Saturday, March 31, 2007

Somehow it's appropriate that we leave on April Fools

The thing that irks me the most about living in the boonies is that the nearest airport is a two hour drive away. For our 9am-ish flight tomorrow, we have to leave the house by 5:45am. Meh.

But the earlier departure means that we will be arriving in Pittsburgh before 2pm, which is nice. Only other flight I could find with the frequent flyer miles I had arrived around midnight... never fun.

Blah blah blah.

Going to bed now. 5am comes way too quick.

Friday, March 23, 2007

The Raging Koala

See, I promised, and I occasionally follow through. (I'm still waiting on the kayak pictures, too. Not my fault - I swear.)

About a month or so ago, we were invited to a game night at a fellow faculty member's house. Much fun - best chocolate chip cookies I've had in ages - and a whole bunch of games I had never played before. One of those games was called ImaginIFF. The idea behind the game is that you roll the dice and based on the roll, one player is "it". Then the person who rolled the dice picks a card that reads like this: If player X was a house, what kind of house would he/she be? Then it lists six different options, and everyone selects the option they think best fits. Majority wins the right to advance on the board.

Everyone ends up as the focus multiple times throughout the game. Some options are more revealing than others, and it doesn't really matter if you're correct according to the player in question, only that you agree with what everyone else thinks about the player in question. Don't know if that made sense... but regardless... enough set up.

Two questions with me as the focus: "If Kate were an emotion, which would she be? Sadness, hatred, envy, love, lust, rage. Consensus went with "love". Safe and inoffensive, right? Guess which one Jay picked?

Rage.

And you know what? He's totally right. I have an insane temper. And I'm not using the word insane lightly, either. I can laugh off a lot of things, but when I get really angry, I become a different person. I don't have any control of myself when I get a rage on. It's genetic. Seriously. Why do you think I don't live near the folks? This, I'm sure comes as no surprise to the people who know me well. But I'm at least glad that I don't project that image to the people who don't already know and love me.

So that's the raging part. The koala part comes about in much the same way. The only funny part is that out of the choices (panther, golden retriever, palomino, crocodile, koala, and something else I can't remember) all but one person out of the eight who were there chose koala for me. Even the ones who didn't know me. I guess it's the ashy blondness, slight pudginess, and my undeniable cuddliness.

But when you put the two together: Rage + Koala ... slightly incongruous, non? And yet, oddly representative of my personality.

*Note to self: must find picture of berserker koala

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Lazy Girl's Post

This is the blanket I made for my FIL and his new wife as a combined wedding present/xmas gift. That's a full-sized bed in the picture. I will never make a garter stitch blanket that big again. No no no.

blanket of insanity

I am working on a post about raging koalas... but that will have to wait until after I figure out what we're doing in class this afternoon... sigh.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Lacey Goodness

I started this on my birthday (March 6th). (Someday I will even figure out how to get my pictures in focus...)

stole in progress

stole in progress 2


That's one pattern repeat. I'm now done with three pattern repeats (as in, it is now about 3 times as long). The pattern is from Winter 2006 Interweave Knits magazine. The recommended yarn is a fingering weight merino. I'm using laceweight (finer than fingering) 100% alpaca. I'm really loving the way it is turning out. I'll post more pictures when I'm done.

Monday, March 05, 2007

Back to the grind

On the last day of my 30th year...

I really need to be prepping for class, but I didn't want to leave Grandma's obit at the top of the page any longer.

So, here's the easy way out:

This is the hat I made for K2's birthday last month. My own pattern.

k2 earflap hat (on me)

These are the matching mittens.

k2 matching mittens

And here's what happens after grading 30 english comp papers:

of two minds