FOs

Things have been CRAZY for me lately. I was on call last week (and last weekend), so I wound up working 70 hours last week. In exchange, they gave me today off, which I desperately needed.

My parents are coming to visit Friday and I needed to do some MAJOR housecleaning. They're bringing me a cabinet that was in my grandfather's office, so I had to move some furniture around, and M's office and my art room were both in a shambles. Plus, I hadn't taken the recycling to the center in three months! It took me over an hour just to bring the recycling out to the car - ugh! I am exhausted and sweaty, and I still have 15 things on my To-Do list before Friday at 2. When the cleaning is all finished, I will take some pics of the pad to show it off.

I have actually done some knitting too - I finished the scarf for my Ravelry Scarf Exchange pal (who knows who I am, so no pics until she receives it!), and it came out so much better than I expected! I think I may have a calling as a pattern copier.

I made wristwarmers to wear at work. It is ungodly cold in there all the time, so it's nice for my hands to feel warm.

(yes, I already know that I need a manicure)



I made a gaiter, which is a tube that goes around your neck to keep it warm, instead of wearing a whole scarf. I got this yarn through an exchange on Ravelry, and it feels oh so good against my neck!







I started the Ribbed Lace Bolero, which is the pattern that my Caffeine Swap pal sent me, with some of the yarn she sent me. I'm kicking myself for not doing a gauge swatch though, my gauge is a full stitch short per inch from the pattern, so I think I may rip it and start over. At least I didn't get too far.



AND, I heard from my "upstream" Secret Pal that she mailed my first package!! I cannot wait to see what she picked out for me. We've been emailing quite a bit, and we have so much in common that I can't imagine not loving every single thing.

So you may have noticed that I have been doing A LOT of knitting. Witness:









etc. I actually made 2 of the Pop Tarts, and I'm about halfway through a cabled newsboy cap. I also made a little progress on my Knucks (but not much - too hard to concentrate). I find knitting very meditative and serene. It's my "Serenity NOW!" chant. And right now, I need it.

Things have not been going well in my personal life lately. On June 3rd, M told me that he had a substance abuse problem. I was completely taken aback - first by the fact that he had been living for the last 6 months without being sober, and secondly that I hadn't known. I knew he wasn't acting "normal", but he was out of work and stressed, etc. None of that makes up for the fact that he had this huge problem, and I just flat out didn't notice. [I'm working on the guilt thing.] Since then he's been "dry" and using online message boards and telephone helplines to help him through. He's been asking me for help and support, and I've been giving him all I'm able to, but it seems that whatever I do hurts rather than helping. Being around me is making it harder for him to get better, so I've asked him to stay with his parents for a while. Asking him to leave is one of the hardest things I've ever done, but I know that if he stays here and we continue to have the same circular conversation twice a day, we will wind up hating each other. We are not breaking up - he's only taking his clothes and the laptop with him - he is just going to stay with his parents until he gets some real help and gets on the road to recovery.

I am feeling completely overwhelmed and alone and I have no idea what to do about it. I don't really have anyone here in Chicago that I can lean on, and I'm working so much, and so stressed out that I just can't keep up with cooking and cleaning that I've lost 15 pounds unintentionally and am living in a pigsty.

So I knit.

Since I got back from Tulsa, things have been relatively quiet around here.

I made another trip up North to see my folks and do a final run-through at my Grandmother's house. The estate sale will be held over two weekends, and this was my last opportunity to stake a claim to anything I wanted. I still can't believe how much stuff was in that house! I spent almost a whole day there, and my mom and I were still discovering things we'd never seen before. Of course, I came home with another carload of memories. I did get some more knitting stuff, including a metric assload of needles and a ballwinder, and a lot of the Japanese china and stoneware. I also went to two art fairs while I was there and of course got a couple of things there too - a new spoonrest for the stove, a hand-turned wooden spoon, a beautiful clay serving bowl, and a SUPERCOOL plasma-cut steel garden stake in the shape of a skull, with wrenches welded on as the crossbones. Awesome.

I finished the shrunken head! It looks a little like Hermes from Futurama, totally unintentionally.





I also finished the hotpad for my sister - I felted it at my parent's house because we don't have hot water in our laundry room. It came out a little less than rectangular, more hourglass-shaped, but it still works and she still likes it.

My sad news is that I ripped out the sweater. 25 hours of work, reduced to nothing. Le sigh. I don't think I'll re-start it again right away, ripping it out was really depressing, and if I screw it up again, I want a little time to have passed.

Before:



After:



Thank goodness for that ballwinder from my Grandmother - 25 hours of knitting, 5 minutes of ripping it out. If I'd had to wind all that up by hand, I never would have ripped it out. Ugh.

1. I'm listening to a new country CD I downloaded (yeah, I know, but it's the good old twangy kind of country) by a gal named Elizabeth Cook, and it's called "Balls". The CD title is an abridged version of the song "Sometimes it Takes Balls to be a Woman". Freakin awesome.

2. I just saw a license plate frame that says "Knitting: It Takes Balls". WANT.

3. My friend Josh just sent me a link to this LOLCAT (maybe NSFW-ish?). Hilarious!

So it's been a couple of weeks, I know. I have updates.

The training in Texas went very well for the most part. There was one session (out of eight) that went very poorly - the attendees were extremely combative from the start, and one man rolled his eyes and made that exasperated "uuhh" sound every time I said something. Grr. The rest of the sessions went well, and one of them, the attendees actually applauded and thanked me for coming! That was very nice. While I do understand that I am essentially a bureaucrat, I am trying to help them get through the "paperwork" that they are REQUIRED to do. I was not expecting applause, for sure, but I wasn't expecting malicious intent, either. The nice thing is that my supervisor (who was supposed to come with me and got sick) nominated me for a "Spot Award" for excellence. This is a little bonus given out to people to reward hard work on a specific project. So my next paycheck will be $500 heavier! w00t!

I had a FANTASTIC time in San Antonio at the nerd barbeque. It was nice to see my imaginary internet friends again.

I have finally seen some concerts! I think these may have been my first since moving to Chicago - we've been paycheck-to-paycheck, and the concerts at Taste of Chicago are free. I saw Kenny Rogers, Robert Randolph and the Family Band, (unfortunately, by mistake) John Mayer, Umphrey's McGee, and the Black Crowes. The food at the Taste was awesome too - I had a veggie samosa, some pierogi, goat biryani, and a lot of the frozen southern comfort hurricanes - it was HOT out. I also got to see my friend Deb, who was visiting from Dayton, and Todd, visiting from Atlanta. Yay, real-life, human friends!

Last week, I was supposed to continue my training world tour by going to Tulsa with my supervisor on Tuesday and Wednesday. Our flight was at 3:30 Monday afternoon, so I went to work at 7 a.m., then we left for the airport at 12:30. We got on the plane, taxied for 45 minutes (for reals), then sat with the air conditioning turned off for 2 hours, waiting out a thunderstorm, with a toddler on his mom's lap sitting right next to me. At 6:15, they said we didn't have enough fuel left to make it to Tulsa, so we had to go back to the gate. When we disembarked (debarked?), the gate agents told us the flight was cancelled. We managed to get on the top of the standby list for the next flight at 7:50, which by that point had been pushed back to 8:55. They gradually kept pushing back the time, eventually getting it to midnight before cancelling that flight too. When we asked about getting on a flight in the morning, the gate agent said the earliest we could get there would be Thursday. So, I hopped in a cab and came home, getting back at 10:30. Thankfully, my boss let me work from home on Tuesday, so I got to sleep in an extra 1.5 hours! Our trip has been rescheduled for the 22nd - 25th, so wish me luck in getting there.

I am working today too - teaching in Waukegan (just North of the city). Not my regular class, 2 days notice. Don't get me started.

I have been knitting. A LOT. I really need to take some photos so my blog is a little more interesting, don't I? Maybe I will make M take some while I am working later today. So here's what I have been doing:

1. Finished knitting a wool hotpad thingy for my sister - needs to be felted.
2. Started another dishrag - nice and mindless to do on the train.
3. Started a SWEATER. I know I said I'd never knit a sweater, but the yarn was $1 a skein! Dude! A $7 sweater!! It's actually coming along quite nicely.
4. Started and finished Calorimetry in 2 sittings - in beautiful Soy Wool Stripes. I promise I'll add a photo, it's really gorgeous, if I do say so myself, and I do.
5. Started a Shrunken Head bag. How can I not make this?

I will try to keep updating more often, but I cannot make any promises. I finally got my invitation to Ravelry, so I will be spending some time over there.