Long overdue update

It’s been a long time since I posted. I need to get back into the habit of posting more often. I get to the point where I want something big to post, then things pile up and it looks like a really long list.

I also didn’t take many pictures in the past few months. I looked back through my memory card and found these ones but they’re mostly old and very disjointed.

Remember last year I did a big bike ride with Derek (the bottom of this post)? We did it again, but my parents and uncle came along. They turned ff and did a shorter loop, but it was very nice. I got a good picture with my mom this year (at the start line so I’m less sweaty this time!). This was September.

Also in September we went to the cottage for a week to get my thesis written. 9 days, cold weather, biking, eating and writing (and for D, canoing and fishing) . D was plied with many beers to give it a first read through. I came back with the guts of the thesis written and I started waiting for comments from my supervisors. This is biking by the cottage. I was WAY TOO HOT this day in a long sleeved jersey. The next time I wore a short sleeved jersey and was WAY TOO COLD!

In October we dressed up for Hallowe’en, but that posts’ been up forever.

November had a truce declared between the cats. I don’t know what brought it about, but on a few occasions since then, this has occurred.

December I knit Christmas presents and sent off the second thesis draft at noon on Christmas Eve.

Two Christmas presents to show.

First, for my brother who lives in Manhattan (barely!), the brooklyn tweed two row noro scarf. Noro Silk Garden in colourways 245 and 234. He put it on and didn’t take it off on Christmas and then later in the week as well. I think that means it was a hit.

Second, the Whirly Rib Cap by Woolly Wormhead for my mother in law. I’ve had the Mountain Goat by Mountain Colors in night sky for many years, since the first knittyboard SP round I participated in. It looks lovely on J.

So that’s getting you all up date. I hope to post more often now.

How did it get to be so long since my last post?  It seems like yesterday that I was writing it.

School’s gone a little crazy. I’ve got 2 conferences back to back in the next 3 weeks and I am madly trying to get ready for them.  About 3 weeks ago someone pointed out a potentially major problem with my research – along the lines of “did you do this? If you didn’t, I think your data is crap”. Yup, 4 weeks out from 2 major conferences and I had to go back and do some very preliminary stuff.

It did work out, it makes my work more complete, but it was a very stressful time and it’s not quite over yet as I now have to make all my data into a succinct story to put on a 1m by 1.5 m poster. It needs to be pretty too!  Not just words. The pretty part isn’t a problem, being a microscopist I’ve got lots of pictures, it’s choosing which ones are most representative and compelling. I’ve got space  for 6 or 7 images and one of them will be a composite of 6 pictures to show a trend.

Lifewise, I’m trying to get ready for 3 weeks away from home. May 16 to 19 I’m going to the cottage for Canada Day weekend. I love this cottage. It’s my father’s sister in law’s family cottage, so I have no formal hold on it, but it’s beautiful.  On an island off the Bruce Penninsula, a 3 hour drive from here, but the other way from Muskoka so the drive is OK. No running water, no electricity, it uses a propane powered fridge! We go and eat and read and play cards for the weekend with lots of family and come home so refreshed. Did you click on the propane fridge link? I like the way the authour describes that process of propane burning to cool a fridge.

Then on the 20th I take a train to Montreal for a 3 day conference of microscopists.  I will be presenting my work for 20 minutes. I’m not as worried about this conference because my Microscope supervisor isn’t concerned – It’s more just the time away and the fact that on the 27th I get on a plane to Amsterdam for a HUGE conference with all the big names in my field and a symposium that could be subtitled “B’s Thesis in a nutshell”.

That conference runs till June 1, D comes to Amsterdam on the 31st and then we head off for a train trip around Belgium and Germany to end up at a friend’s wedding on the Rhine on the 6th of June. Then home on the 8th.

I don’t even want to starting THINKING about the packing for the Europe trip – I need sightseeing and conference and WEDDING clothes. eep!

Knitting wise, I’m making good progress on the Aleita Shell. I’ve done the split for the centre front. The 100% cotton yarn is butchering my hands. The socks are up to starting the gusset, but since they are toe up, that’s not all that far!  I’ll have 5 hours on the train to and from Montreal so I see a lot getting done there.

Yesterday I got a really cute haircut. No pictures then and I’ve not slept on it so it’s got that “post hairdresser bedhead” look. You know – the gunk the hairdresser puts in makes it extra standuppy in the morning? If I can get a picture after showering today I’ll add it to this post.

Since this post has no pictures I’ll add this one. This is me at ~2 years old at my mother’s family’s cottage with our dog Morag. It’s scanned from a slide that my mom recently found. I’m slowly scanning the box of slides that my grandpa had of us with the goal of getting them printed. This picture is not really in focus, but I really like it!

SP10 package #2

I’ve been negligent and not posted my second SP10 package from Treats4boo. She’s been a doll and sent the most stuffed boxes ever. I tried to put everything back into the box and couldn’t achieve it. It was a lot of fun.

This box came to Canada from the UK in record time. She mentioned sending in on Friday and it appeared on Tuesday morning. There was no jet lag on this package. It started with a card with a picture of an old knitting pattern on the front. It shows 3 women in sweaters, one with a learners “L” in her hand and the caption “Their driving instructor had fled”. What that has to do with knitting, I have no idea.

The package contained yarn! Local(-ish) to her is Aragon Yarns and she sent some Classic Romney from their sheep. Apparently the sheep were all with lamb during her visit and it was very nice. The yarn is hot pick and green, so I hope it is dyed after the shearing! I’ve already used some of it to make a calorimetry (with fewer stitches). It’s really soft and yummy.

She also sent a skein of Kidsilk Haze in a hot pink known as “candy girl”. It’s oh so bright and I have no idea of what to do with it. Any suggestions? Fred has a real affection for this ball, he picks it up and carries it around the house if I leave it out.

There’s a little sheep purse filled with easter eggs, chocolate, tea and lip balm. I’m not usually a cherry fan, but this is so subtle that I have become addicted.

Wait! There’s more! A sewing kit, fridge magnets of animals and cookies! A new set of tiny knitting needles as I broke one. I’m very intrigued by the idea of mustard bath for sore muscles. Will I be extra tasty after marinating in that? There’s socks with skulls and roses! So much lovely stuff!

Thank you treats4boo! You make me feel very special.

This weekend has been great. I finished the first draft of a major document for my PhD. I sent it off this evening and sat down and knit for the rest of the evening. Only a few more documents to get done this week – abstracts, ethics approvals and the like.

We went to a party for D’s step-dad last night. It was a surprise – M’s kids rented a SUV limo and we rode in style to a pub where the rest of his extended family were gathered for fun and drinks. It was a blast! We slept in a bit this morning, then went skating with my classmates and now it’s almost bedtime again.

I’m wired.

Every have one of those wired days? The ones where no matter what you do, you can’t sit still and by the end of it you have no fingernails, the air is electric and you can’t sleep?

That’s what today was. I wish I could determine when these days come and plan for them because I seem to get a lot done, but I can never tell when it’s going to happen.

D’s out of town this week, in another timezone, so it’s really quiet around the house. Maybe that’s why I’m wired? I’m trying to make enough noise to cover the fact he’s not here?

Today was a big day at school. I had the first supervisory committee meeting for my new project. It’s going really well. The professors (including one from another university) all think I’m on track and I have some interesting ideas. That was a good thing to hear.

Really, not that much else happened. I marked some exams… if asked in a science class “describe 3 ways the <course subject> affects your daily life”, don’t answer “It gives me a class to take” or try to convince me that you collect butterflies. Seriously. I was killing myself laughing at some of the answers. You’ve also gotta wonder about a professor who makes that worth 6 marks on the exam.

On the knitting front, I’m having another go at the Monkey socks in Regia Bamboo that Bronwyn sent me. The first one looks really big around, so with the second ball of yarn I’m trying it on smaller needles. Originally I was using 2.75 mm, I’m now using 2.25mm. The fabric is much nicer, but the sock might be too small around. eep. I’ll show pictures when I’m done this second sock and take a vote on which one to pull out.

Before D left we did a ride outside in the warmth – another 15 K towards the goal. Gotta figure out how to track this better though.

OK, off to bed. Hopefully I won’t be staring at the clock for hours.

high hopes

The long term forecast for my neck of the woods shows warm temperatures for the weekend. It seems we’ll jump from 4 or 5 degrees C to 18 in the space of a day. That should bode well for the start of biking season in earnest.

I’ve got so much else to do as well. I have comments from both supervisors now and the second set is much more involved to fix than the first. I have a supervisory committee meeting for my new PhD next Tuesday and I’m really stressed about that due to differing expectations from my two supervisors (they’re in different departments, heck, different faculties, so they’re used to different things). I’m trying to find an introductory biology course that’s not first year undergraduate biology to audit as I need to learn how to talk to biologists, but I don’t want to sit through a course the length of 1st year biology. I also need an anatomy class, but the one at my university is 2 hours twice a week and I can’t get grad credit for it – between the two I’d be at 8 class hours for the full year without credit. That’s not fitting with my idea of graduating fast. AARGH!

The last 2 paragraphs were written at an ungodly hour of the night last night – I was too wired to sleep for very long and I paid for it (and am still paying in fact). Yesterday I ran a games night for the grad students at school that went late without having a proper dinner, then I got talking to a student who is just finishing his undergrad about if he should do grad school or not (he started the conversation with “I wanted to talk to you about grad school. I think it’s my only option”. eep! going to more school because you think it’s the only thing left is NOT a way to start on a successful track.

Anyways, I got in late, was wired from games, no food and the conversation and couldn’t sleep. Today’s bee a wash as a result. The one thing I did accomplish? Picking up my new glasses. I LOVE THEM. They do push on my nose in a place that gives me a headache though, so I hope that goes away.

Another FO!!

I’m on a roll of late. I have another FO. This is yet another baby gift and it’s for a friend’s baby. It’s the kimono from Mason -Dixon Knits and I used an idea I saw from Webbo on the knittyboard to use buttons instead of ribbons.

It was all going along well, then I sat back and looked at what I had created…

Yup, that mom is never going to figure out how to put that on her infant. I sewed the sleeves up in opposite directions. After putting the thing aside to think about what it had done for a few days, I seamed it correctly and I now have a completed project. YAY!

Modeling it is the only thing in the house that was smaller. Standly Sheep (pronounced like Stanley with a silent d, like a greatuncle of mine) has arms that point in the wrong direction. Ted the bear is too big, and, unlike Nimrodel, I’d never get my cats into a sweater (well maybe Fred, but the shower’s this weekend and I don’t want to risk ruining the sweater).

So that’s the latest knitting update.

Bikewise, I put it back on the trainer and slogged through another 10 kms. That’s up to 60.3 kms for the year. Still in Britain. My sister in Ireland was able to RUN 20 MILES on the weekend in 20 C weather. I’m more than a little jealous. She’s training for a Marathon in 3 weeks so hopefully the weather will hold.

Thesis wise, I got the comments back from the second supervisor on Friday. There’s some pretty big ones that will take significant effort to deal with. I think there’s a whole section I’m going to axe because I don’t want to deal with the comments. It seems like chickening out, but I just want this phase of my life over and to be able to focus 100% on my new project (which is going really well!).

Otherwise, D’s off to Japan on Friday for a week, then he’s home for 3 weeks and then we’re off to Spain. YAY! Vacation!

Thesis, Schmesis.

I’m not sure how to spell that, but that’s what I’m feeling right now.

I just looked through the corrections from my former supervisor on the Master’s thesis I have to write up. I think it’s going to be doable. VERY doable. Like get it done this weekend (since it’s a 3 day one and it’s supposed to rain). Horray!

Soon I will be like Mike Slackernery from PhD comics. If you have grad student experience, you know someone in grad school or you’ve ever wondered what grad school is like, check out PhD comics. It describes the life to a T. D gave me the “Women of Grad School, Women of Valour” T-shirt for christmas and I love it. But I haven’t seen it in a few weeks. Guess I should go look in the fancy new closet organiser mabob.

On the knitting front, I’m down to the ribbing at the bottom of rusted root. I made it longer than the pattern suggests because I have too many belly shirts and I need some longer things. I should be able to have it done for Easter dinner on Sunday at D’s mom’s house. I’m making the NY Times no-knead bread (needs registration, but I’ve never gotten spam from them – there are other places to find it without registering). I’m a big fan and a convert to this method. I think the trick is in the pot. Having the a right diameter heavy based pot is key. I made a loaf for D’s family’s Boxing Day dinner and his uncle said it reminded him of the bread his dad used to make and his dad was a professional baker. YAY!

OK, that was the completely random paragraph. D’s in Detroit tonight. The joys of working in an industry where the largest customer is the auto industry. At the end of the month he might be going to Japan again. The joy. If I don’t sound excited it’s because I’m not. Japan for a week sucks. That’s all I’ll say. That and if we’d known before we bought the Spain tickets, I would have bought a Japan ticket for myself, extended his ticket and gone there instead. Grrr.

I know people like pictures in blogs, but I really don’t have all that many. I think I’ll look through the pictures on my hard drive and pull 2 out to show.

This is me at my wedding to the wonderful D. He likes this one as it’s me in my natural habitat – slouching. You can see my favourite part of my outfit – I wore red shoes. My maternal grandmother used to say every woman should have a pair of red shoes, so I go with that completely. I later found out that it’s become tradition for the female cousins on my dad’s side to wear red shoes to get married.

This second one is the favourite of our parents and the photographer. We cleaned out n old outbuilding on the farm in case of rain at the wedding and found a pitchfork. Dad threatened to use it to force D down the aisle if he looked like he was going to bolt. We decided to recreate the American Gothic picture in front of the house and came up with this.

I was in a military style marching band in high school, so I have years of training in making a deadpan face and holding it. I really was happy that day. While taking this picture D kept laughing out loud. As I’ve mentioned before, our photographer was Dawn Alexander at http://www.dawnalexander.com. I can’t recommend her enough. She just understood what we wanted and did it.

Well, it’s late and I should go to bed. Without D to give me the cues, I go to bed really late on my own. Good night!

How’d it get to be Wednesday?

This week is flying by. I have so much to do and the weekend is approaching so fast I don’t know what to do.

I recently got sucked into the timewaster that is facebook.com. It’s really interesting to track down people I knew many years back and to find out the little connections between them now. For instance, D’s godfather is the father of a good friend of mine from a band I was in during high school. Another friend found me and asked how I ended up married to some relation to Doug’s dad. He’d also read an article I wrote for my undergrad campus paper in 1999 and kept it in the back of his head because he really enjoyed it. That’s so rewarding to hear.

School wise, it’s funny how something that seems so small can magnify into something HUGE. I did a set of experiments last week that were really fast. Well, the data collection part was. Now I’m stuck in the analysis portion. It needs deconvolution, then looking at numbers in books and finding patterns. I really need to sit down and do it systematically, but my brain is all over the place right now. EEP!

Speaking of all over the place, I spent some time outside on Sunday doing a photo shoot of my knitting FOs (finished objects, as opposed to UFOs – the unfinished objects). Here’s a Picovoli in knitpicks Shine. I didn’t really like knitting with the shine – I found it hard on my wrists. The fabric does feel awesome though. This is the knitting that D hid the rock under to propose in Curacao last year. I’m not 100% enamoured with this project – I don’t like how the neckline gapes and the picot edging wants to roll. I know I have problems with turtlenecks bagging up under the neckline, so maybe it’s something to do with my build. Narrow shoulders perhaps?

I had to crop my head off because I really am a bad model. You’d think that watching several seasons of America’s Next Top Model would give me some hints and tricks, but I can look really bad when I’m squinting and trying not to shiver. (and yes, PhD students do need a break to watch trashy TV).

Then there’s my Clapotis. I knit it from two skeins of Paton’s Kroy sock yarn on 3.75mm needles (I think!). It’s itchy. I may not have washed it after I finished it, so I washed it this week when I did a gauge swatch for a top secret knit so it might have softened up. I do want to do clapotis again in a nicer yarn. I’ve learned my lesson. The other problem is that the two balls were different dyelots! One is WAY brighter than the other. I was using it first and loving it, then hit the second, greyer ball and had to really push myself to finish. It was practice OK?

See the squinting? I get dimples on my cheekbones when I squint. The wind was also blowing and my hair wouldn’t stay out of my face. That’s it. I need spring. The weather forecast this morning was fun – it was “high of 5 today, going down, I mean up to 9 overnight”. Gotta wonder about that eh?

Any readers out there that listen to the CBC? Does the chime tone before the news now remind you of the Beatles song “Long and Winding Road” but on a slightly different pace? Like if you’re in Toronto the subway doors closing chime is the open triad that starts the Sesame Street theme? I’m always humming or singing when I get off the subway because of that. D tells me the one in Tokyo is the start of the Beastie Boy’s song “Girls”. I wonder if the designers think about that when they choose the notes.

That’s probably enough for one sitting – my legs are asleep and it’s almost bedtime at the Casa DB. I think we found a place to rent in Spain. YAY!

It’s a RED letter day

If I knew more I’d make that RED up there RED.

After the calamities of the weekend, I had a great day today. I passed my thesis along to the former supervisors for their approval. Hopefully it will be rubber stamping – the document is mostly one that was approved as a PhD proposal 2 years ago, a project for a class I got an A+ in and a wrap up of some experiments that didn’t work.

Then I went and checked out flights for D and I to Spain in May. The travel agent found flights for about C$1200 per person, so I left the TravelCuts office and went back to my office. I remembered I had a book for one of the professors and I went to return it and we got talking about Spain. Turns out he’s planning his honeymoon for June in Spain and had found a deal from our local small airport instead of the big city airport. I e-mailed D and we ended up getting flights for both of us for C$1300 from a local airport where the difference will easily be made up for in not paying for parking at the big city airport! YAY!

Then I went by the bike store to pick up a form for my taxes (I worked there last summer) and saw they’ve done more of the renovations. It looks great. I got home to find a box on my porch. I could see it from the road. Funny, I haven’t ordered anything by mail lately, maybe D did and didn’t tell me.

I picked it up and it’s from my Knittyboard Secret Pal, Spoilingboo! She sent it before the last one arrived in case it was lost. It was a really neat package with warnings included. She’d drawn cartoons of Fred and Ginger and her cat attacking the Martian men on the paper. Ginger was even eating one and another one was trying to rescue a friend from Fred.

There was also a ball of TOFUtsies yarn, 2 balls of Regia Bamboo (in a colour called “Passion”), a little package of Soak wool wash (that’s why one package said “don’t squeeze me too hard!”) and a really nifty PhD sized pencil holder that’s already in use on my desk. Here’s some pictures….

Note the instructions on the wrapping. That had me flummoxed for a bit. Between the two balls of Regia was a package of liquid wool wash and we don’t want that to pop!

The inside of the pencil holder is really neat. I can’t read it, perhaps I’ll have to send a picture to D’s brother and his Fiancee – she’s Japanese and he speaks the language – they live in Japan. Hopefully it is Japanese!

So to Spoilingboo, you did great. The fact that you mailed this before the other one arrived shows that you care that I’m looked after. It really warms my heart to know that there are honest and good people out there. My cynical father thought this Secret Pal this was hogwash – how can you trust a stranger to do something nice? Well I’ll have to show him.

I’ll practice my yarn photography skills tomorrow in daylight. D says our camera has “supermacro” but I can’t find it! OK, he’s reading over my shoulder and just showed me. More tomorrow when it’s light out!

What’s #3 gonna be?

D’s threatening to tie me to the couch for the rest of the weekend.

Yesterday we took a wire jewelery course. It was really fun. We bent wire into various shapes and added beads. The beads are really not our thing, but most of the others were beaders so we just sat in the back and played. D is really good with the tools and he was producing professional looking stuff right away. I had troubles doing consistent, even bends, so mine didn’t look as great. I did make a pair of earrings though, so I’m really happy. These are similar to a necklace D bought me in Ireland a few years ago. (eep – he didn’t pay that much!)

The course was really good, except that I didn’t know this weekend is cursed. I was hammering a piece of wire and the hammer slipped and I hit my thumb HARD. I’d hit my first finger with the previous swing and thought wow, that would hurt if I did it much harder and wham, I got my thumb next. This is the result:

In the background you can see the Fleece Artist Celtic Vest I finished a few weeks ago (probably more like a month now). I really like it and it was a really easy knit. I think I should have made it a little longer by making the rows longer.

So that was #1. #2 came this afternoon. I was running around trying to get some tools together to go help my dad with something and I ran into a metal sign that was lying on a shelf at eye level in the basement. BANG! I didn’t know what was happening but my eye instinctively closed, so I cut myself about 5mm long about 2-3 mm below my bottom eyelid. I don’t think it’s going to be a black eye, but it’s really smarting right now. Ouch.

So what’s going to be #3 in my list of injuries? D’s on to cook dinner so I don’t have to handle any sharp implements.

In knitting news I finished a baby bib from the Mason-Dixon book with one of the balls of Peaches and Creme yarn I got in the States. It was really fast – Friday between finishing the major parts of my thesis (YAY!) I got it done. Now there’s just final revisions tonight and handing it to the department head tomorrow.

Here’s the bib – we were trying to get Ginger to look like SuperKitty, but it wasn’t working. Fred was much better. I will wash it thoroughly before it goes to the recipient.

Please keep your fingers crossed that #3 isn’t a doozy!

Updated at 10:25 EST to add – IT’S DONE!  It’s not long, it’s not great, but I’M HAPPY WITH MY THESIS!!! and IT’S DONE! I’m going to bed now.