Where my next sock yarn is coming from...

Oh. My. God. This is the most beautiful yarn ever. And the best part is that the skeins are 150 g. That means that you can make stockinette knee-highs with CONSIDERABLE amounts of yarn left. I want it in the following colourways (sorry, no direct links here):

Rittersporn (Larkspur?)
Veilchen ("Violet")
Poison Nr. 5
Sultan
Am kalten Polar ("Cold North")
Tifer see ("Deep lake")
Pfauenauge (?)
Krauterbeet (?)
Iris Sibirica ("Iris...?")
Farn ("Fern")
Wilder Mohn ("Wild Poppy")

*drools* It's actually a very reasonable price for that much yarn, 14 euros.

2007: Year in Review

-Sean and I lived (mostly) apart due to school/work for almost 8 months and survived
-Sean got to live in residence
-I found out that even when I'm NOT in shape I can hike 12km through solid Canadian boreal forest (aka "bush")
-I lived and worked in Red Lake this summer
-We set a wedding date
-I picked my wedding and bridesmaid dresses
-We moved to a new heritage apartment we love
-Sean wowed the guys from the national headquarters of Games Workshop
-I got mysteriously ill and may or may not be fixed after many tests and surgery
-Despite missing at least 1/3 of my classes, I finished all my work
-I got a scholarship and two bursaries
-I got to use a scanning electron microscope

All in all, a pretty good year. Things have been wonderful for Sean and I, barring only whatever-the-heck this stomach problem is/was. It has put me a bit behind, as I'm trying to study for finals now and I ALSO need to try and complete an extra online class for my residency requirement, giving me 5 classes and my thesis. I'm not sure yet how well that's going to work, and I might have to give up my job. We'll see though, once school starts!

ETA: I'm "Karlie" on ravelry :)

Happy New Year's All! I've recovered nicely from surgery, and am now trying to find motivation to study for finals while still getting in some knitting time before my life goes to hell-in-a-handbasket with next term's work.

New Year's Resolutions:

-Continue to improve money management and tidiness
-Knit a shawl for the wedding
-Stay sane

Posting will continue to stay slow around here, since I post all my knitting projects on Ravelry now, and I have 5 classes and a thesis this semester. Wish me luck!

Done!

Everything is done, except my grad school application. I got all my essays done, all my presentations, and my lab final. My finals were deferred, and I had surgery yesterday.

Turns out all this pain was caused by a number of adhesions from my appendectomy in 2004. They got in there and lysed them (basically cut them apart with a heated tool), and I got to go home. Unfortunately, I had a nasty cold which has turned into bronchitis, and the subsequent coughing has left me and my incisions in a lot of pain. I had to go in to the ER again today to get some different medicine, both to help the pain and to stop the coughing so that I don't cause any damage. There's a very VERY small likelihood I could "burst" my incisions or the adhesions but it should be OK. Because it's a little harder for me to care for myself and Sean needs to work, I'm going home to Dryden for a little bit. Have Mom, Dad, and Becky care for me for awhile!

The only Christmas presents I have left to knit are the socks and a neckwarmer (new addition to the list, but it's Knitty's Tudora and will be a very short delightful knit). That's what I'll be doing this week, along with knitting my own candy cane socks and some mitts for myself.

More percentages

(If you're wondering why I keep posting these incredibly boring lists, it has a two-fold purpose. First, I feel guilted into working on my items because the progress is out there for the world to see. Second, I get a LOT of satisfaction out of crossing things off these lists.)

I'm stressed because I received a scholarship letter a few weeks ago, and I was going to bring in the acceptance this Monday. However, I just found out that they mailed out the letter on Oct 16, and I was supposed to accept the scholarship within 10 days of them issuing it to me....of course I didn't have the letter at that time. I'm going to go in and beg for it on Monday, wish me luck!

In Christmas news, I am now at the following percentages:

Lace Hat - Done
Felted Clogs - 50%
Fingerless Mittens - Done
Hat - Done
Socks - 50%

Candy Cane Socks for me - 0%

In school news, I am now at the following percentages:

Labs - Done
Lab final (Dec. 3) - 3/4 studying
Min Dep paper (Dec. 5)- Done
Min Dep presentation(Dec. 3) - 10%
Isotope Paper (Dec. 5) - Done
Isotope Presentation - Done and presented 90%!
Petroleum Group Paper (Dec. 7) - Data collected and analysed, no text yet
Petroleum Group Presentation (Nov. 29)- Done
Thesis - On temporary hold

Percentages

In Christmas news, I am now at the following percentages:

Lace Hat - Done
Felted Clogs - 50%
Fingerless Mittens - Done
Tea Cozy - Not started not being made, now being given a hat
Socks - 50%

-Hat for me- 70% hat for "tea cozy" and it's done

In school news, I am now at the following percentages:

Labs - Done
Lab final (Dec. 3) - Half-done studying
Min Dep paper (Dec. 5)- 70%
Min Dep presentation(Dec. 3) - not started
Isotope Paper (Dec. 5) - Done
Isotope Presentation - Done and presented
Petroleum Group Paper (Dec. 7) - My section not started yet (can't until we have the rest of the data)
Petroleum Group Presentation (Nov. 29)- Mostly done, presenting tomorrow
Thesis - On temporary hold

Quick update - most of my tests came back normal, so it's not large-bowel Crohn's (could still be small bowel, esp. since I'm not absorbing nutrients well, according to my new bloodwork). At any rate, this means I'm having surgery on Dec. 7. It's a laparoscopy to try and see what the heck is going on in mah belleh. I shouldn't have to stay overnight, unless they find some adhesions (somewhat likely) that need a fair bit of work (unlikely). It means all my finals are put off until January, and I get a week of sitting on the couch with actually no need to do ANYTHING but knit. I'm going to rip out my Silk Garden One Skein Wonder and make it into mittens, as well as making myself some glittens. I also need a warm hat, so I want to get to Michaels before Dec. 7 to buy a couple skeins of Patons SWS for a palindrome hat.

In Christmas news, I am now at the following percentages:

Lace Hat - Done
Felted Clogs - 50%
Fingerless Mittens - Done
Tea Cozy - Not started
Socks - 50%

In school news, I am now at the following percentages:

Labs - 1 done, 1 left
Lab final - not studied yet
Min Dep paper - 20%
Min Dep presentation - not started
Isotope Paper - 33%
Isotope Presentation - not started
Petroleum Group Paper - not started
Petroleum Group Presentation - not started
Thesis - oh I don't even want to think about it

Eeep.

Christmas Presents

I've been thinking about (and working on) my Christmas presents, with all the spare time that's unfortunately been dumped into my lap. I decreased the number of presents significantly from last year, so that I don't end up crying in my knitting on Dec. 24. On the list are the following:

Lace Hat - Done
Felted Clogs - 50%
Fingerless Mittens - 50%
Tea Cozy - Not started
Socks - 40%

Possibly to add to the list, if I have time (if not some people will be getting bought gifts):

Toque
Convertible Mittens

I'm enjoying the knitting so far, although the socks are sucking the life out of me a bit at the moment. They're currently glaring at my from the table. Thing is, I'd like to make something for myself, so I'm very guiltily knitting on a pair of convertible mittens for me instead of knitting on Christmas gifts OR studying, both of which NEED TO BE DONE. The snow now sitting outside is helping to alleviate a little of that guilt though.

I got a scholarship as well, $500. I'm particularly proud of this one, because it had two contraints: high marks and an essay on your understanding of the life of a mining geologist. Hopefully I'll be eligible for a bursary as well (you find out at the end of December) and I can put even more payments on things. We're slowly but surely paying off some credit card debt we'd accrued awhile ago, and it's a relief to be putting decent payments on things.

Thanks for the well wishes, everyone. They've done some testing (colonoscopy, gastroscopy, and Friday I have a Meckel's Scan. The problem seems to be two-fold:

1) I have a positive blood test for celiac (usually a strong indicator) but no symptoms
2) I don't have a positive blood test or visual ulcers of Crohn's (but every other symptom)

The best guess is Crohn's, since it explains every weird symptom I've had in my life that everyone tried to treat as separate problems like joint pain, mouth ulcers, night sweats, pink-eye-ish problems.

I have been knitting some, and trying not to look at the mountain of schoolwork that's piling in front of me. I'm going to write some of a term paper today I hope, and try to convince Sean to go with me to the University (it's closed today) so I can work on my labs, since that's what I'm most behind in.

Wish me luck!

I haven't been posting much lately, as I've been struggling with my health again. It seems that the stomach problems they thought they'd nailed down last year have flared their ugly heads. I've been in the hospital a few times, and I haven't been able to go to class or work since last Thursday.

It's hard. I need to finish these classes because I have to graduate this year, so I can go to the States with Sean. I also can't go down there if they haven't solved these problems because we'd go broke in a day. I also have to write my thesis, and my life will be insanely busy next semester because I have a lot more classes to take. They keep giving me pain meds but I rarely take them since they make me loopy, and I'm paranoid that I'm somehow going to get addicted to them.

Anyway, I just needed to vent this frustration somewhere. I"m supposed to work at the daycare tomorrow, and I want to so much because I love it. But since I can barely get off the couch...I dunno.

Hi Angela and Eca! Nice to see people commenting :D Ang, I got the birthday presents in the mail the other day, and I e-mailed you about it! I just wanted to acknowledge it here too because they were....knitting books! Yep, now I'm the proud owner of "Mason-Dixon Knitting" and "Stephanie-Pearl McPhee Casts Off!"

And Eca, I finished the Hermione chart! Here it is for everyone - but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE if anyone uses it, let me know how it goes and give me props yo! LOL I'm just kidding. This chart did take me hours and hours to work out though, and I'm still not sure how accurate it is.

Actual headline from my hometown

"Criminal Bird Strikes Dryden Home

A citizen’s arrest was made in Dryden on Wednesday.
City Police received a call of a possible break and enter as the victim advised police that one of his garage windows was broken.
The homeowner surveyed the scene and found nothing missing but did spot
the suspect in the corner.
Before officers arrived at the scene, the homeowner arrested and released the suspect, a Ruff Grouse.
The bird will not face charges."

Cute :)

These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users (as of whenever this was originally posted). Bold is for books you've read. Underline is for books you own but haven't read. Italics for books you've started but haven't finished. Red is for books you found unreadable. Green for books you want to read but haven't yet. And, finally, leave the ones you haven't read as they are.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway HATED IT!
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492 - Present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Ravelry!

How awesome is it that I got my invite to Beta-test Ravelry on my birthday yesterday! I've spent all morning putting projects in my queue, and inputting my needles and books. This is a godsend for knitters, I tell ya. I already adore it. I just...wow. Wow. That's all I can say. I can't wait to put my stash into it!

My birthday yesterday was good, I got cards from my grandparents, and got my hair trimmed and coloured (it was extremely overbleached from the sun this summer, so I had her lowlight it back to basically my natural colour. I do really like it, although I wish my hair was more golden blonde in colour and less ashy. Oh well.

Tonight we go to Sean's parents for dinner, and tomorrow I'm going to work a lot more on unpacking this place and making it neat, so that we can start doing things like playing board games :)

Can't think of good titles anymore

Haven't posted in awhile. This is because of

a) looking for/applying for apartments (we got one)
b) unexpected emergency rooms trips for stomach problems (better now)
c) moving into above apartment
d) moving out of old apartmnet
e) dental surgery
f) school starting

As evidenced by these facts I have not really knit OR sewed for awhile, except for fixing Sean's "There be pirates" hat so the brim no longer flares. It's my B-day on Friday, and I'm excited to hopefully get some fun stuff and also have a little fun too!

I also officially became a Manitoban today. I got my Manitoba license yesterday, and this afternoon I also got my Manitoba Health insurance. Good thing, because I'm about to start with a Clinical Health support group for IBS. They're teaching us relaxation and coping techniques, in order to help decrease our symptoms. Sounds like a plan I'm down with, especially given that (a) happened above. It'll be a long bus ride back every Wednesday due to the construction, but that gives me time for Christmas knitting.

I also ran into a high school friend today, Melanie, who's doing her 2nd year of Medicine. That's awesome! We chatted about old friends, who's doing what, etc.

Finally, walking back from the bus stop I wandered into the gourmet chocolate shop (CoCoPod) to see what it was like. I waited patiently while a slighly yuppie type picked out the most exquisite chocolate pieces for an exclusive soiree she was giving (I kid you not). When she left, I asked how much the truffles were. They were $2.50 a piece, and I only had two loonies and a quarter. I said "hang on!" and started to dig for my wallet in my backpack, but the super-nice people in the shop (counter guy, girl about to start work there, and the owner) gave me a quarter so I could have a divine mint truffle :)

Nice day!

Best video you'll see today

Presents!

I had an AWESOME day today.

1st out, a big huge Thank you! to Liz, my sockpal! Although your parcel came at the end of last week, I wasn't home yet and couldn't get it until today! Without further ado:


The world's most beautiful kneesocks! They're made of handspun merino, which is softness itself. I adore pink, and these socks just shout out to the world that they're pink! Not weird Barbie pink either, but just a bright, cheery pink you see in wild roses and cherry blossoms. The pattern is so nice too, I just love it! I need to know the stitch pattern.


Another picture of the socks. Aren't they gorgeous?


You'd think that handspun pink kneesocks, would be enough, but my Sockapal went above and beyond! She gave me a little skein (45g) of (I'm guessing) her own handspun, which I'm sure I'm going to knit into a little headband for the fall - or maybe a little neck scarf. There's also two presents from LUSH, the French Kiss bubble bar in the picture, and the You've Been Mangoed! bath melt that is solidifying in the fridge (it got a titch mushy in the car today). I got a cute change purse that will also fit a lipstick, and a bunch of postcards! Thanks Liz, you are the best pal EVER :D

I also got a present from Sean today, as a "yay! you're back!" type gift. He took me to Build-A-Bear Workshop, and I made this:

His name is Sean, and he's wearing khakis, stripey button-up, argyle sweater-vest, and leather shoes. He's asthma and allergy certified, as long as you freeze or wash/dry him every 4 weeks. He makes me squee every time I see him :D

And lastly, the presents I got to send to MY sockpal! Her things are going out tomorrow, in a mass mailing I need to do.

I tried to go Canadian in the package, without being TOO stereotypical. We have my favourite Munsch book (for her kids), a soap made in Winnipeg, two Canadian teas (Maple and Icewine, both made in Toronto), maple syrup candies, and some postcards! I can't wait to mail it off tomorrow.

Today was a great day! I got to go out and do soil sampling, which meant riding on the ATVs (woohoo!) and spending time outside (double woohoo!). Most of our soil was very clayey, but that's to be expected because we're in Northern Ontario. I found some Creeping Snowberry



and gave some to Jeff to taste. It was amusing, although he thought the flavour was OK (usually snowberry tastes like a sour minty flavour) the texture was definitely not to his liking.

We had an enjoyable lunch, and while we were at the creek side taking a sample I found some wild mint!



I picked a quick bunch before we moved on, and while we were waiting at the ATVs for Blaire and Leye I found another massive cluster! So I picked it all and now they're drying on papers on my other bed, drying out for a nice treat this winter. I might go out with Sean in the evening once he gets here and pick LOTS more, it would make good Christmas presents. Wild mint tea is much more flavourful and wonderful than bought tea, and is very sweet.

I can't wait until Sean comes up! He'll be here in two nights, on Thursday. We've also potentially found an apartment, though we need to be approved and sort out a few things. It's got gorgeous hardwood floors though, and is closer to the University. It's much smaller than our current apartment, so we're already working on getting rid of some stuff, and more will be on its way out once I get back to Winnipeg.

Now, I really need to clean up this room in preparation for Sean. No time tomorrow, Wednesdays are for Bingo!

Pictures

ipod cozy I made for Nesha, she just got a new nano for logging core. My own pattern, Bernat Sox "Hippi" on US 0 needles. ~40 sts cast on, k2p2 pattern with 6 stitch/8 row cable, 3 needle bind-off for base.


Socks I'm knitting. Unfortunately the pictures is bad, because I don't know how to work Nesha's camera very well! Socks are in Patons Kroy, using 2.75mm needles and the pattern is "Charade" (marvelous pattern, you'll have to google it!).


Out on the lake eating lunch, on a rock sampling day earlier this summer.


Geoteching core before it's logged with Jeff. It was very, very hot these days.

Sockapalooza 4

Ha! At least the sockapalooza socks are up, so that there's proof I really did finish them! They're waiting to be sent out until I get back to Winnipeg. My pal already knows this and is fine with it *phew!*

Specs:

"Mermaid Pearls"
Sockapalooza 4 socks
Yarn: Bernat Sox "Hippi"
Needles: 2.75mm DPN
Pattern: "Gull Wing Lace" from Socks, Socks, Socks!