I became an auntie yesterday! I watched my sister give birth. I kept thinking it wasn’t at all like on you see on TV - no screaming and commotion or tons of people around. It was actually really calm and quiet and casual. However for those of you who have seen Knocked Up, it looks exactly like that. Haha. Resume your lunch.
Somehow, even though I have a month of no work and no school, I have lots of things I need to schedule and remember. For a long time, my scheduling system consisted of Microsoft Outlook (at work), which automatically sync’ed to my PDA and to Google Calendar. And if I was on the go, I could put appointments into the PDA or Google Calendar, and everything would sync up automatically. It was easy, convenient, and seamless.
Now I don’t have my work computer, I’ve got my iMac at home. As far as I can tell, the Mac isn’t able to sync with Google Calendar. I could just stop using Google but I wonder if I change my PDA to sync with iCal on my computer, if it would delete all of the appointments I already have on the PDA?
Edit: Oh look, I was a week behind.
…Just another excuse to get an iPhone.
I forgot to say that I also miss my knitting group!
We went out exploring again tonight and I scored these amazing Puma sneakers for only $20.
They are leather etched with an assymetrical blueprint design, and the fake strap is rubber-ish. Of course, it’s just my luck that they’re white and it’s been raining every day for at least a week. The last time I bought fancy sneakers, it immediately rained on them too. It’s like the law of car washing.
I am officially living in Providence, Rhode Island now. That sounds weird to say that I live in Rhode Island. The boxes are gone (except for my pile of craft stufff that I don’t know where to store), the kitchen is functional, and we still don’t have curtains on those giant ass windows.
I like my location a lot. On our first night exploring, we stumbled on roller derby. I had never seen it before, so we stayed and checked it out. It was way cool! All of the customes, the rockabilly vibe, the outdoor track, there was a whole culture around it. And beer! There was beer! I decided that if I were a roller derby girl, my nickname would be Valentine Massacre. We also found out that on weekend nights, our street turns into club central, complete with women in tube tops, valet parking (porsches), and lots of motorcycles. We were woken up by the sounds of two women fighting. Good times!
Random fact: I’ve hardly seen any Toyota Prius’ but lots and lots of Range Rovers. Where I lived before, hybrids (esp. the Prius) and Subaru wagons outnumbered all over cars, so replacing them with Rovers is amusing.
Being at roller derby made me really miss my friends though. I couldn’t stop thinking about how much more fun it would be with my gang there. *sigh* I really really miss them.
Right after I moved in, I jetted up to north of Boston to help train the new AmeriCorps crew coming in. I spent two years with the AmeriCorps organization and it was like a big family. I was so sad that I wouldn’t get to be with them this year, especially when I wasn’t swearing in with them. I’m not gonna lie, I did get a little emotional during their oaths. I’m losing all of those friends too!
My “spiritual advisor” was totally right when I talked to him last year. I feel like I just closed every single door behind me and everything is totally new.
Last night I finally checked out the World War II Veterans Association bar, which is a well known hipster hangout. But construction workers are still welcome!
Today I got the keys to my new apartment in Providence and we moved a car full of boxes in. The apartment is older than my current one but it has central air conditioning, a dishwasher, and washer/dryer - things that I don’t have right now and they seem like such a luxury! The stove is so old that it’s brown & orange and has an analog clock, but it’s full sized which means my baking pans don’t have to touch the sides of the oven like they do now.
It’s in a converted warehouse. When we saw the photo on Craigslist, we saw this:
It looked dated, like in a 1980’s way and I assumed it was a sliding glass door or something boring. But then we saw it in person, and pulled back the curtains and it took my breath away. (Sorry, my cell phone doesn’t have a setting for backlighting)
Our bedroom also has one of those windows. The previous tenants had those sheers hung up with flimsy tension rods, and they were draped in a way where you can tell they never opened them. After we moved our boxes in, I had to take at least one of them down because it looked so ugly.
The giant arched brick does a great job of distracting me from the up-close and personal view of the highway outside. Now, any ideas on better window curtain options to show off those windows?
The Small Things edition.
I was going away for Memorial Day Weekend and I had just finished the blue scarf, so I didn’t have anything to work on. I dug out some leftover scraps and made these 3 headband earwarmer things.
Pattern: Calorimetry
Yarn: Silk Garden Lite by Noro, 45% Silk, 45% Mohair, 10% Lambswool
They keep your ears warm. Like this:
(See my crazy hair?)
I also tried out a new technique: two socks at the same time, on one circular needle. These are the practice toddler-sized socks.
Pattern: Tutorial Socks from 2-at-a-Time Socks
Yarn: Superwash by Valley Yarns, 100% superwash wool
It was kind of cool, but I’m not sure if I would knit all socks that way. Actually, I sold the book after owning it for like a week, because I don’t believe in paying for a book of sock patterns.
I also made a few hats that were given away before they could get photographed. These 4 items currently have no owners. I think I also have a few winter hats without owners too. I put them on an empty shelf and it’s kind of like a mini store of little knitted things. A free store. If you are lucky enough to come to my house to play Mario Kart, you might leave with a knitting thing.
I have less than one month left of work so I made this scarf/wrap/shawl for my boss. I really want one for myself. I worked on this during April & May.
Pattern: Clapotis
Yarn: Franklin by Valley Yarns, 75% Wool, 25% Nylon
I haven’t given it to her yet. And she just told everyone that she’s pregnant and due in October so maybe I can whip something up for the baby too. Everyone wants a baby skully sweater these days.
Notice that I also got a haircut last week. It’s not very cute, and after I got it cut I had to get rid of the pink parts because it looked weird. I’ve been wearing it kind of wavy and messy lately. And cramming the beach, a pool party, a bbq bash into 10 days gave me a bit of a tan, despite heavy use of SPF 55 and 70. Now I need to find new foundation to match.
I haven’t posted any knitting pictures in a couple of months. That’s because 1) I don’t know how to model my knits and 2) my camera is slowly dying and sometimes it decides to work, sometimes it doesn’t. This morning it was awake, so I took as many pictures as I could.
I’ll start with the baby sweater that I made for my sister. This is my 2nd one. I made one of these for my friend’s baby, Quinn, last year and I never got a picture of her wearing it.
Pattern: Baby’s First Tattoo from Stitch ‘n Bitch Nation
Yarn: Comfort DK by Berroco, nylon & acrylic
It’s the 3-6 month size, since the baby will be born in late August and she can wear it throughout winter. The little skull is about the width of my thumb. It was really hard to see and keep track of the stitches, considering each stitch was 1/15th of my thumb.
It was a hit and Baby’s Daddy wants a matching one for himself.
at a baby shower for my 19 year old sister:
Girl 1: You’re the first person I know who is having a girl! I can’t believe that.
Girl 2, walking by: That’s because we’re 18.
Even the 18 yr olds laughed at that one.
Also, earlier this week I was hanging out with the high school kids that I mentor. There is this one girl who we sometimes go for months without seeing her because she’s always running away from home and she’s in and out of school. One of the college students said something about communism and the kids asked if any communist countries still existed so we had a little lesson both for college & high school kids.
College student: There’s North Korea right? Or is that South Korea? Or are they the same place?
Me: North.
Tough Girl: Isn’t there North and South Vietnam too? Like they had the Viet Cong and stuff.
Me: There used to be, but now Vietnam is just all one country.
Tough Girl, eyes wide: For real? And the whole country is communist?
Me: Yup.
Tough Girl: Daaaamn. So we fought that war for nothing?
I found it both funny and adorable. Girl isn’t sure if she’s going to graduate high school but she has the sense to declare the Vietnam War asshattery. I’m going to miss those dudes. And no, it is nothing like Dangerous Minds.
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