Because I am serious about the postaday challenge….

January 11, 2011June 21, 2014 Jen2 Comments

Today is the kind of day that makes posting every single day difficult. I’m tired because I stayed up too late and got up too early (“Honestly, E5, it’s still dark outside because it’s not morning yet.”). I woke up with a pain in my Trapezius muscle; I guess I slept on it wrong. I didn’t do much of anything interesting today, except get ready for tomorrow’s impeding WHITE DEATH to fall from the sky. I haven’t knitted for a couple of days so there isn’t even any new knitting to share.

We did venture out to Wal-Mart today, in search of snow tubes for sledding, only to be thwarted once again by the Just-In-Time inventory strategy. JIT inventory management basically means that instead of storing products in a warehouse in the back, they are shipped from the vendor directly to the store so that they arrive “just in time” to be purchased. It’s why you see school supplies on the shelves starting in July but there is nary a beach towel or umbrella to be seen for miles. And, in this case, it’s the reason why there are no snow tubes in Wal-Mart (or any other store in town) the day before the HUGE BLIZZARD OF DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM lands on us.

Tomorrow will be a day of knitting. And cookie baking. And probably pictures of snow. Stay tuned.

PS: I know I said I wasn’t going to be Twittering any more, but I just couldn’t stay away. If you’re interested, I’m @kniterrupted.

Snowzilla!

January 8, 2011January 23, 2011 Jen12 Comments

Yesterday was fun. Fun in the sense that we were lucky enough not to have to go anywhere and could stay in and watch the snow come down from the safety and warmth of our own home. And snow it did! The original forecast had called for 4 or 5 inches and the snow started coming down around noon.

But by 2 o’clock, there were already about 4 inches out there.

And it just kept coming:

and coming.

Until, by sunset, we’d been blanketed by about nine soft and fluffy inches of snow:

Lovely! (I can say that because I wasn’t stuck on the highway where drivers were actually leaving their cars to walk home. As I said, we were lucky.)

What’s the weather like where you are? Any Aussies among my readership? I’d love to see a picture of summer time! ;-)

life

Blaargh. Rough Morning.

January 4, 2011January 4, 2011 Jen4 Comments

The Mister and I stayed up entirely too late last night playing Borderlands (a really fun video game!) together. But video games, by their nature, aren’t meditative in the way of knitting and are instead quite stimulating (to say the least) so I had rather a difficult time falling asleep last night. I also think my brain spent much of the night killing mutant bandits instead of restoring itself for the day to come. In the future, I must remember that my brain is no longer the springy, resilient brain of a 19-year-old, but rather a nearly 40-year-old brain that more resembles a bowl of warm jello.

*poke*

life

I Blinked!

November 29, 2010 Jen1 Comment

And suddenly the month of November has flown by. What have I been up to?

Well, It was my little orchestra’s fall concert on the 21st, and so there were rehearsals and more rehearsals followed by a lovely holiday concert last Sunday! I wore a dress! Sadly I forgot to bring my camera, so there is no photographic evidence. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

I made a Special Olympics scarf! I haven’t worked with Red Heart Super Saver in a while but to be perfectly honest, it wasn’t the end of the world. I would knit with it again. If I had to.

Then it was thanksgiving! (Happy belated Thanksgiving!) Our little Thanksgiving dinner was wonderful. I made a delicious boneless (yes, really!) turkey with all the trimmings and my guys and I shared a delightful, delicious dinner with my Totally Awesome Sister.

We put up the tree.

And today I finished reading The Towers of Midnight. What a great book! I’m so glad that Brandon Sanderson took on the mantle of finishing Robert Jordan’s epicly epic tale. As I neared the end of this book, I could feel the excitement rising within me, but also I was feeling kind of sad because I know the end is coming. If you haven’t read the Wheel of Time series yet, now’s a good time to start. The final book is due out in March of 2012.

Now, here are, staring down the business end of another holiday season. Only 26 shopping days left!

I’m kind of sad that I wasn’t able to cross the NaNoWriMo finish line this year, but my arm is certainly feeling better after the long rest. And, I’ve been mulling over some ideas for next year. I might even make another attempt during another month. January? Could be!

There has been knitting, but not much. Certainly not enough of which to have a photo.

How was your November? How did you keep busy?

life

A Murder of Crows

November 4, 2010 Jen4 Comments

Every fall, crows from all of the city gather near my house to roost for the night. This is what it looks and sounds like.

Knitting · life · nanowrimo · PSA · random

totally random sunday

October 10, 2010 Jen5 Comments

1. I spent Friday night in the ER, thanks to a Starbuck’s barista playing fast and loose with the procedures that keep cow’s milk and soy milk separate. Note to all Starbucks baristas: soy milk and cow’s milk are not interchangeable! And yes, I really can tell the difference.

2. 11 years ago yesterday, my husband and I were married in a small private ceremony at Niagara Falls in Ontario, Canada.

Eleven years and I love him more now than I did the day we were married. <3

3. I finished one pair of Knucks and cast on another the very next day:

[ravelry]

People, if you haven’t made these yet, don’t let the finishing work put you off! It’s really not that bad. So go. Go now and make some Knucks!

4. Today is 10-10-10. Just sayin’.

5. Last night as I fell asleep, I was trying to come up with an idea for my NaNoWriMo novel this year. I woke up this morning with a great idea involving a bus, temporal displacement, and a sleepy mountain town in Colorado. Now to come up with a large cast of characters.

life

What a week!

September 25, 2010 Jen1 Comment

We’ve just returned from Martha’s Vineyard, exhausted and with a suitcase full of dirty laundry and sand. Also spinning fiber. Did you know there’s an alpaca farm there? I took pictures of course, but will have to post them later. Watch this space!

life

Creating My Own Content

September 13, 2010 Jen2 Comments

I read a great post a couple of weeks ago over on The Life of Leo (h/t: Felicia Day). Musing on his frustrations with Google Buzz, Leo realized that in sharing and participating on social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook and the like, he was essentially creating content for websites which he didn’t actually own. It got me thinking about how Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr have becoming a major distraction for me while my two blogs have languished. It’s not just my blogs, either. I admit to letting more than a little of my real life houseworky things slide in favor of checking Facebook and reading my Twitter and Tumbler feeds. I realized, like Leo, that rather than enriching my life, social networking sites have actually detracted from it. Don’t get me wrong, I think that for many people, this isn’t necessarily the case at all, but for me and my situation, I’m simply unable to manage it all. Life is too short to feel overwhelmed by the internet. Never mind that the content I create for those sites does not actually belong to me.

So to that end, I’m done, and I’m taking back control of how I spend my time. I will no longer be posting to Twitter or Tumbler , and I am going to start limiting the amount of time I spend on Facebook as well and any links or random thoughts I have to share, I’m just going to post here. So there.

cute kids · life

Deep Thoughts

August 6, 2010June 21, 2014 Jen5 Comments

I had the following thoughtful conversation with my 4-year-old when we got home from running errands today:

Him: Mommy, do dogs get old and die?
Me: Yes.
Him: Do people get old and die?
Me: Yes.
Him: People use food to grow up, so I don’t want to eat food and grow old and die.
Me: *sigh* E4, you need to eat food to live. Do you want to live?
Him: Yes.
Me: Then you need to eat food.
Him: Do mommies get old and die?
Me: Yes, but I’m not going to get old and die for a long long long long time.
Him: Do kids get new mommies when their mommies die?
Me: No, honey. You only get one mommy.
Him: But what would happen to me?
Me: Oh honey. If I died, daddy would take care of you. And aunt Rachel, and Grandma Uma, and Bumpa, and Grandma Suzanne and PopPop Justin. Lots and lots of people love you as much as mommy and daddy love you, so I don’t want you to worry about that, okay?
Him: Okay.
Me: Now, do you want to eat something?
Him: Okay.

It’s hard being a parent sometimes.

Knitting · life · Spinning · Tour de Fleece · yarn

Catching you up

July 31, 2010 Jen5 Comments

Sometimes you go so long without making a blog post that re-entry is awkward and difficult without an “I’m sorry I haven’t blogged” sort of statement. Generally I try to avoid those because, hey, blogging is a hobby and sometimes I have time for it, and sometimes I don’t. Suffice it to say that not only was July a very busy month, but I have also spread myself rather thin in the social media sphere. I have two blogs, a ravelry, a tumblr, a twitter, and a Facebook and trying to figure out how to integrate them all (or even in part) has been tricky. I mean, I don’t want the tumblr (or the Ravelry) to replace blogging and I don’t want the twitter to replace Facebook. I want them all to sort of support each other. But I haven’t quite managed to solve that puzzle yet. [sigh]

So, what have I been up to, besides not blogging, raveling, tumblring, twittering on occasion, and Facebooking? My last couple of weeks, let me show you them.

1. The Tour de Fleece got finished: