yikes!

Holiday stuff

I was a bad blogger last week. Tis the season, I guess. I spent most of my week nights finishing up my Christmas shopping. I use the word "finishing" rather loosely because I still have several gifts to buy. I did take care of my sister and her husband and they are always the most difficult, so I feel great about that. We also had several rehearsals for the Christmas musical at church, which took up a lot of time.

Knitting

I finally finished the washcloth gifts for my aunts. I gave them out on Saturday at our extended family Christmas celebration, and they were quite a hit! The aunts loved them. I'll post some pictures a little later. I did take some, but I can't get to them right now. One aunt even gave me a bunch of yarn she had left over from various projects when she found out I had learned to knit. She had a lot of Christmas yarn left over from a blanket she crocheted, not enough for another blanket, but plenty for new Christmas stockings for each of the kids, for my sister, and my parents! There may be enough for me to make one for myself as well, but they come first. I have no idea how to make stockings, but I'm sure I can find a pattern on Ravelry!

Writing

I did do some writing during the week but I haven't checked the wordcount, so I can't update the meter. I'll try to do that tonight after the writing session. Now that the gifts are wrapped and the washcloths are finished, I can do some serious work on Draha.

Work

I have an interview this afternoon. This one is very important to me. It's the job I've wanted since I started school. Actually, this job is the reason I decided to study public relations in the first place. Cross your fingers for me!

stripey washcloth

Knitting

Another Christmas gift finished! Only two more to go! I'm pretty happy about the way these are turning out, and how quickly I have been able to complete the last two or three. My knitting is getting faster, no doubt about it. I'm loving the diagonal pattern. It's so easy and is great practice for increasing and decreasing. I should finish the one I started tonight fairly quickly tomorrow and will cast on the last one as soon as I'm finished with it. The last one is going to be fun, a combination of colors that I have left in a mitered square-type pattern.

Writing
Tried writing a short story tonight, but didn't finish. I got to a certain point and then just stopped, mostly because I had no idea where to go from there. I'm going back to it tomorrow to see what I can do with it. I also did some more work on Draha in Freemind, working on a few key points that I really need to work out before going much further in the story. I really want to avoid writing myself into a corner! More work on this tomorrow too.

migraines suck

The migraine started Friday afternoon and didn't end until this morning. I've never had one that long before. It was pretty awful. I took the migraine medicine yesterday and it helped alittle, but didn't get rid of it completely. So needless to say, no knitting or writing done yesterday. I slept a lot of the time and when I wasn't sleeping, I was lying in a dark room. Luckily, it's over today and I can go about business as usual. That means laundry, which is hardly exciting, but something I must do!

Interesting times

I'm trying a new thing. If you read this blog regularly, let me know what you think about this format I'm thinking of adopting. To help readers locate subjects they most want to read about, I'm going to use subtitles in the posts.

Knitting

First of all, I want to talk about how cool Ravelry is! If you're not a member and you knit, crochet, spin, or just like to play with yarn, you should absolutely join the waiting list NOW! Beware, though... you will spend a lot of time on Ravelry if you're not careful. Trust me on that! I joined in October and I'm so glad I did. I've learned so much about knitting and have tried things I never would have tried without the pattern database and the amazing people on the site who are more than willing to answer any questions. In fact, here's a little taste of a project I'm designing... yes, I said designing! Other knitting updates include my next two Christmas washcloths. Only three more to go! I bought some cute little bottles of bath and shower gel. I want to wrap the washcloths around the bottles and tie them with a ribbon. I think it'll make a cute gift.

Work

We're having a Christmas party at work tomorrow. The party is always really nice, so I'm looking forward to it. I'm taking a staff photo.. it's going to be a lot like herding cats trying to get everyone together and smiling at the same time. It'll be interesting anyway. Things have calmed down somewhat at work lately. I finished the first draft on a new grant today and worked on some things related to a promotion we are having with a local restaurant and our major fundraiser, which is coming up in May. I start work on the new newsletter next week, which is great because I'm redesigning it... again! In other, work-related news (sort of) I came home to a message on my answering machine. I think it's an interview. I sent my resume to this place last week, so that's pretty fast. This is a promising prospect, and something I'd really love to do, so hopefully it'll work out!

Writing

I worked on Draha a bit tonight. I didn't add anything to the words, but I did go back and clean some things up a little and I added some items to my Freemind outline. I'm thinking about working on some short stories, maybe one a month starting in January. I want to make an effort not just to write the big pieces, but to also work on some smaller pieces while working on the others. I tend to stay sharp when I have a lot of irons in the fire.

Knitting with Emerson

I've had a couple of questions about my "I knit with Pushing Daisies" button and wanted to be sure I said one thing. Anyone is welcome to save this button and use it on their blog! I made the button after being inspired by another Pushing Daisies button on Ravelry, and I'm thrilled that people might want to use it on their blogs too! So please, feel free to save this button and use it on your own blogs, and please, let me know if you did so I can visit you! On that note, if you have a knitblog and you happen to visit here, let me know because I want to visit more knitblogs.

eh.

Nothing much to say, other than the fact that it's getting cold... finally! Today it was in the fifties and they say tonight we should go below freezing. I don't have much hope for some of my flowers, but it's winter and they are supposed to die at some point during the winter, so I guess it's okay! I did bring some of them in. I have several cuttings from a Christmas cactus that my grandmother had on her screened porch (which she really used more like a greenhouse than a porch) that mean a lot to me, so they are inside tonight.

I got some news today that a neighbor's house was robbed this past weekend. That freaks me out A LOT. I'm so used to living in an area where you really don't have to lock your doors (even though I actually do keep my doors locked at all time) and to know that someone actually broke into a house in my quiet little neighborhood really upsets me. I have to wonder where someone's head is when the break into someone else's home and steal things. I wouldn't dream of taking something that belongs to another person, so what makes them think they can? It's just horrible. Okay, climbing down off my soapbox now. Sorry about that!

Writing news... I wrote some more on Draha today. I still have to finish the story before I go back and add lots and lots of detail to it. Oh, and dialogue. I didn't really put much of that into the story either, because I knew I would be going back. I wanted to know the story and the characters before I put a lot of dialogue into it. I've never done it that way before, so we'll see what happens.

Knitting news... I'm almost finished with dishcloth #3 out of 6. I'll be honest, I'm loving the dishcloths, they are a lot of fun, but I'll be glad when they are finished so I can get back to Noah's blanket! Also, I'm designing a blanket based on a fairly common stitch pattern I found. I think it's going to be very cool. I told myself I couldn't start on it until after I finish the Christmas gifts, though!

Trip to Fort Morgan