Happy New Year

Hello hello! I hope you all had a good holiday, and that you are not so buried in January's return-to-business that you've forgotten all about it already. I spent my New Year in Spain this year - I have to say, I am not generally a big fan of New Year's Eve festivities, but I had a great time out of the country. Even if I DID have some trouble with the Spanish tradition of eating a grape on each stroke of midnight. (I am a small person, with a small mouth, and those grapes had SEEDS.)

If you want to hear more about our vacation shenanigans, E and I created a joint travel blog over at bbtwo.wordpress.com, so feel free to check it out.

On a photograph front, I am working on getting all my many many many photographs up on Flickr, and I will post a link to the set when I do. I think I'm also going to put together a short version set for those who just want the highlights version.

And yes, I'm still taking daily photographs - I think I'm going to extend that project at least through the end of March, and I may make a full year out of it. The new camera I got for Christmas is so much more fun and responsive than my old camera, I feel like there is new ground still to cover.

Today's photo, however, came from my webcam - yes, that is both cats sitting in my lap (my legs are crossed, which is how Freya is seeming to float in midair - she's perched on my knee). We are keeping each other warm. And yes, I did take that picture by holding my laptop over my head. I couldn't very well get up to fetch my real camera without disrupting the cat pile.

Anyway, so I am back and not dead, and things are going well. I hope to resume posting about some knitting stuff soon - I am very close to finishing my first pair of knit socks for myself, and they have been a bit of a revelation. Which is almost a pity. Socks are pretty tedious to knit but I will undoubtedly be making a lot more of them because they are so comfortable. But more on that another day!

A Day Without Cats

Sleeping Loki
Originally uploaded by jessajune

Oops.

(http://www.urlesque.com/nocats)

Cats & Knitting: a universal combination, it seems

There is apparently a book called Kitty Knits. I am torn between thinking it is twee and reinforces bad stereotypes, and, um, wanting it.

Also, I want to make one of these Knitted Kitties. Maybe my cousins would like them for Christmas next year? They're not really cat people. But stuffed toy kitty! So cute.

(Yes, I said Christmas. In April. You have to understand that knitting is a time-consuming hobby and those who give knitted gifts have to plan ahead. And I've been spending online time with some crazy-prepared-and-organized knitters. With schedules for the whole year of what gifts should be knit in what month. So really, thinking about it now is lazy, by some standards.)

Wool Deliberations

It is time to face it - my Calorimetry, like so many other people's, is too large. This point, sadly, is not under debate or deliberation. What to DO about it, is the question.

I am really happy with the combination of yarn I used (seen at right, with Loki), and the way the final project appeared (below). It's just that... it ended up too wide. Lots of people have had issues with the hugeness of this pattern, so there are revised versions to be found. The question is... do I a) try to felt the existing project to shrink it up some, or b) pull it out and re-knit the whole thing?

Re-knitting is obviously not a very happy sounding solution, but it is the most secure. I am positive that this yarn will felt, so felting IS an option. Except... I don't know exactly how it will affect the dimensions of the final result. And I'm not sure what the process will do to my wooden button, so I should probably pull that off first and re-sew it afterward. Which points out the larger issue - if I felt this, I am likely to lose the built-in button holes. So I will have to sew a loop or something to be able to fasten it. And I am not completely sure that will work.

And all of this has taken on some urgency, because the Calorimetry is WARM and AWESOME and allows me to wear my hear up and keep my ears warm, all at once. And I would like to be wearing it instead of worrying about it.

On Gauge

Casting on for Calorimetry (from Knitty), and did the proper swatching to the deminsions specified - highly unusual. Even more unusual... I appear to be EXACTLY on gauge.

The funny thing about that is that many people have complained that Calorimetry is too large - certainly the 24" finished project would be too big for my 21" head. So I was hoping NOT to be dead on. Guess I'm going to have to go down a needle size, and see what that does.

In other news, Loki finally discovered the narcissus which is just starting to bloom on the kitchen windowsill. So far he has neither eaten it nor knocked it over. Let us pray for his continued restraint.

Escape Opportunist

Loki got out this week - I apparently neglected to make sure the back door was completely latched. One assumes he had a merry old time, because ever since he has been INSUFFERABLE. He goes from door to door, meowing, and scratching at them all to make sure he can't pry them open. It might be funny if I weren't trying to work on my portfolio and feeling irritable.

This cat needs more space than I have in this tiny cottage. He is stir crazy, and he wants me to know it.

Discoveries

Cleaning the chaise, I found:
- 1 vacuum bag full of cat hair
- 1 pecan
- various crumbs
- 1 wrapper for Sky Blue Alpaca's organic cotton yarn

Then I covered it with a nice, purple jersey-knit sheet, so that when company is here on the weekend I can just whisk it off to reveal cleanness beneath. Loki is not particularly happy with this turn of events. He sniffed the whole thing very suspiciously before grudgingly curling himself up into a very tiny ball in one corner.

Funny story about that chaise. It is maybe not a good idea to take casual dating partners furniture shopping with you, particularly if you are indecisive or a pleaser-type personality. P made one such mistake, and I certainly never would have TOLD him to buy a chaise lounge - it is, after all, not very masculine, no? - but when he asked me if I LIKED it, well, I wasn't going to LIE about it. He bought the chaise. We dated for a while, then stopped. 6 months later, he called and asked if I wanted first refusal on the chaise - it really was just too big for his living space, and unless you're VERY friendly, only one person at a time can sit on it, making it not so great for entertaining.

Which is how I acquired this very loungy, cat-attractive piece of furniture. Which I never would have bought first hand, because it was too impractical. But used for half the price.... well, okay then.

***

Side note: I will mention that since my regular internet connection is dead, I am STANDING OUT IN THE YARD stealing my neighbor's wireless to post this. I've been using their connection for weeks, but for the last 2 days, it just won't work from inside my house anymore. Le sigh.

Top of My Head

Loki is laying on my lap, leg dangling over the edge, as always, purring and kneading the air. It's about the cutest thing ever, especially considering that he was driving me NUTS this morning with pulling things out of the trash.

I've been forcing myself to get ready for the upcoming semester - which is good because it starts next week. I've been thinking about it for the whole of January but not DOING anything. Having a life without much imposed external structure is nice, but damn if I can't get ANYTHING done without more in-your-face deadlines. This self motivation thing is tough.

Especially when there are other things being impressed upon me from other areas. I'm not complaining about it (well, ok, I'm complaining about the whole land use issue, but I think that's reasonable), but when the motivation for everything else I need to do has to come internally I have a hard time prioritizing. It will be easier once things start and I have clear deadlines to work towards.

I'm also way behind in my budget - went on something of a post-holiday spending binge it seems... I think what really happened is that the holiday spending (which I did have a separate budget for) broke my new habit of frugality and I just sort of forgot that I can't just buy things the way I did when I was employed. I mean, I KNOW that but until I sat down and tallied things up I didn't realize how much I was just spending without thinking about it.

I've also been in a panic about the Large Project (tm) - I knew it was going to take a long time, but when a single pattern repeat takes an hour and a half and is only an inch high... getting to 6 feet by a very firm deadline is something of a problem. Particularly as much of my impulse spending was on yarn, and I have several projects I want to work on for myself. With one large exception (photo upcoming, I hope) I am not allowing myself to start them... which makes the knitting, which I am supposed to love, into something of a chore.

None of this is earth shattering, it's just what's in my head. Maybe releasing it into the wild will help me buckle down and get things done. You never know.

Loki Does Not Want Me to Leave

That's my backpack he's sitting on.



He was cuter before I started moving around and woke him up. He doesn't like anything to happen without his participation.

Cat Food

Deborah Duchon's Modest Proposal: The Best Cat Food

As a cat lover/owner, I'm obsessing over the cat food scandal. Luckily, I don't use any of the implicated brands or flavors - although I have tried them in the past. The source of the poison cat food is in wheat gluten from China. The amazing thing, to me is, why are pet cats eating so much wheat gluten? Have you ever seen a cat beg for a piece of bread? I have, but only stray, starving cats who will eat anything. Cats are carnivores. They don't need wheat or corn or "garden vegetables". My cat's favorite veggie is catnip, which he eats until he passes out in a happy stupor...

After ruminating about it for a few days, it finally hit me. The best meal for a cat is a mouse. After all, that's why they were first domesticated about 5,000 years ago. It wasn't because they make great lap warmers, or for their quirky personalities. It was because they were hunters - and rodents were their preferred prey. By that time, humans had made the dietary shift to a grain-based diet, and huge stores of wheat and barley were endangered by ravenous, multiplying hordes of rats and mice. The rodents attracted cats and the cats saved the day. People started leaving scraps of food out for the wild cats and eventually cats became part of the fabric of society ... One of the good things about those early domesticated cats was that they did not compete with humans for their grain...

I have to admit that I've thought about this before the cat food scare, but it was more abstract. Why, I wondered, are we feeding cats the meat from animals that they wouldn't eat in the wild - beef and chicken, especially? There is a rat problem in this country - why not trap the rats and make them into cat food?

Unleashing my Inner Luddite

Loki was just making window-friends with the stray kitten who lives in the shed, but she ran away when I came to the window. I have to say, the view from my desk is gorgeous -- full of lemon trees, if not kittens. Hello green! Hello sky!

Everything on the non-technical front is going great. However, there have definitely been problems on the technical side - have to work out the whole phone/internet thing ASAP.

But if I'm looking to get away from it all? This is paradise.

We Have Achieved Catness

Wow. So it's been a crazy week. Trying to get the floor, wall, and door to the cottage entryway complete so I could move in... was a bit of an ordeal. Things finally got finished up on Saturday, so we spent all day Sunday schlepping stuff out of the old place into the new.

Shockingly, things have fit better than I expected. I'm not saying it isn't cozy, but it will do quite nicely.

I spent the night here with my Bucket for the first time ever, and I was glad to have him with me for the first night. Though in the end, we were both so tired, maybe it wouldn't have felt as weird as I feared. This morning, I walked downtown for coffee to celebrate.

Then I double checked things for cat-safety, got Mom's help to hang the bedroom door, and then fetched over the cats. They've been exploring for about an hour and a half now. They don't light in any one place for long, but Loki did condescend to eat a bite of food, so I think things are going well. It's been highly entertaining watching them.

Now, if only I could find my cell phone, things would be great.

Moving Progress...

... is being made, slow though it may be.

The place I'm moving to required a lot more prep and catching up on past-due maintenance than I expected. We're still getting that finished up, which makes it hard to really pack up at my old place, since I don't know exactly when I'll be able to really move.

However, I have to be out here by the 31st, and all my large furniture went to the storage unit yesterday in Dad's truck. So I'm sitting on the floor, using a small plastic storage bin as a table for my laptop. It's now a bit extra far away from me, since Freya made it known that I had to provide her with a lap as well. Of course, I'm supposed to sit this far away from the machine anyway, so perhaps that's a good thing. (Actually, this position is pretty comfortable.)

The cats were pretty freaked when they came out to a living room pretty much devoid of furniture. Loki curled up in the corner where his favorite spot on the couch used to be, and looked at me meaningfully.

Soon, guys. Soon.

Happy Cat

Loki has a box AND paper to sit on, AND a sunbeam. He has achieved cat nirvana.



If only that silly human wouldn't insist on taking pictures.

How many cats?

I really enjoyed Crazy Aunt Purl's story about cats and dating, because... I have experienced this. Not so much with the dating, because, you know, I has a Bucket. But when people find out you have cats, they always ask, with that slightly weird tone to their voice, "Oh. How many?"

And I say two, and usually there is a slight relaxation there, like, "Well, I guess that's alright."

And I can't even entirely blame them, because anytime I am exposed to cute kittenhood, part of the reason I think to myself "No, must not acquire any more cats," contains a little bit of "any more than 2 and people will call me a crazy cat lady."

And let's face it. I'm crazy. And I'm a cat lady. But I'm not a "worrying about the neighbors calling animal control because there are 30 cats breeding in the basement and the stench is becoming unbearable" sort of crazy cat lady. And neither is Crazy Aunt Purl. It's funny how people assume there's a super short spectrum:

No cats = good ---- 2 cats = borderline ---- 3 cats = crazy cat lady

Quietness next to... cleanliness?

The problem I have with blogging these days is... I'm trying to exercise the "if you don't have anything nice to say, say nothing at all" restraint. And that plus "things I don't want on the internet right now" -- well, they are really limiting my capacity for monologue.

I mean, I could talk about my cats some more, but really, no one wants that.

So I will just say... having spent the weekend helping my grandparents make their already-clean house even cleaner, I am looking around my apartment and noticing afresh what a sty it is. And trying to rally up the energy to do something about it. The problem is, once you let it get bad, it takes so much energy to restore it to presentable state. It's one of the problems of living alone, I guess. No one to clean up for but myself.

But given that I'll be downgrading the size of my living space very soon, I'd better take a stab at more preventative maintenance.

ETA: I was talking to Kristin this week, and she's been going through something remarkably similar. That makes me feel a little better.

Lokmonster

Loki is really much happier about life now that his course of antibiotics is over... He really thought I was waging a jihad on him or something (a la Eddie Izzard).

Now he lays on my lap all snuggly and purr like. Until I start doing things like trying to catch him on the webcam:


And then he just gets that really miserable expression, "why do you hate me so?"

He's quite a handsome cat, really, it's just that he hates having his picture taken. Or being restrained in any way. So I don't actually have any pictures of him when he's not looking cross.

Advanced Basic Knitting

So I am sitting here, cat in lap, laptop balanced semi-on top of cat (there isn't really room for both of them in one lap), rather precariously knitting and reading Crazy Aunt Perl, with my new found "it's almost sort of possible to read web pages and knit at the same time, if you're willing to stop knitting and scroll every few stitches" method of entertaining myself.

This is a site that I stumbled upon one day during one of those periods of internet serendipity, which I promptly sent to Eddie saying "this is awesome" and which he now has an RSS feed for and reads obsessively every day while I have been back, maybe, twice. But Aunt Perl is awesome! And my lack of blog reading does not reflect on her quality or interestingness as a blogger.

And I think I have spent too long on her site this morning, because I am starting to sound like her.

Anyway, I ran across this post, about being an Advanced Basic Knitter which I have definitely seen before, but it is just striking me again how much this applies to me. I tell everyone - I pretty much only knit rectangles. I love knitting, I love the texture and feel of it, I love digging through my stash, I love the colors, I love making something useful out of something pretty. But this is not a hobby about "how can I stretch and challenge myself more" because let's face it, between the freaky stressful job, and the grad school, and everything else I am SO FREAKING CHALLENGED ALREADY. I want something nice and calm and non-stressful to do in the times that belong to me, so I can say, "when I do have downtime I do this fabulous relaxing and yet worthwhile thing with it. "

And you know what? That's okay. It's okay that I have an endless supply of scarves. They make me happy. They give me a productive reason to sit on the couch with my cats and play with fiber. And scarves are AWESOME. And my downtime is awesome. And that is a very good thing.

The Real Purpose of the Internet

I wonder if Kristin was trying to tell me something when she sent me this: funny because it's true

Poor Monster

Every time Loki starts to forgive me for yesterday's Vet Adventure... I have to give him his meds. Poor baby.

Freya is kind of liking this whole "every time Loki has drugs we BOTH get a treat" thing. Pretty sweet deal she has going there.