How I spent the last two hours at work.

Now, I'm not a lazy nurse, I'd prefer to call myself an efficient nurse. Which means that by 10pm at the nursing home, meds are done which includes all the signing off of meds and narcotics that I've passed, all the treatments are done, all the tube feedings, all the nurses' notes, the call lights are answered, everything is...quiet. Or mostly quiet, depending on how well those narcotics worked.

And I am left to my own devices. Now, I'm not sure what Teri or Patty do when it's quiet for them, but for me, I grab my knitting and now that I have it, my Kindle. I used to scoff at those who had one. I know, I'm a guilty one, but you just can't beat the feel of the paper, the inexhaustible battery life, the reliability of a good old fashioned book. But a Kindle is light, portable, doesn't need to be held open, and always opens to where you last left off. Convenient!

And then there's my knitting project. I had a case of startitis but most of those projects landed in the frog pond as soon as I cast on and checked gauge. Sometimes that happens. But one that endured is the Spectra scarf.

I had no idea how much straight knitting it includes. It's a garter scarf, pretty much, with panels of stockinette and a little bit of short row action just to keep the knitter from going utterly comatose. The yarn is from Studio June, called Star Struck due to the sparkly bits of silver woven throughout (antibacterial!) in the color Bright Copper Kettle. The panels are Jojoland's Melody, cleverly named MS08. Clearly these people don't work for Crayola.

The nice bit about both Kindle and Spectra is that I can put both aside immediately in the case of a call light or bed alarm going off. The joys of being a nurse in a rehab facility, eh?

WIP Wednesday: January 4

Before I go into the featured Work In Progress, there is something that needs mentioning.

Sometimes life happens. Sometimes someone's mother has a brain tumor and the only thing that springs to mind is the thought that her last days would be spent in comfort if she had a little something from her own mother to keep her. Except that the only thing she got to keep from her mother is a sweater's worth of old, scratchy mohair. And the only one that someone knows who could turn that mohair into something worth enjoying is that someone's niece.

Enter the Scarf.


I knew just what to do with this yarn as soon as I got it. Three skeins of Bernat mohair plus and it would be a Simple Lace Scarf (Ravelry Link) on US#13 needles.

Now most people ought to know that I am an 85% selfish knitter. Sure, I'll knit for others if I know them and I like them and can be assured that my knits will be well received, which is why this scarf is a bit of a hit-or-miss. I don't know my Aunt Lea's mom. I don't know Aunt Lea's grandmom. But here I am, knitting up scratchy mohair that, to be honest, is just a shade softer than twine. I wondered why. Why would I do this for a total stranger?


Because I love Aunt Lea. Sure, my other aunts are great but when I had flubbed my clinicals for RN school, she was the one who was able to get my mind off of things by talking with me until the wee hours of the morning. She is the only one that I've honestly been able to connect with. I've seen her home and the incredible amount of books everywhere, books that I have read, books that I plan to read, books that sounded like I would love if I could remember the title and author. She has opened up to me and I to her and I realized that if she is this cool, her mother could only be just as awesome, if not more.

And to be honest, if my mom had a brain tumor and wanted, maybe, a hot tub installed in her bathroom or something else that I couldn't do and I knew someone who could do it, absolutely I would ask them to do it for me. Well, for compensation but hey, hopefully at a discount because it's family and they love me.

Either way, that picture was taken at 11am and right now I've finished up the second skein, the scarf is about 3 feet, and I'm about done. One more day.

You could call this your obligatory New Year's post

...and you'd be right.

My NYE wasn't much to really hoot about. Old people don't party and frown upon loud noises and wild celebrating after 8pm. But that's okay, because I got my long-awaited Chinese food and even longer awaited fortune cookie.

The cookie itself was, well, an ordinary cookie but the fortune inside, it sure was something else.



How's that for exciting? And just earlier that day, I had found that a local university was offering an LPN to RN transition program starting fall 2012. If I could get in, I might just start school again. I just hope I can find a way to pay for it all somehow.

So, much like almost every other knitter, I started a project for good luck. I had two skeins of Manos del Uruguay Wool Clasica that came home with me at the Three Wishes moving sale:



And yesterday I put two ends together, made a slipknot and did a long-tail cast on with both ends, casting on 200 stitches with a #10.5 US size set of circulars. I'm pretty pleased with the results so far, I did a bit of good work on it during church, which was handy because we start at 9am now and I was up till 1:30am the night before, showering so I didn't have to battle for it in the morning.



It's a really nice stitch, the linen stitch and the two yarns really are working nicely together for now, though we had to sit and discuss whether they would be a brioche scarf (never done brioche before!) or the linen stitch scarf or something else altogether. I think I made a good decision, though. This looks nice.

As I didn't get to do very much partying on NYE, we had a little party tonight instead. Sis brought Ticket To Ride and we had a pretty hilarious time trying to beat each other out.



I came in a close third, my sister in second and my brother in law wiping the floors with us way in front. I can't wait to do it again! I'll cream them all next time, bwahaha!

I will leave you all with a picture of pooped puppies. Because who doesn't love a pair of pooped pups?



Dad took them on an 8 mile walk so they're all tuckered. :D I hope you all had a great New Year's Day and I hope that you manage to fulfill all of your resolutions!

You can come out of the corner now.

There are many things I tend to put in "time-out" just to ruminate on them a bit.

Schooling, for one. I'm doing okay as an LPN but would like to become and RN if I can only just find some way to do it that would be free or at least cheaper than what I bring in on a monthly basis. This does not exist so right now, that dream is in time out.

My sketchbooks are another, a pasttime that used to bring me much relaxation and a zen-like state that I can't really reach any other way, not even by knitting. I pick it up every season or so, draw a little something and then set it aside again, promising that I will be more faithful. And then...I don't.

But of all the things in time out, this blog has been the second longest in such a place (schooling being #1). And so I am bringing it out, dusting it off, challenging my laconic tendencies and making an attempt to share with you a little bit more of myself.

Though the blog has been idle, these hands have not. Allow me to feature some things from the past year that I have knit:

In January I joined the Harry Potter Knit and Crochet...group. Forgive me, I can't remember the whole name. But in an effort to keep up with the 'classes', I knit a pair of fingerless gloves in honor of a book series I had just finished: Hunger Games.


In February, I made a pair of eye-shades for someone who needed them at the time.


Then came March and Sock Madness. Here are my "Support Hos":


April showed a few Dangerous Curves:


May brought me one of my favorite pair of socks:


June was when I went to visit my BFF in Northern California and I brought my Rock Island to work on. It's finished but I don't have a picture of it! I need to do that, pronto!


July gave me Francie, my other favorite pair of socks.


I think I slept through August. Or maybe I just didn't finish this guy then, though heaven knew I was working hard enough on him:


I finished this one in September for my sister's Christmas present...then realized that the colors were inverted. Well, she got my hat, I kept hers, I'm the odder one out anyways. ;)


Aaand I can't find what I knit on during October and November besides the Everlasting LinenScarfstopper.

But this past month, I rolled out a few things. My favorite goes out to Briana, a pair of Swirling Gauntlets made out of handspun, just for her:



That's love, y'all. Hours and hours went into the yarn alone.

So I resolve from now on to post a bit more often. Weekly, at least. I hope those of you left to read this will support this resolution. I'll try to be funny or at least interesting and I will definitely post more pictures.

Unlikely hero

This is what happens when I leave my camera behind at my sister's.

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You should thank me, Christina, I did not decide to save and upload the picture of the very intimate aspect of your sinuses. Lucky you!

So, hey, it was Christmas! Who doesn't love Christmas? Shut it, Scrooge! I love Christmas. Well, except when Mom is in Holland and the rest of us are here in Utah, coughing up snow balls and desperately trying to find whether we're driving on government mandated roads or just someone else's roof.



Okay, perhaps I'm overreacting. Just a touch. Or you would THINK until we lost the dog.


(Goodbye, Daisy. Goodbye forever.)

Well, even without Mom, I did my best to make Christmas warm and welcoming. I made Almond Chocolate Toffee Crunch, chocolate chip cookies, and for breakfast, there was coffee cake that was just divine.


And look, no mess! Well, okay, nothing I have to actually scrub with soap and water.

Everything looked so nice, so pretty, it was almost like Mom was there with us anyways.

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Christmas morning, my brother, dad and I went to Christina's to watch the kids open presents while we Skyped with mom. She is out in Holland being with my Oma so that she doesn't have to be alone for Christmas. My Opa is in a nursing home on comfort measures and he is having good and bad days. I don't know how long to expect him to live but he has been on the mend since mom has been there. Anyways, the kids really tore into their presents. I don't think that Kade was really thrilled with the crocheted hat I made him (he ripped it off when it was put on his head and threw it on the floor) but I gave everyone plush puppies with their hats to sweeten the deal a bit. Some kids aren't going to adore handmade lovelies when there is Star Wars action figures to play with instead. Weirdos!

After that, the boys and I headed back home where we had our coffee cake breakfast with lavender rooibos tea and then opened presents.


BOOKS! Lots of books. And an Ott light so I don't go blind while knitting, and some awesome movies (Don got me Prince of Smexia after some heavy prompting and Dad got me Excalibur). My Oma gave me some tea-pot shaped dirty spoon-holders (well, I think that's what they are) and they're so lovely, very Dutch.



In the news of knitting, I'm nearly done with sock 1 of Cookie A's Vilai.

I also joined Ravelry's Harry Potter Knitting and Crochet group. I was not intending to actually join it but then I realized that there was so much more to it than just being a fan of Harry Potter. It has groups and projects, challenges and homework. And the interaction just seems so intense, I will be looking forward to what the group brings and what I can bring to the group.

Pictures to come, the ones I took did not come out very well.

By the way, Daisy made it back, annoyed that I expected her to make her way successfully in chest high snow. Hmmph, how could I think she'd want to go anywhere without her comfy bed, her lovely mattress and her twice daily glucophage and aspirin? The nerve.