• I got to see friends and family that I haven’t seen in years. I got caught up with Tracey and Janice, both friends from college.
• It was very difficult to see my Grandmother grieve the loss of her oldest son. I was emotionally prepared to say good-bye to Ben, but I was not prepared for my Grandmother.
• My nieces handled themselves very well, and I even think Olivia is going to be a mortician. She was quite fascinated with the whole open casket thing.
• I never really realized how old my parents were until I saw them talking to a bunch of “old people” and realized these were their friends from high school. That was quite the realization.
• Small towns are always quite fascinating to me. I needed to have the oil changed in my car and I stopped at a place that my Uncle used. The owner recognized my name (last name) and made the association with Uncle Ben. We then got to talking and he actually remembered my Grandfather as a teacher in high school. Both my parents graduated from West Monroe High, my Grandfather was a teacher there, all of Ben’s kids went to school there and my cousin’s children are now going through school there. A long history with one school and one community.
• LC did great on the drive, averaging 35.5 mpg.
• My legs did not bother me at all on this trip, which is good, considering that my drive home last year was awful. I guess stopping very frequently paid off.
• The temperature differential between here and Louisiana has caused a chest cold and I am now suffering from sleep deprivation and a cold.
• Very, very little knitting was done on this trip. Too many things got in my way. Oh well.

TTFN.

So we are NOT going to make the aforementioned Girl’s Party Shrug. Instead we are going to make this:

I plan on doing the ribbed edge in pink and the main section in a light purple. She should be happy with this!

In other, sadder, news, I may be out of touch for a few days. My Uncle, my Dad’s older brother, does not have much longer to live, so I may have a funeral to attend. Nothing is certain…and he could live another month or another day.  My thoughts and prayers are with my cousin, Meredith, as she takes care of him. And to my Grandmother, who will not take the news of his passing very well at all.

I made pizza for the first time Friday night and my friend Lee Ann came over to watch the first 3 episodes of Warehouse 13, Season 3. I think I cooked the pizza about 9 minutes too long, but other than that it was really good – just a little overly crunchy.

I’ll try again soon.

That’s it for now. Need to go and earn my salary.

Toodlelo!

But now things are different.

I feel compelled to make my gifts.

Which seems to add a little pressure to my life that was not there before.

Case in point. I have SP’s Quinceañera to knit for, a niece’s birthday that needs something, and now 2 babies that are in need. Great need, mind you. These babies will not survive the world without a hand knitted garment from “Auntie Tonja” and I know it.

Demand is a good thing, but why does it always happen at the same time? Have you ever noticed that? You’re in a grocery store…and nobody is in there buying groceries but when you go to check out..the lines are a mile long. How does that happen?

This isn’t a complaint – I’m not complaining. I’m just making a social comment on the state of my knitting life. I am more than thrilled for the 2 babies coming into the world and I can’t wait to search baby item patterns for the.perfect.knitted.gift.of.love to make for them. I surely can’t wait!

But first things first. Quinceañera and then 7th birthday. Marching orders are in hand.

About 12 years ago, I found myself in a fairly deep depression. I don’t think most people noticed, but it was there. I was in a job that I loved, working with people who I didn’t. I was living alone and didn’t really like it. If you’ve never experienced depression on any level, then you don’t really now how debilitating it can be. In trying to deal with things myself, I started by analyzing what I was doing that could be changed. One small change I decided to make was to have my cable disconnected. It was a small change, but one that would force me to not come home every night and sit and veg on the TV all night. And you know, it worked, to a degree. It gave me freedom.

And I’ve lived quite nicely without one for a long time. There were a few years that I did have a TV and basic cable – but only because I had roommates at the time and they wanted something to watch.

But now things have changed again. TV shows are readily available in many different formats – online, DVD’s, iTunes. And I’ve found that it has once again become a major temptation in my life. I find that the end of a long day and the end of a long week, all I feel I have the energy for is TV. And it is starting to interrupt my life. This is my confession. I need to learn better control over my priorities. School should take precedence over TV shows.

In other, more knitterly news, I have finished the first repeat of the 3rd chart for the Mystery Shawlette and once again, the lifeline has saved me hours of headaches and tears. I think I will have 2 more repeats of chart C to do before I can move to the next chart.

I’m also making slow progress with the Whipporwill. I had to take a pause to figure out how many more rows I’ll need before I can start the next section and I’ve determined that I think I need 8 more rows. So exciting!

Also, I’ve settled on a little bolero sweater vest for Olivia’s 7th birthday. Colors? Light purple with pink on the edging, of course. So I need to shift my focus from the Whipporwill to this bolero, ’cause there is a deadline of April 2nd.

As I start writing this post it is 4:59 PM – one full minute to go until I’m “officially” off work, but let’s face it – my brain has been off work for about 45 minutes already.

I am pleased to say that I have resisted the temptation of going out and “celebrating” my frugality last month. See, I can learn something new, right? Yipee!

And I’ve done a lot of knitting lately. I found myself in a frustrated mood this morning because of an email that, well, frustrated me. I won’t go into specifics, but I had a good therapy session with my Whipporwill shawl. Let’s just say that it is coming along quite nicely, thank you very much. I’m actually thinking about starting the eyelet row soon…which would be a very nice change from the very mundane, but therapeutic, stockinette that I’ve been doing. With over 540 stitches on the needles, a lot of therapy can happen on one row.

I have no band rehearsal tonight, so I’m finding myself unexpectedly free. Hm..what to do, what do to? I think I will stay and work some. And watch a TV show while I’m at it. I can do that now – watch TV and work – because it is after 5 PM. Joys of working late!

So, on to month #2!

In far more interesting news, I’ve done 4 more rows on the Mystery Shawlette (the blue lace one) and a few more rows on the Whipporwill (the brown thing).

I also solemnly swear that I will complete the task of laundry that has been ignored eluded me this entire week. In addition to said laundry detail, cleaning the bathroom and dining rooms will be punishment from last weekend’s foibles.

The penalty for breaking this contract will be death starvation no knitting with Kate on Saturday night when we are going to bake a pizza together and knit the night away.

I hereby solemnly swear to keep these promises.

Signed,
Tonja D. Brice, Knitter and Irresponsible Housekeeper

Lace is one of those things that until you block it (stretch it out essentially) it doesn’t look like much. This shawl will “grow” considerably once it is blocked and the lace will be beautiful. Here is a close up.

And here is the Whipporwill in progress. This is the one that has over 500 stitches on the needles right now.

Those two “yellowey” things on the left mark the center of the shawl. This measures about 14 inches right now and will grow to around 20-22, which means there’s gonna be a whole heck of a lot more stitches on them thar needles (said with a bad po’ southern accent) before I’m finished. It’s a good thing that I am in no rush to get this done.

And just because today’s lake scene was interesting, I bring you this:

The lake peeks through the center just a bit. What made this interesting this morning was the cloud cover. It wasn’t really cloud cover as much as it was some type of cloud fog/mist. The sun was very hazy and it was hard to distinguish the water from the sky.

Well, until next time.

Well, this weekend was one of those for me. I decided to chuck the whole budget thing (sorry Dad) and purchased season 2 of Warehouse 13 on Friday (which only cose $20, so the budget, while blown, is not overly so), downloaded all the shows and then went home on Friday AND WATCHED EVERY S.I.N.G.L.E. O.N.E!. I think I rolled into bed at 4 AM. Do you know when the last time I stayed up until 4 AM was? No? ME EITHER! Let us safely assume that it was not in this century, which means that I was at least 12 years younger than I am now and which also means that my body was far more capable of handling such silliness from my brain’s inept decisions.

The trickle down effect has been horrendous. I can’t usually stay in bed past 9 AM, so I got about 5 hours of sleep before my body woke itself up. I did take a 3 hour nap on Saturday, but then I didn’t sleep very well Saturday night because I had just spent 3 hours in bed sleeping. Then I decided to go to a BAR and watch the 49ers lose and I didn’t get home until 9:30, and because I was so wound up from the game I couldn’t get to sleep right away…which means another night with bad sleep.

I also neglected my homework (couldn’t keep the eyes open for some odd reason), and the shopping for the week, and the cooking/food preparation for the week, and laundry. I think I’m going to starve this week and smell bad while I do it.

On the positive side of things, I did knit 3 rows on my shawl, and before you think “*phew*, only 3 rows”, I might add that each row now has 530 stitches on it.

Yes, this is going to be a rough week.

And, this is my 351st blog post.