LOLpic of the Day

These are what we call unfortunate pants.

How to Write a Term Paper in less than 40 Steps:

1. Wait until the night before it's due. Sit in your significant other's chair watching Adult Swim and surfing the internet for “techniques to end procrastination,” telling him you have a paper due the next day, but it's all cool, you've done the reading. All you need to do is get up in the morning and write the thing.

2. Gawk at Craig Ferguson, the Scottish Silver Fox.

3. Go to bed around midnight, rationalizing you'll wake up early to get started on the paper. You might have to revisit the topic at this point (it's a little vague in your memory), but decide you can just as easily do that first thing in the morning too.

4. Before going to sleep, set two alarms, just to be diligent. Set one for 3:00 a.m. because you actually want to wake up at 4:00 a.m. and need the satisfaction of turning the first alarm off and going back to sleep. However, you don't want to wake up your significant other with all that beeping, so you set it discreetly under your pillow, within easy reach.

5. Turn first alarm off.

6. Hit snooze button on second alarm.

7. Hit snooze button again.

8. Start to hit snooze button for the third time, then just decide you'll get up at 6:00 and turn the alarm off. One more hour of sleep will be good for you.

9. Get up after 7:00.

10. Spend 30 minutes in a series of expletive-filled (you) and grunting (it) arguments with the coffee maker, most of which the machine wins by delivering hot, brown water that looks and smells like coffee, but isn't coffee.

11. Give up on coffee and have a Mountain Dew instead. Ignore significant other's remarks about how he doesn't understand how you can drink that shit first thing in the morning.

12. Pet the cat. Petting an animal reduces stress, you know.

13. Locate power cord for ailing laptop. Plug in, turn on, log into school e-mail to locate assignment topic. Discover it's not there, log into school's online course site, click on wrong course by mistake, frantically hit the “back” button and then wait for your computer to unfreeze itself before locating the proper class.

14. Pull up a blank word document, put your name, class, professor, and date in the top left corner. Log into facebook. Check the walls of friends in your class to see if they've started their paper. Write on said walls.

15. Realize you need the book from three weeks ago, and ransack the apartment looking for it. You thought you had left it in a bin on the green loveseat, but you've since cleaned up for company and forgot where you put the bin. Locate book on top of the fridge, think [???].

16. Back in front of your laptop, give your paper a banal title: basically, “The Assignment,” condensed and with proper capitalization.

17. Pet the cat. Did you know pets can also reduce blood pressure?

18. Look at the clock and realize you have four hours to write seven pages. No big deal, you think, once I get rolling I can whip out a page in twenty minutes. Attempt thesis paragraph.

19. Significant Other asks if you're going to make your deadline on time, and feigning nonchalance you dismiss his queries while simultaneously excavating last week's pile of clean laundry, figuring you're going to have to shower sooner or later, might as well do it now. Claim you're using the shower time to “develop your arguments.”

20. Secretly, you're a bit worried. Breakfast might steady your nerves. Protein. Always good.

21. With three hours left you're a page and a half into your essay. Google “[your book title] quotes” in an attempt to glean easy quips to integrate into your paper without rifling through the entire book. After checking three or eight sites, you realize none of them have proper (read: any) page citations, so you'll have to spend another twenty-seven minutes rummaging through the book anyway.

22. Ask significant other what another word for “_________” is (you don't want to sound redundant), spend eleven minutes arguing about meaning of said word before an appropriate substitute can be procured from thesaurus.com.

23. Two and a half hours left: go to the bathroom, grab another 'dew. Not at the same time, of course.

24. You're on a roll now, you've only got four pages to go! Still on track with about twenty thirty minutes per page. Just because you're doing so well, revisit facebook. Your brain was starting to get fried anyway. A study break is healthy once in awhile.

25. Nineteen minutes later, feeling vaguely guilty, return to your paper. You're absolutely determined to have no more distractions. Run out of things to say with two pages left.

26. Pet the cat. She's such a needy little thing, and she's giving you the puss-in-boots eyes. Probably because she's been in your plants.

27. Water plants. Between the cat and neglect, it's a miracle they're still alive, really. Apologize to the plants.

28. Edit paper in an attempt to find something more to say. Realize you have thirty-six minutes to finish your last two pages. Waste five of those minutes freaking out.

29. You need a conclusion! That will draw it out to five and two-thirds of a page, and don't forget to reiterate every main point.

30. Add a works cited page for page seven. Copy and paste in some websites that are marginally related to your topic title, hoping your professor will be impressed you did “outside research” without actually checking the websites.

31. Save paper.

32. Attempt to upload paper. Curse when upload fails.

33. Save paper again, just to be safe. This time close the document.

34. Attempt to upload paper again. Upload successful, and with four minutes to spare. Next time, you vow, you'll start sooner.

35. Gratifyingly shut laptop, stretch out, pet the cat, freeze halfway to the bathroom. Run back to laptop, hurl a few choice words at it when it won't wake up fast enough, misspell your password (twice), upload paper for the third time. This time, upon receiving the “upload successful” message, submit the damn paper.

36. It's 12:01. Have a drink.

Other tips for Writing Under Pressure a Successful Paper

• Learn to mimic your professor's diction and syntax patterns. Writing in their voice makes it seem like your ideas are their ideas, and they'll be more likely to give you a better grade.
• Be sure, also, to agree with any position your prof takes on whatever topic they've assigned for your paper, even if you have vehement opinions to the contrary. Chances are, if you've taken good notes (ha!), all you have to do is parrot your notes back to them in intellectual-sounding language.
• However, don't be a kiss-ass.
• Make use of the block quote, especially block quotes with dialogue. Scientific paper? Graphs, baby! Diagrams, flow charts, pie charts, bar graphs, line graphs, scatter graphs. If it's relevant, use it. It's a great way to take up space.
• And for god's sake, don't try to be witty. You're working on a deadline here.

pardon my silence

for the next week and half, things are going to get pretty hairy. last few weeks of the semester and all... for my benefit i'm going to list the things i have to do over the next approx. 10 days, so by no means feel pressed-upon to read further. hopefully i'll be back soon with pretty knits and things.

paper 1: milton, dealing with labor in paradise lost (7 pages minimum). due ASAP (read: yesterday)

paper 2: hawthorne/bellamy socialist utopia/distpoia, affect of the capitalist market on morality (at least 5 pages). due tomorrow 4/28 (hell of a way to spend my birthday)

paper 3: coetze criticism essay (at least 5). due ASAP (read: last monday)

paper 4: final becket/coetze paper (at least 7). due sometime next week

paper 5: dreams in romantic poetry (at least 7). due 5/6

poetry response (one page, thank god). due 4/29

poetry recitation: thank goodness i don't have to memorize! due next week

independent novel project: read novel, give presentation. due next week

Ayn Rand/Fountainhead debate: stand up for individualism, tomorrow 4/28

Non-fiction essay revision (at least 8 pages) due 5/4

Non-fiction essay portfolio (2 essays, three shorter exercises). due 5/4

wish me luck.

on couponing and cheap needles

i usually work sunday mornings. this has some pretty cool advantages to it: first, i'm up early on a day i would otherwise sleep in, and while some people may look at that as an inconvenience, i think of it as good time management on a day i would have otherwise wasted. two, sunday crowds are usually pretty nice. lots of old people wanting their sunday papers. three, the saturday papers. see, one of my jobs on sunday morning before we open is to pull saturday's papers and set out sunday's, which means the poor unbought saturday papers head to the giant recycle box in back, unless of course their innards are rescued by me. then, during the slow spots, i can peruse the ads and clip coupons, should i find any worth having.

maybe i'm speaking from the ignorance of the uninitiated, but couponing hardly seems worth it. i see the tv shows where people have three carts of stuff and only pay some ridiculously small amount, like $8.73 or something, and i just don't get it. these people may very well qualify as hoarders. one couple had 53 bags of assorted chips in their garage stockpile. how can one eat that many before they go bad? these people have to have stockpiles to get the most out of their deals. i don't know about you, but i couldn't fathom having an entire shelf of gatorade in my house, or 35 bottles of maalox.

Of course, the rationale is twofold - buy only stuff that won't go bad (which is a blurry line for some people), and then if you run out when something's not on sale, you can just get it from your stockpile.

i repeat: 53 bags of chips, 35 bottles of maalox, entire shelf, stacked front to back, of gatorade.

i'll stick to the occasional clip.

as for the cheap needles thing? we're talking knitting needles. i bought a cheapy pair of circulars in my impatience (and stinginess) to complete a shawl, and they broke. in fact, the one side popped off so violently that the cable ricocheted in the other direction, leaving half my stitches stranded without a lifeline and a good half of those dropped down. 

this was after i started to rip it back, but as you can see if was turning out to be a fairly pretty little shawl. i'm still thinking about using some of my tax refund to put together little comfort shawl kits with yarn and needles and instructions and leaving them around town for people to find. i would love to think i changed someone's life by putting needles in their hands. maybe i'm being a bit altruistic. it would've made my day, at least.

self-preservation?

or procrastination? anytime i get overwhelmed with something, school, work, relationships, whatever, i turn to knitting or crocheting, or sewing. this in and of itself isn't necessarily an unhealthy thing - however, the way i go about it, apparently, is less than productive.

see, when the urge hits me to escape, nothing i'm working on will do. possibly because they all have something wrong with them - they're too complicated, they're tedious, too monotonous, i'm at a spot where i have to sew before i knit more... at this point something new starts to sound really good. something quick, comforting, easy, perhaps repetitive but evolving. so i dig in my stash for some fluffy, slow-color-changing lionbrand homespun and some large needles, and i cast on for a shawl. that, and when i'm knitting, i can't really be doing anything else. if i could find any of these books on CD i'd be ecstatic.

yes, the pattern is simple (see below), but the yarn changes colors charmingly and it keeps growing, so it's not exactly the same every time.

i might actually see if the preemie project could use any of these as comfort shawls; it'd be a great opportunity to teach a beginning knitting class and do something good at the same time. check out their website anyway, they're pretty cool people.

crazy simple one-skein shawl
1 skein lion brand homespun, size 15 (29 or 36") circulars, stitch markers, 11.5mm crochet hook (optional)
abbreviations: k = knit, p = purl, yo = yarn over, kfb = knit front and back

cast on 5
row 1: purl across (WS)
row 2: k2, yo, k1, yo, k2 (RS)
row 3: k2, p3, k2
row 4: k2, yo, k1, yo, place marker, k1, place marker, yo, k1, yo, k2
row 5 and all WS: k2, purl across to last 2, k2
row 6 and all RS: k2, yo, knit to first marker, yo, slip first marker, k1 (center), slip second marker, yo, knit to last 2 stitches, yo, k2
finishing row 1 (RS): k2, kfb, knit to one stitch before first marker, kfb, remove marker, k1 (center), remove second marker, kfb, knit to last 3 stitches, kfb, k2
finishig row 2 (WS): knit across
repeat finishing rows once, if desired.
bind off *

* if you want to knit until you absolutely run out of yarn, do a crochet bind off, loosely with an 11.5mm hook. start at the opposite end than your working yarn, slip 2 stitches onto the crochet hook, pass the first (lower) stitch over the second (higher) stitch, slip one more from needle onto hook and pass the lower stitch over the higher stitch, repeat until you're at the end and tie off! alternately, you can skip the finishing rows and just bind off whenever you're finished.

thrifting is kitschy

i made something today, and it only cost $3.75! i <3 houseworks...

here it is empty...

and with my knitting notions on it...

and a side view... you know, i don't know why i couldn't put jewelry on here...

the whole thing is only and 7" high... here's the top plate in the palm of my hand!

good thing they're limited in their uses, or i might make more. unless someone wants one, of course... then i'd have a reason to make more...



tuesdays are the days for blogging

well, at least it looks like it is so. with only one class and a work schedule that often doesn't include tuesdays, here i am at my leisure to write a few paragraphs, as it were.

now only if i had something to say....

i started the garden of alla shawl on ravelry - it has it's own peculiar difficulties so far, but it being my first lace project i am going to withhold judgment until i've gone a little farther in the pattern. be ready for status updates and an eventual pattern review. it's a fairly popular pattern on ravelry, so i don't expect i'll be saying much of anything that's new, but, oh well, each person's opinion can add something to the pot.

i haven't been ignoring my new year's resolution, i just haven't done anything about it. nice save, hm? i plan on making a big dent in my work-less day today. i might even use sewing as relief from studying.

other projects proceed apace - there's the weekend cardigan from lion brand, i'm a few inches from adding ribbing to the bottom, then it just needs sleeves and bands, the garter-stitch scarf is still going, though mostly i use that at relief. i seem to exhibit an extreme inconstancy when it comes to knitting. i get sick of stockinette, so i switch to garter. i'm tired of endless simplicity, so i throw in some cables. i get weary of thick, heavy patterns and switch to some lace. sooner or later, something will get done!

i'd really like to try some lemon-vanilla-mint marmalade. i think that would be tasty, but i'm not sure what it would/could go on other than cake.

anyway, projects await.

i made jam!

and not to toot my own horn but it's probably the best jam i ever made. of course, since i'm not the neatest of cooks it looked like i committed berry homicide on my stove before all was said and done.

i combined a few different recipes from my ball home preserving book and came up with something i called devil's black forest jam. cherries, cocoa powder, cinnamon and red pepper flakes. it's a pretty even tie with the apple rhubarb i made last fall. you open the jar and the first thing that hits you is the smell of cherries and chocolate, then you bite into it and you mostly taste cherry (while smelling the chocolate), and a tiny little zing. the pepper's not really noticable; it's more of a "hm, what is that?" taste to it. heaven. i plan on eating it on toast, in a grilled cheese and jam sandwich (probably with monterrey jack or brie, swiss is probably too strong and mozzarella too weak), over ice cream or angel food cake, and baking it on pork chops or chicken.

want a picture?

yum. and yes, i'm keeping the recipe a secret.

so many finished projects, so many more to come

yeah, i thought i had startitis and homework both under control.

in my defense, i'm going to pass the semester, no question, and i did get a lot of projects finished. i'm just fickle when it comes to needles and hooks, i guess.

there's the fruity pebbles beret (ravelry link here). i got the yarn as a christmas present... yummy handspun angora/wool from Austin's in Harmony, WI.

and the fingerless mitts i adapted from a one-skein wonder book...

my favorite part of these is the heart on the palm!

and finally, pictures of the concentric stripes cardigan (here). my favorite part are the little buttons.

See? See the little buttons?

it's so weird, i thought i had more finished than that. i guess not... right now i'm working on a few lion brand patterns, the weekend cardi done in aqua cotton-ease, a simple garter-stitch scarf done in noro, the jiffy hooded cardigan (for babies! also lion brand), and a cable afghan i wrote the pattern for.

what can i say? i get bored, i try to switch it up. i'm also debating casting on the garden of alla shawl so i can maybe get it done by easter.

nothing else witty right now. i do have to write a paper tonight though.
later!

So, it's been awhile

Again, I have been slacking in the blogging department.

In my defense, I started a new semester with 5 literature classes. If I actually did all my reading, I'd be reading, on average, 200-350 pages a day. It's a lot.

On top of that, Life has certainly been dealing out the crazy lately.

I have, at least, managed to get one thing done: the Concentric Stripes Cardigan from ravelry, and I even finished it in time before the baby was born.

Apparently, however, I'll have to add pictures later.

I am also apparently suffering from a massive case of startitis. I have about four things on the needles/hooks right now and just can't wait to start an afghan, a cardigan, some socks, and some wrist warmers despite the half finished scarves and hats still in progress (yes, there are multiples of each) and the bit of lace I tried knitting while under the influence (note to self: beer plus lace knitting is not the best combo).

However, instead of going home to knit, I will be heading back to class in a scant 15 minutes, to waste the rest of my afternoon listening to professors prattle on about Romantic-era notions of "freedom" in terms of wacked-out poets like Coleridge or discussing random, disjointed essays about marionettes (personally, I can't think of anything more creepy than a marionette. Except maybe a clown-marionette).

i don't feel much like posting today

but i will anyway.

it's one of those days where my fingers are itching to do stuff, but my bed is really comfortable. that's right, i'm still in my jammies. i could knit in bed, or read, but what i really want need to do is put my laundry away before i have to endure any more ribbing from my hubby, and clean up the kitchen and dining area so i can start my january sewing projects.

winter colds are really vicious. i'm still fighting one from december 28th. maybe that's why my bed feels so nice today... and i haven't had any caffeinne yet, either, so that could be contributing as well.

the important thing not to let myself get trapped inside my own head today. scary place, that is. yoda, i apparently am.

so, random list:

1. should a finish reading a book i'm not really all that into, simply because i'm 75% done with it already?

2. how much ribbing is sufficient for a hat?

3. is a stripe of purple too girly for a baby boy's sweater?

4. i really want to make dinner tonight, but a don't want to go to the store.

5. i kinda want to spin, but that's not really a bed-friendly activity.

6. etsy is a bad place when you're craving handmade stuff. or good, depending on your viewpoint.

7. fresh-baked bread makes really good french toast.

8. flannel is really, really cozy.

9. i'm on a bulky yarn, rainbow color kick.

10. i also need to find something to make with it other than hats and scarves

11. that is all, my friends.

progress proceeds apace

so i knit most of yesterday (with a few beers, winky wink) on the baby sweater and i'm almost done with the first sleeve. the concentric stripes baby cardigan is an ingenious pattern. you knit the yoke in one piece, then in one row, knit part of the front, all of one sleeve, across the back, all of the second sleeve, then the other side of the front. then you just pick up and knit the rest of the body, so, no seams!

wow....

i just sat and stared at the screen for five minutes.

so, with no further comments today, i'll leave you with this little nugget:

nothing is better than homemade bread, real butter, and a bit of honey.

so far, on track

yeah, yeah, it's only january 5th, i know.

but, i finished my first project of the year! granted, i started it in october last year, but whatever. i'm still proud of it. unfortunately, it's not the last of the christmas yarn projects.

grandma's beaded shawl - it's a bit short, but grandma likes them that way, so i hope it'll be okay. there's 5 frickin' tubes of seed beads on there that i had to pre-string and work in as i went. it's probably the second-most-epic project i've ever done (the first being the 120 square wedding afghan, and the third being the other wedding afghan).

these photos are all post-blocking....

and a close up! beads, beads, more beads

this whole cone is gone.... i have 6 beads left and a one-inch ball of silk. all finished.

in other news, i finished ALL my christmas sewing shopping, and i hope to report the first bag will be finished by the end of the month. that would be the goal, after all. i had also hoped to be wittier today, but i still feel quite under the weather. 'epic' is the word of the day apparently, because there's not other way to describe my headache!

and, shown here, is the first few inches of the concentric stripes baby cardigan from ravelry. it's my first sweater! so far it's going okay, but i need longer needles. badly. there's no way double-that-amount of stitches is going to fit on that needle. i'm feeling kind of cocky (spare me, oh knitting fates), but so far, this sweater has been CAKE. i've done three new techniques already (knit 2 together, yarn overs, and changing colors) and i'm having no problems. maybe i'd better knock on the coffee table, just in case.

and no, i have nothing to announce. the sweater is for bairloch's friend, who is expecting in march. trust me, if and when our own blessed event occurs, i will not announce it on the blog (well, not first, anyway).

p.s. jon stewart? hilarious.

happy new year!

the most overused title in blogging today!

so, 2010 was a big year. at the start of 2010, i had a fiance, a six-month-old kitty, and a career. then, i had a nervous breakdown, quit my job, got married and gained a whole new family, moved, learned to knit, went back to college and got a new job.

big improvement from last year. (well, everything except the hubby. he was just as wonderful back then, too).

so it seems i have a lot to be thankful for this year. we're comfortable enough to eat what we want, when we want, we have friends and family that love us, and while we're not financially "gifted" enough to go out and buy a new car tomorrow, we can puruse our own hobbie and leisure activities.

it only seems fair, then, that since 2010 has given me so much, i should ditch my usual resolutions (the same ones i've had for nearly 10 years: work out more, eat healthier, procrastinate less) in favor of something a little more concrete.

so, here it is:

as crazy as it sounds, i've already done my christmas shopping for next year. well, some of it. i've gotten all the raw materials, divided them into ziploc gallon bags (thanks for the idea, yarn harlot!) and i will do a bag a month. each month, as well, i'll finish a project i've already got started. for january, the space invaders scarf. february, the honeymoon shawl. etc. etc.

i know i can keep the first one. one bag a month is completely doable. the second one? we'll see. i get distracted by new yarns and projects all the time.

have a good year, everyone.