7 Quick Takes (Vol 104)

Woo Hoo it is Friday!!! And that means that it is Pizza and Movie night here at Chez Knit. But before that can happen I must post my weekly inane blathering. So remember, after being bored silly here remember to click on the picture above so you can be whisked, at the speed of the downfall of Hosni Mubarak, over to Conversion Diary to see what everyone else is doing.

And now, on with the blathering.

1.
We need a thaw around here. Something. Anything. They say it is going to be in the 40s next week but I will believe it when I feel the warm breeze on my skin and see some of the snow/ice melting into the creek.

But I can tell you that the pile of snow at the end of the driveway will still be with us well into April or perhaps even May. It will definitely take that long for it to melt.

 

2.
I have to admit that I have spent an egregiously large amount of time this week fooling around with my itunes. I have mentioned perhaps that some of my knitsibs and I are participating in a Harry Potter read along. Or in my case this time I am listening to all the books on tape. But, in order to do that I have had to put them into my itunes, having obtained the CDs from the library. And that just takes a honkin’ large amount of time because most of those audio books have at least 15 CDs. A big chunk of a morning. And then, after the CD’s are loaded I can’t just let them sit there and listen to them one by one.

Oh no.

Because I am such an obsessive neatnik sometimes (although you wouldn’t think so if you saw my kitchen counter at the moment) I have to re-label and re-arrange and fiddle and all sorts of things so that all the CDs will play as one continuous audiobook. And then I also have to add the art work because it bugs me to not have the art work in there.

But now I am happy. Only I can’t start Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire until Sunday because if I start it early Erica will yell at me again because I am getting ahead of the group.

And that just brings back bad memories from 5th grade where we would read out loud in class but everyone was so slow that I would just read ahead. And then when the teacher would call on me to read I wouldn’t know where I was because I was ahead of every one. And then every one would stare at me and I would run screaming into the night and…

Well maybe not that last part.

3.
It is hard to believe I know but I might, just might, have had too much caffeine yesterday. I indulged in a cup of coffee in the afternoon to have with my Moon Pie
And I might have been able to get away with that but there is a fair amount of chocolate in the Moon Pie and then I forgot that I had my quarterly pop, a Dr. Pepper, this afternoon and that has caffeine too.

It will be awhile before I do that again I can tell you!

4.
I am deeply immersed in TCM’s 31 Days of Oscar. That would be Turner Classic Movies. I live for this particular schedule as I can then DVR and watch movies that I might otherwise miss. I have been watching movies every afternoon and enjoying myself immensely. I have been overdosing on some of my favorite actors and actresses: Greer Garson, Bette Davis, Ronald Colman, Gregory Peck, Norma Shearer. Don’t know who any of them are? Then you don’t watch anything that was made before 1980 most likely. I personally love movies made between 1930 and 1950.

I love movies.

Cartoon Girl we need to start our podcast!!

5.
Another thing that I have been endeavoring to get through this week is my backlog of podcasts. I went through a period where I wasn’t listening as often as I should and I had a huge backlog. And I just can’t delete podcasts that I haven’t listened to so I have just been listening and listening and listening. I will keep up with them from now on because if I don’t then I am just buried under the weight

Favorite podcasts would be: The Knitmore Girls, CogKnitive, Stuff You Missed in History, Cast-On, Hardcore History, The Diane Rehm Show and The Candid Frame. 
 

6.
We have had sunshine for 2 straight days. I don’t know what to do with myself but whatever I am doing I am doing it at breakneck speed. I don’t usually have problems with SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), certainly not like HHBL for whom winter is often not a good time. Since we have had him on large doses of Vitamin D it has really been a life saver and much better!

I digress

So, when the sun has been shining this week I have been full of energy and getting a ton of things done. But of course it is supposed to be cloudy for the next 5 days.

Sigh.

Back to regular Frozen Northeast Ohio weather and my general slothfulness.

7.
If you are not a sock knitter then this last one will go right over your head.

WHOOOOOOOSH

One of my knitting goals this year is “getting back to basics”. And that means that I am, right now, specifically working on my toe up sock techniques. The wrap and turn heels are always a frustration to me. I had been using Cat Bordhi’s technique for picking up the wraps in a way that conceals them. It has been a frustration that has made me want to
1. scream
2. eat things that are bad for me
3. stop knitting the sock.

So, I have come to a decision. I can live with the wraps just where they are. It gives an interesting “architectural” effect to it. And I just can live with it because I just hate picking up those dadgum wraps.

Cat Borhdi is a sock genius of the first order but I am just not going to do it anymore.

Read my lips, “No picking up wraps any more!”