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.

November Day 4

Today sucked, that is all.

November Day 3 Or I bought a spinning wheel!

Today I went to the Fiber Fest as the Big E and it was so wonderful. There was so much yarn and fiber and things made from yarn and animals and stuff. I went with M's girlfriend and we walked around the whole thing and cooed at things, we looked at drop spindles and I coveted the spinning wheels. One of the best animals that we saw where the babydoll sheep.

Then we walked around some more, I got permission from my parents to buy a spinning wheel as my xmas present! I bought a HitchHiker from The Merlin Tree. It is a single treadle and is wonderful and lovely and it is named Merlin.

Of course I have none of my fiber with me at college, so my parents will hopefully be sending some to me. 

In other things, because we need really cool movies with strong women characters I give you the trailer for Hua Mulan, the live action Chinese movie about Mulan.

November Day 2

Today's post is mostly going to be pictures of some of the birds that hang around the campus in/around Lower Lake. There is Jorge, the heron, and a bird that looks to be a Double Crested Cormorant. Not actually sure if the last bird is actually a cormorant or not but according to google image search that is what it is.

Jorge the goose

The heron

Fishing

Double crested cormorant?

Beyond that most of what I am doing involves cleaning my room, and doing the laundry. Got the ok on the classes that I want to take next semester. I plan on getting some pleasure reading in tonight as I haven't be able to in some time.

Novemer Day 1

First official day of November, I will not be thinking up fun titles for 30 blog posts, I would never sleep then. The last post I did does not count for November as it was meant for October 31. 

Random news for the day, someone on my floor decided to smoke pot in their room yesterday night. They managed to not set off the smoke detectors however the hallway stunk, it is a problem because M is allergic and it stinks.

Oops meant this to be longer. So I decided to take pictures of works in progress, so here they are:

Grandma's Hat

The dishcloth

Other things that hang out in my dorm room:

My teapot and teacup, please ignore the desk mess

My orchid 

My jade plant that I rescued from a kitchenette last spring

Ending one month, beginning another

Ending October is a bittersweet experience. October had its good and bad points. For the good points: we had mountain day, the changing leaves were beautiful, I went to Rocky Horror picture show for the first time, knit, took lots of photos the heron that hangs out at my college.

Let's not go into the bad points as they are kind of sucky, suffice to say that parts of October were horrible.

In happier news, I have been making progress on my brother's hat, except I am now running out of yarn (pretty sure that I have more at home).

Yes, I have Star Wars sheets

It really doesn't look like a fish yet.

I went to a Halloween concert and there was someone dressed as Loki from the Avengers, so I got him to hold the hat! Not sure why all my friends weren't really impressed that I managed to get a boy to hold my knitting (I go to a women's college, not many men).

Other then that I have started on a hat that I will give as a xmas gift (Grandma) and I have started to make dishcloths.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show was fun and rather amusing. I did wear a mini-skirt however it was accompanied by leggings as it was a little cold to be wearing just a mini-skirt. M wore a red dress I have (I don't really wear it) and her really big boots, which are beyond awesome.

When Hurricane Sandy came through thankfully all we had was some wind and rain, the college kept power the entire time and we had a day off. Of course a portion of the day was used to text back and forth with my family to make sure everyone was ok. My only prep for the storm was setting up contact plans in case of no power, making coffee, and bringing my bike in. My bike lived the entirety of Sandy in my closet, I have also finally named my bike it is now officially known as Kilgharrah, the dragon from Merlin.

I have also on occasion been attempting to drink obscene amounts of teas, in some very interesting combos. Trying to remember to drink non-caffeinated things before bed can be a little hard when you have black teas that you like.

Next up, November, the month of Thanksgiving and the bus ride to home and the cat (dogs too). In November I will be trying to blog every day for the entire month.

Also if you haven't seen this you should watch it now!