The good, the bad and the ugly

the good: I bought this fabulous yarn months ago, Manos del Uruguay. It's handspun, and comes in a million beautiful colors. I've been looking for a good project worthy of this yarn. And I found it here. I used double strands, one of each color, and it turned out quite lovely if I do say so myself.

the bad: I didn't knit a swatch before making the hat, and it is too small. So either I need to reknit it on bigger needles, or I need to find an 8 year old who'd like a nice wool hat.

the ugly: the striped baby blanket. It's done. It sucks. I'm sad. So I'm going to rip it out and make an entire wardrobe of baby clothers out of the yarn. Ah well, you can't win 'em all.

Pathologic Knitter

I think my knitting is beoming an illness. I cannot stop. I'm at work, and all I can think about is coming home and knitting. I'm at the gym, and I can't wait to get off the damn treadmill and come home and knit. That is of course assuming I even made it to the gym, and didn't get so caught up in my knitting that I just didn't leave the house. I can't sit on the couch without knitting. Poor Adam is poked in the side with needles while we are watching movies together. I've decided the problem is my inability to complete any one project before moving on to the next. All part of my ADD. Currently I have 9, yes NINE, uncompleted projects. And I'm working on all of them at once which is why I feel so compelled to knit at all times. My goal is to complete each of those projects by working on only one at a time, and then limit my knitting to Monday night knitting group. I need to reclaim my life.

The current projects (in order of almost completeness):

Pink baby sweater. Adam's sister is having a baby. We don't know if it will be a girl or a boy. This is the gift if it is a girl. It needs a button for the top, and then it is done.

Ivory baby sweater. This is the gift if it is a boy. This is the current bane of my existance. I hate finishing sweaters. See all those loose threads? I have to weave all of those in. I hate that. It needs edging, buttons and some cute little embellishments. I can't wait to see the finished product, but it's annoying me right now.

The Lizard Ridge afghan. This has been an ongoing project for almost a year now. I can't wait to finish it, although it's 100% wool and far too warm for actual use here in San Diego. Yet another reason I need to move back to the northwest. I'm very homesick right now.

A felted bag. I didn't buy enough yarn for this, so it is on hold until I come up with $30 to buy the rest of the yarn. Then it should be a quick finish, it's almost done. I don't know what I will do with it when it is done, it will depend on how big it is after felting.

Brown pullover sweater. This is from the book Fitted Knits, which I love because all of the sweaters are fitted, which is better than most frumpy sweater patterns that are out there. I started this in Austria, and it is a very fast knit. But I've realized, I don't wear pull over sweaters. So my motivation to finish this is waning.

Cream recycled cardiagan. This is the yarn I frogged from one of Adam's old sweaters. It's kind of a boring pattern, and I have more interesting things to work on right now, so it's been put aside until I run out of other projects. But as fall arrives (it's certainly not here yet) I may need a cardigan to wear around the house, so maybe I'll take it up again.

Multicolored baby hat. This is knit on tiny needles and takes forever to finish, and I don't even know if I like it. And again, look at all those loose ends! Finishing this will be hell. So I have hidden it in a drawer.

Baby blanket. Yet to be determined which baby will be the recipient of this. Depends on when I finish it, I suppose. Little needles, boring pattern. But I did enjoy making the little bear who sits in the pocket. I'll finish this eventually.

And finally, the black cardigan sweater that I've been waiting to start work on. I need a black cardigan sweater, and this is a very nice yarn. But I haven't yet gotten started. Someday perhaps...

Finally...

...a day off! This last week was a long stretch. I worked 8 days without a day off. Which wouldn't be too bad, except during those 8 days I worked 115 hours. Needless to say, I had to skip out on the Cure cover band Adam had tickets for and I slept for 13 hours Saturday night. Sunday we went to Kobey's Swap Meet. I hadn't been to a swap meet since I was a kid and we used to go whenever we'd come to San Diego to visit Grandma and Grandpa. It was great, we went with the goal of getting some art work for our living room, and within 5 minutes we had found the perfect pictures. I was all set to use my bargaining skills to convince the guy to sell us both pictures for $5, but when I asked how much they were and he said $2 each, I must say I was actually disappointed as I handed over my $4. I would post pictures, but I have lost the cord that connects my camera to my computer, so my pictures are stuck on my camera for the time being. We also found some mixing bowls, a tape measurer, a grill brush and a fish bowl. I found a sleeper sofa that I think would be very nice in our guest room and I'm trying to convince Adam that it is a good idea. But it is hard to justify spending money on things while we are trying to pay for a wedding. Speaking of the wedding, we are making headway on the planning. We have a venue, a photographer and a band. We should have a caterer by the end of the week. And stay-tuned, the wedding website is in the works and will be unveiled once I have more than 3 entries on it.

This is my last week in the ICU. While I really enjoy working here, the call schedule is killing me. I spend a few hours a day at home, I miss Adam, and I am falling way behind in my knitting! There are babies being born, and I have at least 3 different baby gifts in the works. It would be nice to finish them before the kiddos arrive. As of Friday I have two months of research, which I am really excited about. I can't wait to get back in the lab, and it will be nice to have weekends free. The rest of this month looks to be pretty busy. I'm going to Palm Springs on Friday for a conference. I need to submit my licensing application. I need to finish my fellowship applications. I need to find a wedding dress. But I will get to sleep in my own bed every night. And I can turn my pager off for two whole months. Yay!

Hot! Hot! Hot!

It is hot this weekend. Very hot. Ninety degrees upstairs. I'm hanging out downstairs trying to get some air moving through here, but we only have windows on the east facing side of our house, so you can't get any air movement. What does one do when you have the weekend off but it is too hot to move?

Adam took off for Sequoia National Park, but I had to stay in town as I'm on cross cover this weekend (I get called in if anyone gets sick). So I had a little party. I had some friends over, and we had a great time. We played a mean game of Monopoly (yes, I'm old and somewhat pathetic). I also made lemon meringue pie, but it was just to hot out--the lemon part wouldn't set. The meringue was good though.

Today I bought some wedding magazines. I'm really overwhelmed by all the planning that needs to be done. We still haven't picked a date or a venue (that's on the schedule for this weekend!), which really needs to happen before we do anything else since that is pretty much going to determine our budget. I am resistent to compromise on the venue (or food!) but am completely willing to cut corners on other elements in order to have my wedding where I want it to be (and I think Adam is on board with that plan!). To that point, I also purchased Bridal Bargains, which comes highly recommended. We'll just take it one step at a time, and I'm sure it will all come together sooner or later.

And knitting. What better way to spend your day when it is 90 degrees out, than playing with wool? Current projects:

Baby hat for a friend of Adam's:

It's hard to see without a good close up picture (and my camera just doesn't take good close ups), but it is a sample of various stitches. Once it is finished, it should look something like a jester hat.

Baby blanket for Adam's sister and their upcoming baby:

It looks poufy because I'm knitting it on circular needles. That's a pocket in the middle. Once I'm done (which hopefully will be soon, because quite honestly, this is a very boring project), I'll knit a little bear to stick in the pocket.

Progress on the Lizard Ridge Afghan:

My camera takes horrible pictures indoors. I can't figure out how to fix the lighting, so you can't quite get the full effect of the (almost!) completed afghan, but the close up gives a good look at what the individual squares look like.

Next week I'm off to Austria. It feels like this trip has been in the planning for so long, it's hard to believe I leave a week from Tuesday! I have several other knitting projects sitting in a box in the closet, which I'll probably take to Austria with me. It will give me something to do on the train to Vienna.

Cleaning House

I returned from a short trip to Seattle/Portland last night, and spent the day trying to get my life in order before year two of residency begins on Monday. Annoyingly (is that a word?), I could not do half the tasks I set out to complete since I do not know my employee ID number. Apparently my social security number is not sufficient for identification, so now I have to track down my employee ID number before I can get a new ID or a parking pass.

But frustrations aside, I also spent the day unpacking, doing laundry and finally downloading the pictures from my camera. Today we have something of a hodge-podge post.

First, why I love California:

Produce! Isn't it lovely? Strawberries are nearing the end of their season, and I bought some gorgeous ones at the farmers' market last week:

They made for some tasty shortcake.

On the knitting front, I finally finished what is affectionately known as "the ugly sweater." It was a gift for Michelle's 30th b-day. The green turned out to be, well, a lot more green than I had thought. But I still think it turned out quite nice as far as hand-knitted sweaters go. For my next one (Kate has asked for one, but not in green) I think I'll take in the waist a bit more and make the body a tad longer. Michelle says she will actually wear it, which is why I made it for her. Of all the people I know, she is most likely to wear a hand-knitted sweater (that's a compliment, really!).

And finally, doctoring. For those of you keeping track, I have now finished my internship. I am officially a resident. I will be a resident for two years. Then I will be done. The main difference between internship and residency is the type of responsibility. As an intern, you deal with the day to day details of patient care. You order the medications, you deal with nurses and patients and families, you deal with the logistics of patient care. As a resident, you are in charge of the interns. You do more of the decision making and management. Most importantly, you get more out-patient months which do not have over night call and have weekends off! I start with out-patient allergy, so I will not yet have the full resident experience until August, my first in-patient month. I'll let you know how it goes.

Adventures in Felting

I know I haven't had much to say about work lately. That's because I've pretty much had it with being an intern. I just finished a couple of blocks (month-long rotations) of in-patient, which entails admitting patients to the hospital every other day, figuring out what is (or more often is not) wrong with them and sending them home (unless it is the VA Hospital in which case we send them to a nursing home or to a homeless shelter because anyone who has a home usually has health insurance and does not come to the VA hospital for healthcare). Next month I'm on ICU, which is basically the same except the patients are sicker and we never send them home. We just send them out of the ICU and the the in-patient teams send them to their home/nursing home/shelter. And as of June 22nd, I will be done with this year, and I will get to be a resident and (hopefully) life will be good.

Meanwhile, I knit. My latest adventure: felting. You take a nice non-washable wool. Make something about three times larger than you want it to be, then throw it in the wash and wash it in hot water until it shrinks. I recently made a felted hand-bag:

All it needs is the handles and voila! So much more fun than being a doctor.