Two weeks

Wow, it has been two weeks since I've been here.  While I've composed numerous posts in my head, I haven't been able to write them (for many reasons, none of them very good).  And one of my goals this year was to get here on a more regular basis.  No time like the present to work on that!

What happened to keep me away is that school started back again.  I'm coming up on the end of the third week.  Tomorrow is the first exam of the semester, and by all rights I should be studying for it right now, since my twenty minute break ended fifteen minutes ago.

This week started our first hospital clinical experience, too.  We spent Monday and Tuesday in the hospital, assigned an actual, real, live patient who needed actual nursing care that we were expected to give.  Can you say "stressful"?  More than stressful, actually.  It was completely nerve wracking and draining in a way that I've never experienced before.

The hospital I'm at is over two hours away from where I live, so on Sunday night I drove to a classmate's apartment mid-way between here and the hospital.  So not only am I going into a new situation, I'm not even coming home to decompress between clinical days.  In the grand scheme of things, this isn't a real problem, and I feel grateful that a classmate is putting not only me but another one of us up for two days a week during the entire twelve week experience.  No one slept well on Sunday night, and we had to get up in time to leave at 5:30 am.  By Tuesday afternoon, during our debriefing, we were all so emotionally and physically drained that conversation was minimal.

When I got home on Tuesday evening--at 6 pm, almost fourteen hours after I started my day--I was so tired that all I could do for dinner was open a jar of pasta sauce and boil some spaghetti.  I didn't even add garlic to the pasta sauce.  Nothing.  I couldn't fathom chopping and onion and sauteing garlic.  Plain old Ragu served over noodles.  Like I was twenty again and didn't know how to cook.  To top it off, Tuesday was our anniversary.  Happy Anniversary, honey!

In other news, Frosty's stitches are out and he is feeling much better.  Of course, resting on a pile of three foofy blankets probably helps a bit.

That's my little F-er.  All smiles.

A Visit

My mother was here this past weekend.  She flew in Thursday night and left Monday morning, so just a quick stop.  She is both a knitter and a reader, so our first day "oot and a-boot" (Yooper slang for "out and about") involved another visit to The Salty Sheep and then down to Jacksonville for a stop at a bookstore.  She kindly enhanced both my stash and my library.

A closer look at the yarn?

This is Madelinetosh sock in "Mansfield's Garden Party."  I haven't knit with their sock yarn yet, and I'm interested to see how this knits up, especially with how many colors are in there.

Pinks, greens, and yellows.  This could be absolutely lovely.  Or not.  We'll see.  I just needed a little spring in my yarn.

We also toured Tryon Palace in New Bern.  The entire tour was interesting, but I fell in love with the Kitchen Office.  The kitchen house was separate from the main house, because the historical wealthy didn't really want to see where the magic happened, so to speak.  The kitchen house was more than just the kitchen; it was also where the seamstress worked.  There is a room set up with several looms, roving, a couple of wheels and spindles, and knitting in progress.  I wish I had pictures!  (The Historical Society does not allow taking photos and I couldn't find any online.)  It is amazing how little the tools of this craft have changed in the last three hundred years.

And since I often close with a picture of one of the Snufflepuffs, I give you a picture of my Frosty looking rather dejected.  You see, he had surgery on Friday afternoon.  Poor little guy blew out his ACL and was limping all week.  Now he is confined to his crate for the week to protect his leg.

You can see the incision on his hind leg.  Poor Frosty.

He is already so much better than he was just a few days ago.  He really wants to move around, but he tires so quickly.  Here's to a speedy recovery for the Doodlebug.

A Knitter's Revenge

I met up for lunch with a dear friend, Layne, whom I haven't seen enough of lately.  We ate at a great restaurant with an ocean view, and a view of the yarn store we both love-- The Salty Sheep in Swansboro, NC.  We talked about knitting, family, knitting for family, and scads of other things.

While we were talking about people who request knitting, we had the following conversation:

Me:  She asked me knit a hat for the baby.  Not just any hat, but a specific one that matched her nursery.
Layne:  Did you do it?
Me:  Yes, but I used acrylic.

Flower Power

Oh my goodness, where have I been?  I really, truly expected to post much more over break but somehow life got in the way.  I haven't done much.  I haven't even finished Christmas Knitting (more on that in a later post).  On more than one day, I didn't leave the house except to walk the dogs.  I've read a lot, watched an awful lot of Parenthood on Netflix (while Mike is at work), watched a lot of Burn Notice on Netflix (with Mike, when he is home), read a lot (but not everything on my nightstand; I did make it to the library), and did some cross stitch.  (More on that in a later post, too.  Almost finished!)  And did some knitting.

I'm calling it the Upsa Daisy.  Isn't she cute?

I'm showing the finished product before all the working shots because if this was a blog I had just stumbled upon, I would probably scroll to the finished object before I read the entire post.  I like to know what I'm moving towards.  As much as I would like to be spontaneous and fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, I generally do best with predictability.  Or at least when I know the outcome of the situation.  If I know the outcome, I can go along for the ride, no problem.

Does anyone remember a set of books from the early 80s about plucky heroines, each book titled after the main character?  Titles like Caroline, Elizabeth, and others?  I was probably around ten years old when I was reading them, and they were so dreamy to me.  They were historical fiction, and the title character always had two problems.  One, she had an historically important problem of the time.  I distinctly remember one book where the girl was a Suffragette.  And her second, not quite so historically important problem, but the Biggest Problem In the World?  TWO suitors!  Who did she pick?  The (good) reader never knew until the last chapter.  Always the last chapter.  Not a "good" reader (then, as now), I usually always looked ahead to figure out which guy she ended up with.  Only then could I sit back and enjoy the show.  (For the same reason, I often watch movies more than once, and generally enjoy them more the second time around.)

Anyway, that is why I'm showing you the finished hat first.  But now I'm telling you that I had the pink part finished for a week before I could get up the mojo to knit the six white petals.  Once I did it, it took about twenty minutes, tops.

Petals at the ready

Then I had to pin all the petals to the hat.

No real science to it, just pin and go.

Then I had to use all those obnoxious tails to sew the petals to the hat.

It is amazing how many of my knitting pictures look like this, with a glass of wine in the background.

I left two long tails on the petals, one on the cast on and one on the cast off.  As I was stitching these one, I used one tail to stitch down one side, wove it in, and used the other tail to go up the other side.  I thought maybe I should just use one per petal, and weave the other tail in before pinning to the hat, but I think using the two tails gave me a bit of maneuverability with the petals.  I didn't pin them on in the exact position they ended up in; I fussed with them a bit, squinching them around to fill in the space properly.

Not exact, but perfect nonetheless.

It ended up being so sweet.  I love it, and I hope the recipient loves it.  Raveled here, if you are looking for yarn information.

And of course, the gratuitous picture of a fluffy dog.

Brett, examining the finished product.

Christmas at the Movies

Charlie under the tree

Because of the way the holidays have fallen this year, mid-week, Mike has had a lot of time off.  But I'm not working and we are in money-saving mode, so we decided not to travel anywhere.  What have we been doing to pass the time?  Movies!

So far we have gone to the cinema to see Les Miz, Jack Reacher, and The Hobbit.  We've also rented a fair amount, including Resident Evil (5? 6? whichever is the newest one), Outpost (a movie about zombie Nazis, and not that bad, all things considered), Fire with Fire (with Bruce Willis, although I'm pretty sure he did it as a favor to someone), a movie about Bigfoot that stars a guy I used to work with, and a few others.

Of course we've watched the usual Christmas movies on television.  A Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation, Muppet Christmas Carol, everything on The Hallmark Channel and Lifetime for the last month.  But this year, the movie I've seen more than any other is Love Actually.  This year I am completely enamored with this movie!  I can't explain why, either.  I saw it in the theatre when it first came out and have watched it a few times since, but this Christmas I think I have watched some of it about a dozen times.  (I suppose it helps that we have HBO this year, which I have never had as an adult, and since HBO seems to be playing it at least once per day I have had numerous opportunities to watch it.)

I think the film has some great moments.  Hugh Grant dancing to the Pointer Sisters is fabulous.  Andrew Lincoln (before he became a zombie hunter in The Walking Dead) announcing his love to Keira Knightly on placards is so sweet and special.  Laura Linney's little dance of joy on her steps when she finally--finally!--has her crush Karl in her home is such a truthful moment.  I mean, what person hasn't done something like that?

But I think my favorite moment is when Emma Thompson (love her) gets a Joni Mitchell CD (love her) from her husband, Alan Rickman (love him), when she was expecting a very expensive gold heart necklace (which he has given to his secretary, that rat).  Emma Thompson excuses herself to her bedroom to basically collect herself.  She has the the CD playing to "Both Sides Now" (love that) and just...stands.  After a moment she leaves the bedroom to go back to her family, but on the way out she straightens the blanket on the bed.  It shows her connection to her family, her home, and her life.  She doesn't just leave the room, she leaves it a little bit better, out of force of habit--a little pat to a piece of furniture, straightening something, because there is so much to do that you are always doing something.  And maybe, if the coverlet is straightened, everything will be okay.  It is just such a heartbreakingly true moment.  What wife/mother/partner hasn't done that?

I would write a proper review of the movie, but it is on right now for what I guess might be the last time of the season.  So I am going to light the Christmas tree one last night and watch it again, for the last time this year!

And I leave you with some gratuitous cute pictures of the dogs with some Christmas decorations thrown in for balance.

Game Day Antics

Because we are from Michigan, many people think we should be Lions fans, but that just isn't so.  See, we are from the Upper Pennisula.  We grew up less than two hours from Green Bay, Wisconsin.  Two hours NORTH, so when you see Lambeau Field on television, and the announcers talk about how cold it is, it was just as cold or colder where we were. 


But that makes us big Green Bay Packers fans.  Both our families are, too.  Packer stuff is always considered a tasteful gift, and Packer gear is considered appropriate attire for most occasions.  Our guest room has a Packer theme.


One of the biggest rivals of the Packers is the Minnesota Vikings.  So when I saw that our neighbor, Kelly, had this:

I had to get Mike one for his birthday.  In the correct team colors, of course.

These guys are those silly blow up lawn ornaments that started out as Christmas decoration but have morphed into whatever occasion might need some over-sized expression of fun.

The Packers are playing the Vikings today.  (In fact, they are playing right now, as I am writing this.)  We generally put up Tiny on game days, along with our Packer flag.  In order to taunt Kelly the Viking Fan, we had to move Tiny from his normal spot.  Generally he sits right in front of our porch.  This week, however, he has moved "down the field" a bit, to the intersection near Kelly the Viking Fan's house.  This did not go unanswered by the Viking Fan, although he had to get creative, too.

Luckily we have some good neighbors.  And a lot of extension cords.  I think Mike has about 100 feet of extension cord out there in order to get Tiny down the block.

Note our Packer flag zip-tied to the street sign.

GO PACK GO!

In my absence

I've stayed away from here for longer than I meant.  At first I was just exhausted from studying for finals.  Then my mother-in-law was in town.  And then I didn't feel quite right posting over the weekend end, in light of what had happened.  A "hey, here's what I'm doing" post seemed inappropriate, somehow.

But here I am.  And here is what I've been doing.

This is my nightstand.  It doesn't quite look like this anymore, and usually there are some other things, like eyedrops, on there somewhere.  (I had laser eye surgery a year ago and I highly recommend it.  It has changed my life.  The downside is that I have to use eyedrops a lot, especially in the morning.  It can make wearing mascara a pain in the patootey.)  This is the pile of books I hope to get through before I go back to school on 15 January.

(I'm going to link these to their respective Amazon pages, but I get nothing back from Amazon.)

In no particular order, the line up is:

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.  I've actually read about two-thirds of this and then got sidetracked by I'm not sure what.  Anyway, I want to finish it.  And I really like that the present-day narrator lives in Rhinebeck, NY.

Consider the Oysterby MFK Fisher.  Being both a foodie and a reader, I've been meaning to read this for years.  I know that I bought it when I lived in California, so that means I've had if for at least four years.  It's time to read it.  It is, after all, a very small book.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.  I wanted to read this before the movie came out.  I didn't get around to it, so I never saw the movie.  (According to the reviews, I'm not sure that is anything to lament.)  I've heard good things about the book, though.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.  I mentioned that I saw this on a table at a bookstore, and a friend of mine sent along her copy.  I honestly can't even remember what it is about right now, just that it sounded interesting.

World War Z by Max Brooks.  Zombies.  What can I say?  And besides, I have to read it before Brad Pitt completely ruins it.

The Best American Essay of 2012.  I've been reading this series for years.  I love the literary essay, creative non-fiction, what ever you want to call it.  This series is guest edited each year by a different author.  What I love about it is that year's collection retains the (for a better word) flavor of the editor.  The year edited by David Foster Wallace has a completely different feel than the years edited by Susan Orleans or Christopher Hitchens.  This year's collection is edited by David Brooks of the NYTimes, so I am looking forward to reading what he thought was interesting.

In the Woods by Tana French.  This sounded good while I was at the bookstore picking up some Christmas gifts.  And the essay book for me.  And a knitting magazine for  me.  And a magazine about keeping chickens (a dream of mine, so obviously for me).

The Passage by Justin Cronin.  Vampires.  Love the undead (unless we are talking Twilight undead).

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.  I know it is YA fiction, but there is a lot of YA stuff that is really, truly amazing right now.

Also on the nightstand, but not there for "winter break reading" are The Knitter's Almanac because it is always on my nightstand, An Everlasting Meal for constant inspiration, The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry simply because I haven't finished it but can't seem  find the energy to do so, and a daily gratitude/highlight journal.

And to show you, dear Reader, what I have to got though to get a decent photograph, a couple of shots from the discard pile.

Hey, whatcha doing?

Hi Peep!