Is this how runner's feel?

This year I decided to undertake the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge posted on Ravelry. I have 5 weeks left and 11 books to go. I have I think 9 books currently in progress, and half of those are audiobooks so I can hopefully squeeze in a little extra time on the walk to work and such, becuase I'm not good at reading and doing anything else too.

I'm so close, but really? It's going to take some perseverance to pull this off. Runner's hit the wall somewhere between mile 20 and 23, and in the Boston Marathon it's Hearbreak Hill that can do you in.


1. Bridge to Terabithia (Paperback), Paterson, Katherine
2. The Cat Who Went Bananas (Cat Who..., #27), Braun, Lilian Jackson
3. Water for Elephants: Library Edition (Playaway Audiobook), Gruen, Sara
4. Such a Pretty Fat: One Narcissist's Quest to Discover if Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, or Why Pie is Not the Answer (Paperback), Lancaster, Jen
5. Cooked Goose (Savannah Reid Mystery, Book 4), McKevett, G.A.
6. The Light Fantastic (Discworld, #2), Pratchett, Terry
7. No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process (Hardcover), Beavan, Colin
8. Back to School Murder (Lucy Stone Mystery, Book 4), Meier, Leslie
9. Killer Calories (Savannah Reid Mystery, Book 3), McKevett, G.A.
10. Knit One, Kill Two (A Knitting Mystery, #1), Sefton, Maggie
11. Dropped Dead Stitch (A Knitting Mystery, # 7), Sefton, Maggie
12. Casting Off (Paperback), Dickson, Nicole R.
13. Elements of Style: A Novel (Paperback), Wasserstein, Wendy
14. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress: A Novel (Paperback), Sijie, Dai
15. Bitter is the New Black : Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass, Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office (Paperback), Lancaster, Jen
16. Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen (Hardcover), Powell, Julie
17. Fear and Yoga in New Jersey (Hardcover), Galant, Debra
18. The Corset Diaries (Paperback), MacAlister, Katie
19. KnitLit: Sweaters and Their Stories...and Other Writing About Knitting (Paperback), Roghaar, Linda
20. A Deadly Yarn (A Knitting Mystery, # 3), Sefton, Maggie
21. The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible As Literally As Possible (Hardcover), Jacobs, A.J.
22. Travels in the Scriptorium: A Novel (Hardcover), Auster, Paul
23. The Color of Magic (Discworld, #1), Pratchett, Terry
24. The Budget Gardener: Twice the Garden for Half the Price (Paperback), Gilmer, Maureen
25. Spin to Knit: The Knitter's Guide to Making Yarn (Paperback), Okey, Shannon
26. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (Hardcover), Kingsolver, Barbara
27. Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World (Hardcover), Myron, Vicki
28. Bucky Katt's Big Book Of Fun: A Get Fuzzy Treasury (Get Fuzzy), Conley, Darby
29. High Maintenance (Paperback), Belle, Jennifer
30. Ramona Quimby, Age 8 (Paperback), Cleary, Beverly
31. He's Just Not That Into You (The Newly Expanded Edition): The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys, Behrendt, Greg
32. Dating Big Bird (Hardcover), Zigman, Laura
33. The Friday Night Knitting Club (Audio CD), Jacobs, Kate
34. In the Merde for Love (Hardcover), Clarke, Stephen
35. Anybody Out There? (Paperback), Keyes, Marian
36. Big Boned (Heather Wells, #3), Cabot, Meg
37. Comfort Food (Hardcover), Jacobs, Kate
38. Free-Range Knitter: The Yarn Harlot Writes Again (Hardcover), Pearl-McPhee, Stephanie
39. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5), Rowling, J.K.
40. Knitting Rules!: The Yarn Harlot's Bag of Knitting Tricks (Paperback), Pearl-McPhee, Stephanie
41. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off (Paperback), Pearl-McPhee, Stephanie

I'm sitting in the waiting room of the dental office/oral surgery dept and someone just came in, sat down behind me, and started EATING? I can hear her jaw popping as she chews. There's an Au Bon Pain in the downstairs lobby and she must have stopped there on her way in. Anyway, today I picked up my new night guard designed for tmj issues. Hooray! No more broken teeth.

it's so easy! ...or is it?

--excerpted from an email last week--

oh, I'm knitting my hat on size 10 circulars (29") and it's getting tight. I need to start decreasing and thought i could magic loop it, but I'm not sure the cord is long enough. I thought, no problem, I'll just switch to my interchangeable needles, but my stupid set does not have the same measurements as everything else! A 10 is supposed to be 6.0mm. My interchangeable Boye set has the 10 at 5.75mm. I only figured this out a few months ago and realized that part of my too tight knitting issue was NOT my fault! but actually the fault of the faulty kit designers. So in fact my too tight knitting was exacerbated by the inconsistency of the world of Boye. Right now I'm trying to figure out if I should:

a. switch to the boye needles and attempt to knit a little looser so I won't see the difference in tension

b. switch to the boye needles, notice the difference in tension and swear up a storm as I try to decide whether or not to rip it out

c. continue on with current circular needles until knitting becomes painful, THEN switch to horrible said boye tips and give myself a migraine

d. somehow magically successfully use the magic loop method to finish fantastic hat before the snow flies and avoid stupid boye set altogether

e. use boye needle tips as fondue skewers and give up knitting

f. sell boye set on ebay and pass the frustration on to another unsuspecting knitter, thereby calming the voices in my head that scream for consistency, and maybe buy myself the nicey-nice KnitPicks interchangeable set.

My friend Annmarie has been wooed by KnitPicks. Do you have any of their needles? What do you think?

11.16.2009

11.16.2009
Originally uploaded by bareblueskin

I took this at my knitting group Monday, November 16, 2009. I see that the date stamp from my phone says it was July 8, 2007. So frustrating! Not sure why this is so messed up, but I'm not going to correct it each time.

I took a panoramic shot so I wouldn't have to ask people to move, and even though the 3 of us that made it into the shot are sitting at a table about 3 feet across, I couldn't even fit my head in the shot!

Floss!

23/365 11.11.2009
Originally uploaded by bareblueskin

Photo 23/365 for my 365 project. This is part of an order for supplies to stitch Christmas ornaments. I have to sit down and write a post about my plans with some pics of the patterns I hope to stitch.

I need to read patterns closer.

Started on a hat last night - finished my swatch about 1 am, and cast on. Maybe that's why this afternoon I realized that I'm on row 3 of the increases but I don't have the foundation 3 rows of plain seed stitch. I did read the pattern all the way through, and wrote it down in my book. But maybe knitting after midnight is a bad idea.

I'm really liking this yarn. I'm using some purple Lion Brand Jiffy that I found in my stash. I thought I owned it in green, but no - it's purple. I have two skeins of it but somehow never entered it in my Ravelry stash inventory. I've only been knitting for 2 years now and if I'm this disorganized I can imagine what the house of a longtime knitter looks like. Yikes!

Here's a link to the hat I keep talking about, Robin's Egg Blue Hat on Ravelry and on her blog.

Okay. I'm making this instead of the cloche, which requires actual WOOL and felting. This just requires me to know how big my head is. which i dont. how do i not know after all those conversations at knitting? I think we all measured our heads 3 or 4 times. ugh. at tonight's measuring my head is 22.5. that seems smaller than last time. am i shrinking?

I'm listening to Water for Elements on my mp3 player. The reader has the most wonderfully expressive voice. And I think I have a new favorite quote.
"Sometimes i think that if I had to choose between an ear of corn or making love to a woman, I'd choose the corn....the thought of those sweet kernels of corn bursting between my teeth sure sets my mouth to watering. It's fantasy I know that. Niether will happen. I just like to weigh the options. as though I were standing in front of Solomon; a final roll in the hay, or an ear of corn. What a wonderful dilemma! Sometimes I substitute an apple for the ear of corn."

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6/365 composting

6/365 composting
Originally uploaded by bareblueskin

Someone in my builing has a composting bin in the backyard and I've finally found out who it is so that I can compost too. I've been wanting to compost for years but have never had the outdoor or indoor space for it. I thought about starting a worm bin in my apartment but really I don't know where I would put it.

5/365

5/365
Originally uploaded by bareblueskin

I know it's early for Christmas but I've been wanting to stitch and I remembered about the ornament exchange in a group I belong to. I made this ornament for last year's exchange and wanted one for myself. I just signed up for the new exchange and will find out more next week.