Allergies

Allergies are terrible awful things to have. Right now, tree pollen is wreaking havoc on my upper respiratory system and I'm coughing what feels like non-stop. My throat is super raw from coughing all last night -- I don't think I fell asleep until sometime after 3am -- and it is apparently such a hostile environment in my sinuses that it feels like my throat and my face are trying to flee by crawling out of my ears.

Ugh.

Cookie A & Elizabeth

I just got home from a lovely evening spent with Elizabeth -- fellow librarian and knitting conspirator -- and I am exhausted! Our Cookie A packages arrived this week so we got together to open them and cast on for our new socks. I'm pretty excited... I'll have another post about the Cookie A sock club and April's shipment coming soon, but for now, good night!

Here I Am

It has been a doozy of a few months. I've gone on a vacation to Disneyland, taken a quarter off from library school, been ill, broke up with Curtis, moved to a new city, started knitting socks, got back together with Curtis, got promoted, started working out (Jillian Michaels), joined a co-ed soccer team, had my debit card information stolen by some butthead in the UK, and have seriously started considering a career change from corporate information management and analytics type jobs to public librarianship. My life has been topsy turvy and not always in the fun, colorful way that makes you think of chaotic circus routines involving sequins and somersaults (though maybe it does...)

So here I am, on Capitol Hill, in my bed on a rainy Sunday, thinking about getting some tea and how exactly I want to start revamping my Library Out Loud blog and how long I think it would take me to finish knitting my socks (four hours?).

My first pair of socks ever!

Amsterdam Mitts

This summer I went to the Netherlands with a study abroad trip for library school. We stayed in Amsterdam, Mons (a little town in Belgium), and Rotterdam and I took a side trip to London! Since this was a class, we actually had homework... and one of our assignments was a reflection project. We could do pretty much anything as long as it was made easily available to the entire program and somehow tied in with our trip and our experience with the Dutch Designs excursion.

So I designed and knit a pair of "Delftwear" mittens (inspired by Delftware) and made a blog about the project. :) If you're interested, check it out here...

Kristine's Delfwear Fingerless Mittens

Delftwear Mittens

Prehensile Lips and Gold Club Covers

Did you know that giraffes have prehensile lips?

Feeding a giraffe at the Woodland Park Zoo!

You think I'm kidding, but according to the zoo official, their tongues are prehensile too. And you thought picking up marbles with your toes was cool.

In other news, I finished the golf club covers for Daddy just in time for his big tournament in Illinois (maybe? maybe somewhere else?).

Daddy!

All covers are cuffed for extra durability and have ribbed necks to stretch over the head of the club, but stay tight enough to keep the cover on during transit. The number of stripes corresponds to the number of the club. I fussed with the stripes so they lined up properly (need help with your stripes? Check out this video: LINK) and I made my first pom-pom!

Spring Cleaning?

It's finally stopped being completely miserable in Seattle! The sun is shining; the sky is bright and blue; it is even warmer than 50 degrees. Curtis has been hard at work planting things in our urban garden (read: the 8 square feet of porch we have and part of the living room is covered in pots and dirt). He's already got beets sprouting and tomatoes, peas, thyme, chamomile, basil, and green onions are on their way! I'm hoping that next year we'll do some carrots too.

Alyssa went to Thailand and hung out with sleepy tigers.

My best friend Alyssa is graduating this May and until she figures out exactly what she's going to be doing (working, living, sleeping, eating, you know, basics) she's moving in with Curtis and me. I've already got the closet planned (Curtis and I are going to Home Depot later today to get all the stuff we need like support arms and.. screws.. I don't know what else yet) and I'm working on cleaning everything up so there is somewhere for her to land. She's going to be sleeping in my office so I need to get my school and craft stuff put away so she can actually move in. We're even getting a futon so when she's not sleeping on it, the room can be a hang out/work spot too.

What all of this really means is I've spent about three hours organizing my yarn and craft supplies (and I'm nowhere near done yet). I've updated my Ravelry stash page with photos and accurate information and I'm bagging, re-bagging, and de-bagging my yarn as per my new yarn strategy. I can't find my memory card for my little point and shoot camera (boo) so I've been using my new iPhone I got for Christmas (thank you Daddy!) to take pictures and I'm pretty impressed with the images it produces. I'm doing this the slow, more difficult way of course so it's taking me forever but it's nice seeing and touching all my pretty yarn! I'm hoping to get all of the yarn into one bin (plus the WIP (WIP = Work In Progress) basket)... but we'll see if that actually pans out.

ETA: Two bins required.

Accomplished!

It's Monday night, day one of spring quarter and I feel so accomplished! I've read one article, listened to two lectures, printed two more articles to read tomorrow on the bus, and emailed my group for the projects for LIS 530. And I'm going to bed before 10:30am.  Hah Hah! This semester will be organized and non-procastinating.

My APR for Nordstrom is tomorrow morning too. Hopefully that will go well! :-) I think I do a great job and I haven't received any feedback to the contrary...

Not accomplished = knitted golf club covers for Daddy. I MUST finish those this weekend! Determination!