Back on Track

Five nights left of NaNoWriMo. I'm 12K short of the 50K words, and I think I can do it. I've fallen behind (still mostly blaming that on being sick last week) but I put in just over 3K words tonight and it's put me right back where I need to be. If I get back up to my 2300 words per day then I'll still finish before midnight on Friday!

Anyway, that's my short update--too tired and ready for bed! I'll have to try to remember to post some pics from my knitting club brunch this morning. It was freaking delicious!

S.

Weekends!

Missed two blog updates for EpicNaNoBlogs this weekend, eek! Not that surprising though, since I haven't been NaNoWriMo writing on weekends, and not writing makes me not think of blogging!

Does that make sense, in a backward kind of way?

I didn't quite make my word count for today, but it was close. I didn't have as much time as I normally would, because I wanted to finish the toque that I started yesterday. It's the newest project for knit class, and I needed to know what materials to tell the girls they need for next weekend.

In yesterday's class they picked out a project, an aviator toque one of them had pinned on Pinterest, but it's one of those stupid ones that takes you to a link to buy something. Here's a screen shot:

So do I spend the $4 to buy the pattern?

No. Because I'm a cheap bastard.

Instead, I pulled out a ball of wool and some needles and started knitting. I actually like interpreting patterns from knitted things I see—it's more of a challenge, right? And this is what I came up with:

Also, I was severely distracted this weekend by this:

That's right. Angry Birds: Star Wars. Pretty much my two favourite things combined into one.

Bad. Ass.

S.

Sweaters!

No writing today, all knitting!

One of the girls brought some delicious little dip to knit club that tasted just like the inside of a jalepeno popper. That was awesome. She also brought a kind of cinnamon-bun-bread-pudding, and that was awesomesauce.

We almost finished our sweater project in class today, but not quite. Just finished up the collar and the button band, so only the buttonhole band left over for homework. I finished mine up after class: voila!

The first hat I did using this pattern came out kinda fucky, so I'm going to start the hat tonight and see if the pattern is fucky, or if I did something wrong last time—which might be the case, as I was distracted by the audiobook I was listening too while I knit it >.<

And if I have more time than I expect this week (we'll see how the NaNo word count goes!) I'm hoping to get another sweater in this pattern just about done too...

S.

Done.

And another Halloween has come and gone. My favourite day of the year, and it's not even a holiday. Damn. I failed pretty epically this year with my costume, and to a lesser extent, the decorations. I had a great costume idea earlier this year and I procrastinated like a boss until I ran out of time to put it together.

Fall back costume: The devil-in-pleather.

I think I missed my A-game on the decorations for two reasons: Idiot#1 didn’t bring the decorations up from the basement until two weeks after I asked for them, and somewhere in that timeframe it decided to snow and turn cold outside. Not encouraging for decorating. Still, I did get some trick-or-treaters:

Joe (aka. Idiot#3) as Robin and Madd-man as Batman!

And it wasn’t a total holiday failure:

Work Pumpkins. Mine is a rendition of George, my boss’s dad. Scary, yes.

Halloween Sugar Cookies, for knit club last week.

And roasted pumpkin seeds!

If I ever decide to run for Prime Minister of this country, just know that I will in fact make Halloween a national holiday. Perhaps even a week-long holiday.

Anyway, NaNoWriMo starts in less than three hours. Plus the Epic Month of Blog Posts, so you’ll see me again real soon... you’ve been warned.

S.

Been Busy.

Confession: I haven't decorated for Halloween yet. And it's my favourite holiday of them all.

Worse: I don't have a costume ready. And I had a sweet costume planned for this year, but it's too late to get it done now. Sigh. Maybe next year.

My excuse?

I've been busy. Really busy. Perhaps I just have too many hobbies or something. Anyway, part of what's been keeping me busy is Knit Club. Which is exactly as dorky as it sounds. The people that know me best always give me the arched-eyebrow-open-mouthed "Huh?" when I tell them I teach knitting every Sunday. It's not really a hobby that seems to fit with me—most of my friends wonder if it's actually a cover for something much more sinister—but I love knitting. Go figure. So the past couple of weeks I've been teaching the girls how to knit a sweater. I whipped up one in grey so they could see exactly what we were doing, and to make sure there were no problems in the pattern before we started. Like this:

The first few rows. Switching needles.

The reversing rib pattern.

The finished product.

And Idiot#1 models the infant sweater.

Round 2.

And I'm working alongside the girls while they knit their own kids' sweaters—the little kiddy confetti thing on the last pic. So... been busy knitting & planning classes!

That's it for now. Off to write for a few hours and then knit the sleeves!
S.

A month?!

I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted! It only feels like a week. Guess that's a sign I'm getting old...

I've been busy. Lots of knitting and reading, but I also lost a week when I was laid out by a nasty head cold, and I've been getting out of the city to do some bird hunting with Idiot#1 on Saturdays. Sundays means knit class, so I've been spending a chunk of time prepping for that too. Maybe if I can get my life in order I'll post some pix... but that's a big maybe.

Work has been busy too. Usually is in September and October, but I'm already starting to see the slow down that's fairly standard for November & December.

Which is a good thing, because I've also started outlining a new novel for NaNoWriMo. Pretty excited about it. Don't know exactly what genre you'd call it—maybe you guys can help me? Characters are older teens, but it's not exactly a coming-of-age story, so maybe not typically classed YA. The main character is a regular teen, but the opening chapter is the beginning of the apocalypse and the people he falls in with are time travelers—a bit of a sci-fi element, yeah. Current world, current time. No fantasy beings, just people who seem normal but are actually time travelers. A bunch of teens trying to get from point A to point B in time, because they're being chased by other time travelers that want them dead. Fighting, yes. Killing, yes. End of the world, happening around them.

Any ideas?

Lots of Stuff to Keep Me Busy

2012. Well, not a good year for my family. This past week has been another tough one, but all I can really do is hope that the crap will quit falling on us and hope for better things moving forward.

Camping planned for this weekend up in the Nordegg area, so I'm excited for that. Headed up to the same spot we were in this spring:

The campsite at dawn.

I'm also starting Knit Club back up (our facebook group icon is a skull. Can't go wrong with that, am I right?) after a season's hiatus—last winter was just too hectic. Like I said, hoping for better things. I gotta run to Michaels and pick up some supplies, as the six-hour round trip drive to Nordegg should net me some time to do a dry run of the sweater I'm teaching the girls as our first month's lesson.

Bulky. Simple. A good first project to start the season with.

We're meeting every Sunday, and between planning projects, picking up supplies, and fitting in some actual knit time, that should keep me pretty busy through the winter.

I've also got to get started planning the 7th Annual Darlington Derby I host every Christmas in Ontario. Right now I'm working on painting a set of Jenga blocks gold, to make a trophy for the Jenga Master to win every year. It's gonna be epic.

The starting point...

And of course, I'm still writing. Right now I'm mucking around with a re-write of Speechless, the YA Fantasy I started last fall. It needs a lot of work. I won't get all the way through it before I need to start planning for NaNoWriMo, which I'm participating in for the first time this year. Very excited.

Anyway, that's my update rant. Anyone else got big plans for the fall / winter season?

S.