pokingmyeyesout

I always lament time's passing. This year our lives have been exceptionally stressful. I am surprised and very trouble by the 'only' lingering issue - my job search, which is at a standstill. Not much will make me feel better until that is resolved. However, I managed to keep my sanity by keeping my hands, and thus my mind busy this year by:

• Knitted a beret for my neighbor who rescued the fuzzies when I was trapped in the hospital with the DH by the snow storm.
• Overcame variegated yarn issues and knitted an angora shawl, sprinkled some sparkles ona sparkly cowl, and a Noro scarf for someone who put up with me for all my life.
• Went to Madrona Fiber Festival with J and learned how to three color knitting - hold two colors in one hand, and third color in the other.
• Wrapped someone in need of some peace in Shalom
• Made booties for baby, and more [twin] babies.
• Gave soap a cozy home, a boy bear to a girl, and some sunshine to someone's birthday.
• Slogged through a plain sweater for someone who wants everything plain.
• Found homes for a chick, a panda, a penguin, and an alligator at our newly wed friends.
• Sent a Selbu Modern for a fellow crafter, and a Queen Anne lace scarf to a busy working mom who had a cold neck.
• Had an emergency scrubbie session with SiL.
• Gave a mini-Calorimetry to friend to hold her hair back while she sees patients and a felted pumpkin for someone who, I did not know, loves pumpkin.
• And lastly to my DH, who is from Hockey Town, and a huge fan of the Red Wings.

Good bye 2009, I am looking forward to continue to keep my sanity, and beat the job search ...

And special Happy Birthday Fuzzies! You are the best fuzzies ever :D

Speaking of time passing.. it has been almost a year since I drool over Jared Flood's Almeara Gloves gloves (ravelry pattern link) maybe that will happen next year.

Posted by E at 2:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sometimes, when I stare at a word for a long time ... or read a word letter by letter .. it starts to look funny.

is one of those words. I checked and double checked and triple checked and asked the DH to make sure it was correct as I finish the dup sts. It is a huge sweater, with lots of ease DH requested. Although I am not a fan of the dup stitch, DH likes the puffiness. He even pet the sweater a few times while I was working on it. I am so happy that it is done and he likes it. Yay!

Posted by E at 2:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I was so tired and am not feeling well. There has been so little knitting last week - between the cookies baking (yays for a successful batch of caramel), the food-prep (for in-laws visits), a not-well fuzzy, and all the general life + house duties.

Fuzzy has vet appt first thing tmw and I just woke up from a nap. I feel semi-human.

The in-laws left this morning after visiting this weekend. We always enjoy their visits. We had lots of food: snacks of pülla and goat cheese stuffed pepperdews (thanks J for the cheese), dinner of turkey breast with leek stuffing, stuffed mushrooms, simple ceasar salad, garlic mash, and eggnog cheesecake on Friday night, Pecan caramel rolls on Saturday morning, waffles and scramble eggs Sunday morning, and dinner out at JaKs Sunday night. I sent care package of a full cookie tin, two loafs of pülla, a cheesecake with them to BiLs & family.

I sneaked in a few hours of alone time on Saturday and visited J's sqishy cat, picked up some grocery items for Christmas dinner, and had Peking duck chat with W.

This morning I tried to clean up a little but did not get far. Either the lack of sleep or the cold meds really zapped me. I really want to finish G's sweater but couldn't muster enough energy to pick up the simple stockinette. Perhaps a nap first. Whoops I checked phone and missed a call from Mom. "... something something dad picked out a new yarn ..." . I better call her back. She said she had an ant problem in the house in the last week.. then she swatched the tiny 4 ply black yarn on US3 needle... "I feel like I was counting rows of ants..." "grumble grumble". They went back to the yarn store and she asked Dad to pick out a new yarn. I was cracking up (and cough cough!)

Anyhoo ... making mental list of prep for Christmas dinner... and may tried to summon enough energy to be productive. Oye. I might not make it. Happy Monday.

Posted by E at 1:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some days I really get tired of trying ... last Friday was one of those days. I had another interview in SF and it went as I expected. With that said, I did choose the long shot it would turn out differently ... I am not complaining, I am just tired.

I did take advantage of a few hours of free time in SF (half a dozen shots on flickr) before meeting Mom back at the Oakland BART station. I took a walk down to the Ferry Building, then back to the Powell Street Cable Car turnaround, (the cable car operator smiled at me while I took these pics. aw. I miss SF!) then into San Francisco Centre (part of Westfield Mall now) to look for some earrings ..

Earrings ... I wanted some dangle earrings for an event last Saturday, you know, the kind of event one has to put on a dress. It has been many years since I looked for earrings. I have a few pairs of earrings. I do not know where most of them are, and if I find them, none of them would be right. I visited (in two different cities) - Nordstorm Rack, TJ Maxx, Target, Nordstorm, Something Silver, Bloomingdales, and Macy's. I failed to find what I want at the price I want. What to do? MAKE THEM MYSELF of course... and J encouraged!

Last time I was unemployed, I took up beading (mostly seed bead weaving). I did not have a digital camera then, no photos, so sad :( I gifted lariats from Art of Antique Beading and various earrings/broch from Japanese beading books, and a purse for my friend's wedding (the only photo I have of my bead work courtesy of J and her squishy cat).

On Saturday I went to my favorite local bead store. I spent a long time there and came home with 6" of ss chain, 48 ss disk, 2 ss posts ... I dug out my beading tools and an hour later I have sparkley dangley earrings! I ended up with french wires (in stash). They turned out exactly the way I imagined and at the right price too.

Oh! And I also finished a slouchy beret (ravelry link) on the trip too. Not too bad of a few days. Time to drag myself back up and keep trying ... even if I am tired.

Posted by E at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)