It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Exhibit A: balaclavas. We had to shovel the driveway and sidewalk Sunday. Eric went first, and he has this balaclava from a couple of Christmases ago, and since it was cold and windy I suggested he try it. He came in after shoveling the entire driveway (silly, considerate boy; the plan was for us to share equally) and said it had been too much. My idea of too much warmth differs from his, though, so I put it on with my coat and fur-lined boots (which Eric had borrowed because he tried them and commented they were very soft and nice, but balked at wearing until I pointed out it would be dark and no one would see him in women's boots--he doesn't have any of his own). It was warm and soft and I loved it. Until I reached the sidewalk and bent over to start shoveling. It twisted, it moved, I smeared my glasses when I went to shove it into place and it covered one of my eyes so that I had no depth perception for part of my shoveling. For a walk, though, or something where I would remain upright, I still think they're a lovely thing.

Exhibit B: meatloaf made from Morningstar Farms "meat" crumbles. I used to love meatloaf, and Eric makes what smells and is reported as a pretty darn good one. One day, we bought these crumbles to make into a meatloaf. Sunday we actually did it. The crumbles, which are TVP, looked kind of precooked and didn't stick together really well, but we figured we'd try anyway. It came out still crumbly and smelling oddly of rice. The taste was somewhere between ground beef (as I remember it, anyway) and, indeed, rice, but the texture was just about right for meatloaf. (Eric tried a tiny, tiny bite, and confirmed this.) And it worked just fine as a ketchup delivery system. But then...the texture started to get to me, and the "I'm eating meat" experience started to bother me. The texture of meat is why I gave it up in the first place, and even with the ketchup I couldn't get through more than half a slice of this. I'm glad we tried it, though; now I know that (a) this idea doesn't work, at least for me, and (b) I'm not really a vegetarian just for spite.

Truncation

So I've continued to work on PV at work, in between the few tasks I've been given and meetings I've attended. (And one training meeting in which I truly understood the difference between someone who wants to teach and someone who wants to fulfill training requirements.) I would be almost done, except that I have determined that the end of PV makes very little sense and I don't even want to read it, much less keep it. So I have chopped off the last twenty-five thousand words and placed them in my Cut Scenes file (which, throughout the revisions, has now grown to larger than the current manuscript--it's XXXX and PV draft 3.5 is at 89,000) and I will be rewriting the entire end. I'm all aghast at doing this, not because I think it's a bad idea but because it's a lot of rewriting and I'm used to that 'The End' on the end of this manuscript. (Though in the plan for the new version of the end there's no need for Tyler, which means I may have to excise him completely, which would break my heart.) But maybe it'll be good for me. At the least, it gives me something to fill up my time at work. My boss and his boss said that they don't expect me to be working at my job with full capacity and understanding before the six-month mark, and I've just passed three, so I will have the time to fill.

Conservation of...something.

I got something in the mail from my cousin, a picture of her and her husband and her baby, and a little memorial card. I utterly forgot to get her a card or something this weekend. I was at ConFusion, yes, but still. The memorial is tomorrow. It would have been good to get it there by then, so that she could start trying to put it behind her. But I have to do something.

And then I got an e-mail: Phoebe is pregnant! She had always spoken of it as something that might or might not happen, but she sounds really excited about it, and I'm happy for them. Also thinking of the baby stuff I can make. Like I needed more. Though keeping Eric and me out of Babies 'R' Us would probably be a wise idea now. There was this adorable little girl at the con, dressed all in pink with little fairy wings, and we both fell in love with here. It's four months and five days until the wedding. We're designating this weekend as a wedding planning weekend because we still have lots to sort out, but that's not why we're counting down.

I finished the hat for Eric. No picture yet, maybe later. First we have to go to the grocery store and get cards and Coke and fruit, and finally put our Christmas tree out (don't ask), and season the new Dutch oven that we've had for over a week and clean the house and so on. And I have to work on this baby quilt for my future niece/nephew so that I can get going on the next thing.

Confusion

I’m currently at work, awaiting my coworker's verdict on something I did for her. I hear her calculator going, but I don't know if she's looking at my stuff now or not. I've been occupied with it for hours, which is kind of nice. I've been <cough> working on PV all week at work. It's been very nice except for the guilt of devoting my work hours to something I'm not getting paid for. (But there really hasn’t been much for me to do. Some, now that my boss is out of town for the week and the others in the department are having to cover for him, but not much.)

Oh, and my cousin is fine. She and her husband sent a slightly gruesome picture of their son out with his vital statistics (um, I guess not 'vital' in this case…) and such. I'm glad they're okay but, frankly, horrified they sent the picture.

It also occurred to me later that they, or someone, had dressed him. It's not as if he was cold. I also have a slightly gruesome mind.

Anyway. We're off for ConFusion in a few hours, where I shall knit Eric's hat. (I swatched it yesterday and found out what people mean when they talk about silk having a "crunchy" hand.) Also talk to people, attend panels, buy stuff, eat free food, admire/be horrified by costumes, feel shy, knit with others, and the like. For some reason I'm looking forward to it a lot more this year than I have in previous years. I hope I still feel this way come Sunday afternoon.

Regret and delay

My cousin's baby died. She's at the hospital now, where they're trying to induce labor. I can't imagine what it must feel like. Now I'm kind of glad I decided not to make the baby a blanket--I was going to because if he lived through delivery he wouldn't have had any baby things because my cousin cancelled the baby shower when we heard about the trisomy 18, but I put it off because she still has...had...a month to go and things were looking uncertain. Now they're certain. (In "Charlie's Angels" the bad guy says at one point, "They say that in death, all life's questions are answered," and I always say to him, "Yeah, with 'no.'" Does anyone else talk to characters in movies like that?) I wish I were closer to her so that I would feel comfortable calling to say how sorry I am. I also wish I weren't so...I don't know. Practical? Cold-hearted? Why do I care about whether I started to make a blanket? This is the second baby she's lost.

In happier news (and really, there isn't much that isn't going to be happier), we're making peach ice cream again. At the grocery store this weekend they were selling peaches and nectarines and watermelons and cherries, and we were confused but we bought them all except the watermelon. Yesterday we froze the peaches, today I macerated them, and tomorrow we'll mix the batter and freeze it. And we'll play World of Warcraft, because the expansion (Burning Crusade) came out today. I logged on early to see what it was about, then did a few other things, and when I came back there was an hour's wait to get into the game server. If you're having problems with your cable, that's why.

Charity

We got haircuts Saturday, Eric and I--he got a real cut, I got about three inches whacked off the ends of my hair to get rid of the split ends. I'd forgotten that while I don't like going to the hairdresser, I like having a new haircut, and I'm still pleased with even the simple change. Anyway, during my haircut/whack my phone rang, and since my hairdresser was saying "Are you so excited about your wedding?? Is this the longest your hair has ever been??" I merely turned the sound off. Later, in the bookstore (only $40 damage, but that was after a buy-3-get-1-free deal, plus $27 in rewards points, plus 20% off) I tried to listen to it, but for some reason I can't get signal in the Toledo Borders. It works right outside their doors, it works elsewhere in the mall, but not in that store.

I listened to it last night. "This is an important message," it said. "This is your credit card company. We need to check some recent activity on your account. Please call back at _____." So I did. The guy I spoke to asked me for my account number and password, and then described a pharmacy transaction and then an online transaction, a donation to the Red Cross. "And the card is in your possession?" he said. I said yes. "All right, thank you very much. The Red Cross transaction was the one we wanted to check. Have a nice night."

I hung up thoughtfully and told Eric what he'd said. He asked a couple of suspicious questions, such as, "Did you have to go through a menu to talk to a person?" (I hadn't), and I turned over my card and noted that the customer service number there was not the same one that I had just called. "Call the number on the card," Eric said. "I think you just got scammed."

So I did. I went through the menu and gave my account number and password to another guy, and told him why I was calling, and he looked up my account and said, "Yup, that was us." Then he tried to sell me a line of credit, so I know that call was legitimate.

So it wasn't a scam and it's nice that my credit card company is checking on me. But I'm left a little unsettled by the fact that the transaction that triggered the check, the one that didn't fit my pattern, was my Red Cross donation. I suppose this is the case for a lot of people, but still, apparently I need to think a little more about my charity giving.

Gas station memories

Gas was $1.96 on my way home today. I never thought I'd see it below $2.00 again. And yes, I remember that it wasn't very long ago at all that I was complaining that I had finally done the awful and paid $2.05 for gas, to get to Columbus to catch a plane, and I have a hazy memory of the exact gas station I did this at. Apparently it was a landmark memory. I wonder if I'll remember today. Since I didn't stop for gas (being full of $2.09, I think), probably not.

Violets in the snow

After a year of green and slowly dying leaves, my African violet has flowered again.

The pictures

My beloved handwarmers:


My beloved's hat yarn:


When I finished that one skein I told him, "I made you yarn!" and then, "Well, not really. I guess I made me yarn. Which I'll use to make you a hat. You don't really want yarn." The color isn't true...the earlier pictures were more accurate. It's lovely and soft and that skein is about 40 yards, which means about 120 total, and since it's fatter and bouncier than the sample I think that will be enough for a hat, even for Eric's enormous head. (He needs volume to store all that brain. And possibly extra spoons.)

I am creating a new blog for my crafts. I haven't decided for sure on a title yet (I'm not good with titles...couldn't come up with a great one for my latest quilt project, either, but Baby's First Castle will do), but I think I'd like to concentrate my efforts there. Oh great, even less content here. I'm not sure if posting less is a natural side effect of...something...or if it's something I should combat. We'll see.

Some answers

No M for the wedding. Boo. I guess this makes deciding on apparel easier; now I can just tell Bev "Get a nice dress in this color" and take Michelle shopping once she's gotten it. This week we need to e-mail photographers and get vest sizes and research online ordainment. I'm trying not to overload on stuff-we-need-to-do; I started crying in the shower last night worrying about stuff. And I'm not even all that stressed about it. It's That Time of Month, I suppose. Also it's the day before my three-month evaluation, the one that determines whether I get medical insurance or an unemployment check, and while I don't think it's my fault I've been feeling both useless and bored at work I worry that feeling such means I am such, and then why would they keep me? It's definitely time for some chocolate and a good book.

Oh, yeah. And I discovered why we seemed to be running out of spoons so fast. I noticed three on Eric's desk yesterday and said, "Would you take those spoons downstairs?" He started to gather them up to comply; then he found the handle of another peeking from under the voluminous piles on his desk and found, in the end, seven more of them. Ten spoons. He cleaned his desk last night. Apparently I'm going to have to enforce this ritual more often than twice a year.

The nonexistent captions

I keep meaning to take pictures so I can put them up here. But I don't do it. So I'll do it later and expound now.

The text to go with the nonexistent pictures: I feel like it's all spinning, all the time sometimes. And I don't even have a wheel yet. Here are my hand-spun, hand-dyed, hand-knit handwarmers, which I love beyond imagining. Don't even start with me about the colors.

And here's the first of the yarn for Eric's hat. I also love this yarn beyond imagining. (Wait until I have kids, the superlatives will get worse.) It's super-soft and fluffy and much more even than I had been afraid of. I also learned things on this yarn, most importantly, I think, how to find out what a balanced yarn is supposed to look like. I even wrote a pseudo-article on it, which I may look at again in a few months and clean up and consider sending somewhere.

Turns out socializing is good for you: I went to a Metroparks History Department volunteers meeting yesterday, to talk with the volunteer coordinator and see if it was something I wanted to help out with. Turns out it is, very much. They depict the mill and the canal they have as they were run in the 1850s, so they teach the volunteers about household chores and tinsmithing and blacksmithing and cooking and doing the laundry with the wringer, and have them act it out during the summer and through the fall. (The regular staff does the actual working of the mill and the lathes.) They were much excited to find out that I already knit and sew and spin. And I actually got to try a spinning wheel for the first time, and confirmed my suspicion that I need a castle (upright, non-handed) wheel, because the Saxony (traditional, Sleeping Beauty type) ones are right-handed and I do, indeed, spin left-handed.

On New Year's resolutions: I've gotten the baby quilt designed and most of the template pieces cut out, I've done some writing, I've sent Eric out gaming so that I could have an evening to myself. I'm still worried about all the things that need doing, but I'm working on lessening that (both the worry and the number of things). Next I need to sign up for time off for my wedding shower in April and my wedding in May, and find out how to get someone ordained.

To ring in the new

Christmas went well. I got some good things (including The Bread Bible and a great stone mortar and pestle--I got two, actually, so I traded the steel one in for a kitchen scale, which is also great), and so did Eric, and everyone seemed to like the presents we got them. Mom and Dad appreciated the miniature tree and stockings I sent them, as they never got their boxes of Christmas decorations from the old house, and Bev was delighted with the candles we left for them. Dinner was good--though I learned that preshredded cheese does not work for my mom's potato-cheese casserole. (At what point does it become mine?) We visited people and played games and had a good time.

The week between then and now was also good; it was very quiet at work, and I regained my health and munched my way through most of the popcorn tin. (Ahem. But I love this stuff at Christmas, and I only get it at Christmas.) I spent some time at work writing my 2006 Annual Review, which was longer than I expected, and my goals for 2007. It's been an interesting year, and I have some interesting goals.

In 2006, I started out unemployed. In February I got engaged. In April I went to Korea to visit my family and my mother's homeland for the first time ever. In May I got a job that I turned out to despise. In June I bought a house. In August Eric started school for his education degree. In September I quit the old job and got a new one. In November we heard that my cousin's baby has trisomy 18. That's not much of a way to end the year, but they're doing as well as they can, and otherwise things look good for both our families.

As for goals, here are some of my major ones:

1. Take more time to do the things I want and need to do--writing, crafts, cleaning--rather than give way to shared time. In this past year I've spent a lot of time doing what Eric wanted, or things that we could both do, rather than doing things on my own. I don't think that was wrong, necessarily, but I've been dissatisfied with it, and I think the only way to be less dissatisfied is to give up some of my shared time (which I do love) and take back some of my individual time.

2. Related, I want to be less dissatisfied with myself in general. I spend a lot of time being critical of myself, listing all the things i haven't done, need to do, have failed to do in the past. To-do lists are a good thing, but only so far.

3. Get through the wedding.

4. Write fiction. My two projects that I haven't finished (and want to work on), and just generally get back into the habit of it. I think I'm at a place, mentally and physically, where I can do that now.

5. Write nonfiction. There are some things I'm interested in doing, and I want to pursue this, at least a little bit.

6. Continue spinning. I'm really enjoying this. I've already told Eric he's getting me a spinning wheel for my birthday. (This way he gets me something I really want and he doesn't have to worry about picking it out. Also I'm going to pay for most or all of it.)

7. Continue crafting. I have baby quilts and curtains and socks to make--though nothing urgently, which is a luxury and one I'm enjoying right now. But I like being both creative and productive, and there are some things I want to practice and accomplish.

8. Continue yoga and get into some other regular exercise. I turned out to like yoga a lot more than I thought I would (because of its lack of aerobic effort). I got a yoga mat for Christmas, and that would also be excellent for pilates, which I liked and got out of the habit of in the past several months--see #1.

I think that's doable. I have an "Annual Review 2006" file (also others, under various names, going back several years). I did okay with last year's goals, but that's partly because I didn't set myself many because (a) I was feeling depressed about life and (b) I never finished writing the review. So 2007 has higher standards set for it. I think I can meet them.

And now, to eat French toast and do dishes and fold laundry and get ready for a small but pleasant New Year's party, with food and friends and games and sparkling cider. Welcome, 2007.

Merry Christmas.

The cookies are baked and decorated (if somewhat sloppily, owing to a bad roll of tape rendering my clever parchment-paper decorating tubes useless). The potato-cheese casserole is prepared and in the oven. (It tastes better the next day.) The presents are wrapped, even Eric's to me, and Brenda's house has been decorated and her tree lavishly ornamented. The cold has been reduced to the cough (annoying but endurable) and a little sinus pressure. I think it's gonna be a good Christmas here; I hope it's the same wherever you are.

Hack cough cough hack wheeze gasp cough

I may hate a cough more than any other cold symptom. Especially a dry one like this. I am not confident I'll be able to sleep in more than one-hour segments tonight. The various medicines I'm taking don't seem to help. Yuck yuck yuck.

Tomorrow morning we're going to the bank. Then grocery shopping (I figure at this point the sooner we do it, the better), then possibly visiting with the mothers to cheer them up regarding what may be an extremely suboptimal Christmas schedule. All the while chugging tea.

Solutions

This cold began weirdly. First with a sore throat, which isn't all that weird. Then, an absolute lack of stuffy or runny nose (which is) and instead an inability to stand up without dizziness and nausea. Then more sore throat and cough. Now it's finally coming into the nose. I have found that drinking hot tea keeps my throat soothed and the cough at bay--but I have to keep drinking it. I am extremely hydrated right now.

The yoga yarn, on the spindle, was ridiculous. When I get home (I’m at work, with an ever-shrinking amount to do) I’ll post a picture. It was around two ounces, 160 yards, which is not in the least an unreasonable amount of yarn. But this was not what a spindle is supposed to look like with yarn on it. There's a hook somewhere at the top, but I couldn’t see it because it was blocked by the excess of yarn. Sometime in 2007, I am getting a spinning wheel. I've been researching them the past few days and I'm thinking a Lendrum, because it's versatile, left-hander-friendly, well-made, pretty, and relatively cheap (for a spinning wheel). That's assuming I buy new. But I'm absolutely not buying anything fiber-related until February, and probably not getting the wheel until my birthday (in April), so I can also look around for used. The yoga instructor (who adored the yarn) promised to keep an ear out for me. Next is Eric's hat yarn, and then some gift yarn while I experiment with different techniques. I think E would like some, and the old needlework group (they still meet, they told me at Marie's shower, though they often play cards rather than working on their projects) would appreciate some, I think--the thought, if nothing else.

ETA:

There's more blue and green underneath, you just can't tell.

Our last Christmas shopping occurred Wednesday. Yay! It was pretty painless. We went shopping last Sunday, in a moderately bad press of people at the mall, and even though I was sicker, Eric got tired of shopping first. When I said, back in July, that I wanted to work on Christmas shopping in September he scoffed. He expressed horror. He expressed disdain. Sunday I suggested working on Christmas shopping in September next year and he promptly agreed. (We did actually start Christmas shopping in September, at the rock and gem show; we just didn't follow up and finish it.)

When we were out, we discovered that those Visa/Mastercard/AMEX gift cards that work just like cash? They require a $4-$6 activation fee. We were going to send one to Eric's sort-of-sister in Las Vegas (because she just had a baby and what they need now is really money), but we've now decided that we'll either get them a Target gift certificate or just giftwrap some cash.

Last night was cookie making with Michelle. Aside from intervals of impassioned coughing, it went pretty well, though Michelle definitely still needs improvement in the paying-attention-to-the-recipe department. Bev called while we were on the third dough, a gingerbread (she’s going to let me borrow her veil, and also she has donated her old car, which she bought from me exactly four years ago yesterday, to ALA because she has a new car), and Michelle was content to proceed by herself, with the occasional whispered “Yes” or “No” from me when she asked whether she should use the low mixer setting or had she mixed it enough. Once I hung up she announced she was done. I looked at the scrawny, soggy dough and decided to do an audit. She had added only one quarter of the required one and three-quarters cups of flour, half the molasses, and no sugar at all. We fixed that and watched “Muppet Treasure Island,” and then the mothers took her home (with a bike, but she won’t know that until Christmas) and I wrapped presents and went to sleep. I woke up twice, coughing, just like the night before, but at different intervals. My coworker today (one with whom Eric and I are going to double-date, in order to see whether we can reduce a waiter/waitress to tears through sheer pickiness) said I sound better than I did yesterday. This weekend should be a pretty lazy one, so maybe I’ll actually be feeling better by Christmas. I’d take that as a present. It hasn’t been a very festive Christmas season, but I’d settle for health at the end of it.

I hate being sick.

I have stuff to say, but no energy to say it. I've got Eric's cold, complete with relapse and lingering cough. Yuck. I hope to be well by Christmas. The yoga yarn was a success; I didn't get a picture of it in the skein but you should see it on the spindle. When I'm better. Or at least less tired.

The best thing I learned today

Saying "Customer Service Representative" as soon as the smarmy automated guy in the Toledo Edison automatic telephone menu starts talking about the main menu will get him to say "I'll transfer you to someone who can help you" immediately.

Yoga yarn, part 2

This is the roving that I dyed last Monday:


And here's what half of it looks like today:


I had debated on whether to split the roving many times, to make stripes, or just the once, to get a two-ply yarn that would go continuously from yellow to green to blue. But I really wanted the one color change, so I split it just the once. Then I realized I only had about two ounces and that might not be enough to make anything, and should I Navajo-ply each half separately to make into two matching yarns, because then Katie could finish the ends of something or make matching wristbands or something? I finished spinning this half of it yesterday (while watching more Alton Brown DVDs, an early Christmas present to Eric) and spooled it onto the back of my chair, which charmingly is just about a yard around, and found that this little skein contains about 200 yards. That's enough to do something with. I could still Navajo-ply it and its twin, which would give me two 70ish-yard skeins, but now that I know there's enough for a hat or a lacy scarf I'm happy to just make the one big skein. So I've got slightly over a week to spin the other half, ply and set.

In the meantime, I've been doing a little writing, plus decorating the house, doing housework, making earrings for Michelle from Santa (imitations of some earrings she saw at a craft show we went to Thursday that she couldn't have because she doesn't have pierced ears), and taking care of my poor sick fiance. He's feeling marginally better, but I'm starting to seriously consider Dad's recommended remedy of honey, lemon, and whiskey.

Yoga creativity

I had yoga tonight. It's something that the mothers and their friend and I have been doing, every other week (except two weeks ago), since September, and while I wouldn't have said I needed it--I'm pretty stretchy anyway, due to ballet then and pilates now (well, a much more recent then)--I've been enjoying it very much. The instructor, Katie, also knits, and she's working on her third book and looking for an agent. She always has a lot of energy and warmth, and I enjoy having her over. (We do this at my house; she used to have classes but stopped because the rent was too much. She says if she had my house she'd do classes out of the living room.) Today we talked about a sweater she designed herself, and how she hurt herself helping a friend, and in the actual class we did a bunch of stretching. And I felt like being creative. I told her this, and she nodded and said, "Isn't it great?" When they left I dyed some merino/tencel into a springy blue/green/yellow colorway to make her a Christmas present. I've got one spindle free, I can do it in two weeks. And I wrote about six hundred words on Shoelace--switching POVs helped a lot. And I made my poor sick stressed fiance laugh. Maybe there are more reasons than I thought for making time for exercise.

Craft babbling will now commence. With pretty pictures!

This is the merino-silk roving that I dyed with what Eric tells me is Prussian blue:

The plan is for me to spin it on my new spindle, which came today--finally, after three weeks; I wrote yesterday to ask what was taking so long and the spindle maker wrote back to say his wife's grandmother had died, he was sorry for the delay, and I felt lousy. But it's a lovely, lovely spindle, the Quantum Butterfly in padauk.

Here the roving is tied at the one-third and two-thirds marks, because I want to make a three-ply yarn and I don't spin evenly enough to trust a Navajo ply and I figure the way to waste the least will be to divide the roving into thirds while it's still relatively easy to handle, not when I've got six hundred yards of single. The card is my sample, and it confirms that I love this fiber, this color and this plying choice. It's probably going to come out to be about five stitches per inch, which is reasonable for a hat and doesn't tax my love for the recipient too severely.

I also finished those extremely cute baby booties for Marie's baby, but it's too late to go take a picture now. These booties are now going to be my stock baby shower gift, I think. Each one took about an hour to make and the set hardly dented the ball of yarn.

I hear rain outside and I hope that weather.com meant it about not getting down to freezing tonight. Tomorrow will be bad enough without icy roads. Saturday I plan to go to Jungle Jim's after the shower and spend a couple of hours there, then head back up for house maintenance and Christmas shopping and such. At work tomorrow I will be doing not much, as usual, but that might change next week. We'll see. And I might be watching someone perform a long test, though she hasn't seemed particularly welcoming--though not unwelcoming either--and I hate to push myself in like that; but I may as well try to earn my paycheck by being pushy as not.

Okay, that was a tangent I didn't mean to get on, and it's late. Sleep beckons and I answer.