The End of January

Well, it's the last day of January, and, therefore, my last chance to post for this month. Today isn't particularly exciting. No more than the usual. Last night I was the pronouncer for the Seventh Grade room for the Private School Spelling Bee hosted by the Coeur d'Alene Christian School. I read the words and my mom was the judge who deemed the spelling "correct" or "incorrect." The entire thing only lasted about a half an hour. But, the first and second place winners get to go to regionals. Anyway, today I hung out for a while, then I decided to go for a walk. I got all bundled up and went outside. Bentley, the dog, wanted to come with me, but I don't know if he has a collar or leash, so I left him at home. It was nice. It felt good to be out of the house (Monday I didn't leave the house at all, nor did I leave the house on Sunday) and moving, rather than sitting on the couch watching television. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed January and we can all look forward to a fun filled February.

Soreness

For some reason I am overwhelmed by the desire to post on my blog. This is not a particularly common occurrence (as evidenced by my meager postings for the month of January as compared to November and early December), but I feel the need to let everyone know how I'm feeling right now. Not particularly fabulous, I must admit. My back is ridiculously sore and I've had a raging headache for most of the day that nothing has put more than a dent in. I didn't get up and go to church this morning, as I had fully intended to do, because Michael and I got up, I took a shower, we conferred afterward and decided we both felt pretty awful and went back to bed. The fact that I could barely stay upright and keep my eyes open at the same time contributed to this, paired with the aforementioned raging headache and acute soreness. I'm still tired, despite all the sleep I've gotten today. What has reduced me to this state? The Tweener's Retreat at Camp Prince's Pine. And I didn't even stay for the entire thing. Friday evening Michael and I drove up to camp geared up for a fun filled weekend of snow and fellowship. Our expectations were met in full, somewhat dampened, however, by Michael's stomachache. This was the reason for our premature departure last night. The retreat was scheduled to last until this afternoon. We did have a lot of fun, though. I lost track of how many times I went tubing down the hill. A family from church composed of two parents and nine children came up for the day yesterday. One of the younger ones, three year old Aidan, attached herself to me after I saw her watching everyone barreling down the hill on inner tubes and I asked if she wanted to go with me. She looked at me and solemnly nodded. Thus our partnership was sealed. Every time we went down she would get off the tube and say "Again! Again!" We took a break to go eat lunch, then she coerced someone else to get my attention to go outside with her to do some more tubing. After holding myself and a little girl on a tube at least 10 times it's no wonder my back, biceps, triceps, and various muscles in my lower body are rather sore. My muscles are not accustomed to this kind of treatment. I did eventually decide that I was simply too tired to go anymore, and she found someone else to go with. It was a fun day, and I'm glad we went.

Interview

Well, I'm sure some of you must be wondering how my interview went yesterday. In short, it went well. I'm quite certain I will be called for a second interview, I'm just not certain when that will be. Toward the end of the interview, the lady I was interviewing with (her name is Jana, and I said a variant of the word "interview" way too many times for 4 sentences) began discussing the second interview and told me to think up some more questions to ask the man I will meet for that interview. So, she didn't come right out and say "You're going to have a second interview" in so many words, but she might as well have. Otherwise, why bring it up? It seems like an exciting job. If you want to read the whole description, go to www.mda.org and click the "Employment" link, then click the "Case Aid" link. Hopefully I'll be hearing from them in the next day or so to schedule the next interview.

In other news, my mom's purse is drawing to a finish. It is being constructed in two pieces (therefore I have dubbed it the "Two Piece Purse") and the first piece is finished and I should finish the second piece tomorrow. Once the pieces are finished, they will be sewn together, then thrown in the wash in hot water for two cycles. Once complete, it has only to dry and it will be done. I'll post a picture. But, you local folks will likely see it around, as my mom will be using it at church at least some of the time.

It's Snowing!

I'm looking out the window into the back yard and the wooden fence, birdhouse, and trees are all covered in snow. And more is coming down. It's so gorgeous, and I get to sit inside, knit, and watch the snow fall. I think I'll go make some hot cocoa.

Look Both Ways

Last night on our way back to the house we saw four deer. I believe I've mentioned previously that my in-laws live near the base of Canfield Mountain, and, as a consequence, we frequently see deer roaming around. Last night we saw a deer look before crossing the street. We were about to turn the corner to get to the house, and there was a deer standing on the corner looking at us. Three other deer had already crossed and were waiting for it. Michael stopped when he saw the deer, the deer waited for a minute, then realized we weren't going to keep going and crossed the street. Who knew that deer moms teach their kids to look both ways before crossing the street? And it sticks with them into adulthood.

On a completely different note, Michael got a job today working for the IT department of the Idaho Department of Transportation. We're excited. It pays well for here, and he starts on Monday. Yay! Also, I have an interview with the Muscular Dystrophy Association on Monday at 1:00 pm for their Case Aid position. Wish me luck!

In the knitting department, I've almost finished the first of my pair of fingerless gloves. I have to do the ribbing around the thumb part, and that's it. I also started working on my mom's church purse. I did a test swatch and felted it yesterday, and I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. I also have a better idea of how much everything will actually shrink, which is good. Well, those are my news updates. Have a great day!

Things I've Learned Recently

Sheep yodel. I learned this from my friend Caleb. He's three (almost four). He's the son of my friends Paul and Katrina who invited Michael and I out to lunch yesterday after church to the local gourmet restaurant known as Wendy's. We had a lot of fun. The kids both got kids' meals which came with the sheep from Charlotte's Web. Caleb was playing with his and yodeling. We decided he must've seen a yodeling sheep on a cartoon or something. Katrina said something along the lines of, "I hope he doesn't think sheep actually say that." Upon questioning, in Caleb's world sheep don't go "Baaa" they say "Yodellay-he-hoo!" It's true. You learn something new every day.

I've also encountered the joy of knitting on extra large toothpicks. Okay, so they're not really toothpicks, but they sure do look a lot like them. They're double pointed knitting needles (knitting needles with a point on each and and much shorter than standard straight knitting needles) in size 0 (in metric it's the 2mm size). I'm knitting some fingerless gloves from a pattern I found on a knitting blog (www.eunnyjang.com/knit, if you're interested). The pattern writer called them Endpaper Mitts. I plan on wearing them to help keep my ridiculously cold hands slightly warmer, while still retaining the full use of my fingers. So, I started yesterday. They're knit on size 0 needles and size 2 needles. I haven't gotten very far, but I think they're going to look cool. They're in burgundy and white. I'll post photos as they progress. This is project 2 of 3 that I'll be working on simultaneously. I started another sweater (I had the yarn sitting there, staring at me as if to say, "Well, what are you going to do with me? Huh? C'mon, get started!" and I hadn't yet been to the store for the yarn for the fingerless gloves, so what else was I supposed to do?) It's in Autumn Red, and it has cables all over it. The progress will be much slower than on the last sweater for a few reasons: 1) it's much more intricate than the last one, 2) it's on much smaller needles than the last one (size 6), and 3) I'm working on two other projects at the same time. My last project is a purse for my mom. It will be felted. Felting, in case you don't know, is what happens to wool when you throw it in the washer in hot water. It shrinks it up and fuses the fibers together, making it sturdy and great for bags and purses. It'll be dark brown (as per her request) and will be a "church purse" (which in Mom-language means a smallish purse for the main purpose of using at church, as opposed to her regular purse which is large and seems unnecessary in certain situations, i.e. church). We actually just bought the yarn today from a cute little shop on Third Street called Harmony Yarn. I haven't started the purse just yet, but intend to tomorrow. I'm making it up as I go for this one (rectangles aren't very hard to make after all), so I'm still formulating a plan of attack. If you would be interested in a church purse, or any other type of purse for that matter, let me know and we'll talk. I'll let you know how this one goes.

Ha!

Victory is mine. I have beaten into submission my sundry bits of knitting. I gave up on my little get things wet then pin them out to dry idea and took a wet towel and an iron to it. I read somewhere that heat was bad for synthetic yarns (which is what I used), but in my experience it works much better than the non-heat option. Here are a few photos of what things looked like.

Here is a sleeve straight off the needles, nothing done to it:

Notice the extreme curling of the edges.

Here is the back piece after being pinned out to dry, but before ironing:

Notice how the edges are still quite curled, though not as badly as in the previous photo.

Now, here is the sleeve after it has been ironed:


While the edges still curl slightly, it is nothing compared to the previous two pictures. Thus I was able to finish blocking all the pieces and sew it together last night. I am actually wearing the sweater right now. It's currently an open front cardigan, but I think I am going to get some toggles to close it with later today. I'll post a photo when it's all done.

On another note, Michael and I went to Target earlier to purchase a new pair of clippers. His other ones died today (we've had them for over two years) and had to be dumped in the trash. While at the checkout counter I noticed that there were already swimsuits out on the racks. Swimsuits? It's January! In North Idaho! Did I miss something? Why are swimsuits already out en masse? I don't start thinking about swimsuits until April or May. What is going on? Crazy Target swimsuit marketing people...

Grrrr...

So, I promised last time that I would tell you all about the blocking process. Blocking, in case you don't know, is something done to knitted objects to make sure they're all the right size (you can stretch things a bit with blocking) and to flatten them by getting them wet and pinning them mercilessly down and leaving them to dry. Due to limited numbers of pins and space limitations I am only able to block one piece at a time, and the sweater is composed of five pieces. I am now on piece number three (I've blocked the back and one front piece, the second front piece is drying currently, and the sleeves remain). The entire thing is knitted in stockinette stitch, which is what you most commonly see on plain knitted sweaters with no embellishment. What you may not know, is that stockinette stitch curls. Like you would not believe. The two sleeves that have yet to be subjected to soaking and an arsenal of pins, look like two rather silly tubes of knitted fabric. The other pieces once looked like this, and still faintly resemble said tubes. Thus the source of my frustration. The edges still curl. Not quite as badly as before, granted, but still. Isn't the point of blocking (as mentioned above) to flatten the knitting so that it no longer curls? Why then is my knitting still curling?! Yesterday, after having blocked one of the front pieces and it still looking mostly like it had before I did anything to it, I wanted to take it outside and burn it. Instead, I got it really wet and reblocked it. I think it's a bit better, but still not uncurled. Grrr... On most of the sides I don't care that much because they'll be sewn together, but the outsides are still curling up! I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I still have two more days of blocking before I can put it all together.

Walking In A Winter Wonderland

The last couple of days Michael and I have decided that it's time to stop sitting around eating junk food and actually get a bit of exercise. In that spirit we went and walked around Tubbs Hill yesterday. It was fun. It was actually in the low 40s, so we didn't freeze to death or anything, and we actually saw a few other people out there. It made me feel pathetic, though. I used to traipse all over that hill and didn't feel a thing, and yesterday I was getting winded. We can blame it on higher elevation (than Boston), blah blah, but we all know the truth. I'm not in very good shape. We had a good time, though, and also visited our friend Paul who works in the IT department of North Idaho College. We chatted with him for a bit where we discussed our mutual eczema woes, and I discovered that he has no prescriptions for his eczema which is taking over his eyes. (Katrina, if you're reading this, make your husband go to the doctor! It's easily treatable and the appointment will only take 15 minutes, tops, and it's oh so worth it to not have itchy scaly yucky skin. Trust me, I know.) We managed to walk back out to our car just as it started snowing that weird little popcorn snow. You know, the little snow pellets. They're strange. Today it has snowed pretty much all day. Michael and I thought it would be fun to go walk around and see the world under its fresh blanket of snow. Of course, it was still snowing when we did this. But, we got all bundled up and out we went. I thought we were just going to wander about the neighborhood a bit, but Michael decided that we needed to head up Canfield Mountain. For the uninitiated, Canfield is a much steeper climb than Tubbs Hill's gentle paths. Needless to say, I didn't last long and we turned back after we were only barely out of sight of the street. We did walk around the neighborhood a bit, but the wind was picking up, and I don't care how pretty snow covered trees and hills are, you can't see them if the snow's blowing in your face. It did feel good to move around a bit, though, and we came back to the house and had hot cocoa. I started the last piece of my sweater today...the second sleeve. I also started blocking the pieces, well, at least one piece. It takes lots of pins to block out anything. More on that later. For now, good night.

Happy New Year!

Well, the first day of 2007 has been rather busy. Michael went to Starbucks with his friend Paul and a couple other guys he used to work with, and had a good time. We were also invited to go to a New Year's party with my in-laws, Mike and Donna. We went and watched the Polar Bear Plunge (lots of people running into the frigid lake at noon) and pointed and laughed at all the silly people dripping and shivering after they got back out of the water. It was approximately 25 degrees at that point. After that we went to the party. We stayed for a couple hours. It was nice, but I didn't know anyone else there, so it wasn't terribly exciting for me. After that we went to my parents' house and opened our Christmas presents. They went to Houston for Christmas and just got back last night around 10:00, so this was really the first chance we had. I got a new sweater, a fleece, some slippers (yay! now my feet can stop freezing!), the new book by Isabel Allende, a book of sudoku puzzles, some cash, and a new Max Lucado Devotional Bible. This is in addition to what Mike and Donna got me (8 skeins of yarn, which have put me in a knitting frenzy, 3 books, PJs, a new ionic ceramic brush which I love, and some other smaller things, which are nice). So, yes, I knit, and I'm in the process of knitting myself a sweater. It's knit it 5 pieces, and I'm on the third. I'm excited to finish it and get to wear it, though it'll be a couple more weeks before that's possible. I'll post a photo when it's done. My parents enjoyed their presents, which makes me happy. We got my dad a Boston t-shirt, my mom got a lighthouse that we got when we went to Maine in October, and I made my parents a scrapbook tour of the Freedom Trail in Boston. They thought it was really neat. After presents we came back to the house we're staying at to let the dogs out for a bit, then went back to have dinner with my parents. Now, we're just hanging out watching movies on TV and trying to keep the dogs from jumping on us too much. Anyway, so far it's been a good start to the New Year.