Thankful, even for the snow (I suppose)

A few inches of snow fell overnight; the world is shrouded in the stuff. The streets are already slushy and brown (one of the chief reasons I dislike snow). The snow is light, but has been falling consistently. LOTR is on in the background, and it's the bit with the Ents. I'm eating the last of my smashed potatoes, left over from the big dinner Thursday. It's a lazy day.

We had fourteen people here for the holiday; even my aunt who had the surgery was able to make the trip. (I do not envy her five-hour drive with such new abdominal incisions healing. There were many times I caused her to laugh while she was here, which caused her a considerable amount of pain. We all joked that, had her doctor known how much laughter comes from this family, he probably would have advised against the roadtrip.)

We also put on the Shroud of Crazy and participated in Black Friday. One of the local malls was hosting "Rockin' Shopping Eve" and they opened at midnight (that almost seems like cheating). Our number dwindled as time passed, which was to be expected. We started with eleven people and were down to five by the time we left the last store. (We took three cars to ensure that those who needed to leave for sleeping purposes were able to get back to town.) It was crazy, but lots of fun. We'll probably stick with 4 or 5 a.m. next year instead of midnight.

All in all, it was a nice holiday. I hope yours was filled with lots of adventures and laughter. I was thankful to have spent the time visiting with family and friends.

Epic fail

I would say, "Bad blogger, no cookie," but that doesn't even begin to describe the fail that is me not posting since Nov. 5. (Also, that previous sentence had far too many commas, but I just wasn't comfortable with punctuation eradication.)

Some days I think I have something interesting to say, or have taken a picture and think Ah yes. Blog fodder. And then I go off and do something silly, like work. So here is what has happened since my previous post.

At the beginning of the month, my mom started her new job with a globally recognized company. She has since been out of state twice, which is really rather crazy. She will be back tomorrow from her latest excursion, which happens to be in Nebraska. (She is observing an installation of the sort she will be performing here in Iowa, once she has proper training.)

On Monday my aunt (my mom's sister) had surgery. It was suspected that she had ovarian cancer. Instead, the doctors found that she has a very severe case of endometriosis, which has been causing her considerable pain. (And by considerable I mean that she said the pain of surgery, with an incision all the way across her abdomen, was far less than the pain the endo was causing.) The doctors took some girly parts, and in a few months or so she will have the rest removed. There is much relief that it is not cancer; we were all very on edge.

In my show of knitterly support, I am knitting my aunt a womb. A blue one. A Blue Womb. Blue is her favorite color. I think she has enough of a sense of humor that she will laugh and know I mean it with love. I also plan to knit a large, chunky-weight shawl in a similar blue, as soon as I decide on a stitch and yarns.

Also, I am knitting a Project Which Must Not Be Named (on the blog until it is done and given). I'd like to say now that it is very important to read all of the details in the materials section of a pattern. For example, when a project calls for sock yarn and you decide on worsted because it's the right color, don't be surprised when it turns out to be ginormous. (I was surprised, so I had a gander at the pattern. Sure enough, it calls for sock yarn. Ha! That will make this project about 95 times funnier. It was planned to be a desktop item. It may well have to sit on the floor.)

Something else I fail at: NaNoWriMo. I have actually written words. I wrote 530 words of one story, then decided I hated it. I started a new story with a much cooler plot idea, and have completed a grand total of ... 40 words. Talk about epic fail.

Anyhow, I should go. Oboekönigin is coming to visit me this weekend. (And by visit I mean that I offer free lodging when she has teachery things to do in central Iowa.) I need to do a bit more laundry so my house doesn't look quite so dreadful.

I'll be back soon. Maybe there will even be pictures! (And a new blog layout. This one makes me tired. It's all narrow and stuff.)

In which I burble

Note: If you don't want to read another blog post on politics, then the first part of this post is for you. If you do, I wrote a little blurb for the end of the post.

As I mentioned last Wednesday, I joined NaNoWriMo. As of right now, my word count is 538. That's out of the 50,000 required to "win" NaNoWriMo. My problem is this: I chose a story idea that I came up with many years ago. The writing style is distinctively junior high, as is the setting of the novel. I cannot write in that style, lest I go insane. The voice is all wrong, and it's incredibly cheesy.

Thusly, I have decided to start a completely different novel. Hopefully I'll have a chance to write on it this afternoon. It's going to be a slightly different genre: fan fiction. I know that sounds strange, but apparently a few other NaNos are taking fanfic on as well. I found myself wanting to explore the backgrounds of the crew of Firefly, including that of Serenity itself.

I haven't done a whole lot of knitting yet this month. I have, however, been playing a bit of The Sims with my brother. We made a new family, whose surname is Possible. My character is Im Possible, and his is Un Possible. It's pretty funny. I also have a separate character on Get A Life (the one-player section of the game) whose name is Luna Lovegood. I'm getting pretty far, I think. I hadn't played The Sims in forever, so it's nice to derail like that.

Work is work, I suppose. Nothing new going on as yet. The choir's going pretty well, too. I've actually gotten compliments from the congregation. That's all I've got, unless you want to read about politics. Have a happy day!

Politics

I'm not particularly politically inclined, but I would like to share a few tidbits. I voted for Obama (or against McCain, if you prefer). Obama took Iowa. My county, however, was won by McCain. The most interesting part is the division of precincts. There are 10 precincts in my county, plus one imaginary precinct for absentee ballots (I call it imaginary because you don't go there on voting day; it does exist, in the county auditor's office). Of the 11 precincts, nine went to McCain. However, the precinct in which I would usually vote, W I, went to Obama. And the precinct in which my vote was counted — the imaginary precinct, because I chose to vote last Monday instead of yesterday — also went to Obama. The absentee precinct had Obama in the lead by 81 votes; the W I precinct had Obama in the lead by ten. How crazy is that?

Here ends my brief foray into politics and numbers. Hooray for democracy!

In which I actually blog

Forgive me, readers, for I have sinned. It's been over two weeks since my last blog-fession. I have been busy: let me show you the ways.

Firstly, I received an excellent Firefly swap package from kodama on Ravelry. You can click on the picture to see the notes on the Flickr. She sent a Jayne soda cosy, beautiful fall colored yarn, a tin-adorned box filled with strawberry sweets, really cool stitch markers, a Fruity Oaty Bar magnet, a Blue Sun sticker and a Browncoat pin. What a rock star!

And then, for the HP Knit / Crochet House Cup, I've been crafting up a storm. Here are a couple examples:


Before the crock pot dye adventure


Colored with blackberries

The dye project was for the October Herbology class. The assignment was to dye something with a natural product. My blackberries weren't exactly fresh picked — I got them from the frozen produce aisle. I love the subtle mauve effect they gave the yarn. It's really shiny, too.

And then there was the Astronomy project this month: a project inspired by the sun and / or the moon. I chose to craft both. I found 5-inch rings at Ben Franklin, crocheted around them, and went from there. If you're on Ravelry, you can check out my project page for details.


You are my sunshine!

What's really cool about the sun is that if you flip the rays up, it looks rather like a crown. puckstopper9 had an excellent thought on that: she said it reminded her of Rowena Ravenclaw's lost diadem. I have to say I agree, and I might take that idea and run with it. I wonder if there are slightly larger rings available ...

In non-crafty news (not that there's a whole lot), I saw this link on Plurk today. It's really freaky. Soylent Green is people, man!

Also, I signed up for NaNoWriMo on Monday. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel during November, which I intend to write by hand. I don't know whether I'll make it that far, but that's fine with me. I'm starting to get a few ideas, at any rate, and I'll take my best shot. I'm xamonster there, as everywhere.

That's all, dear friends. Tschüs!

CBF 2008, and some knitting content at the end

I don't know whether I have a whole lot to say today, as I'm rather tired from the Covered Bridge Festival this weekend. I will, however, show you a bunch of photos.

First, I did a little running around on Saturday morning. I got back to my house to find two things: a package on my stoop and, thanks to the festival, a car blocking my driveway. My driveway's not entirely obvious as it's covered in grass, but there is a cut-out in the curb, and it should be fairly obvious, considering the weird gap left between my house and the neighbor's attached garage. So I left a note. (Check out my sexylicious handwriting.)


Passive aggressive? Why yes, I am.

And then I opened my package, and it was the Kauni I ordered from WEBS last week. I did the biggest happydance ever. (You'll just have to take my word for it, as there is no photographic happydance evidence at this time.) I got one skein each of EH (bronze and blue and dark brown) and EQ (rainbow). I cannot wait to work with them. Aren't the colors so pretty you could just eat them? Now to decide on projects ...

After leaving that nice note and opening the yarn, I went downtown to see what they had this year for the festival. And I found alpacas there, with sock yarn nearby. I purchased the purple on Saturday; my dad gave me the green/gold on Sunday. What's funny about that was I was initially debating between the purple and green yarns, choosing purple in the end. And here my dad goes and buys me the yarn I didn't get. He's too good to me.

And someone sheared sheep occasionally.



And there was a parade on Sunday.



Yesterday was a long, long day. There was probably stuff about covered bridges in there somewhere, but I didn't pay any mind. After all was said and done, I needed a little knitting time. Here's some of what I'm working on right now.


Young Helena hood, with cool feathers.


2x1 Flat Feet sock.

Oh, and I forgot to say that I sent off my package for the Ravelry Firefly Swap on Friday. Kaylee, along with a lot of fun little goodies, was inside:

Musical meme

Hello October! Sometimes, when I don't have anything in particular to say, I like to share a meme. Here's one I saw over on CBear's blog, Fuzzy Sheep Crafts.

- Choose a singer/band/group
- Answer using ONLY titles of songs by that singer/band/group
- Tag 7 more people. Or not.

I choose: Tori Amos (of course.) And I'm providing links to the lyrics.

1. Are you male or female? Girl.
2. Describe yourself. Bouncing Off Clouds.
3. What do people feel when they’re around you? Riot Poof.
4. How would you describe your previous relationship? Strange.
5. Describe your current relationship. Happy Phantom.
6. Where would you want to be now? Hey Jupiter.
7. How do you feel about love? Murder, He Says.
8. What’s your life like? Pirates.
9. What would you ask for if you had only one wish? Snow Cherries from France.
10. Say something wise. Take to the Sky.

That is all. Time to go home and think about laundry and choir.