Presentation = done!

Score one for me for being on point and having my presentation finished. Harry nodded a lot, so I hope that's good.

Now, on to dos Passos and Manhattan Transfer!

Current book-in-progress: Manhattan Transfer by John dos Passos
Current knitted item: booties! (I'd bring the knitting to clinic while waiting to enroll patients, but it looks far more conspicious than a book)

New semester, same-ol', same-ol'

New semester's started. Taking Modern American Literature (being taught by "Harry" as he signs himself) - the texts range from 1920-1939 (inter-war years). The reading list is pretty cool (but it would have been nice to have this on ISIS or his website somewhere before the start of semester, grrr):

Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
Manhattan Transfer, John Dos Passos
Cane, Jean Toomer
Quicksand, Nella Larsen (and I might read Passing since it's in the same volume)
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein
Absalom, Absalom!, William Faulkner
Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Day of the Locust, Nathaniel West
Native Son, Richard Wright

Really nice - no overdone books from high school in sight (i.e. Gatsby, Grapes of Wrath (ew), Hemingway, etc)

Current book-in-progress: The Age of Innocence, an article by Nancy Bentley (to present in class tomorrow) and, yes, still the crap for my term paper - Cavendish, de Pisan, and Wollstonecraft (they're starting to seem like the three Witches from Macbeth - Double, double, toil and trouble....)
Current knitted item: Half a set of booties for Rebekah's baby shower (bootie #1 is knitted and just needs seamed - hey, I have until 12pm February 3 to get them done)

Paper Hell

I am in paper hell. The dratted thing will not write. And I'd like to get it done before the new semester starts. So instead of writing my paper I read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in about three hours. I've come over to the dark side I'm afraid.

Prairie Lights is refusing to give me a list of the books Dr. Stecopoulos ordered for class. I did manage to eyeball them and pick up one at BN (since I work there) solely based on cover art (I also do not have a reading list for said course, yet, because I can't register until the start of term). I do know that Age of Innocence is up first, so I hope I can just use my copy.

I haven't knit anything in about 3 weeks - and no, I didn't finish the d*mned stockings.

Work still sucks. I want a new full-time job (part-time job is still OK most of the time).

GAH!

Current book-in-progress: Crap for my term paper - Cavendish's The Blazing World, de Pisan's The City of Ladies, and Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women; Harry Potter; The Age of Innocence
Current knitted item: Does it count if it's on the needles even though I haven't touched it since Christmas Eve?

Some times the on-line quizzes are just right :)

Fit's me to a "T":

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm You're probably in the final stages of a Ph.D. or otherwise finding a way to make your living out of reading. You are one of the literati. Other people's grammatical mistakes make you insane.
Dedicated Reader
Literate Good Citizen
Book Snob
Non-Reader
Fad Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

In other news, my life is too busy. The End.

Current book-in-progress: Hmmm, one of the quiz questions asked how many books I was reading. Bad idea. Let's see - the three for my paper (not done), the Story of French under my pillow, Peter Suskind's book Perfume (Originally Das Parfum which I hear is being turned into a movie), and a new copy of Paradise Lost with an introduction by Phillip Pullman.
Current knitted item: Those damn Christmas stockings. Have to have them done by Tuesday (12/19)

I am too busy

Waaaayyyyy to busy.

I managed to knit the body of one Christmas stocking over Thanksgiving and start the next. Still have to get them done by the 19th (can't shaft a baby - that would be wrong). Still working on the shawl. Oh, and the hat I was so proud of the cats ate a hole in. Butt-heads. Writing some insane term paper. Wish me luck.

Current book-in-progress: Some stuff for my term paper - Cavendish's The Blazing World, de Pisan's The City of Ladies, and Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women; a little Story of French at bedtime
Current knitted item: Christmas Stockings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Halloween!!!

Remember how proud I was of my Sunflower Tam made with the Noro Kureyon? With the cool colors? My cats ate a hole right in the side of it. Not sure which one but my money is on Chaucer (he's kind of like a goat in cat fur). Not a good Halloween trick, especially since its now freezing outside. Boo.

Current book-in-progress: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Writings by Washington Irving (a little Halloween reading).
Current knitted item: Still working on that shawl (stitch by stitch) and I can make progress on the first stocking because I got the yarn dyed (Dale of Norway does not make even remotely flesh-colored yarn in the Baby Ull variety), and now I have to make another hat.

Hat done, stockings started. Shawl? Still not done.

Went to see my Grandfather for his birthday. He was 80 years old on Saturday and had a party to celebrate - the best quote of the day was from one of his good friends who said the gathering looked like a geriatric ward (kind of funny, since all my Grandpa's friends are around his age). But I got absolutely nothing done, except to finish The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield. I had been wanting to get that finished because the author is going to read on Wednesday.

As far as knitting, I made a hat on Thursday from the Noro I just bought using the Sunflower Tam pattern - based on phyllotaxis - from the book Knitting Nature (and I have enough to make another hat since I think the pattern needs tweaking, but the yarn makes the pattern really interesting). One Christmas stocking is started but I need to dye some yarn before I get to Santa's face (flesh colored yarn is not a commodity apparently).

And I need to write a paper. Sigh. I would rather read and knit.

Current book-in-progress: Rooms of Our Own by Susan Gubar, one-half of the team that wrote The Madwoman in the Attic (a very good book also)
Current knitted item: Torn between the shawl, Christmas stockings and another hat.

Growing 8 stitches per row...

My shawl, which is sooooo pretty, is taking about 20-30 minutes per row since it grows by eight stitches per row. There are now about (140 x 4) + (6 x 2) stitches and I'm on Row 120. The patterned part of the shawl continues until Row 160 and then there is a 12 row garter stitch border. Just think how many stitches that will be. Eeep.

But I also bought more yarn (huzzah for more yarn!). Enough to finish two Christmas stockings for the neices (found some really cool "hairy" yarn for Santa's beard). And since I couldn't leave without something for myself, I bought three skeins of Noro Kureyon in color 164 (green/gold/cream/aqua combo) to make the Sunflower Tam from the book Knitting Nature. Pretty!

Current book-in-progress: Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale. And some poetry by the Earl of Rochester for a paper (due in 10 days). And Les Liaisons Dangereuses....
Current knitted item: Working on the shawl. Need to cast-on for the stockings. And I'm itching to start the hat.

Christmas Stocking = DONE

Woo-hoo! I finished the Christmas stocking (originally meant to be finished last Christmas - so I got a little side-tracked...). Embroidery and all, even after I messed up their anniversary date twice. Oops. Now I just have to finish my shawl (for me ) and then I can start the girls' Christmas stockings. I can't screw this up because their first Christmas is this year!!

Current book-in-progress: Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale.
Current knitted item: Christmas stocking is done...now to finish the shawl.

Afghan = DONE

Finished the afghan last night - just need to weave the remaining ends in a block it a bit. Single crochet edges roll a bit I've noticed (not like stockinette). Yay to the Hawks for winning and having a bad first half so I could be irritated and crochet like mad.

Now I'm on to finishing the Christmas stocking.

Current book-in-progress: Diane Setterfield's first novel The Thirteenth Tale. The manuscript started a bidding war in the publishing industry. I was hooked after I read an excerpt so I had to buy it. Setterfield used to teach French Literature and is a devotee of Andre Gide - it's an honest-to-God piece of literary fiction. Check it out on the BN website - it's the first book in BN's new "Recommends" program. http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?ISBN=0743298020&z=y&cds2Pid=9481

Current knitted item: The Christmas stocking. I think once I finish the embroidery I'm going to single crochet the seam since I hate sewing seams more than I hate doing embroidery.

4 more inches

Wednesday evening has turned into watch-Project-Runway-and-crochet-like-mad night trying to get that afghan finished. I did that the last two weeks meaning the afghan grew by about a foot. Only got about four inches tonight because I got really involved in the new episode (the hated Angela was back, thank God Jeffrey's still in) and crocheted a boo-boo into it so I had to frog two rows. Yar. Bad news is that next week's episode is the last before the reunion show and then the finale. Better crochet fast. It doesn't travel very easily anymore since it's about five feet long and takes up the entirety of an Ann Taylor LOFT shopping bag - the really big one. Maybe I should crochet during the football game; it might help keep me from having a nervous breakdown during the Iowa-Iowa State game. Go Hawks!

I was really excited today because I got an email telling me the new issue of Knitty (http://www.knitty.com) was published. Yay! It even has a really cool article about how to knit two socks at the same time - on the same needles. I think I'm a little too ADD for that yet.

Current book-in-progress: Dunno. I guess back to Les Liaisons Dangereuses since I finished Oroonoko in a marathon session today before class. I have reading ADD, too, if no one's noticed.
Current knitted item: The afghan is safely tucked away in the closet (cat-proof) so I'm back to finishing the sock. I've got about half the ends from the intarsia section tucked in and I'm up to the "+" in the embroidery. Go me.

I hate Mondays.

Here's why:
1. Forgot to set the alarm. Woke up really late.
2. After ballet, some girl from one of the other classes passed out (or something, I didn't witness this) so the entire building was one huge clusterf*ck with campus police, firemen, and paramedics. None of the emergency services workers were cute.
3. Forgot my lunch (again) and had to spend money I don't have (again).
4. Had a chiropractor appointment (yay!), but the one joint that's been bothering me didn't want to co-operate and re-align itself (boo!!).
5. Got back to work and wound up getting nothing done because I got a phone call regarding parking at the AXS house. I ended up by giving up my parking space for the next two weeks or so because I am a good person and I remember what the First Object says.
6. Went to my Restoration Lit class. Found out that I read the wrong assignment. I read next Monday's assignment instead. Sh*t.
7. Returned to work. By this point I'm pissed and can't get any work done period.
8. Went to the AXS house to help with tutoring. Had lots of good talk with Ani because no one showed up (besides Rachel and Tina, who came to help tutor but wound up needed help with their Pchem II homework). Just wait until next week - they'll get their first exam back and all the freshmen go "Aw, crap." But I pretty much didn't get doodle done today.
9. Didn't get any time to knit.
10. Forgot to go to the grocery store (again).

Current book-in-progress: Aphra Behn's play The Rover, to be followed shortly by her novella Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave so I can participate in the discussion on Wednesday
Current knitted item: Whatever is in the knitting bag - I think it's the Christmas stocking.