Renewing a Commitment

I'd love to be one of those people who absolutely love to exercise. I wish my solution to a bad day was to hit them gym, that would make staying healthy so much easier.

Unfortunately, I am not one of those people. I've tired several times to get onto the exercise bandwagon, but it never seems to stick. Back in late winter/early spring, I again made a go of it, I went consistently for about four or five weeks, and then stopped. It seems so much easier to break a habit than to start one.

I wanted to get back into going, but needed motivation. My health insurance offers a $100 credit twice a year for consistent attendance at a gym or fitness center, and the second period started July 1, so marked that as a starting point.

However, July 1 fell in the middle of a massive heat wave. Yes, my fitness center has ac, but we're talking about extreme, suck the life out of you heat. I deeply admire anyone who finds motivation to do anything besides hide in their air conditioned house during this weather.

It's a little tough to see, but on my calendar widget for
my phone, the gym is scheduled.

Monday, then, I laced up my shoes and went back. I scheduled it in my calendar, and forced myself to go (I seem to better at going when it is in my calendar). I've made it three times this week, with another scheduled trip for this weekend. Maybe this time it will stick.

In hopes of sustaining motivation, I also decided to address one of the bigger excuses I used before for skipping the gym, my iPod. I have a iPod touch, which I used at the gym to listen to podcasts and audiobooks while at the gym (I found this to be more motivation than music). But I've had my iPod for awhile now, and it doesn't take long for the battery to drain. I could leave it sit for a couple hours and there would be no power. Instead I found an app on my android phone that does the same thing. In addition to eliminating an excuse, it also is one less thing that I have to carry to the gym; a win-win (don't worry though, between car and home use, the iPod is still seeing plenty of use).

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Strawberry!

Strawberry

Just a happy little picture of the first strawberry from my Earthbox!

It's Going to Be a Great Day!

There are few better ways to start a Saturday than to find a box from Knitpicks waiting on my front porch. Contents include some Wool of the Andes Tonal in Gypsy Queen (red) for the Milk Run Shawl (Rav. Link) and some Comfy Worsted in Celestial (blue), white, and black for a Tardis iPad sleeve, and my replacement needle tips in size 8.

Life is good.

 

Long Overdue Sheepcote Photos

Okay, so I finished this sweater way back in March.

I just never got around to posting the pictures of it, which have been sitting on my camera since March. But here they are now. Late winter/early spring was a bit of a blah time for me, but hopefully spring and summer will renew my interest in both knitting and blogging and get me back on track with some other things as well.

Anyways, I am vey happy with the way the sweater turned out. It could have been a size smaller, but it is still very cute and wearable. There is something satisfying about finishing projects and about being able to say, "Thanks, I made it," to compliments.

I have two sweaters currently on the needles. The much anticipated February Lady Sweater is about halfway done. However, it is on pause as I race to finish another cardigan, the Teal Top-Down Cardigan (in yellow) for a wedding in the beginning of June. I also have the Citron shawl on the needles, but I'm waiting for another ball of yarn to arrive in order to finish it.

Hopefully, updates n those projects won't be so delayed.

 

In Loving Memory of Sirius J. Cat

Eight years ago, Husband (well, fiancée at the time) and I had just graduated from college (the first time, for me, the only time for Husband), we were planning a wedding for the upcoming July, and had just moved into the house we were renting (living together for the first time). Knowing that our house would be lonely with only two human companions, we decided that we needed some cats to help keep us entertained. We took a trip down the our local cat shelter to check out the available kittens.
Now, I’m not sure if you know much about cats, but January in Wisconsin is not prime kitten season. We lucked out and found an adorable six month old grey kitten with a white belly and four white paws. She was sharing a cage with a black, long haired adult cat. Husband had already made it clear that he didn’t want a black cat, and I was insistent on getting kittens, so despite the friendly nature of the black cat, we didn’t pay him much mind. We found a different kitten in another cage, but it was little and sickly (truthfully, I don’t remember much about that particular kitten). Originally, we planned on the grey kitten and the sickly kitten but the shelter felt that the latter was too sick to be adopted (though, I’m quite certain things would have turned out better for the kitten had they let us take it, the shelter was not the nicest, we have a much nicer one now). Instead, they suggested the older cat that was sharing a cage (kennel?) with the grey kitten.

Long story short. The grey kitten became Lily and the black cat became Sirius. I don’t think we ever regretted getting Sirius instead of a kitten, he was one of the best cats ever. There was nothing he loved more than to sit on a lap and be petted, except maybe cuddling with Lily. He was affectionate (sometimes) to the point of annoying.

About a year ago, we noticed some changes in Sirius. He lost a lot of weight, we had some problems with him urinating outside of the litter boxes. Taking him into the vet, we discovered he was only at 20% kidney function. Though we could have opted for a $25,000 kidney transplant for him, we decided to switch him to a special food. The vet assured us that his condition wasn’t painful, he gained a little weight, and seemed to be happy.
Over the past few weeks, we noticed that the symptoms were returning. He was dropping weight again, he was always on top of the heat vent, or curled up on his fuzzy black blanket, we could tell he just didn’t feel good.

The day after Christmas we returned from the Packer game in Green Bay, to find Sirius absolutely miserable. He wasn’t eating, wasn’t drinking, and was barely moving around. We immediately got him into see the vet, and she confirmed our fears, his kidneys weren’t functioning at all and he was suffering from the toxins that were built up in his system. There really wasn’t much we could do for him at that point
.
So, in the middle of the holiday season, Husband and I found ourselves in the vet’s office, petting our beloved cat as he fell asleep for the final time. It was heartbreaking, but at the same time comforting to know that during his final moments Sirius was curled up on his fuzzy black blanket, being petting by his human parents, and he was purring.

There is definitely a Sirius shaped hole in our lives, but we know we gave him a good life for almost eight years. Rest in peace, buddy, we miss you already.

Out With the Old, In With the New

Of course, Sunday marked the beginning of 2012. Husband and I rang it in with true "over thirty" style. We joined two other couples, one with children (ages 3 and 11 months), and another friend. We actually ended up deciding to celebrate the ball dropping in New York and heading home before midnight actually arrived in Wisconsin. Despite Ian (the 3 year old) kicking a glass of red wine out of my hand which spilled all over my pants, it was an enjoyable evening.


Sunday brought the last of our Christmas celebration, unless you count the Christmas party Awards Banquet at husband's work (but that has now been moved to April to make it less Christmasy) which was my dad's family. Somehow that particular branch of the family managed to ignore the fact that they scheduled dinner during the last regular season Packer game, giving Husband and I the options of crowding into my aunt's family room to watch her minuscule tv, or huddle over his phone and watch the play by play courtesy of G3 and Yahoo Sports. We went with option B, but did manage to make it home for the last half of the final quarter. Thankfully, it wasn't an important game, but I was still bummed to miss Flynn's amazing performance (and most likely the last time we will see him play as a Packer).


Today was another fairly quiet day. I got my hairs cut and enjoyed lunch with Husband and some family. Then husband and I spent some time putting away the Christmas decorations (I know, technically it is too early to put them away...but tell that to Husband). Then we enjoyed some delicious chili, grilled cheese, and attempted to enjoy the Rose Bowl (sadly, that ended with a Badger loss).


I've also joined the Words with Friends craze over the weekend. It may have become one of my new favorite ways to waste time and spent some time thinking about resolutions for the New Year, which will be another post coming soon!

Project Talk: In a Slump

Lately I’ve been feeling rather blah about my knitting. Well, actually to be fair, I’ve been feeling rather blah about a lot of things, which just so happens to include my knitting. Not sure if it’s holiday stress, weather, the fact that I’ve been sick, or something else, but things are just very blah.
Usually for the holiday season, I plan on knitting an impossible combination of gifts and decorations. This year? Zero, zilch, nada. I thought about knitting something for my mom, but never got beyond the idea in my head. (Sorry, mom, maybe for mother’s day, or your birthday, or next year)
There’s nothing wrong with the projects that are on my needles. In fact, I’m pretty happy with the projects. I’m hoping that over the next few days, an increase in family time equals an increase in knitting time, the trip to Lambeau field not only provides several more hours of knitting time, but also serves to inspire me to translate a couple of football related ideas from my head to actual knit goods (or just to paper, before the ideas leave my brain for that matter) and writing about the projects serves to inspire me to pick up the needles and knit more.

So here’s what is on my  needles right now:
  
Socks, of course. Currently, I’m working on Cookie A’s design, Cubist socks. As the name implies, it has a geometric pattern that resembles cubes. I’m knitting them out of Malabrigo sock yarn in the colorway Abril, which is some beautiful shades of purple. The pattern looked a little intimidating at first, but really isn’t too bad. I’ve gotten past the gusset decreases for the first sock.

Spatterdash Fingerless Gloves. I’ll admit it, I’ve become a convert to fingerless gloves. At first, I thought they were useless, but after making a pair, I’m hooked. I had a beautiful pair of End Paper Mitts, but they are now happily on the hands of a friend, so I needed another pair. This pattern, Spatterdash found on knitty.com, combines buttons and ruffles, so I can’t go wrong. I’m using Knit Picks Imagination sock yarn in the colorway Wicked Witch for those. The green in the yarn looks like it will match my winter coat beautifully, so I’m happy so far. I am a little concerned that the gloves might be too small, and I might need to start over with a bigger needle, but I really need to get more done before making that decision (Yes, I know, this is usually a recipe for me griping in a couple of weeks wondering why I didn’t just rip out and start over when I first suspected they might be too small, but this pattern for gloves is different than any I’ve done before, so I’m honestly not sure).

Sheepcote Pullover. This one started out as a love story. I saw it in the Twist Collective and had to buy the pattern, immediately went out to find suitable yarn and couldn’t wait to get started. It immediately jumped ahead of the February Lady Sweater, which has been next up forever (but things seem to keep budging ahead in line…I really need to do something about that). So I casted on, over a month ago, and have completed one sleeve. I still like it, and I’m not sure what the actual problem is. Maybe it is that sleeves just aren’t that fun and things will get better once I get to the actual body of the sweater, either way, progress has been slow.

Of course, there are some perpetual works in progress out there on the needles. The Scrap Sock Yarn blanket, which may very well never be finished, and the Yggdrasil Afghan; which, without a deadline, just gets neglected. I might buckle down and make it my Wednesday night project to work on while husband is away at Lions and basketball.

So that’s what is on my needles, hopefully I will be able to report some actual progress sometime soon!

626? A Bit of a Lofty Goal

It's not really a secret, I'm a big fan of Ravelry, a website geared toward knitters and crocheters. It is a giant database of patterns, has a ton of information on yarns, provides a place to show off finished products, allows you to keep track of your yarn stash, and has very active forums, with groups geared toward not only tips and tricks for fiber artists, but also just about any topic imaginable. I'm continually amazed at just how much time I can spend browsing around on Ravelry. 

It seems that the pattern database and queue feature is where I tend to get in a little bit over my head.There are multiple ways you can search or browse patterns on Ravelry. You can search by pattern type, availability (free, online, in my collection of knitting books, in other print sources, etc.), by yarn types or weight, project type, intended age, the list goes on and on. When you find a pattern that you like, there is an option to add it to your queue, your personal list of patterns that you are planning on. or would like to knit. I've spent many hours looking through patterns and adding them to my queue. Currently, my list spans over 20 pages and contains 626 items.

In considering the size of my list, combined with the fact that the rate of adding new patterns to the list is exceeding by far the rate of finishing projects and starting new ones, this is going to be a never ending list. Clearly, I need to either knit faster, or add less patterns to the list.

Project Update: 

I've finished the first one of the Endpaper Mitts by Eunny Jang. They are a pretty simple project, but have given me the opportunity to learn some new techniques. I've learned a new method of both casting on and binding off ribbing, the tubular cast-on and tubular bind-off (or Kitchener rib bind-off). And, I always enjoy the chance to do some color work. The picture quality is not good, it was taken in poor lighting, but the combination of the brown and orange looks really good in real life. (and I probably owe a special thank you to Lily, who allowed me to set the mitt on her back while photographing it)

When It Rains, It Pours

It's been a time of celebration in my household. After a year and a half of searching, applying, interviewing, and rejection, I have finally landed a teaching job! A real, actual, full time with benefits, in charge of my own classroom, teaching job. A true to the whirlpool that is my life, it all happened very quickly and at the absolute last possible minute.


After a soul-crushing number of interviews, and an equally soul-crushing review of my interview skills with the Director of Pupil Services at one of the districts where I sub, I was seriously at the point of giving up on a teaching career. There was some amount of allure in a mindless sort of 40 hour per week job. And as I'm pushing 30, the lack of retirement was getting scarier and scarier.  I began searching for other jobs in the area that might be willing to hire a currently underemployed teacher.  However, I still searched for teaching jobs, kept an eye on the market and occasionally applied for the posted jobs.


It the past couple of weeks, I have applied for four teaching jobs. A couple of days after applying for one, I got an email setting up an interview for the next week. I ended up having to shift my entire work schedule around to make it, but I did go in for the interview. Despite (or maybe due to) the cruel frank review of my interview skills, I decided to go in swinging for the fences (I know, I'm not a baseball fan, but none of the sports I actually follow have as good of a metaphor). My husband recommended that I go in with my customer service attitude (after 6 years in the local grocery store, I've had to smile at and chat with a lot of people, ones I liked and others, not so much). I left the interview feeling pretty good, but didn't want to get my hopes up.


On my way to that interview, another of the schools I applied to called to set up another last minute interview. They were looking for a long-term sub for a semester in a position that could turn into a full-time position. And the school was on the fringe of the commuter radius I established at the start of this never ending job search. Not ideal, but better than nothing, and they were willing to interview me on a day I had off from the store.


The following day, I had a pretty good omen. The school I had interviewed at called one of my references. Well, that's a step farther than I had gotten on a lot of these interviews. Again, I didn't want to get my hopes up, but they were starting to rise.


The next day rolled around, and the interview at the second school. I didn't feel that one went nearly as well, but the drive sucked and it was only for a semester, so I didn't get too upset about it. What I did start to get upset about was the fact that I hadn't heard from the first school. I was feeling pretty down, but then a call from the third school raised my spirits.


Then, it happened. The first school called back and said they were recommending me for the position. I needed to come in for what they called a "second interview" with the school superintendent. I was worried about this second interview, even though the teachers I talked to made it sound more like a formality. Not wanting to jinx anything, but feeling pretty confident, I told a select group of friends and relatives (that's right, feel honored if you were in that group).  


The weekend passed. Before setting up the second interview, I heard back from school number 2 (the interview I thought I bombed). Apparently, they also wanted to hire me for the long term sub job. I'm not going to lie, that one shocked me. The school needed an answer right away, so I took a bit of a gamble and told them I had already accepted another job (hoping that it was indeed a formality). Of course, the second interview was scheduled at the same time as the interview for the third school, so I had to take another risk and cancel the interview at the third school (really, really hoping that it was a mere formality).


And yesterday, I went into my second interview. Believe me, I breathed a sigh of relief when some of the superintendent's first words to me were, "The committee recommended you for the position, so I'm going to recommend you." After a chat with him, I had an actual teaching job. An actual teaching job where orientation started in only two days, with students starting school in only eight total days (see what I mean about the last possible moment?).


Despite the rush of all of it, I thrilled to have this job. The school district has a wonderful reputation and everyone that I've met seems to be friendly and helpful.  I alternate between that feeling of elation and the feeling of terror when I think about being in charge of a classroom, a caseload of students, and two paraprofessionals in a little more than a week.


I'll be teaching, at the elementary level, students with severe disabilities. I've visited my school, and seen my classroom. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that both are beautiful. I have access to a wide variety of technology and professionals to help my students. Starting tomorrow, I'm looking at nine days straight of work (this weekend will be my last weekend at the grocery store), but I'm excited about it. We will see how I feel after two days of orientation, two days in the grocery store cash office (yuppers, 5:30 am shifts for my last days), three days of in-service, an open house for parents, and two days of students.


Wish me luck as I embark on this (hopefully) wonderful new journey!

Blog Renovations

I started this blog with the best intentions and I still have the best of intentions about it. I mean to blog, I plan on blogging, and then I get distracted by something else. Knitting, reading, television, you know, life.


So, after a long hiatus, I've decided to give the blogging thing another go. And while turning over a new leaf, I figured I'd revamp the blog.


Starting with a new name, The Fifth Step was a great name, while the blog was primarily about my teaching experiences. But, lets face it, the blog isn't about my teaching experiences, so I thought about adopting something more knitting related. But the more I thought about it, the more I decided that I didn't want to paint myself into a corner with the blog title, so I figured Mental Scribbles has a nice ring to it. After all, this blog is a place for my mind to express itself (plus I like the doodles on the background).


Then I worked with some design elements, and found a look that I was happy with, for now. I'd also like to set a goal for a minimum number of entries. Currently, I'm shooting for at least on entry a week. So, we'll see how that goes. In addition to knitting updates, I'm planning on posting about the books I'm reading, my teaching experiences, and the life events of an almost thirty year old girl from Wisconsin.


So, here we go again.