stiff

Busy, busy weekend. I think I knit, one triangle? 1/3 of a block? Something insignificant. I will try very hard to take pictures when I get home.

Busy, but good. We went on an off-trail guided hike at one of our local parks to see some old-growth sycamores. No pictures of those. Honestly, I was a little unimpressed by the sycamores, they look pretty much like other big sycamores. Yeah, a little bigger, but not so much that it's truly astounding. There were buckeye and box elder trees down there which were quite large given they are typically understory trees. Those were more interesting, but not terribly picturesque. (they looked like trees, in particular, trees without leaves)

The weather was gorgeous, sunny and breezy and mild. Perfect. I did manage to pick up a sunburn hiking through the leafless woods. We are finally developing that elusive 'green haze' on the bare trees. It seems long overdue.

The lettuce sprouts, however, are not thriving. They aren't exactly dead, but they're not getting much bigger either. There probably isn't enough sun. Too bad.

Lest you think a simple hike could prevent me from progressing on fps, we also ate and saw pan's labyrinth with friends we hadn't seen for months. (My vote was for grindhouse or 300. I was vetoed), weeded garlic mustard out of my MIL's yard. There wasn't much, and it was quite satisfying. And went to a housewarming party for one of M's friends. And in-laws are a good drive away. So busy. But good.

I'm not sure if the stiffness is from the hiking or the weeding. I didn't get it until today, but it's all in my derriere and thighs.

Finally, pictures! (from the back porch)

'The Lump'


stretched out some - note tier 7 otn

Housing

I only knit one more patch (well, two half-patches) on fps last night. I think I've done four or five since the last post. Maybe a little more. I'm on the 6th tier. I figured it takes me a little over an hour to do a patch. (ah the precise timing achieved by knitting with the t.v. on) This leads to very easy math on how long it will take me to finish.

I am very carefully avoiding doing this math. I don't want to know. I'm pretty sure it will be something obscene like over 100 hours. I don't need to be aware of that sort of thing.

I'm completely digging the nupps too. They are my good good fast-patch friends. I had a devil of a time with them on the swatches and failed first attempt, but here, they're great. Even a little on the loose side if I don't think about it. The trick is looping the yo's over my index finger and holding them out until I knit the stitch after the nupp. Good stuff.

Anyway, on to the title of the post. Ever since the Germany thing fell through (yes the Germany thing fell through, so sad), I'd been nervous and postponing searching for a house. We'd done some preliminary looking before, but kept on the conservative side of what we thought we could afford, which resulted in houses I didn't particularly want to live in.

Well, tonight my dad called, and announced that he had fresh-caught trout which nobody else in my family wanted to eat (crazies). After dinner we talked some finance. (my Dad's profession) and re-examined how much we could probably afford. The new range yields much more promising results.

I've found that I'm drawn to idiosyncratic old houses more than I am to practical things that might do anything positive for the resale value (or cost of heating) 1838 brick farmhouse with three chimneys that look like they could actually heat the place? original 1914 art-deco looking woodwork and a crazy sliding door with beveled glass that looks like it came off a barn? I'm so there. So what if it only has 1.5 baths?

knit knit knit

So the spinning urge has passed, though I still think the rovings are oh-so-pretty. So have the starting urges. I did make good progress on FPS. More on that latter.

I also did make it to Michaels, but they sell no buttons. Now where-to? I might try Hobby-Lobby - I think they had a real fabric section, while Michaels does not, but it is the same sort of store, which lowers my expectations. Or perhaps Wal-mart? I heard they're closing their fabric section, but have they yet? They're close enough to make checking less painful.

I'm up to tier 4 on the FPS. While that is nominal in the course of how long it will need to be, and less than it sounds like since I'm making it narrow, I feel like it's solid progress. Total of 8.5 squares if I remember right. It's almost longer than it is wide.

I did my first standing up & knitting at the social security office today. Wasn't in line long enough to do much, and didn't get any comments, but I felt cool to have an intricate project there. (I'm such a nerd) and it was helpful for the standing part that it was lightweight. I did feel like I was hunching more than I do when I knit while seated.

I also worked on it a little at my parents', where we stopped over the weekend to do more potting (a.k.a. steal more pots), borrow their grill (a.k.a. make them dinner) and M fixed the computer. My mom asked if I was making it for her. While I'm pretty sure I want to keep this one, it makes me happy to have a willing recipient for lace, since I'm not sure how much of it I could wear myself. (who are we kidding here, I don't have *any* lace FO's yet - always planning ahead...) She says she likes shawls even though other people tell her they look like an old lady, and that maybe she is getting to be an old lady.

We also watched V for vendetta. (again, to show it to my family) and I'm still quite fond of that movie. While the current-politics slant is done with a bit of a heavy hand, the material does at least pre-date today's specific political clime by a good bit, and was allegedly even more political. I love how well the title character was done, quite a feat given you don't see his face. Makes you think about the technical aspects of movie-making involved in making that work. Also, I think the 1812 overture is a spectacular backdrop for blowing up buildings. Which, I guess is what it was designed to be, except for with ships. The emotion there is such an effective foil - far superior to fireworks. Family liked the movie too, which surprised me a bit, I was expecting it might be a little too dark for them.

Progress on Many Fronts

The temperature here has finally crested freezing, after nearly a week of nasty, terrible snow-spitting misery, made all the more keen by the gorgeous 80 degree days that followed it. It isn't exactly balmy at 40F, and we probably won't have any lilacs, or many other early spring flowers here, and it's forcasted to be rainy and grey for the next, well, ever. But at least it isn't nasty-cold any more.

We're trying to grow some lettuce on the patio this year, and even after going un-watered through the 80-degree honeymoon, and left outside through the first sub-freezing night (before we realized that it was going to *stay* like that) it's not dead. Most of the problems seem to relate to itty-bitty lettuce seeds floating away in lightweight peat soil, and redistributing themselves to non-ideal locations. And they probably need thinned, but I'd like to wait until the mix seeds differentiate themselves somewhat, so I don't end up with all one thing.
(The two big containers are spinach and romaine, the little ones are a mesculn mix)

M's been great this weekend getting presents under control and put away, which is fortunate, since I've been grouchy and tired, and generally hard to motivate to do anything but sit. It still isn't done, but it's making progress.

Also making progress are the sleeves on the handpaintedyarn sweater. (in case you can't tell, that's almost a full pair there) There's been some pooling even with the alternation, some of which I find fascinating and beautiful, some of which I find, well, tolerable enough to not be worth ripping things out and trying to break the yarn to fix it.



Which leaves me dangerously close to having to make a decision (read: figure out) how to do the button band. I sense a stall coming on here...

and I still can't find the rest of my FP shawl pattern

Got Married

It's funny how my ability to think about this is hampered by the fact that I will never do it again, and therefore learning from it is irrelevant. I'd never realized how much my thought processes are centered around learning and improvement. it kept catching me unawares when I was thinking about it.

That's sort of an anti-climatic way to start that post isn't it?

To be fair, it really was a little anti-climatic, which was pretty much as I expected, seeing as we'd been as-good-as married for two whole years of engagement.

In any case, thoughts, whether I learned from them or not:

I was definitely right about not being able to handle an exciting strenuous trip to europe immediately afterwards - hocking hills was just about the right speed. Should have had the foresight to pack gatoraide and a massage for that night.

Ari very seriously critiquing Paige's performance as flower girl. Apparently 'her mom did most of it' well, she is two, so that was sort of the plan. Ari really is more the right age, but as an oldest sibling myself, I could not do that to her oldest sibling.

Should have invited more people to the rehearsal dinner, since even though I think I did a good job of mingling, I did not spend nearly as much time with my closer family as I wanted to.

Only had one contact. That plus veil equals very blurry vision. Didn't give me a headache, just kinda weird.

Flowers were good. Some of the corsages were magenta rather than pastel, which strangely aligned with my primary nagging fear in the days leading up, but the main bouquets were right.

Music was good, though I wish I'd had more time to relax and listen to it, as from all reports it was in fact, really good. This contradicts my other main nagging fear, suggesting that I should not in fact quit my job to become a psychic.

People were impressed by the cake (yay) but some seemed confused by the food format, expecting to be excused like a buffet. I think more tall tables, smaller stations, and some passed stuff would have helped this, but again, when am I ever going to use that knowledge?

One of my friends took pictures and posted them, which was nice to have right away like that. May post some, though I'm a little squeamish about posting face-pictures on the internet.

M realized when we got back that I hadn't brought my knitting and thanked me. I thought that was a little silly, since I didn't really think I'd have much opportunity to knit. He also gave me a hard time when I thanked him for making sure we could watch the basketball game (NCAA championship), since apparently, as a girl, I'm not supposed to allow sports on my honeymoon? Apparently his boss was also surprised that he'd been able to watch it, which I find particularly bizarre, since we watch most games with him. Does he really think that I would hang around with a bunch of M's work people, while the other wives were somewhere else if I did not actually like watching the games? M's boss is great, I really like him, but he's so fun to pick on, and he's definitely getting an earful for this one.

Germany

So, there appears to be a possibility we will be moving to Germany for the next 2-4 years.
M's company has a position there (dependent on a contract that has yet to be signed, so this is no definite thing) and he came home joking one day that we might take it rather than hiring a new person to go. We laughed, and brushed it off. About a week later, we both came back to it. Y'know, maybe it's not such a crazy idea. We aren't likely to ever be less tied down than we are now. When I count the tangible 'big' things we've acquired, which are actually *ours* it's two cars, a couch, some computer equipment, a washer-dryer set. Not much. Not to much to move or leave as things require.
The company would pay for the move. They would hire me on additionally. They would pay for housing. There is apparently no income tax? While the cost of living in Europe is higher, they would essentially double our salary (still in dollars) and that's on top of the free housing and tax free status. This would put us in a much more favorable position to buy a house when we got back, as opposed to just scraping by as we were looking to do this summer. It seems like one of those absolutely perfect opportunities, and everything that is scary about it are things that I would be a better person for having faced.
That said, what's scary about it:

• Being in another country. I make friends slowly. I lean on my family a lot. I was one of those kids who came home from college on weekends for things other than laundry. The social ramifications of this are staggering to me.
• The language. I am not one of those good with languages people. Apparently, English is very accepted in that area, but that's a cop-out. I'd feel like an ugly american living somewhere and not knowing the language.
• I would be working with M. While not as horrific of a failure as explaining math problems to M, coding with M has been, a bit dicey. Additionally, I would be working in an area that I'm not 100% comfortable/qualified. (despite the opinions of his boss, who has been making noises about hiring me since M mentioned my gpa) When I'm uncomfortable, and M is available for the purpose, I tend to lean on him. I'm not sure if this would be good in a long-term working environment. Add to that the previous issue of him being the only person I will know there, and I'm seeing a lot of him. It is definitely possible for me to o.d. on M.
• Plus: we would be essentially the most technical (at least computers/code-wise) people there. Minimal oversight. We can phone back to the office he's at now for support, and there's a non-technical manager/overseer type on base, but largely we are on our own. I worry that this may result in us being lazy and not learning/producing much in that time. Of course, this last one could really swing the other direction too.

But there it is. If this does go through, I will probably start a separate blog about it to avoid cluttering this up, but as it isn't even a definite yet, it's here for now.

In knitting, I'm almost done with the first sleeve of the handpainted yarn ribbed jacket. I got pooling despite the alternating yarn, but it's not too bad, so I'm ok with it.

goals

I've been reading http://denofchaos.blogspot.com/ and it's been making me think of goals. (it's also both fun to read, mildly educational, and very good birth control, a winning combination if you ask me)

I have never been a 'goals' type person. This was a problem in school days, when you were required to list them: three things to do this quarter, three things to do this year... I made stuff up that I figured I was going to end up doing anyway, so then I wouldn't have to worry about it.

I don't mean to say I was irresponsible about work (though I was probably an underachiever, I slacked very creatively, constantly aiming on that results/work sweet spot as opposed to 'my best').

It's sort of like that 'process knitter' vs. 'product knitter' I think I'm definetly a process achiever. I got good grades because you're supposed to - not to hit some mystical number which would get me into a particular major at a particular college. I always figured to do as good as was reasonable (see 'sweet spot' above) and make do with wherever that got me.

Which is strange, because I never did anything *else* because I was supposed to. I gamed the rules so I could follow the letter but not the spirit. Still do, though at least now I'm aware that my rampant passive-agressive tendencies are not, in fact, a virtue. Yet somehow, long-term, barely tangible 'supposed tos' are cake for me.

I think I need to say also, that I've been very lucky. I'm, modesty aside, smart. Grades weren't terribly tough for me. My parents also managed to put enough aside for my college that everything was covered, plus, due to my relatively bargan-basement choice, I had money left over. I currently have no debt. Completely. I rent, so no mortgage, and was able to pay cash for my pretty-decent used car. For all you parents out there trying to do right by their kids and thinking it's not appreciated, it is. It wasn't until after I graduated, but now, it definetly is.

Now, I have my first ever goals in life. I want a house, or, more specifically, a large dog and a garden, which translates into owning a house. I want to, eventually, have children and stay home with them, because that's another one of those unappreciated things my parents did that really mattered to me.
I think that those are really, truly, my tangible, controlable wants in life.

Those are really vague goals for a 3rd-grader. I think my teachers were much happier with whatever I made up about reading a book over 100 pages than they would have been with that.

They're also, maybe 10 years within reach. The first one, maybe even within a year. I've only realized them in a 'concrete action & decisions' sense within the past year. I've started thinking about the 'after that' side of things.

So then what? Start maxing the 401ks, and saving for college, 'cause you're 'supposed to' and after a brief fling in goals-land, return to my natural state as a process achiever.

Yes, we'll spend a little, but we're living way below our means now, in order to achieve 'house-asap', Getting things like a dog, garden, vacation, t.v., laptop, bed (currently the 'sub-goals' list) don't look like major issues, particularly since we're not going to get them *all at once*.

Maybe it'll change. Maybe there will always be something else on the end of the list, and I'll look back at this and laugh laugh laugh. But I guess that's what I'm writing it for. Everything other than the house is on more of a 'plans' list (as in, 'I plan to do my homework' not a valid 3rd grade goal) than a goals one. The only other big thing I can think of is that I'd rather own horses when I got old than live on a golf course. But that's about as concrete as a 3rd grader saying her goal is to own a house.

Jane Eyre

Apparently there's a Jane Eyre miniseries coming out a la Pride & Prejudice? I've no idea when this might be airing, and it's quite likely we don't get the channel anyway, but it makes me think. Particularly, this entry made me think. I generally agree with her commentary, but not completely. In my eyes, Jane Eyre is largely a useless book, except for as a set up for Wuthering Heights. While I haven't read extensively in this era, it's my understanding from High School literature classes that Jane Eyre was the archetype of a genre I like to refer to as 'English Heroines Lost on the Moor' there are a couple others of that vein I've read, and even P&P shares some common ground. But I ramble. The gist of the genre is that all grouchy rich men exist solely to reform and marry poor English heroines and make them rich and happy beyond their dreams.
Heathcliff turns this all on its head. Wuthering Heights without the context of Jane Eyre is just sort of morbid and depressing. With it, it's delicious, because to the bitter end there will be some people who just expect him to be Rochester.

I've started my Forest-Pathing. I kinda dig the seed stitch. This may be because I cut the obscenely large border down to two stitches. I think the seed stitch looks very neat and textured in the triangles, but the whole big border was overwhelming. I'm also knitting the border along with the rest, since there was no way in heck I was going to go back and pick up a two stitch border back and forth along the entire edge. For now that seems like this will work fine. Is there something I'm not thinking of which will bite me in the butt later? I also made it narrower by about half. (I'm doing 2-3 squares across, as opposed to, if memory serves, 4-5) I'm a little concerned that this will be too narrow, and I should have done 3-4. I'll make a call at some point. There is also a plan to attach an as-yet-undetermined edging after I finish.

I really, really meant to take pictures of last night's progress, but when I actually got in the vicinity of the yarn, I couldn't bear to not just work on it. So, I'll try harder tonight.

Thievery

When I see a pattern or FO I like my first impulse it generally not 'I should buy that pattern' but 'I should figure out how to make that'. My thought process often runs along the lines that, even if I bought the pattern, I'd have to modify the dickens out of it to get a fit, and starting from just the stitch pattern and general design would be just as easy, and much, well, free-er. Having reached the point in life where I have actual income, and am no longer a mooching student, I'm beginning to question that line of thought as rationalization, rather than solid logic.
There are a number of things I'd eyeballed as 'worthy causes' back in my no-money days. I want to give to the high school robotics team I mentored in college, since I know just how much it costs, how little support it gets, and how much I got out of being on even one side of it. I want to give to the web comic artists I read every morning, since they're relying on the kindness of strangers for a living, and they make me laugh - what's more valuable that that? I want to give to Child's Play, since it really is a good cause, and it's giving good press to a demographic that could use some.
I don't know where paying other people for patterns they inspired, but I did not strictly use falls in there. Plus, I firmly believe in taking care of yourself before you take care of others, and we are still firmly looking into buying a house, which is a sum of money behind which all others pale right now.
Really, this is all a bit rhetorical, because I have yet to actually make any of these lovely theoretical patterns, and I have no compulsion to stash things like that - I'm sure I'll be able to find something when the time comes.
Still, it's a topic I've been putting some serious thought into recently.

In other news, the fubar'd-gusset socks may be a failure after all. They are a little tight to get on, and I imagine this will not get better after felting. Still I cannot bring myself to re-work the heels - I'd rather get fresh yarn and start over altogether. I know continuing to work on them is not going to make matters better, but at least they'll be behind me, even it not quite, well, useful.