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!

OK so I tried to upload pictures of my Sockapalooza socks, new x-mas present FO, and ipod nano cozy. Nothin' doin', unfortunately. The sucky, sucky internet here keeps dropping and I can't get a consistent signal in order to load a picture.

It'll have to wait, maybe in the morning it'll be better.

Sooooo hooooooooooootttt...

Oh. My. God. It is sooooo hot here. We are in a humidex warning, this afternoon it got up to 41 with the humidity.

The scary thing? In the upstairs of the mill (where we work, it's completely unventilated) it was so ridiculously hot that outside at 41C felt cool. Knowing now that it felt like 41 outside, I'd wager that it's at least 50C upstairs. It was so hot, that less than a minute after turning off the fan, we felt violently nauseous and dizzy. Because of the high humidity, you can sweat properly either, so there's no particularly good way to cool off. I'm already wearing just a tank top and shorts at work, not sure how to cool off any more!

I finished the sockapalooza socks, except for grafting the toes (no darning needle or crochet hook) and blocking them. I noticed that I somehow wound up with two less stitches in one sock, but I checked and since this is stretchy lace they fit the same.

I also spent my spare time today (during scanning, between changing maps) graphing out the yoke of this sweater:



It's one of Hermione's from OOTP. It took me FOREVER, some tears, some photoshopping, and finally good old paper, pencil, ruler, and tracing paper to get it right. I wanted to make sure I accounted for the decreases properly, since I wanted it to be a proper yoked sweater. I think I've got it now! I'll try and post a picture or something soon.

Not much new

Not much new here, more work going on in the outrageous heat of Red Lake. I've being working on my sockapalooza socks some more (sorry Linz, no pictures still!), especially while I'm scanning.

I also want some suggestions for first dance songs for the wedding. Sean and I are wanting something older, like 40's-50's. Sean is not really a fan of Elvis Presley, nor of Frank Sinatra, although I'm not sure on his feelings about covers. My ideas so far:

"Fools Rush In" - a cover if I can find it
"Love Me Tender" Norah Jones
"LOVE" Michael Buble
"Fever" Michael Buble


As you can see, two are Presley and one is Sinatra :P Any other ideas?

I also need ideas for the Processional and Recessional. No wedding marches! Sean's a fan of Pachebel's Canon, but I really really don't want to use that one. I'd really like to use something by Bach and or Handel.

The new Interweave Knits Fall 2007 is up, and there's a few things I want to make: Dickinson Pullover, Tangled Yoke Cardigan, Cobblestone Pullover, Snowflake Socks, Sweetheart Vest (I'll add sleeves), possibly the Mirepoix Bodice once I can see the schematic. In all, enough patterns to make it worth my while to buy the magazine.

What would YOU like to make?

PS The last dance? "Moondance" by Michael Buble. :D

Arrr - ye be warned! Pirates: At World's End spoilers ahead!

Hi Linz! No pictures yet because my camera is on the fritz, and is consequently left at home. But soon!

As for the after-credit clip, some writers explained it thus:

A scene was cut from the movie which explained that if whoever took over the Flying Dutchman had a lover who remained true through the 10 years, the obligation to the sea and the escort of the dead would be broken, and he could return to land again. Therefore, when Elizabeth waited her 10 years faithfully, Will could come back and live with her again. It therefore doesn't cut them out of the storyline completely if the actors want to come back, but it DOES solve their storyline if they don't.

I liked the end clip, because it showed that Elizabeth and Will got to live happily ever after with one another. Plus, Will got SUPER hot this movie.

I am waiting anxiously to go home Thursday night, and miss Sean so much it's driving me round the twist (great Oz expression).

As I said....

Yeah, I haven't blogged in awhile. But a shout out to Linz who's rejoined the blogosphere and even posted on my blog!

I didn't post while on vacation in Winnipeg, because I was just spending as much as possible with Sean. We spent our time hanging out together, watching some movies and painting. We also planned out some stuff, which included:

-Going to the Manitoba Museum and eating some street dogs
-Sushi at Meiji
-Going to Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End
-Going to the Assiniboine Park Zoo
-Walking around Polo Park
-Eating dinner with his family

After getting back to work, Leye and I were alone (everyone else was on their holidays) and spent our time scanning. We had some nice days as the rest of the crew came back, and got to do some more good field work, but then two things got in our way. The first was weather, in which Red Lake once again bowed to the Weather Network's Summer Outlook Forecast and became incredibly rainy. The other is that I developed some strange chest infection, which kept me from scanning and bush work. However, the drill has started up again, so now I'm assisting Nesha in logging core.

I've been knitting, my first Sockapalooza 4 sock is done apart from grafting, and I'm up to the heel flap on the second. I also knitted a Gryffindor bookscarf for myself, which I can't put fringe on until I get home to a crochet hook. I've realised that the bookscarf is not really particularly useful for me, as I never put down a new Harry Potter book until I'm finished reading. Oh well, it's fun anyway :)

My next break starts Thursday evening, and I won't be posting much during that time off either. The week involves a trip to Dryden to visit and renew my license and get a bite splint made, picking up HP7, going to OOTP, and hopefully confirming a wedding location. Wish me luck!