Random Friday

Busy, busy, busy! I know, I say that every time. But seriously, in less than a month, my 6-person department at work has lost three people (to fabulous new jobs for them, not layoffs). So I am now officially doing the job of two people. And it's only going to get worse, since I am the only person left out of the three who doesn't get any paid vacation, and both of the other two are taking their summer vacations in the next month. So I'd better blog while I still can. Here's the run-down of non-work stuff I've been up to:

1. First and foremost, moving. There are still sooo many boxes to unpack, so much stuff to organize, and the new place needs a thorough cleaning before my mother-in-law arrives next week. But I think I promised to post some photos of the new place, so here are the ones I've managed to snap so far:


Our new dining area, with a pass-through window to our spacious kitchen.
There is a door in the kitchen that leads to the stairs down to the finished
basement (with unfinished storage area as well)--oh the glorious space!!!


A small portion of our books, and the stairs to the second floor.


Our living room area, complete with Ivy breaking in the new futon.

2. An outdoor concert:


While Chris Isaak played at Wolftrap, my friends and I shared wine,
bread, cheese, and more than a few laughs.

3. Knitting. Believe it or not, I have actually managed to get a little bit of knitting done throughout the craziness. Not enough to warrant photographing, but I'm almost to the heel of Snicket, and I'm nearly done with the sleeves for Samus (and my amazing mother gave me a zipper that matches the yarn almost perfectly, so I no longer have the "but I can't find a good zipper" excuse for not getting it D-O-N-E). When my folks stopped by the other day, Taz saw the sock that my mom was knitting for my dad, and suddenly realized that he is not totally against variegated yarn. So you can bet that at the very next opportunity, I got me to the LYS and picked some up. Still fairly subdued, but light years more interesting to knit than plain charcoal gray:


Lorna's Laces in Black Watch colorway.

4. More knitting. I swear, I'm not just making stuff up so my list will look longer. This deserves its own spot. Months and months ago, I was reading Eunny's blog, and I saw a glimpse of a design she had just completed and sent off to Jamieson's for their next pattern book. Well, that book finally came out, and I have already ordered it. Simply Shetland 4 is hopefully already on its way to my anxious little hands. And as soon as I get it, I am going to buy the yarn for the Autumn Rose Pullover. It is the only fair isle sweater I have ever felt compelled to knit--it has a scoop neck, 3/4 sleeves, and waist shaping!! Finally, a fair isle I can actually wear! Anyone want to join me?

A thousand splendid socks

Yeah, right. It'll be a long time before I knit 1000 socks. The yarn
and pattern on this one is quite splendid, though. It may not look
like I've made much progress since I last showed you Snickett
(especially since this is still the first sock), but I am actually not
far from the heel. If I can tear myself away from this
heartwrenchingly beautiful book long enough to do a few more rows
tonight, I'll be starting sock #2 by the weekend for sure. Now that
I've put that in writing, it's guaranteed not to happen, of course...

Mein Hindi bol sakti hoon

Apparently, 8 weeks, a new 48-letter alphabet, 9 verb tenses, hundredsof vocab words, and innumerable ridiculous mistakes later ("YesterdayI ate a pink sari??"), I have actually managed to learn something. Can you believe it?

No more guilt

Got home too late last night to snap any decent shots of the new place, and I've been too busy studying Hindi (final exam tomorrow) and reading HP7 (warning: if you tell me anything about what happens in the book, I will hunt you down and hurt you with my knitting needles) to get any knitting done, much less take any photos of it. But dude, I just found these amazing pictures that have completely removed any possible guilt I might have felt about the size of my yarn stash.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

OK, so it doesn't fly, but it is so cool in so many other ways, we don't miss the flying too much. I finally got around to taking a picture of our new Prius. We are still thinking of a name for her. We love her so much, it's hard to think of a name that does her justice. (And no, she does NOT make any noises remotely like "chitty" or "bang.")

One step closer...

...to starting MS3. On Sunday when More Cows was visiting, we stopped by the LYS and she helped me pick out this lovely yarn:


Misti Alpaca in a gorgeous dark natural brown, and Addi Turbos for Lace.

At least now I can't use the "I don't have yarn for that project" excuse for not starting. Granted, I still don't have the beads, and I still haven't finished any of the other projects I have on the needles, despite my vow that I would at least have Samus ready for blocking before casting on anything else. Oh yes, and I have exactly three nanoseconds of free time each day, it seems.

This week, every night after I get home from Hindi class at 10, I will be packing dishes and books and anything else I can manage to cram into boxes before Friday, which is when the movers are coming (lucky for me, Taz will be supervising that). This time on Saturday, Taz and I will be waking up in our new place, which we are very very excited about. The actual moving, though? Not so much. We will survive this move, and we will be amazingly happy when it's done. Yes.

And in less than two weeks, I'll have my weekday evenings back. MS3, here I come!

Remembering girlhood

This past weekend was divine. It started out on Friday evening with me and Taz finally signing the lease for our new place. We asked them to rip up the carpeting and sand and varnish the underlying hardwood floors for us, and they did. On time. No extra charge. And it looks great. This bodes well.

Then we tried to see HP5 with some friends, but since none of us thought of buying tickets online at 6am the day before, we had a snowball's chance of seeing it at either of the 2 cinemas we tried (or, I'm sure, the 4 we didn't). So instead, we sat and had some beers and talked about everything from upcoming concerts, to what ingredients go into different beers, to the best way to get from point A to point B by bike in our area. Great fun, and it sure beat trying to find a 2am show for HP5. Taz and I did eventually get to see it. My thoughts are here.

The next day, my best friend from elementary school arrived with her husband K, and even though we hadn't seen each other in nearly a decade, the bond was as strong as ever. All four of us had a great time walking, playing mini golf, showing our competitive streaks in Super Scrabble, eating, drinking, talking, laughing, and remembering. It was fun reminiscing about the time some boys pelted us with snowballs when we were walking home from school, and how one of our friends used to bring peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch every day, and how much of a drama queen my 6th grade boyfriend was. But the best part was the feeling that our relationship is not just a collection of shared memories, and that we still have so much to offer one another now that we're all growed up. I am so so SO happy that they chose us as the first stop on their summer vacation.

Oh, and there was knitting. And yarn buying. Pictures coming soon.

On Sunday evening, Taz and I finally saw HP5. It was fun, but I left the theater with a somewhat unfulfilled feeling. Like when you're used to eating this kind of pizza and are given this instead. I thought about it, and reading JennSquared's entry today helped me articulate it better. She said the movie more or less "represents the book" and I think that's true, but not in a good way. The book is represented, but not expressed. The film had all the major plot elements, but it didn't explain anything and didn't get you to feel involved. I'm not even complaining here about the parts of the book that didn't make it in. I'm talking about the parts of the book that were in the movie, but that you wouldn't understand the significance of if you hadn't read the book recently. Like whose voice is speaking the prophecy, for example. There's a reason Book 5 was a long book--there is so much we learn that we need to know to properly understand the significance of events in Book 6. I know that background info might not make for an exciting movie, but I would have been satisfied with even just a line or two about certain key things. Still, it was fun and had some good special effects. And it was enough of a refresher for me that I can now finish rereading Book 6 in anticipation of this Friday at midnight!