Embrace the World

In case anyone was wondering, decaf coffee doesn't taste like regular coffee. At all. It actually tastes remarkably like dirt. And I don't make a habit of eating dirt, so...

(This is not decaf coffee. This is yummy-licious real coffee. With caffeine.)

On another, more relevant to the usual subject matter of this blog, note...

I have decided that gauge is my knitting downfall. I know that I've mentioned before that several other things were my knitting downfalls (lace, fair isle, craft store crappy yarn, the list goes on), but gauge really irks me.

Apparently I knit to tightly, as I have to go up several sizes of needles every time I make something. Or maybe too loosely... I can't tell. I have trouble visualizing things like that. Which is probably in some way contributing to the issues I'm having with physics class.

"Well, all of the math you just did would be right, except for you forgot to take into consideration that the elevator is going down, so that's a negative, so your answers wrong. Physics is more about conceptualizing than it is mathematics."

*Sob*

But I don't know how to conceptualize, Mr. Physics Teacher. It's not your fault, my head is just so never going to work that way. Which is probably why I'm destined to a life time of knitting other people's patterns, and never designing my own. Yet another knitting downfall.

To be fair, though, I never really wanted to design my own patters. I guess there's really no cause for complaint in that aspect.

It's all good, though. I'm fairly certain that Dream School doesn't even have physics. As long as I pass this year, I'm in the clear.

Oh... speaking of which...

I sent in my acceptance reply to Dream School, telling them that I'm coming!!!! Eeeeee!!!! A future in writing beyond this blog is in the cards for me! Eeeeee!!!!!!!

At some point in time there was a definitive point of this post. Now I can't remember for the life of me what it was. Hmm...

Maybe it was to see if I could set the record for number of ellipses used in one post...

...

...

I count 8, including the last two...

Oops, 9!

Song of the Day*

"And the shadow of the day will embrace the world in gray, and the sun will set for you." - Linkin Park, "Shadow of the Day"

*Song of the Day Disclaimer- I normally don't like Linkin Park at all. Like, at all. I listen to music primarily for the lyrics, with a few select exceptions. Linkin Park's lyrics contain a lot of f-words and really sad, angry, miserable language. Well, to be fair, sometimes I can't tell what they say over the screaming. But I heard this song, and the lyrics are actually kind of nice, even if they are repetitive. And Boyfriend is pleased because he thinks this means that I came over to his side of the Linkin Park Opinion Station. It doesn't. I still don't like them. Sorry Boyfriend!

I'll Show Them to You and You'll See Them Shine

Big happenings in Susan's world!

Well, kind of. The knitting part of it anyway.

First things first:

I finished Boyfriend's Dashings.

*Feel free to insert your applause here*

(I made him hold my book while I took the picture to give him something to do with his hands. I have to read it for a scholarship. And to answer your inevitable questions, yes it's big, yes the print's small, no it's not super interesting, yes I'm going to read it anyway. I read Gone with the Wind just for fun, and I think that might have been longer. If I read that for free, I think I can suck it up and read this for a chance at $10,000 for Dream School.)

They came out pretty good except for the part where I had some serious issues with the yarn (Bernat Cashmere Blends), reiterating my belief that I should spend more money at my LYS, less at Michael's.

Speaking of LYS's....

SUSAN'S FABULOUS LYS ADVENTURE (or local yarn store adventure, for my non-knitting audience, mainly BFF and Rossola).

Boyfriend offered to take me up to my LYS once I was done with his gloves so that I could buy yarn for my Holly sweater. Which is exciting in its own right, to have a boyfriend who volunteers to do that. And, also, it's exciting due to the fact that I get to spend some time in a converted barn filled with all sorts of yarn that I can't afford.

Here is the conversation with the yarn lady that ensued.

Yarn Lady (YL): Hello! How are you today?

Susan (S): I'm good, how are you?

YL: Good. Are you looking for anything in particular?

S: Well, I was hoping to find a cheaper alternative to cashmerino.

(Because YL carries cashmerino, which is what the pattern calls for, however it calls for $85 worth of it. Um... thanks anyway.)

YL: Well, let's look at some of the other aran weight yarns I have.

S: Super!

YL: I have this one over here. This is a really nice yarn, and it's $7 for twice as much yarn as the $8.50 ball of cashmerino.

S: Okay, but how much of that will I need?

(Because $7 sounds nice when you only need one, but...)

YL: You'll need 6 skeins.

(I turned to Boyfriend (B) and made a face as though YL had just kicked me in the stomach.)

S: That's $42!

YL: Yarn's expensive. This is a really nice yarn.

(Granted, I know that I haven't chosen an inexpensive hobby. But damned if I'm going to spend more on yarn to make my first sweater, that I'm more likely than not going to mess up somehow, than I do on a sweater, already made, from a store.)

S: But I only work two days a week blowing up balloons!

B: I'll pay for half of it.
S: No.

B: But I will.

S: No thank you. I don't want you to.

(I already spend enough on my yarn habit without dragging Boyfriend down with me.)

YL: You know what else I have...

Then she pointed up to the very top shelf, where there were about forty skeins of yarn (Plymouth Yarns Encore, 75% acrylic, 25% wool) in all sorts of colors, that sort of looked like they had been thrown up there and forgotten about. And since they were $5 a skein and I only needed 5 of them, they were well within my Party Store Candy Department Specialist's budget.

I realize now that it is unrealistic to go to the yarn store expecting to spend between $20 and $30 for good yarn. I would never ever spend more than $50, but I may have to up my budget for next time. It's just that, for my first sweater, it doesn't make sense to me to spend that much money. I can live with ruining a $24.95 sweater. $42? Not so much.

And, finally, this was the on-the-way-home conversation:

B: Maybe you should just buy a llama and make your own yarn.

S: Yeah, a lot of people do that. I don't think Shelly would like that very much, though.

B: So when you have your own house, then.

S: I'm not sure it's any more cost-efficient to buy, house, feed, and care for a llama then it is to buy yarn.

B: Yeah, but then you get to have a pet llama.

S: Llamas spit. Maybe I'd just get sheep.

B: That's an idea.

S: But I'd have to get a couple, because they live in flocks.

B: Then you'd need a---

S: Farm?

B: No, I was going to say one of those canes with the hooks on them that Moses had.

Song of the Day:
"Whatever colors you have in your mind, I'll show them to you and you'll see them shine." - Bob Dylan, "Lay, Lady, Lay"

Standing in the Sunlight Laughing

Once upon a time there was a girl named Susan, who just wanted to knit her boyfriend a pair of Dashings. So she set out on her Dashing journey by purchasing yarn from her local craft store because she had a coupon. The yarn was from Bernat, and it was pretty, and was made of acrylic, nylon, and cashmere, making very soft, but also hella rugged.

The first mitt went off without a gitch. All was well. There were no visible mistakes. There may not have even been any invisible mistakes. It was hard to tell, as, if they existed, they were invisible. Hence invisible mistakes.

Then came the second mitt. Again, all was well. That is, until she ran out of yarn from the first skein, and was forced to join a new one.

"Okay," thought Susan. "I do this all the time."

It attached superly (sometimes I invent words. Don't judge.). Then she realized that this skein was so much softer than the last. And as she got farther and farther along, she realized that it was visibly different, with more pronounced stitches, and resulted in a much softer, floppier fabric than the first skein did.

To which all I can say is, WHAT THE HELL?????

Growl.

Anyway, I'm almost done with Dashing, so I can buy yarn for Holly. I'm going to my LYS for this though. I trust her more the craft store.

Song of the Day:
"Whatever happened to Tuesday and so slow. Going down the old mine with a transistor radio. Standing in the sunlight laughing, hiding behind a rainbow's wall. Slipping and sliding all along the water fall, with you, my brown eyed girl." -Van Morrison, "Brown Eyed Girl"

Go Ahead and Ask Her

I like working on Sundays. Time and a half is totally worth blowing up the intense amount of balloon orders for Sunday birthday parties and baby showers.

I did not, however, get to blow up balloons today. Today I ran the register and individually price ticketed Beanie Babies.

You wish you could have my job!

I actually like the register a lot. It's a thinking job, unlike mindlessly stocking streamers, which only requires figuring out if the streamers are baby pink, pink, light pink, or bombay pink. I kid you not, give or take a hue.

But this month, we're asking customers to make a $1 donation to the local children's hospital. Nice in theory, especially when people actually donate, but it becomes wildly frustrating when they don't.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to come off as all high and mighty, and be like, "If you don't donate to the sick kids, you should hate yourself. Because I certainly hate you, you stupid-face!"

Because I know that every store you go in asks you to donate, and nobody can possibly donate to everything.

I don't care if you don't donate.

Well, to be truthful, if people do donate, I pack their bags much more neatly than I would if they didn't. But that's besides the point.

But if you don't want to donate, for the love of Marshmallow, just say no!

It's easy to say no. I say it all the time.

These are the answers I get instead:

"Um, not today thank you."

How about tomorrow then?

"Let's wait and see what the total comes to."

"It's $116.36."

"Oh. I guess not then."

Really? Because you just spent over a hundred dollars for your healthy kid's birthday party. What's a dollar to you at this point?

"I don't have any singles on me."

"The donation just gets added to your total."

"Um... no I don't have any singles."

I know you're not an idiot. You just told me that your "I'm 21 today! Buy me a drink!" button was supposed to be 30% off, which should make it $2.19. You figured that out in your head in about 5 seconds. Stop pretending that you don't know what I'm saying.

"The children's hospital already gets enough money as it is."

I hate you, you ignorant fool.

Please just say no if you don't want to donate. I don't care. Just don't waste my time when there are a serious amount of streamers that need stocking.

Okay, I'm good now. I can move on to knitting.

One Dashing is done, minus weaving in the ends. The pattern's actually really easy, and the thumb was so much easier to make than I thought it would be. I'm think about making Fetching with the yarn left over from Summertime Tunic.

Yes, that is a hole as a matter of fact. No I don't know how it got there. Thank you for noticing though.

I finished it last night when Boyfriend and I went to Boyfriend's BFF's house, which consisted of five guys playing some gory war video game, and me making a fingerless mitt. This is how the conversation went:

"You guys! I just made a thumb!"

*Silence, except the clicking of controller buttons.*

"I did! I was afraid I was going to mess it up, but I didn't, and now it's a thumb!"

*War noises and the repeated use of the f-bomb.*

"It's really hot in here."

*Every boy in room immediately says, "Sorry Susan, it's because I'm here!"*

"That's not what I meant, but thank you for your attentiveness."

*Polite laughter from Boyfriend, who is trying to pretend that he's paying attention to me amidst his video game. I am not fooled. I know where I stand compared to an XBox.*

Then that round of game play ended.

"That's a glove!" exclaimed Boyfriend.

"Uh, yeah I know, it's been a glove for, like, 20 minutes."

"I'm going to try it on."

"Be my guest."

"It fits!"

"I know, I made it that way."

I should mention that Boyfriend is otherwise very attentive.

Song of the Day:

"So go ahead and ask her for happy ever after. Cause nobody knows what’s coming, so why not take a chance on loving." -Chris Rice, "Lemonade"

Is There Anybody Going to Listen to My Story?

So.... the aforementioned secret project?

Dashing, for Boyfriend.

And no I'm not finished. And no, it's not that I can't keep a secret.

Well, actually, that's partly it. I hate keeping secrets like that. Other people's secrets, I'm like a brick wall. I have references that will tell you just that. But fun secrets, like, "Hey, Boyfriend, remember those fingerless mittens I told you that I was going to make for you a few months back? Well, I'm finally making them now that the cold weather is coming to a close. Well, sort of. In a month or two."? That is not easy to keep. Especially considering that I do a lot of my knitting at Boyfriend's house.

So, you see, it's not that I'm a weak secret-keeper so much as it is I really wanted to work on them while Boyfriend and I watched Across the Universe.

Which, by the way, wasn't all that I thought it was going to be. It was a little too trippy for my taste. Though, I did like the roof scene, and especially the scene when Lucy turns around and bursts into "Blackbird."

And also, I totally called it that they were going to open the movie with "Girl." And I'm glad that "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" was only the ending credits song, but I'm a little sad that they didn't use "Sexy Sadie." Unless I just missed that. Whatever.

Also, Summertime Tunic is officially done.

I have mixed feelings. It's pretty, but the ribbon isn't really working out as straps, and I don't know how practical it is. The top of it is pretty low-cut, so I have to wear a tank top underneath it, seeing as I am a nice girl, and don't want that to be mistaken.

And in other unrelated news, I just did a bad thing. I ate a cookie.

*Gasp*

I know!

No, but Boyfriend and I gave up all junk food for Lent. And I really haven't had a hard time doing it. It's just that Shelly just made chocolate cookies. From scratch. And they're warm. Warm.

So I ate one.

But it was so warm!

Song of the Day:

"Is there anybody going to listen to my story, all about the girl who came to stay? She's the kind of girl you want so much it makes you sorry. Still you don't regret a single day." -The Beatles, "Girl"

Love Put Me Wise

The Restoration of the British Monarchy in the 1600s?

Not as interesting as you might think.

It's not that I don't have an appreciation for British History, it's that I don't even care that much about American History, nevermind the history of some place that I have no connection to.

I shouldn't say that. My grandfather was British. But he didn't have an accent, so it's hard to count that.

And also there are so many things that I'd rather be knitting than writing this paper.

And now that I'm on a knitting note....

Summertime Tunic is taking forever to block. Forever!

Though I'm sure that it has nothing to do with the fact that it's downstairs in my dark, cold basement.

Grrr.....

Back to Charles II and Richard Cromwell, I suppose.

Cheerio!

Song of the Day:
"So never judge a book by it's cover, or who you're going to love by your lover. Love put me wise to her love in disguise. She had the body of a venus. Lord imagine my surprise." - Aerosmith, "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)"

Mix Tape's a Masterpiece

Summertime Tunic is complete and blocking!

I tried it on, and it fit really well, and I'm a little concerned that blocking will change that. But I'll take my chances. Even though my spray bottle did break while I was spraying it down, so I had to just put it under the faucet... pretty sure that's unorthadox.

Since I joined Ravelry two days ago, this blog has experienced a pretty decent increase in readers. So, like, yeah! And with that, I got tagged! I know. Exciting.

I was tagged by Kaya, and I'm not entirely sure how this whole tagging thing goes, and who I'm supposed to tag or not supposed to tag, so I'm just going with it, and copy and pasting the rules from Kaya's blog.

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.

3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

So here are 7 things about me:

1. When I was really little, I used to walk around the house and pick up lint and strings that I'd find, then mold them into a ball. Pharmacy Pete found it one day, and asked me why I was collecting lint. I told him that I was making a ball of yarn so that I could knit a sweater. Then he made me throw it away, and told me that when I got older, I could buy a ball of yarn to make a sweater. I got mad, because I thought that meant that I had to wait until I was, like, 90.

2. I wrote I book when I was in the eighth grade, then tried to get it published. It obviously wasn't because the book sucked, but it taught me a lot, and I'm a better writer for it.

3. Boyfriend is my first real boyfriend, and we've been together since we were 15. And even though I love him now, I still like him as much as I did back then. The thought of being with anyone else makes me sad. And I hope he knows that.

4. I'm a huge That '70s show fan. Huge as in, seen every episode at least 5 times, own all the DVDs, and throw quotes from the show into my everyday conversations. Bitchin'!

5. The last time I checked, I was third in my graduating class. That may have changed, but either way... I was there.

6. I won Marshmallow in a raffle at my doctor's office when I was five. He has slept in my bed with me every night since then. And I'm taking him to Dream School with me. Shut up.

7. I don't believe in premarital sex, and I don't care what people think of me for it. Lucky for me, Boyfriend agrees, so there's no cause for disagreement on that front.

That was fun! And here's who I'm tagging:

Mary

Rachel

Rachel

Nik

Wendy

Octupus Knits

Hmm, I can't think of another one. Maybe I'll add one later if I think of it.

And now, I must go start the secret project I'm going to be working on. Anyone on Ravelry can see it here, but I can't put it on this blog. The recipient of the secret project reads this on occassion, but isn't on Ravelry.


Have a lovely day!


Song of the Day:
"When all words fail, she speaks. Her mix tape's a masterpiece. Walks through the garden, so the roses can see. Oh I. . . have you got nothing to say?" - Ben Folds Five, "Kate"