’t bake it long enough and the very middle of the bread wasn’t cooked, which we didn’t find out until this morning after we’d eaten a few slices of bread. This morning, I thought, let’s just pop it back in the oven for another 20 minutes and it will be great. Nope, didn’t work. So we’re just going to eat the top of the bread that’s cooked all the way through. Fortunately, I didn’t use eggs in the bread, I used applesauce instead so we don’t have to worry about the undercooked eggs. I will try again later this week. It’s been so hot that to do anything in the kitchen, such as baking, needs to be done before 9am. This isn’t a bread I wanted to make in the bread maker, just because I didn’t know how to make it all work in the bread maker. The last loaf of bread that I made in the bread maker this past weekend was a french bread and it was really good.

Finally, an update on Mrs. Tomato. She and her baby tomatoes are doing fine. There are several little new tomatoes making appearances. I’m anxiously awaiting the day when I see one of the larger tomatoes turn red.

I seem to be having one of those weeks where I think, what have I done with my time? I know what I’ve been doing but then again I don’t. Do you ever have those weeks or days? Here’s what I’ve been up to just to prove that I do remember and that I have been doing something. Bryan’s nephew, M, was here this past weekend, I went to a baby shower on Saturday, I’m working almost twice as many hours as I do in a normal week and I’ve been knitting and reading a bit. I’ve also applied for a position at the circulation desk at the library. My interview is next Thursday. I’m so excited, if I get the circ position, I’ll no longer be a shelver and I’ll be moving up in the library world. Maybe, just maybe, this will help me get into school this next time around.

It was raining the yesterday and the day before and everything in our apartment felt damp. I hate that feeling. The carpet feels damp and today I just felt so sticky. Yesterday afternoon we got almost 3 inches of rain in about an hour and a half with parts of town getting over 4.5 inches. So there is a lot of moisture in the air today. It’s about 85 with a dew point of 75. When it’s sticky the last thing I feel like doing is knitting on the log cabin blanket, so it’s been neglected the last several days. It’s going to be neglected this weekend too since it’s supposed to be over 90 all weekend. I think we’ll be spending our weekend in the living room with the A/C cranked.

I was just catching up on blogs today for the first time in about a week and I found out that I won Knitbrarian’s haiku contest! I had the first two lines down immediately but the last line didn’t come to me for about five days until I was lying in bed on July 4th. My haiku skills from third grade worked for me again. (My haiku won third place in poetry for third graders in the entire town.)

While M was here we took him to the farmers’ market to get raspberries, blueberries and fruit spread, and of course came home with more including lettuce, peaches and corn, M had never seen so many ears of corn in one place before, I don’t think I had either. We also took him to several parks and Bryan took him to the local children’s science museum. To say the least, he wore us out. We’re not used to eight-year-old energy. I also started a washcloth similar to Uncle Bryan’s for M. We called the colors in the washcloth - mint chocolate chip.

My late grandmother’s “ancient” (1991) break maker also arrived on Friday. Saturday morning, I loaded the bread maker up with a whole wheat bread mix that we’d bought accidentally when we were trying to buy bread flour, and then I set it to do its thing. While Bryan and M were at the park, I took a shower and got ready for a baby shower that I was attending later in the afternoon. As I was getting out of the shower I heard the breakfast dishes on the countertop clanking and I thought Bryan was home. I said, “hello” and no one answered, so I walked out to the kitchen. Just as I was walking out of the bathroom I heard a thunk, it was the newly bought jar of fruit spread from the farmers’ market crashing on the floor. The break maker had made its way across the countertop while it was kneading the bread dough, the jar of fruit spread was broken and I was still in a towel, so I finished up in the bathroom. Later, I thought I would just save the fruit spread in a container in the fridge but after talking to my mother later that day, we decided against it not knowing what little shards of glass might be in the fruit spread. The crashing didn’t hurt the bread in the slightest. It was quite good bread and I think I’ll be using the bread maker more just not on the countertop. I’ll probably set it on the floor where it can’t break anything, except it might freak the cats out a bit.

Sunday morning, just after breakfast I sewed in the ends of M’s washcloth. He was so impressed. We asked him if he’d like to learn to knit and he said, no, but he’d like to learn how to use the spinning thing (my wheel). I told him he needed to learn how to knit before he could learn to spin. My wheel cost too much for it to be a toy.

This week I haven’t gotten much knitting done because I haven’t been home enough. When I am home I’m not watching tv which is when I usually knit. Tuesday evening while watching the All-Star base-ball game, I did start another baby bib from Mason-Dixon Knitting for another baby shower I’m going to on Saturday. I’ve already made two bibs. Since I have all evening tonight, tomorrow night and most of the day on Saturday, I think it will be done by the time the shower rolls around. The shower I attended this past Saturday, I gave two bibs and they were a hit.

A few weeks ago Hobby Lobby had a sale on Sugar n’ Cream, it was on sale for 99 cents. Twenty-five cent savings each was enough to make me stock up. I came home with 11 balls of yarn (only 10 are pictured because there are some duplicates). I should have enough for quite a few more washcloths!

Also for you Jane Austen fans, you might like this book, it’s called Enthusiasm by Polly Shulman. It’s about two teenage girls, one of whom is obsessed with Pride and Prejudice. I read it within a few days and quite enjoyed it, a very entertaining young adult book.

Goodness, where has June gone? It seems just the other day it was June first and now it’s June 29 with July first right around the corner. At the end of each month, I tend to think, what have I done this month?

Before I forget, Bryan thanks you for the birthday well-wishes. It was quite a birthday. With some birthday money, he’s anxiously awaiting his big gift of a keyboard that hooks up to the computer so he can compose his own music.

So here’s a bit of a recap (these are mostly things I didn’t blog about before):
My dad turned 65 early in the month and retired a day after his birthday. Although he still had a business trip through the end of the following week, neither he nor my mother seemed to complain too much about having to spend a few days in Savannah, Georgia. Now he has more time than he knows what to do with. I think he’s feeling a bit overwhelmed with all of the projects he has planned and just doesn’t know where to start, with each item on his list, there is its own list.

I’ve worked quite a few hours this month, I worked on the trace list trying to find books that patrons had returned but we couldn’t find in the library, not a good thing, but when I found one it felt like a mini celebration.

T was in town for a few days in the middle of the month for her last on-campus day for library school. She’s a full-fledge Librarian with a capital “L” in August. To think she was just starting the program when we got married, boy, time flies.

One of my big accomplishments for the month was reading four books in four weeks, it may not be a lot for some people but it’s an accomplishment for me. I hope to continue the trend into the rest of the summer. Here are the books I read: Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, Matilda by Roald Dahl, The Man of My Dreams by Curtis Sittenfeld and Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins. I started The Slightly True Story of Cedar B. Hartley by Martine Murray on Sunday and it’s quite entertaining so far. In recent months, I’ve become very interested in young adult books. They are a fast read but also there is a part of me that would really like to be a young adult librarian.

I also made a slew of cards for birthdays and Father’s Day. Most of them are posted on my cards page.

When I didn’t have my nose in a book, I was knitting. I feel like I haven’t done a lot of knitting and I’m still plugging away on the Log Cabin blanket (see “artsy” photo above). Looking back at previous posts, I realized that I have knit quite a bit and I’ve actually made some progress on the blanket too. My knitting accomplishments have been on some instant gratification projects such as baby bibs and washcloths, for the count, I’m at four washcloths and three baby bibs for the month. Last week, I finished my third of four baby bibs for two baby showers in July and started a washcloth for Bryan’s birthday. In October, I bought some Blue Sky Alpaca’s Organic Cotton yarn to make basic washcloths for us. Then after I knitted the other “Ball Band washcloths” from Mason-Dixon Knitting, Bryan decided that he wanted his washcloth to be in that same pattern. I learned quite early on when the yarn broke while I was casting on that maybe this organic cotton yarn isn’t well suited for washcloths. But did I immediately stop knitting the washcloth, nope, I worked with it a bit more thinking that the yarn breaking was a fluke. As I worked with it more I quickly realized, this yarn is definitely not suited for washcloths. Now I have two beautiful balls of organic cotton yarn that I have no idea what to do with. They each have about 150 yards and I don’t want to add another two balls of yarn to the potential scarf pile. I think the organic cotton is better suited to something delicate that won’t get a lot of agitation.

I’ve also gotten a bit back into spinning, the weather seems to effect my spinning mood more than anything else. When it’s too hot to knit, I certainly don’t feel like spinning, which seems like it should be the opposite. There are days that I feel like I’ve been spinning on the pink “cotton candy” yarn for ages but in reading my previous posts, I realized that it’s only been a few weeks. I’m nearing the end of the “cotton candy” fiber so I can start on it’s mate the bright pink fiber. Or if I’m really feeling adventurous, I’ll cable the Lemondrop yarn that I “replied” a few weeks ago.

It’s been cool in the evenings the last several days and we’ve been enjoying them as much as possible by going for walks and bike rides. Last night, I was tired but the mood to bake bread snagged me. So I baked some focaccia loaves with rosemary and olive oil. We haven’t tried them yet but I’m sure they’ll be very good. Even with it being a bit cooler out, having the oven on at 450° made the kitchen unbearable to be in.

Finally, for those anxiously awaiting news on Mrs. Tomato. Her babies are doing well. I found two teeny new ones yesterday when I went to water her, they are about the size of a green pea. The largest baby tomato is getting to be the size of a plum. We should have tomatoes to eat very soon! Our lettuce plants are still producing enough lettuce for us to have a salad or two each week. It’s so satisfying to pick some lettuce and then eat it in a salad.

First of all, holy cow! I don’t think I’ve ever had 8 comments for one post! Thank you all. (Btw, the title means absolutely nothing. It’s just the post number and I just felt like keeping it just to be interesting.)

I haven’t heard about the Acquisitions job yet, but then again I don’t expect to hear anything until after I leave for Maryland. It could be a very interesting week, in addition to all of the Maryland Sheep & Wool excitement.

The last few days have been really great. I can’t remember why they just feel great. The Archives reading project where I was reading and organizing the shelves is finished. It took me almost 20 hours to read the entire Archives department but it’s done and I’m very relieved. Now I can leave town without thinking about what I have to do when I get back. I also got my hair cut on Thursday, which always puts a bit of a new spring in my step. She cut almost an inch an a half off and my new spring do feels fabulous. The best part is that even when I let my hair air dry it looks cute - always a huge plus in my book! Another plus is I don’t have to lug my hairdryer to Maryland. :)

Wednesday at my knitting group, I finished another afghan square and started the 11th square. I haven’t gotten very far on the 11th square because I’ve been busy working, baking, knitting the new sock and making Project Spectrum postcards. The sock is coming along nicely, slowly but nicely. I think once I get the pattern down a bit more it will go a bit faster. I’m using the “Go With the Flow” socks pattern from Interweave Knits, Summer 2005.

My latest baking adventure was into whole wheat bread, oooh. It’s a recipe from one of my favorite bread books, the same book that we use for pizza crust with few additions and baguettes. The bread turned out very nicely and we used it for tomato/basil sandwiches on Friday for lunch.

I talked to Amie yesterday to finalize some of our plans for my trip to Maryland. And somehow we got onto the subject of how I feel like my knitting has become a bit stagnant. I don’t mean that I’m not knitting, more as in the projects I have planned that I have yarn for just aren’t that challenging. Sometimes I don’t think I want challenging because I want to relax and knit but other times I want something that won’t only wow my husband but also wow me. Sort of the same feeling that I had after I finished the Barbara shawl. I’m sure I’ll feel that way after I finish the Hobo sweater that I’m sure you’re all sick of hearing about. Amie seems to think that Maryland will change that. I hope she’s right. Not that I don’t love a good pair of socks but I feel like that’s the one place I’m making myself try new things. The afghan squares are definitely challenging but they are so small and by the time I’m almost finished with one, I’m tired of the pattern anyway. Granted I have two sweaters that really need to be finished and I’m trying to keep myself to no more than five projects on the needles at any one time. I think back to when I was living in the city and knitting as much as I am now and I knitted a lot of sweaters. I also had friends that encouraged me and were knitting things more complex than I was, which made me want to challenge myself even more. And I had the money to do that back then (or so I thought). I also haven’t felt much like spinning either, it just seems like my hands don’t want to work the way they are supposed to. When I try spinning, my drafting is bulky and then I have a hard time getting the fiber to do what I want. Maybe this trip to Maryland is exactly what I need. Or I’ve just reached a bit of a knitting plateau and a spinning lull.

And finally, Chloe is so perfect at the strangest sleeping poses that I just can’t resist.

Have a great week. After I leave for Chicago on Wednesday to fly to Maryland on Thursday, I won’t blog until I get back on Tuesday next week. I’ll try to post one last time before I leave.