If I ruled the world.....

If I ruled the world, there are more than a few things I would change but they are too numerous to go into now. I'll just expound on one of the things that really irritates me. Well, it's something that is irritating me at this moment.

Today is Friday. Not an irritating thing. In fact, since I don't work weekends, a rather good thing. I came into work today at 7:30 am and managed to finish my work by 10:00 am. I mean really finished. As in, nothing to do. Nothing. No extra paperwork or treatment plans or phone calls. I have been sitting at my desk playing on the computer and reading the newspaper and walking around visiting people and now I am sitting here watching the clock. Ok, it's now 1:15 and I have to stay here because I work for a place that believes that it's important for people to be at their desks whether or not they're busy.

This drives me crazy! So, when I become Empress of the Universe (maybe not in this lifetime), I would make it so that people were 1) paid fairly for the work they do and 2) when they were done their work, they could go home. I think it would encourage people to work more efficiently and ultimately get more work done. There are some days when I have more than enough work to keep me busy for the whole day and I work hard those days. But on days like this, it's like a punishment to have to sit here. I can play on the computer at home if that's what I wanted to do. If it were more private I suppose I could knit but I'd rather do that at home, too.
Sigh. So now I am waiting for Pk to tell me he's ready to go home and then I'll leave anyway (we drove in to the train station together. Rather nice actually). It's a holiday weekend here in the US and a long one. Lots of folks took today off so it's rather quiet. I took Tuesday off so I'm looking forward to a 4 day weekend and it's killing me to sit here. I feel like a kid.

On the knitting front, I finally finished the socks for my aunt. Plain stockinette socks with blue and grey self striping yarn. And I am almost finished a pair destined for someone's Christmas stocking. I wound three skeins of laceweight yarn into balls last night. Each one is just over 100 grams. It took a long time. There are a lot of yards in there. I am chomping at the bit to cast on for a shawl from Folk Shawls. I can't decide between the Japanese kimono shawl or the Fir cone shawl. Anybody ever make one of those? I'm forcing myself to wait until I finish the Wildflowers Shawl and hopefully I'll hear from Teresa this week with some more yarn.

Well, I hope you all have a good weekend whether it's a long one or not. Here in the US it's the unnoficial last weekend of summer because school starts and the pace of life picks up again. Parking lots at the train station will go back to being crowded and so will the trains.

Well, it's 1:30 now. Thanks for letting me spend some time with you all.

you are lightskyblue #87CEFA

Your dominant hues are cyan and blue. You like people and enjoy making friends. You're conservative and like to make sure things make sense before you step into them, especially in relationships. You are curious but respected for your opinions by people who you sometimes wouldn't even suspect. Your saturation level is lower than average - You don't stress out over things and don't understand people who do. Finishing projects may sometimes be a challenge, but you schedule time as you see fit and the important things all happen in the end, even if not everyone sees your grand master plan. Your outlook on life is bright. You see good things in situations where others may not be able to, and it frustrates you to see them get down on everything.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

I stole this from Joan who is away on vacation and used it as filler. I just thought it was interesting. I'm not sure what color I thought Iwould end up.

I just want to say something regarding televison because I made a comment on rosered's blog that caused some consternation.

It's true. I do not own a television and have not watched for almost 5 years. I know it sounds like we are Luddites but the reality is we have 5 computers in the house. There is access to information and entertainment whenever someone wants it. We didn't start out (nor are we now) anti-television. It was more of a gradual pulling away. The tv was never in a central location in the house. We wanted the girls to read books and entertain themselves. They grew up watching cartoons and other shows and there was never a limit on the amount of television they could watch each day. I love cartoons and would watch with them. We also enjoyed Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street and the Discovery channel and lots of movies. As the girls grew, they did more reading and less tv watching and when computers entered the picture, there was no contest. Why watch a static box when you could interact?

After a while, I noticed that I was paying what seemed to me to be an exorbitant cable bill to a company that I wasn't fond of for a service no one was using. So, I turned off the cable and when Em moved out last December, she took the tv with her. I can honestly say, I don't miss it. We watch movies on the computer monitor and I listen to recorded books on my mp3 player as I knit or I talk to Pk. We do a lot of interacting sometimes and others we are each lost in our own computer worlds.

I am not on a crusade to stop television watching. I only know what works for me. I hear about shows that people are enjoying and if I'm interested, I can get them on dvd and watch them at my leisure. I don't seem to have the compulsion to turn on the set and sit in front of it that I had when I was younger. I can't explain it but I know it gets an amazed reaction if I say it to anyone.

So, there you have it. One more weird thing about me.

I managed to work out the stress of work with crafts this weekend. It usually works for me. I spend some time with my family and then I spend some time with my wool.

Friday night, Pk and I went to the movies and saw The Mummy (part 3, tomb of the dragon emperor). It was entertaining. Silly but entertaining. It had yeti in it! And they have blue eyes and like to kick field goals. (who knew?) Like I said, silly. And they we went to our favorite pizza place and ate the best pizza and wings. It was a good date.

Saturday was the house cleaning and laundry day. There was some knitting on the Wildflowers Shawl. I am pretty sure the yarn will run out before the pattern does so I contacted Teresa and she will try to match it if I send a sample so I am sending it out today. I did some rows on the very red and very boring felted bag. At this rate, it will be November before it's finished.

And then Sunday, while Pk was at a galootfest (men with hand tools making things with wood), I pulled out Saraspunda and she and I got reacquainted. It's been a while because I hate the feeling of the roving in the humidity. I'd watched some more videos and did some more reading and since the weather was cooperating, I decided to try and spin. I started with this. It's one of the rovings that I got for Mother's Day. ( It's a club for 6 months and I have two more to go. August's arrived today and it's glorious fall colors of orange and red.) I pulled it apart until it looked like this and then I pulled it apart some more. I spun it and got through an entire bobbin without wanting to throw it out! And entire bobbin full. I was so excited. It's the first time I managed to spin more than I wasted. My foot was tired at the end and my hand was a little crampy but it was so worth it. It's fairly consistent in its weight and the colors look good. It took all my concentration and I had no time to brood about stresses at work. They have melted away.

Today I went to see the stomach doctor about the results of my endoscopy. I have severe irritation of the stomach and esophagas lining. She removed a lump which turned out to be inflamed tissue. The medication she gave me seems to be working and I'll keep taking it for now to promote further healing of the linings. There is too much acid in my stomach, possibly as a result of stress. Hmmm, anyone see a connection here? I need to make my life less stressful or I am faced with taking lots of medicine for the rest of my life. I don't want to do that so I will have to make some changes at work. Less on my plate will mean less deadlines and less stress. I just have to keep from wanting to volunteer to help.....

Back to work tomorrow. Time to put the new "no more volunteering for everything" ethos to the test. It's a short week and then a long weekend. Labor Day, which we celebrate ironically by taking the day off, is next Monday. Already.

This was a stressful week and mentally I feel very tired. I am the kind of person who when they see someone who needs help, they jump in and help. I can't help it. It's the way I am. I am just naive enough to believe that the person will be glad of the help.



Sometimes that works out and sometimes not. This week it did not. I didn't actually volunteer to help our IT dept. when they have a lot of people asking questions on how to access schedules in our new computer program. My supervisor told the IT person that I would probably do it if she asked. She asked and I said "of course." So, I decided to make sure that I could access the schedules and that I understood what I was doing (it always helps when you understand what you're doing) before the doctors started clamoring about access to their schedules. I tried but it didn't work. I couldn't access the data so I called the IT person and she was in the middle of another problem and got very upset. Just so happens that a "person in charge" was there in her office (the same person who made the comment about me having time to read a book at work). I quickly got a phone call from my supervisor saying "please don't call the IT person if you have a problem, just stay out of the program". Sigh, another wrist slap. My wrists are getting sore.



I felt hurt and angry and ready to give into stress tears but I managed to swallow this and get on with my day. Kate and Holly came over to Philadelphia and we had lunch with a friend. Good food and good conversation. I went back to work determined to keep my head down and just do my job. I finished and left to come home.



Of course when you swallow feelings like that they eventually come back out. And they did when Pk asked about my day. The tears starting rolling down my cheeks and I couldn't stop them. When I finished telling him all of this, I was so drained but felt better. I know that the stress will dissolve over the weekend and when I go back to work, I'll go back with a different attitude. On the plus side, the IT person called me to apologize and ask if we were still friends. I said of course. I do understand that she is under a lot of pressure to make this amazingly un-user friendly program work and the last thing I want to do is to add to her stress.



I do think of finding a different job. I am very good at what I do but this is not a good time to job hunt and I have such good benefits that it's hard to leave them. I plan to start looking but not count on anything happening soon.



In other news, I have been working on my Wildflowers shawl. I wasn't afraid of having enough yarn until someone (Roxie) put the idea in my head. Now I see she may be right. I contacted Teresa Ruch the designer of this lovely yarn and she will try to match the sample I am sending her so I can breath easier as I knit. This is what it looks like. The colors are not even close to being true. It's much more purple than blue but the camera can't pick it up for some reason. I stretched it out so I could show the flower pattern and how it looks in the shimmery bamboo. Isn't it pretty? It is an easy knit with enough yo's and k2tog and psso to make it interesting without being stressful or all that challenging. I need that this weekend so I will continue to work on it and try to finish the socks for my aunt that I put down to work on this. I also want to spin while the weather is nice and the wool doesn't stick to my sweaty skin.

Today's buddhist inspiration said "reach for your dream and it will reach for you". (hana rose zadra). What a pleasant and happy thought that your dream is out there reaching for you. Kinda exciting.

There is not a yellow tree in sight, yet. But it's coming. It's only the middle of August but already the weather feels like it's changing. Every day, ever so slightly, you can feel the difference. Usually by this time of year, we are all ready for the fall. This summer has been unusually wet and the temperatures have not been excessive. There were a few days when we needed the air conditioners in the bedrooms but those were very few. Most nights we get by with window fans which bring in the cool night air (last night the temp gauge on the fan said 54 (12 C)degrees. (Thank goodness for the online converter for temps! I can't do it in my head). I have enjoyed this summer. I like the unscheduledness of it. We are lazier and spend more time outside and just having fun. (Though, as I wrote that, I realized that I don't have kids in school anymore and so the schedule that ruled out lives for so long is no longer. ) I also like wearing shorts and having bare legs and feet and not having to put shoes on to go outside to get the newspaper in the morning. Once summer is over it seems the "holiday season" is upon us and it's nonstop for months.

I am working away on my Wildflower shawl and am loving the pattern. It's easy enough to be 'comfort knitting' but has a little challenge in there. The fabric is soft and drapey. It will be beautiful when it's finished.

I made a supreme effort to get myself into work this morning. It's predicted to be 80 (26 C)degrees and sunny. Just about as perfect a day as you could ask for. A nice day to drive through the woods and take a picnic. But I came to work. I had a conversation with a supervisor yesterday that made me depressed and not want to be here. He said that even though the head honchos know that I do my work and volunteer for everything that needs doing and all in a timely fashion, if I'm reading a book at 8:00 in the morning, why aren't I doing another social rehab group? In other words, because I manage my time efficiently and get my work done so that I am not frazzled and flustered, I should do extra work to keep myself busy. I should be punished because I am good at time management. I already do as much or more work than most members of my department. And if I'm reading a book at 8 in the morning, it's for a group I have to run later in the day.

This really demoralized me. I know that I am not the only one who feels this way and I'm not sure what to do about it. It doesn't seem to matter what I do or how much I do, it's not enough. I have toyed with the idea of changing jobs over the years but never seriously. I like the people I work with, I like my job (mostly) and I have great benefits which include 5 weeks of time off each year. That is almost unheard of around here. I can't go to the person who made the comment because I got it second hand and I don't want to get the person who told me in trouble. I just wish he had kept his mouth shut and not shared this with me. I know this feeling will go away and I'll feel better about everything again but I'm getting too old for this stuff.

But it's Wednesday and the sun is shining so it will be a good day. Well, I'll make it a good day.

Tired. So tired. It's Sunday afternoon and I am tired. I try to be a good person and to support my children in their lives. And because of this, today PK and I are beat.

Last December, Kate had a friend she met through the internets come and stay with us for two weeks. It went well and we enjoyed Holly's visit. She lives in Missouri with her father. Fast forward to June when Kate says, "Holly and I want to move into an apartment together and she is coming here in August. Can she stay here until we find a place?" We said yes. And then forgot about it.

A week ago, Kate informs us that Holly and her dad are driving across country and will be here on Friday and he will be staying with us until his plane leaves on Sunday. !!! Now, we expected him to stay overnight one night and then hop a plane home the next day. But, he wanted to stay the weekend and "get to know us". We were not amused. We have tentative plans each weekend to do something fun and relaxing to make up for the stress of being on the go all week for work. Hosting a man we don't know was not my idea of fun or relaxing.

But, I love my daughter and we prepared. They got in at 11:15 Friday night and we took them to the local diner for a bite since they hadn't eaten since the afternoon. Kate and Holly renewed their in-face friendship while we tried to get to know her dad. It was a little awkward and I was tired. Saturday, PK took him to the flea market for some 'rust hunting' and then they unloaded the truck and took it to the rental place. I went to the grocery store and did the laundry. We ordered a bunch of Chinese food and took it to a local park, one with lots of history, thinking it would be an interesting thing for him to see. He is not into history and just wanted to talk about the girls. Now, I am of the opinion that the "girls" are young adults now and they need to make the decisions about their apartment and living arrangements themselves. They will not grow into responsible people if we tell them what to do all the time. He is having some control issues with all of this. Maybe because he will be so far away and I will be only a town away. I am not as worried about the girls. I know that I have raised a responsible young adult and she will be fine. (and withing calling distance if she gets in trouble) After a beautiful sunset over the river, we went home and we entertained him by playing Trivial Pursuit while the girls went out. Three hours later, I was beat and went to bed.

This morning we got up early and went to brunch and then took him to the airport. I felt like I could breathe easier. I feel guilty about this feeling. I think because he changed his plans and didn't ask if it would be ok with us if he stayed longer and didn't worry about whether we had plans. He just assumed we would change our plans to accomodate him. He's not a bad man, just different from us and we were strangers thrown together for two days. Conversation was stilted all weekend and if you don't think that's exhausting, you've never tried to keep someone engaged for hours on end.

But it's over. I made my daughter and her friend happy. She is looking for a job and they already have a lead on an apartment. I may soon have a free room to turn into a long-desired craft room!

I have been working on my shawl and have really enjoyed the pattern and the yarn. You can just see the pattern in this photo. I am further along than this. It is 11" long from top to bottom now, almost half as long as it's supposed to be. The colors are pretty true in this photo and the subtle sheen is there. It is so silky feeling. I am loving it.

And a parting shot of Cape May beach from last weekend. It's funny. Last weekend was busy but so relaxing and wonderful. This weekend, well, it was different. And now I am going to make an angelfood cake for desert for dinner. We're having quiche, salad, a good bread and cake with fresh strawberries. It's making me hungry just thinking about it.

I hope you all had a good weekend.

I am cranky and tired and bitchy today. I woke up at 4:00 in the morning with serious cramps and a whopper of a headache. I love being a girl.....

I have slipped from the path of project monogamy. And this is what led me down the path of wip-dom.

This is the Wildflowers Shawl pattern (scroll down the link). It's not very big or even very complicated but I love the simple femininity of it. (photo stolen from Posh Yarns website). This story of failed monogamy started simply enough. I was working on plain socks for my aunt and I got bored. So, I started some lace socks for a Christmas gift for someone. I got bored with socks period so I put them down. Both pairs are 3/4 done. I started the felted bag that is an obligatory knit. It's boring to the nth degree. Just row after row of knit and purl. 168 long rows worth of endless red. I make myself do 8 rows each day and then let myself do something more challenging. I kept thinking about the beautiful bamboo yarn that Roxie sent me and I wondered how it would work for this pattern. So, without much thought, I wound the skein into a ball and cast on. It's a simple pattern and so far after 16 rows I am able to follow it easily. (SHHHH! You didn't hear that in case the knitting goddesses are listening and want to cast me down for my hubris! They are always casting people down for hubris.) The bamboo yarn, dyed in Oregon by Teresa Ruch designs, is interesting to work with. It looks and feels like embroidery floss but knits into a soft fabric. Everything I've read about bamboo yarn says it will completely soften once I wash and block it. I can't seem to find much info on blocking it but I'm going to give it a try. The colors are so clear and gorgeous. The stitch definition is amazing and it's an exciting thing to watch grow. I just can't figure out whether the pattern is from the top down or the bottom up. It's shaped strangely on the needles and the pattern doesn't say. I'm not good enough to be able to pick up a pattern and just tell by reading it. No matter. I am going to keep working away and eventually I figure it'll become clear.

I have two groups to prepare for today and don't have a single idea what to talk about. Sigh. At least it's Wednesday.

(edited to add: Right after I posted, I had thoughts of ideas for groups today. I like to think it's the positve effect of the internets! Thank you internets!)