Get up

Excuse me if I'm a little laconic, I'm getting over catching the Norovirus from a friend. Yeah. I was losing substances from both ends Thursday night/Friday morning. I had chills so bad that I couldn't get warm until I got into a tub of hot water and soaked for an hour. Yeah, that was really bad, I hadn't been that sick since my sis got married and I came down with bronchitis. Bleah.

However, I did get things done before I got sick.

I finished my brother's scarf:


It's the Merci scarf which was easy as pie to actually put together. I even worked on it in the dark while watching DeathNote Halloween Eve with friends. And it's very manly as you can see.

that's been about all the knitting I've done lately, it took about 2 weeks and now I'm working on a few more Christmas Gifts.

I've been looking for skirts or possibly dresses appropriate for winter, of course, and that came up with a rather strange gem. Melanie was the one who pointed it out and I was the one who remembered to bring a camera to document it:



I apologize for the blurriness, I was trying to photograph it on the sly. But yes, it has a thong. There is velcro at the crotch. Melanie believes that it's to keep the shirt tucked at all times and that makes sense but man it's bizarre.

Well, my heart is pounding. I think I should lay down and changing the tv channel every time yet another materialistic commercial with Winter Holiday (TM) music. Don't call it "Christmas" music. It's not. It's raucous, it's obnoxious, and it was old by the time I was FIVE. I'm done with Christmas. Bah Humbug. Besides, don't tell me there's anything cheery where THIS character is involved:



Yeah, watch your naughty, kids. This snowman will be WATCHING.

Things that get under my skin

1. People who live in Utah that complain about all those dang Mormons around. That's like going to Canada and saying "Yeah, it's a nice place but there are these dang CANADIANS everywhere! What's up with that?" FUF, we moved here first, we have dibs. You don't like it, GIT OUT!

2. I am a RealWoman TM, so bridal shops were going to charge a small fortune for “special sizes.”
Last time I checked, there are no FakeWomen (TM). Women come in all shapes and sizes. Call them thin, call them fat (OH NOES NOT THE "F" WORD!) but please don't insinuate that a woman is more real than others based on size. Honestly, just DON'T.

3. My stomach giving me crap (oh yes, literally) and I have a party to go to. Seriously, I don't get out enough and then my stomach hits me with this.

Oh well, at least Monty Python And The Search For The Holy Grail is on.

Mary Poppins had it right.

I have a lot of things to do in life that are not fun. I have realized a while ago that unless it's 'fun', it's not going to happen. If knitting isn't fun, then I'm not going to knit. If writing isn't fun, I'm not going to write.

If working as a nurse doesn't have moments of fun, I'm NOT going to continue doing it. So, the challenge is, how do you make things fun? How do you make your chores fun? How do you derive satisfaction from doing things you don't necessarily like to do? Should you find reward in the doing and getting it done? Or should you reward yourself once it's finished? Which is easier?

What do you think?

The Yellow Brick Road goes to Kansas but the Red Brick Road leads to...

...well. You know.

My parents and I went back to visit Lawrence. Our trip in took two days and with everyone driving their share, the trip wasn't too terribly tedious. Listening to Harry Potter helped, too. And as soon as we rolled into Lawrence, we couldn't help but stop in our old field, the one that we always walked Daisy in. Fortunately, they still hadn't started any sort of developing but you never know when they'll start. Probably when the economy swings back up.
Mom and I demanded to go to The Half Price Bookstore since they don't have one in Utah (grr) and I spent a lot of money there. I tried to be careful because I knew I had to save something for the KC Ren Fest but hey, sometimes there's no saying 'no' to a load of good books for relatively cheap. Man, I missed this town. I missed the beautiful sunsets, the fact that you could talk openly to just about anyone and they were perfectly friendly, even if you didn't always see eye-to-eye. And the driving! People drive so WELL here! Utah drivers, you could so learn a thing or ten-thousand from these people. I'm just saying.
As expected, I loved the Renaissance Festival. I didn't dress up but it was so cool to see so many other people arriving in costume. And no one minded how we looked, the point was to just let loose and have a good time. And I so did. Daisy was an attraction unto herself. The picture to the left is Evil, who was cooing over Daisy, which he had renamed "Bloodlust". "Ohhh, who's a good Bloodlust? How many children have you eaten today? Awww..." Daisy ate it up because Evil was giving her the most amazing massage with his long, pointed finger gauntlets. I was tempted to get a bunch myself for her, but I don't think it would be as appreciated. After all, I'm short, blond, and a girl. Daisy prefers tall, dark, and handsome. So many people came up to pet her, I was tempted to put a sign on her "Pet the dog, $1. Licks and tail wags $0.50 extra". That would have paid for the Cinnamon Roasted Almonds at least.

While in Lawrence, I also got to see Mary and Celia which were both fantastic visits. I learned so much from them both and I am sorry that my own shyness with my camera kept me from getting pictures taken with them.

In the meantime, I did get some knitting done. Not a ton but the Foxface socks are finished. Mom enjoyed wearing the one as soon as I had finished with it and moved on to the next. It was a little chilly in the car and the wool sock made the travel home far better.

Not much else, it was quite a trip and I found that though I missed Lawrence like I missed a best friend, I am happy to move on.

School days, fool days

For many, school has already started. For others, it starts today. I remember elementary school, somewhat. I remember it being a day of excitement, of dread, of anticipation. I always liked the blank pages of notebooks, the fresh pencils, the new seating arrangements, the feeling of the world on the brink of autumn. There were lunchboxes and new shoes. Hair done just so, school buses and Curtis and Joel. Good times.

I'm thinking that once I finish with my Associates RN, I would like to sign up to get my Bachelors, which would open up an entire range of options for me. Also the idea of going back to REAL school, not this online crap which I will never ever do again. Up yours, Excelsior.

So, everyone please enjoy school because a career isn't always what one dreams it would be and it's a time you can never get back.

P.S. I finished the Salto Socks and the gauntlets. Pictures and details coming once they are dry enough for me to photograph.

a triangle trying to squeeze through a circle

It's been a long while since I've blogged and since I've had at least two rather broad hints that perhaps I should catch you up, I thought I would do so.

First, the not so exciting parts:

On The Needles:
It's getting to be about Christmas Time I suppose and so though I was working on the Aeolian Shawl using Malabrigo Lace in a rather brick red (and so incredibly soft)-



I got a case of the OMGCHRISTMAS and began working on Salto Socks for one of my aunts who was particularly insistent that she get some of the Famous Kit Socks like mom got for her chemo. So, why not? Here is most of one:



It's since been the rest of that sock and most of the next so it's been at least a week since I took that picture and I worked hard on it.

Current Life Sitches
Of most importance, I have a new job. I am working every Friday and Saturday at a nursing home. I find myself feeling a little under-challenged. Not in the way of boredom, there is plenty to do. But there's no excitement of recovery of these people. They're really just here to die more than anything. But there's also no calculating, no Chemistry, no Microbiology. Some days I wish I had actually managed to be well enough to pass Medical Technology rather than flunking out due to a dying kidney. At least then it would be kind of exciting to discover if someone has a parasite or infection and what sort. Instead, it's passing pills, changing dressings, and far too much paperwork. The closest I get to what I miss is taking blood sugars.

It was a wet June, more wet than I hear Utah gets, though I can't say for certain. I turned 31 while enjoying some of my favorite weather and my friend Melanie, the brilliantly talented and resourceful one, made me a cake:



For those who are fans of Cake Wrecks may recognize the naked mohawk babies riding carrots. Well, not all of them were mohawk babies so she made me the Four Naked Mohawk Babies Riding Carrots Of The Apocalypse. I think that was pretty much the best birthday cake I have EVER had. No, really, it was. I laughed so hard and it went well with the Rifftrax Night we had. Great party. :D

I'm doing well in Utah. I'm not missing Kansas much, particularly this summer. I have NO A/C in my car and that was definitely missed but it was nice to be able to let the sweat drying on my face cool me rather than just doing nothing at all or making me even more damp like Kansas would do. I do miss my friend Mary and I miss downtown Lawrence and I miss the knitting group that met in the Merc. Fortunately, I will be visiting briefly. I think the plan is that I will come by from 9/17 - 9/23. We'll be going to the Ren Fest of course and that will be so awesome.

Speaking of Fests, I'm going to see if I can sneak off to the Great Basin Fiber Arts Fair. The classes I want to take require me to have a spinning wheel and I don't plan on actually buying one (really, aren't my hobbies expensive enough?). I know how to ply, I know how to knit, I know how to crochet, I think I'm pretty set there. But the vendors excite me and I think I'll just have to go to visit with my knitting friends and paint the Fest red. ;)

That's all i have for now. Not much that all 2 of you have missed out on, but I suppose it makes for something to blog about after a while. :)

Choices.

"No one can make us inferior without our consent." - Eleanor Roosevelt

Interesting quote, that one. It's almost as if we have the CHOICE to feel inferior. Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me unless I choose to let them.

There is so much power when one realizes that we have choices. I made the choice when I was young, perhaps about seven or eight, to be a nurse. I have come a LONG way from that little girl who saw her favorite nurse skillfully work with the sick and healthy, who understood that a sickness does not just affect the patient but the entire family and social network. But that was a choice I made and I have never left off of it and now look where I am.

I made the choice last winter to study daily in my textbook. I've not missed many days (though I allow myself a little slack when I'm knitting like mad for Sock Madness 3) and I have gone through 2 and a half text books. Some days that choice is harder to make than others but I'm still making it and it gets easier.

Life is all about choices. We have the power. No one can make us do anything we don't want. There is always an either/or.

What choices are you making?

---

I know I left everyone hanging with that picture of Edward Elric. I apologize, I wanted to wait until I gave the birthday girl her present and I was a little late in doing it. But I am free to show you all now:


He looks like he's dancing, doesn't he? I love him. I am glad I found those gold buttons for his eyes, they look far better than the attempt I made at embroidering eyes on him.


He has a sculpey arm which took 3 attempts to get right. I think it's adorable. I should also mention that I probably relied a little too heavily on the powers of the hot glue gun, it doesn't look quite right but the belt buckle is still pretty cute in my opinion. Along with everything else of course.


And, of course, the insignia of the Alchemist on the back. I've not read/watched Full Metal Alchemist recently so I've forgotten the name of it, but it's essential to the outfit.

Melanie loved it, Kristy wants one too (birthday birthday who's got a birthday) and I find that I'll have to make a little guy with a hat or bandana next time so I don't have to mess as much with that dang "hair". *fistshake*

For those who are curious, you can find the pattern for the basic hyooman and his hair here at Geek Central Station.

---

Finally, for those of you scared to death of swineflu (oh yeah, I'm sure you all are), allow me to share with you some tips:

• WASH YOUR HANDS! Seriously. Walked into the bathroom? If it was even just to blow your nose, WASH YOUR HANDS. In fact, any time you touch your face, wash your hands. Shake hands with someone else, wash your hands. And by wash your hands, either soap and water and a 20 second scrub or a hearty scrub with the antispeptic gel.


• Cover your mouth/nose when you cough or sneeze. Don't be crude and just cough into the surrounding air. If it catches you by surprise, sneeze into your shoulder. And then, WASH YOUR HANDS.


• Feeling under the weather? Stay home. Can't? Then please warn your coworkers and try to isolate yourself as much as possible. Don't lunch with everyone else, either eat at your desk or after everyone's gone off to eat.

Bugs are like secrets. Keep them to yourself.

DC out.

Oh craft

I can't say too much about what I'm working on but it has to do with this guy:



Shh.

Put a fork in it...

Done!!!





Let me tell you, colorwork goes fast when you learn how to knit Continental. I'm still working out the details on keeping tension properly but I think I'm converted now. I am glad, too, since I have some books that have colorwork patterns in them and now I can give them a shot! :D

And I am still in the running in Sock Madness. I admit that I took my sweet time on this, not finishing the toe until I was comfy in front of the tv tonight (well, okay, maybe it came with me to Mimi's Cafe, too, but the cute, flirting waiter was far too distracting to work on it with any sort of dedication).

New socks, yay!

Party of 4 rocking it for the 8th year

Imagine my insides like that. Only with another "TRANSPLANTED KIDNEY" on the other side, too. Oh yeah, and the original kidneys are like little raisins. And possibly the third looks like a fig. When they stop working, the body efficiently gets rid of them so it's not like it's really crowded in here.

Did you know that your kidneys are like the brain's brain? We all know it's like the coffee filter of the body but it also regulates various hormones that control blood pressure, calcitrol for calcium absorption, and stimulates the making of red blood cells in your bone marrow. Pretty awesome because the brain takes its cues on how the body is doing from the kidney.

And I know how it feels when it goes wrong. It isn't pretty. It's cold. It's like a constant bad flu with lack of any sort of appetite, always nauseated, always tired. Going through that for a few years was very hard, I'm so very glad I got my kidney. And 8 years later, I'm doing incredibly fantastic.

Cheers all, have some cranberry juice! On me!

Wait and Hope

Last night as I drove my brother home and we were talking about how life is going, where life is going, I realized that I'm ready. I'm ready to step back into the turbulence of preparing for my clinicals again. I'm emotionally biting at the bit. I don't think I would have gotten here if I hadn't been studying my textbooks, quietly, subtly reassuring myself that this is already in my head, I just needed to put it all back in my heart.

Defeat can crush a person. It's crushed me. But I heal, eventually. It takes time and it takes care. It takes a lot of faith to get back to where I am feeling confident again.

So here I am, realizing that I'll have to stuff my plastic wound with Puffs instead of medical gauze, realizing that I will have to invade friends' bubbles so I can figure out the proper place to stick a needle (without actually doing so, I'm not a sadist) for various injections, realizing that I'll need to find a good place to hang up that practice IV so I can calculate drip rates again.

And in the end, be the nurse that has always been inside.

In the meantime, I'm playing in Sock Madness again. Here's the result of Round One:



Mom is modeling them because they never come out *my* size. They may also wind up in the frog pond so I can have that Dream In Color back. ;) Hey, never said anything I knit was permanent and frogging is the poor girl's stash enhancement.

Happy Monday all!

P.S. here's that Cranberry Orange Muffin recipe I made the other day. It is molto bueno.

The egg

Tomorrow is Sock Madness. Knitting will increase and so will silences so I better come up with this now while I can.



What is up with the hair/makeup trend? At first I thought the Progressive Insurance girl was just an attempt to look like the Esurance cartoon chick with the outrageous eye-makeup, the bubble hair, the brilliant red lipstick. I didn't realize that this was actually the introduction to a new trend.

Girls, why do we try to make a farce of ourselves? Make-up should be used to simply enhance our own true beauty. It should be subtle, not overly done. We should look like women, not cartoon heroines.

After all, don't you remember the 50s and 60s? Do we really want to go back to that again?


I didn't think so.

I am all about makeup and looking nice. But I take my makeup tips from Carmindy, not Wonder Woman.

Just a thought.

The Egg is what I call that outrageous pouch in the back of some ladies' heads that are supposed to make the hair higher or something. I keep expecting an alien to pop out and wink at everyone.

How not to lose weight.

Yesterday our church had a rather competitive Linger Longer, pitching the girls vs. the boys in a bake-off. I had signed up and thought I started off thinking I would make my tried and true Cinnamon Popcorn recipe. But that's kind of dull and who would really eat it? (Well, Melanie would, I know that much, she loves it as much as I do.)

So then I was perusing a few blogs and came across the Meanest Mom's Kitty Litter Cake. AWESOME! After all, who wouldn't consider that just too cool to eat? Or, maybe, too disgusting after I showed off the idea to some family and friends and got the general face-of-displeasure - a wrinkled nose and a gaggy tongue face.

Fine. And after someone mentioned that Girl Scout Cookies are out and that they refused to buy them because they are 1) way expensive and 2) don't benefit much from the sales *anyways*, I thought "Hey! I'll make my own favorite sort of GSCs, Samoas!" You know, the kind that are shortbread with caramel/coconut on top, chocolate bottom and lovely chocolate drizzled all over? Yeah, THOSE. Mmmm. Well, come to find out, the recipe is right HERE. Or rather, the bars are there, I didn't want to get all fussy with actually making cookies.

A few notes:
- unwrapping caramels is a good way to pass the time while toasting the coconut.
- The shortbread is very crumbly (or maybe it needed to be cooked longer/needed more egg).
- It still tastes absolutely fantastic.

Sadly, I was beat out by several other dishes, one of them being a brownie with Caramel Ghiradelli chocolates, pudding, whipped cream, and crumbled Heath bars on top. Just describing it makes my teeth ache, good gravy. And since there were no prizes, there were no hard feelings. And I didn't bring home any leftovers either, which is a win right there.

But maybe next time I'll make the kitty litter cake after all. If I can't win best-of-taste, I'll win the most-disgusting award.

Enjoy the recipes!

Image not copyrighted to me at all, I'm sorry, I'm bad but unrepentant.

Copy & Paste

Because I'm lazy and I write better in my LiveJournal than my Blogger, I'm just transferring my thoughts from there to here.

---
After filling out all those Craigslist ads and realizing that instead of a nurse, they wanted an envelope licker and whatever else they wanted for WorkFromHome, I started getting spam emails. That's fine, I can always set a filter on the ones that get past the Gmail Spam Ninjas but now I'm starting to get Mystery Phone Calls. Those are harder to ignore, especially when I'm waiting for people to ask me to work for them. One was from area code 303 but hung up on me when I answered the phone. The other was "Restricted". They both get the finger.

In other news, my sis sent to my mom who forwarded to me a link to The Meanest Mom. Who has this Youtube Video in one of her posts but I'm eager to show you all NOW:



Finally, last night I headed out to Borders to meet some of the smartest, wittiest, loveliest group of people I have ever had the honor to meet, RUBBERNECKERS:



We offended some Borders customers with our flagrant touching, grasping, and groping of balls (of yarn) and other such inappropriate behavior and conversation. It was awesome. Definitely going back again. And yes, we broke the record of number of attendants to the Utah Knitters Knit Night ever.

About love.

Back in the day when my ancestors wore kilts and ran into battle naked, it was noised about by cousin clans that you do not dally with the R--- clan. They were friends of fairies and dabbled in witchery. Of course, now-a-days we suffer from depression, bipolarism, and in some extreme cases, schizoid paranoia. We also Do Not Talk About These Things. Which is why I do. HEY LOOK, THERE'S AN ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM!

What we DO talk about are things like "Why does Kirstin remain single while her cousins all have marriages and lots and lots of babies?" because that's somehow more relevant than mental illnesses that can be passed down to those lots and lots of babies. But I'm a patient girl. I don't mind answering this question but I doubt it will be of any help to anyone.

Why Kirstin is still single, by Kirstin.

1. She might not have been! Oooh! But she was unwilling to submit to a man slobbering pygmy neanderthal boy shorter than her with the delusion that all women are to submit to their men and have no opinion or will of their own but instead, wake up at 5:30am every morning to chat online when she is dying of kidney failure and going to medical school and could use every precious moment of sleep available. No, it sure didn't sound like the ideal life to me. The end.

2. She doesn't go out much. Kirstin is an admitted introvert, preferring to chat online with her best friend than go out somewhere. Not always, of course. She does go out to things and has fun but then her company is 99.999% of the time of the feminine persuasion (all heterosexual, all single, fyi). Seeing point 1, you can see why she prefers feminine company.

3. She has seen the menu and doesn't really prefer anything on it. And if she does see a tasty morsel, it's usually snatched up by someone prettier, more talented, and faster than she is.

4. Men seem hopelessly unable to see her. She suspects that if she had larger boobs, a tinier waist, and a finer @$$, that her invisibility would drop like a pair of much-too-large trousers but she finds having to fit a mold distasteful. She has not met a man whose ideal she fits and she is more willing to wait for a complement to her personality rather than try to become one for someone and make the both of them unhappy.

5. It just hasn't happened yet. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong channel. The stars have just not properly aligned for her. Cupid is still looking. Her prince is in another castle.

6. And finally, I'm waiting for The Best. Not Second-Best. Not Well, He's Available. I won't settle or anything other than Best.

I'll tell you how school is going in the next entry.

I'm still here.

I just wish I could figure out where 'here' was. My psyche is acting a little like my dog. She sits down, looks around my room and says brightly "This is great! But when are we going home?" And I calmly tell her that we *are* home. It's different, but it's home now. And she gives me a blank stare, tilts her head and goes "But when do we get to go *home*?".

Pardon me. It's not been easy. It wasn't easy last time either, I'll have to be completely honest. But at that time, I knew that my uncle's place was temporary, that I still had a home back in Kansas. That I could still go back.

And it's not that I had all too much to miss. I had become a rather faded wallflower to most of the people of my church. I didn't have a lot of friends ('cept for you, disillusioned). Perhaps I should have gone out more, talked more, but that's just not how I roll. But I do miss trees. I miss rolling hills. I miss the open sky and horizons. I miss all those awesome indie shops with their "smoking accessories" (trans. bongs but don't tell the police) tucked away upstairs behind dark counters. I miss driving to Kansas City.

But it's not that I don't like it here. The people here are more outgoing and they seem friendlier (EXCEPT WHEN THEY'RE IN THEIR CAR). The mountains are amazing and even more so now that I can see them thanks to my optometrist who is the son-in-law to the doctor who delivered me. I also get meds from the pharmacist who gave prescribed meds to my parents before I was even conceived. I see a dentist who used to play with my aunts and uncles when they were kids. I mean, the connections to everyone here are overwhelming!

I think I'll have to wait a little longer for my psyche to finish turning in circles in my room and finally settle down comfortably. It'll happen. Eventually.

The arrogance of man

Anybody can do just about anything with himself that he really wants to and makes up his mind to do. We are capable of greater than we realize.
- Norman Vincent Peale

Someone on my LJ was talking about a man who was promoting his book on NPR called Five Lessons a Millionaire Taught Me for Women. She said, "He said that there's been a shift in society recently and that the majority of the purse strings of the nation are currently held by women, and [they] haven't been prepared for it. He's doing a series of seminars for women about money and how to use it".

The arrogance of it all nearly caused me to stick my eyes in a permanent roll. You know who has ALWAYS been in charge of the finances in my family? My mother. You know who wound up being in majority when it came to watching finances in most of my friends' families? THE WOMEN.

Why is it that we must tell ourselves that we can't or shouldn't?

Why did my friend recently make a most startling discovery that the math she was told all of her life would be too hard for to do WASN'T HARD AT ALL?

Why did I take College Prep Calculus in high school VOLUNTARILY?

Because it's not hard. In fact, math is terribly straightforward. I love doing calculations in my head, figuring out how much something costs on sale at some random number like 16%. I love figuring out how many cups I'm drinking if I'm taking in 2.4 liters. And converting milligrams to ounces or grains to cups. I do that naturally as a nurse!

If women can be nurses and teachers, psychiatrists and mothers, why can't they also manage finances? In fact, they can.

Don't let these noisome thoughts that say "You caaan't. You're not smaaart. It's too haaard" fill your head. It's a pack of awful lies. Really, it is. Anyone can do whatever they put their mind to and I know you can do it. I know I can do it.

*steps down off her soapbox*

Life, The Universe, and Knitting.

I'm doing several things in a day that take up my time.

- I look for a job.
- I run Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.
- I read two chapters in my Nursing Text Book.
- I try to take over the world (28 and 30, to be specific).
- And sometimes I even knit:



Duncan is showing off the rolly bit that will someday grow up to be a Gathered Pullover.

And someday I might even show my niece how to do the same. She's professed interest, so perhaps someday. :)