In which I come out of my stupor for a funny movie.

My sister recently introduced me to the failblog, a hilarious site with all sorts of ‘fail,’ ‘pwned,’ etc. moments. Here’s today’s – briliant!

By the way, I have been alive and knitting. My Ravelympics project (Colinette Absolutely Fabulous Throw kit) is turning out not to be as big a challenge as I thought – I’m over halfway done already. I think I’ll tack some other stuff onto the end – like finish at least through Clue 4 of my mystery shawl or something.

Work has been interesting. We’ve (meaning my friends there and I) been ’sprucing up our nerd den,’ as we call it. Phrase inspired by this, if you’re curious. We made a ‘garland’ out of a chain of paper clips and hung it in our cubicle, tacked up 24 cards all over one panel, and picked some flowers, stuck them in a water bottle, covered the water bottle with masking tape, and wrote ‘pretty flowers’ on it with an arrow. I think that last one merits a picture, albeit a crappy cellphone one:

Oh yeah, and I have been working a bit at work, too. Even though it’s very challening to fight my Sporcle addiction to do so. I can list all 118 elements on the Periodic Table now! Working on being able to do them in numerical order. I can list every thing mentioned in ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ in order, though. *begins to hum*

There are different kinds of cold.

For cross training, today we did a local St. Patty’s Day (which, incidentally, is my parents’ anniversary…I should get them something…)-themed race. It was five miles, and I surprised myself by meeting my goal of finishing under an hour – 56:something! :D It was also really fun, because tons of people got really dressed up. I wish I had pictures to show…Ah well.

Anyway, whilst showering after said race, I got to pondering – the cold you feel after running in the cold (sweat + wind) is very different from the cold you feel after a shower or when you have a fever or after skiing. But, for me, anyways, if I’m hot, I’m just hot. There’s not much distinction. Just thought that was interesting.

If you’re a fan of puzzles, check out Killer Sudoku Online. You can play Killer Sudoku (a way cooler variety of the classic, in my opinion) daily, or peruse their archives, all also playable online or printable. It’s pretty sweet.

Anyways, just a quick post. I’ve got to go teach later!

I love yarn people

Today I taught the second class of the second session of my kids’ class at my LYS. There’s only one girl enrolled this time, but it’s pretty fun – she caught on really fast and has already made two feet of scarf and learned to purl! Also, said LYS was having a sale, and there was the typical atmosphere: more crowded than usual, and people scattered on the floor amidst large piles of yarn, agonizing over colors. I myself got some Silky Wool at a lovely $3 per skein!

I think it will become herringbone mitts (Ravelry link) and the leftover reddish some kind of scarf like this, this, this, this (yes, I KNOW that’s not a scarf), this, or this. Those are all Ravelry links, as well. Any preferences/new suggestions? The yarn in the picture is all I have, so there’ll probably be 1.5ish skeins of the red left for the scarf/whatever. And yes, I know I’ll have to fudge the cast-on number and/or length. ;)

DANG, finding all those links makes me reallyreallyreally want to start these…I think my goal will be to finish the sweater by the end of break so I can (sorta) justify starting something. I mean, not that I don’t have a bajillion WIP’s or anything…

But truly, one could never find a place where a sixteen-year-old girl would be treated so nicely by middle-aged women than at a yarn store when they can tell she’s really ‘into it.’ As I wandered the sale before my student arrived, I had so many genuinely pleasant conversations with people I would certainly never talk to in a supermarket.

Basically, today was a nice day. :)

P.S. I’m (hopefully – I’ve heard the sales are CRAZY) going to buy this when Dee at Posh Yarn updates her store tomorrow:

(it’s sock yarn)

Isn’t it GORGEOUS? And it’s 70% merino, 30% CASHMERE…*drools, careful not to hit the yarn*

P.P.S: We’re leaving early on Monday for our ski/snowboard trip and won’t be back ’til Thursday evening, so don’t expect to hear from me!

P.P.P.S (I SWEAR it’s the last one): How awesome is this bag? I reallyreally want it (it’d be the COOLEST knitting bag EVER), but it’s kinda expensive ($72, which isn’t bad for a really nice bag, but is a lot for me, and I already have plenty of bags…).

Will have INCOME!

I’ve been teaching a kids’ knitting class at a LYS near me – we worked out some sort of percentage agreement for payment that I didn’t pay much attention to since I was just thrilled to have a job. I got a bit worried when it turned out only four kids signed up for the class, and my mom started teasing me that I would get $5 for the whole thing or something. Well it turns out that whatever I agreed to comes out to $20 an hour!!! AND she’s going to pay me that for the extra class we’re adding on to the end even though the parents aren’t paying any more for it! I was flabbergasted. How many teens earn that much?? I’m so happy! Plus, she said I could probably do another session of classes and make it an ongoing thing. This is so fantabulous.

I also passed 21k on my NaNo today – I’m actually ahead, for the first time this week! Hurray! Between 500-word spurts, I’ve been allowing myself to waste time online for a bit – an effective motivational tactic, I’ve discovered. I’ve been browsing many online knitting patterns, so check out my Ravelry faves, which have grown quite suddenly yesterday and today. Except now I delude myself into thinking that this blog is any more than a diary currently – I really don’t think much of anybody is reading it. Ah well. It’s probably the longest diary I’ve ever kept… :P

On the not-quite-so-happy front, I have swimmer’s ear, which means my ears hurt all the time and I have to take these icky ear drops three times a day for a week. Not fun. And I haven’t had to swim since it got bad because I didn’t have a ride today, so I’m not so much looking forward to swim practice…Oh well.

Another sad thing…my sister’s hamster died yesterday. She was hysterical, and I remember when my guinea pig died how hard it was, and I cried with her. He was adorable, too. She’s been crying on and off all day today. They have a lifespan of two to three years, but he didn’t even live one, so obviously we were all really shocked. And my brother was totally insensitive about it, to the point where I started yelling at him. He’s such an idiot sometimes. *sigh*

Back on the bright side again, a 4-day week this week and a 2-day week next week, for Veteran’s Day and Thanksgiving, respectively. Huzzah!