bow chicka wow wow

oh yeah, yarn porn.

How about some Cascade 220? An internet buddy snapped this pic of Wisconsin Craft Market near Madison WI.

unf.

ahh, yarn fumes

I needed a break after a long day of programming and going no where, so I poured my sock yarn bin out onto the bed to play with.

Let's be clear, though. That's not all my fingering weight yarn--that's just the stuff I've designated for socks. There are 27 pairs of socks a-waiting for me to get around knitting them, at least. I also moved three skeins into the too-pretty-to-be-socks-so-must-be-a-shawl bin, and another two into the I-need-to-make-cowls-because-I-wear-them bag.  Also there are five pairs of socks worth of yarn in the car (which is under some snow right now; I didn't feel like digging them out) that I haven't brought in, and also three pairs on the needles.

I didn't dump out the shawl bin, but I did reorganize it by color and then picked out all the heavier weight yarns. I have been splurging on dk or heavier this year as my stash was pretty deficient in these weights, but after a year of fun shopping this is no longer the case. I have just about as much shawl yarn as the heavy stuff now! this is good news, I think, though not everything has a project dedicated for it yet. I do plan on making some more cowls, hats, and mitts or mittens for myself though. I'm a big accessory fan.

For the holidays I was gifted nearly a sweater's quantity of yarn--Madelinetosh Tosh DK to be specific, in the glorious Magnolia Leaf colorway. I need two more skeins to have a proper sweatery amount so I will eventually be ordering those--but I'm going to wait until after May. I have plenty of things on the needles, I don't need to buynowbuynoweee


Speaking of things on the needles, I've lined up two new projects for when I feel free/restless enough to cast something on. The first is another Hitchhiker shawl, or similar--this simple pattern looks pretty good with variegated yarns, and this yarn has cashmere and is highly variegated, so a shawl/scarf would be great for it. A friend of mine has happily commissioned a slouchy hipster hat, and he's picked out one of my skeins of brown, so that's waiting around for me to work on as well. Maybe I'll make a Barley hat, or maybe just a plain stockinette hat with a ribbed brim. We shall see. I like knitting hats but I don't wear them too often, so I'm glad he was interested in buying one off of me.

Meanwhile, I drew another sock yarn from the sock yarn bin (before I tossed it around like a salad, above) and it's two skeins of some long-color-repeat paton's kroy that's designated for my twin, so I guess I have another pair of twin socks back on the needles. Just what I need if I ever want to catch up... our birthday is soon and that just means another pair of socks to knit to reach the goal of one-for-every-year-we've-had.

what's that? what about all the work stuff? it's still there. I'm keeping it together and making progress, but no finished papers/publications yet!

overwhelmed

and like that with a big silent crash the wave of work that I've been surfing for a while has crashed down over me. I made a mistake and read two books for pleasure this week, but I'm all discombobulated. Now I kind of know which way is up again and I'll fight my way back to the surface. Just gotta do what I need to do to survive--don't fret about other things.

0) read and comment on Carol's paper
1) get some sort of dinner

Go teach. *sigh*. register hours.


2) re-read donoso and allatavo papers. figure out what numbers they calculate and how. bias factors require w_dm, I think
3) open up python clustering programs and look at them and remember what they do
4) sit down and have a solid think and explore equations for normalizing my continuum measurements for the LIRG paper but don't panic about it--clustering is more important now
5) go ahead and buy the Chile ticket if no word from anyone else tomorrow
6) go ahead and talk to Jackie about paying for hotels, with intent for Mark's grants to pay her back.
7) don't worry about food, just eat what I can. cook on sunday. go to kovo dinner and then go see Mich and hang out and be peaceful and don't fret. sunday will be fine
8) grade, somehow, somewhen, before meeting on Monday
9) once tickets bought, email and arrange coverage for labwork during chile trip
10) take care in, get oil change and vehicle inspection, clean it out and vacuum it.
11) check up on and pay bills
12) mail mail on way to see Mich

did I have yarn plans?

did I? I can't seem to remember, ho hum. What was I going to do when? maybe I can just look at every post in this whole dang blog.

Now all I want to do is spin

seriously, it's becoming a sickness.

I am borrowing the wheel for another week. When I look up how much a wheel costs, it suddenly doesn't seem like that much money to me. When I think about moving again I start thinking about how I could move a wheel like I move my electronics, plans, cats, and other fragile things: in the car.  I am beginning to think about how I could store a wheel.

a sickness, I tell you.

let's see if listing the things I have to do sobers me up. sometimes it just makes me feel overwhelmed and makes my eyes glaze over.

LIRG paper stuff
clustering paper stuff
HST and/or GBT proposal stuff
conference stuff
clean house stuff
cook up the food before it goes bad but I still need a few ingredients stuff
wrassle my email, schedule, and various responsibilities planning stuff
apply for two small fellowships and write my progress report stuff
read and learn stuff
fun stuff


nngh. scaaary. the only happy category right now is the fun stuff. So, what do I do first? the relatively straighforward and due-soon fellowship stuff, or the it's-been-a-long-time-I-need-to-have-progress-done paper stuffs?

also I should call the family members and the girlfriend. and clean the cat litter and make sure the rest of the electric bill is scheduled to be paid and that the phone bill isn't too far behind
um
ok hold on there astroknot, try not to fly apart at the seams