First of all, we're in countdown days. Yesterday was a month to wedding, now it's—wait, you'd think it would be 31 days - 1, but apparently I can't count. I'm getting 27. Well, let's say 28, not counting the day of. Is the catering contract signed? How about the dress? What about, oh, everything... Well, best to keep moving. I don't want to bog down in worry, when I know it's all going to go fine.

(Warning, this post gets crabby and then really depressing. You might want to just look at this picture of my wedding shawl and move on.



Thank you, Martine!)

This week I got the anti-birthday present from NPR: they've canceled my one and only decent news source, the Bryant Park Project. It drives me crazy that they put all kinds of effort into making a show that's different, interesting, entertaining and smart, and it's successful per its goals—but it can't bring in revenue because, just like PBS, there's no way to directly support the shows you love, unless you're a giant corporation or grantor. Maybe that's what I need to do, mount a campaign to find a grantor to fund the program! Ah hell. I'm trying to stop caring, but what it really means is going back to not knowing what the hell's going on in the world.

In other horrible news—and it is horrible, pause for a moment here because you can laugh at me, little miss never latched on to a TV show that ended ever, laughed at others for their devotion to shit like "Carnival," then take a deep breath... for the first time to my knowledge, someone I knew has been killed in action in our "war on terror." The son of a former coworker died in Afghanistan on Sunday and honestly, I think I'm only processing it now as I type—I read about it today. In fact, I read about it just as a number of my coworkers were getting ready for a memorial service for another man who went before his time, one I knew a little better and liked a lot, and who made our station a better place. And by extension, of course, he made the world a better place. Neither man will be forgotten, nor will their contributions.

Here, let's end on a note of hope. In looking for the story about Carlene's son, I saw this post about a successful Obama fundraiser for our incumbent gubernatorial candidate, Christine Gregoire, whom I like. Lots. And I dislike her opponent, lots. So what's hopeful here? Democrats coming back, for one, and the hilarity of the first two comments, for another.

I'm going to go read a silly mystery novel now. See you all on the bright side tomorrow.

• 08:20 letting my hair dry as i poke around online before work. #
• 16:24 rewriting my job description, which isn't so bad, so I can create my performance plan for next year, which is evil. #

Automatically posted by LoudTwitter at 8 p.m. daily.

• 10:00 telling everyone how pissed I am at NPR. tinyurl.com/6yyphw #
• 10:02 @bpp Still in denial -- ppl are telling me to get over it (essentially) but they don't get it: You are the *only* listenable, smart news. #
• 12:26 workin'. in a desultory fashion, but working nonetheless. #

Automatically posted by LoudTwitter at 8 p.m. daily.

+My sister's sending me a package.
+Our ceremony dude is ordained (www.SpiritualHumanism.org)!
+My birthday is tomorrow.
+It's summer. (Do I love summer because my birthday's in the summer or do I extra love my birthday because it's in the summer? This is a question that will remain perpetually unanswered unless I move to Australia.)
+Things are o-k, even though some things are stressful.
+My coworkers signed THE CUTEST "happy engagement" card for me. Okay, the card's kinda boring but it's all signed all over with sometimes funny and all nice things. And I wasn't expecting it, and it just appeared on my desk yesterday while I was out, so I got to relish it in peace. (And Michael Scott is not my boss, and my office generally stays well clear of The Office territory, so it's not psycho.)
+It's payday!

I'd better get back to work.

Apparently, these include a wedding (or just a couple) blog: http://daphneandseth.blogspot.com/

I was pushed over the edge by some interesting/entertaining questions from my family over the weekend. Thus the wedding blog will soon be the proud owner of a FAQ.

That is all for now. Work beckons (though not sweetly!).

Martine is making me a wedding stole. How did I get to be so lucky? Why do she and I make the same mistakes of shopping without proper nutrition over and over again? Thank you to Jule, who was there with a non-HFCS granola bar in hour three (I think) of pattern agonizing. Then Martine and I got smart and went out to dinner to pore over the Barbara Walkers. The end result? A version of a Bouton d'Or baby blanket pattern I bought semi-recently thinking it'd make a gorgeous shawl.



It's much further along now; I got to see it last night.

Super rad new embroidery site with free stuff. Go visit their blog. Get free patterns. Feel cheerful and happy about the world.



I should really still be working, but writing a quick work-blog post reminded me that it can be fast and fun to blog.

PS If you go too fast, you might forget a very important thing: THANK YOU to everyone for your kind comments and well-wishes!!

Both Meg and Phillipa from my last post tagged me, officially and non-, for a meme, and I haven't done a meme in a while, so I'll take care of that. I'm adding a question though:

1a. What've you been these past six weeks?

First, I developed tendonitis, which slowed my knitting to a near-halt and resulted in a very close read of Summer IK -- which I like, for the record -- and many other knitting books, and some novels, and a little extra sleep. Then, Seth and I ran off to Vashon Island:



... and got engaged! Soon, Mr. Cranky and I will be legit. Here's the ring, which is vintage and which we found downtown:



So the weeks since (May 9, for the record) have been consumed with a little of this and a lot of wedding preparations. The initial adrenaline has burned off but there's still a lot to do, so I'm grateful for my overage of vacation time, and wishing work would slow down just the tiniest bit. But a girl's gotta get her annual report to the printer and help launch a web site and so on--sadly, the world does not stop when I'm busy to give me more time.

Okay, on to the ( rest of the meme. )

You might find yourself buying or at least spending time reading the following:

Kim's new all-fabric, all-the-time blog, True Up. I love that she started this blog because she wanted to cover a show/whatevertheycallem, and so she invented a way to get in that loop.

Phillipa's and Meg's blogs; both are frequent commenters over here. For example, Phillipa asked what the knitting in the foreground was, and I never answered, but it's Mr. Cranky's perpetual knitting. It's (I'm pretty sure) Cascade Cotton Pima bought at the sweet Knot Just Yarn in Burlington, where they will offer you tea while you shop. So I say unto you, if you participate in this year's Puget Sound LYS tour, don't skip Knot Just Yarn. We bought this when we had to go into town to buy bike shoes, since I'd forgotten mine and was unwilling to drive back to Seattle or buy new pedals or ride clipless pedals in Birkenstock clogs... I also bought their Tulip Toes pattern, which I have yet to knit, but really should, as there are summer girls being born who would really benefit from warm feet (in Seattle, wool is not always hidden away for summer). Anyway, the project was supposed to be a simple fold-over-and-seam rectangular baby hat, but it's become Seth's perpetual knitting. I think cotton is maybe not the best fiber for him. The knitting was started last May on his birthday weekend, and I just booked this year's birthday weekend, so it might be time for me to finish it for him and set him off on some new wool.

Meg, on the other hand, recently moved from Albuquerque to Boston to Michigan, then to the hospital for a little bit, and now is home fixing up the Little Yellow House. Somewhere in between there, she gave me the "You Make My Day" award, which was super sweet, and which I almost didn't see. Thanks, Meg! If you want to see a gorgeous orange cardi, I recommend you click over.

Phillipa is an aspiring physician and Meg is an aspiring librarian, while I am aspiring to get off this chair and do chores and (UGH) work. I can't believe it's after 5 already. Very lame. Most of the day was spent researching for the above-mentioned trip, plus watching "Talladega Nights" (sp? I don't feel like looking it up) with Seth while addressing this monkey problem:



My sister to me, presenting the socks to me: I have a problem. Me: Yeah, that happens. Sister, sounding distraught: Am I not supposed to wear them?

I'll post the fixed-up socks later; I'm still duplicate-stitching the second sock. Or will be, after I do laundry, cat box, vacuuming and my job description. Yeah. FUN.

I've never completed one of those "seven weird things about me" memes because until about 6 months ago, I couldn't think of anything weird--but then I remembered that I'm completely neurotic. That's not that weird, it just keeps me from thinking that a) the weird things about me are weird; b) it's okay to tell people I hoard food -- dorm or all-you-can-eat cafeterias are the death of me. So that's one weird thing; the other is that I've never had a professional manicure or pedicure. I haven't even painted my nails in about 4 years. Now that they're making pthalate-free polish, though, I might just head to a green salon and break this 32 3/4-year tradition.

My nephews continue to be the cutest babies in the universe, as seen in this 90-second video:



Soon my oldest friend in the world will have a baby boy, so there's knitting underway.



Now it's time for breakfast on a totally gorgeous spring day. See you later!

Until quite recently, I was riding the bus a lot and knitting up a storm en route. This took me rapidly through some 'socks that rock' socks:




--includes heel reinforcements since I noticed my other favorite pair was wearing out there, and designed especially for riding my bike to work, which has significantly delayed the finishing of the partner to this sock:




... a monkey in regia silk. I'm on the heel flap of sock 2 so eventually will make it through. Meanwhile, I decided not to knit my sister a pair with another color of the Serendipity yarn as it's too soft--so soft, and so pretty, but instantly semi-felted on the ball of the foot. I attempted to buy other superwash yarn to start some for her but failed. Instead, I've been obsessed with instantly knitting a bunch of new stash yarn from a yarn swap last weekend, at which I only took, for fear of sharing the moths from my house (not, I believe, in my stash, but I was afraid).

Then there's the pretty, pretty project, my first knitting-for-book-publication:



And in my day job, things are going pretty well. It's quite different than a month ago, and yet--the same because I have about 1.5 weeks to compose an annual report draft, and not really any hope of being more productive on it during the day than I have been in the past three weeks. I still have too much work to do, but mostly I feel like it's work that suits me, so it's not so bad. It is exhausting, though, mostly (as usual) on the personal interactions level, and I am an introvert so it's pretty taxing.

And I miss my nephews and hanging out with my sister--but it's pretty amusing to make everyone in my office look at their latest blog post and admire their ability to fit almost a whole plastic easter egg in their mouths. They say I'm biased, but they are awfully cute, aren't they?

The I'm-not-riding Chilly Hilly was a success. Seth found his armwarmers "a little slippy." I've washed them and want him to try again before I sew in elastic, which I will do, but I want to find out how much washing changed them.



Today I succumbed to the urge to document the stash. In part, it's the way Ravelry is affecting my brain. But it's also part of the extreme disgustingness of our disgustingly messy house. It's bothered me before and I've made slight inroads, but I'm here to say that 2008 is the year I get my shit together in respect to keeping house. That means overcoming laziness, inherent packratism and a self-defeating thriftiness that has prevented proper organizational purchases. No more! I've made progress on each of these and I vow to keep going.

So anyway, I photographed a few ancient skeins of yarn, more because they were handy than because they were ancient, as well as what are probably my two oldest UFOs. The first, and oldest, is:



As you can see, it's practically finished, except that I never wove in the ends or made another. I designed this on the needles, apparently (by examining the notes just prior to the "pattern" in my notebook) when I had just quit working at Amazon.com and was applying at temp agencies, back in December 2000, which means just when I got my first position at KCTS 9. And a few months before I started this here livejournal and joined the fledging knitting community et al.

At one time, I despaired that everyone had caught up to me and it was pointless to do anything with this pattern--especially because it wasn't perfect--but now I kinda like it. Maybe I'll knit another (whether with the original thrift store yarn or not is TBD) and type up the pattern. In any case, stay tuned for the next-oldest UFO, coming soon to a blog near you.

Seattle's Harvard Exit theater always sends me into dreamy teenager mode -- in a good way. It's something about the house that reminds me of the house I grew up in. The big, old windows look into scraggly tree branches, and I think the house must've been built around the time our old house was as well. Anyway, I was in one of the ladies' rooms on Friday night after seeing "Persepolis," and there was a small lounge--and I thought, wouldn't it be nice to have a lounge in your home? A private little area where you just relax in-between times? It could have been the single, large martini still influencing my brain, but I think there's something to it. That may be the only room I'd know how to decorate; it would probably work really well with this:



That's a kd lang CD wrapped by Mr Cranky, a very imaginative gift-wrapper, as our new country's flag.

Today the man is riding around Bainbridge Island -- that's right, it's Chilly Hilly, and I'm sitting at home typing away. But in a short time I'll ride down to join the support team. HA. We're just there for the cafe, yarn shop and fabric shop.

Seth will be recognizable for his new armwarmers, knitted with Noro Kureyon sock yarn, which do not match his jersey at all.

Dear best mama in town,

I hope you had a great day and got big kisses from all your boys.



And I hope your drive to Wenatchee is amazingly easy.


Dear everyone else,

I went to Portland last weekend and saw my excellent, strong and funny nephews, and bought some yarn, and today I got another new boss and is there really anything more to say? Not at present.

love,

Daphne

PS to everyone: I LOVE paper doilies. thank you everyone who used paper doilies this v-day. that made me happy. now to go hoard some myself for next year!

I have finally admitted a few harsh realities to myself:

1. No matter what I do, how hard I try, even if I got to bed really early... I will never be a morning person.
2. There are moths in my closet.

To deal with these realities, I am eating Kashi TLC cheese crackers -- aka organic Cheez-Its -- and finally catching up with my blog-reading. If you're reading this, I most likely didn't take you off my blog-reading list, but I realized that at some point I added way too many blogs to my list, so I unsubscribed and re-orged (it was brutal, just like at the office). Someday, my google reader may again be empty, but I resolve to just surf around some more and explore new sites like Threadbanger.com... which has a lot to do with why I'm twitchy. The production style must be ultra super uber targeted to supposed short-attention-span millennials. At least it's only 6 minutes of hyperness and there are some good ideas to be had.

I've got Seth taking more photos for the Jane blog right now, including the reknitted tea cozy. Et voila!



The finished tea cozy knit to the pattern chart & instructions is about 13" wide x 10" tall. The original is about 18" wide and takes a whole 'nother ball of Lamb's Pride. I'm definitely keeping the small one around for a tea cozy (even as infrequently as I use the teapot; it can work on a french press as well), but I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the large one.

To now go completely off-topic: I went to a wonderful not-wedding last night.

And in closing, I'm going to go vacuum and maybe start putting sweaters in the freezer. Bah. You'd think our house being freezing would be enough to kill the vermin. I will be back.

I think you all know about Ravelry--and I haven't mentioned it before now because I hate talking about non-public things but nowadays the invites are happening pretty fast, so go put your e-mail address in if you haven't already (really, I'm looking at you, Ms. lexophile)--but if you look at my projects on Ravelry... there's a lot of pink. I see nothing wrong with that.

Here are some new, largely pink socks, just for me. Okay, it's just the cuff here, and I've sped on past this, so I'll have to show you again later. Really, if you have to ride the bus, you have to knit socks while you do. You certainly get more out of your experience.



Behind the sock cuff is a baby gift. I find it pretty amusing that vellumblue and I are using the same yarn and same size (I think, or maybe Martine went with the 5s) needles to knit to the same gauge... and I'm making a pinker-than-pink garment sized for a 1-year-old and she's making a gray-green sweater for her father. With probably a 48" chest. She may just finish first though because I am also making a sock, and tonight may have swatched for two sweaters at once, one for me and one for Seth--but it's bulky yarn! And I didn't cast on and I also have only looked at "50 Baby Bootees to Knit" three times since yesterday. Speaking of which, I've also made some more baby socks for my nephews, who I apparently got completely spoiled by seeing three times in less than 4 weeks and at my very own house:



...because now I miss them like crazy and miss my sister and feel lonely. Seth being off at band practice is playing into that as well, though. (A baby sock, please note, only takes about 2 hours, once you've got the pattern down.)

Oh! I keep forgetting to tell everyone that Seth landed a job and started today! He'd had several interviews & some offers since he quit his old job in November, but got hired for this job quickly, which makes me hope for the best as far as fit and future. But then he found they don't have a coffee maker! The truth is that we usually drink coffee before leaving the house and only he has more, and there's a Starbucks two lots down from his office (though this is a busy road and most of the location's business is drive-through), so it's not exactly life-threatening, this coffee situation--but it's still slightly odd. I hold out hope that means everyone's not overcaffeinated, unhealthy and always burning the midnight oil. But we'll see. So now we're back on the both-working schedule, just when I'd got used to the perks of him not working--like I should be making something up for our lunches right now. And I was "letting" him do all the dishes. Sigh. A dual income is so trying on the modern woman.

Yikes, I'm excited. I never did get to preview "Persuasion" so it's hard to actually type and watch; I need a swivel for my head. But I wanted to point you over to our new Jane Austen blog, where the yarny surprise is up. I'd recommend subscribing to the blog since there will be more content added regularly and I'd love to chat about the series over there.

http://kcts.typepad.com/jane_austen/

I have to say it's fun to blog as a group effort; you'll notice the blog is designed and has some nice Seth-quality photos. :)

Okay, I need to get to the sofa and the next version of the tea cozy (the corrected version, that is).

PS If you have a Tivo or DVR and previously recorded "Masterpiece Theatre," make sure it's correctly recording "Masterpiece" now as the title changed.

I can't even quite take a picture of the right sock. (I'll try again another time.) So, here. Baby socks. They need to be a lot fatter than you'd think, and bigger.



Jitterbug sock yarn color 54 "Jewel," part of a skein. Size 3.25mm needles (1.5 US?). Cast on 32 st; work 2x2 rib 20 rows; work 5 rows st st; work heel: knit 16 sts onto one needle, 13-row heel flap (slip first stitch of every row); turn heel: sl, k8, ssk, k1; sl 1, p3, p2tog, p1; sl 1, knit to stitch before gap, ssk, k1; continue until 8 sts remain. (The math didn't work the second time so I faked it.) Pick up 8 sts/side, incl. extra stitch at the "crotch"; knit one round; decrease for gusset (ndl 1: k to last 3 sts, k2tog, k1; ndl 2: k across; ndl 3: k1, ssk, knit to end) every other row until you have 32 sts again. Work 20 rows, then shape toe: ndls 1 & 3, as for gusset. ndl 2: k1, ssk, knit to last 3 sts, k2tog, k1. Alternate with knit even rows until you have 16 sts. Kitchener the toe.

It goes quickly when broken up in bus knitting but as always, takes just a little longer than you should before going to bed. The yellow socks seen here are a little too long (23 rows or so before toe shaping), but at least they went on those ankles. They also have a totally different cuff, inspired by Christmas day desperation knitting.

It's Tuesday and the Austen-fest starts Sunday... Watch some previews at YouTube if you so desire. Warning! Some are a little spoilerish, and even worse, you could end up watching videos like this. This makes me glad for my education's sake that much of this technology wasn't available when I was in high school.

Countdown to Jane Austen's Persuasion! 7 days. I'm watching "Jane Eyre" right now. It's killing me and motivating me at the same time.

A giant companion project! I'm desperately revising the chart so as to have a realistically sized companion project ready by due date -- oy, the reknitting and, unfortunately, felting is involved so yet more yarn will be consumed -- too bad it's not all stash yarn. The yarn involved is Lamb's Pride Worsted, for those thinking ahead.

Too much work! A sour stomach!

But what I had that was very good was a visit from my sister and the best nephews ever. (I'm pretty sure they're doing the "only one of us can smile when the camera goes off" thing on purpose.)

That is all for now. I'm headed back to the sofa and Jane Eyre (oh, okay, a few more minutes on the chart first).

Last night we watched "Shut up and Sing," the movie about the Dixie Chicks' career from March 2003 to about 2006. I highly recommend it but warn you: it potently evokes the months/years of utter frustration when Bush et al. not only lied to achieve their goals of dethroning Hussein and "owning" Iraq, but also completely ignored all voices to the contrary. February 15, 2003 was the last time I marched (although not the last time I protested). I marched in vain and it hurt to be among such a large group of people and be completely ignored. It felt so strange; only a few years after the WTO riots here (what an eery feeling I had, riding the shuttle to the airport as so many schoolbusfulls of union members, environmentalists, and other souls poured into the city at 5 am that day!), thousands of us marched here, millions around the world, police shot rubber bullets and tear gas in San Francisco--what the hell happened? I wish so dearly we could learn from our mistakes; why do we do this again and again? I am glad I marched and spoke out in various ways. I'm glad the Dixie Chicks, David Cross and John Stewart, to name just a few voices, were brave enough to speak their beliefs (the Dixie Chicks had the most to lose, and they have suffered). I'm glad the intelligence report that Iran stopped its nuclear program four years ago came out in the press, even though our President declined to hear about it in his daily briefing ("oh, you have new information about Iran's nuclear capacity? That's nice, but I was just about to go for a bike ride.").

I'm really, really glad I've discovered a news source I can actually partake of regularly: NPR's Bryant Park Project (NPR.org/bryantpark). It seems like it was made just for me, except I would not have chosen to hear about the Patriots regularly, but heck. I guess even football's news. In my market, the BPP is on at a hideously early hour and not accessible from my home radio tuners (5-6 a.m. on KXOT 91.7, for anyone local who wants to try getting it over the air)(ETA: now 5-7 a.m. on KXOT). But you all can listen to the podcasts (as I do) and get the news online (I don't keep up with the blog but the blog/web page are excellent). If you listen to the BPP, not only will you know about what Congress is doing, get "real NPR news" from Rachel Martin and other correspondents, and be 100% prepared to Kick Ass at "Wait Wait!" every week, but you might actually feel kind of okay after listening to the news. It feels really good to be able to learn about what's going on in the world (aka "follow the news") and not feel completely ignored, depressed and frustrated. This news show is by people like me, for people like me. I hope you'll check it out. This is doubly true if you kind of hate Steve Inskeep and are worn out on Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Just try it. You don't have to like it. I love it.

Not to cram too many things into one post, but set your DVRs, TIVOs and whatever else you want... Jane Austen's "Persuasion" kicks off the "Masterpiece" marathon on Jan. 13 at 9 p.m. (A repeat of last year's Emmy-winning "Jane Eyre" repeats tonight & next Sunday to get you in the mood!) Here's a preview of the surprise I mentioned before. I'd better get back to it now...

Yeah, I went to Portland with Seth and played with the cutest 5-month-old twin boys ever.



While there (and en route on the train there), I finished their Christmas sweaters. Sweater one is the one-year size in red Louet Gems sock yarn, 5 skeins, knit held double. The loopy cable is on the back of the sweater and yes, it stayed put. Sweater two is the six-month size in Dalegarn Baby Ull, 4 skeins, held double. I think I loosened up as I knit the first sweater, OR I used the wrong needle for much of the second sweater, AND the twist and ply of the yarn is so, so important, for the red sweater drapes while the cream poofs... both in good ways. Buttons were purchased at Josephine's Dry Goods in Portland, after dropping in to Knit/Purl next door to double my yardage of Habu bamboo. Sarah, I always hope you'll be there when I stop in. So far, no such luck.

We also popped into the cross-stitch store next to Knit/Purl, my first visit there. It's a great store (even though I can't remember its name) but I really have to plan ahead for what to get there. I was tempted to buy one of everything, or at least one of my favorite colors in each type of material.

And in closing... the flooding in my state has affected me very, very little. But yesterday I opened an e-mail sent about 24 hours earlier to the Cascade Bike Club (CBC) list; I belong to this bicycle advocacy, education, support and activity group (they do it all!) which runs the Seattle to Portland (STP) ride annually. I completed the ride in '05 and it is really remarkable how well it runs; it's also remarkable just to be able to ride from one major city to another, over 200 miles, on a bike. The route runs right through Centralia and Chehalis, and the people who live there and their civil institutions make the ride possible. So, the e-mail mentioned that CBC pledged to match up to $2500 in donations, that the local United Way was waiving processing fees, so perhaps we could give $5000 or more... I clicked through and was stunned to see "amount donated: $18,255." I choked up as I told Seth about it. Then I made a smallish donation and so must many other people have done, because today the total is over $23,000. The e-mail provided a mailing address as well so who knows how much in total has been donated by this group. I don't know how many people that represents but I'm proud and pleased to be in good company. I'm sure all of you reading this have donated to at least one helping fund this month, and throughout the year. Thank you.

Here, this video is for you.





Phew. Complete and utter sappiness averted... I'm heading to bed.