Discombobulated Thoughts — January 16, 2007

• Wow, halfway through January already?
• I’m feeling slightly better, just some residual pain in my back and right side but not feeling like I’m splitting in half anymore.
• Pugly is acting very odd lately. I’ve been having to carry him to the car every morning to go to doggy daycare and sometimes I have to catch him to put the leash on him to go outside. Then there’s the weird matter of him not wanting to jump down from the car when we get home. Very strange little dog.
• I’ve been watching HBO’s Rome and I just love love love it. I love the two guys who always seem to be in the right or wrong place and inadvertently cause history to happen.
• I’m reluctantly switching from bottled water to Brita filtered water to save money at home. As long as it’s not tap water, right?
  

  It’s a jungle out there
  Poison in the very air we breathe
  Do you know what’s in the water that you drink?
  Well I do, and it’s amazing
  – “It’s a Jungle Out There”, Monk Theme Song lyrics

• I bought Seventh Generation dish soap, which I think is supposed to be biodegradable. At the very least it’s better for the environment that Joy, which is what I was using. I also bought an organic green tea hair conditioner. I couldn’t find the reusable grocery bags, but I’m thinking about making my own.
• I’ve been trying to find a sample Square Foot Veggie garden online for one adult that I could modify to my own liking. I just like seeing examples of what other people have done.
• I guess I’m going to have to create a gardening category.
• I knitted all day on Saturday on a dishcloth but I have nothing to show for it because I pulled it all out. No matter how careful I counted or what I did, by the time I got to the 12th row, I had an extra stitch and couldn’t figure out where it happened. So I pulled it all out. It’s one of those complicated patterns that is different on every row — you know, K5 P2 (K6 P2) repeat 4 times K5 P1 K2 and then the next row is something else and then like on row 12 you repeat rows 6 through 10. Oy. The scarf was all knit stitches and it took me how many months to do?
• I’m feeling uninspired to take a photo today.

Tags: discombobulated, Seventh Generation, Joy, project365, knitting, gardening, wellness, the puppy, bottled water, Brita, HBO\\\\\\\'s Rome

One Scarf Finished

I finally finished that scarf I started knitting back in October. Yay!

Tags: knitting, scarf

Getting Ready For 2007

So, thinking about my “Things I’d like to do in 2007,” I decided to get a head start.

• I took the To Do lists — daily, 2x a week, weekly, biweekly, monthly, quarterly, 2x a year, annually, etc. — and assigned the items dates or days of the weeks. I put them all into my Palm Z22; the to do program has a repeating functionality which allowed me to do all sorts of neat things. I am giving myself permission to go ahead and check things off even if I don’t complete things, accepting they’re there for reminders, not punishment.

  However, after a few days of doing the daily things on my list, I had an “Ah-ha!” moment. It suddenly occurred to me that even if you start with a big mess, if you do a little every day and maintain the clean part every day, eventually it’ll all be done and the clean section will be easy to maintain. Right now, my kitchen is so easy to keep clean. I just have to keep following the daily maintenance and not let it slide back into chaos. It’s easy if you break things up into manageable pieces.

• Using the Now Reading Wordpress Plugin I already had installed, I created two pages and linked to them in my sidebar on the right — N’s To Be Read Book List and N’s Finished Books List.  I haven’t figured out how to only do a 2007 Finished Books List using the plugin yet, but this is a good start, I think.  It’ll be a good way to keep track.  The TBR list lists the books I’ve currently started and the books I’ve bought and are in the wings waiting to be read.   I expect that list to get longer when I sort through my books to put them in some sort of actual order in a few weeks.

  Here’s an interesting question: Where do you keep your TBR books?  Do you keep them where they will end up or in a pile somewhere separate?  Is there a special place for books that haven’t been read yet in your house or do they mingle with the books you’ve already finished?

• I actually knitted 5½ rows on my scarf!  It’s hard to decide whether to read or knit.  Has anyone figured out how to do both? –  and no, I don’t want to “listen” to books.

Tags: Thursday Thirteen, knitting, reading, books, housecleaning

Thursday Thirteen Things I’d Like To Do In 2007 (#18)

So this is the time of year when everyone is doing New Year’s Resolutions. I prefer not to do “Resolutions” because they’re generally broken and joked about by the middle of January and forgotten by President’s Day. Then, next January, they’ll be resolved again.

So, instead, I usually try to use the time to reflect and think about the things I’d like to work on in my life, changes, improvements, and so on. I don’t make myself any impossible promises though. I know my limits and I know physics. There’s no way I can lose 60 lbs in 2 months, for example; nor is it likely that I’ll be getting up at 5am any time soon to exercise 3 times a week.

Anyway, here is my list of things I would like to do in 2007, no promises, but I’m working on it. More

Tags: Thursday Thirteen, bloghopping, meme, New Years Resolutions, gardening, knitting, debt, weight, health, writing, Green Living, housekeeping, dysfunctional family

The Scarf So Far

O.K. This is like 40 rows…it’s taken me all week to get this far. I’m still not real happy but I’ve taken it out and redone it about fifty times. I’m doing something wrong on the ends. They’re always too loose. I end up going back and picking at the stitches trying to even things out. I just don’t like the fact that things don’t look all that consistant. I don’t know if I’m doing it right. But everywhere I’ve been where I’ve been knitting, I’ve got lots of compliments on it, mostly on the colors.

I’m accepting advice from other knitters.

Tags: knitting, scarf

Discombobulated Thoughts — 10/13/06

• Happy Conspiracy Day! Friday the 13th — unluckiest day for the Templars ever, I think.
• I’m having my CT Scan (with contrast) of the lung shortly. The machine at the clinic I was supposed to have it in is “down” so they’ve called and asked me to go to the “Big House” (the main hospital) instead.
• It wasn’t so bad without the contrast, but I’m admittedly nervous after all the talk about possibly shutting down my kidneys.
• I wish I’d brought my lorazepam today.
• I wonder if binding my hands and elbows with Ace bandages would help reduce the pain. Ice cold seems to help.
• Pugly wants to chew on the ends of my knitting needles while I’m knitting and the cats want to play with the yarn — finally a hobby we can all participate in.

More

Tags: discombobulated, knitting, kidney biopsy, CT Scan of the lung

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Discombobulated Thoughts — 10/11/06

• Thanks to the change in the weather, everything hurts.
• I can’t even take any alleve, advil or asprin (even if I took asprin) for the inflamation of the finger because of the upcoming kidney biopsy.

• My popup windows are screwed up on my home laptop so that when my “insert a link” window opens for wordpress, it’s less than an inch wide and is not resizeable and I can’t see what I’m typing in the url field.
• Don’t forget to stop by Brony’s 100th post and be one of her 100th commenters.
• I made pizza casserole over the weekend. Yum.  I’m still finishing up leftovers thought…the problem with being single…or is it the blessing?
• Last weekend I numbed my brain with Memoirs of a Geisha (excellent), Kingdom of Heaven (not so good), X-Men: Last Stand (disappointing), and Domino (eh).  Fortunately, Netflix has already delivered the next set of movies.
• I also got all caught up on Sci-Fi’s series Eureka, which I will definitely be buying the DVDs for. Very cute series…Northern Exposure meets Area 51.
• There’s been too much talk about Folley in the news as Saturday night I dreamt I was trying to stop a child predator in a grocery store and a mother wouldn’t heed my warning, but when her kid got molested she was angry at me for not stopping it.
• I know I haven’t been discussing the world’s problems as much on here lately. I’ve still be following them…but with my own health crisis, Pugly’s kennel cough, and my recent troubles with friends, I just want to write about other things for a bit.
• In fact, if anyone is interested in starting some sort of coffee club, knitting coven, or just getting-together-to-get-away-from-stuff club in the Portland, ME area…let me know.
• I’m really starting to dig knitting.  I’m wondering where everyone buys their supplies online and what the best needles are and what sort of gadgets I should be buying.
• I finally got everything sorted with my Amazon Rewards Credit Card.  I got all of the gift certificates they owed me since February…I just spent $225…it’s going to be like an early Christmas next week.  I bought lots of little stuff — movies, cookbooks, and books rather than one or two big things.  I need to go clean off my Amazon wish list now, I guess.

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Tags: discombobulated, movies, knitting

Beginning Knitting…Take 2

*sigh* O.K. I took it all out and started over because I just didn’t like how it looked. This looks like a better beginning, but I still have to stop at the end of every row and kind of “tighten up” the stitches.

Tags: knitting

Beginning Knitting

While I was watching Memoirs of a Geisha this afternoon, which, by the way, is a must see, I started work on one of those Suss Learn-to-Knit kits. It’s a “Level 0″ where you get to make a multi-color scarf and it comes with a DVD that actually shows close-ups of hands actually doing the stitches you’re going to do in the project. Even though I’d already had a live leason and been practicing on swatches and looking at lots of pictures of instructions, I found the DVD very helpful.

Anyway, there was much pulling out and starting over so it doesn’t look like I did much. I’m having problems with the flipping to the next row…particularly at the end of the first row. Actually my problem has to do with that slip knot at the end of the first row. It always ends up way loose and funky looking for some reason. Any tips on that are muy welcome.
My first few rows look a little too tight but as you can see in the below photo, once I got past the casting and the first few rows, I got a good groove on and started doing some consistant-sized stitches…I think.

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Tags: knitting, Memoirs of a Geisha, Suss Learn-to-Knit kit

Showing My Scottish Side

The tartan cloak I specially ordered from the kilt shop in Edinburg arrived finally. I’m very excited, even though it’s now turned a little too warm again for it since it’s lambswool. I have a nifty broach with the Anderson clan (my maternal ancestors) ensignia and a sword to pin it with too for later.

I’m thinking of taking up knitting now so I can make a little yellow or red hat and maybe some mittens to go with it. The owner of the yarn shop near my office said she’d teach me for the cost of the needles and the yarn.

Tags: Edinburgh, Scotland, tartan, Anderson, knitting