new things to share

There is this amazing cosmic balance. At work, just as I am really beginning to believe that things have lightened for a while, a side project suddenly makes everything so weighty and emotional. If this lesson hasn't smacked me on the nose enough times yet this year, here it is again: treasure every moment on earth. We're here to be loving and kind, and everything we do, and everyone we touch, are what make us who we are. It's a lesson I'm grateful for, even though I wanted to stay in the lightness a bit longer. Hm, I think there's a Kundera book on this subject...

Anyway... new things to tell. First, a new blog. Another one! Crikey. But this will be different: the class I'm taking this semester requires us to keep a journal with responses to our weekly readings. I love reading journals - my most favorite professors always assigned them in college. Anyhow, this professor suggested we use a blog as our journaling tool. Mine's called Reading is good medicine, in case you should care to stop by and weigh in on the making of modern health care, or whatever else pops up, as I doubt I'll be able to stick to just one kind of reading-response.

I think it's rather telling that while I have yet to read even one page of the assigned book, I have spent several hours on the layout and design of the assigned blog. But most of you probably don't find that very surprising, because I know you do the same thing (right?).

Finally, I must share this beautiful little thing with you:


from happy owl glassworks

A prize from Bugheart! She is the most incredibly lavishly generous friend. I am always surprised and a bit sheepish opening her beautiful packages. This one was an unexpected thrill in the mail yesterday - I haven't stopped wearing it yet (except to take the photo).

The part that really made me smile, though, was the tag:



I recently said that her wonderful little gift tags kill the suspense... so this tag did no such thing. I really love all her gift tags with their sweet drawings (even the highly informative ones), but this one made me laugh and laugh. That monster is so damn cute, too.

Thank you, dear Bugheart!

See you all at school! It seems wrong for summer to be "over" when it's still 100 degrees outside, but I'm not complaining.

many works in progress

Thanks to all of you for your sweet and supportive comments about the becoming-a-homeowner post. I apologize for not responding to you with an email, because I really do appreciate your kind words & thoughts. This is a week of many works in progress, so I hope you will excuse me for my inattentiveness.

The main work is moving. So... many... boxes. There are boxes everywhere, and yet so much still needing to be packed. I keep bumping into them and tripping over them; they are multiplying like big cardboard bunnies.

I am also cramming the final unit of my biostatistics class and trying to get the final exam finished which happens to be due... Monday morning. Did I mention that was moving day? tee-hee. Oh look, another gray hair!

But there are nicer works in progress, too.

I have finally got some buttons for the mossy jacket, which will go to its intended recipient on Saturday. It has been sitting around finished-but-buttonless for weeks. Here is just a peek - I am hoping to post the pattern for a Free Pattern Friday before December is out.



Thanks to a two-day meeting I just got out of, I am about 3/4 through a pair of socks for HWWLLB's dad for Xmas.



On this final one, please brace yourself for the killer cuteness. I have another colleague with a new baby, so I made some booties with the leftovers from the Wildflower socks:



Oh, did I mention that another close friend is about to give birth? Righto... so the requisite Blue Skies Organic Cotton just arrived in the mail from Kpixie... I have a great little pullover forming in my mind that I can't wait to get started on... just as soon as we're out of the old house and into the new one. Christmas break can't come soon enough.

This will be my final post until after we're done with moving and the exam is turned in. Til then!

numbers < death!

You have probably head the rumors already. Test results are in, and I did just fine on a math test this week. In fact - and I can hardly believe it myself - I got a 100. On a math test. All math. That's all it was. Using the proper formulas to solve equations. Did you see that flock of pigs flying south for the winter? Pretty amazing, huh?

Despite all the whining, this biostatistics class is not going to kill me. It may be challenging, it may suck up a lot of time that I would otherwise spend knitting, going to yoga or hanging out with friends, it may require me to use the function keys on my calculator (shudder), but it is utterly do-able. I feel a little taller this week, like I have slain (slew?) a demon that has haunted me since middle school. Take that, equations!

In other news, the baby bolero (pictured above) is headed off to its rightful owner today. I am not happy at all with the weird bunching and imbalance that blocking didn't quite manage to cure (though it improved noticeably). But it is her first birthday, so this is what she's getting. She's too little to care whether it bunches anyway.

Also, mad props to Yarnmarket, who besides having the cutest little lamb as their logo, now have an Eco-Friendly Fibers section on their website. I've never even heard of half this stuff - I wish they'd send me samples to review on my blog (hint, hint - Yarnmarket are you listening?).

Look for a free pattern this Friday...

hold the numbers

I have a little F - E - A - R of numbers. It's irrational, I know, like my friend's son's fear of M - O - N - K - E - Y - S (she has to spell it). Numbers can't hurt you. They're just digits! But still, they really bother me.

I am about to become a student again (again). This time it's very part-time, but it's a little scary because I'm not exactly taking classes that I expect to particularly excel in. I am trying to get the worst over with first, which means... numbers. Statistics, actually. Biostatistics. A word like that may not bother you too much, and if you are a math person you are probably snorting in derision at the applied nature of the statistics class I'm about to take, but it strikes cold, cold fear into my heart.

NUMBERS.

They're going to be everywhere! Like balancing my checkbook ten times over, every week! AAAHHHHH! But there's nowhere to hide, I have already sent in the rather painful tuition check for this semester.

I was thinking about this yesterday, because I started knitting this little sweater for my friend's new baby (how many times have I typed those very words lately? what is in the freaking water here??) and I was using a pattern I bought with the yarn. It's a little bolero jacket with raglan sleeves, and as with many patterns it's knit in a zillion little pieces and then sewn together. As you may know, I'm not so big on the sewing together. In fact, I bitched and moaned about it rather a lot, especially as I knitted further along and realized that this bolero would be a cinch to transform into a no-sew, top-down knitting pattern.

But of course, I couldn't do it just by looking at the pattern, because the pattern is just a bunch of dang numbers. I could have read it 50 times and would never have been able to re-write it for top-down. But as soon as I got the main body sections knitted and I could actually see the emerging garment, I wrote up the transformation in a flash. Too bad I've already knitted 2/3 of the darn thing - no point ripping it all out now just to avoid a little sewing.

But that's what I mean about the numbers. For whatever reason, they are an impediment to understanding for me, rather than a convenient way to convey information. I think I'd do better if there were a picture of five pink dots instead of a numeral 5 on the page - you know, like on dominoes. I know it would take up more space, but my brain would appreciate it.

Now watch out for those M - O - N - K - E - Y - S.