Oct 31

This just isn’t my week; I think the shorter hours are starting to get to me.

The Purple Spider’s Web is coming along very nicely. Sadly, that is the only good thing knitting wise that is going for me. After many attempts to knit Mom a shawl, I’ve decided to make her mittens. She’s been wanting them since she’s seen my frustration over the shawl. Maybe this Spring I will be able to do the shawl. I hate the way Dad’s gift is going. And I don’t want to make him something he’ll wear just because I made it. This weekend, I might just rip it back completely. I cannot find the hat pattern I was going to use for my StepBrother. If it doesn’t surface before Monday, he’s getting mittens. Do I spy a repetition emerging?

My KnitPick order still isn’t in and I really want to break-in my new umbrella shift machine.

But Grad School is still going well. Tomorrow is library day. Again.

Oct 29

Yesterday was semi-productive. I helped Mom do a few chores around the house, like move the furniture in the front room to give the vent a chance to heat the room. The house was empty when I got home, so I was able to spend a few hours working on my bibliography for AfAm Lit. I’m weeding through source 6 of the 12 articles pulled so far.

Today I spent doing things with Mom and the Twins. We went to church and lunch before I ducked out to come home and let Puppy out (the Maternal Grandparents went to visit extended relatives and spend the day with them). Then it was back to Mom’s where I helped get everyone ready for the church’s Halloween thing. I even wore a Renaissance princess dress the Step-Paternal Grandmother bought me. She showed up for a spell and I was glad I was wearing it. I skipped night church to assist Mom get things in the house—and have a long hot shower to rinse the sister off me. I love them. Would give them a kidney if they needed it. But there are moments when I just have to take a breather.

Tomorrow, I plan on spending some time at the library working on the Thursday essay, reading for Tuesday, and get to article 8 on the list for my AfAm bib.

Week Wrap-Up

My weekend plans have changed twice since nine this morning. My Paternal Grandmother cannot come to town due to car trouble. My buddy’s wedding shower is next weekend, not this one. The only good thing about this is that now I can work on those papers coming up.

Af/Am Lit—12 articles found. 5 have been read. Due date for annotated bib: Nov 16. Due date for paper: 1^st week in December.

Lit Re—7 articles found. 3 have been read. Due date: 1^st week in December.

Women N Lit—All novels for essay 2 have been read. Due date: this Thursday.

At least I have good music. Hello Dolly, Mona Lisa, Moon River, and the various original compositions on Lotti’s The Crooners disk 2 have been getting me through many hours in the library this week.

I knitting news, I have managed to be 13 stitches short of where I should be at this point on Mom’s shawl. And Dad’s isn’t getting any better.

What would it take to be the only child for 15 minutes? That is all I need. Just 15 minutes of not having to play big sis to the Twins. But I think it is like asking for world peace. Nice to dream about. Not going to happen anytime soon.

Oct 25

We had a good discussion in Lit Research yesterday: whether or not to dress up next Tuesday. My Professor advised that we all dress up like our favorite character from The Tempest since that will be the reading on that day. Then he added we could always do a Post-Modernist costume and come as Graduate Students. How fun is that?

I also had dinner with my StepMaternal Grandmother last night. It was some really good food. I must have gained 5 pounds from dessert alone. ^_^

Right now, I’m in the library and have been for over an hour. In that time, I have managed to find 3 books and about 7 more articles for my Af/Am Lit paper due in December. I feel productive. For my next trick I will now actually read the articles and see what I pulled. But seriously, I plan on spending another hour in front of this computer before I pull the books from the shelves. Then I’m taking a break where I’ll knit some. After that, I’ll go home and do the school work for my classes tomorrow.

Dad’s Christmas knit is giving me a run…the colors don’t look as good as they do in the picture not to mention the pattern. I’m too stubborn to pick something else for a gift. Just hope he likes it at this point. I might cry if he doesn’t.

Oct 23

I had a productive day in which nothing exciting happened.

How Monday.

Birthday Weekend

I helped Mom go through her Christmas closet to see what she has. Then we picked the Twins up from art lessons and had a picnic at a park with the Crew (their best friends, all total there are 6 girls and one little brother that numbers with the Crew 50% of the time). After the picnic, I helped the Maternal Grandparents with some yard work. Between that time and the fund-raising spaghetti dinner, I slipped in some knitting and two walks with Puppy.

Not bad for a Saturday.

I’m trying hard to put an order of yarn together by tomorrow, if only so I have a chance to use my new yarn tool: one of those umbrella swift machines. [It holds the yarn and spins it so you can ball up yarn from a hank without getting the yarn twisted.] The Maternal Grandfather and StepPaternal Grandmother went in together and bought me one as a birthday present.

And how was last night’s dinner? Let’s just say “thank you God for steak.” In addition to the umbrella swift machine; I have a new Celtic cross charm, a journal, and some money. The Maternal Grandfather liked his coffee and my Stepdad enjoyed his six pack. Of course, they got more stuff like DVDs and coffee mugs. Everyone enjoyed themselves very much and we’re looking forward to next year.

Oct 20

I spent over 6 hours in the library yesterday. All I have to show for it is a dozen or so articles that I cannot use, 2 books that I can, and over 20 articles that I haven’t looked at yet. My brain is having problems remembering what the articles I read were called. But I did have good background music and found one of my classmates in the library so I wasn’t alone in all those shelves.

I also had to rip back 3 hours worth of knitting and read the wrong book for my night class. The only book I had to read this week and it was the wrong one. Luckily, I had read the text earlier therefore was still able to participate in class.

Somehow, I did not get to the German I wanted to study today. With the family birthdays this weekend, other things popped up; like picking up the cake.

On the plus side of life, we get to eat out tonight at a very nice steak place. And the best part is: only the adults are eating out tonight.

Oct 18

Going to the library today didn’t happen. I felt too sick to do anything all day. Nothing serious, just sinus and with the recent weather who isn’t feeling ill? Regardless, I did manage to finish up homework for tomorrow night’s class and just finished doing some articles locating on the University’s online library. I love the internet. While I’m on campus tomorrow, I’ll do the leg work.

Mom’s shawl has been resurrected. Though since I have started unraveling knits, I am wondering if I shouldn’t start Dad’s over as well. The color combination really worries me and I am not sure if he will even like it at this point. Just something else to think about.

Mistakes

Ok, big mixed feelings about Fall Break. It was wonderful to sleep in and I was looking forward to getting a lot done on Mom’s Christmas knit. Then I realized all the little mistakes I had made had added up to one big tangle. So after knitting 2/3 of the shawl knitted, I had to start all over.

Why can I never remember: some mistakes cannot be worked around?

I’ll log in some time at the library tomorrow morning, then try again. This time, it will be simpler.

For now, I’m going to have a large bowl of orange sorbet.

Just Another Monday

Yea for Fall Break. Too bad I’ve spent the last hour researching for different papers. But before that, I was reading The Bluest Eyes for my Women in Lit class. Wonderful language, I am just tired of reading. I know I’m logging library hours Wednesday and Thursday, but I wanted to see what I could find before hand.

It has been a nasty, blistery day all day. Being Monday makes it feel even worse than it is. The kind of weather ya just wanna fall asleep and miss altogether. Things should warm up later in the week, until then I’m drinking lots of hot chocolate.

On the plus side, reservations have been made for Friday’s family birthday dinner and tickets have been bought for a local school’s fundraising spaghetti dinner. We will be eating very well this weekend.

Life Update

Someone please pass the whiskey. I’ve been at Mom’s since about 11, getting ready for a fall party for preschoolers, having the party, then cleaning up afterwards. I am so tired.

Yesterday was pretty cool, did some chores around the house and goofed off.

Thursday’s classes were wonderful. Each of the three just reinforced that I am in the right department. It was disheartening that my paper received a B while the two girls beside me (who wrote their papers at the last minute) both made an A. But that is not that unusual. And I like starting out on a B; it lets me know exactly what they are looking for; no guessing required. Plus, all my journals for that class have done very well. Nothing to worry over yet.

After looking at knitting patterns for over two weeks, I have finally started on Dad’s Christmas knit. I hope it looks as good as it did on paper. Not that things have fallen apart in application before, but it is a fact of life.

I am going to take a bath; hopefully this will help with all the hay I am still finding in my hair.

A Better Day

In sharp contrast to yesterday, I feel like it should be Friday. I ran the needed and not really errands this morning (like digging up my immunization record and walking Puppy). Finished reading the novel Unless by Carol Shields for my Women in Lit class tomorrow night. Did the last journal entry for that class. Read the chapter in Peter Berry’s Beginning Theory on Marx criticism for tomorrow afternoon. Believe it or not, that was a considerable amount of reading. Glad I got through it.

Well, I have to go do the family thing and make sure all my books are together for tomorrow. Nothing is worse than not being able to find them all and running out the door.

nothing

I feel like nothing happened today.

Classes were good. I enjoyed them very much. But what happened outside of class?

Knit some. Ate a good dinner. Walked Puppy. Did some homework.

But nothing really happened. How is that?

Monday

The Purple Spider Web is approximately 30 inches long. The current section has abandoned the lace pattern, but the yarn still reminds me of a spider’s web. I never feel like I make any progress on it when I’m knitting. Even after working over an hour on it this morning, it feels like I’m just creeping along. On the more positive side, I had an hour to listen to the Shuffle while I waited for one of my mentors to do whatever it is the PT people make her do.

The Maternal Grandmother had a school thing 2 hours away she was suppose to go to, however, since some of her meds are making her sick she was forced last minute not to. I hope she feels better by the end of the week as she has 2 other events around the state she has to talk/present to on Thursday and Friday.

I am so looking forward to tomorrow. Homework—done. Reading—almost done. Knitting goal—not even close. But all should be fun.

It would be a good time to walk Puppy, if so many people weren’t on the roads for the next 90 minutes. She is trained to stand still when a car approaches us and what would be a nice 20 minute walk become a stop-go for 40 minutes. Defiantly not fun at all.

^_^

I have early b-day presents from Dad’s household. Guess what I have now? The new double CD from Helmut Lotti: The Crooners! And it is autographed! So it is no surprise that as soon as the second disk is downloaded, it will be the only thing on my Shuffle for the next few weeks.

Friday

My first essay as a grad student was turned in last night. I still have 4 due before the end of the semester; thankfully some of the research has already been started.

I’m feeling kinda low today and there is no reason why I should. Yesterday was better but I don’t know why.

The Purple Spider’s Web is making great progress now that I’ve modified the pattern but there is still a long way to go. The yarn sale was a let down. They kept telling me how great the prices were but the numbers were still too high for me. I ended up buying some books and sock yarn. I’ll take a sweater I made for me apart after Christmas, having found a pattern I like a lot better.

Wed Update

The idiot in my 2 day classes has now had his mobile go off 4 times during class. Yesterday, it went off during his own presentation and it took him a while to find it. Then he looked at the number long enough to let me know he was thinking about answering it. When the professor asked questions, trying to have a discussion on the book; he read passages that had nothing to do with the question. After he did this for the second time, I realized that he actually thought he was answering the question. It was also during this class that he talked about getting into the PhD program. Thankfully, a buddy of mine informed me that she did not think he would. I’ll trust her opinion on this.

I finally finished one of my AFO (Almost Finished Object). That brings me down to 2 WIP and 1 AFO. This purse is for StepSister No 2. The pattern came from Folk Bags printed by Interweave Press.

It's Monday

Where did my weekend go? Did I even have one this week?

We did it again. Another dog will be emasculated this week. The newest member of mom’s family is a 10 mo old male black Pomeranian names ‘Sugar.’ Do I need to say the twin girls named the poor thing? The kidsitter noted to mom that Sugar liked nap time today. I can only imagine why.

In other news, I am now the proud owner of a ball-winder and seven new hanks of yarn. I am so happy to have a ball winder as it (in theory) should save time and frustration from now on. The Maternal Grandfather and I set it up earlier and wound two hanks in no time at all.

And my first essay for Women in Lit is half done. I already have someone to look at it for me tomorrow so I can see what needs to be added for length. Having worked on it all afternoon, I can no longer remember what I have written and what needs to be written. Usually when someone else reads it, I remember. I have till Thru to get it done, though I normally do like things done sooner than this.

My mouth is sore, though no longer throbbing. I plan to pop a pain killer before bed; hopefully this will let me get comfortable enough to sleep. The Maternal Grandfather told me not to worry too much about the rest of my teeth feeling funny, that the surgery just did a number on those nerves. Here’s hoping.

This is...

My mouth is still sore, but it isn’t hurting anymore. This is good.

I tried to get up and straighten up my room, and it worked for about 10 minutes before I got too dizzy. This is not bad.

I am really hungry for real food; in fact, I’m willing to bet that is why I’m still dizzy. But I am still on soft foods for the next few days. This is bad.

This whole experience is not as bad as I thought it would be. This is good.

If I have to stay in tonight rather than go to church, I will develop a case of cabin fever. This is bad.

It’s not that I’m overly eager to go to church; I am just tired of being in bed. This is sad.