1. Google Reader is not your friend. But it DOES want you to like all the same things your friends like! (Seriously, if I wanted to subscribe to a feed, I would do it. It's really not necessary to force me to read all the same blogs as my "friends", which Google seems to interpret rather loosely. Basically anyone on gmail who has ever sent me an email is my "friend". That's a sizable number of people.)
2. Sewers are about as helpful as knitters! I like sewers too. (Thanks for all your suggestions, advice, encouragement, and help with my new hobby.)
3. Christmas is five days away. I know! Nobody told me either!
4. You shouldn't pretend something is done in November if it's not. Because December is going to come along, and it's still not going to be done, and you're going to be the one standing there with your arse in your hands.
5. Being a hermit - particularly a somewhat strictly-budgeted hermit - will bite you on the ass. Christmastime will come, and you'll hear about the social activities, but not until after they've happened. (Sometimes I miss being in the loop.)
6. Dogs can sense road trips. Brodie and Bitty have been all atwitter for about a week.
7. Remembering to be grateful keeps you from burning the house down. The other day I noted that there were two _________ ______ positions open in the Charlotte office. Travis shrugged and said, "Let's go!" Oh but if we could. Stupid house. Stupid obligations. Still, things could be worse - we do HAVE a house and obligations. We tend to forget what a blessing that truly is.
8. Working 18 stitches in order to bind off 4 stitches only SEEMS mathematically impossible. After doing it one hundred and twenty six times, I can assure you it's entirely feasible. And vaguely annoying.
9. People should be EXCITED when they do well at stuff. (We stood at a roulette table at Travis' holiday party, and this woman hit the exact number dead-on THREE TIMES in five minutes. She didn't even have the decency to be happy about it. She was too busy glancing at the door and seeming bored. Jesus, come on - don't suck all the luck AND life out of the table!)
10. Waiting for a much-demanded item to arrive in your mailbox is quite possibly worse than trying to obtain said much-demanded item in the first place. FedEx will probably put out a hit on me if I call them one more time. I haven't been this anxious going to the mailbox since waiting for acceptance letters and scholarship offers.
11. In an unrelated story, Amazon sucks. They don't care about you, and they don't care about your Christmas. (Just to reiterate - buy handmade. Handmakers aren't assholes. Stupid *%&^$@$ Amazon. I know if you search hard enough, you'll find another post saying pretty much the exact same thing. It'll be located directly below a post wherein I'll make mention of the fact that I apparently NEVER LEARN.)
12. In an abrupt mood swing - mint hot chocolate (made with milk, not water - of course!) and marshmallows make me so happy.
13. The staggering amounts of sugar I've been putting away on a daily basis have nothing to do with the low-grade fever and abnormal blood pressure I was running yesterday, according to the stats taken at the doctor's office. I'm sticking to that story.
14. Staggering amounts of sugar make you lose weight. (Really! I lost a pound on the Whatever, I'll Eat It Now And Worry About It In January diet!)
15. Dropping stitches increases your heart rate. (You could have guessed that before, but I have actual medical proof. My heartrate spiked to 74 and back down to 62 when I dropped a stitch.)
16. Unexpected doctor's visits do not equal pregnancy. (Although the vague way in which I declared to El Capitan that I needed to leave early to make an unexpected doctor's visit was probably somewhat suspicious, and being a newly married woman of a certain age, I could have been a little more specific.)
17. I like cheese.
18. This list is starting to grasp at straws a little. But I feel like something really spectacular should happen at number 20. So I'm killing time.
19. There are over 58 million dogs in the U.S. (*clutchgraspstrain*)
20. THE FREAKING HEMLOCK RING BLANKET IS FREAKING OFF THE FREAKING NEEDLES OVER HERE!!!!
It's somehow less than inspiring in that state. I knew that I had to - HAD. TO. - have it bound off and blocking by tonight to have any hope of it being ready to go by Saturday morning.
Ahh, blocking. Some find the task to be zen-like. In my humble estimation, it's the most fun you can have with a knitted item that doesn't end with a coroner and a manner-of-death pronouncement that starts with "Never in all my years..." and is wrapped up with, "...nosir, you don't see that every day." Which is to say that I HATE blocking. You may be wondering if I pinned out all those 126 little bind-off loops. I may be wondering if you're NUTS. (In case that didn't answer it for you: uh, no, I did not.)
But! It's done, and it's pretty, and you can't really tell that I arsed it up here and there. (You can't tell because the blocking is so crummy it hides all the mistakes. Heh.)
Full project stats to come later with official F.O. photos - but just as a refresher, this was the Hemlock Ring Blanket on 5 mm needles (US 8) in Brooks Farm Solana superwash wool. And it measures about 40" square right now.
Now, back to......what was I doing before this thing?
Oh, right. Bein' cool.
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