Random Friday

Why? Because it’s Friday and I haven’t posted since last week. So many random thoughts have been running through my head this week, but I haven’t had the energy to blog them. Here goes...

1. BB’s 9th birthday was Wednesday. Since we had him last weekend, we took him to a movie (Horton Hears a Who?), to Applebee’s for dinner (his favorite restaurant), then to my parents’ house for cake. The original plan was to go to Science City in Kansas City (one of those hands-on kids’ science museums), but Wendy and Pete came down with a nasty flu, and so could not go with us, so we changed the plan and went to the movie instead. I think BB had a good time. We got him a couple of games for the PS2 and a couple of books. He’s been reading a lot lately. Oh, and he made the honor roll again this past grade period.

2. I knit a sock in 10 days. I haven’t blogged about them yet (see aforementioned lack of energy), but I started a pair of RPM socks two weeks ago, and finished the first one this past Monday. I am only halfway through the toe increases on the second sock, which I started Wednesday night at knitting group. The second one is going to take much longer than the first one because I have a deadline project I started on Tuesday, which is...

3. Moss Grid Hand Towels (Ravelry link) from Mason Dixon Knitting. Late last week I received an invitation to a coworker’s wedding, which is on 3 May - too soon to make an afghan for her. I spent a couple of days searching and came up with the hand towel pattern. I’m planning on making three of them. I ordered the yarn last Thursday evening and received it Tuesday. I chose Knit Picks CotLin. At first I really wanted to use the Euroflax Originals called for in the pattern, but then I saw the cost — nearly $20/skein. That would end up being $40/towel. Uh, no. This coworker is a friend too, but not that good a friend. So, after doing a little more digging, I decided that CotLin would do. I haven’t used it before, and it’s reasonably priced. As of last night, I have finished 3 of the 11 pattern repeats of the first towel. And let me tell ya, this yarn is pretty nice. It doesn’t make my hands hurt the way cotton usually does. I’m not sure if it’s the linen content, the fact that it’s DK weight instead of worsted (which is what most of the cottons I’ve used have been), or that I’m using bamboo needles, but I’m not having any pain, even after knitting for close to 4 hours last night. If I can keep trucking on like this, I may just finish these towels by the wedding date.

4. Speaking of Mason Dixon Knitting, has anyone else noticed the inordinately large number of projects in that book that call for Euroflax Originals? Off the top of my head, I can think of five. It’s a good thing that I almost always substitute yarn when I make a project from a pattern, or I’d be screwed. That yarn is just too expensive for me.

5. Petty little rant: I’ve been reading the Wendy Knits blog for probably the last 6 months. Not for any reason really. I heard it was popular so I put it in my bloglines to see if I liked it. It’s not the best blog in the world, but it’s not the worst either. I like seeing the projects she works on, and her kitty is cute. But she did something this week that I thought was a little odd. Her 6-year blogiversary was this week, so she held a contest. The contest consisted of a bunch of questions to which only her avid readers would know the answers. Questions like: What is her brother’s first name? What was she knitting when she bought her first car? How many iPods does she have and what are their names? Now, is it just me, or do these questions seem a little self-involved? I guess one could argue that writing a personal blog is in itself a self-involved act. But should the writer assume that her readers are so caught up in the blog that they remember all the details of every blog entry written? And if some readers do (there were 5 who got all of the answers correct), should the writer be a little concerned that maybe she has acquired some stalkers? I don’t know. The whole contest quiz thing just struck me as strange. I guess maybe if I had 8,000 readers, I would think differently about them. As it is, I just figure what I write isn’t so exciting that thousands of people would want to read it, much less memorize it.

6. Why, oh why, do people have deeply personal phone conversations at work? If I were having a personal crisis, say, my doctor called to tell me that the ultrasound on my unborn child showed that a critical artery was not developing normally, I would not take such a call at work (what kind of irresponsible doctor gives that sort of news over the phone anyway?), cry at my desk, then call my husband at his place of business and talk about it for 45 minutes. I heard the whole thing in my office not 4 feet from this coworker's office. If she were someone I was closer to, I would have approached her and tried to comfort her. But I don’t know her very well, and didn’t feel like I should intrude. I don’t think she realizes just how much we all can hear. I never have really personal phone conversations at work for this very reason.

7. And finally, I would like to take this time to officially state my opinion about the final four game happening Saturday evening between Kansas and North Carolina, because I know y’all are burning to know. I hate basketball. I don’t care that KU is my alma mater. I have no school spirit — didn’t when I was attending college, and certainly don’t now, 10 years after graduation. I don’t care if they lose. Hell, I sorta hope they will so that we can go back to real life in my household.

Hmm... I might be a little cranky today.