Snow, Snow and more snow

One week, two snow storms. The first one was named Euclid, on Thursday. Euclid gave us about a foot of snow and closed the library early. When I went to work that morning there was snow on the road and the roads weren't plowed in my town, by the afternoon the roads were plowed but people had started to have accidents  There was one in the center of my town, no one was hurt apparently  but the car was upside down in the ditch. On Friday we had some time so Dad had me clear the deck with the electric snow blower, I prefer the shovel and the giant snow mountain that results.

Freyr was the second storm, there has been at least another foot of snow from it. The major part of the snow came down in the night so beyond waking up and realizing that there is tons of snow again life is good.

In knitting, I have decided what pattern to use for Dad's birthday present and just have to wind the yarn to start it. Pictures of the yarn and project will be coming soon.

Grandma is enjoying her xmas present that I made her.

I watched the Christmas special for Doctor Who, and that was so not fair is all I have to say about it. Well and Strax is hilarious with his grenades. I had been attempting to get into watching Supernatural, but have given it up as I find it rather blah.
My cat decided one day as I was making tiramisu that she interested in the espresso.

On another note, Star Trek:

Christmas or I need to sleep

Merry Christmas to all those who celebrate it, happy holiday of choice to others and happy non-holiday if there is no holiday celebrations that you have. 

All of the gift knitting was finished in time for xmas this year, however it was finished on xmas day in the morning before I went to sleep. One would think I would have learned my lesson already and not do this and wait for the last minute. This year was a bit worse then others as I had to finish Dad's gift, my brother's and wrap all three presents. My brother's gift required the most work as I went on the great button hunt on xmas eve. I visited 3 stores and managed to find decent or good parking at all of them. My brother got a fish hat with button eyes. Dad got a pair of fingerless gloves to replace his old pair that I made him way back when I was just starting to knit. Mom got her scarf.

Dad's gloves were a modification that someone else had made to the pattern to make it worked in the round, I then modified the modification to be a little longer to that Dad would get better had coverage.

Mom's scarf is thinner then the pattern usually makes but I modified it so that the scarf would be long enough.

My major xmas gifts were a bottle of sake and my spinning wheel, I really wasn't expecting anything beyond the spinning wheel.

My parents have gone even further with the tradition of decorating the tree with birds, they purchased flamingo lights for it.

Other xmas traditions that we seem to have now are going to the xmas service at the Unitarian Universalist Church and my knitting during the service. Instead of the fish dinner we had hors d'oeuvres, they were tasty.

After dinner I commenced finishing the xmas gifts while watching movies. The first movie I watched was Warhorse and that is a movie I will never ever watch again. Then I watched Thor and finished all required prep for giving the gifts. 

In which there is yarn and life

Sorry about disappearing for a little bit. Life got a little busy for a bit, there was thanksgiving, school work and life in general getting in the way, especially finals. I survived finals without going totally over the edge, by that I mean that I continued to shower. Home now, had a interesting drive as the weather wasn't the best.

For Thanksgiving my family continued the tradition of cooking food the entire day, there was stuffing, turkey, potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce, two pies, and I made popovers.  Popovers are a wonderful food.

After I got back to school, M and I decorated for xmas. We hung lights in both of our rooms and in the hallway, M then put up a small advent calendar. The lights in the hallway looked really good.

Since the semester is over I will be getting off of the caffeine  that means I will now be drinking no coffee or any tea with caffeine in it for an entire week. Life is much less enjoyable with caffeine withdrawal.

In knitting news, I finished Grandma's present and mailed it to her, Mom's scarf has had all the ends finally sewn in, the blanket thing I am making is in the second skien. Merlin and I have be producing some decent yarns, I have a project in mind for them. I have started on Dad's present, and will hopefully finish it in time for xmas. My brother's present can resume progress no that I have gotten more yarn for it. Mom's birthday present is already taken care of.

Back after finals

I am coming up on finals soon and am really busy. Updates for the last half of November and the first couple of weeks of December will follow after I finish finals and start getting the caffine out of my system. Until then, does the white text on the black background bother people's eyes?

Bus Rides, Broken Heating, and Maine

Yesterday I took a series of buses home. I started the bus rides at 11:50 and reached where my Dad picked me up a little after 21:00, didn't actually reach home until about 22:00. I hate riding on buses, I always end up sitting next to people, and there are never any good movies. My highlights of the trip are as follows: the first bus being late, sitting next to people, sitting next to the guy with spikes in the shoulders of his shirt, sitting next to the guy wearing suspenders and a T-shirt, having a coughing fit on a bus, having to listen to others cell phone conversation. So much fun, really not worth it.

Currently my house is a bit chilly as the heating isn't working properly, my room is down right cold at times. Also I have the internet working for me, for now at least.

First thing I do when I am at home is go to the library, I now have lots of pleasure reading books. Borrowed on spinning book and one book of tea cozy patterns. 

In good news, I have more yarn for the fish hat. Merlin came home and my cat still likes me(mostly). Did a burn test on some of my yarn in the driveway, rather fun, the results were that one yarn was wool, the other was acrylic.

Also tea is yummy, currently drinking Ginger Peach which is a nice black tea. 

Maine: land of darkness in the fall, it isn't even 16:30 as I type this and it is getting dark already. Beyond that the weather today was nice and so was sleep.

Packing For Thanksgiving break

Tuesday(Today/Tomorrow) I leave for home, for the Thanksgiving Break. Packing is complete except for the last minute things that go in later. I have started another baby blanket for the mindless knitting that it gives. It is a nice sage green color and has cotton in the yarn. 

Fall is one of the best times to take pictures at my college, the foliage is bright and the college is mostly pretty anyhow. 

One of the denizens of Lower Lake besides the beaver, has surfaced and been photographed on my phone.

The not Beaver

The Beaver with small tree

Not looking forward to the bus ride to Maine. Merlin will be traveling with me so that the rest of the family can meet my spinning wheel. 

I had the chest cold from hell

So I missed almost an entire weeks worth of blogging. I managed to get a chest cold from hell. Now that I am in the coughing stage I will be back to doing something besides random napping. No knitting has taken place since Monday afternoon, when I finished Grandma's hat, just need to weave in the ends.

November Day 11

This will have no knitting in it, you were warned.

Today and most of yesterday I helped to put on an unofficial naginata seminar. There were the regular drills that one always does, then there were the variations and the new things to learn. Some things that I learned were corrections on things that I had been taught that were wrong. We also learned some game that are very fun to play and watch people play. At the end of each day there was a practice test to see how much people improved and what they needed to still work on, I was announcing what was going on. I didn't do too badly at it either, I did mess up every so often though. Pictures time.

Naginata games = amusement

rock paper scissors

Warming up on the second day

I will put of the video of part of the first day that I took as well as the pictures of the beaver that I took tonight later. No knitting was completed this weekend, no spinning.

November Day 10

Very tired, help run a successful naginata seminar/long practice today. Some video and pictures will be posted soon. Much has been learned and people have improved so much over what they had been.

November Day 9

Well I have already missed a day, oops.  Didn't mean to do that, got a little caught up in doing my homework. Things that have been accomplished today: passed in a video for a class, a paper in another class, cleaned my room, cut my hair, talked with people about multiple things, got even more paranoid then normal. No knitting has been completed so far today due to talking and cleaning. The lack of working with fiber is driving my stress levels even higher then normal. I like gifs they can explain my state of mind so much better then I can with words.

The paranoia is mostly warranted, I think. Trying to deal with certain things is like herding cats that have all had catnip and hate everything.

In better things, yesterday I had free ice cream, it was pumpkin oreo and it was so good. It was so cold out that my plastic spoon broke though. 

This weekend I will be hosting a Naginata seminar at my college. Looking forward to it as well as dreading it a bit.

Naginata

Might not be as able to post this weekend as I would like, also likely to be even more boring then this.

November Day 7 or Winter is Coming

SNOW, ok, just had to get that out of my system. Yes it is snowing, and then the weather people say that it is going to rain which will not be so fun. Mostly just sitting in my room watching the snow fall, enjoying the heating, not so much the view because that is grey.

There's snow there, I promise

In really good news, Obama won! And Maine has marriage equality (hopefully to stay).

Apparently instead of stress eating I now stress spin since I got Merlin. I ended up making 3 small skeins of yarn while listening to election results and learned to Andean ply. Andean plying is kind of amusing to do, I do need to work on my technique a little bit so that I have better control of my yarn.

Drying 

Hanks sitting on my bed

Much work has been done on Grandma's hat, more to go.

It will be a hat, I swear it will be.

I won a $25 gift certificate to Amazon for completing a survey, buying fiber with it. We shall see how this goes.

Just because I can, and I am banned from xmas carols before Thanksgiving.

Beyond that, nothing interesting at all.

November Day 6 or Election Day

For all of my readers in the US if you have not voted already go do so ASAP. Personally I voted a while ago, absentee ballot, just because this is when I get a say in who run things in the national level and the local level. Also why are human rights up for the vote, just legalize same-gender marriage already Maine. Seriously you would think that this would be legal, it was for a while but there was a citizens veto. I am probably stay up way to late tonight due to watching the results come in. On a more amusing election note, my college has lots of geeks.

Sorry, can't vote for him, wrong side of the ocean.

Me and my Star Wars shirt

My parents sent me my fiber stuff so Merlin is actually spinning things now! Also included in the package was tea, chocolate and other assorted goodies.

Goodies, and backpack

In other news, I hate humanity less right now. The weather looks really nice out but it is cold outside.  Also there have been some sightings of the fighter jets flying overhead. In some really good news, my heat is on and working, my room no longer requires layers to function in! Don't know why it took so long.

November Day 5

Currently stressed and hating humanity in general.

No knitting progress made. I am currently very grumpy and hormones are making it worse.