Yowzers...

I have 2.5 weeks of updates to post a bit later. For now I just wanted to put this out there to internet land....

I have a renewed energy for my dissertation project and at the same time i have 9 friends who are expecting babies.

Nine.

That is not even counting friends of friends. These are wonderful amazing women in my circle of friends - and my circle is not that big these days! Women for whom I would readily host a baby shower rather than attend. 9 soon to be fabulous mothers with at least 9 very lucky babies.

I only count 4 of my friends that are not expecting and three of them I suspect soon will be. I am over the moon happy for my friends, but that means I have serious baby knitting to get to. I better get faster at those little baby sweaters!

Week 5: Two projects, one week

Knitting:

I was determined last week to catch up on my project a week goal. So I got two projects in just in.

This luscious elliebelly guppy creek went from this:



to this:



These took me most of the week, but I managed to crack out these shorties as well:



School:

I had a frustrating week in terms of school. I am perplexed by the results I found after much time programming. I am troubleshooting this week and exploring potential sources of trouble. As the great Forrest Gump says - That's all I have to say about that.

Week 4: Marble Rivendell Daycare

School

Daycare continues to be the most limiting factor in my productivity these days by far. It's expensive, it's hard to find and it's impossible to coordinate with a changing schedule.

Anyway... I was offered an extra day of daycare this week and jumped at the chance. It's a stretch for us to afford it, but I think it will be worth the investment for another half day of work each week. That's good... I love my day care provider and J loves going (I think). I told her earlier that wanted more days, but she was full and I didn't want to move J to another provider... they say children with too many caregivers have a hard time forming trusting relationships later in life. Is it true? I don't know.

Maybe it's just that I didnt have the heart to go through the search, check references, adjust process again.

When she told me there was an opening and we could have the extra day... I was a happy girl.

Also, I sent a pair of drafts to the advisor this week and resumed programming on the next phase.

Pretty successful week in this boat.


Knitting

Last week had been a bust as I finished one WIP, but frogged another. I stared to finish yet a third WIP and it wound up taking me way longer than I thought to finish. Alas. Oh well... knitting is like that. I intend to catch up this week by finishing two new projects. One is about 50% done already, and another will be quick, so Im hopeful that I will get back on track with my challenge.

Finished WIP 1: Longies in Rivendell Bulky BFL by Western Sky Knits




Finished WIP 2: My So Called Scarf in Marble Angel on Pixie Super Wash Merino by Elliebelly



The first project this week is arising out of this piece of fiber art (also by elliebelly):

Week 3: WIPs

Three weeks into my resolve, that is.

Not a terribly successful week. I fully intended to finish my to-do list this weekend, but Saturday got eaten with errands. Today, an unexpected and delightful visit from the BFF and her family.

When they left, we opted to indulge in a little Gregoire for dinner. Gregoire. Just thinking about Gregoire makes my heart weep at the thought of ever leaving the Bay Area. G came out of Alice Waters' California Cuisine movement.... he runs an unbelievable little restaurant a few doors down from the famous Chez Panisse in Berkeley's gourmet ghetto. It's just a tiny little place offering a monthly menu of the most weak in the knees takeout... We had the cheese risotto cake with creamy spinach, a romaine salad and split pea soup. Naturally we also had the famous potato puffs, because anyone who claims they can enter Gregoire without having the potato puffs is a liar.

We took it home to enjoy with a nice champagne.

Anyway that pretty much took care of Sunday... and I didn't get the work done I had hoped to.


Knitting

I finished one WIP: Longies for Jackson in Western Sky Knits' Rivendell Colorway on Bulky BFL. I actually knitted most of these when poor little J was sick before Christmas. But they came out waaaay big on him (stupid lazy kim didn't do a gauge swatch and I didn't realize just how bulky the bulky BFL was. These are giant and will probably be roomy next winter. So anyway... I didnt finish them at the time. They just needed some cuffs and a drawstring, so it went fast.

Pictures tomorrow.

The Cole longies that were on the schedule got nixed. I started on them, then just had to accept that they were going to be too small and own my defeat. These were my first attempt at a linen stitch and holy cow it kicked my butt. Talk about slow knitting. I started them back in September, frogged them at least six times and struggled with the crotch gusset until my brain exploded.

I can program up a regression adjusted conditional difference-in-difference local linear propensity matching model but I'll never wrap my brain around a gusseted linen stitch.

Anyway... it felt very freeing to abandon this project, rip it out, re skein the yarn and just be done with it.

Instead, I bumped the My So Called Scarf Project up and tried to finish it. It isnt quite done, I need another night I think.


Schooling

Dissertation wise... not a lot accomplished this week. I got a few rounds of editing done on the first two sections, read them aloud to J while he played with Thomas the Tank Engine, and successfully transferred all my files to the new computer. But I did not finish what I thought I would. Hopefully tomorrow - Im so exhausted.

Week 2, Day 5: A new tool

I decided finally to make an investment in this dissertation effort and replace the laptop that died. Sarah Palin destroyed my laptop back when she did the disastrous Katie Couric interview. In the middle of watching it online, a strange metallic sound came out of my computer and it went dead. That was many months ago. I have been limping along on a POS backup laptop we bought on ebay three years ago. It doesnt hold an internet connection for longer than five minutes, takes anywhere from 3 to 10 attempts to power up and frequently needs rebooting.

I love my new Mac. It feels so good to get it set up the way I like it, get all my tools there, put my files where I want them... the backup computer wasnt even big enough to store all my files on the hard drive!

Week 2, Day 1: WIP week

Week 1 went very well as Tidepool (Gaia Organic Merino Bulky dyed by Heather of Western Sky Knits) went from this:



To this:



I did get the penultimate round of editing done on the paper sections. I need to leave it now for a day or two and return to it before working further.

I feel that week one was a success... Jackson is wearing these right now paired with a Positively Posh shirt created by Kyna.



Week two is a WIP finishing week, and the final week to edit sections 1-3.1 of Paper 1. Im excited to finally get this to my prof. It should have been finished weeks ago, but J has been sick for 3 of the past 6 weeks and I have been sick for 1 week as well. So it was kind of rough.

Knitting wise... actually there were two WIPs slated for finishing this week... first is Rivendell which actually got finished last night. All they needed was a cuff, ends woven in and an i-cord. They are blocking right now and Ill upload photos later this week

Also the ill fated linen stitch longies in Cole were slated for finishing this week. I started these back in September, and frogged them at least six times. After pulling my hair out for weeks, I finally found peace with the gusset and put them aside. Today I pulled them out again and decided after all that, they are going to be too small in the hips. They would have been tights on Jackson! I frogged them. All that pain and I frogged them. But I feel good about it and feel freed from the burden of seeing them in my knitting basket teasing me constantly.

Since the fabulous Kyna already made Jackson the most beautiful shirt to go with this yarn, this week will be devoted to reknitting them (NOT linen stitch thank you very much).

Week 1, Day 4: Tidepool Longies 75% complete

Woot!

So far so good. The tidepool longies were cast on at the beginning of the week... I was tired and totally wanted to go to bed, but I pressed on and finished the right leg tonight. Tomorrow should be plenty of time for the left leg and cuffs!

Woot!

These are looking so beautiful... who doesn't love a little Western Sky Knits!

Other knitting related news - tomorrow Im hoping for a lovely big old package from elliebelly with my much anticipated retro kitchen, the incredible guppy creek, and some nice avalon merino that is destined for Monica's baby kimono. Maybe if Im really lucky some Foxes in the mail tomorrow too!

I also ordered the cashmere for baby Helen's Little Boy Blue in Pink... and added on a few extra skeins of cashmerino to squirrel away for myself. hehehe

Oh right... I also bought some Nurturing Threads plus trim tonight. Bad. I know. I need to stop

Dissertation wise... I did get get to the homestretch editing these fist parts of the paper.