Snow in Kyoto

Lorna's Laces Sampler Bouquet Shawl

At this point, I would love to be dancing about the house, wearing my shawl and singing "I finished something!  I finished something!"

And technically, I suppose I could.

I am wearing my shawl.

And according to the pattern, I am finished.

But it turned out a bit...  small.

And I have plenty of yarn left over.

The one in the shop was a large and enveloping affair, such as your woman from Wuthering Heights might wear when tromping over the moor contemplating death, or whatever it was she did in her spare time.  At any rate, it was a big warm lovely hug of a shawl.  And mine simply doesn't measure up.

So if you found this doing a Google search for this shawl, and you want an over-sized shawl, my recommendation to you would be to keep knitting until you have a good 140 to 150 stitches on your needle.

As for me, my plan is to pick up some 300 stitches along the top of my shawl, and knit a band back and forth at right angles from the stitches in the triangle part, so that it'll be a long rectangle on top of the triangle, if that makes any sense.  I think it'll look really good. 

And until I can get to my lys for a really, really looooong circular needle, I have the pleasure of wearing my beautiful Gold Hill colorway shawl on this glorious, gloomy, gray All Hallows Eve.

And a very fine one to you all.

Crazy!

The road that I live on runs through the bottom of a valley. Next to this road is a fairly sizable creek. All the houses on my road are built at varying heights on the hills that form this valley.

This means that sound carries very well.

In clear weather, you can hear a conversation from several miles away well enough to understand the words.

If your hobby is, oh, say, knitting, and you happen to be working with, oh, let’s say fricking mohair, then your neighbors might occasionally hear the gentle sound of your murmured curses wafting on the breeze.

However, if your hobby is shooting your fucking guns all day long on every nice day, your neighbors will hear every shot. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang… BANG! All day long. Even with the windows closed. (And who wants their windows closed on a nice day anyway?) And you would do well to remember that your neighbors also have guns. And driving your neighbors crazy when they’re packing and you’re out of ammo is probably not a wise idea.

Especially when they've been working with fricking mohair all day!

Miserable

Today, I am a miserable soul, and it truly does not help that I've realized that it's entirely owing to PMS and therefore entirely invalid.  Hate you, PMS!

Stress!

I've been feeling fairly stressed out lately, like there's constantly a scream lurking in the back of my throat.  Like all I really want to do is go back to bed and burrow under the covers with my kitties and yell "oh, bugger off!" at anyone who tries to come near me.

In reality, all I did was take a light week this week.  Two days out of the house, three days working from home.

But yesterday, the calls started.  You've been requested for this job, can you cover?  They're not above lying about the request to get you to work.  I ignored that one.

Then this morning, I get a call from the agency owner.  We have 63 jobs on tomorrow, we need all hands on deck.

Well, you can't really ignore a call from The Boss; can you?  But I thought this might be a good opportunity to intimate to The Boss that maybe it's a little unfair that I'm having to drive two and three hundred miles for every job?  That maybe it would be kind of nice to work closer to home?  Because there are actually lots of jobs with 20 minutes of me?

But oh, she couldn't hear me.  She was on her cell phone and I was cutting out.  What's that I say?  I can work tomorrow?  Thanks so much.  She'll let them know.

Conclusion?  She doesn't give a shit.

Curse this hopeless passive-aggressiveness.  Why can't I just flat out tell them?

Go me!

So apparently, I am a grammar god, according to this site.  Sadly, the code for proudly displaying my results doesn't seem to work, so you'll have to take my word for it.

And yes, I am aware that, with a degree in English, it is a little bit pathetic to be thrilled about acing a 20-question Quizilla quiz, along with 30% of the test-takers.

Work ethic?

So I've made an executive decision that on the days that I work from home, I will work from 1:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.  And I'm really hoping that I'll eventually get used to it and stop feeling guilty, much like I did when I made a similar decision to stop working every bally weekend.

This makes good sense.  (Why I feel it makes good blog, I don't know.  I do apologize.)  Especially on Mondays, when I wake up with every intention of getting right to work and working through the normal business hours, I find I really need to finish those dishes and scoop the cat's box and take the pup for a walk and do any or all of the six million things that don't seem that important during the weekend.  So by the time the afternoon rolls around, I feel like I've wasted the day, and I may as well call it quits.  But if I wake up and know I have a few hours to goof off before I have to work, and still have a few hours to play before I go to bed, it should work out pretty well, I think.  It worked yesterday, anyway.

Wish me luck with that work ethic thingy I've heard so much about!

Vivaldi

I'm downloading an album of Vivaldi's Four Seasons thingies from iTunes.

Why?

Because I thought that it sounded like the sort of thing someone who lives a peaceful, content, organized, clean life would listen to.

And that is the sort of life I wish to lead.

Not the sort of life where the Iams bag you, in a fit of apathy, allowed to dog to rip up is still littering the kitchen floor like orange autumn leaves.

Not the sort of life where the CD-R you flung frisbee style across the room when it failed to record successfully (it was your last one) is still lying in the sink, reflecting prisms onto the ceiling.

Not the sort of life where you are constantly bustling to get your work done at the last minute, because you haven't enough will power to do anything if you don't have an impending deadline looming over you.

And the music is nice.  If it were in an elevator, it would make for an uplifting elevating experience.

I wish I could say more.  I wish I had any understanding of music appreciation whatsoever.  But my one musical accomplishment during my brief tenure in grade school band was blowing one perfect note.  And that was a complete fluke.  To say I have no ear is an understatement.  The most emotion instrumental music can inspire in me is a haunting sense of sadness at what I must be missing.

Bleh

I hate days like today.  So far (2:22 p.m.), in my efforts to avoid work, I have managed to achieve neither anything I want to do nor anything I should do.

I have, however, taken out all my knitting projects in all their respective clear plastic boxes, and stacked them one on top of the other in order of percent of completion.  The stack is taller than I am.  I live in danger of a yarn avalanche.

Unbecoming

If I'm being honest, I should admit that probably I have fewer demands on myself than any other functioning adult alive today, and that sulking because I do occasionally have to do a bit of work is rather unbecoming.

~sigh~

In other news, I have solved the mystery of the health food store with entirely too much chocolate.  It seems my "getting lost mojo" was working for me for a change.  Despite perfectly clear directions to the health food store, I managed to drive to an entirely different -- and lovely -- food store.  The health food store is actually a couple of blocks down the road, and is a veritable health food store of health food stores cum new age shop run by what I took to be a couple of hippie Wiccan ladies whom I intend to adore.

Dark black thundercloud of angry despair

Today, I got up at 5:00 a.m. to leave the house before dawn so I could be 120 miles away by 9:00 a.m.  I got to the courthouse.  And I waited.  For two hours.  Then they told me it was canceled.  So I drove 120 miles back home.

For this little escapade, I will be paid $46.20 for mileage and $40 for my attendance.

I bought a Frappuccino for $2.00, I spent $5.00 on breakfast, $5.00 on lunch, and $40.00 on gas.

Grand total for the day?  $34.20.

Before taxes.

Tomorrow, I get to get up at 6:00 to drive 90 miles to spend who knows how long in a maximum security prison, working at State contract rates.  Which suck.

I want a new life.