Well, that’s not quite true. I have a weather report. Last week, it was so warm, was shopping for personalized golf gifts. This week, I am thinking about wearing my new veryveryvery long scarf. And carrying an umbrella, because I am pretty sure it has rained for at least some portion of the day for the past week.

I am back in the thrall of school. That always means plenty of homework, but this semester has started a bit oddly. Classes started on Wednesday the 11th. The 16th was a holiday. This means that one of my classes meets for the first time tomorrow, even though we are technically 2 weeks into the semester. I wonder how that will play out as far as the workload? The class only meets once a week, but for three hours at a whack. Of course, it is a subject I am very interested in (Military Culture/ Combat Veterans), so I have done a bit of pre-reading.

Tomorrow is also the first meeting of my honor societies, so it will be a very long day. I should probably go to bed soon, but I am not tired. Now what?

So, classes started. The busy began. And I thought I had a ton of stuff to tell you about until I sat down to actually say something. Ummm, let’s see. I read a book, Raising a Large Family. That would be number 42. And I watched the entire first season of “White Collar”. And I have spent the past 3 days finishing up lab hours from last semester (6 more to go) and reading Cosmo. I read four issues yesterday, the oldest of which was dated December 2009. Yeah, I am a little behind in the rest and relaxation department.

Today, I plan to work on homework and go to the optometrist. I am pretty sure I will end up with bifocals. He tried to get me in them 18 months ago, but I opted for 2 pair of glasses instead. It worked, since I see in the middle distance just fine, and my main problem is astigmatism, so I can read without my glasses, it’s just clearer with them. What I can’t do is read PowerPoints from the back of the classroom, which is where I am sitting for several classes this semester. But I can’t read up close with my distance lenses, and I am tired of trying to see over/under/around my glasses to take notes. Harumph! Extended wear contacts maybe?

In other news, which is really the same sort of news, I am excited about my classes. This semester I have Creative Non-Fiction, Intro to Sociology (hello, history meets psychology which is, for me, the mental equivalent of chocolate meeting peanut butter, leading to mental orgasm every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10am), Social Welfare Policy, Intro to Social Work, and Culture of the Military: War and Its Consequences. I am starting my official BSW sequence in the fall, so this semester I am taking the pre-requisites and other requirements.

Alrighty then, that about wraps it up. I should be back tomorrow with a book review.

OhMyDamn. As you probably remember, I am a student. That means I get financial aid. That means I pay my bills about every 6 months. This may *seem* like a wonderful thing, but trust me, it is actually a week-long headache as I scramble to get everything caught up in between the time my disbursement hits (usually the day before classes begin) and the day the money I gave everybody last time runs out and they start sending nasty-grams. Guess what? Classes start tomorrow, and I have a headache, no clear idea of how much money I have left in the bank and several more bills to pay. I think I better call it quits for today and let the account settle. Luckily, I get an e-statement every morning, so I will be able to tell what cleared overnight. I’ll finish paying stuff on Thursday.

Are you guys tired of knitting books yet? I hope not, because we have 5 more to go. Not feeling it today? Ok, me either. What I am feeling today is an urge to scrap. Getting “paid” every 6 months also means new craft stuff every 6 months, and I spent money on scrapping supplies this time.

When I moved my desk to its new area, I was forced to confront 2 bins of photos. Plus the trunk in the living room that I use as a coffee table. Plus the one I use as an end table. Yeah, it’s time to get that dealt with. So far, I have purchased 4 scrapbooks (all at steals–A.C. Moore was having a 2 for $10 sale), and 380 sheets of 12×12 paper (for a grand total of $30). I am ready! I still have a lot of 8.5 x 11 paper, but I haven’t been able to find a scrapbook in that size for quite awhile. Of course, I haven’t really scrapped in 10 years, so…..yeah. The good news is that I made three pages the other day, and I fell in love with it all over again.

I’ve given myself permission to do things a bit differently this time. When I scrapped before, I had far fewer children. Those kids have very complete books up to the time I stopped scrapping, because every time I got prints made, I scrapped a set for each kid AND a set for myself. Holy crap, right? I’ve doubled my kid count, and that’s….the mind boggles: EIGHT sets of prints, plus papers and books and adhesives and cutouts, and NO.

From now on, with rare exceptions, I am doing one scrapbook. Ok, two. One family and one personal. (Yes, I have to do a personal one because I still can’t remember stuff. If I don’t record it, then it didn’t happen. Yes, that’s still very frustrating. Yes, I am learning to adapt.) When the kids get older, they can copy whatever pages they want. Otherwise, I am not going to scrap at all, and that means the stories I know die with me and that is not acceptable.

Don’t think I am morbid, I am just realistic. When Grandmother died, and we cleaned out her house, there were a lot of pictures. Mama knows who is in some of them, but not all of them. Grandmother kept them in boxes, and some have names written on the back, but not all of them. The ones that have names and/or people we recognize have no dates and no stories to go with the images. So that’s the motive behind my scrapbooks. They will tell my stories to my children when I am no longer able to do so. And not just the stories behind the pictures wedding photographers raleigh nc took. The everyday, nothing-special-is-happening pictures that I make myself, mostly because something DID just happen, so I took a picture to remind myself to write that story down for my kids.

So, last night, I could no longer ignore the siren call of the sock books on my desk. If you know me, you know I have a thing for socks, both handmade and store-bought, and also shoes. Which is marginally weird, because I hate feet. They are icky. Just sayin’

So, to the books.

These two books together make an excellent sock knitting course. Clara Parkes goes in to all the things that make a great sock: the yarn (fiber, twist, plies, spins), the stitches, the fit. And she has some great patterns as well, by some very famous designers (Ann Budd, Cat Bordhi, and so on). I love the details on picking yarns, and what to look for in a blend. Of course, I pick yarn because I fall in love with the colorway, and that’s okay, because the information in this book also works in the other direction: you can figure out exactly what the yarn you have in your hand is capable of, even if it needs to be a shawl instead of socks.

The Workshop book is complementary to this. It goes into detail on the different parts of the sock: toes, heels, cuffs, gussets. It also has some neat patterns, but the beauty of it is that you can mix and match features to design your own socks.

Now, I mentioned I love socks. And after my rant the other day about FAT yarn, it should not come as any surprise that I have a substantial stash of sock yarn. Sub. Stan. Tial. But I absolutely refuse to let myself cast on another project at this point, because I am trying to force myself to finish Carrick. However, I am planning other projects, dreaming of other projects, and so forth. And when I start something new, it will most likely be socks. I have six or seven sock books now, and most of the patterns are untried. So here’s what I decided. Any two socks made of the same yarn will constitute a pair. This way, I get to try more patterns, I avoid “second sock syndrome”, and I get to use up complete balls of yarn, because making a third or fourth sock makes perfect sense. In fact, one of the reasons I like sock knitting so much is that I can do it without paying a great deal of attention. It’s pretty much a toe, a tube, a heel, and another tube. Unless I am doing fancy work. So my “pairs” of socks will most likely consist of one fancy sock and one one plain. I can work on both of them at the same time that way, depending on whether or not I am able to concentrate on a pattern. Perfect, right?

Now, here’s the slow progress part. I have continued to work on my office area and organize my craft books and supplies. At this point, all my scrapping stuff is accessible. And I am sitting here looking at it, afraid to touch it. What the heck? It could be the fact that I haven’t scrapped a thing since Batman was a baby. He’s, ah….10. Regardless, I need to jump in. Which I will do right after I eliminate my 48 excuses!

I am sure many of you know this trick already, but I am once again discovering how much I can accomplish in just 15 minutes. I have a tendency to hyper-focus and concentrate on just one thing until it is finished or I am exhausted. It’s a trait of ADD, which doesn’t necessarily mean, as most people think, an inability to pay attention, but a problem with directing attention appropriately. So, for instance, I could clean the kitchen all day, and it would be very clean, but I would not be noticing that the kids are wrestling in the living room, the toilet is overflowing, or even that the rest of the house has burned down. You can see how this might be a problem for someone who has many, many important irons in the fire, right? So, I am trying some cognitive therapy on myself. I do stuff in 15 minute increments, 30 if it’s something I need to be deeply involved in. I look at the time when I sit down or get up (depending on the task at hand), decide how much I can realistically accomplish in the allowed time, and then that’s how much I do. When the time I up, I walk away.

Sometimes, that’s very frustrating. I’m a plate cleaner. I like to get a task done, and have it off my plate. Unfortunately, that’s not how real life works. Real life is repetitive. Think about it, everyday you have to get up, brush your teeth, brush your hair, get dressed, make coffee, etc, etc, etc. Coming to grips with the fact that my living room will never BE clean and so I will be cleaning it everyday is a real break through for me. I’m telling you all this so that I can tell you I spent 15 minutes this morning organizing the last of my knitting stuff and I feel pretty pleased with myself. Except that organizing my knitting stuff will never be truly finished because I always have at least one set of needles out of place, because I am using them to knit something. And that’s okay. Life is messy, and I am learning to get over it.

However that stack of stuff I took off the shelf that I put my knitting stuff on? It’s sitting in my rocking chair. It’s been there for an hour, and it’s already on my last nerve.

I should maybe put this on the Life List page, but the list of books is getting rather tedious there. Since I last updated it, I have read Becoming a Psychotherapist, Days in the Lives of Social Workers, The Girls Come Marching Home, Once a Warrior, Always a Warrior, The Three of Us and The Courage to Create. That’s 6 books for a total of 41 books since I started the Musing Mighty Life List, if I haven’t forgotten any, which I might have. If it’s all the same to you, we will skip the backed up reviews and just try to do better from now on, ummkay? Kay.

Speaking of reviews, I think I might have mentioned that I have a horrendously tall stack of TBRs. Actually, I now have 4 reasonably short (approximately 2 feet) stacks. That is a lot of books, right? One of my goals for this year is to eliminate that stack of books, either by reading them or deciding not to read them, and/or giving them away/selling them. But another of my goals for the year is to work on my crafty life, including getting my craft books organized and actually making stuff. Yesterday, I pulled all my knitting books together, except for the ones in those stacks, and this morning, I pulled those out. So, in order to accomplish three goals at once over the course of the month, you get some knitting book reviews. Yay!!!!!

Up first, we have Men’s Knits by Erika Knight. Apparently, I have had this book for about 3 years, since I have been SINGLE for almost that long. Yep, I’m a little behind. We’ll get over it. Of course, it helps that the boyfriend sweater is always in style, and this way I can have the sweater without the boyfriend, right? And also, except for the boobs, both men and women are fairly rectangular in the torso, and while women’s clothes are occasionally over-fussy, things for men tend to be functional. I like functional.

So which patterns do I like best? The “favorite sweatshirt” on page 68 looks fairly unisex. It’s reminiscent of the wonderful wallaby, but without a hood or pocket. I love the wallaby, along with most of America, so this may be a knittable option. I also really, really like the “collegiate cardigan” on page 80. It’s thick and lush and has some great textures. Unfortunately, it’s knit in bulky weight yarn, so I may or may not work it up for myself. I tend to think I am bulky enough with adding fat yarn to the mix. Same goes for the “funnel-neck sweater” on page 110. I like it, but not in fat yarn.

But here’s a little trick I know. It is totally possible, if you know your gauge in a preferred yarn, and a little basic math, to knit a pattern written for a different weight yarn without re-writing the pattern. Just figure out how many stitches it takes to go around the person you are knitting for in the yarn you want to use, and (provided you can find a close enough match), follow the pattern as written for that number of cast-on stitches. This is super simple to do when using a pattern written for men (for instance) in bulky weight yarn (for instance) and making something to fit a five foot nothing shrimp of a girl in a lighter weight yarn (for real). Most of the time, patterns don’t call for a given number of rows, but just “knit until the piece is x inches long.” Just keep knitting until you hit the desired dimension, which may be shorter than called for, so don’t forget to measure yourself!

So, long ago and far away, I was sent a copy of Tweed to review. And I did review it over on Cass Knits! And I started a sweater called Carrick out of it. I knitted the back and I knitted the front. And then I got sidetracked, as usual, and sat Carrick aside. When I picked it back up, a year or so later, I discovered that I had misplaced the book. So, last spring, I ordered another copy. It’s been sitting on my shelf since then. And today, finally, I started the first sleeve of Carrick.

Now, the pattern says to knit the two sleeves flat and then sew them up, then sew them into the sweater and then sew the sweater side seams. Un-uh. Way to tedious! I picked up stitches and am knitting these sleeves in the round. When I am done, I will only have to sew shoulder and side seams.

By the way, since this is a knitting post, I suppose I will share my knitting goals for 2012. I want to finish Carrick, I want to finish the Suzie Hoodie I started last year, and I want to finish Hocks which I started when Drama was 2-ish. And I think that’s actually all I have in progress right now, at least knitting wise. Which is not quite the same as saying I have nothing else on the fire, right? You know me better than that, I am sure. For those of you that don’t….about the only thing I don’t have in the fire right now is applications for Audiologist Jobs.

Ghoulish. Goulash. My cousin. Tiny babies. Little knitted things. There’s my stream of consciousness that I am floating back into the blogging world on. I realized that while I say I lack time to blog, that’s not necessarily true. After all, I manage to make time to do other non-essential things. The fact is, I am AFRAID to blog. Something BAD might happen. I might OFFEND somebody with my words. Oh wait, that did happen, didn’t it? And it was pretty awful. But no one died, and in fact, 20 months later, everyone seems to be much better off. So good.

And my blogging words aren’t the only ones that offended someone. I also managed to alienate someone with yahoo chat, but I still haven’t quite figured that one out, because I didn’t actually SAY anything. But I miss blogging. I miss telling my stories. Sure, I journal every day, but that’s not quite the same, is it?

Now, here is what I don’t have time to do realistically: maintain 6 domains with fresh relevant content. So, I’m not going to try that. What this means for me is that my other blogs will remain active, but they will be primarily cash cows. This blog will get the stories, all of them. Stuff about my schooling, my crafting, my reading, my children, my whole fricken-fracken life. Yay you, yay me, woohoo!

Now then, it seems somewhat traditional to post a list of goals for the year, here in the first week of January, but I am not going to do that. I’m a non-traditional sort of gal. Besides, I already know what my goals are, and I’m thinking you’d rather hear about what I AM doing and HAVE done rather than a mile long list of things I plan to do. So, no goals today, except the blogging ones: I plan to blog, and I plan to do it on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.

And here is some other stuff I AM DOING:
I’m back into The Artist Way.

I am smoking a fake cigarette instead of real ones.

I am using and loving the WiiFit. I laughed when I heard you could work out by using a video game and your tv, but let me tell you, that thing kicks my ASS. But I love it!

I am getting ready for a new semester. I have decided to go with a dual major. Well, I guess dual degree is more accurate. I’ll be graduating in May of 2014 with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a minor in Creative Writing and a Bachelor of Social Work. I am excited about all that, but this semester is going to be tight and tough. I am signed up for 18 hours, and I will likely keep 15 of those. But that’s a minimum of 30 hours per week on school stuff, and probably closer to 45 most of the time. Plus all the other stuff I need to do. And so because of all that,

I am spending this last week before classes begin tightening up my morning, stay home/get home, noon, 5pm, and evening routines. I’ve changed them daily since I drew them out the last week of December, but I am getting there.

Ok, that’s all I’ve got for today. Hopefully by Thursday, I will have found some of the actual stuff that I meant to blog about with pictures but managed to lose when I rebuilt my office/project area. Yeah, I could take a quick shot of that shambles, but I’m not. Ha!