A Cabled Story

Christmas part 1: McKenny Side

2012-01-06T17:26:00.000-06:00

I'm still not completely done with Christmas knitting (don't ask) but I got all the matching colour scheme knitting done and couldnt resist the photo-op. That's a shawl for mom, a shawl for momm, a sweater for Dad McKenny, and hats for Timm's brother, sister-in-law, sister, and future brother-in-law. I also knitted a hat for Timm's neice but that wasn't done yet when this pic was taken.

Here's a picture of me with Timm's neice, Cami on Christmas Eve.

Here's some of the knitted gifts being appreciated.

An all the McKenny "kids" on Christmas morning.

Catchup part 1

2011-12-17T23:56:00.001-06:00

I keep taking pictures for the blog but then getting too distracted to blog. Turns out deciding at the beginning of December to more than double your Christmas knitting is a bad idea. I bought all the yarn seen in the last post on a Thursday. Between that Thursday evening and Monday night I knit 3 hats. Then I ended up with an overuse injury. Basically I had tennis elbow from knitting so I had to take it somewhat easy the next couple days and ice my elbow on and off. To distract myself for
the slow knitting progress, I spent last weekend baking. I wanted to give some of my friends at school little goodie bags and this is what happened.

Hopefully, I'll be back soon to catch you up on the past couple days.

Snow Day!

2011-12-03T23:53:00.001-06:00

It snowed a lot today the roads were awful! I slid all over the place trying to get Timm's ring to the people to re-size it. While doing homework today I also finished my first of the recent Christmas knitting. We lost power which emphasized that I shouldn't keep all my patterns on electronic devices cuz then I'm screwed when the power goes out. Instead I just wound the rest of my Christmas knitting yarn.

Pie Day!

2011-12-02T23:47:00.000-06:00

Today, I decided making pies is better than doing homework!

First up another potpie - same ingredients as the last one, but less crust.

Then a new recipe (thank you Pinterest!!)

Mini Apple Pies:

They were so delicious that I've already had 2 of them and it's taking all of my willpower to not eat all of them right now! This weekend I need to do a case study assignment thing and study for my 3 test next week. I'll probably only will study for 1 of them and wait till after the first one to study for the others. And a trip to the Omaha Holiday Market to get Timm's ring sized correctly.

In which my yarn is bigger than your face

2011-12-01T23:24:00.001-06:00

This morning I had my musculo practical (this afternoon I found out I passed it!) Then I came home to nap. After my nap I headed to the yarn store to grab another skein for my mittens. I weighed it I used 28 grams/50 for the first mitten meaning I'll probably be a little short on this one. While I was there I decided I should really probably expand my christmas buying/knitting list. This lead to as the Yarn Harlot said today "a yarn accident." I won't show you all of what I got cuz it will give away my Christmas knitting plans. But I will show you the majority of my purchase $$wise is this 1450yd/1 pound skein of Moutain Colours Weaver's Wool. You'll have to wait and see what gets knitted up in the next 24 days!

Cat for scale

Cell phone for scale

Knitting machine

2011-11-30T23:19:00.000-06:00

I've been finishing projects left and right it seems. I guess that's what happens when you don't want to study lol. Tonight I present to you the Circus Socks. Pattern is Wedge by Cookie A. Yarn is On-line sock yarn?

As you can see I'm doing a good job studying Law & Order ;-). Tomorrow we have our musculo practical and Friday is our neuro test. Next week we have 3 tests. I really need some motivation back. If anyone sees any please send it my way!

This week is not my friend

2011-11-29T23:44:00.000-06:00

Yesterday and today have been pretty bad days in the scheme of things I won't bore you with the details instead look at my finished mitten! Surprisingly my hand really is that long. Here's hoping the rest of my week goes better than the last few days!

Is the weekend really over?

2011-11-27T23:47:00.000-06:00

Today was full of work (where I only made $.75 for tips) and preparing for this week at school. The good news is my mittens are almost done!!

Long Day

2011-11-26T23:34:00.001-06:00

This morning Timm suggested we call in not sick but madly in love; neither one of us wanted to get out of bed, snuggling was much better. We both got up and made it to work, possibly a little late. I spent 8 hours on my feet dealing with mall shoppers. I'm still alive so that says something haha. I sold about 7 gift cards which will help with the in-store competition! I also made decent tips. We had a customer put a $20 in our tip jar. I also saw some of my favourite customers that I've missed the few shifts I've picked up this semester. I came home and made a tasty dinner of ham, asparagus and orange cranberry sauce. Since then I've been trying to get some homework done. I have to work at 9:15 tomorrow. Hopefully the mall is a little slower than it is today.

Go Big Red!

2011-11-25T23:30:00.001-06:00

After going to Target at midnight solely for Timm's x-mas gift, we grabbed some (not enough) sleep and headed to Lincoln. I'm sure if you want to hear about going 10 mph half the way there Timm ranted about it on his blog. But we made it in time for kick-off without extra time sitting in the cold so I didn't mind. Actually it wasn't that cold today.

Notice all the people and seats behind us? That's because this is how close we were to the field. It was awesome. We could read the names on the player's jerseys! I even somewhat knew what was going on for most of the game.

Nebraska has a tradition of releasing a balloon when we score our first points. They sure looked cool under the grey clouds.

After the game we were both starving (especially me because I did not partake in disgusting hot dogs at the game) so we headed south to Macaroni Grill. We ate a Macaroni Grill in Portland last spring and it was awesome, but there's not one in Omaha so it only seemed right to hit it up while we were in Lincoln. I got the combo of Mushroom soup and Carmela's Chicken. It was pretty good, but definitely not as good as our experience in Portland and the service today sucked!

After we got back to Omaha we picked up Timm's suits, which apparently feel like butter on his skin (again probably explained better on his blog). And then went to the Muppet Movie!!! It was so good and reminded me of the good ole days as a CHUMP (College Hill United Methodist Puppeteer). Now I think it's time for bed before I have to face working at the mall tomorrow.

Oops!

2011-11-24T21:48:00.000-06:00

Well I guess I failed at NaBloPoMo, but I think that the activities that occurred in place of blogging were well worth it. On Tuesday, I drove to Iowa to spend Thanksgiving with Timm's family. After dinner Timm and I were exhusted so we passed out and completely forgot about blogging. Then we woke up Wednesday and Timm pointed out that we had failed to blog so I decided I would do it while I stayed home with Timm's mom that day and worked on homework. That plan was ruined when this munchkin showed up.

This is Timm's adorable niece that I got to play with on Wednesday afternoon. We had a lot of fun passing the electronics back and forth, finding out that the answering machine talks and other things that 16 month olds are interested in. Needless to say, I also didn't get as much homework done as I should have.

Then after Timm, his dad, his sister and future brother-in-law made their way home we had a delicious dinner.

Not to upstage today's Thanksgiving feast, of course.

After lunch, Timm, his brother and I headed out to show Jon the 46. But they got distracted by guns. They even convinced me to shoot (proof is on Timm's blog).

Before heading home we had Timm's mom make sure to get a picture of us looking good.

Now I'm gonna mix up a Cranberry Buckle for the morning (before we go see the Huskers (hopefully) kick some Iowa ass) and then hit up Target's black Friday sales (eek!) Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

So close to break!

2011-11-21T22:53:00.001-06:00

Despite only having one class today I stuck around school for 5.5 hours. It was relatively productive though. Then Meghan came home with me and we made Elvis cookies!

Since then I've been trying to get some homework done. Now I'm gonna pack to head to Timm's after class tomorrow. Super excited to snuggle and relax!

Sunday Funday

2011-11-20T23:16:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the lame post yesterday. My ipod isn't cooperating with blogger lately and when I email post in it moves all my typing around so it was easier to only have pictures.

Today, Kristin and I got up and skipped church to go to Target. Kristin still struck out on finding jewelry (yesterday's mission too) but I got what I was after. Then we headed to the zoo. Kristin didn't know that the Henry Doorly Zoo is rated 3rd in the country. I think she enjoyed it. We didn't look at a lot of it because it was cold as evidenced by this waterfall freezing. We looked at the Desert Dome, the Orangutan exhibit, Gorilla House, where we saw if Kristin was as tall as a gorilla.

Then we headed over to the bear canyon, where we saw the Black bear playing in the water. He was scooping it up with one paw to drink but then licking his other paw as well. It was pretty amusing. Despite being really cold it made the zoo pretty nice cuz there was hardly any crowds. For some reason the inside of the Cat Complex was closed so we could only see the cats that were on the outside exhibits. It's unfortunate though, because this tiger sure thought there was something exciting going on inside.

I was going to take Kristin to California Taco after the Zoo and she was all excited for it. But it turned out they're closed on Sundays. So we ended up coming back to Dundee and going to the Dell. I enjoyed my Phillie and fried pickles. Kristin got the Dundee Melt, which she said was yummy too. After that, Kristin and I headed back to my apartment and I helped load her up so she could drive back to KC.

Since then I've been trying to catch up on some reading for Cardio, hopefully I won't have to study all of Thanksgiving break (esp. since I'm working 15 or so hours. I forgot to post a picture on Friday of my finished sock.

Voodoo got a new box today that Dana brought home from the grocery store. I like it cuz it says he's a cutie haha.

Can't get the pic to turn correctly right now. But I started my new mittens last night after Kristin helped me pick out yarn. Fingers crossed that they aren't too big.

Saturday in pictures

2011-11-19T23:19:00.000-06:00

Happy Friday

2011-11-18T23:44:00.000-06:00

After school today I came home and cleaned so my apartment would be sparkly for Kristin (ok maybe not that clean)!

Then I tried to do homework while waiting for her. I made yummy dinner that I forgot to take a picture of (imagine chicken with sweet potatoes, black beans, corn and red peppers on rice here). Then of course we had to go to Dairy Queen!

I got my usual Cocoa Fudge and Marshmallow sundae.

Kristin got a frozen hot chocolate but hid from the camera.

Then we went to WalMart cuz I'm so awesome and show Kristin the really exciting things in Omaha. While there I realized that my centerpieces had finally been marked down. The check out lady only looked at us a little strangely for buying 11 Potpourri Pumpkins and 15 bottles of flavoured water (with asparagus and face wash)

My car will probably reek tomorrow from all the potpourri together, but at least my tables will look cool. Now we've got to decide if we're watching a movie or crashing.

productivity

2011-11-17T22:26:00.001-06:00

I surprised myself with how productive I was tonight. I could have gotten one more thing done to be really impressed, but I still did way better than the last few days. I still failed at taking pictures today, but hopefully tomorrow while Kristin is here I can find something picture worthy. The biggest news of the day is that I don't have to redo my cardio practical. My meeting with Dr. Norman went well. He gave me good feedback about my exam going smoothly and he felt like I was professional and interacted well with my patient. He said he heard the 5 min warning and knew I didn't have very much left and thought I was home free so he was shocked when I didn't finish in time to close. He understood why I double checked what I did and said that with my findings he felt like I would have struggled to close with the patient anyhow. Basically he said he wasn't planning on having me come back unless I wanted to. Considering that last night I figured out we only have 16 days of school left and in the time frame we have 2 group projects, 2 assignments, a quiz, a musculo practical and 6 tests, I think I'll pass on redoing my cardio practical.

I haven't been doing the 1 thing you're thankful for every day in November. But after a message from Timm saying "sarah baker, thank you very very very much for not being an over dramatic cunt. it so ridiculously apreciated" I thought I'd sum up a little of the awesomeness that is Timm, that I'm thankful for. So Timm, thank you for being the most honest, trustworthy person I know, that handles my stressed out mode well 99% of the time. Thank you for warming up my hands and my heart. Thanks for appreciating my nerdiness and usually not making fun of it. You balance me out super well and I can't wait to see all the awesome things we're going to do together!

Another unproductive night

2011-11-16T22:51:00.001-06:00

I really need to get my mojo back. I can not seem to get myself to do homework this week. I really think having such a great, relaxing weekend with Timm threw me off. I had fun at knit night tonight, but forgot to get any pictures of my sweater. I've turned the heel on my sock! But otherwise, I've just been spending a lot of time trying to motivate myself to get school stuff done. It seems like we're temporarily out of the test/practical season only to have a whole bunch of assignments and group projects to do, which is disappointing. I find out tomorrow if I passed my practical from last Monday *fingers crossed.* Tomorrow we only have one class that's from 3-4:30, but I've managed to fill my morning up with practicing for the Musculo practical, meeting with my neuro group and then having my feedback session with the Cardio professor. I can't believe how fast this week has gone considering how little I've done. I guess I better put my butt in gear tomorrow night, so that I can enjoy Kristin's visit and not have to study the whole time!

Yawn soooo sleepy

2011-11-15T22:52:00.001-06:00

Today was about 17 times too long. We had to be in Lincoln by 8:30 which meant being up at 6. Then after seeing a real patient we had to come back to Omaha for class from 1:30-5. Needless to say I'm exhausted and wasn't as productive this evening as I wanted to be.
In more exciting news, I finished my sweater this weekend. It just needs to be washed and blocked. I might get a few pics tomorrow at knit night.
And in really exciting news, I'm super stoked for my BFF, Kristin to come visit this weekend. I'm trying to figure out what all to do while she's here. I'm thinking Indian food but other than that I'm not sure.

I didn't know great Mondays existed!

2011-11-14T22:42:00.000-06:00

This morning I didn't want to get my butt out of bed it was so warm snuggled up next to Timm. But I did and went to school :-(. Timm came and had lunch with me and my former roommate, Dana. After a few more hours of lab, I headed home to pick up Timm and head out west.

We were planning on going suit shopping. In the process we stumbled into the apple store for Timm to look at iPods. We also stumbled into DSW where we found Timm new shoes, but he has to wait till his birthday for them.

Then we decided we were hungry so we debated between a couple of the places in the shopping center and settled on Firebird's Grill. We had lobster spinach queso which was amazing, then split the meatloaf entree that came with mashed potatoes and pecan green beans. After that we had creme brûlée cheesecake which was amazing! Food snob Timm even said he was impressed I have a feeling we'll definitely be going back there.

We then headed to Men's Wearhouse after striking out on suits and had a delightful experience with the staff there. They were having a buy one, get one special so Timm not only found a suit for the wedding but a snazzy new suit to wear with his new shoes. I'm gonna have to find a super nice restaurant to have my sharp dressed man take me for dinner!

Is school really tomorrow?

2011-11-13T23:17:00.001-06:00

Today went by way too fast. Timm and I went to church this morning then came home and had lunch before I headed to work. I haven't worked in a month. In that time they got a new register at work. So I spent most of the day figuring out how to work it which is good before I work during the holiday crazies. After work I came home and Timm and I had dinner. Now we're snuggling watching Fred Claus on tv. I can't believe school happens again tomorrow. After class Timm and are planning on going suit shopping!

Date night

2011-11-12T22:35:00.000-06:00

Today I laid around and slowly worked on homework this morning. Around 4 I finally hoped on the shower to get ready for date night. When I opened my shampoo bottle it squirted shampoo straight into my eye (I still don't think its totally recovered but at least most of the redness went away by dinner).

Here's my outfit. Those are actually cool fishnets on my legs but you can't tell.

Here's what my hot date showed up in:

Here;s us being cute together!

At dinner, I gave him his new engagement ring, it's a little too big but we'll get that taken care of.

And here's our dinner, baked potato soup and chicken picatta for me and grilled pork chops with mashed potatoes for Timm.

Super stuffed now! Gonna watch part of a movie before passing out.

It's Friday, Friday, Friday!

2011-11-11T23:32:00.001-06:00

This week is finally over! Hallelujah!

Practical went well today, won't find out till next week for sure.

Ran errands afterwards and bought myself flowers!

Since then I've been veggin out watching TV and balancing my checkbook for the first time this semester.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend ahead of you! I have a hot date tomorrow night!

So close to Friday!

2011-11-10T22:19:00.001-06:00

I woke up this morning thinking it was Friday. I knew that the school stuff going on was Thursday's stuff but I kept thinking that I was done after today. Each time I remembered that it was indeed Thursday I was sorely disappointed.
This morning I headed into school to practice for tomorrow's practical. After two hours, it was lunch time! Then waiting around until our SimMan simulation. The simulation went well; Sarah and I made a good team. Our professor gave us good feedback and the only bad thing was that neither of us really noticed that the screen giving us vitals also had an EKG reading on it, oops! After that pharmacology where we learned about antipsychotics and anti-epileptics.
I came home in time to watch Jeopardy! and then look over more stuff for tomorrow. Before Jeopardy! started the cats made it clear that they were cold and we'd abandoned them too long today.

Day Three: DONE!

2011-11-09T23:18:00.001-06:00

Hump day is over! Just 2 more days till this ridiculous week can be a
thing of the past.
Today we had the neuro test at 8. I think it went fairly well. Then we
had musculo lab. Our professor was saying she knew we had a lot going on
this week and could tell we were tired so she'd go easy on us. She asked
'If we were all pre-occupied with Cardio?' The class mumbled and
grumbled about Neuro. And she said "Neuro?" and we grumbled that we had
a test. And she said 'This morning? Like right before you came to lab?'
After the collective yes from the class, she said 'Oh my, no wonder
you're all out of it.' We had neuro lab after lunch, where we were given
another assignment due next week. On the way there one of my classmates
tripped going up a few steps and after lab another classmate ran halfway
into a wall. I think there's a general lack of sleep in the PT2 class.
After school I went to Whole Foods for knit night. It was a nice break.
I didn't get much done on my sweater. Both pocket trims are knitted and
the first one is sewn on. Guess the other one is waiting till tomorrow.
Got some Banana Split Gelato before heading home.
Tomorrow is the Simulation Experience with the $50k mannequin that talks
to you. Hopefully it goes well and we don't drop him on the floor or rip
out any of its lines.

Day two: Check!

2011-11-08T22:20:00.000-06:00

I don't know whether to be glad Tuesday's over with or not. I don't feel ready for the rest of this week right now, but on the other hand I'm definitely ready for it to be over with. Today was relatively uneventful: school then home and studying and eating. That's about it. I got together with my partner for Thursday's practical and went over our plan for that, so at least that's done. Neuro test is at 8 in the morning and I'm gonna be real honest that I'm not as prepared as I should be, but I'm just gonna take the hit on this one. I've done well on everything else so if tomorrow doesn't go great it'll be fine. (Meditation for the night C's make PTs) The only other remotely exciting thing for the day is that both sleeves are done on the sweater. Now all I have left is the trim for the pockets and to finish weaving in ends. Hopefully it'll be done in time for Timm to take pictures of it this weekend for me. Hope you all have a wonderful hump day tomorrow!

Also: Heard today the Duggar's annoucned they're 20 and Counting as my mother said "oh my goddd"

One Day Down

2011-11-07T23:02:00.001-06:00

Monday and first practical: check!

This morning I left my coffee at home which I hoped wasn't an indication how the rest of the day would go. I studied some at school before lab. After lab I ran home to get my watch which I also forgot and see if my coffee was still warm. Then back to school to get progressively more nervous until my practical. It went ok, but there's no way to know for sure till next week.

When I came home I started working on dinner. Ham, veggie, potato potpie:

After what seemed like way too long in the oven:

And after more waiting for it to cool:

And my mom's recipe for leftover pie dough, throw some cinnamon sugar on it and presto (so good I didn't get a pic until they were almost gone):

So glad today's over. Tomorrow is the only day this week without a test or practical so hopefully I can get a lot of studying done for the rest of the week.

The calm before the storm

2011-11-06T23:18:00.001-06:00

I tried to spend today being a combo of productive but relaxed. Knowing that this week is gonna kick my a$$ I figured I shouldn't study too hard today and burn myself out. I thought about going to church this morning but didn't make it out if bed quite early enough so my day started with running errands instead. Hit up two grocery stores to hopefully get enough food for the next couple weeks and not be stuck eating microwave meals the whole time. Then I came home and worked on homework for a bit while watching Law & Order: Criminal Intent (discovered last night that they'd posted more seasons since I went through and watched all the episodes his summer). Then did more homework while playing the sims and knitting. As I started to get hungry I headed into the kitchen and mixed up some (and by some I mean enough to feed me for 2 weeks) chili!

Remember, remember the 5th of November

2011-11-05T23:15:00.004-05:00

I failed today in blogland. I was so excited last night that after 2 boring posts about doing nothing I would have pictures of delicious Indian food today. But I totally forgot to take pictures cuz I was too busy eating and enjoying introducing a friend to both the restaurant and Indian cuisine (she loved it btw).
So despite not knowing American history very well, let alone British history I will always think of Nov. 5th as Guy Fawkes Day thanks to V for Vendetta. I love that movie. I'm not sure if it's the fact that Natalie Portman is still hot after she saves her head, the use of the Overture of 1812, or just the movie as a whole. So the past few years I've tried to make a point of watching it on or near Nov 5th. As soon as I post this I plan on putting it on in my room while I clean and re-organize before next week's madness.
In case you haven't seen V for Vendetta you should watch this, sorry it won't let me embed it!
In knitting news, the first sleeve of my sweater is about half way done and will hopefully be finished tomorrow. Time to start looking into new projects so I don't end up with a lose of what to knit later this week.

Nother Boring Day

2011-11-04T23:17:00.001-05:00

I was at school from 8-4 today, I'm sure all of you out there working full time are saying "so what?" It's exhausting that's what. We started the day off with musculoskeletal lab and a quiz on the thoracic spine. Then we had a 2 hr lecture on proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF). Then lunch with a trip down to the Clinical Skills Lab to refamilarize ourselves before our practical on Monday. Then 3 or so hours of practicing for the practical on Monday before I came home. Just been working on homework and vegging out since then. A couple of classmates and I have plans to meet up for more practicing tomorrow. But this weekend is primarily gonna be spent preparing for next week. After next week the semester is all down hill. I keep telling myself I just have to survive next week and I'll be good to go.

Is this week over yet?

2011-11-03T22:57:00.001-05:00

> In my head it is totally Friday. Tomorrow is therefore going to suck when I have class at 8 am for the first time all week. Nothing too exciting today. We had our EKG quiz that I just heard everyone passed! Then I came home and started studying for the quiz we have tomorrow. Mostly I've spent the night paying the sims 3 and knitting. I'm burnt out on school for the week and didn't feel like doing too much. Only excitement of the day is I finished the body of my sweater so now I am starting on the sleeves! Hopefully I'll have something more exciting tomorrow.
>
>

So Tonight wasn't Gonna be a Wedding Post, then I Checked the Mail

2011-11-02T23:00:00.002-05:00

We got our first snow of the season in Nebraska today. I didn't appreciate it, but at least it held off longer this year than it has in years past. I would have appreciated it more if today wasn't the day of our Neuro Practical in Lincoln. My group left Omaha at 11:30 in rain and by the time we got to Lincoln at 12:20 it had turned to snow. Our practical went well despite being damp with cold toes while we performed it. Afterward, I sent the rest of my group back to Omaha and went to have coffee with a girl that I knew only on Ravelry. She's a fellow moderator on the engagement/wedding forum and a super cool girl. I'm glad I got to meet her in real life and hang out and I hope we'll get to do it again soon. I intended to take a pic specifically for the blog but forgot.

Then I came home and met back up with my group to do our write up for the practical. Then on to knit night which was a small group tonight.

When I finally came home at 8:30 I was pretty tired and forgot to grab the mail on the way in, but decided it was prolly worth going back outside to check it and I'm sooo glad I did! Timm’s engagement ring came in today!! So the back story is that he told me if I get 2 rings, he wants 2 rings too, which I was fine with. But then we decided that my e-ring was kinda better on its own than with something else and that all FH wanted for a wedding band was a solid yellow gold band (boring ;-)). But then a few weeks ago while I was at the Farmer’s Market I saw the Spoon Jewelry booth and remembered that I’d told Timm in the beginning of the summer (pre-proposal) that he could use a spoon ring for an e-ring because I’ve always like them, so I poked around to see if they had any giant ones and then went on my way. The next week FH was at the Farmer’s Market with me and as we wondered near the booth, I asked what he thought about an engagement spoon ring. He liked the idea so we poked around and he found one he really liked, but it was not in giant size. The people thought that they had the spoon’s twin at home and told me they would make it and send it to me! So without further ado:

See not kidding GIANT ring. A quarter will sit in it but not go quite all the way through.

Timm liked this ring because it had a rose on the outside and a daisy on the inside and after seeing this he promptly said “Like Mmmbop 'Can you tell me if it’s goning to be a daisy or a rose?'" I pointed out to him tonight that there’s an A inscribed on it (for the original spoon owner) and asked him if we were gonna say it stood for my middle name and his response was “I saw it on the other one, I figured it could stand for Always.” Such a dork.

Now I need to go study for my EKG quiz tomorrow. I'll leave you with my favourite pic, which hopefully Clay can take a better version of at some point.

The Return of NaBloPoMo

2011-11-01T21:42:00.003-05:00

Since I seem to do well with NaBloPoMo and not at all the rest of the year, I've decided to do it again. Needless to say life has been ridiculously busy with 21 hours of grad classes, wedding planning, and working the occasional shift at Scooter's.
Since the start of the semester:

I've figured out our centerpieces
I made my wedding shawl (which I'm not allowed to show pictures of because Timm doesn't want to see it till I walk down the aisle)
I've also made 3 peoples Christmas gifts (also can't share)
Timm and I went to Kansas City to see Hanson on Oct. 1 and got to meet Taylor (who complemented Timm's hat and beard)
Had two sets of engagement pictures taken

Because I don't have many of the pictures at my fingertips right now, I'll leave you with the engagement video that our wonderful photographer (claylomneth.wordpress.com) put together after our second shoot.

Wedding Brain

2011-07-05T19:30:00.004-05:00

Schools out for the summa, and much more

2011-06-29T22:29:00.015-05:00

I've been writing this blog in my head since Saturday, as Friday was the last day of classes. But more stuff kept happening and not only was there no time to write the blog, but it was getting longer and longer in my head. So sorry about the long post but I promise you if you read to the end it'll be worth it. (Also sorry about so many pictures.)

So first up, the roomie went out of town on vacation for a couple days and I was on cat entertaining duty. Apparently Dexter didn't think I was entertaining enough and decided to prove he could ride a bicycle lol. It was pretty amusing, although I was a little worried he was gonna knock over the bike and have it land on him in a mess of cat/bike parts, but he got down without injuring himself :-).

As I mentioned in my last post, I wanted to participate in project Spectrum, but wasn't knitting anything in the right colour for May. I did manage to complete a green project for June though! This is Sexy Vesty in Cascade 220. I did a crochet border around the neck cuz I was running low on yarn, but I might like it better this way. I was debating whether the vest in combination with the plaid shirt was too That 70's Show. Timm voted yes, but everyone else voted no, so I wore it to my practical for school. Practical #2 to be specific, which I rocked!

The other exciting thing that happened in knitting land lately is my bird socks are FINISHED!!! (You might notice I'm wearing the outfit seen above in this picture lol). I finished them while I was at school after taking my practical. I found the perfect ribbon to go in the top at Mangelsen's, you can't tell well from this picture but it has a little ruffle on it :-). I'm pretty sure this is my biggest knitting accomplishment ever. I'm still in search of clear rainboots, if anyone finds them please send me a link or buy them in a size 9!! Unfortunately I finished them at the wrong time of year and it might be a while before they get some real wear.

Also remember how I promised a reward for reading to the end of this post . . . well these socks are in the middle ;-)

There are a TON of weddings among my classmates this summer. So Steph decided it would be awesome if we had a class bachelorette party for all our brides to be. I'm gonna say she's pretty much a genius. We decided to start out with dinner then continue onto drinking and possibly dancing. This is a picture of 8 of our 9 brides to be. All the brides wore colours and the other 20 of us wore black dresses. We created quite a spectacle in the Old Market. To the point that we had a couple families from Florida (in town for the college world series) stop us and take a picture with their sons (about a dozen middle school aged boys). It was an awesome night!

The weekend after that, Timm and I attended the wedding of our dear friends Audi & Cameron. It was pretty awesome. They had their ceremony at an old historical home. Instead of a traditional ceremony it was a tea party. We were invited to dress up and create a name for ourselves. I was Lady Emma Lindberg. Timm was Lord Buster O'Neil. We had a great time.

Later that evening they had their reception full of dancing, yummy food and a rainbow cake! They had a "photo booth" set up with different facial hairs, glasses, frames, and chalkboards that you could write on and strike a pose. This resulted in my by far favourite picture of Timm and me. I'm really excited to print it and put it in a frame!

The next day there was supposed to be a car show at the zoo, so Timm & I headed over to check it out. The car show ended up being a little disappointing (a few new corvette and some sweet Model A's but that was it), but the zoo itself always has something to put a smile on my face. This time I'm not sure which was better the friendly leopard or crazy Timm!

After that tiring weekend, I had my last week of school. I'm officially done with the first year of Physical Therapy school! I made it I'm now a PT2!! And most importantly I get a month and a half off to relax.

In celebration of the end of school and my new found freedom I went to the zoo with a few of my knitting friends on Friday and their kids (4 kids under the age of 3!!). It was a great time and definitely exhausting. The kids were super cute, but also excellent birth control lol. I adore Bailey's monkey backpack. I think the picture on the right may be the only time all three of them were looking at the same thing, the Tiger.

Then I had another bachelorette party to attend. This one was much smaller than the previous one.
It's one of the same brides with a few classmates and her future sister-in-law. We had a lot of fun. Particularly with a book of "challenges" for Sarah to perform throughout the night, including kissing the first guy with a mustache and asking 3 men how "big" they are. It was pretty hilarious. We also discovered that apparently no one carries around condoms anymore (another challenge).

After an exhausting Friday, I worked Saturday and Sunday. Then headed to Timm's for a few days.
Monday we decided to have some fun. We went over and saw the '39 Ford Tudor that Timm's thinking about buying (I definitely approve) and chatted with the owners (see more on Timm's blog). Then we grabbed some burgers and headed north.

It was such a pretty day to be driving and we rocked out to some good tunes on our was to Tea, SD. There we went into a few antique stores. We found this awesome Singer sewing machine. I also scored a Smurf's sheet that may be a dress in the near future. We saw a bunch of skulls, awesome furniture, cool dishes, and much more (again more pics on Timm's blog). I also saw a fabric store next to the antique mall that I REALLY wanted to go in, but it was closed because it was Monday (so lame lol). So we continued north.

We went up to Sioux Falls and poked around at the mall (where I scored a cute dress for $5), then headed to the theatre to see Cars 2 in 3D. It's pretty cute/funny and definitely worth the $$. After that we decided we needed some deliciousness. So we headed to the Red Lobster. My grandpa used to love Red Lobster and we would go there when I was really little and I'd get a Shirley Temple as a nice little treat. I always thought it was the coolest thing ever, especially the cherries that come in it, so of course I had to get one! Then I got a pound of crab!! It was so yummy! Timm decided to put his 3D glasses back on during dinner and be a dork (as usual). We skipped dessert because we were both full and hit the road back home.

So Tuesday, Timm had to go to work and I went with him, hoping to hook up with one of my friends that had just moved from Omaha to Sioux City. I watched some of Timm working on a tribal arm piece, then headed to lunch with Stephanie. We had Chick-fil-A, which is so delicious and what I miss about working in the mall in Arkansas. Then we headed back to her place to hang out and knit. We chatted for a while, then I went back to the shop so Timm and I could go home. We watched the sunset on our drive and Timm said he hoped we would make it back into town before the sun went down so we could find a good place to watch it. Unfortunately the sun moved faster than us so we settled for eating the yummy dinner his mom had made. After dinner Timm suggested we go get ice cream. I said sure. We headed out the door and I grabbed Timm's hoodie cuz I thought I'd be cold walking over to the gas station. Then we got outside and Timm was getting in the car. I said we should just walk cuz it's so close. Timm said no we need to take the car. I insisted that I needed to burn some of the calories of the ice cream and Timm said we need to take the car. So I got in and we started driving. Then Timm drove past the gas station and headed north of town. He asked me to put on the Brad Paisley CD because he had a riff stuck in his head and he couldn't figure out which song it was from. Then Timm turned onto a dirt road and pulled over and asked if I would dance with him. I said yes. So he asked me to get out and tell him when the music was loud enough. He turned up the music and changed the track to "I Hope That's Me" and came over and started dancing.
Then on the third verse that says, "Somebody's gonna buy a ring,
Somebody's gonna make you cry,
Somebody's gonna lift that veil,
And get to look into your eyes,
And I hope that's me, I hope that's me."
He got down on one knee and pulled a box out of his pocket. He asked if I would marry him and I said yes. (I also at some point asked him if he was serious and he's giving me shit about it, but I said at least that means I wasn't expecting it haha). I knew from the unique box that it was one of the rings we saw together in Portland.

It's perfect, I couldn't be happier. This is my apology for the near future of this blog being about weddings.

-The future Mrs. McKenny

I might be in a blue rut . . .

2011-05-26T19:35:00.004-05:00

Before I get into my knitting antics, last week Timm came down for massage lab and a wedding. While he was here we went for a little walk around the neighborhood to enjoy the lovely flowers.

On Friday we went out to dinner at Pitch, a local coal fire pizza place. We hadn't been there before but I'd heard good things. We got sweet and spicy rosemary wings as an appetizer and a pizza with ricotta cream, prosciutto, arugula, caramelized onions, and mozzarella. I snapped a picture of the wings but forgot to get one of the pizza. Timm was not overly impressed with the pizza he thought it seemed bland. I think this was contributed to by the intense flavour of the wings before the pizza. I thought the pizza was pretty yummy, but it ended up making both of our stomachs angry.

The wedding on Saturday was for Timm's cousin, Mark and his lovely girl, Rachel. They're in Austria on their honeymoon right now, but I'm hoping to grab some Indian food with them when they get back. Timm & I looked pretty snazzy if I do say so myself ;-). He looked especially good when I stuck his nametag/ table marker on his head (that's what he gets for messing with his phone instead of talking to me).

Now on to the knitting content ;-)
I was really interested in participating in Project Spectrum, but the colour for May is red and everything I've had on the needles in May is blue (which is the colour for July). Hopefully next month (Green) will go better. For now I will have to admire everyone's red project and become inspired to work on something not blue. If you recall in my last post I was unhappy with the way the Zauberball was knitting up into the Helix scarf. So instead, I decided to use the yarn for Faraway, So Close. I started it last Monday in class. And had it off the needles this Tuesday evening.
Unblocked:

On the blocking board, Voodoo for scale:

Today at lunch:

My friend and classmate, Sarah, was sitting at the table while I was having Meghan take the pictures. Sarah leapt up and tried to stick her head in the picture saying "I want to be on your blog!" I had Meghan finish taking pictures of the shawl and then went over to get a picture of Sarah Squared (sorry, my hair looks like it was attacking you).

Been awhile . . .

2011-05-14T22:40:00.017-05:00

So I totally expected to be less busy this semester than last, but I wasn't. Then the further behind I got on blogging the less I wanted to blog and try and play catch up. So I finally decided to not try and catch you up (sorry :-( you can see a bit of what's been going on in my life on Timm's blog) and just start from recently. I've had the last week and a half off of school between spring and summer semesters. I figured now is as good a time as any before I start classes again on Monday. I've been trying to get a lot done so everything is cleaned and organized to last the next 6 weeks of summer semester without going crazy.

Last weekend, I traveled up to Wayne, NE to attend Timm's sister, Mary's, graduation party (I missed the ceremony because of work). I got to see a lot of Timm's family (including his adorable niece) and generally have a good time. We then traveled back to Timm's house. We tried to make dry ice bombs, but they didn't work so instead we put the dry ice in the birdbath with water - Timm and I decided that all birdbaths should look like this.

Then we made pretzels, but not just any pretzels. A few weeks ago, I came up with the idea of pretzel sticks filled with cheese similar to the stuffed crust on pizza. So we experimented! They worked and were delicious!! We also made normal pretzels, which were also good but not as good as cheesiness. I'll have to perfect them a bit then post the recipe on here :-).

Then I came home on Tuesday and was home for a few days, so I continued cleaning and organizing and . . . SEWING MY CURTAINS!! Not only did I manage to finish the first set that I started over Christmas break, but I made the second set AND the flouncy things. My room is now officially a cave, which is not good for getting up in time for class, but is good for afternoon naps and when the summer session is over and I don't have to get up! Before and after shots (I'm not sure if you can see the difference in light that it lets in but it is definitely drastic):

I finished my first bird sock while in Portland for spring break, but I'm still at work on the second one. I'll share this picture even though it's old because it's very exciting ;-). I pretty much had everything other than the second bird sock off the needles so I was looking for a new project. I bought a Crazy Zauberball to make the Helix Scarf, but when I started it I wasn't overly impressed.
I love the yarn!! The colours, the way it feels, that it's a little uneven in spots, all of it. I kept knitting hoping that it would start to take shape and to see what colour would come next. However, the scarf, itself, was not really turning out right. So now, I'm trying a different pattern and so far so good.

But the most exciting thing is that yesterday, I drove down to Manhattan, KS - home of Kansas State University. My best friend since about 8th grade, Kristin, graduated today with her Masters in Architecture which just makes me so proud! We hung out yesterday and explored Aggieville.

We found a donut shop, food carts in town for the TV show and awesome bling!
Today was full of festivities and boring speeches and food and all things that come with graduations. It was nice to see all of Kristin's family again. I lived with her and her parents my senior year of high school so I wouldn't have to move out of state with my parents and had gotten to know most of her extended family in the process, but that was 5! years ago (now I feel old).

There's pics of me and Kristin and one of Kristin with her boyfriend, Josh, he graduated from the same program, now I just ahve to convice them to design my dream house for me ;-).

Well it's late and for not having school all week it's been a long one. Hopefully, I'll start popping back in here more often, but I wouldn't hold my breath if I was you ;-p.

Back in business

2011-01-10T23:22:00.001-06:00

Well I'm back in the swing of things with my nose to the grindstone. Classes started last Monday much to my dismay. I was excited to see all my PT buddies and get away from 8 hour shifts at the mall but I definitely wasn't ready for all the reading and studying that school brought with it. I hope to get back to posting regularly now that I'm back on a schedule during the week. I have a bunch of stuff from my break and Christmas to share. But for now I present to you Elvis cookies (or what happens when you start running out of everything in the middle of baking): I noticed at lunch today that the banana that I had thrown into my lunchbox a few days ago had gotten quite beat-up. I contemplated making my go to banana cookies, but I was craving something a little different. (side note: before heading home for Christmas I had stopped into the gourmet dog store in the mall and found dog treats to take to Cosmo they were banana and peanut butter flavored. I thought at the time that it was cookie form of my favourite quick breakfast.) So of course today I thought bad bananas + peanut butter was still the best idea ever. I wasn't sure if I could just add peanut butter or sub it for something in my normal recipe so I started looking around online. I found a blog called Siriously Delicious that had a recipe for chocolate chip peanut butter banana cookies. I decided to give it a whirl (I wasn't craving chocolate, but what the hell couldn't hurt). Well I started mashing bananas and got out my margarine to soften when I realized I didn't have a full stick of butter, so I threw in a few tablespoons of vegetable shortening. I got those together in a bowl and went to grab my peanut butter only to see that I had less PB than I remembered making it only about 1/4 of a cup instead of 1/2. I started scrambling around for what I could do ( I should also add that theres a nice snow storm involving 8" of snow happening outside making me unwilling to go to the store). After some looking through the cupboards and online to see what can be substituted for PB, I decided to use Nutella. Because of the Nutella I decided not to put chocolate chips in for fear of the other flavors being overpowered. The first batch didn't come out very well, they flattened out too much and got a little burnt on the bottom. I threw in more flour which helped a lot (you can see the difference in the pic above). Hopefully you'll be hearing from me again soon. I'm crossing my fingers for a snow day tomorrow although we were the only ones that didn't have one today, so I'm not holding my breath.

Done, done, done!

2010-12-18T00:43:00.001-06:00

Took my last tests of the semester yesterday and boy do I feel good. I don't have to do anything with cadavers ever again!

Thought I'd just drop in to share my joy with you all. I'm hoping to update over break. I'm working all weekend and hopeful not throwing drinks on costumers that are rude. Then Timm and I are headed to Arkansas to have christmas with my parents, brother and grandma. Here are some pictures from the last week. Timm and I are going to an ugly Xmas sweater party tomorrow so look for even more awesome photos soon.

The end is in sight (I hope)

2010-12-04T00:09:00.000-06:00

Sorry for the immediate lack of updates.

The test I took on Tuesday that didn't go so well, really didn't go so well the average ended up being 60% after apparently they added 3 points. I got a 51% which I can't say I was too upset about considering the average. Some of my classmates went to look at their tests with their notes in hand. One of them asked the professor about a specific question which the suggested textbook answered one way and the professor had told us the opposite. The professor informed her that the book was wrong and he taught physiology the 'right way.'

Finding this out on Wednesday before knit night, I enjoyed a nice glass of wine with my pizza at Whole Foods. I've turned the heel on my bird sock, but I haven't gotten much further while I've been studying.

Some of our lectures this week have been really amusing. Our 80 year old professor was doing the pelvis demo and telling us about kegal's. I mentioned that Michelle Duggar needed kegal's. Apparently he had never heard of her. I explained that they had 19 kids and despite complications with the last one they said they'd take more if God blessed them that way. His response was 'well God didn't put that sperm in her vagina!'

I ran some errands this morning trying to get stuff done for Xmas while I'm not completely cramming for finals. I didn't find an ugly xmas sweater for parties after tests are over but I did find an awesome sesame street sheet that will eventually be an awesome article of clothing (I hope).

After class today I went ice skating again, still didn't fall! Starting to work on skating backwards which makes a whole different set of muscles sore. I made a date with a couple of my fellow tortured souls to go again.

Time to get back to studying!

last day of NaBloPoMo

2010-11-30T23:11:00.003-06:00

I can't believe I successful posted every day in November. I feel so accomplished. Which only half way makes up for how unaccomplished I was on the physiology exam today. Apparently sometime in the last few weeks our physiology class changed it's name to BioChem. The test was horrible. It focused on tiny, tiny details that even the PA students don't care about and the PTs really don't care too much about the endocrine system as a whole. There were hardly any questions on the reproductive systems (which made up about 1/3 of our notes and was what I actually understood) and there was a page and a half of questions about the thyroid which we only spent one day of lecture on. It was ridiculous. According to some of my classmates there were multiple questions that had more than one correct answer (I was unaware that any of them were right). I don't think I've ever guessed so much on a test in my life.

After the test we had two hours of anatomy lecture. The first of which most people dazed off through. The second one our 80 year old professor explained sex to us, which was hilarious. He told us that there's a center in the brain that elicits orgasm and if he put an electrode on it and gave us a button to control it we would all push the button until we died. "You wouldn't eat, you wouldn't sleep, it would just be orgasm 24/7."

After that we got out of class an hour earlier than usual, just in time for the first day of the ice rink being open! A group of the PT students decided that it was the perfect solution to our craptastic day so we bundled up and headed out. After all getting the correct skates and wristbands we hit the ice for about 45 mins. I have a feeling my legs will be feeling it tomorrow. I do have to report that despite betting that I would be the first to fall down, I didn't fall down at all! I bought a season skate rental pass so I will hopefully be going many more times between now and spring break.

not much to say tonight

2010-11-29T22:41:00.003-06:00

I'm cramming for my physiology test tomorrow. I'm really excited to get it over with. I'm devouting tomorrow to cleaning and reorganizing before I start in on all the last round of test material. Only 17 days (not counting today) left in the semester!!! We got our grades for the test before break back today. The class average for the short answer portion was a 66% :-o. Needless to say it's my worst test grade in that class and I hope to make up for it with the final.

The only other thing of note today is that I came home and my roommate had sat a magazine on my desk. I was on the phone to my mother and said "What did your mother do?!" Apparently, she got me a subscription to Ladies Home Journal (cause you know I magically turned 40 over night). I now have "84 ideas for the happiest holiday ever." I bet that they don't include drop out of school so you can have your time, money, life and sanity back. It also informs me how to stash more for retirement (I think not having 100k in student loans would be the first thing they'd advise). Well I better go study more so all this debt isn't in vain.

Pot-pies are like pizza

2010-11-28T22:13:00.001-06:00

Katie sent home a bunch of leftover turkey with me and I really didn't know what to do with it all. Talking to my mom the idea for a potpie was brought up. So, I give you turkey potpie!

I grabbed a couple frozen pie shells, a can of potatoes, a bag of frozen corn and another one of broccoli, and a can of cream of broccoli soup.

It turned out a little runny. I don't think I needed to water down the soup at all broccoli in there. Still taste delicious though. Which brings me to the thought that potpies are like pizzas, the possibilities are endless. Since I barely made a dent in the leftover turkey I see another one of these in the near future (maybe with lima beans or onion or carrots!)

In case you haven't had enough of pictures from my glorious days up in Iowa, here's Timm being a dork wanting his beard to look super long.

Do you see what I see?

2010-11-27T22:36:00.001-06:00

exhusted

2010-11-26T22:59:00.002-06:00

I drove home this afternoon in my freshly tuned up car. Then I sat at home for an hour petting Voodoo apologizing for leaving him. But then I had to go to work at the mall on Black Friday :-0 It was awful. It took over an hour for us to get all our losing stuff done tonight. I only worked 6 hours roughly but I feel like I worked at least 12. I think I'm gonna munch a little and read over a few physiology notes before I pass out.

Turkey turkey turkey

2010-11-25T22:50:00.002-06:00

Finished my cinnamon rolls this morning. They look way better this time than last time because they actually rose.

Here's Timm devouring one.

Then this afternoon, we ate thanksgiving dinner!

Doesn't it look delicious? It was!!

Here's a pic of how much progress I've made on my socks since last night after starting over on size 1s.

a little r & r

2010-11-24T18:38:00.001-06:00

Got up this morning to go to work with Timm and this is what we saw.

Pure ice on the window :-(

Sitting around at Timm's shop all day I made ample progress on my new project, the Nightingale socks! (rav link:http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/nightingale-2)

I'm really excited about them and the yarn that I picked out for them, but they are coming out too big. I'm going to have to start over with size 1 needles instead and hope that it doesn't make them too small :-( The pattern calls for 1 1/2 which I didn't know existed.

After giving up on the sock until I get back to Timm's where my needles are, we went to get some BBQ.

Nom nom nom sweet potato fries :-)

And heres Timm with his "Johnny Dog"

We're head home soon to some yummy pork roast and hopefully a fire. Then if I won't be in Katie's way too much, I'm gonna make pumpkin pie cinnamon rolls.

Hope everyone's turkey day is full of yummy food, family and relaxation.

Alive and cozy

2010-11-23T23:15:00.002-06:00

Sitting in Timm's living room starting my new knitting project :-) My test didn't go super well today (or at least I don't feel like it did).

Meg and I had fun at the yarn store and I found some discount sock yarn :-o and of course amazing yarn for my new project. Hopefully, I'll have photos and more details tomorrow when I have better internets.

Did you know . . .

2010-11-22T22:49:00.002-06:00

That for four weeks in utero our intestines leave our abdomen because the liver is hogging all the space and they need room to grow too. In the process the intestines will rotate 270 degrees. Eventually, there will be about 22 feet of intestines attached to about a 7 inch long base of mesentary. I think that's pretty crazy.

As you can tell, I'm still studying away. We had our practical (with living anatomy) today. I think the practical went fairly well after getting a general consensus from other students afterwards on some of the answers. I was really excited because they announced at the beginning that one of our living stations was being thrown out because the equipment wasn't working properly (yay for not identifying heart sounds and breath sounds!). However, I may have gotten a better score on living if we had the heart and breath sounds. I apparently don't know my right from my left and need to be faster at finding landmarks. We'll see how many points I lost for those stupid mistakes.

Gonna be a late night, still got plenty of studying to do and packing to head to Timm's after the test tomorrow (yay for skipping physiology on Wed!)

Study, study, study

2010-11-21T22:19:00.001-06:00

one day closer

2010-11-20T22:35:00.002-06:00

Not much interesting today. I worked for 8 hours this morning. Then, I came home and had dinner before I started studying. I worked trough most of my thorax notes and some x-rays. Still need to do the abdomen notes. I took a break and watched the Glee episode from last week. It was awesome. I'm definitely hoping that Gwyneth Paltrow will show up on more episodes in the future.

The Cranberry Buckle turned out pretty good. I think it could use a tad more sugar.

I'm still debating on what colours I want to do my upcoming project in. Gotta decide before Tuesday when I go to the yarn store.

Off to study more!

'tis the season

2010-11-19T22:34:00.007-06:00

to eat cranberries! Last week when I was at Trader Joe's overwhelmed with wonderfulness, I grabbed a bag of fresh cranberries. As someone who love cranberries in all other forms, I'd never had fresh cranberries or used them to make anything. I thought it was high time to change that, but wasn't sure what to make with them.

I remembered a recipe I'd made this summer when I had bought blueberries. It turned out awesome and I polished it off probably faster than I should have. This recipe was for Blueberry Buckle from the Better Homes and Garden Cookbook (the red and white checked one that it seems like everyone has, got mine from an estate sale a couple of summers ago). I decided to give it a whirl with the cranberries. I figured I might need to add a little more sugar to account for the tartness of the cranberries.

It just came out of the oven, so I can't report on the taste yet but it smells and looks delicious.

Other than that, it's been a pretty uneventful day. I had class at 1 and then lab. Class was physiology and right now we're on the endocrine system (hormones). Today we started the male reproductive system and I'm so glad to finally be on something that I understand and have a good background in. All the pituitary hormones were stressing me out a bit because they're so confusing and for the most part I haven't learned about them much before now. Lab was a review day and then we had a practice lab practical set up for us. I had to hurry through the practice practical so I could go to work, but it went fairly well. I definitely have an idea what I need to study more as far as the practical aspect is concerned. I'm pretty sure I need to study everything more for the written exam, but at least I have an extra day for that.

the knee bone's connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bone's connected to the hip bone

2010-11-18T21:51:00.005-06:00

and all your intestines are connected and shoved in a tiny tiny little space.

Tonight my living anatomy partner came over to practice for our test on Monday. Because of the lack of movements to test and bones to feel in the abdomen and thorax, a lot of our living anatomy this unit was drawing out where everything is inside the body cavity. First we drew the "planes" of the abdomen that help you locate everything else.

Then we drew all the intestines and major organs of the peritoneal sac. Look I got my gallbladder back!

Then we washed off and drew the organs and vessels on the posterior body wall.

There was lots of funny comments and giggling that occurred (especially because Meghan is ticklish and doesn't like me finding her transtubercular plane). I also keep accusing Meghan of cheating because she can use my scars as landmarks for the different planes and organs but I have nothing to go on.

I got the ends on the hat for Operation Christmas Child wove in last night. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Good thing I gave it away today or I might have grown attached.

Thanksgiving is getting so close I can almost taste the turkey and pumpkin pie (and by that I mean freedom and blissful days of no school). Until then, more studying!

just another day

2010-11-17T22:25:00.006-06:00

Today has lasted forever. Wednesday has been our long day at school all semester, but with it getting dark so late it seems that much longer. I got a fair amount of studying done during my break at school. And after school I ran errands on my way to knit night. We're doing Operation Christmas Child at school and I knit a hat for our kid (pictures tomorrow after the ends are woven in?), but I also volunteered to get toiletries for the box so I headed to Dollar Tree.

Eventually, I made it to Whole Foods for knit night. Meg showed me her awesome shirt. She found this shirt as an XXL at Goodwill but couldn't pass it up because of the colours. So what did she do? Sewed zippers in the back of it! Love it! It's surprising that Whole Foods doesn't explode with all the genius-ness of knit night people in the same spot. I finally wove in the ends on my socks so we could ring the cowbell and show them off. I stood on a chair with my foot on the table (Captain Morgan-esque). We took a picture, but it was blurry. Instead you'll have to live with these pics. I'm gonna make Timm take better ones next week when I'm up there.

Pattern: Arch-Shaped Stockings by Meg Swansen

I got it from the Vogue Knitting: Ultimate Sock Book.

Yarn: Caron Fashion Right Sport Weight (Brown and Peacock Blue)
I got it from my parents' neighbor lady, Wanda, who had been interested in knitting once and bought yarn, lots of yarn. She then decided she didn't want to knit and stuck it all in trash bags in her storage shed. She gave me a bunch of yarn a few years ago. Then she passed away and now her husband keeps finding more and taking it to my parents.

Needles: Size 3 DPNs

I really enjoyed the first sock. It knit up really fast for socks because it was sport weight yarn and size 3 needles. The shaping makes it interesting, but the colour pattern is simple enough to memorize and be able to see where you're going. I was, however, frustrated by the vagueness of the pattern. I realize that I make up my own patterns semi-frequently and modify patterns even more frequently, but sometimes I just want to be told what to do. Especially with colourwork, because I'm a little less confident than I am with other techniques. There weren't a lot of details on what you should do with the colourwork when you got to different areas of the sock (such as the heel) and the toe shaping instructions were awful. I found myself looking at other people's project pages and pictures on Ravelry often to have an idea what it should look like. The first toe I got was ugly and square (see pics from earlier posts). I didn't like it and I didn't think it would fit in shoes well. I decided to do my typical toe decreases and see how it looked. I decreased every other row for half the toe and then every row for the second half. It turned out nicely, there was a little weirdness because of previous shaping, but I think I'm the only one that will notice it and it made a nice rounded toe. I ripped back to make the first one match and feel much better about them now. They really do have an arch-shape that makes them fit snugly. The only other issue I have is with the side of the heel flaps where I picked up stitches is very loose and a little holey. I picked them up the same way I always do, so I think it might just be the looser gauge?

I have a very exciting project up next in my queue, but I'm not buying yarn until I'm done with my test on Tuesday. You should be excited though, I am!

Don't tell me you're sorry cuz you're not

2010-11-16T22:38:00.003-06:00

Today was a better day. I haven't been as productive on the studying front as I would have liked, but I've still got a few hours. I was a "patient" for the PT2's practical this morning, which will hopefully help me know what to expect next year. Then an hour of physiology lecture and two and a half of lab. Today was our last structured lab of this unit the only other lab we have between now and thanksgiving is a review lab and then the practical. I headed home and grabbed my laundry after school then went to the laundromat. After I threw my clothes in the washer I headed over to grab dinner at California Taco. I got a delicious chimichangas (which I totally got a pic of before I could devour it but I can't get it uploaded right now I'll try to add it tomorrow). Then I went to get cat food and gloves for lab. Figured out what Voodoo is getting for x-Mas while I was at petsmart. Studying the heart for the rest of the night. Hope your's is more exciting.

i turn the engine but the engine doesn't turn

2010-11-15T23:18:00.003-06:00

My Pandora station has been doing an excellent job of serenading me tonight. It's actually my Moxie Fruvous station but it's been spitting out a lot of a capella music and recently a Beatles song and now a Wallflower's song. While One Headlight is probably the song a lot of people associate with the mid-90's Wallflowers (led by none other than Bob Dylan's son, Jakob), it was just the beginning of my love affair with one of my favourite bands. And on a day like today, when I seem to be struggling to keep it together, it is a nice reminder of how far I've come and how much further I can go.

I've been more productive tonight than I would have expected considering my state of mind after school. But still so much more to do. Timm and I have been talking a lot lately about the future and kids and where to live and all that kind of stuff which is giving me stuff to look forward to but also making it harder to be in the here and now and have so much not fun stuff to do. I'll leave it at that tonight before I just come off whiny and annoying.

nothing interesting to share today

2010-11-14T22:31:00.001-06:00

Was at the mall for 10 hours today, only 2 of which I wasn't on the clock. It wasn't quite as busy as yesterday, which is good, considering how low our stock was running. I ran down to Old Navy while I was waiting for the staff meeting. I was hoping to find khaki corduroys on sale but no luck. I did however find a few cute shirts at least one of which will be good for clinicals. I'm feeling super stressed out right now because my next anatomy exam is a week from tomorrow and I feel like I know next to none of the material. I also don't want to completely slack on physiology and neuro and have to play catch-up later. The physiology exam is right after Thanksgiving and since I have to work Black Friday and all weekend I know I won't get a whole lot done. Hopefully, I'll be in a better mood and have more positive things to say tomorrow.

it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

2010-11-13T22:35:00.008-06:00

at the mall that is. I worked for 8.5 hours today and it was disgustingly busy. See our hourly report - four $250 hours in a row. I feel like my legs might fall off or at the very least have been run over by a bus. I really hope the company gets their act together and hires some extra people soon. When it finally slowed down for a minute I ran downstairs to grab dinner. As I approached the top of the escalators I could smell the delicious brown sugar coated nuts. I thought I was going crazy or maybe one of the bath and body stores had a new scent out, but as I got closer to the food court I saw a "Roasted Nut" seller. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) I have no pictures for you (mostly because I consumed the two "snack packs" before I even left work). This may be very dangerous for me through the rest of the holiday season.

This morning, I managed to get myself out of bed with the promise of Mulligatawny for my belly later. I started chopping onions. I kept chopping onions. I chopped a little bit of my thumb nail and then chopped still more onions. Lots of onions, but I love onions, so it's all good. They were sauteed and got all golden brown. Then I added all the spices, at which point, the whole apartment smelled delicious. I think garam masala might be the best spice ever and I don't know how I hadn't discovered it until yesterday. Then add red lentils and chicken broth and let simmer. Then comes the real interesting part. After the lentils have gotten tender, the soup is still chunky. So what do you do? You blend it! So I got out the blender that was an X-mas gift last year and opened the box. It's super nice wish I'd gotten it out sooner but haven't really had much to blend I guess. You can kinda see the chunkiness in the picture before the blender got turned on. When I took the first batch from the blender and poured it into a bowl, I got so excited - it looked almost exactly like what I get at restaurants. I got it all blended added the chicken. Then cooked a little rice up and poured myself a bowl for lunch. It is sooooo delicious. It's a little different than the one from Mother India and I didn't have any cilantro to throw on top. I think I'll stop at the store tomorrow for cilantro and see if I can place my finger on what else is missing. I definitely think I'll be making this again though.

Sorry still no pattern review for my socks. I'm behind in studying and physically exhausted. I work 6 hours tomorrow and then have to be at work 2 hours after I get off for a staff meeting, so I really need to get some studying done before I crash tonight.

tgif

2010-11-12T22:29:00.008-06:00

I'm soooo glad it's Friday. It has been such a long week and even though I won't get too much of a break this weekend it still means I'm one step closer to Thanksgiving.

This morning I took my test for Foundations of PT. It went pretty well, there were a few that I wasn't 100% on but I should still be fine. I studied embryo during my two hour break, then had two hours of lecture before lab. In lab, we de-fatted kidneys and dug out vessels and nerves. Our group left a little early as we were all ready to be done for the week.

When I left lab it had gotten gross and rainy out. I was still determined to go to Trader Joe's, so Meghan and I headed that way. I expected it to be busy for the grand opening but it was chaos. It was still really awesome and I'll definitely be returning soon when it is less chaotic. Due to the crowds, I only got a few pics. I bought some stuff to make Mulligatawny, but it was too late when I got home tonight so that's on the agenda for tomorrow.

When I got into the check-out line at Trader Joe's, I looked out the window and wanted to cry. It was snowing giant, wet flakes in a rather steady and rapid pace. I carried my groceries through the quickly accumulating mush to my car. I had to stop at Whole Foods to grab a few things I didn't find at Trader Joe's (this may have been due to the crowds, not the lack of them carrying it). In the time it took me to grab 5 things at Whole Foods my car got a nice coat of snow on it. The check-out girl told me I looked like I was prepared for this weather with my sweater, gloves, and ear warmer. I told her I was a knitter so I was always physically prepared for it but never mentally. I drove home (slowly and carefully) through a ton of snowy mush. I think no one expected it to snow so the roads hadn't been salted at all and no one was prepared to drive in it.

When I got home, I was completely unmotivated to do all the studying I had planned earlier in the day (which I'm blaming entirely on the snow and my feelings towards it). The package my mom mailed me the other day had arrived bearing not only the allergy pills that I needed, but also movies! I decided that watching How to Train Your Dragon was a much better way to spend a snowy evening. A friend had recommended it to me because she thought Toothless, the main dragon, looked just like VooDoo. I'll let you decide

I know I promised last night to do a pattern review for the socks, but I think this is enough for one night. Gotta save something for tomorrow. Hope that wherever you are it's not snowing (or if it is that you appreciate it more than me).

not enough hours in the day

2010-11-11T22:10:00.002-06:00

Not much to say today. I'll post details about the socks tomorrow hopefully. I'm just really scatter-brained tonight. I have a test tomorrow, but I can't focus to study. I really just want to watch a movie or TV and sleep. I'm hoping the tea I just made will inspire me a little bit.

Today in lab, we saw a "surgery" on a lightly embalmed cadaver. It reaffirmed that I don't want anything to do with surgery and PT was a good career choice. Then we found the rest of the major blood supply to the GI tract, before removing the entire system from our cadaver. I'm pretty sure my hands will permanently smell like formaldehyde after the amount of time and depth that I had my hands in his abdomen. I also think that I'm starting to get a reaction from my gloves (or the embalming fluid seeping through the gloves) because my hands are really splotchy and not happy tonight.

The most exciting thing right now is that Trader Joe's opens tomorrow!!!! I'm so excited to go buy lots of yummy food.

Hopefully, tomorrow I'll have a more inspiring post about Trader Joe's and socks!

Wordless Wednesday

2010-11-10T23:06:00.001-06:00

On an island in the sun, we'll be playing and having fun.

2010-11-09T22:31:00.002-06:00

Pretty uneventful day again. It was really warm here today which was nice but isn't helping me prepare for the freezing that will soon be upon us.

Took my physiology test, which went pretty well I think, hopefully we'll get the grades tomorrow. Then had living anatomy where we watched someone get an ultrasound. I had one in July to diagnose my gallstones so I wasn't surprised by anything. Then we drew all over each other finding landmarks for organs in the abdomen (note to self: washable marker = not that easy to wash off). We had two hours of lab where we tried to find arteries in the abdomen (let's not talk about how that went).

Came home and made dinner. Bet your's wasn't as yummy as mine!

Then watched Glee which was awesome tonight. I think it's so great that they really try to tackle issues that are important in a funny and interesting way. Unfortunately, probably many of the people I would like to see and hear about these issues wouldn't watch Glee if they were paid to.

Now I'm doing my reading for class tomorrow and knitting socks at the same time. Really ready for these socks to be done because I'm so excited for a new pattern I found.

Soooooo close to finishing. I still don't like the square toe so I may be figuring out how to change it to something more appealing. I'm also on a quest to find clear rain-boots to rock these socks with but no luck. If you know anywhere I can find some please let me know!

[Also: sorry for the pictures being so funky lately, it's the app that I'm using to update from my iTouch. Hopefully, I'll find an app I like soon that doesn't do weird things. For now, the pics will be edited when I'm on my computer]

did you know the digestive system is basically a mini-brain that can control itself?

2010-11-08T22:36:00.002-06:00

Today started off with a phone call that our 10 am class was being postponed because our professor was ill. It was awesome to roll over and tell Timm I didn't have class until 1 and fall back asleep. It did mean that my morning was completely unproductive but that I got to hang out with Timm for about 4 more hours than I expected. When we finally forced ourselves out of bed, I made us grilled cheeses for lunch and then made him drive me to school on his way to poke around downtown.

Four hours of lecture later, he picked me up and we headed back to the apartment. I made a delicious dinner and we ate before he left to go back to Iowa.

Yummm chili, stuffed mushrooms, and acorn squash.

I packed him some goodies to take home (leftover tomato soup cake, pumpkin bread and some French onion soup things that I found at aldi's). Then I watched House, before settling down to study for my test tomorrow. I'm feeling pretty tired so I might put off the rest of my studying till morning.

soul food

2010-11-07T22:11:00.001-06:00

Timm and I enjoyed our extra hour of sleep last night (thank you daylight savings), but still felt like zombies this morning. Big bowls of chili helps to make us a little more human, before I had to head to work for the afternoon.
Somedays I really hate working at the mall and today was definitely one of those days. (insert rant here) if you need to wear shorts under your shorty shorts-they are too short; if I can see your ass-they are too short. Also,bit is November in Nebraska, you should be wearing sweaters not short-shorts! I just really don't understand people. Especially the ones that come up at 6:15 when your lights are off and you're counting down your drawer and then are shocked when you tell gem your closed. Sooo, to make up for my stressful day at work, Timm and I went out for dinner at Mother India and ate our weight in Indian food. It was delicious as always and I'm still stuffed a couple hours later.

Back to school tomorrow, with two tests this week it's bound to be fun (yeah right). But, we're on week 12 out of 17 so it feels like the end is in sight. I'm just super ready for thanksgiving at the moment (although I did get a text from my dad today informing me he needed my x-Mas list by thanksgiving if I wanted any gifts).

Busy Saturday

2010-11-06T20:16:00.001-05:00

I've had a super busy/relatively productive day. Cleaned my room and switched out summer for winter clothes this morning. It was really nice to see some of my sweaters again,even pulled one of them out to wear tonight. I've been at work all afternoon and it's been crazy busy. We close in 45 minutes so hopefully I'll be out of here in an hour. Then Timm will be here and we're headed to a birthday party. Nothing too exciting, but didn't want to forget to post today. Hopefully, I'll get dome good pics tonight for tomorrow's post.

I might be addicted . . .

2010-11-05T22:55:00.003-05:00

to baking things, especially those that involve pumpkin, that is. My whole apartment smells absolutely delicious right now. Which makes me want to claim my title as Domestic Goddess and screw PT school. (Not really, ok maybe only a little bit). I found Twenty Something & Starving the other day thanks to a friend. I knew that it wouldn't be long before I broke down and made one of the recipes from her recent posts. I present to you: Chai Spiced Pumpkin Bread. One of the best combinations on the face of the earth in my opinion. I haven't gotten a chance to try it as it literally just came out of the oven, but it smells like heaven (and the batter tasted pretty good (if I die of salmonella this might be why ;-))) And did I mention it has Craisins in it *swoon*. I have a sneaky suspicion I will be following Twenty Something & Starving diligently as we seem to have very similar tastes in all things wonderful. Even better it not only made one delicious loaf it made two! So excited to try it in a few minutes when I won't burn my mouth!!!

I also managed to go on a little walk today and snag a few pictures of the beautiful trees in my neighborhood. Now, I'm trying to get a little homework done before I head to bed. We opened up the abdomen in lab today, so next week will be full of learning and touching all of the contents of the abdomen and I need to learn about the thorax before I try and stuff that info in as well.

it just keeps getting colder

2010-11-04T23:02:00.005-05:00

Actually that's not entirely true, it's been relatively warm considering its the start of November. But today was particularly windy and I've been feeling that winter is slowly creeping up on us. This feeling has been manifested in me wanting to cook and bake and knit and snuggle under blankets with kitties (or you know just about anything but homework).

My hat was actually dry this morning (well I should say afternoon, as I didn't have class until 1). I didn't expect it to stretch quite as much as it did and I probably could have made the medium length. Someone commented a couple post down about what pattern it was, so I've included the details below the pictures.

Pattern: Brambles Beret (Knitty, Deep Fall 10, Ravelry)

Yarn: Cascade 220 (forget the name of the colour-way, but it's leftovers from my Mrs. Darcy Cardigan and it basically used up all my leftovers less than a skein)

Needles: Brittany DPNs 4s and 6s

This pattern was the first one in a while that I looked at and said "Oh my gosh, I want this. I want to knit this right now!" There are plenty of patterns that I appreciate and add to the list of things to knit eventually, but I literally cast on for this hat within days of seeing the pattern and set aside my other WIPs. I knit the medium size around and the long length (mostly because I like slouchy and have a lot of hair). As I mentioned above though, it stretched a lot to block it and I probably could have gone with the medium length. The band size was almost perfect, I still pinned it into my hair but mostly because it was so windy today. It was a pretty simple pattern. I love the mix of textures and how it looks like a flower on the back. I have a feeling this hat will get made many more times and possibly for Christmas gifts. I think I might make Eleanor to go with it, as I have a wool sport weight in almost the exact same colour in my stash. I'd also like to thank one of my lab partners, Becca, for taking the pics after lab today.

Speaking of lab, we saw the testicles today and took the skin and fat off the abdomen. We got to see our cadaver's abs and all the fascia that creates the look of six-pack abs in fit people. Part of our group continued dissecting the thorax and by the end of lab we could see all sorts of cool stuff including the trachea, which I think looks like the kinky straws that you get as a kid, because of the cartilage rings around it.

Then I went to the grocery store and came home and started to cook.

Any guesses?

Yep! Chili!!!! Growing up it seemed like this was always the time of year for chili (as I'm sure it is for a lot of people). I've also been a little homesick lately, partially because I haven't been home since May and partially because I won't be able to go home for Thanksgiving this year and I've never missed Thanksgiving with my family (although I'm sure it will be tons of fun with Timm's family this year). So I made chili exactly the way my mom makes it:

Yes, there's macaroni noodles in there. Timm says that it may be good with macaroni, but it's not chili anymore and I have to disagree. But either way it's delicious and even though I'd already had dinner hours ago, I still had to dip myself up a bowl and chow down.

It definitely hit the spot. I made ~4.5 quarts, so I'm really hoping Timm consumes a lot while he's here this weekend or I'll end up eating chili till Thanksgiving. Now I gotta get some homework done, so I won't be doing it the entire time Timm is here (just most of it).

If you haven't dropped by Timm's blog today, you should. I'll warn you that it's pretty depressing, but definitely worth the read.

three for three (in which i'm thoroughly impressed with myself)

2010-11-03T22:18:00.004-05:00

I updated from my iPod Touch last night, but I'm not too thrilled with how the post looks on the computer, so back to the computer to post tonight. Hopefully, I can get a few things figured out and be posting from the iPod again soon.

I really wanted to do a Walking Wednesday, where I went for a walk and took cool pictures (especially with all the leaves changing and falling, it's so beautiful out), but it got dark too fast. I was in class from 8-5:15 today which was waaay too long in my opinion. I stopped at home to switch backpack for purse and headed to Whole Foods for knit night. By the time I headed home it was already dark. Hopefully next week, with an hour less of class and daylight savings, I can try to do this.

Knit night is always a lot of fun and my way of keeping in touch with the real world that doesn't involve school. Tonight I stuck around longer than I should have, but also enjoyed some delicious pasta and veggies and then later gelato (pumpkin pie!!!). Tonight I was showing off the next pair of socks in my queue, that I'm super excited about (more info another day), when one of the ladies told me I am "like a Mensa knitter." Yeah my head still fit through the door to come home but barely ;-). My hat didn't get dry last night or today, but it feels like it might be ready by tomorrow (if it is I'll have someone snap a pic at school).

Sorry for the lack of pics today, as I said before it was a super long day at school and now I need to get homework done. I know I said forever ago that I wanted to get "after" pictures of the apartment and I've never gotten it done. I was thinking since I'll be posting everyday maybe I'll just do a room a day (not only will it eliminate a photo-heavy post, but it also means I only have to clean one room at a time ;-)). I'm also excited to swap out my summer and winter clothes this weekend, I wanna make sure the sweaters are accessible before I really need them, plus I really miss a lot of my sweaters that have been packed up, so that's the to-do list for the much anticipated weekend.

Just another day

2010-11-02T22:49:00.002-05:00

Pretty boring day around here. Slept in because I didn't have class until 1. Sat threw four hours of lecture. Ran some errands, almost bought a desk chair (still thinking about it, might check Nebraska Furniture Mart tomorrow). Came home and made dinner:

Then started working on homework; I haven't been very productive tonight (can't seem to focus). Took a break from studying to wash a hat I finished knitting a couple weekends ago. It is blocking on a dinner plate now.

It's kinda cold in our apartment, so I'm not sure it'll be dry for me to wear tomorrow, but I'm hopeful.

rainy days and mondays always get me down

2010-11-01T22:19:00.007-05:00

Today wasn't rainy, but it was definitely a Monday. So let's get a little motivation going on, shall we?

Much better! Although now all I wanna do is dance and not study. Hanson is working on a REFRESH campaign to try and get their video count up on YouTube and MySpace. They have promised the Fansons a live streaming Christmas special if the views are up to 1 million and 2 million, respectively. I complained to Timm that even if they get the views up and do the special, I won't have anyone to watch and appreciate it with me, as I will be going to my parents for Christmas and can't convince him to go with me. However, Timm said yesterday that he might go to "hell" with me for X-mas if they meet their goal and end up doing the X-mas special. So REFRESH, REFRESH, REFRESH (and yes that's Weird Al playing the tambourine in the red pants).

In other news, we cut our cadaver's heart open today at school, which 1)sounds pretty bad-ass and 2) was pretty cool. It surprisingly looked a lot like the text book pictures (and even though you would think a lot of things do, most of them don't). I also had a forced meeting with my advisor, where I did not get kicked out of school!! I wasn't worried that I would be, but sometimes it's nice to be told you're doing well and then asked if you're still managing to sleep and eat well and stay healthy (all of which feel debatable at times).

sometimes I need more than what's left at the end of the day

2010-10-31T22:36:00.010-05:00

I am still alive. Life has been crazy! I'm pretty sure I always say that, but especially since the last post. 18 credit hours, working 12 to 15 hours a week and studying. And studying means at LEAST 2 hours every night or I feel like I'm not learning anything. I've been knitting the least amount since I started knitting sophomore year of high school (almost exactly 7 years ago). The only new knitting pics I have for you are of my shawl. Timm & I went out for a fancy dinner to celebrate our one year anniversary and I got to be all snazzy looking.

And then this can also be considered knitting content. For a Halloween party at the beginning of the month, I dressed up as a crazy knitting lady! I added a "noro" stripey scarf after this pic was taken. One of my classmates asked if I had knit my cardigan. I responded with "I knit everything I'm wearing except my shoes and the things you can't see." (Yes that's Voodoo's tail making an appearance).

As I mentioned earlier, I'm in class a lot and studying a lot. And sometimes (ok, most of the time) I don't get a bunch of sleep and I start to nod off in class or at home while I'm studying. Or sometimes I'm studying and KNOW that I was sleeping in class when I took a specific set of notes, such as this beauty:

(Yeah, don't ask me what it says, I'm really not sure)

So when I'm not studying (or sometimes when I am and stress-eating), I bake. I've been trying to find little things I can do to save money/waste less food/not eat the same thing everyday for a month. I started freezing some of my fresh vegetables (some work better than others). And I'm trying to use powdered milk in things that call for milk. I can't drink milk by itself (well not cow's milk anyway) and I kept throwing away the majority of the milk I bought or not buying milk to prevent wasting it and then not being able to make mac & cheese, etc.

Here's some of my latest yummies:

The above cinnamon rolls were Pumpkin Pie Cinnamon Rolls from Flour Mayhem (see link in the side bar). I had some issues with them (mostly never using yeast before). They still tasted delicious, but they were dense from not really rising. I'll definitely be making them again and hopefully (with the knowledge the internet has given me) they will rise.

I signed up to do NaBloPoMo. So hopefully, I will be posting everyday for the month of November. (Even if it's only a picture and a few sentences). After the head and neck exam in Anatomy, I've heard things go downhill, so far they haven't much but this week we don't have a test in any of our classes which is a big relief.

I will leave you with cute cat pictures.
Sometimes Dexter and Voodoo snuggle, sometimes they don't.

And Happy Halloween (now that it's almost over)!!!

I survived!

2010-08-29T20:04:00.008-05:00

Physical Therapy school started last Monday, and I managed to survive the entire first week. For awhile it seemed unlikely, but now there's only 16 more weeks in the semester (yes, we already have a countdown going)! All the PT students take the same classes as a group, so the 50 of us will grow to be a family (hopefully, a happy one). We are all taking 18 credit hours - anatomy, physiology and foundations of PT. I think this is deceptive though, because anatomy is secretly 5 classes - anatomy (lecture, lab and living portions), embryology, and neuroscience. We started right in on our cadaver dissection on Monday and currently have all the skin removed from the back, chest and upper arm - let me tell you that's a lot of muscles, nerves and blood vessels to learn in a week. Because our anatomy and physiology grades are based solely on tests with no assignments, etc. it's a little hard to figure out how, what and how much to study. But I've kinda come up with a plan this weekend and hope to stick with it and see how well it works for the first test (a mere two weeks from tomorrow). In living anatomy (where you have a partner that you essentially feel up to identify landmarks in a living person) on Friday, the professor was walking around observing. We all had our shirts off since we were looking/feeling the back and shoulder region. The professor, who has been teaching anatomy for 55 years, came up and pointed to my stomach and said "what's that?" I realized he was pointing to the healing incisions from my gallbladder surgery and I replied with "gallbladder." He said "why?!" I replied with "gallstones" and he looking aghast said "at your age?!" I said "yes" and explained that I had a long family history of gallstones, but I was still semi-amused at his reaction.

Before classes started I finished Arch-shaped Sock #1. I am of course suffering from second sock syndrome (SSS) and broke my number one rule for preventing SSS by not immediately casting on the second sock after finishing the first. The toe ended up very square which I'm not thrilled about but the pattern was not spectacularly clear and I don't feel like ripping back to try and change it, so it will stay square. I also feel like these socks (because they are made with sport weight yarn) will be boot socks not shoe socks, so I won't have to worry about trying to shove the extra bulk into the toe of a shoe.

While I was school supply shopping at Target, I walked passed the scrap-booking isle (which usually presents no problems for me as I have yet to get into scrap-booking), but they had a small area of clearance jewelry making supplies
that screamed at me. Jewelry was another hobby that I had managed to avoid getting into, but the birdcage pendant caught my eye and then I had to figure out what else they had that I could use to make awesome jewelry cause it was all so cheap and then I got home with all of this and was $25 poorer and couldn't understand how I lost all self-control. But, hopefully, when I have time, (aka three years from now) I can make some pretty awesome jewelry. This same DIY and save money urge came over me while I was looking at big hair accessories (like the one I MacGyver'd for Diana's wedding) at stores and being shocked at the price for how cheaply made they were. So, I now also have a bag of fake flowers, feathers, felt, etc. to make hair accessories, but seeing as I probably won't make them anytime soon they aren't really doing me a whole lot of good :-(.

The most exciting thing, though, is my finished Hyrna Herborgar!!! There's not much I can say about it, that isn't expressed in how beautiful it is, so just admire it and then try to resist spending the $65 on the book. Hard isn't it? Granted the picture is kinda crappy but that's what happens when you take it off the blocking boards at 11:30pm. Hopefully I can get some cool outdoors pictures or something soon. I told Timm he needs to come down and go to a fancy restaurant with me so I have an excuse to wear it, although I'm considering just wearing it to classes tomorrow, just gotta figure out what I can wear it with that will do it justice.

Well, I need to get back to studying; Voodoo keeps assisting me (by laying across my books) Today, he tried to attack and eat the pencil I was using. I keep trying to move him to my lap, but he insist that the books are more comfortable.

Wish me luck on week 2 and the forearm muscles (which there are waaaaaayyyy too many of, I don't care if they help me knit, it's just obnoxious)!

I've Been Thinking 'Bout Something

2010-08-10T16:00:00.013-05:00

My surgery went well and I'm officially missing an organ. Timm kept double checking that I wanted to get my gallbladder out, he said "But what if your knitting super powers are in your gallbladder?!" I'm still moving around slow and being careful, but other than that it seems to be healing up pretty well. I have my follow-up appointment on Thursday to check on everything, hopefully he'll tell me I can actually wash my stomach because the scab on my belly button is really gross looking. The nurse who was with me in pre-op said I was being whiny (although I clarified that I wasn't really being whiny just picky). I was very specific about where I wanted my IV put in but I didn't want a bruise or soreness that would interfere with my knitting abilities. I remember when I was waking up in recovery I kept signing to the nurses, but surprisingly they understood my ASL for the most part. I appropriately wore my "It sucks to be me" shirt to the hospital. This picture was taken after Timm had gotten me home and settled in bed. I'm going to credit the facial expression to pain meds. I took in fun bandaids for where they were gonna stick me with needles. Batman for the blood draw and Superman for the IV. We also got a picture of all the band-aids they put on my incisions, which I didn't even think to take fun band-aids for, but considering I was unconscious when they put them on who knows if they would have used my fun bandaids anyway. Timm & I are trying to decide what I can get tattooed over the scars, but I'm sure I have plenty of time to decide.

My parents got here Monday night and met Timm for the first time (which went pretty well). Then we moved stuff in on Tuesday morning and tried to get stuff arranged and put away. My dad and Timm have decided that my giant desk, which I love, will not leave this apartment without the help of chainsaws or movers other than them. Wednesday morning we did a few things before heading to the hospital (including dropping $250 on textbooks just for one class :-o). Thursday we got a few more things settled in my room and Dad hung up all my pictures while I laid in bed trying to not vomit or die. Then we headed to Sioux City, so Timm could touch up/re-do my dad's 27 year old tattoo and I would have someone to look after me over the weekend. Dad's tattoo looks awesome (see Timm's blog for pictures).

Then Timm drove me to his parent's house where I could hang out with his family and get pampered (his mom kept calling me "Princess"). Timm's dad had surgery 2 days before me so we got to have a pity party and be twins (based on the bunny ears in the picture Steve clearly hasn't lost his sense of humor)! And Timm's brother, sister-in-law, and new baby niece, Cameryn, came into town. I got to meet them all for the first time and give them the adorable baby knits (Patterns: Little Sister's Dress and Seamless Saartje's Booties). Everyone has decided Cameryn is the most adorable thing ever (Timm's mom was calling her "Little Princess"). Her parents have promised me pictures of her wearing the adorable knits when she fits them (hopefully between 6-9 months, which are the cold ones in Colorado so that should be good). All in all it was awesome to be up there. I hadn't seen Timm's parents in too long and I loved holding the new baby (only 8 lbs. so not over my lifting restriction!). I told Timm I wanted babies and he looked as though he might kill me, but really gotta get through PT school before I even think about it.

We drove back to Omaha on Sunday for me to work for 4 hours. Definitely not the most fun I've ever had, but I was working with 2 other people so I didn't have to do a whole lot and it let me gauge how I was doing and if I'd be able to work 6 hours on Wednesday by myself or if I needed to start looking for someone to cover my shift. After work, Timm and I headed downtown to see Hanson perform at the Slowdown!!!! So I know some of you are probably thinking Hanson, as in Mmmbop?! Yes the same Hanson, but really how much have you changed since 1998? I have listened to Hanson since Mmmbop, granted there has been plenty of time when I would deny this in public, but they really are one of the greatest groups out there. They write all their own stuff. They play their instruments. And they refuse to be known only as the guys that looked like girls and sang a song called Mmmbop. They do still perform Mmmbop at their concerts, but it sounds less cheesy when they don't sound like girls. If you haven't listened to Hanson since Mmmbop, go check out their latest single and awesome Blue Brothersesque video here. Timm, who says on his blog that he went to the concert so I'd love him forever, really enjoyed himself and is a closeted Hanson nerd, which really does make me love him forever but also amuses me. Timm scolded me a little that I wouldn't stop moving at the concert and I was gonna make my incisions not heal well. But I sat in a chair in the balcony so I wouldn't be in a mob of people that could bump my stomach, so I think that was sacrifice enough. I did get to see something by sitting in the balcony that the people on the floor probably didn't: Hanson wives and babies sat in a special part of the balcony for part of the show! They had the giant ear protector things on both the kids and that made them super adorable. I couldn't tell for sure which wives and kids it was, but I think it might have been Tay's daughter and one of Ike's sons (yeah, if you haven't heard anything about them since Mmmbop all of them are married and they have 7, soon to be 8, kids between the three of them). They also did my favourite song (A Song to Sing) at the concert. As much as I love it, I had little expectation of it being performed, because it's a slow acoustic song. I have a feeling I turned into a middle schooler at that point, but Timm didn't even try to push me off the balcony.

Since this is a knitting blog I suppose I should tell you that I have indeed been knitting. Since my Icelandic shawl pattern book was taking waaaaayyy too long to get here and I'd finished my Jaywalker socks (pictures soon?). I decided to start the Arched-Shaped Socks. For being colourwork (which is not something I do too often) and socks, they are flying off the needles. I got this far on the first one in less than a week. I'm almost to the toe-shaping. The pattern was super easy to memorize and they made a good project to take to work with me. The socks were originally knit by Elizabeth Zimmerman (who's 100 birthday would have been yesterday). But no pattern was found, so her daughter Meg Swansen created a pattern by looking at the original socks. There's a few spots in the pattern that aren't as clear as I would like. For example, when you start the heel turn it doesn't tell you what you're supposed to do with the colour pattern. But they are awesome socks and I'm happy that I had yarn in my stash that went together so well in the right gauge and was completely free to begin with! My shawl pattern book finally arrived on Saturday, the 31st. I wanted to read through all the history and the pattern before I started. So I didn't start the shawl until Monday while I was at the laundry mat. I then had to keep a small child from trying to steal it out of my purse and destroying it, don't even get me started on why her parents weren't bothering to pay attention to what she was doing. I worked on the shawl most of the time I was at Timm's and have already gotten to the second stitch pattern, which means I'm over halfway on row count (but as the stitches increase every row, I'm sure the second half will not go nearly as fast as the first). The picture is crappy (but everyone knows lace doesn't look great until it's blocked) and the colour is off, it's closer to a burgundy than it looks in the picture. So hopefully, I can make some good progress on both of them soon.

I go back to work tomorrow and orientation for school is the end of next week. I can't believe school starts so soon! I'm all registered and have my books and talked to my PT2 buddy (a second year student that's supposed to help me out with stuff). I'm still nervous about anatomy lab, but hopefully I'll handle it better than I'm imagining.

Happy Knitting!

Weddings, Cupcakes, Shawls and Stones

2010-07-22T21:46:00.005-05:00

No pictures of the apartment yet. I decided to wait till my parents bring the rest of the furniture so it'll look prettier ;-).

I've been keeping busy the last month with work. On the July 3rd, I was attacked at work and my right arm got beat up pretty badly. I was told if I wanted to have it looked at I had to find someone to come in and cover my shift. The day before the 4th this was nearly impossible so I worked for 7 hours after it happened. When I got off at 10pm the only place that was open was the ER, so the company gets to pay worker's comp for me to go to the ER and make sure nothing was fractured. It wasn't. But, I started to get pretty fed up with all the BS that's happened at work. I'd already applied for a few jobs so that I could back off to part-time hours. But after that incident and another one (where I was yelled at for about 5 hours straight and threatened by a client and when I called my boss for suggestions was yelled at by her too), I've put in my two weeks notice that I will no longer be working for them. I started working for a coffee shop the week after my arm was beat up and so far LOVE it. Granted I'm becoming addicted to caffeine more than I should be, but all my co-workers are great and I can only burn myself instead of getting beat up!

Last weekend, I had the pleasure to be a bridesmaid in one of my dear friends, Diana's, wedding. Diana let us all pick our dresses as long as they were the same colour, "Apple" from David's Bridal. I found mine in September last year on the clearance rack for $25. It was 2 sizes too big, but I figured I had plenty of time to take it in. I, of course, did not start the altering process until May, but I still managed to finish almost a whole week before the wedding (ask me sometime about finishing a prom dress the night before prom). Because I was taking in the side seams, I added in pockets (because dresses + pockets = <3).

This week, I've been in the mood to bake. Which is actually a little weird considering the temperatures outside, but nonetheless I wanted cupcakes. I thought about waiting till Timm comes down next week, because, although I can, I probably shouldn't eat a dozen or so cupcakes by myself. So I asked Timm what kind of cupcakes sounded good. His reply was "chocolate with no frosting." I love chocolate, I also love frosting, but strawberry is what sounded really good. So I debated between ignoring what Timm wanted and making him eat strawberry cupcakes, or sucking it up and eating chocolate cupcakes, or finding a way to make chocolate-strawberry cupcakes (saw some really awesome recipes online). But finally, I decided to make a small batch of strawberry cupcakes now and then make a small batch of chocolate cupcakes next week when Timm is here.

My mouth is very happy with my decision. I made a full batch of frosting, because it's so delicious I might put it on some of the chocolate cupcakes next week (or you know just eat it out of the container).

Although I'm pigging out on sweets, I'm still on my yarn diet and I've been craving lace knitting. I have lace weight alpaca that has been calling to me for about a month, but I wasn't finding a pattern that I loved. Last week, I was searching Ravelry when I came across this shawl. I was immediately in love with it and had to have it. Then, I looked at where the pattern came from. An Icelandic book that cost $58+shipping and is only available through Schoolhouse Press. They do provide a booklet with English translation of techniques, but that's still a lot of money to spend on a book. I tried to look at borrowing it from the library, even through inter-library loan. The only library that has it is Cornell University and they charge $20 to send it. My mother, who is not a knitter and usually doesn't enable me when it comes to knitting, said, "Well $20 to borrow it, versus $58 to have it forever, it's probably more worth it just to buy it." I went through a few days in moral dilemma about spending so much on a book when there are plenty of free shawl patterns, but I decided I couldn't resist and now am waiting impatiently for the boo0k's arrival.

I also justified buying the book because I know that I'll be doing lots of knitting in the near future. Over the past few weeks, I've been woken up a couple of times in the middle of the night with severe stomach pain. The pain is up right where my rib cage separates and will keep me up for a few hours before I can get myself back to sleep. When it happened the first time, I was really freaked out and of course looked on the internet. After this happened a second time, I set up an appointment to see a doctor. I had already determined that I had gallstones, but of course I had to pay $$$ to have this confirmed. I was told I could stop eating fatty foods or have my gallbladder taken out. I'm 22. I love all sorts of fatty foods. I do not want to live the next 60 years without fatty foods. The gallbladder comes out on the 4th, in time for me to recover before school starts. Like I said, perfect time to lay around and knit. My parents pushed back when they are bringing my furniture so that they'll be here for my surgery, which is nice, but it means I probably won't be able to get stuff moved around and sorted out into the furniture for a little while because of being restricted on lifting stuff, etc.

Hopefully pictures of some recently finished projects and the start of a shawl soon!!

Everything is New

2010-06-21T12:24:00.002-05:00

I've been crazy busy since my last post. Looking for a new apartment, packing, moving to a new apartment, and then changing everything in the new apartment.

Dana and I looked at 7 apartments in one day. We really liked one of them, but someone had applied for it before us, so we were unable to get it. One of the last ones we looked at that day was basically what we were looking for, but it had gross carpet in the bedrooms and lots of strange paint colours. There was another unit in the same place that was opening up soon and we asked to look at it and see if it was better than the unit we had already seen. When we saw it we were impressed that it was hardwood throughout and that the wood was in good condition. The bedrooms we knew we would have to paint but we felt we could live with the rest of the apartment.

Note: For all pictures in this post. Click on them to see notes added on flickr.

On June 1st, we got our keys. The previous tenants had moved out the day before and no one had been in to clean or do repairs yet, but we said that was fine they could do that the first few days we were there. This was the first problem. I was expecting that the tenants moving out would leave the apartment how I would leave an apartment when moving out. WRONG! There were still hangers in the closet and stuff under the sink. Now that all the furniture had been moved we saw that there were problems with the walls in the living room and dining room.

The Red Dining Room

Brown Living Room and Taupey Hallway + Scary Timm

The maintenance guy stopped by after we had been there about an hour. He started going through and documenting all the problems the previous tenant had left. The refrigerator was filthy it had some strange coloured liquid in the bottom of it. Then he opened one of the drawers and there was evidence of roaches. Dana and I were freaked out to say the least.

The Blue Kitchen

The maintenance man was responsible for finding out what the previous tenants needed to be charged for. They get charged for the dirty oven, the dirty fridge, etc. They also get charged $15/ nail hole. The guy counted 106 nail holes throughout our apartment! That's $1,590 in charges for nail holes alone.

We knew we were going to be painting the bedrooms. So we started in on those the same day we got the keys.

One Wall of Dana's Room Before

One Wall of My Room Before

The Opposite Corner of My Room Before

And yes that last picture is colour accurate (on my computer at least).

Needless to say, we've been doing a lot of painting and a lot of cleaning. We scrubbed all the floors. And wiped down everything in the kitchen multiple times. The management company has sent the bug people out twice now to spray and we haven't seen any roaches since the first week. It's awesome to finally have a place that feels like home and somewhere that I'm not confined to one room. My parents are bringing me more furniture at the end of July during my dad's forced vacation (they have to shut down the plant he works at for 2 weeks because they aren't busy enough :-/). I'll have after pictures in the next few days I hope.

In other news, I have a new addition. It's a boy!!

Meet Voodoo. 14lbs of love and snuggling. He likes to nap, snuggle, carry on deep conversations about the state of the world (well at least his food dish) and occasionally chase lasers or other toys, but mostly just the napping.

I knit a tank top back in May that I still need to get pictures of. But the knitting has slowed down a bit since then. I also have put myself on a yarn diet to be able to afford my new kitty and all the expenses with that and also to be able to pay off my bed. So no new yarn for awhile (but honestly I have enough to keep knitting for a pretty long time without a problem).

A Belated Birthday Gift

2010-04-29T12:41:00.004-05:00

All week, I kept telling myself I needed to blog. Yesterday afternoon, I started planning a blog post in my head. I was hoping to type it up last night after Knit Night. But then one of my friends called to tell me happy belated birthday and we talked for 2 hours so all my words were gone and I didn't feel like posting. So I told myself that I would do it this afternoon. Little did I know that I would have a lot more to talk about today.

UNMC (University of Nebraska Medical Center) called me this morning while I was sitting at work. They had a spot open in their PT class! I had kind of given up that they would ever call and I had accepted that I would end up moving to St. Louis in August to go to WASHU. Now I don't have to move, I don't have to quit my job, I don't have to pay $88,000!!!! Well I am still going to move, but in with one of my friends so we can be crazy knitting cat ladies! It's going to be awesome. We're going to look at places this weekend and try to move in by the 1st of June.

Last week, Timm and I went to the Omaha Zoo half for my birthday, half because we wanted to go to the zoo at some point. The zoo is pretty giant and awesome! I feel it is best explained in pictures.

Timm's Twin

Hungry Shark

Timm and Me on Safari

We went and saw Date Night and ate some yummy food and generally had a good time.

I worked the rest of the week and did a little knitting and quilting on my down time. I managed to get my quilt all into one piece and finish my Sylvi. Then my birthday was Monday, so I went to Iowa to hang out. Timm and I and his friend, Charles, all went to Sioux Falls, SD (3 states in the same day!) and went to Joey's Seafood Restaurant. I got crab legs and they were delicious. Then I had a wonderful cheesecake dessert thing that was like a cross between cheesecake and fried ice cream, all it needed was a few baked apple slices and it would have been heaven on a plate.

On Tuesday, Timm and I wandered around town and looked at all the good fishing spots. I got pictures of Sylvi in action and Timm being a dork.

Since I've been home I added the next border to my quilt. I'm really happy with how its turning out. This border really helped to balance it out because it was starting to have a lot of pastels.

Close-up of a corner

It will probably be a while before the it shows any progress the next border is all pieced and I'm not exactly motivated to work on it. I need to alter my bridesmaid's dress before I lose all my time.

There's not much on the knitting front, I'm in a lull between major projects and hoping to start a new one soon.

Wow

2010-04-09T10:56:00.003-05:00

Apparently I fail at blogging when I work full-time :-(. I need to work on blogging weekly, instead of monthly.

I've been to knit night at whole foods several times since my last post and its awesome! I don't know very many people in Omaha (basically just my co-workers) so its nice to have contact with other people once a week. I've enjoyed seeing other people's projects and share mine. They even semi-forced me to sew together my Sylvi and this week they rang the cowbell so I could show it off (even though I insisted that I still had 3 more flowers to knit and sew down). Also this week at Knit Night one of the girls had gone crazy at the bead store because there was a sale and gave away some stitch markers (they are awesome and I have broke several of the rubber ones from my knit kit in the past few weeks so I needed some new ones). And I taught a woman how to do cables (I know that's not a major accomplishment) BUT the woman did not speak English! She had her son there to translate, but of course he doesn't understand anything about knitting, so mostly I spoke to the woman through our mutual language of knitting and hoped she understood how to apply what I taught her to more than just her swatch.

Other than Sylvi, everything I've been knitting lately I've had issues with and there's been a lot of frogging and reknitting going on around here. I thought I had finished my skew socks and then I saw this.

1. On the right sock, I'd missed a row in the pattern that added 20 stitches back in before the ribbing.
2. On the left sock, I either wrote done my modifications wrong or can't count because it ended up shorter than the right one.
3. The yarn is different dye lots!!!
I can't change #3 but I could change 1 & 2 and then I realized they were really tight on my feet and hard to get on and off, so I decided starting over might be a better plan.
This time they are working a lot better. (I knit one sock in 2.5 days of training for work - Thank you Vince for understanding I can knit, listen and learn all at the same time!) The second sock is to the heel and should have some progress tonight (Friday night is when I get knitting time at work).

The other project I'm working on is a Little Blue Dress based on this pattern, for Timm's soon to be niece. Timm's brother and sister-in-law are not big pink fans, but I found this yarn at Mangelsen's and thought it was perfect.

The pattern calls for "worsted wool," which I interpreted as worsted weight but then could not get gauge so I looked again and it's actually supposed to be fingering weight yarn so I had a really stiff start to a baby dress. So rip, rip, rip and do a bunch of math and reknit. I'm much happier with it this time and am almost done and almost out of yarn, so I'm headed to Mangelsen's to buy a second skein to be able to finish it, then she can have baby booties to match too!

As I mentioned earlier, I took Sylvi to Knit Night to be forced to seam it and have started working on the flowers (easy to knit, a pain to sew down). I also need to find the perfect buttons for it, but here's a sneak peak.

The yarn for the flowers although it looks similar to the baby dress yarn, was dyed with kool-aid in my dorm room a year ago, when I first started working on Sylvi and I'm quite happy with how it turned out.

On the sewing front, my block-a-month quilt has been put on the back burner. The only progress I've made on it was finding a fabric for backing it. I don't have any pictures, but maybe I'll get one before my next post. I got distracted by Easter and thinking about a dress that I started working on over a year ago that was put on the back burner when I had an 1870s dress and undergarments to focus on for class. I decided it would make an excellent Easter dress and got it out to work on. I'm delighted with how it turned out - it's polka-dotted satin and has pockets, so I don't know how I could not love it. The only picture I have isn't very good, so I'll have to wait and see if I can get a better one. Now I'm trying to get motivated to go back to my quilt but i haven't been in a sewing mood lately.

If you have read this far, thank you! My only other exciting news is that I was attacked by one of my guys at work last night. I'm fine, I had a red mark on my forearm that faded and might turn into a bruise and some of my hair was pulled out, but my hair is so thick you can't tell. I guess being the one staff that has taken more than a 6 week class of Sign Language is a double edged sword. My deaf guy finally has someone who understands him, but it also means I can tell him things that other staff can't (like we need to share the TV with your housemates). The staff from the other parts of our 4-plex, all told me they hoped this didn't make me leave the field, I assured them it wouldn't. The guy who attacked me is usually a teddy bear and this morning told me he was sorry over and over again. He gave me a hug and was just so sad when I told him that he hurt me.

Hopefully I'll actually post again soon, until then Happy Knitting!

Catch up/Ketchup/Catsup

2010-03-07T23:53:00.002-06:00

For some reason thinking of how much I needed to catch up the blog made me think of Ketchup and that in American Sign Language the sign for Ketchup is the sign for cat and then pointing up. Random, I know, but I thought I'd share. So in advance I'm going to apoligize for the long blog post with lots of pictures because I kept planning posts in my head but not successfully getting them up.

First off, meet Jane:

As mentioned in my last post I acquired her when my grandmother, Janalee (or Jane for short) passed away this fall. I wasn't able to take the serger back to school with me so I was unable to test her out till now and she is wonderful!!

My curtains are all finished and hung. Now my room glows pink for most of the day. One of my housemates even said you can see pink from under the door.

Ravelympics went well. I finished Mrs. Darcy on Saturday afternoon right before the Olympics were over. It only took 3 of the 4 skeins I bought so I have 220 yds. left to do something else with. The pattern was not particularly challenging for me to knit for the Olympics, but with the new job I was unsure of how much time I would be able to work on it. The woman who was knitting my dress for Ravelympics was not as successful, she currently has the project listed as hibernating :-(.

I had 2 knitting issues at the end of the Olympics proving that knitting on little sleep isn't helpful. While I was trying to finish Mrs. Darcy I sewed on the buttons in the wrong spots. (The colour in the above picture is more accurate).

My second mishap was more of a denial issue. I started knitting the Skew socks when Mrs. Darcy only needed the ends woven in. I only had one colour of sock yarn wound into a ball already and I needed to head to work so I decided it would have to work. Well it didn't. The skew socks are wonderful because they show off the colours so well and this yarn just didn't do the pattern justice. I knew that long before I got this far on the sock but I just kept knitting.

I've since restarted the socks, after roping Timm into helping me wind some of my other sock yarn and this yarn is looking A LOT better. I'm excited about it, I'm on the heel of the first sock already (Friday nights at work are slow). I should have pictures of the sock and hopefully a finished Francis Revisited soon!

Last weekend I was in the mood to cook and made a few tasting things in time for Timm to be here for a few days. One of which was a recipe for Black Bean Soup with Jalapeno Salsa that I found in Real Simple Magazine.

The soup was good.

The salsa was delicious.

And together they were awesome!

Lately, the thing that's been keeping me busy the most (other than work) has been sewing. It's a nice change since I haven't sewn much for myself since last May. I took a Period Patterning class last spring and made an 1870's corset, petticoat and three piece outfit on a deadline. This burnt me out on sewing for the summer and then I worked in the costume shop again once school started so all my sewing time was for shows.

Wednesday, I started working on my quilt again. The quilt was a block-a-month promotion at a quilt store in Indiana two years ago. Granny bought me the block each month and mailed them to me. She offered to buy me all the fabric to finish the top of the quilt if I would actually make the whole thing. I told her I would and at Christmas 2008 she sent me all of the fabric. I had sewn 3 of the blocks shortly after receiving them, but never gotten back to it. Because I haven't been sewing a whole lot lately I thought the quilt blocks would be a good way to ease back into things with some instant gratification. Here are a few of the blocks.

Between Wednesday and the start of the Oscars tonight, I finished all 12 of the blocks. The next step is to make them into Big Star blocks. I cut the fabric for these and sewed the first one tonight during the Oscars.

I never saw the sample that I'm sewing, so each new fabric added is exciting to me. I don't have any backing for the quilt and I've looked around a little bit to get a few ideas. All of the fabrics are Victorianesque so I'm trying to find something that will go style and colour-wise.

Next time more pictures and a short blurb about knit night at Whole Foods last week!

Busy, busy

2010-02-21T18:35:00.003-06:00

Sorry for the lack of updates! The new job is keeping me busy. My boss basically told me that she expects her employees to go home exhausted or they aren't doing everything they can while they're at work. And due to confidentiality, I can't talk much about work. I work in a part of a 4-plex that has 3 developmentally handicapped adults. One of my clients is deaf, so I'm getting to use my sign language and I'm the only staff that actually knows more than a few random signs, so I think he really appreciates finally having someone to talk to.

I started Mrs. Darcy in the Cascade 220 from Chicago last Friday for Ravelympics. The body is finished and I'm more than half way with the first sleeve. I'm hoping to get some work done on it tonight. My boss has suggested that I don't knit at work, because my clients could end up using the needles as a weapon against me. I've done a little bit, but I'm being careful and mostly using my wooden needles. Francis Revisited is on hold until the Olympics are over, but I'm pretty excited for it. I think I might make the Skew socks after I get all these sweaters wrapped up. They look like they will be great for the sock yarn I have that likes to do semi-diagonal stripes (which I usually don't appreciate). The Bobby's close tomorrow and my dress pattern, Clover, surpassed 1000 favourites this morning! I don't even care if it wins, it just makes me so happy being nominated and getting this kind of feedback. CplPurl is knitting Clover for Ravelympics and I really hope she gets it done, I'm so excited to see how it looks on someone else!

Since Timm and I both had Wednesday off we celebrated V-day a little late. He made me dinner:

That's pork marinated in a lemon garlic wonderfulness, with pineapple, kiwi, and mandarin oranges on top. And a side of potatoes, green pepper, and onions.
I made desert:

That's spice cake with lemon frosting and a secret ingredient

And then we went to see a production of Into the Woods, which was pretty good (it was final dress rehearsal so there was still a little tweaking that needed done, but the costumes were great! (not just because we know the costume designer ;-))) This is us looking all cute and snazzy:

I tried to find fabric for curtains at Jo-ann's this weekend, because they were having a big sale and my giant windows are demanding too much fabric. I found fabric that I liked and fit all of my requirements for good curtains (dark so they don't let in all this light, but preferably without black or brown, and semi-coordinating to all the stuff in my room already). The problem was they didn't have the 10 yards that I needed to make all my curtains, I even had them look at other stores where I could have made someone get it for me and mail it to me, no luck! So I got enough for two curtains and coordinating fabric to make the rest of the curtains with. I started them on Friday and have the two pretty ones up already. I'm hoping to work on the pink ones tonight. Here's Prudence hard at work:

I also got to use my new serger (acquired from Granny passing away) for the first time on the curtains and am kinda in love with it, she works so much better than my old one and isn't rusty (yeah, let's not talk about it). I'll get a picture of her with the pink curtains.

Moved In and Almost Settled

2010-02-08T21:15:00.003-06:00

Since my last post, I:

loaded my car to the point that I couldn't see out any of the back windows.
drove 6 out of 7 hours in the rain
saw my best friend in Kansas City
went to PechaKucha night in KC
drove 2 out of 3.5 hours in the snow
unloaded my car through a foot of snow
implemented some organization in my room
drove 1.5 hours to see Timm
heard the words "I love you" come out of Timm's mouth for the first time :-D
watched the Colts lose the Super Bowl
picked out a bed (no more air mattress in a few days!)
drove 1.5 back
was fingerprinted
filled out paperwork and got my schedule

And tomorrow, I start my job!!

As mentioned above in Kansas City, I went to PechaKecha night. If you haven't heard of it don't feel bad. It's an event where designers do presentations with 20 slides and only 20 seconds per slide. You can find more information here. One of the presentations was on knitting. The woman, Emily a.k.a TaffyYarn on Ravelry, talked mostly about how knitting isn't just for 80 year olds anymore and showed pictures of guerrilla knitting. She had also knit bunny hats for rubber chickens (I told Timm to never let me do this). She mentioned at the end of her presentation that she had told her kids they could only get a tattoo if it was a knitting tattoo. During the beer break I told my friend I was going to go up and talk to the woman and show her my knitting tattoo. She looked at me and said, "You hate making phone calls, but you're going to go up and talk to some random lady in a bar?!" I said, "She's a knitter, all knitters are my friends!" I went up and talked to Emily, she gave me her Ravelry information, petted my Central Park Hoodie and looked at my tattoo. Both Emily and her friend liked my tattoo and decided that they could never let Emily's daughters see one like that or they would actually want a knitting tattoo lol.

My room is mostly organized. I didn't get any before pictures because it had snowed so much and i just wanted to get everything unloaded from my car and I'm waiting to take after pictures until I get a real bed (that also means I'll have some place to hide my yarn and shoes and you won't have to see them in the pictures). My mom's still supposed to be sending me 4 boxes in the mail (I have no idea where they're going though). I found out that there's a little Indian restaurant a few blocks away and I'm super excited to try it.

In knitterly news (if you're still reading ;-)), the Central Park Hoodie is exceeding all expectations (and they were pretty high). I started Francis Revisited this weekend with my purple Ultra Alpaca and although it's a really boring knit, it's going super fast which makes it better. Ravelympics starts Friday, I think I'm knitting Mrs. Darcy and then maybe a pair of socks for it. We'll see how much time I have once I start working full-time.

Happy Knitting!

Sorting, Organizing, and Packing

2010-02-02T20:12:00.003-06:00

I've been sorting through everything from fabric to books to clothes deciding what is going with me and what is staying here for now. I've also been calling one of my new roommates and pestering her with questions that she probably thinks are pointless, but that I think very valid (such as, is there an electric mixer in the house?). I think she'll see the validity the first time I make cookies and set them out for everyone's consumption. I'm planning on only loading my car and having two or three boxes shipped to me, so I have to be very thoughtful in what I'm taking. As long as the weather plays nice I'll be moving in on Friday. I'll try to take pictures of my room before I unpack anything as a before and after, but I make no promises.

The Central Park Hoodie is finished, all ends woven in, washed and blocked. For those who know me well, the last three are an accomplishment. I've decided weaving in ends as I finish each piece (as I did with this sweater) makes things a lot less painful. I'm absolutely in love with the finished sweater, it fits perfectly! I'm glad I did the waist shaping. The blocking got it to be a little longer on top of me knitting it longer than the pattern called for. I couldn't have made it any bigger all I had left was two ping pong sized balls of yarn.

I was planning on not starting anything else until after I moved but I got antsy a couple of nights ago and realized that Valentine's Day is fast approaching, so I cast on a hat for Timm. I finished it last night and wove in the ends this morning. I'm happy with how it turned out and have been wearing it all day and it's too big which is good cuz Timm has a huge head :-p. I used this pattern (Ravelry link, so you can't look Timm :-p) and yarn left over from my Clover dress, soft and machine washable.

I'll leave you with a quote from St. Francis of Assisi that I found in the Yarn Harlot's At Knit's End:
"He who works with his hands is a laborer, he who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman, he who works with his hands, his head and his heart is an artist."

Time for the Moving Dance

2010-01-29T18:48:00.002-06:00

I'm moving! No, I still haven't heard from PT schools, but I'm tired of sitting at my parents' where I don't have anything to do and not making any money. I'm going to move to Omaha and take the awesome job I have lined up that will use my degree. And live in a house with 4 or 5 other people my age that I don't know. (Yeah it concerns me a little too, but we'll see how it goes) I'm trying to get stuff lined up so I can move at the end of next week, so I'll be doing a lot of unpacking, sorting and repacking. Because of the way the house works all I have to take with me is the stuff for my individual room, everything else is provided, but I'm only going to take what will fit in my car so I have to sort through the stash and decide what goes and what stays.

In knitterly news, I'm working on the ribbing around the front of the Central Park Hoodie and have picked out buttons. I'm hoping to have it finished tonight so I can wash and block tomorrow and be able to focus on packing. I can knit when I get there!

sigh

2010-01-26T17:56:00.003-06:00

I got my letters from the PT schools yesterday. I'm on the waiting list at all three of the schools I applied to. Which means I get to wait more. They don't tell you what your rank is and they can notify you any time from now until their program starts (which is August for one and June for the other two). I don't know what to do now. I probably need a job to pay my bills, but I don't know how long I'll be here. I'd love to move to Omaha and start the job I have lined up there (which is a really good job using my degree and something I think I'd really enjoy), but I feel like doing that would curse my chances of getting called off the waiting list. And while I don't really like being here with nothing to do the rent is free. So as of right now I think I might go back up north and hang out with my boyfriend and friends for a couple of weeks and not have to think about PT school.

In knitterly news, I went on a mission today to find a fishing line counter. I'd seen all these set ups online that have a fishing line counter mounted on a wooden device to measure the length of yarn for ~$50. Well as shown by my nice sock blockers, my dad is somewhat of a carpenter, so I went in search of the fishing line counter to use. I couldn't find the Shakespeare brand ones that the ones advertised as yarn meters use, but I did a Rapala brand one at Academy Sports. I tried it to find out how much of this mystery white yarn I have and the conclusion . . . around 1250 yds!

Still working on Central Park Hoodie, but been distracted by playing the Sims.

Still Waiting

2010-01-23T17:28:00.007-06:00

I haven't heard from PT school yet :-/ I was supposed to get an email whether or not I got in on Wednesday, but still nothing. I might call on Monday cause this is driving me nuts. In the mean time more domestic goddessness. The good news is I have lots of pictures today!

First, the tote bag I made of the weekend.

The front and back as I mentioned earlier are made out of album covers in a pocket of vinyl to protect them. I did cut the album covers in half so that the full weight and thickness is decreased. The inside pockets were made just the right size for my cell phone and my Knit Kit! The lime green fabric is leftovers from the curtains I had in my dorm room and the lining is recycled from what I used to cover my extra bed/makeshift sofa freshman year, so the only thing I had to buy was the vinyl (which is a pain to sew with!).

Over the weekend, while running errands with a friend I found a book called The Best Bake Sale Ever Cookbook it was $2 and I love baking so I figured I couldn't go wrong. Since then I've made two things out of it. My mom needed to take a cake to work so I convinced her to make the Tomato Soup Cake with Lemon Frosting. Yes the cake actually had tomato soup in it! It didn't taste like tomato soup tho (cuz I'm not a fan of tomatoes) it was more of a spice cake and the frosting was excellent! Then yesterday I made the Crinkle Top Cookies. You have to refrigerate the dough then roll it into a ball with your hands and roll it in sugar before baking. I got a few pictures of the process because my hands looked gross and I wanted to document it.

They turned out pretty well. They're cakey and chocolaty and the sugar adds a nice texture and sweetness.

My dad made the sock blockers as promised. I used them right away to take pictures of all my handknit socks to post on Ravelry. I used the template from Little Sesame Knits and made adjustments to make it longer (size 9 feet) and made the leg section a little wider to accommodate my largish calves.

After taking pictures of my socks. I enlisted mom's help in taking pictures of my hats. And today I took pictures of my scarves. Everything I've ever knit that's still in my possession is now listed on Ravelry! Now I just have to keep updating it as I go. My neighbor brought over more yarn yesterday I tossed most of it, but kept the 3500 yds. of grey fingering weight (oh so many possibilities!). To make room for it in my stuffed closest I got all the yarn out and went through it. I tossed a lot of the acrylic that I don't have a purpose for and organized the rest of it a little better. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to photograph the yarn to put in my stash on Ravelry or just let it be.

I'm 1/3 of the way done with my second sleeve for the Central Park Hoodie and plan on working on it the rest of the night. Then maybe finishing other projects before starting a new one. Clearly, I have too much time on my hands!

Photos!

2010-01-19T22:44:00.005-06:00

I spent all afternoon taking pictures of all my knitted sweaters and cardigans on my dressform (I think she needs a name) and have since been posting them on ravelry. I thought I'd drop in here and post the pictures of my Owls.

I'm having a hard time remembering when I knit some of the sweaters I photographed. I can't imagine what will happen when I try to do it tomorrow with scarves and hats. :-o

I want to photograph all the knitted socks too, but didn't have a good way to do so. This made me look into making sock blockers out of a plastic placemat. My mom thought that they would be too flimsy, so now my dad is making me some out of plexiglass!! I'm super excited about it.

Waiting, waiting

2010-01-18T17:32:00.002-06:00

I'm at home waiting to hear from PT schools, since I don't have a job or classes, it's been an excellent time to craft. :-) Although my mother keeps telling me I need to clean and organize and repack all this crap that I'll hopefully be moving soon.

On my way out of Chicago last week, I conveniently drove right by a yarn store (mom didn't believe me that it was on the road I was taking out of town, but it totally was!). The yarn store was called Knitche and was located in downtown Downer's Grove amidst really cute shops and restaurants. I didn't get to stay very long because I had to drive at least 4 more hours that day, but I did find some Cascade 220 that I've decided is perfect for Mrs. Darcy, leaving the purple Ultra Alpaca for Francis Revisited.

While stuck in the car, I started making a mental list of craft projects that I need to finish or that I can work up in a short time. In the process I came up with a plan for assembling my album cover tote bag that I've been planning on making for years. I started it on Saturday night and finished it this afternoon. I'm really pleased with the results, I'll post pics later. I also did some mending, which was obviously not enjoyable but necessary.

On the knitting front, the body and one sleeve of the Central Park Hoodie are finished. I looked at zippers at JoAnn's yesterday and they didn't have any that would work with the yarn at all, so I'll be doing buttons (maybe wooden? I'll have to see what I have in the stash). I finished my last pair of French Press Slippers, everyone else got theirs' for xmas and I'd never finished mine. I'm in the process of getting all the girls to send me pix of them wearing the slippers so I can make a collage. I'm also getting ready to weave in the ends and sew on button eyes for Owls. And then I might start taking pictures of all my knits on my dressform to post on Ravelry.

In case you can't tell I'm trying to not think about notifications from grad schools by keeping busy ;-).

Oh Alpaca . . .

2010-01-09T23:32:00.002-06:00

So I figured out why there's been so much interest in my Clover pattern on Ravelry, it was nominated for a Bobby!!! (Yeah, I guess I'm slow to catch on, but with everything else going on I feel like I have a good excuse.) I'm completely floored that I was not only nominated, but that out of the nominations I was selected as a finalist. I don't even care if I win, I'm just so honored to have made it this far.

In other news, my friend, D, and I went to Personal Threads yesterday. They are having a 20% sale on all their yarn (maybe other stuff too?), so I ended up buying yarn for two sweaters. Being out of school and playing the waiting game before moving and starting work means lots of knitting time and I figured with the sale I couldn't go wrong. I bought 5 skeins of Ultra Alpaca in an olivey green to make a Central Park Hoodie, I've seriously had my eye on this sweater forever and I don't know why it took me so long to buy the yarn and pattern to make it. I also bought 4 skeins of Ultra Alpaca in a pretty heathered purple that I'm debating to use for Francis Revisted or Mrs. Darcy, any thoughts? I do love the Ultra Alpaca though, it's sooooooooo nice to knit with. It's super soft and so far has knit up really nicely.

On the road again tomorrow, maybe I'll get pictures eventually.

Interview Update

2010-01-06T18:33:00.002-06:00

Interview went okay, not as well as I would have liked. They informed us that while they usually receive 140 - 160 applications, this year they had received 240ish applications. They invited 123 people for interviews and they have 42 spots to fill in their program. So I have a 1:3 chance of getting in. My GPA is right on their average and my GRE score is higher, but it still makes me nervous. I had three one-on-one interviews with faculty members for 15 mins each and two of them I think went well, the middle one I'm not so sure about. They said we'll be notified on January 20th, unless they have to do a make-up day because of the snow that dumped on us last night and all day today. So now it's out of my control and I just have to wait.

I noticed that there has been a lot of interest in my Clover pattern over the last couple of days. I'm not sure what spurred it but it makes me really happy. I have a few more patterns that I've knitted lately that I'd like to write up and publish (probably for free) on Ravelry, but writing up the pattern is so much less fun than knitting them.

Snow and more snow

2010-01-05T20:53:00.003-06:00

My mom keeps asking me (each time I complain that it's cold here) why I'm not going to grad school in Florida or somewhere else warm. I always reply that then I wouldn't have anything to knit. She always suggest bikinis, but I refuse to knit bikinis! I like socks and sweaters too much.

Tomorrow I have my first interview with a grad school. It's also my top choice school. So I'm crossing my fingers as I knit tonight. We're supposed to be getting another blizzard, which I'm hoping will hold off until my interview is over otherwise it'll be super fun getting there and back and doing the walking tour.

Hopefully knitting content soon. I'm working on socks and then maybe Mrs. Darcy if the freebie yarn I have works out for it. Otherwise I'm on a quest to match a pattern to a yarn with no labels, awesome ;-).

Let's try this again . . .

2010-01-02T12:43:00.003-06:00

Last year I made an attempt at working on my blog. Clearly, it didn't last for very long. This year I'm hoping to actually stick to it and try to get at least on post in a week.

While reading the YarnHarlot's new years post on changes, I realized how much change has occurred for me in the past year. The first several months of the year were pretty average with school and life. I had surgery right before Christmas last year and had to deal with the aftercare for the first few months of the year, but other than that there was nothing too eventful. In May I convinced my parents to let me live with my then boyfriend of 4+ years for the summer, hoping to reestablish residency in Kansas to get in-state tuition for grad school. I spent the summer at living at my boyfriend's father's house and working almost full time at a little Dairy Queen. By the end of the summer I'd realized many things, including that I was being treated like crap by someone that was supposed to care about me. I also realized that I was being more of a mother than a girlfriend and that he could never deal with his own issues if I was always taking care of him. I continued to live at his dad's house after the breakup for 3 weeks until moving back to school. Most people thought that sounded crazy but it was either that or move back to my parents' and not have a job or anyone to hang out with so lots of time to wallow. Luckily, his dad was really understanding and kinda told me that he would have thought something was wrong with me if I hadn't broken up with him for all the shit he'd pulled and told me to let him know if I ever needed anything.

As I was moving back to school my grandmother on my father's side was hospitalized and the day after I moved in she passed away. I flew to Indiana and back in 3 days before classes started. It was really sudden and thus harder to deal with. She was the woman that taught me to knit when I was 8 and the woman who inspired my sewing and quilting skills. As we went through her sewing room I was able to take her serger (that's infinitely better than mine) and what I think was her first sewing machine, I haven't been able to use either of them yet, but hopefully soon. I also acquired some books, fabric, yarn, buttons, and knitting needles and crochet hooks.

I was wanting to get my knitting tattoo, before Granny passed away, but it seemed that much more fitting to get it after all of that, so I set up an appointment with a friend of a friend that I'd met a few times to tattoo me. Facebooking back and forth with the guy to set up the appointment, turned into texting back and forth about life, which turned into 2 dates before he tattooed me. I don't know which turned out better: the tattoo or the guy. As I type this I'm sitting in his living room after spending New Year's together and honestly my cheeks hurt from smiling so much in the last couple of days.

In addition to all these changes, I also have officially graduated with my Bachelor's! I have applied to Physical Therapy schools and am waiting for my two interviews in the next week and a half. I'm really hoping to get in to school in Omaha. And if I do I already have a job lined up! For now I have to wait patiently (not) and with no school work and no job while I'm waiting that leaves lots of time for knitting! (Which is almost a problem considering I knit the Owls sweater in 3 days!)

Hopefully there will be another post soon that's more knitting and less personal crap.

Hope your 2010 has started off as well as mine has!