Just MAKE the damn gloves already!

I designed a new pair of gloves for myself, made almost a whole glove, and decided that I didn't like how it looked after all. I've since been swatching and swatching and swatching stitch patterns, trying to get the motif right for the back of the hand. Somehow this is more challenging than I anticipated. My swatch keeps getting bigger! Also it's a little embarrassing when people are like, "so what are you making?" and I have to say "Well, eventually I will make gloves. When I'm ready. But that day is not today." Or "Arrgh, I don't even know anymore! This thing is such a mess! It's a disgrace!" Yelling like that in public is just unbecoming. But slowly, very slowly, it's getting better. One day I will have an actual garment.

DPNs and hotness

I think the probability that people will ask me what I'm knitting while I'm on the train increases by a factor of 20 if I'm using double pointed needles. Something about seeing 4 needles instead of 2. Although, I successfully explained what knitting in the round is to a random dude who asked about it today, so hey. I made my brothers gloves and mittens for xmas -- some mittens for my older brother, some fingerless gloves for my younger brother, and some convertible fingerless gloves/mittens for my youngest brother. I was pretty burned out on making thumbs and fingers for a while. But it made me realize I need some for myself, so I'm designing a pair. I have some gray sport weight wool that just won't die (I've made a hat and some fingerless gloves for Alex out of it, and I still have 132 yards left. Weird). Speaking of which, Alex got me a niddy noddy for xmas. My pile of yarn is now transforming into pretty little skeins with labels saying exactly how many yards there are, which is how I know that I have 132 yards of gray sport weight wool. It's a beautiful thing. Normally I just look at the leftover yarn and wonder if it would be enough to make anything out of. And then when I'm not sure, I just go and buy more yarn for whatever the next project is, and the stash goes unbusted. No more! I made some chipotle hummus using some Goya canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. FYI, those things don't mess around. I used half of the can and it's wicked spicy. I like spicy though, so it's cool. But damn. This happened once a few weeks ago too -- we got a jar of chili black bean sauce from the Cmart in Chinatown and dumped 2/3 of the jar into a stir fry. Yeah. We were not very happy campers the next day. Oh, we ate it, for sure. We even huffed and puffed and blew our runny noses and exclaimed how hot it was, but we did eat it quite happily. The next day was a different story. Then a couple weeks later we decided to make some more stir fry with it, and thought "well, we used 2/3 of the jar last time, so if we use the rest that will be half as much. So that should be good, right?" Wrong. Still kicked our asses. So anyway, I'm glad I didn't dump the whole can of peppers into the hummus because burning myself this way three times would have been pretty pathetic. Now I'm hungry... gotta go!

Worse than I remembered

I think it's funny that my last post was a year ago, and in it I mentioned how bad I am at blogging. Ha! No kidding! My main problem is how many different sites I'm now required to update on a regular basis.... I gave up on MySpace. Not really awesome at updating Facebook either. I joined LinkedIn but I'm still not really sure how to use it. There's a new site called mybostonscience.com that's a social networking site for scientists and educators in the Boston area. I just joined, but already I don't really have time to do much with it. My photos go on Flickr, and I usually do manage to keep up with that. I had another blog somewhere else that I used to update more, but that sort of fell by the wayside also. And then in addition to that there is a knitting website called Ravelry that I like a whole lot, but also requires updating with pictures and whatnot. Fortunately that one integrates pretty seamlessly with Flickr so I actually use it more regularly. Then I have three email accounts: work, school, and junk addresses that need checking. Seriously it's just too much. But I'm going to update this one so that I DON'T have to update the others. We'll see if it works! But man, I don't know how people have time to blog and network all the time because for me it just gets ridiculous. Am I really that busy? I can't be....

I'm bad at this game.

This whole, keeping up with your blog thing. Already. I kind of thought it would take a few months before I got lazy, but I even out-lazied myself this time. I have had a cold for a week straight. Actually, correction: I have had two colds for a week straight. My boss had cold in her throat from her family in North Carolina, and Alex had a head cold from his family in upstate New York, and I think what happened was that the two cold viruses both ended up in my body and mated to form some kind of supervirus. I spent thursday coughing, then friday I felt better so I went to an opening and got drunk at a bar later (mistake), then spent saturday feeling ok but kind of tired and achy. Then Sunday through Monday it was back to coughing and sore throat, and then for the rest of the week I couldn't breathe through my nose for more than a half hour at a time, and I had a headache that no amount of over the counter medication seemed to fix. However, I did discover that I have not been keeping up with tissue technology, because not only can you get tissues with lotion now, you can get tissues infused with Vicks Vaporub. Yes of course I bought them. I also bought some medicinal tea called "breathe easy" which was really helpful. In sum, I hate being sick. I have not been very good company for anyone this week. In fact, I have pretty much complained nonstop, whenever I'm not busy swallowing pills, drinking herbal tea, or blowing my nose with fancy lotion tissues. Please pray, for my boyfriend's sake, that I will get better soon.