February is for Finishing (starting in 3 days)

I’ve joined a new group on Ravelry. Normally I wouldn’t bother telling you about it, but there’s a good reason behind this group.
I’ve joined “February is for Finishing”.
Yes, I will not cast on, start crocheting, or even pick up my learn to spin kit, until I have finished what I’m currently working on, or so the plan goes.

Presently on the needles/hooks I have five yarn projects. (I also have a mini quilt I’m working on, but that’s outside of this I’ve decided)

• Manly – this is a sweater for the OH. I’m over half-way up the back, so only the rest of the back, the front, both arms, the sewing, the neck and the weaving in of ends to go…
• Not Fussy Socks – again for OH, these are socks using the Yarn Harlot’s Earl Grey pattern. I’m about half way down the leg on the first one of these. It’s a pretty easy pattern; I just need to get my sock mojo back on.
• Fetching for my sister. Should be a quick one, I’ve done the cuff on the first one.
• Fluffy Bunnies for me. Slippers, lovely yarn, crochet so it’s quick. I’ve done both inner soles so far.
• Sudoku Blanket. No, there’s no chance of me finishing this one, but I do want to finish all of the “pattern 3” squares (one more to do, in purple)
• Dream Catcher Square… no, actually this is part of a crochet-along and so there’s going to be a February square for it. I plan to leave the February square until after I finish all the things already mentioned above. (Sorry, no pictures!)

I’ll let you know how “February is for Finishing” goes – after all there’s 29 whole days to February this year!

Startitus

Yes, I have startitus.
symptoms:

• Uncontrollable urges to start new things
• The inability to finish one new thing before starting another

So I began the Fluffy Bunny Slippers! They're reasonably easy, and it turns out that I'm a tight hooker.

Other than beginning that, and the Fetchings for my sister, we've been tidying. Yesterday we took several bags of clothes and shoes to the donation bank at the tip (probably 2 - 3 bin bags full) and then today we've filled two more. it's not that I change shape that much...
Well, no, it is. Since I lost weight I have changed shape. I'm still a size 12, but all over (for like the first time ever!) instead if being a 10 on top and 12 hips (which I used to be before I put the weight on in the first place) or the "I promise I can sqeeze into a 12 on top and these 14 jeans) [NB. these are UK sizes]

So, I've got rid of shirts that I will never wear (and should never have, they looked awful!), vests that are past their best, more old bras (who would have thought I owned so many teeeeny bras?) I even managed to get rid of some of OH's old t-shirts too!

Then I went on to try to organize my knitting patterns.
A lot of my knitting patterns come from magazines (and will continue to, I think, for a while) so I've been cutting them out and filing them. Or at least, I am the "Simply Knitting" ones, which are suitable for that. All the other magazines have the patterns spread out over loads of pages (pattern on p10 will say like "continued on p635 [exag])
Oh well. I'm enjoying it really - reviewing all my patterns!


Last but not least, I've been nominated by Carly of Knitting and Sewing and all forms of procrastination. . . for the

You Make My Day Award

Thank you very much Carly! (By the way, I'd recommend the Pratchett Discworld books, if you like to read funny books!)

The Rules are to "Give up to 10 people whose blog brings you happiness & inspiration and makes you feel happy about Blogland." Beware! You may get the Award several times! Let them know by posting a note on their blog so they can pass it on.
So here we are:

My Sister
Lint, who is a real world friend too
Britknitter, who helps rescue doggies, so makes their days as well as mine when I read about it!
Crafty Drama Queen, who was my SP11 spoiler and continues to be an interesting read
Fluffy Knitting, who was my spoilee for SP11 and has been entertaining since it began!
Knitting Mama, who is great to read, though I don't comment enough (and I know she's already had this award)
Brendadada, who I see more of on Ravelry
Yarn Harlot
Carly, back at you!

Okay, that's only nine. You nine should feel all the more special.

Discworld? Apparantly I'm most like...

Which Discworld Character are you like (with pics)
created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Carrot Ironfounderson

You are Captain Carrot Ironfounderson of the City Watch in the greatest city on the Disc -- Ankh-Morpork! A truly good natured, honest guy, who knows everyone, and is liked by all. Technically a dwarf, but only by adoption. You'd rather not be reminded that you are the true heir to the throne, but that does explain why people naturally follow your orders!

Carrot Ironfounderson 81%
Esmerelda (Granny) Weatherwax 75%
Lord Havelock Vetinari 69%
The Librarian 69%
Death 63%
Commander Samuel Vimes 56%
Gytha (Nanny) Ogg 56%
Greebo 56%
Rincewind 38%
Cohen The Barbarian 31%

New Widget

I’ve added another doody widget over in my side-bar. Even you non-knitters might be vaguely impressed! It’s progress bars from my ravelry site. Their resident code monkey, Casey [link only works for Ravelry users while it’s in beta], has created a widget to show my project progress and also the current picture of the project. I then did a bit of faffing with it to get it to look like that (notably making the bars pink and making it in two columns). If you read me through a reader, you’ll be missing out. I tried sticking it in the code for this post, but it didn't work so if you do read through a reader you'll have to visit!

This has left me with a dilemma. I currently have 5 projects on the go. As you can see, that leaves me with a wonkey looking side-bar. So, I’m going to have to:

1. Make sure to have pictures for my projects to prevent wonkiness that way
2. Make sure to always be working on an even number of projects

That should do it, I hope!


I also discovered This essay on how nerds work. Now “nerd” is not a word I associate with.
I’ll try to explain (though I’m not sure I can).
I am a Geek. I know I am a Geek. It is not possible to be a Geek without knowing that you are a Geek.
Being a Nerd is not cool. I don’t know why. I guess it’s a local thing. So, when I see Nerd, if it’s a funny or interesting article which could be about a Geek, I mentally switch it.
And clearly, the article is about being a Geek, not a Nerd. :-P

Stretched, Cold and Wet

So, Mummy’s Matching Hat is finished. Hooray! I’ll be posting pictures etc on the FO blog this evening. (we took photos last night but I was tired and so didn’t bother uploading them.)
It looks pretty good, I pretty much made-up the pattern! I hope that mum likes it, I’m going to pop it in the post tomorrow all being well. So the photos are of it on me, and mum’s head is a little smaller than mine. Anyway, you’ll see.

Last night we went to pilates again. We’ve signed up for another term (6 lessons) but we’re going to miss the one on the 11th as we’re not here. After the 6 weeks they are going to stop running the sessions we go to. They’re going to start up “fitness pilates” whatever that is. I gather it’s faster than normal pilates. Hmm. I’m thinking about getting a book on pilates, a pilates band, and a CD of calm music. Then I can do it myself. Okay, we don’t really have space to do pilates in any of our rooms, though in the lounge we might just about manage it. The trouble is that I haven’t got back into going to the gym. I’m thinking about going back to road running – pretty much all I do at the gym is run on the treadmill. I do some weights and stretching exercises that I can do at home (with some small dumbbells and a gym ball, which we own already) and so it seems a little silly to pay so much money for a service I don’t really use.

I wish we had a free or heavily subsidised gym through work. You’d think, me working for an insurer, that they’d do that. Still, the other benefits aren’t bad. And this isn’t a rant about work, so I’ll hop off the work talk.

I’m going to pick up my new book from WHSmith today. This is the one (or one of the ones) I ordered from Amazon but they failed to deliver due to using HDNL. Anyway, for a whole extra quid I have got it delivered to the WHSmith store in town. It took them two working days to get it there, and they sent me an email to tell me it was there. What more could I ask? To be honest, home delivery can be a pain because I’m usually not in. if I was at home all day then HDNL would have been able to deliver, but I would be unable to afford to buy anything because of the extortionate mortgage rates! Anyway, yes. So I’ve bought “The New Complete Guide To Sewing” I am expecting it to be quite a bit of stuff that I already know how to do (I’ve pretty much figured out some stuff myself) but I am hoping that there’ll be some gems which will help me to make more fitted garments (I generally make stretchy things because there’s more room for error!)
I’m looking forwards to it anyway.

While I’m in town, I might have a look to see if Borders have any more US Imported knitting magazines. I saw vogue knitting and interweave knits last time I was in, but neither inspired me to buy them. I’d quite like to get a copy of knitter’s (despite the apostrophe) because the previous one was really interesting, and had lovely patterns in.
There’s one with some free purple dpns in, Lets Knit or Knitting Today or something. I might get that just for the dpns. It also had a baby-patterns book with it. Yey.
Speaking of baby patterns, I’ve leant my mum some needles and patterns and given her some yarn to knit for a small baby due soon. Sigh. I know that she’d love to knit for a future mini-me, but I’m not in that place yet.

In other news, York is flooding again. It’s not too bad at the moment I think. They had a report from next to the Lowther and the Kings Arms opposite the flat we lived in a few years ago. You expect it to flood there though; it floods there every year without fail. If it didn’t flood there in the winter we’d be having a massive drought. Maybe if I get home before it’s too cold and miserable I’ll have a wander to the flooded bits and take some photos. Oh, except for it’s winter and I’m in northern England, so it’s dark from about 4pm. Maybe I’ll take some on my phone then on the way into and back from town this lunch. (if I have to be outside I might as well make the most of it!)
It’s apparently sunny and 6 degrees Celsius (that’s 42F in real money) so it’s not horrible at the moment. It’s slightly warmer than that in Bruges apparently, my friends in Melbourne are enjoying 20 degrees plus (65F ish) as is my aunt in Florida. I’m not grumbling though, it’s below freezing in Toronto where Yarn Harlot is and she has to go outside too!

I wish it was warmer in the office though. I’m frozen! I’m wearing enough clothes, but I am cold. Perhaps a hot drink is in order.

I’m looking forwards to dinner tonight, we’re having steak and chips. Yum. And then I will be sitting and watching CSI and knitting the manly sweater. I hope that I’ll have time to do the update I mentioned in paragraph 1 while the chips are in the oven. Tuesday nights are good for knitting. Unless the CSI is especially engaging, in which case I’ll probably get a row done in each commercial break! Tsk.
Well, back to some proper work for a bit.

Stuff happened this weekend.

I put up the first pair of curtains for the lounge. I have to hem the other pair and we’ll be half-way there. Photos to come, eventually.
I made progress on Mum’s hat
This is the band on my head (sorry I look rough!), I’ve since picked up the stitches around the top of the band and knit in the round in k2p2 rib for quite a bit. I’ve done some decreases, but it’s not quite done yet. I reckon I’ll finish it tonight, and then get back to L’s manly sweater.

Mum and dad came to visit on Sunday to show us their new car. While we were out there looking at it, we spotted a slightly dodgy looking car in the car park. I took the number of the car and called the non-emergency line for the police. The lady on the line was very friendly and helpful. She confirmed that the car had been stolen and thanked me for reporting it. I’ve done my bit for society this weekend!

We’ve booked a holiday now too. I’m very excited about it! we’re going to Bruges (aka Brugge). We were originally going to go on the Eurostar, but the times weren’t convenient and getting to London is more of a pain than getting to Hull. So we’re going on the ferry instead! We’ve booked a night on the ferry (going there) two nights in a hotel (in Bruges) and then a night on the ferry coming back. It’s quite exciting! Also, L’s said that we can go to the yarn shops in Bruges as well as to the lace museum! Wow. There’s so much to see and do though, I doubt we’ll cram it all in. The hotel deal is very good too, but I’ll tell you all about it when we’ve been.
We’re leaving the Sunday before L’s birthday, and coming back on Valentine’s day morning.

Proud and Prejudicial?

I am both glad and unsurprised. I love Pride and Prejudice more than any of the other Austen novels. It makes me laugh, cry, cringe and yearn! Lizzy is probably the best character from all of the novels.

(PS. found this on Brit Knitter's webiste)

Flood?

This morning the path we normally use to walk to work was flooded. It wasn’t flooded enough to turn back, there was a six-foot stretch that was under about half-an-inch of water.
I was creeping through the water in my all-stars (which have maybe a bit more than a half-an-inch sole and canvass tops) and some idiot decided to cycle through the water quite fast. Not fast enough to splash me, but fast enough to cause some serious ripples. Idiot. But the canvass held up okay and my feet are not wet. I still shouted at him. Tsk. Anyway, we got to the other end of the puddle and I thanked the nicer cyclist who had waited until I had crossed (how thoughtful!)
I think we’ll not use the riverside path to go home this evening!

It’s also pattern day on my page-a-day calendar. Last week I got a shawl pattern, this week it’s a hat and scarf. It’s a pretty pattern but I’m feeling very Meh about scarves at the moment. (Even the nice angora yarn I was using for my scarf isn’t tempting me back to it. I might frog that one.)
I intend to spend some time this weekend working on Mum’s Matching Hat. It’s a hat inspired by the Irish Hiking Scarf, but not quite like either of the patterns I’ve found on Ravelry I’m using the colour from the scarf as a coloured stripe around the center of a band which is running around the bottom of the hat. This is bordered on both sides by some creamy-white yarn. This gives a pretty wide band, about 2-3 inches. Once that’s long enough to go around a head, I’ll join the ends to make a circle. Then I’ll pick up some stitches (the exact number I don’t know yet) and knit in the round to make the hat. I’m thinking about doing it in a rib which is similar to the cable rib, but without the cable. Either that or I’ll do it in 2x2 or 3x3 rib, which is good for decreasing. I might even do 3x2 rib. Who knows, eh?

The gym is going to continue pilates for one more term. Then they plan to put it on timetable but without out current instructor. The benefit of that is that it will be included in the price of the gym membership. The drawback is that it will not be with our current instructor who we get on with very well. We do have the option of attending classes privately with the same instructor, but you can imagine the difference in price to the subsidised rate we currently get!

Oh well.
Work still sucks, I’m afraid. We’re off out for drinks later on today, which will be welcome. I think it might be a tidiness problem.
As I like shoes, I am going to use shoes and a common shoe-based issue as an example. Please bare with me. (is that the right kind of bare/bear?)

We have a procedure which goes as follows: You unlock the front door, open the door, pick up any post, walk down the corridor and turn right into the living room (or dash up the stairs to the loo). Here’s some pseudocode:
Unlock(front_door);
Open(front_door);
If Exists(post) then Pick_Up(post);
Traverse(corridor);
If NeedLoo = True then DashUp(stairs) else Enter(lounge);
Now, the function Traverse(corridor) can fail if InTheWay(shoes) = true. Because you’d fall over them.
This problem is a bug which needs fixing, (so the shoes are dodgy data or something, causing the program (you) to fall over). So, while we should just say “I keep falling over these shoes, therefore I will move the shoes” we can’t do it because there’s also a project trying to lay a new rug down in the hall. Sadly, project NewRug don’t know anything about the shoe error and so they’re doing nothing to combat it. They take a copy of the hallway (shoes and all) and work on that to produce the same entry pattern as present, including cursing at the shoes. We move the shoes here in my bit of the team, but then when the project launches we find that the shoes have crept back – only now they are under a rug.
I think my example has gone crackers. What I’m saying is that we don’t make life easier for ourselves ever. Moving the shoes should be part of the rug laying anyway because otherwise the rug can’t be successful. You know?

Clearly, I need a strong drink. Or certifying. Or maybe both, but let me have the drink before the men in white coats come.

General Work Moan

I’ve ordered some more yarn from Get Knitted in their sale. It’s some more of the lovely SWTC Karaoke. Two skeins are for something for a friend. They don’t know about it yet. The other two skeins were going to be in the colour “black rose” but they ran out (they had 2 skeins last night, but I wasn’t the first person to try to snaffle them!) so I got the same colour as Crafty Drama Queen gifted me in the SP swap. Wild Cherry it’s called. It’s a fantastic colour too, reds and pinks – subtle but also pink. (See pic to left)

I’m blogging this now to take my mind off the fact that work sucks. It’s not that there’s too much or too little to do (there is plenty to do), it’s not that I don’t like my boss (because the current one isn’t bad), it’s not that some of my colleagues drive me bananas (in fact, I like my team) but it just sucks. The longer I sit at my desk trying to think of things to say in people’s feedback or appraisals, the longer I spend trying to figure out what the plan should be, the longer I take to read and reply to emails, the more I realise that I just don’t care.
What’s to care about really? I work in data in an insurance company. As a result of what I do not much happens. Okay, the company as a whole do some useful stuff. People pay the company lots of money so that when the worst happens they don’t have to worry about money. I don’t even feel especially good about that, though that’s another story.
I know that most jobs are as pointless. But some jobs do make a difference to people. Like cleaners. If the cleaners don’t turn up for a couple of days, we’d notice. The place would be dirty and smelly, we might not have any hand towels (though I’m not sure that the cleaners do that.) if the vending machine guy didn’t turn up we’d have no nasty vending machine coffee and tea. (As vile as it is, I’m much happier if I can have a cuppa.)
Anyway, my point is that I don’t necessarily want my job to be a happy-happy-joy-joy make-the-world-better type job, but I’d quite like to get some satisfaction out of it. Whether that be satisfaction that I’m providing a service, creating something or doing something I enjoy.

If I knew what it was that I didn’t like about this job then I’d have a starting point.

So, while I carry on merrily working put up with the dullness of this job I will take the odd chance to look at nice yarn, to read other people’s blogs, to doodle on notepads and generally procrastinate.
The funny thing is, the other day I was thinking that it wasn’t so bad. I wonder what’s happened today to make it seem worse? (my ex-boss is something to do with it, even I can see that, but still I can’t complain when he speaks the truth.)
Perhaps it’s my rebellious anti-authoritarian streak coming back to haunt me. Or maybe I have just been in the same place for too long. I have been here for four years and four months (and four days, tomorrow)
That’s a long time to be in one place. Even though I’ve been promoted, it’s the same old. I don’t know how many of you went to 6th forms attached to your secondary schools? It’s a bit like that if you’re promoted within your team. Everyone knows who you are already but they also have preconceived ideas about you. Changing people’s perceptions is like plaiting snot hard. And back then in 6th form when I felt like that my rebellious streak appeared. I made my hair a silly colour (black with a red hue, then red, then blonde) and wore clothes which were just outside of the uniform policy (skirts a bit too short, platforms when they were banned, tops with logos on them, jeans, you know the sort of thing) (oh – yes, we had “uniforms” in 6th form in that we had to dress like business people.)
Okay, I realise that doesn't sound too rebellious...
Anyway, I shall stop complaining. 6th form was less dull than work is. Though my hair is a funny colour again…

Perhaps it’s just winter blues?

Not 24 hours and more sock yarn

Last night I was online longer than planned which meant that we were late going to the supermarket. Normally on a Monday we would go to pilates and then go to Morrisons after. However, last night we discovered that it shuts at 9pm. No problem, we’ll go round the corner to Sainsbury’s – right? Wrong. Sainsbury’s shut at 8pm. So, we drove to the shopping park to the other Sainsbury’s. that shuts at 10pm, but as it was only 9:20pm we had enough time to dash round and buy stuff.
Who would think – not open 24hours? How bizarre! I wouldn’t have believed it if I wasn’t there.

We did buy lots of locally sourced veg again though. (by local I mean UK. Lots of it was Cornwall and – for some reason – Scotland. The leeks were from Cambridge and the parsnips and carrots from Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire.)

Anyway, while I was online before the shopping happened, I found a new e-bay seller who was selling Opal Feelings. She had some 1702 (the shade I have previously used, in the pic) and also 1706 which I like the look of. I dropped her a note about combining postage. We’ve sorted it out and the yarn is winging it’s way to me now!

However, I still have two 100g balls of burgundy sock yarn, two 50g balls of coffee-coloured (for L’s Earl-Grey socks), one ball each of brown, orange/brown and green (from the Harrogate S&C) and half-a-ball of the Opal Feelings I already have. Also I have some lovely alpaca mix sock yarn from SP11 and some nice 100% wool, both in hanks rather than balls. And yet only one set of sock needles…
And that’s a lot of sock yarn
Well, I’ve been told that sock yarn doesn’t count towards the size of your stash, so that’s some good news at least. And I am looking forwards to knitting some more socks.
Sadly, though, I think I’m going to give up on the gypsy socks for the time being. After making the mistake I couldn’t fix and having to rip back the whole sock (I was only on sock 1) I guess I will put that aside and move on to the socks for L. Socks are nicely portable at least.

If Yoda was a coder...

As seen on Think Geek:

$DO || ! $DO ; try
try: command not found


If you get it, you'll be chuckling (or cackling hysterically like me!)
If not, I'm sorry.

First FO of January, and progress...

Yes, I've finished the Ickle Bag (aka Teeny Tiny Felted Tote) gifted me by Crafty Drama Queen

Also, I've made progress on the curtains (pics on Flickr) and on my quilted picture (from my MIL)

So today's been pretty successful!

Also, I got a lovely birthday card from Lint which is funny because of something silly he did. It's also sweet because it's a fantastic card about a penguin who paints itself pink but then wears lots of knitting. You have to read it. If you know me, and are at my house just ask because it'll be up on the shelf until February (when I'll take em down for L's)

Curtain success part 1

So, we finally went to buy some material for curtains. Hooray!
We started out looking at some luscious material. It was exactly what we wanted and we agreed on it. But it was quite dear. In fact it was £14.99/m. We needed a total of 20m of fabric for what we’re trying to achieve. So, we had to rethink, because that was an expensive bundle of material, especially when it didn’t include voile (net curtains) and linings.
Well, we ummed, we aah’d. We went for a cuppa. We ummed and aah’d some more. We took some samples and left. We tried some other haberdashers. We compared the colours of the swatches to the sofa. Finally, we settled. Yes, we did like the new stuff we’d found, and it was less than half the price of the other material. So we bought it. 12m of brown, 8m of cream, 8m of lining, 3m of voile and 12m of curtain tape. Or so.
I’ll shoot some photos as it progresses.

And so now I have lots of material and a brief to make some nice curtains for the lounge.
If there’s left over material I might manage some cushion covers to match, which would be nice.


But, before I begin on the curtains I’m felting the teeny tiny tote. (Or Ickle Bag, as I’ve called mine)
It’s in the washer in an old pillowcase on a 95° cycle with an old pair of jeans. I hope the jeans don’t run as I love the colour. It’s such a pretty pinky-red colour. The jeans are second-hand and are the ones we adapted for L for the PTH where we were “Flares”

Would you vote for a Cardassian?

This morning when the OH and I were talking about the American election campaign he commented that Barak Obama (the name) sounds like a Romulan.
I disagree, I think it sounds more Cardassian (like Garak from DS9.

I'm not sure what made me chuckle more though, the OH recognising this and picking a reasonable Trek race, or the fact that Barak Obama does put me in mind of a Cardassian.

This came about when we were mentioning that Mrs Clinton is having to be called Hillary everywhere due to her slightly well known husband.
So far, I haven't found anything funny about the other candidates names, but there is still time.

Photo thing

I saw this on Knitting...Procrastination and thought it looked fun, so here goes…

Photo Survey

1. Go to Google Images
2. Search for your answer
3. Pick one image from the first page
4. Post it!

1. Age next birthday
   
   
2. A place you’d like to travel
   
   
3. Favourite Object
   
   
4. Favourite food
   
   
5. Favourite Animal
   
   
6. Favourite Colour
   
   
7. Town you are from
   
   
8. Town you live in now
   
   
9. Name of past pet
   
   
10. Name of past love
    
    
11. Your first name
    
    
12. A bad habit
    
    
13. First Job
    
    
14. Grandmother’s name
    
    
15. College Major
    

It’s taken some time…

But I’ve finally gotten around to sorting out my Google reader.
This is good because if I find that one of the blogs I read has been updated with something funny or interesting I can share it.
And then, there’s a widget I can add from Google reader to blogger which lists the 5 recent things I found interesting or funny or whatever.
So, if you look over there
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - >
You’ll see that I recently read a post from the Yarn Harlot that struck a chord.

Proper post, and randomness

Proper Post
Who am I kidding? Proper post! Hah! I’m too tired to do a proper post. Christmas was fab, by the way. I got some lovely things, ranging from books to clothes to smellies to crafty things to a sat-nav. I had a nice relaxing time away from everything.
Then, new year and my birthday were much as usual. Not out this year, at home with just The Black and my OH. Very nice Chicken for tea though. Either I’m getting old or something, but new year doesn’t hold much excitement. Hey – look, the world didn’t end and we’ve managed to add 1 to a big number (sorry Chip – I know that’s your sentiment that I’ve pinched)

I’m mostly a little grumpy at the moment. I’m at work, it’s 18:05 and I expect to be here for at least four more hours. Okay, so I didn’t come in until 15:00, but really – night shifts? Grr.
Ho hum.
And it’s cold in the office. Boo. I did bring a thermos with me, with some proper tea in it (not the horrid machine stuff, can’t be having that at this time of night)
Anyroad, enough proper blogging, I’m too shattered. Have some randomness:


Randomness
I saw the idea on Knitting Mama’s site and couldn’t resist.
The first line of the first post of each month in 2007:

Jan – I would have back dated this post to near-enough the time I was actually 25 (I doubt that the time is exact, you know) but it will not let me.
Feb – You'll all be glad to hear that I went driving again.
Mar – It seems that everyone in the country is complaining about broadband at the moment.
Apr – Knitting is my pastime
May – Last night was my first pilates class.
Jun – As promised, here are the pics of my new storage solution for my yarn stash
Jul – This weekend my parents were visiting to bring us a sofa-bed
Aug – That’s what I’ve been doing!
Sep – I couldn't resist, I went yarn shopping.
Oct – This post is dotted with pictures of flowers, read on and you’ll understand.
Nov – I can’t view my own blog at work today, it tells me that “The Websense category "Emerging Exploits" is filtered” which isn’t ideal.
Dec – Well, SP11 is all but over, I have one parcel to post tomorrow for my downstream.

And, for the fun of it, here’s the last line of the last post of the month for each month in 2007:

Jan – Who knows.
Feb – The odds of me passing my theory, getting a practical test and passing it within the next fortnight are a bit slim!
Mar – Having actual sock yarn should help a lot.
Apr – Who knows; or cares?
May – Have a great day people, the sun’s out and even I am in a good mood!
Jun – I’m looking forwards to being able to see other people’s work, get help on my knitting, find out about other yarn
Jul – Maybe next year!
Aug – Being back at work sucks too, but I have to earn the money to pay for our fun holidays somehow!
Sep – But I do at least get to work with this beautiful yarn.
Oct – It’s annoying to have people doing that nearby and I don’t want to be one of those annoying people!
Nov – I've loved everything you've sent, and I'm looking forwards to doing lots of "me knitting" once Christmas knitting is done!
Dec – Learnt what a "French seam" is

Review of the Year...

So, for 2007 I set myself the following goals:
Things To Do In 2007
Lose Weight [6lb down][1stone in 2006]
Learn to Drive [Test Passed]
Make/Buy Curtains [1/6 pairs]
Get Leon to Put Up some Picture Hooks [not done] if all else fails, D.I.Y
Learn how to Make Teacakes [not done]
Skill [Complete] Knitting and now some crochet too!
Make a 'garment' each month

I’ve managed to complete four of the eight items on this year’s list:
I lost weight (now a size 12!), learnt to drive, learnt a new skill (knitting) and completed a garment each month (I made a total of 24 garments, ish)
I think that my aims this year will be of a similar nature. I would like to make putting up the new curtains which we have yet to buy an item or three. Job satisfaction should be one, though the means can remain indeterminate. I don’t think I’ll have another new skill on the list – but maybe a new craft (I have the makings of spinning and quilting now, courtesy of my OH and his mum!)
I shall also put visiting people onto my list. There are lots of people I should catch up with, scattered across the country (and, in fact, the globe!) so I’ll add that.
So, my goals for 2008 are:

• Homeware based
• buy/make new curtains for the lounge.
• put up new curtain rails in lounge
• put up new curtains on new curtain rails
• make new cushion covers to match new curtains
• dare I mention picture hooks?
• stain the bathroom cabinet dark (instead of pine)
• work based
• improve job satisfaction
• craft based
• learn a new craft
• make something useful every month
• People based
  • Princess in Birmingham
  • reunite LeRa in Edinburgh
  • London calling
  • Go down under
If I can achieve all that in 2008 I’ll be pretty pleased. PS. Happy New Year Everyone!