gypsygirl

I need to get back to knitting! Next baby shower is next Thursday and I haven't finished the body yet, much less the sleeves (though I'd already decided that I'm going to do stripes on the sleeves rather than the star/snowflake design that's on the body, so they shouldn't take as long).

I've had to pause in the knitting a couple of times, to work on costumes for Gypsy and then cos I got the flu (never feels right to work on baby garments while ill... not that I had the energy for it anyway).

We had our first Adventure Lunch* at work today and towards the end it degenerated into a discussion of Lost. And no way to escape because I rode with someone else. Ugh.

As for the rest of the lunch, it was good. We went to a new Japanese Steakhouse; food was good, decently priced, service was good. Everyone else at my table had various kinds of meat on the hibachi; since a high percentage were having shrimp, I decided to have veg tempura instead. I didn't want my food cooked on the same grill as shrimp. My intolerance to it isn't dangerous (no anaphylactic shock or trips to the hospital), but it is unpleasant.

*Every summer we make a list of new restaurants in town that at least three quarters of the group haven't been to yet and go to one each week.

This may be the first time I'm glad it's Monday, only because it means that last week is over.

Can you say, "week from hell"?

I got the flu on Monday, was sick till Wednesday, and just as I was starting to feel better, I found that my scooter had been stolen from the driveway while I was out of it. Fortunately, it was found on Thursday, but that made that a stressful day, dealing with recovering it and getting it to the shop, and talking to the insurance people, etc.

And then cap off the week with three fun, but stressful performances of Gypsy!

Ai. I'm worn out.

So I was at a luncheon yesterday; part of it was a showcase of fashions created by one of the family and consumer science students. In describing her collection, she wanted to say something about it being enrapturing and captivating but she got a bit tongue-twisted and ended up saying it was 'enraptivating'. My new word of the week. The luncheon was enraptivating.

Sitting in a hotel ballroom listening to Tim O'Reilly talk about cloud computing and the future of data. Feeling a little lost because my laptop's back light gave out and I only have my phone now. Ack!

I've finished the little dress from the Dale book, and it turned out soooo cute!! I'm really pleased with it. I bought some little pewter clasps online to use as buttons.

The shower is next Saturday, so it's pretty good timing.

I've started the next project. I was originally going to do one of the sweaters as a cardigan and the other as a pullover (the pattern has instructions for both), but before I started I read through the cardigan pattern and saw that it's knitted in the round and then steeked. I've never done steeking before, and while I do want to try it, I figured a gift item wasn't the best test piece, so I'm going to do two pullovers instead and save steeking for another day.

I'd be twice as far along, only I realized a couple of rows below this that I'd mis-read the pattern and was starting the rows in the colour-work graph at the wrong place (I'd started the first one in the right place, but then was going to the far right at the beginning of each new row, instead of back to the same starting place), so I frogged it and started over. Much better now. The one thing I don't like about this pattern so far, is that there are a couple of rows that involve three colours of yarn. It's orders of magnitude tanglier than just two.

At LV I recently finished The Sky Is Falling by Lester del Rey, another sci-fi story. My next project is What Katy Did by Susan Coolidge. I'd wanted to do it a couple of years ago, but someone else started a solo version before I could get to it, so I put it off and did What Katy Did at School instead. The other project has since been completed, so I feel like I can do mine without stepping on anyone's toes.

Recently watched the new-ish version of Sense and Sensibility (I think it was part of that Austen series they showed on Masterpiece a year or so ago, but I missed it then). I really liked it. Well enough to buy a copy for my library. None of the others in the series impressed me that much, and I will keep faithful to the earlier versions I already own (P&P w/ Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, Persuasion w/ Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root). Not to say I no longer like the Emma Thompson version of S&S, though.

We're doing Gypsy at the WCT. I tried out for one of the stripper roles, but got cast as Miss Cratchitt, the secretary in the New York scene. Should be fun... I'm onstage for two scenes at the end of act 1, and the rest of the time I'll be able to read, play cards, relax back stage. Reminds me of Christmas Carol.

Twist & Shout? Yeah. I've been working on that pattern from the Fall 2008 issue of Knitty since the fall of 2008. I just can't get the darned thing finished!

First off, shortly after I got the yarn, Lucy decided it would be great fun to strew the entire contents of the package around the living room floor one day while I was at work. Thank goodness I came home for lunch that day, or by the end of the day it would probably have been unsalvageable. As it is, I called in sick to work and spent the rest of the afternoon untangling yarn. I had to throw some away, but I was able to salvage most of it (spent the rest of the project picking dog hairs out of it, though).

I did finally start the project during the 08-09 winter, but kept putting it aside to work on gifts for other people. I managed to get about halfway up the back before I got to the point, weatherwise, where I no longer wished to knit.

By the time I picked it up again last fall, I had no idea where, exactly, I was in the pattern (you have to keep count on two or three different things at a time), so I ripped it out and started over. I knew I was going to have to buy more yarn to get it finished, thanks to dear Lucy, but I'm obviously a horrible judge of yarn needs. I keep getting "just one more skein" to finish the thing off, and coming to the end of it and thinking, "ok, surely just one more skein?".

I've finished the five sections, pieced it together and am about halfway through the collar. But I'm at a standstill now because I'm out of yarn (again!) and knitpicks (who make this yarn), won't have any more of this colour in stock until May!

In other projects, I have three friends having babies within the next four to six months, so I'm working on gifts now. I'm finally making the little dress from the Dale baby book that I've been wanting to make for so long (but my friends kept having boys!). I'm about a quarter of the way through it. For my other two friends I'm making pullovers from another Dale baby book. Unfortunately, the yarn I ordered for those got nicked off my front porch between the time it was delivered and the time I got home from work. Pisses me off! >:( When I re-order I'm going to have it sent to work.

Note from Hugh:
Dear LibriVox supporters, friends, volunteers:

Two weeks ago we sent out a request for donations towards a $20,000 fundraising campaign. We outlined why on this post (with a number of questions answered in the comments thread). You responded with generosity, and we can now close down our campaign.

So:

Thank you!

We got to our target so quickly it warms our hearts. Not only did people donate, but this campaign also allowed many many people to express their appreciation for all the hard and wonderful work done by LibriVox volunteers.

We won’t have to talk about money again for a few years. Instead, we’ll get back to working hard to fulfill our mission, which is:

To make all books in the public domain available, for free, in audio format on the internet.

So: Thank you again.

For those curious:

Campaign Details:

We raised $23,000 from 433 donors, in 13 days, averaging $1,769 in donations from 33 people every day. We had a couple of big donors, who gave a few thousand dollars each, and many more smaller donations which all add up to: everything we asked for. Thank you again.

LibriVox Details:

This money will help support our efforts, which so far have resulted in the following:
* 3773: Total number of projects
* 3227: Number of completed projects
* 470: Number of completed non-English projects
* 31: Total number of languages
* 28: Number of languages with a completed work
* 1498: Number of completed solo projects
* 3549: Number of readers
* 3347: ...who have completed something

Total recorded time: 66472509 seconds, or 2 years, 38 days, 20 hours, 57 minutes, and 37 seconds. Total of 66978 sections.

Have I said thank you? Well: thank you again! Oh, and a very special thank-you to our friends and supporters at the Internet Archive, especially Jacques and Brewster, who managed the donations for us so that we didn't have to worry about setting up paypal accounts and all the rest.

And now, back to making free, public domain audiobooks.

All the best,

Hugh McGuire.

So thanks so much to everyone who contributed!

Not quite 8:30am and I've already filled my laugh quota for the day.

Was chatting with one of my coworkers, and the subject drifted into Hebrew words and phrases we were familiar with. He was trying to remember the "writing on the wall" from the book of Daniel, "Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin" (KJV); what came out was "many, many tickle a parson".

We had a pretty good snowstorm last Tuesday, two to three inches. The weathermen thought the temperatures were going to drop below freezing overnight and make for difficult driving (around here, everything shuts down when there's ice on the roads... our cars just aren't set up to drive on ice, and our people just get stupid when trying to drive on ice, so it's just safer to keep as many people home as possible), so the university shut down a bit early and sent us home. On our way out, while cleaning the ice off the cars we played around in it a little. A couple of girls built a snow bear in the bed of one's pick up (sic 'em bears!), we had a minor snowball fight, and I made a tiny snowman from the snow on E's hood.

When we got home we discovered that the weight of the snow had bent the poles of the canopy we'd put over my scooter.

I'm going to have to see if I can find something with stronger poles.