Well, Knitting and Hockey and Work and All

I have achieved much today, at the price of being very tired before 6 PM. Of course, it didn't help that the little maniac next door was up early, dropping things on the floor, and kept me from sleeping after around 7 AM. That's really early for me, on a Sunday, but he's like a howler monkey with a jackhammer; I don't know how old the little devil kid is, but although he says Mommy and Daddy and Yes and No quite clearly, every other sound out of him is noise without words, just yelling, and running, running, running, thump-thump-thump. Lovely neighbor, as you can imagine. (They're not owners, they're subletting, and I keep hoping they'll move to a bigger place, give the kid some space. I'm dreaming.) I'm still doing the laundry, and I rode the bike, and I cooked and did the dishes (well, the crock pot is soaking, but I did the rest), and I am currently very busy ignoring the snow, what snow, I don't know what you're talking about, the Bruins are in Florida and out of team unity I'm with them in spirit .

So! I blocked the lace shawl this morning, since I finally ordered blocking wires last week, and they arrived yesterday. Here's the shawl before:

By the yardstick, the top line is just about six feet.

Where did it go? My toy? It was just here a minute ago.

With blocking wires and pins, after its bath:

It grew about a foot, so it's nice and big now (I used all but 4 grams of the yarn: perfect!). And soft, and light, and warm! Threading the blocking wires through the edges is a pain, but it's much easier to adjust than going with just pins. And fortunately, it dried quickly, since Carlos found the yarn, or at least the texture of the blocking squares, a little too interesting for my comfort. There was at least one, "HEY! NO!" before the shawl came up this afternoon.

In other knitting, I'm making a quick pair of green mittens for Adrienne Martini's mitten tree project, which you can read about here (I'm with her: knitting is my response to a lot of things). And hey, if you're a knitter, think about whacking out a pair sometime in the next six months?

I started the first one yesterday, using bulky yarn that I got at Michael's (my stash is heavy on blue yarn, of course, but remarkably little green). I met up with Mary Ellen for some coffee and knitting in the afternoon, and got to here:

The yarn is actually 100% acrylic (it's from Michaels' own Loops and Threads brand, called Charisma), and it's really soft. These mittens aren't going to fit me, probably because it's a bulky yarn and the pattern calls for super bulky, but that's not a problem since they aren't for me. They're certainly quick and easy, and the pattern would be easy to tweak if I decided to make some for myself: just make the wrist longer, and add a few stitches to make the hand wider too. I picked them up again this afternoon, finished the first one, and have made a good start on the second one.

I was knitting while watching the Bruins game; before I picked up the mitten, I turned the heel on the purse sock. From here:

To use your imagination, but they're ready to knit onward. Going from that to the bulky yarn was startling, and then I rode the bike so I was back to fingering yarn; my hands are so confused.

The Bruins won this afternoon, so that was fun. And Chara scored a goal on a move so fine, it was on hockey blogs before the end of the period; you just don't expect a guy who's six-foot-nine to move like this:

Whoa. And on a side note, I hope we hear about it if the team decides to follow up on the "ballerina" theme and put a tutu in his stall. (Remember his Halloween costume in 2011? Giant bunny? Picture at the end of this post.)

The Bruins only played twice last week, and once was when I was in NY (and in the throes of a migraine, but you only need one reason not to be watching); they've played fewer games than any other team in the league to date. From here on, though, they play three or four games a week until the end of the season. Apparently the quiet week was well-timed, as no less than seven players missed practice before their trip to Florida with flu-like symptoms. (Question: why don't they just say "with the flu"? Why is it always "flu-like symptoms" instead?) I hope they can keep winning; they're playing well, but I think they can be even better. Should be fun to watch.

I had my review at work Friday, and am I glad that's over!

I always get worked up about such things ahead of time, and with a new job and new manager more so, but in this case especially, where I've had so little feedback from my manager so far, I just felt clueless about how it was going to go. It all very well to look at my previous experiences and say they were fine: as the investment commercials say in the small print, past performance is no guarantee of future results. The review itself did go well, though, and other than learning I'll be reporting to my least favorite person in the office from here on, I'm happy. (There's nothing I can do about that, so I'll see how it goes. Maybe I'm being too pessimistic. Though, I don't know; it still bothers me that she didn't appreciate the "stop clubbing, baby seals" poster.) After it was done, I felt limp with exhaustion; this weekend, being mostly restful, was much-needed.

This coming week, I have the usual chiropractor appointments, my stitch and bitch and the other knitting group I go to sometimes, all the Bruins games to watch, and on Friday night, a knitterly treat: the Yarn Harlot! I learned the other day, via an e-mail from my nearest LYS before she herself even blogged about it, that Stephanie is speaking in Watertown on Friday night. I'm not a member of the Metrowest Knitters' Guild, nor do I live or work in Watertown, but it's a reasonable distance to travel for such a fun speaker. Yay! I love an event that says "Bring your knitting. Cash bar."

The other thing this week is that my dear friend JDJ, who sometimes comments here, is starting her new job. I'm so excited for her, as the position seems like it will be an excellent fit for her skills and interests both, and how rare is that?

She is out of practice at starting new jobs, though; we figured out that since she started her last job, in 2000, I have had nine jobs. Nine! Two of them were temp jobs, three I chose to leave (for moving or for my sanity), and three were layoffs. Still, I've never worked anywhere as long as she's been at that job, so this will be a big change for her. Want to wish her well? I'm sure she'd appreciate some good karma heading her way this week.