Four Kitties on a Windowsill in B'klyn...

So I haven't been blogging because I've been insane with the teaching. That doesn't mean I haven't had time to take pictures of my cats.

Two weeks down...HOW many more to go?

I'm off from school today--and I've got to praise the Jewish faith for having Rosh Hashanna exactly when I was beginning to think that I was going to have a nervous breakdown. Holy crap. Teaching teenagers is freaking rough--I thought teaching college was hard--that's nothing compared to this. I don't know how I'm going to make it to Thanksgiving. I just spent the last two days doing all of my lesson plans for next week. During the week, I need to get started on the following week. I've come to the conclusion that if I don't stay at least this far ahead, I will never get to sleep, ever. I get up at 5 so I can get to school by 7 so I can get my crap together for when classes start at 8. And also so that I don't get stuck in two hours of traffic. I nearly had a nervous breakdown when it took me over an hour to get to work on the first day of school and I staggered in at 7:40. Talk about cutting it close! So I really need to start going to bed between 9 and 10 instead of between 11 and 11:30 like I have been or I'll collapse from exhaustion any day now.

No, I haven't knit or crocheted anything lately. I've laid off the socks. I'm pathetic. I need to get back to crafting or I really might just loose my mind. It really sucks that I can't take the subway to work--that was always where I made the most progress. Maybe I'll look into doing that on the days that I don't have grad school at night...we'll see.

First Day of School

Tomorrow is the first day of school. I'm sort of crapping myself right now. I know it's going to be fine and I'm over-prepared, but I'm freaking out all the same. I want to try to enjoy labor day, but somehome, the looming thought of school is clouding my ability to do anything more than continue to freak out and squelch a desperate desire to go make more copies so as to be even more prepared. UGH!

By the way, in the craft department...let's just say that I've ripped out the heel of the same pair of socks three times. I think I need to set them aside. I want to work on another project that I can actually contemplate finishing sometime soon. I'm also stuck in limbo on the baby blanket I'm making for Sandra's daughter. I've got too much to do.

Remembering Katrina...

This time of year has been difficult for me for the past two years. Anyone who knows me, knows that my husband and I were stuck in Hurricane Katrina two years ago--that we were actually holed up in the airport when the hurricane hit and during the aftermath. It was a life-changing experience. Not only did it confirm my complete lack of faith in the president (I didn't vote for him) and the government, but it also made me realize who and what was really important in my life. I did a bit of friend and family pruning not long after that. That was also the catalyst for pondering if I should go back to teaching. I wasn't going to move down to NOLA, but I felt like I needed to do more than just work in publishing. I wanted to interact with people--to maybe make a difference. Teaching is also a way for me to do more than add to the consumerism of this country (and yes, though I firmly believe in my former-company's products, they're also a profit-driven company--something I was never able to fully reconcile with myself). And now, two years later, I'm literally days from really beginning my new(ish) career and going back to a profession I had abandoned not long after 9/11. I'm always contemplative around this time--a good thing, I think--and I can't help but re-live the experience and thank god that my husband and I made it--when I know so many people didn't. Click on the title to link to the original (sort of--I originally had it up on Myspace, but I don't blog there anymore) Escape from New Orleans blog.

Holy crapola

This is going to be a very, very brief blog.

I'm now an NYC Teaching Fellow and have been for the past month--which means I have NO LIFE. I plan lessons. I read. I plan more lessons. I write papers. I plan lessons. This is my life. Tomorrow is my birthday and you know what I'll be doing. You got it--planning lessons.

Cool thing happened in summer school this morning--a girl brought in her crochet rug she's working on (I was impressed let me tell you). I showed her my sock-in-progress. We're going to do more tomorrow! Hooray! I want to start a yarn club at my high school.

Anywho, I have finished one project (yes I am lame--only one!):


That would be Helena (or Fatty Longwhiskers as I like to call her) sniffing out the catnip in the nifty new knitted mouse toy. Meow!

It's been a while...

Almost a month. I find it hard to believe it's been that long since I've blogged, but there are the dates staring me right in the face. It's hard to argue with reality. I've got excuses (not that you're interested) and they are prefectly legitimate...I got a promotion at work so on top of all the usual spring craziness, I've been super busy trying to figure out the ins and outs of my new position. I've got more news that some of you already know about, but I am keeping that to myself until the time is right. No. I am not pregnant. Stop asking. I'll get knocked up when I'm good and ready.
Other news...I shipped out ye olde felted project to one of my best buds Ingrid and she loved it. I made her a felted yoga mat bag and it was pretty freaking awesome if I do say so myself. I kind of didn't want to give it away, but I knew that would be selfish and mean.
Sock news...after i finished the incorrectly knitted sock (knitted the toe correctly anyway) I started on the second one, didn't get gauge, said screw it, and just started on a new pair. One down, second in progress. The incorrectly knitted first sock will be the kitties stocking at Christmas time.
I've gotten an obscene amount of sock yarn lately--I really should post pictures of it all so you can tell that I'm not making this up. It's a little nutty. But then again, I'm a little nutty so it's all good.
I'm more than a little obsessed with this knitted giant glove.
More TK.

Busy and Sick

I've been sort of out of it the past few days with this weird spring-time cold (love the heavy-head feeling and general exhaustion--just makes waking up such a pleasure). Between my cold and work--which is flat-out insane (so insane that I've been taking crap home with me every single night because I can't bear to be in the office late and can just work from home when necessary)--I haven't been blogging or knitting. The second sock is in progress, and though the gauge is slightly different from the first sock, I think it'll be fine and Hubby will still be happy with his first pair of hand-knit socks. I'm not at all happy about the difference in the patterning of the sock though--the first one has this big ole spiral thing going on while the second is looking very stripey. I wish they were both stripey, but there really isn't anything I can do about changing that, so it is what it is.

I finished my very first felted project and it looks bloody awesome if I do say so myself. I'll post pics of it after I get confirmation that the recipent has received said present.

That's the news for now. Not very exciting, but I never claimed to be an exciting person.

Sock pic & Grendel

A pic of the finished sock:



Now I just have to get gauge and do the other one (hopefully just one more).

And a pic of Grendel who really likes to play with my yarn. Meow!

One down...

I finished one sock (I'll post pics tonight or tomorrow), and I am going to attempt to get the same gauge as the first without knitting into the back of all my stitches by going down a needle size or two. I knit the first sock on 3.25's (#3), so hopefully if I go down to 2.5 or 2.0 it'll work, otherwise I'll have to knit a whole new pair and the one I already have will become a Christmas stocking for the kitties.
On the bright side, my new koigu should get here today.

I met the Knitting Yoda...

And boy-o-boy did I get spanked. Holy crap. I felt like Luke Skywalker after Yoda tells him "Do or do not, there is no try." Man. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Okay, so what the hell happened? Well since I've been on a sock craze for the past couple of weeks, all I can think about is buying more sock yarn. Saturday Brad and I had a gazillion things to do--including going to the dentist (yet again--I don't think I'll ever be finished. I'm tempted to tell him to just rip everything out and give me implants, but I know I'd regret that) and running out to the island to go to Trader Joe's to get good cat food (since this whole pet food recall, I'm even more grateful that Brad and I only feed our kitties the Trader Joe's Holistic Cat Food). So since I know we have a ton of errands to run (including ending up at Mommy-in-Law's house), I figured that since we'd be out there anyway, it was a good day to stop by Knitwits in Bayside. I'd heard good things about it on a couple of people's blogs I've been lurking on, and specifically remember it being mentioned as as stop on one of the yarn crawls coming from Long Island and Queens for the Harlot's Represent event a couple weeks ago (I can't believe it's been that long) so I figured it was worth a stop.

So I get to Knitwits' with Hubby, we ooohh and aaaahh over the yarn, I gleefully discover that they have steel DPN's (I think I like those better--I feel like the points of my bamboo ones aren't consistently pointy if that makes any sense), and hand over my purchases to Joan, the Knitting Yoda. I ask her if the yarn I'm purchasing two skeins of will be enough to make a pair of socks. She says, "It depends on your pattern." So of course I whip out my sock of which I am so proud which was near completion and tell her that I'm either going to do this pattern again or change it slightly because this is my first pair of socks.

And then she tells me I'm twisting all my stitches. Holy f*$!ing F*$!-nuts. All this time, I've been knitting incorrectly--or as she told me, not wrong, just making my life much more complicated. She asked how I learned and I told her out of a book (which she then pooh-poohed because she said she "didn't think much of it" and the author) and she then showed me how to not knit into the back of the stitches. I sat there on my knees knitting at her feet like a good little padawan-learner while she ruled over three other knitters telling one, "This is wrong; rip it out"; another "Undo the stupid stitches--why did you do that?"; another "I don't know what you did, but you're going to have to do it again." It was tough love. The knitters submitted to her critiques determined to please her--I was equally determined. While all this was going on, Brad stood in the corner trying not to laugh at me too much--he knows how I hate not being perfect at things, and the other knitters heckled him: "It's a good thing she already has a ring or we'd tell her to keep the socks for herself!" "Don't you laugh, or you'll never get anything hand-knit again!"

After I had successfully knitted and purled several rows correctly, she allowed me to purchase my needles, but wouldn't sell me more yarn because--get this--she wants me to come back and show her my progress to make sure that I'm not totally screwing up my socks. She let me leave with these final words--"You're a good knitter, but you've got to perfect your technique. There's no point in knitting if you're going to knit incorrectly." How do you argue with that? You don't. I'm a perfectionist, so I totally agree.

So what the hell am I going to do about the socks? Well, after Hubby patiently let me have a minor nervous breakdown in the car, (because of course I had to find this out just as I'm getting to the damned toe of the sock) I've decided to finish the sock in question--using the correct stitches of course--and go back to School Products, get another skein, and then really make the damned socks. That settled, he lead me to DSW for some shoe therapy.

In spite of being extremely humbled from this whole experience, I'm actually glad that it happened. It totally sucks that I'm going to have to make two more socks instead of just one more sock, but overall, it's much better that I know how to do things the correct way because it'll make me a better knitter. And I have to be honest--the fact that she told me I was a good knitter has carried me through all of this--not to mention Brad giving me knitting pep talks all along the way (he's such a good hubby--I don't know who else would put up with my knitting nervous breakdowns).

The knitting Yoda cut me down to size, and in the long run, I needed it.

May the force be with you (and your needles).