Happy Halloween!!

We did get our requisite "Halloween snow" this year, although it was in the wee hours of the morning, and it was more of a slush. And it's not sticking - it's still +5C today, so it'll be a while before the snow stays.

Happy trick-or-treating, everyone!

Blogstalking...again

Today's apparently going to be a productive blog day!
Here is the oldest photo of me that I can find. It's rather convenient that I still have my baby photo album at my place, and that I haven't given it back to my mom yet!!
Here is me, at 2 hours old:



Do I win?? Whose photo is the "oldest"??? :)

Ravelry!

I'm on Ravelry!!! I finally got my invite Sunday night at about 10:30. What timing.
It's going to take me a while to get organized on there, but I'm really excited about the site!! It's awesome!!!!!!!

Blogstalking - week 6...

It's not as exciting as I'd wish it to be, but it is long!

I decided to wait until Tuesday to take the photos for this blogstalking post, because that was the night of my SnB gathering (“meeting” sounds too formal) at a local pub, but wouldn’t you know that I got stuck at work late on Tuesday and wasn’t able to go to the SnB after all.

A typical day for me involves struggling out of bed at around 8:00am

(much as I’d like to be up and at work earlier, it never seems to happen; I’m NOT a morning person), getting dressed and ready to go, grab a glass of juice and heading out the door.
This is my apartment:

And this is the elementary school across from my apartment:

If I’m not running late, I walk to work, which takes me about 20 mins.
This is what I pass on my walk to work:



If I’m running late, or if it’s miserable outside (meaning pissing rain), I’ll drive, although I’m so close to work that if I get red lights all the way, it literally doubles the time it takes for me to get there! The only other time I’ll drive is if I have to go to a client site, like today. There are 2 reasons for this: a) they’re usually too far for me to walk to, as they’re mostly in the industrial parks of our city and I live pretty much downtown and b) I usually have to take my laptop and a bunch of reference material with me, and I’m not trekking that on my back.
This is the street my office is on:


This is my office:

Once I’m at work, I sit on my butt all day, working on the computer.
This is my desk:

That’s one of the things that I’m really starting to dislike about my job. Although I didn’t like the repetitiveness of what I was doing in my previous job, this monotony is worse.
If I happen to be at a client site, I’m usually sitting on my butt there, too, working at my computer or auditing them (their quality system, SOPs, other documents). There’s a very slim chance that I could be doing a walk-around audit, or executing a protocol, but that’s rare.

I’ve started bringing my knitting with me to work so that I can have a real break from what I’ve been working on at lunchtime.

After work, I head back home. Now, at least, the temperature on the way home is usually about the same as it was on the way to work, so I don’t have to carry a bunch of layers back home. The roof of the church next to my apartment building is frosting over every morning now, which means that the temp is going below zero (°C) overnights, so we’ll have snow soon. We usually have snow fall before Halloween, and it usually starts sticking around sometime in mid- November, although this year it might hold off until after Halloween!!
This is what I see on my walk home from work:




Evenings mean one of several things: going to class (I’m usually taking something if travel for work isn’t imminent – it was knitting up until a few weeks ago, photography last year; not sure what it’s going to be next), going to a SnB gathering, going to my parents’ place for dinner (and/or laundry), doing errands – laundry, groceries, etc. – or just hanging out at home, watching any one of a ton of TV shows that I seem to be addicted to while doing any number of crafty or cleaning-type things. The TV is usually on pretty much all the time when I’m at home – there’s either something I want to watch, or it’s on as background noise (when there isn’t even anything I want to have on in the background, I’ll turn it off and listen to music).

That’s it! That’s a typical day in my life. Booooring. :)
Weekends usually mean meeting friends at some point, maybe heading over to my parents’ place. I always seem to be busy, but when I go to tell someone just what I’ve been up to, it never seems like much!

My So-Called Scarf

This is the front and back of my "My So-Called Scarf"...
(for the benefit of a fellow knitty)

There is a real post coming soon, I promise!

I've just been so busy with work, and I've been out of the office on site a lot, and since I do most of my posting from work (naughty girl - the internet's faster there, that's why), I haven't done any posting lately.
I'll post one big long catch-up this weekend, I promise!!!

What a productive week!

I have 2 (yep, 2!) FOs to show off this week! (And I promise to get blogstalking week 5 and 6 up soon...)

First up, the Neverending Baby Afghan!!!! Wooohoooooo!!



Pattern: Waffle Stripes, (from Leisure Arts book "Make One for Baby")
Yarn: Bernat Baby Coordinates, about 2 balls each of white and yellow
Time it took: Well, that's hard to say. I started it sometime in the spring (April?) but didn't work on it constantly. Crocheting an afghan in one piece, baby-sized or not, is a little discouraging.

And next up are the Hacho gloves I started at a workshop led by the pattern designer herself, Jane Ellison!

Love these - can't wait to wear them to work tomorrow!
Pattern: from Jane's book - I borrowed it, and forgot to make note of the pattern details before I gave it back!
Yarn: Marasol Hacho, Shade 301, 1 1/2 skeins (what am I going to make with 1/2 a skein of Hacho??)
Needles: 3.75mm (I didn't make a swatch, but they turned out great, sized a little smaller than the pattern. We had Jane's sample gloves to try on before starting ours.)
I started these Oct 8th, but again, worked on them sporadically. Finally resorted to taking them to work to get more done on them!

I love this series, and had to take the Quiz

Which woman from the Outlander series are you?

You are Jenny Fraser Murray. You are a strong, motherly figure; loving and practical. You are good at being in charge of large groups of people of all ages. Your home is your castle and your family is the most important thing to you. You are also a good friend.
Take this quiz!








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Fetching - Done!

I'm done!
Pattern and yarn info as below.
Modifications: added an extra cable to the top of the fingerless mitten, as it didn't come far enough up my hand. I just thought I had an abnormally long thumb-crotch to finger-knuckle distance, but my friends in the KAL all thought the same thing, so it seems to be a pattern thing. I also increased the number of rows on the thumb from 4 to 10.
Now they fit perfectly, and are going to be awesome for the fall walk to work!!

Look what I did this weekend...!

It's only the first of the 2 I need to knit, but I'm sure the other one will knit up really quickly!





Pattern: Fetching, from Knitty.com
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran in a dusty eggplant colour
Knitting time: Not long. 2 hours at the Stitch 'n Bitch meeting, plus maybe an hour at home this morning.

Can't wait to get the other one finished!!

bandwagon...

You are The Wheel of Fortune

Good fortune and happiness but sometimes a species of
intoxication with success

The Wheel of Fortune is all about big things, luck, change, fortune. Almost always good fortune. You are lucky in all things that you do and happy with the things that come to you. Be careful that success does not go to your head however. Sometimes luck can change.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Ha!

Love/Hate

Well, this week's assignment is a little more challenging than the last couple.
It was really hard to narrow it down to 3 things I love, so I didn't!



Top of the list of "Things I Love" is my family. I come from a very close family, and even though we're spread over the continent now (sister at school in PA, brother in the west of Canada (AB), me in the middle with my parents (in MB), we remain close. I talk to my sister for hours at a time, every few weeks (when she needs a time out from school), and I see my parents at least bi-weekly, if not every week.
A close second to family are my friends. I have a great group of friends, and I really enjoy spending time with them.

Then, in no particular order, comes Photography, Crafting (knitting, crocheting, sewing, card-making and scrapbooking), books, cooking and baking, and Tea!! (That photo in the middle of the collage is my tea shelf in my cupboard. I have at least 15 different kinds, all of which are drunk on a regular basis, although my favourite is a jasmine-scented black tea, with jasmine flowers. Mmmmmmmm.)

Although I've done both knitting and crochet for equally as long, I used to lean towards crochet. Lately I've swung towards knitting - not sure why, although the "baby sweater that did not want to be completed" and the "never-ending baby afghan" may be souring me on crochet. Most (actually all) of my Christmas projects are knit this year, so I see that pendulum swinging back to crochet in the New Year...!

Photography is a more recent hobby of mine. My family has "milestone" birthdays. Grade 9 was a ring (mine was an amethyst with 2 tiny diamonds on either side, although the amethyst is now missing, and has been for quite a few years), 15 y.o. was a suitcase, and 12 y.o (if I remember correctly) was a camera, so I've been taking photos since I was 12. The actual "photography" aspect started a few years ago, and last year I actually took a few classes to refine my (apparent) "natural eye" for photography, and bought a better, more manual camera. I didn't quite get a DSLR, though, because I didn't want to be bothered with the lens-changing thing, plus I couldn't afford what a DSLR camera body and all the lenses would cost me. I've become the unofficial photographer in my family, and for a few friends, too. Landscapes will always be my favourite, but I also like the challenge of capturing a candid moment that truly reflects who someone is. I HATE being posed for photos, myself, so I don't pose people. I have been known to refuse to take a photo if the subject realizes what I'm doing and looks at the camera. Something about people's posture and mannerism totally changes when they realize someone's taking a photo of them. It becomes artificial, whether in a good "pose" way, or in a bad "awkward" way.

A friend got me into scrapbooking a couple of years ago, and although knitting has taken over recently, I still love paper crafts! I've made wedding invitations for a few friends, and that's something I want to explore the business possibilities of. I also got a box of my grandparents' old photos that I'm going to scrapbook - things like that need to be preserved for future generations.

Baking has always been something I've loved and something I've done well. I credit that to the fact that I'm a science geek, and a really analytical person. Baking, after all, is just chemistry, right? I teased my friends at my old job that they'd miss my baking more than they'd miss me! (Living on my own, if I ate everything that I baked, I'd be 400 lbs, so I share a lot. Tomorrow morning I'm bringing fresh banana-raisin muffins in for breakfast!)

And on that note, we turn to the "things I hate".
A big pet peeve of mine is people who spit - as in "hock a loogie" type spitting - on public sidewalks. Well, anywhere, really, but especially right in front of me as I'm walking on the sidewalk. That's just not needed and really disgusting.
What else do I hate...?

People who are nervous drivers - they're dangerous. I'd much rather be on the road with (or in the car with) a confident, slightly cocky driver than one that doesn't feel comfortable on the road. Especially in the winter here. Roads with ice and snow aren't a place for someone who isn't confident in their driving abilities, or who isn't comfortable with adverse driving conditions.

And smokers. Well, not "smokers" as much as "smoke" (cigarette/cigar/pipe/etc. smoke). It stinks, it's unhealthy, and when you are not given the choice as to whether or not you want to inhale that stuff, it's wrong. Go ahead and smoke if you want to - just do it away from my restaurant table, or the entrance to any building I need to enter, or to my seat at the stadium. You may be ok with having that crap in your lungs, but I really am NOT.

Oooh - and I hate brussel sprouts - the only vegetable I refuse to eat. :)

How I get from Here to There...

Well, if you saw my last post you would guess correctly if you thought I walk to work. So this is one way I get from here to there:


If it's nice out, and I've slept in, I sometimes take this to work, too:


Being a consultant, though, it is sometimes impossible to walk to work as I sometimes have to get to client sites, thus necessitating one of these:

I only drive it after it's unburied, though! :)
(Because this may be pretty foreign for some of you, it's a photo I had to share! That's a Mazda Protege buried under there. This - meaning the amount of snow - happens once or twice a year, a few times more than that if we're really lucky! haha The first snowfall usually happens sometime in October. The first snow that stays on the ground is usually sometime in late November. And the snow usually stays until April - most of the Easters I remember as a kid involved getting to church with snowboots and changing into our fancy shoes inside.)

If I can, I try to walk places. I have a few little corner-store-type grocery stores within easy walking distance from my apartment, so when I need a few things, that's what I do. It's awesome that half of those stores are organic, "granola"-type stores! (I live in what people around here call the "granola belt" of my city...lol.)
If I have to get somewhere else in the city, though, it's by car. The public transportation system here isn't great, and it easily doubles the time it takes to get from point A to point B (quadruples or more on weekends!). I do however drive a 4-cylinder, manual transmission car, so that helps with reducing emissions and natural gas consumption. If I could have afforded a hybrid when I was looking for a car (my first!), and if they'd had any in stock, then I would have.

I also want to share a couple other photos with you.
The first is the view from a farmer's market I went to on the weekend. I'd love to live in a place like this!

The second I took on my walk home last week. There's something about seeing the bright white cross (of the hospital's chapel, I guess) against the darker sky.

Happy blogstalking!