Days of blue on white

Between Thursday and Friday nights, it snowed, it hailed, it rained; it sent down slush from the sky. When I awoke Saturday morning, the world looked like this:

I'd hoped it would keep snowing all day - what a perfect excuse to read and/or knit, but instead we're just left with the messy, slushy cleanup effort. I've been doing some reading because I got precious little done this past week, due to my students having questions about their mid-semester papers. I've also been knitting, however:

I might be crawling out of the knitting slump, finally. Last night I dreamed I was in a yarn store, touching beautiful lace yarns for shawls. That's probably because I determined last night that I'd start this:

It's not a sock! Does anyone recognize the pattern? I've just finished chart 1 in that photo and am into chart 2 for the long haul!

I expect that I'll get a lot of knitting done between Monday and Wednesday, as Coffeeboy and I are flying off for his dissertation defense. I'm bringing some books, of course - but ones I want to read more carefully so that I can haul fewer books. I'll be waiting in the same building as his defense, so I imagine I might switch from work to the shawl at some point out of nervousness. Kind of like hospital knitting except he's not actually ill or anything, "just" defending his dissertation!

Meanwhile, Juniper (and Mage - not shown) will be holding down the fort back home, catching up on some much-neglected reading...

"The books make the shelf bow... really, it's the books, not my girth!"

When I get home on Wednesday evening, I'll have two full days of spring break left - not enough time to do all the work I need to do, but still better than nothing. Between reading for my fourth exam and grading student papers, I'd say I'll have plenty to keep me busy while Coffeeboy is at his on-campus interview on Wednesday-Thursday!

Knitting, between the times

Juniper is clearly pleased that I've been working on Clapotis #2 and decided to photograph it!

She seems to think she's going to have a new blanket to knead and suckle (yes, she's odd) but noooo, Juni, it's not for you! (That's not the most flattering picture of the little dear, either... a head, tail, and furry body!)

I really am almost done. See? Just a few more rows!

Coffeeboy and I had a nice time in DC. I knit a bunch. I would have finished the Fetching mitts if I'd had the pattern. Oops! Now I just need to put them and the knitting bag in one place so they actually get done. I didn't manage to get to any yarn stores, unfortunately, we really were stuck out by Dulles, in a hotel surrounded by a few office buildings and tons of surprisingly good restaurants.

It's strange how different life can be from one semester to the next. This one is amazingly busy in comparison to last. You'd think that taking my general exams (last semester) would make me busy, but in reality, it was monotonous to read 3 books a day, and have that be it. This semester has been nothing but teaching, reading, revising a paper, going to lectures, writing proposals for presentations, proofreading Coffeeboy's dissertation, visiting family (this past weekend) or having them visit us (Tuesday-Thursday), and generally zipping around like a chicken with its head cut off. Somewhere in there, I knit a row or two. I read a blog or three (not ten-zillion like when I was procrastinating away from exams) and try to post once a week, but I just don't have time! I've totally ignored Socktopia, having completed only 1/2 of one sock this month.

(Strange how when I'm enjoying life, I feel less like blogging and recording things. When I'm less excited and into life, I dwell more on things in writing. It was like this for me with my old paper journal, and it seems to happen for my blog as well. Anyone else share this same pattern?)

And yet, there's something about the intensity of these days that I really enjoy. I wouldn't say my life is exactly balanced or predictable right now, but it's intense, and I'm enjoying it, which is enough for me. For the moment. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Notions of Knitpicks

Are Knitpicks and Babies R' Us associated in some way? Because inside a package protected by this:

one finds this:

the Knitpicks options needles, from my MIL

I'm very excited, because I've been wanting this set ever since deciding I liked the classic circulars earlier this fall.

Eager to test out my new needles, I cast on for a very last-minute gift: a simple biased scarf for my mom, made of some of the boucle yarn she gave me for my birthday.

Cats are so helpful, aren't they!

This scarf is knit using the size 10.5 needles and the 24" cord. I love the flexibility of the cord, the pointiness of the needles! They're great!

Except... one of my size 5s didn't screw onto the 32" cord, which I was all set to use to finish up this gift:

Knee socks of brotherly love

I did some testing and figured out that the needle, rather than the cords, was the problem. I've contacted the company, and they are sending me a replacement needle. I've read that people have had some problems with the set (usually where the cord attaches to the metal part that the needle screws into), so I wasn't terribly surprised to find a defect. I'd also heard that Knitpicks has very cooperative customer service, which I found to be the case (so far). The woman immediately said they would send me a new needle; this was on Wednesday and I'm hoping it arrives soon!

Happy holidays, and merry Christmas eve's eve to all!

O, arboreal friend!

We got our Christmas tree - excuse me, our arboreal friend, as Coffeeboy has been calling it on behalf of the cats - this weekend! Thus far, the kittens like it a lot; they're extremely pleased with "their" new toy:

Actually, they've been very good. They haven't drunk from the tree's water bowl. They haven't knocked over the tree or electrocuted themselves on the lights. They've only crawled under the tree skirt and taken naps there... a few times in the last day or so. But hey, since the tree hasn't fallen over, I'm happy!

I love the holidays. We're an interfaith home here at chez Lazuli and Coffeeboy, and it's been an interesting and enjoyable process learning to celebrate our two traditions. We always adorn our home with lots of light - on the tree, around the menorah, framing the windows, along the fireplace, up the stairway railing. I love how the light looks in the darkness, how whether it comes from a menorah's candles or a fireplace or even a colorful electric glow - for a short moment at least, the light drives out the darkness of the winter and the world.

Tonight we engage in my other favorite part of the holidays - baking cookies! Tonight we'll make a type of cookie that my mom's family has used for generations (well, at least back to my great-grandmother), a sour milk cookie cut in shapes of Santas, trees, dreidels, and Jewish stars. We used to call them the "Santa Clauses and Christmas trees," but now I don't know what to call them, since that list of four holiday symbols gets rather long! Over the next few days, I promise there will be lots of baking going on in the Lazuli household!

(Apologies to those using blog aggregating services: I've switched to blogger beta, and now it reads "26 posts" in bloglines! All should catch up soon; let me know if something isn't working.)