Bardic Musings

Out-ninja'ed the ninja

2009-12-03T22:45:15Z

Last year the holiday season came upon me as the ninja do--silently and secretly for a surprise attack. This year, I am more prepared. Much more prepared. I mean, It's only 3 December and I have already completed most of my holiday shopping and crafting. Furthermore, I had the shopping done before Thanksgiving. This weekend I will be wrapping presents and preparing things that need shipping to go out on Monday morning.

My family already has the tree up, so it's lots of fun to go visit and see it. I need to see about getting a tree for the apartment, subject to flatmate approval, of course. Dad shared the mp3 folder on his D: drive at work, so I've been listening to Christmas music while I work. He also set up the music bridge at the house, so we have 50+ hours of streaming Christmas music at the touch of a button.

Of course, some things haven't changed much from last year. I still need to desperately put in time cleaning my room. I've been putting it off for a while, and it really does show. A half an hour of work will get it looking quite presentable, but there's still the underlying clutter control problem. I have a plan, though, to take care of it. We'll see if said plan withstands first contact with the enemy.

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Things I've done in which I am well pleased: mostly finished my Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving. Mostly finished my Christmas crafting before Thanksgiving.

Things that make me happy: Christmas trees, Christmas music, knitting, reading, fires in the fireplace, candles, time with family, fun movies

The weather continues to be odd

2009-11-25T05:49:09Z

There was a possum in my parking spot when I got home this evening. It skittered off into the trees when I pulled up, but I could still see it thanks to my headlights. So I sat and watched it. After a couple minutes it moved out from the trees and waddled past my car. I think it was probably about the same size as my family's cat (didn't realise the critters could get that big).

I've managed to get a lot of my Christmas shopping done already, which makes me quite pleased. It definitely reduces my stress levels (though I do need to figure out how to work shipping to various individuals). I'm still in the process of making some things, but that's going well too and I am quite hopeful with regards to finishing.

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Things I've done in which I am well pleased: Got most of my Christmas shopping done. Went to Institute and contributed to the discussion.

Things that make me happy: Thanksgiving, fruit baskets, getting things done

Ice cream!

2009-11-24T06:59:19Z

I had Heavenly Hash ice cream this evening, and it was wonderful. When I was a kid you could find the stuff in every grocery store under several brands, but I haven't seen it anywhere for...years. So I've more or less resigned myself to making do with Rocky Road (anyone who tells you that the two flavors are exactly the same is wrong. Oh so very wrong) when I want something approximating the flavor. But this evening I was up at SNHU with my family for a concert, and afterwards we went to the student center for ice cream. Apparently the selection of flavors they have isn't consistent from day to day, but they had lots of good flavors this evening. Including Heavenly Hash. Now I want to know where they get their stuff.

I have not been participating in NaNoWriMo this year, at least not officially. My goal instead has been to do something creative every day. Could be writing, could be knitting, could be jewelry designing. It could even be cooking or decorating. The point is I do something. I determined before the month started that forcing myself to try to write 50,000 words in an already busy month (not just that many words--reaching the total would be easy--but that many words in a sequence to tell a story) when I haven't really been writing much for the past year is not the best way for me to go about things. Rather than being an inspiring activity it would be stressful and turn into drudgery. That is not how I want to view writing. While I know writing may not always be easy (and sometimes I'll probably say I dislike it greatly) I feel it should be enjoyable.

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Things I've done in which I am well pleased: Wrote up a flavor email for my character's between-game actions for Mage. Planned out my Christmas presents. Daydreamed. Attended the temple.

Things that make me happy: Heavenly Hash ice cream (now I just need to find/make Mayan Chocolate), One Piece, fairytale retellings, audiobooks

Writer's Block: Airplane reading

2009-10-08T04:20:10Z

If you're going on a long plane or road trip, what sort of reading materials do you bring along? Is it different from what you usually read? Will you watch a trashy movie or read a bad novel or magazines just to pass the time?

View 851 Answers

Well, I will always have my scriptures with me if I plan on being away from home overnight. Beyond that the amount and type of reading materials I bring depends on a number of factors, including how long the trip is and how long I will be staying at wherever I am travelling to. In general, however, I'll have at least whatever book I'm currently reading plus two to five alternate book selections and possibly a couple of magazines. I may make concessions based on weight or space (paperbacks instead of hardcovers), but my travel reading material is not substantially different from my non-travel reading material.

I read a lot of fiction (most of it genre), but in a pinch I'll read pretty much whatever is close at hand that looks interesting. Usually this is something of my choosing, since if I have a bag with me I likely have at least two reading choices available to me. Right now my backpack has five or six different books in it and about four magazines, and I'm not even planning on going anywhere far away.

Current Reading: Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading by Maureen Corrigan; Witches Incorporated by K.E. Mills; Candle Man by Glenn Dakin

Phenomenal cosmic powers, and we use them to pants people.

2009-09-05T05:35:23Z

This evening was our first session of Mage (well, we had a character generation session last week, but that didn't involve any playing; it was explanation and tossing ideas about). So this evening we introduced our characters to the group, outlined some backstory elements (I still need to work on mine, but this happens), wrapped up a few lingering mechanical details, and then started playing. Session ran for about five hours, and we all had loads of fun.

When you get right down to it on the most basic level, we spent five hours stealing a spork from another group of mages. We now have enemies, and it promises to be loads of fun. Sadly, I will be missing the next session, but I've already come up with a plausible reason (well, semi-plausible at least): my character is a landscape designer when she isn't doing magic stuff, and she's working on a big contract in western Massachusetts. Her clients have an appalling lack of taste, for they want pink and purple striped roses in their garden, which already has a mess of...interesting flowers (many of which probably should invoke paradox, but they don't since they weren't made with magic).

I'm really looking forward to the next session where I can play.

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Things I've done in which I am well pleased: socialized with people, made plans for the long weekend which include outdoor activity, spent time with my family

Things that make me happy: taking walks, playing games with friends, fun stories, good books, knitting, having plans

September...wait, what?

2009-09-03T20:14:14Z

When I was in public school, summer vacation seemed a nearly endless parade of unstructured, sun-drenched weeks punctuated by regular visits to the public library, swimming lessons, picnics in the park, and family vacations. Once I graduated from high school and moved up into college summer still meant a cessation of structured classes and homework, but I had the structure of work and household chores to fill at least portions of my days. Now that I am working full time I really only experience the relaxed summer schedule on a tangential basis; my morning commute does not require the same precision to negotiate traffic in a timely fashion, and bedtimes tend to slip to later hours.

This year, July and August went by rather quickly. I know I was doing things--time has passed, after all--but I cannot always say what, exactly, I spent my time doing. Oh, there are the general statements like "I went to work" or "I went to church on Sundays" or "I read a lot of books" but the little moments tend to slip away into the recesses of my brain, lost to hazy memory. Everything is still there, but rather inaccessible. So July and August went by rather quickly, and now it is September.

Two weeks ago (look, that was August!) the weather was hot and humid. I had very little energy, and I remember feeling quite grumpy and rather confrontational. This past week the weather has cooled immensely, leading to much improved mood and temperament on my part. It is still technically summer, but it is late summer, the summer that flirts with autumn. Autumn touches the air--especially in the mornings--turning it crisp, and the very first leaves are starting to change, faint touches of gold and rust amid the green.

School is back in session, everyone is adjusting to the more structured schedule of the school year, and I have a craving for school supplies, new books, and cardigan sweaters. Apples are ripening on the trees; signs advertising where you can pick your own apples will show up over the next few weeks. Berry picking is more or less over for the year, and a lot of the tree fruits (with the exception of the aforementioned apples) are finishing up as well. Pumpkins and non-summer squashes are still ripening, and the squirrels have yet to begin their annual "how about we see if we can bean the humans on the head with acorns" ritual.

I want to hold onto these days, days before the air takes on its biting winter chill, days when the light hits everything just so, adding a golden sheen. We are headed for the days where I want to spend my hours outside, exploring. Or inside sunlit rooms engaging in creative pursuits like knitting, needlework, and baking. We are heading to the days where the sky turns a brilliant blue as it is framed by majestic, fire-crowned trees and dotted with fleecy white clouds. Where leaves crunch and shush across the streets and walks, and woodsmoke starts to trace the air. I want to be out in the woods, climbing trees and breathing in the air, crunching leaves and reveling in nature around me. And when it gets a little chillier, or on those wild and rainy autumn days, I want to curl up under an afghan knit from kettle-dyed wool with a good book or maybe some knitting, watching the rain beat against the glass of my window and hearing the hiss of water on the roof. I want to bake apple bread and pumpkin bread and eat hearty stews and roasted vegetables. And I want to do all these things with family and friends.

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Things I've done in which I am well pleased: solved website issues at work, knit a doll-sized tam that looks really good, spent time outside walking every day at work on my lunch hour

Things that make me happy: the approach of autumn, gorgeous yarn, going to Pickity Place with my mom, good books, knowing how to cover textbooks to keep them looking good, cooler weather

Proprietary much?

2009-08-28T04:03:28Z

I have been reacquainting myself with Dreamweaver this past week at work. When last I used the program (in a class at BYU several years ago) it was a Macromedia product in no away associated with Adobe. So there's definitely some ramping up needed to get to CS3 level. Thankfully it comes with a DVD of tutorial videos and some pretty useful help files, so figuring things out isn't that difficult. (It also probably helps that I've been working with HTML off and on since 1996....)

Dreamweaver is a very nice program. There's loads of functionality there, and it's readily usable by WYSIWYG designers and hand-coders like myself. I really like being able to switch between views, or use the split view to see the code and a preview at the same time. These are all things I really appreciated the last time I used the program, so it's good to see they've continued on.

One thing I don't really remember covering in my class, however, was just how Dreamweaver behaves when uploading files from your local site folder to the remote server location. We also didn't cover the creation and use of templates. So I've been learning the hard way how Dreamweaver is just a bit proprietary when templates are used. To the tune of "things break and dun work right if you upload a template-based file using any other program." (-.-)

There are several files for the site which are affected by this problem. Even more frustrating is the fact that I don't have an easy way to fix these files within Dreamweaver; the problem areas are largely in the non-editable regions of the pages. So I've been fixing them the long way, using VIM. Hopefully I will be able to upload the resulting un-screwed-up files and fix everything with little to no fuss. And oh, there will be protocols put in place to prevent further occurrences of this nature. Little things like "don't upload files with spaces in the names" and "if you create a new file based from a template using Dreamweaver or Contribute, upload it with the appropriate Adobe program(s) please."

I'm just glad I know how to fix these sorts of things, even if it does take a lot longer than I would like it to.

Currently Reading: The Depression Cure by Stephen S. Ilardi; several library books

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Things I've done today in which I am well pleased: solved problems at work, took a brisk walk at lunch time, talked with friends, picked up a new calendar/planner for my purse

Things that make me happy: cooler weather (finally!), learning new things, knitting, morning light, chatting with friends

Life list

2009-08-22T18:18:05Z

Since my last post I have:

Purchased a desk. It is a mission-style piece in red-brown wood, and I put it together myself

Brought my computer from my parents' house to my apartment and set it up.

Given myself a sore neck and back from hunching underneath desks fiddling with cables and cords

Gone to work
- Been named the editor and web master for the company's commercial site
- learned more about XHTML, CSS, XML, and JavaScript
- solved problems

Gone to Connecticon
- sold jewelry
- made more jewelry
- saw awesome costumes
- visited with kogarashi, leachonlj, Wiggles, and Nudge

Got interested in/fell in love with ABJDs
- bought yarn to make doll-sized hats
- learned more about my knitting gauge (tight gauge is hard to manage)
- pondered doll-sized jewelry

Read lots of books

Did a lot of knitting

Implemented an organizational plan for my beading/jewelry-making supplies

Finally purchased a mattress for my bed to replace the old, far too soft foam mattress I'd been using

The weather has been very hot and humid this past week, and I haven't been doing so well with the heat. Hope it breaks soon.

Today I watched one of my neighbors wash his truck in the rain.

I still need to get my dresser from yumearashi's place.

I need to do my laundry too.

Menu planning should happen at some point. We have a lot of food here in the apartment, and we really shouldn't let it go to waste.

I'll be teaching the lesson in Relief Society this coming Fast Sunday. I still don't feel prepared.

My room still needs cleaning. This will happen at some point.

I want to spend my time reading and knitting. Or playing games.

What are men to rocks and mountains?

2009-07-09T03:51:22Z

I spent a most enjoyable week up in Bar Harbor, ME, with my family, and from the sound of things we had slightly better weather up there than was had at home (meaning we had two days where it was partially cloudy, rather than rainy). This was the first time I had been to Bar Harbor in seven years, so it was interesting to see how much I remembered and what things had changed.

We stayed at Blackwoods Campground, which is located within the boundaries of Acadia National Park (which is apparently the only national park in the Northeast United States). It took us at least seven hours to make the trip--a stop in Freeport, ME, to visit the L.L. Bean store probably didn't help our speed at all--so despite our best intentions we did end up setting up camp as it was getting dark. It also started drizzling somewhere along the line, but after we had the tents and tarps up.

Because Blackwoods is inside a national park you can't just pick up sticks and branches off the ground to use as firewood, and you definitely cannot chop anything off the surrounding trees. Instead you need to purchase, pack, or otherwise provide tinder, kindling, and fuel from a non-park source. There are many obliging sources of wood bundles all along the roads of Mount Desert Island, but with all the rain we've been having in the area for the past weeks finding dry fuel was a challenging task. The three bundles we purchased that Saturday evening were damp at best, and the combination of rain, general humidity, and lack of appropriate storage meant we were unsuccessful in our firemaking attempts until Monday evening (not even a scout’s "holy water" could convince a fire to start before then, and I felt the only reason the fire danger in the area was listed as Low was due to the lack of a "Good luck with that" category).

There was a break in the rain on Tuesday (30 June), so we took the opportunity that day to go biking on the carriage roads/trails all throughout the park. My dad and brothers went up Cadillac mountain (apparently the tallest Atlantic coastal mountain north of Brazil), but my mom, sister, and I are not in any shape to accomplish that. So while they were going up the mountain we did some driving around and sightseeing. We managed to do about fifteen miles as a family, which is pretty darn good in my book. On the wildlife front during the biking we saw (between all of us) red squirrels, snakes, a turtle, a loon, and a female wild turkey. Oh, and butterflies. I had one land on my back when I was stopped along the lakefront.

Wednesday was another nice weather day, and I went with my mom and sister to do some shopping (yarn shops, yay!) while my dad and brothers rented road bikes and biked the Park Loop, then attempted Cadillac again. It is apparently more difficult with road bikes than it is with mountain bikes due to gear ratios. We all had fun at our various activities, and we met up for dinner at a café that evening.

We had clouds but no rain on Thursday, which allowed us to eat on the tea lawn when we went to Jordan Pond. It was quite misty, however, and we couldn’t see the lake or the Bubbles (two domed mountains) at all. It was also rather chilly, and there was a roaring fire going on the gift shop hearth, with shoppers clustered around it to warm up. Sweaters, jackets, fleeces, and cardigans were the order of the day.

Prior to visiting Jordan Pond we went to Sand Beach (the only real sand beach on the whole of MDI) and Thunder Hole (a granite trough in the cliff face where the sea water rushes in, making a thundering noise). After our visit to Jordan Pond we drove up Cadillac and engaged in some “sightless” seeing, as the top of the mountain was completely wreathed in clouds and mist, so nothing was visible.

That evening we had foil dinners, for I insisted they be made. These were most excellent, since I know how to best prepare the various elements (potatos must be cut very small and/or very thinly in order to properly cook). Brad requested/suggested we include fresh garlic and kielbasa, and I was very glad he did. Both added excellent flavor to the dinners.

I quite like the climate of MDI as a whole. It is apparently quite similar to Scotland, and being up there left me wanting to curl up with either a Hamish McBeth novel or an episode (or two or three) of the television series. Unfortunately, neither thing has come to pass as yet; we are still working on unpacking and getting back into normal life patterns. Still, the apparent weather similarities between the two places has bumped a visit to Scotland quite a bit higher on my List of Places Anki Wants to Visit. Anywhere where I need to be sure to have at least one mid to heavy weight sweater handy during summer gets a pass in my book.

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Things I've done in which I am well pleased: Got all my laundry taken care of. Spent a wonderful week with my family in a relatively low-tech setting (no computer). Went grocery shopping and took care of my messes.

Things that make me happy: biking the carriage roads, reading good books, camping with my family, coming home from camping while still having fun, watching the fireworks, stuffed full omelettes, balsam pine sachets and pillows, my own bed

And Breathe

2009-06-27T04:34:11Z

I have been in something of a holding pattern since my last post, meaning that not a whole lot has been done with regards to unpacking, organizing, and/or moving things from my parents' house to my apartment. I am more or less on top of both my laundry and my grocery shopping, but there are still some kinks I need to work out of the system. Schedule balance continues to be an issue for me, however it should even out somewhat once I get my computer at my apartment and an internet connection established there.

My Institute attendance for this month has been somewhat spotty. I am fairly certain I went the first Tuesday this month, but the second Tuesday I went with my father to the local bike shop to purchase a mountain bike for myself instead. Our family is going on vacation to Bar Harbor, ME, this Saturday, and I was the only one without a bicycle. While I am certain they have bicycle rental options for vacationers in Bar Harbor, I knew I wanted something more permanent than a rental. Something I would be able to use outside of a vacation setting. I also knew waiting until I was in Bar Harbor before getting on a bike would be a recipe for disaster, or at the very least discomfort and a not-so-fun vacation.

In knitting news, on the eighth of June I went to Eats, Knits, and Leaves with my mother and sister. This group meets every month at the (semi) local independent bookstore, and I always enjoy going because I get the chance to knit, see what other people are working on, socialize in general, and browse a well-stocked bookstore. The twelfth of June was Friday Night Knitting, and the thirteenth was Worldwide Knit in Public Day. I picked up enough of SWTC’s Terra (cotton/bamboo blend) to make a simple shirt, four skeins of Mirasol Nuna for another project, and one lovely skein of Blue Heron’s Rayon Metallic in a watery grey color that I have yet to pick a project for. I also picked up the pattern for the shirt I am planning to make and the pattern for a circular(ish) lace shawl that is made using sock yarn (which I still need to purchase). I finished two UFOs last month and made decent progress on several more. Working on my UFOs made me realize I really do need to branch out into areas that are not scarves. Nearly every project I worked on was a scarf of some sort, and there is only so much variation you get from those.

My last reading list update here was back on 12 March 2009, and since that point in time I have more than doubled the number of things I have read (or at least started). Right near the end of April the total number of graphic novels/manga I had read for the year spiked sharply upward as I decided to catch up on Eyeshield 21 after watching the first several episodes of the anime on Crunchyroll. So here are the lists, divided by type (organized by reading start date):

* = first-time reading
borrowed books in italics
still reading in bold

Books Read - 2009
* City of Ashes - Cassandra Clare
* Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off - Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
* Strength and Honor - R.M. Meluch
* No One Cares What You Had for Lunch - Margaret Mason
* The Nixie's Song - Tony DiTerlizzi & Holly Black
* 100 Cupboards - N.D. Wilson
The Ruins of Gorlan - John Flanagan
* The Knitter’s Book of Yarn - Clara Parkes
* Kenny and the Dragon - Tony DiTerlizzi
* The Palace of Laughter - Jon Berkeley
* The Tiger's Egg - Jon Berkeley
* The Paladin - C.J. Cherryh
* Knitting in Plain English - Maggie Righetti
* A Talent for War - Jack McDevitt
* Horizon - Lois McMaster Bujold
* Coraline - Neil Gaiman
* Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy - Jean Webster
* Wild Orchid - Cameron Dokey
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH - Robert C. O'Brien
* Moon Called - Patricia Briggs
* Blood Bound - Patricia Briggs
* Iron Kissed - Patricia Briggs
* Bone Crossed - Patricia Briggs
* Graceling - Kristin Cashore
* Rasco and the Rats of NIMH - Jane Leslie Conly
* Cry Wolf - Patricia Briggs
* RT, Margaret, and the Rats of NIMH - Jane Leslie Conly
* The Vast Spread of the Seas - Fuyumi Ono
* The Magic Thief: Lost - Sarah Prineas
* The Hunt for Dark Infinity - James Dashner
* The Colour Magic - Terry Pratchett
* Terrier - Tamora Pierce
* The Light Fantastic - Terry Pratchett
* City of Glass - Cassandra Clare
* The Ruby Key - Holly Lisle
* Bloodhound - Tamora Pierce
* Wolf Moon - Charles de Lint
* Furies of Calderon - Jim Butcher
* Book of Names - John Peel
* Book of Signs - John Peel
* Book of Magic - John Peel
Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen
* Book of Thunder - John Peel
* Endymion Spring - Matthew Skelton
* Planet X - Michael Jan Friedman
* Book of Earth - John Peel
* Dauntless - Jack Campbell
* Fearless - Jack Campbell
* The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett
* Eon: Dragoneye Reborn - Alison Goodman
* Prada & Prejudice - Mandy Hubbard
* Academ's Fury - Jim Butcher
* Cursor's Fury - Jim Butcher

Graphic Novels/Manga Read - 2009
* Serenity: Better Days - Joss Whedon et al
* Sugar Princess, volume 2 - Hisaya Nakajo
* Red River, volume 23 - Chie Shinohara
* I Hate You More Than Anyone, volume 6 - Banri Hidaka
* Red River, volume 24 - Chie Shinohara
* Love*Com, volume 10 - Aya Nakahara
* V.B. Rose, volume 4 - Banri Hidaka
V.B. Rose, volume 1 - Banri Hidaka
V.B. Rose, volume 2 - Banri Hidaka
V.B. Rose, volume 3 - Banri Hidaka
* V.B. Rose, volume 5 - Banri Hidaka
* Pieces of a Spiral, volume 1 - Kaimu Tachibana
* Pieces of a Spiral, volume 2 - Kaimu Tachibana
* Pieces of a Spiral, volume 3 - Kaimu Tachibana
* Pieces of a Spiral, volume 4 - Kaimu Tachibana
* Pieces of a Spiral, volume 5 - Kaimu Tachibana
* Crown of Horns - Jeff Smith
* Penguin Revolution, volume 7 - Sakura Tsukuba
* I Hate You More Than Anyone, volume 7 - Banri Hidaka
Eyeshield 21, volume 3 - Riichiro Inagaki
Eyeshield 21, volume 4 - Riichiro Inagaki
Eyeshield 21, volume 5 - Riichiro Inagaki
Eyeshield 21, volume 6 - Riichiro Inagaki
Eyeshield 21, volume 7 - Riichiro Inagaki
Eyeshield 21, volume 8 - Riichiro Inagaki
Eyeshield 21, volume 9 - Riichiro Inagaki
Eyeshield 21, volume 10 - Riichiro Inagaki
Eyeshield 21, volume 11 - Riichiro Inagaki
Eyeshield 21, volume 12 - Riichiro Inagaki
Eyeshield 21, volume 13 - Riichiro Inagaki
Eyeshield 21, volume 14 - Riichiro Inagaki
Eyeshield 21, volume 15 - Riichiro Inagaki
Eyeshield 21, volume 16 - Riichiro Inagaki
Eyeshield 21, volume 17 - Riichiro Inagaki
Eyeshield 21, volume 18 - Riichiro Inagaki
* Eyeshield 21, volume 19 - Riichiro Inagaki
* Eyeshield 21, volume 20 - Riichiro Inagaki
* Eyeshield 21, volume 21 - Riichiro Inagaki
* Eyeshield 21, volume 22 - Riichiro Inagaki
* Eyeshield 21, volume 23 - Riichiro Inagaki
* Eyeshield 21, volume 24 - Riichiro Inagaki
* Black Cat, volume 18 - Yabuki Kentaro
* Black Cat, volume 19 - Yabuki Kentaro
* Black Cat, volume 20 - Yabuki Kentaro
* Gifted - Joss Whedon et al
* Dangerous - Joss Whedon et al
* Torn - Joss Whedon et al
* Unstoppable - Joss Whedon et al
* Wanted - Matsuri Hino
* Clover - CLAMP

Abandoned
* The Risen Empire - Scott Westerfeld
* 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Steven Covey
* The Lies of Locke Lamora - Scott Lynch

The bulk of the text of this was written at least a week ago. I leave for Bar Harbor tomorrow (technically later today) and won't be back until around July 4th. Computer access is likely to be non-existent, but I will have my telephone.

You know, I think I can do this.

2009-05-22T21:42:35Z

At this point in time, I am fairly certain all the books that were not in the attic at my parents’ house are now on the bookshelves in my apartment. There are probably some books still lurking in the boxes filled mostly with papers and other items I need to dedicate a couple hours to going through, but for the most part my books are on the shelves in some fashion. Organization is another thing entirely, but it’s also less crucial than the initial push to get boxes empty and out of my room. At present I am trying not to think too much about the fact that many of these boxes will be coming back to my apartment, filled with things I did not pack up in the first push. That way lies madness, and I really am liking the whole avoidance of crazy as a general rule.

One of the items I did not pack up in the first push was my computer. It is still sitting in my parents’ basement where it has been for the past four years, and when I want to use it I drive over there to do so. This may also seem rather mad to people, but really there was no point in making certain I had my computer at the apartment the very day I moved over. For one thing, I do not yet own a desk, so I would have no place to put the computer in order to use it. And, more importantly, there is no internet connection in the apartment yet, so even if I had my computer in the apartment I would need to go elsewhere in order to do most things. Since my computer is not a laptop I am rather limited in the mobility department--people give you funny looks if you tote around a desktop computer in a little cart wherever you go, and the wheels get stuck on things.

So for the time being, whenever I want to use the computer I have to drive over to my parents’ house. This can make for some interesting scheduling issues. It certainly tends to put me in bed later than I would really like, and it requires a little more planning than I otherwise would do. Still, on the positive side of things I am less distracted by my computer when it isn’t sitting there, and I tend to be more productive. Having my computer at my parents’ house also ensures that I am over there on a regular basis to see my family. You know, in case FHE, dinners a couple nights a week, and doing my laundry didn’t do the job properly (which, I am fairly certain, at least my sister feels is the case).

This past Saturday I made my first official menu plan and grocery list. Well, my first since graduating from BYU and moving back to NH, that is. I did not want to do any sort of substantial grocery shopping without both things in place because that way also lies madness, and a blown food budget. Even with the menu plan and grocery list I still forgot just how expensive the initial "stock up" shopping trip invariably ends up being. The last time I really had to worry about that particular aspect of things was something to the tune of seven years ago. It was also in Utah, and food prices are lower there than they are here.

The other thing I forgot was just how much time a grocery shopping trip can take up, particularly one of the "let’s stock up" variety. I figured that an hour would be more than enough time to get everything done. I mean, I had a list, right? And I was planning on going to the store I was most familiar with, which would cut down dramatically on time spent since I would know where everything was. All that planning and figuring on my part must have tripped an alarm in Murphy’s lair, letting him know I needed to be taken down a peg or two for my assumptions.

It took me three hours to get through that shopping trip from the time I left the house with my list to the time I got back with all the groceries and had everything put away. There were a number of things I neglected to put on my list (staples, for the most part), and I actually forgot to grab two of the things on my list--milk and orange juice--which meant I needed to go back into the store after I’d brought my first cart of purchases out to my car. Still, I did finish the trip, and now I have real food in my apartment, including at least a basic spice cabinet. This is by no means complete, but the initial outlay has been performed, at least. I have all the spices I know I’ll be using regularly, three selections of vinegars, and basic baking supplies.

On the entertainment side of things, I’ve seen Star Trek (and got my sister hooked, apparently), done a lot of knitting (finished one UFO and have made good progress on two others), finished listening to The Lord of the Rings (52+ hours of audiobook goodness), and read what many people might consider a ridiculous number of books (most of them were fast reads). I’ll post more about all of these things later, however.

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Things I've done in which I am well pleased: Grocery shopping and menu planning! Shopping for other things I needed, like laundry baskets and trashcans. Finished one knitting UFO and made good progress on others.

Things which make me happy: Getting things from the library, figuring out a schedule and routine, spending time with my family, watching really spiffy movies

On Books

2009-05-12T21:21:03Z

I have made it a goal to unpack at least one box every evening after I get home. As most of the boxes are the smallish type from U-Haul, this is a very manageable endeavour; each box requires between fifteen and twenty minutes of time to sort out at the longest. Additionally, most of these boxes are filled with books which are more or less in the shelf order I was using before things were packed away, so most of my work consists of deciding which shelf or shelves the books will go on in my new system.

Last night I emptied five boxes, though one of the boxes did not remain empty--I am using it to hold items (books, mainly) I do not think I will keep in my collection. Still, even that box is mostly empty, and my shelves are looking much more homey. It is still a bit difficult to determine how much free space I will have on the shelves; I am following the same practices I always have for book storage, which may not be the most attractive, but they certainly are practical. Hardcover books may yet prove to be troublesome, but that depends entirely upon what my ratio of hardcovers (and trade paperbacks) to mass market paperbacks winds up being. It also depends on how I place the books upon the shelves. At present, however, I feel as though I have an almost ridiculous amount of space available (provided I do not think about all the books still in the attic at the house, of course).

Adventures in Needlework, Moving, and Life

2009-05-12T02:53:24Z

The past ten days or so have definitely been...interesting. I had a wonderful time at Celebration of Needlework with my mom. We went to a lecture on sampler alphabets through history which was very enlightening in multiple aspects. I was unaware, for example, that the letter J was the last letter added to our modern alphabet, and that while we functionally had a 26-letter alphabet from the mid-1600s onward, scholars viewed it has having only 24 letters (with two variant forms) until the middle of the 19th century. I also learned the "rules" regarding the use of the long s, such as they are (Not that I expect to ever need to use those rules, since that character fell out of general use sometime around 1820).

We learned that the earliest book of needlework patterns ever printed/published came out in 1523, and as one of the handouts for the class we got a small sampler with letters from that time period. It was very interesting to see just how much printing and publication affected the styles of sampler alphabets. The lecture left me wondering whether or not needlework samplers exist for cultures which don't use the Roman alphabet to form their words. The closest we got to this was a sampler which had both English and Hebrew on it.

Beyond the one lecture neither of us attended any classes. This was a change from what we've done in past years, but both of us agreed that we should focus more on what we had already than taking classes which would generate more projects (especially since we still have lots of class projects from previous years that are not yet finished). Instead we spent time in the Stitchers' Lounge, and we wandered around the shop booths on Saturday. I ended up spending a little more money than I had intended to, but not much.

I'll have to look over what I purchased again, but my present recollection (not having anything in front of me) is that my tastes have become decidedly more flora-based, and I'm developing a penchant for working on projects which will be useful as well as decorative. This last may be an influence of knitting--one of the draws of knitting for me is the creation of items which will be used for something, not just admired as they hang on the wall. In both my needlework and knitting I continue to be drawn to fine and specialty fibers. I love working with them, and the quality of the finished product--regardless of what that product may be--is increased as the quality of the materials rises.

Since that weekend, however, I have not exactly had much time to stitch or knit. Work keeps me busy, and I tend to read on my lunch break (it is easier to manage food and a book than food and any form of needlework). Plus, I've been doing the whole "chicken with its head cut off" thing due to the moving situation. I really don't handle stress all that well, and moving is one of those naturally high-stress situations at the best of times.

On Monday or Tuesday I came home from work and went rummaging about in the attic for my linens and my dishes. I found most of them, but there is at least one bin which is still in limbo up there. Still, most of them is a good ratio, particularly since I do have enough to get by on (at least one complete set of towels, at least one complete set of sheets, etc).

Wednesday my father and I went to Ikea after work to pick up the furniture I was in need of. This was my first time being in the Stoughton, MA, store; they seemed to have more "display homes" than the New Haven store, and the order of things on the display floor seemed a little different as well. I really want to spend more time there when I'm not feeling quite so rushed and on a mission. There are a lot of really good ideas to be had there, but you really can't take them in all at once.

After we got the furniture we brought it back to my apartment, but we didn't start putting it together. By that time it was 11:00 at night and we were both very tired. We also knew that putting together furniture really isn't something you can do in a half an hour, or even an hour.
Thursday I was supposed to do more packing, but I watched several episodes of Eyeshield 21 instead. Not my wisest move, that is certain. I did do a little packing, but hardly enough to really qualify.

Friday was Friday Night Knitting, and I really needed that time to relax. Of course, that evening I did get just a little frustrated after FNK when my "best laid plans" did not come to realization--I wanted to get all my furniture put together that evening so things would be totally ready for me to move in, only it got late. I threw a little bit of a tantrum, a fact I am not exactly pleased to admit. It was not my finest hour, and stress and frustration really aren't an excuse.

It all worked out in the end, however. I got a fairly good night's sleep, and we did the moving on Saturday as planned. Three of the elders from my ward came over to help (a bit of a miscommunication happened there too, but it worked out nicely), and my family helped a lot as well. My dad spent several hours putting together my furniture while I was packing things into boxes and driving the boxes back and forth.

We finished for the day at 12:30 that night. Yeah...it was late. I am still tired from moving things around and getting everything organized. I am still living out of boxes, and my computer has not yet been moved over to the apartment. I also have not gone shopping (or planned menus) so I really don't have any food in the apartment.

But I have a bed to sleep in, I have boxes in neat piles in my room, I have some books on my shelves, and I am settling in. Things are going to work out.

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Things I've done in which I am well pleased: got functionally moved into my apartment, even if I am working out of boxes still. Managed to give a ten-minute talk at church, despite not having a whole lot of time to prepare. Got up on time for work this morning.

Things that make me happy: being able to relax some, getting things straightened out in my new apartment, learning, spending time with family

Life = Crazy

2009-05-01T03:40:21Z

The weather this past week has been more in keeping with June or July rather than April. This had me...less than pleased, for I am not exactly fond of hot weather. I start to wilt when temperatures get above the mid 80s. Still, the humidity has been low, and the weather has been more April-like for the past day or so. I hope this trend continues.

On the 17th I drove down to CT to visit kogarashi and leachonlj for the weekend. We had loads of fun, and I took a lot of pictures of pretty trees and amusing squirrels when we went to the park to look at the cherry blossoms that Saturday. We also got to play Once Upon a Time, which is a storytelling game I picked up back when I was at BYU, and several rounds of Ligretto and a couple games of Tsuro. I really enjoy being able to play games like that.

While I was down there I also got the chance to go to Ikea again to look at the bed I've been considering. I've discovered that while I may be something of a genius when it comes to fitting more (small) things into a space than should really go there, I'm no great shakes at accurately manipulating larger items without confirmed visuals. So yeah, I could get the dimensions of the bed off the internet, and I could even compare those dimensions to the dimensions of furniture in our house, but I still wouldn't feel comfortable with it. Now that I've seen the bed I have a much firmer grasp on things, and I can make them fit together in my mind.

Of course, the trip to Ikea is also part of the overall crazy. I am in the process of moving, something I have not done for just over four years. The last time I moved, I didn't have to worry about furniture, since I was going from one BYU-approved (furnished) apartment to another equally approved and furnished apartment. Yeah, I had a small bookcase, and I had a lamp or two. Those hardly count as actual furniture, however. So the whole furniture thing is stressful. I know what I need, and I know what I have access to. The logistics of purchasing and moving and assembling are not as clear.

Moving day is set for the 9th of May. This past Sunday I went over and got my keys, and I measured the bedroom. I'm fairly certain it is larger than the room I'm sharing with my sister currently. It certainly isn't smaller, so I should be okay. Since Sunday I have taken over two smallish loads of stuff, including three pieces of furniture (two of which are in the bedroom). However....

Very little of my stuff is packed. I still need to unearth my kitchen and linens from the attic, and I need to make sure they are clean and usable. My closet is still a portal to chaos and despair, even if I have made some headway in cleaning it. I have no idea when I'm going to be able to purchase furniture like my bed before moving day--it has to be sometime during the week. And I need someone to help me, since I have no way of moving a 225 lb piece of furniture on my lonesome.

This weekend is busy because of Celebration of Needlework on Saturday and break the fast on Sunday. Oh, and I have my first Relief Society Presidency meeting on Saturday evening. At my house. We're doing dinner. Still not sure what we're going to eat, which could be problematic.

I guess there's a fair deal of truth in the adage that things come in threes. For me it's been a new job (two months now), a new living place (very soon), and a new calling with quite a bit more responsibility.

I can't say as I'm great shakes at juggling either. I drop things.

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Things I've done in which I am well pleased: Made good headway in organizing my paper clutter. Started moving things over to the new apartment.

Things that make me happy: cooler weather, Celebration of Needlework, knowing where I can likely buy bookcases, knitting, reading, Eyeshield 21

Life update

2009-04-16T04:00:58Z

So. It's been...over a month. I'm settling in nicely at my new job, and they are keeping me quite comfortably busy. I've been learning lots of new things as well as brushing up on older and half-remembered skills. Most recently I've been figuring out CSS, and I've determined that IE is a non-standards-compliant pain in my backside. Of course, I probably would have re(realized) this a whole lot sooner had I been keeping up with design work instead of...redirecting my focus.

I have been put in charge of my company's intranet site, which is currently lacking in real content, under-utilized by our employees (I don't know that anyone really uses it currently), and poorly designed. Internal style sheets on every page, obviously WYSIWYG-based code, and rather broken in Firefox. It isn't clean, and I rather doubt it is standards-compliant. I'll have to check the version I haven't been messing around with tomorrow.

Because of this assignment, I have also been relearning VIM, which I find to be an excellent tool for editing HTML. Syntax highlighting, very little need to switch between keyboard and mouse, and lots of functionality. All excellent points in my way of thinking. So very much improved upon my days of using Windows Notepad to edit my HTML (which weren't all that long ago, to be honest). While I know there are lots of tools out there like Dreamweaver and the like, I've always found it difficult to use them. With WYSIWYG editors the code isn't always clean, and if something goes squirrely or pear-shaped it can be harder to fix because I wasn't working with the straight code from the outset.

I will say this, though...after spending several hours using VIM almost exclusively it can be something of a challenge to remember that ESC doesn't throw me into a non-insert mode where I can use H, J, K, and L to scroll quickly through a document, and that I really can't use those keys to scroll through a webpage.

In other news, I'm still reading a lot (no surprise there), and I'm currently working my way through City of Glass by Cassandra Clare. This is the third book in Clare's The Mortal Instruments series, and I'm still not sure how I would classify the series. I like it and enjoy it, which typically means I find myself needing to buy it, but I don't really have that urge in this case. I've been borrowing the series from the library, and while I wouldn't mind reading it again (and I probably will read it again at some point), I am perfectly happy keeping it at a borrowing level.

That's probably just as well, since there are tons of books (probably literally as well as metaphorically) which I do end up buying, even if only to just have them "on hand" should the mood strike me.

I also bought myself a wire jig. I'd been eying the nice metal ones for a while, but always had trouble justifying the expense to myself. Until, that is, I was at Joann's Fabrics picking up some weaver's cloth (for punchneedle embroidery) and I noticed that all jewelry-making tools were 30% off. This included the wire jig, and brought it down to what I considered a perfectly reasonable price for a good tool, so I bought it. I'm still getting the hang of things, but I've made one thing that turned out the way it was supposed to! I want to get myself some nice copper and brass wire to make components with.

This weekend I'm going down to CT to visit kogarashi and leachonlj. Because of where I work I get Patriot's Day off (third Monday in April, also the date of the Boston Marathon), so I'm taking advantage of the long weekend. Should be loads of fun!

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Things I've done in which I am well pleased: Started teaching myself CSS for real, instead of just reading about it. Went on a walk earlier this week during my lunch hour. Made arrangements to move into an apartment.

Things that make me happy: good books, SPRING!!, knitting, learning new things, brushing up on half-remembered skills

Throwing away stale cookies

2009-03-13T04:08:44Z

Sometimes you just need to get rid of old cookies so websites will actually load. I (re)discovered this fact last night when I tried to go to the SFBC website in Firefox, and I got an error. The site was working earlier that day when I logged in while on my lunch break at work, so I wasn't sure what had changed. For a while there I thought it might be a problem with Firefox, but it just seemed silly that a major website would be totally incompatible with a big browser like Firefox, especially since it had worked not that long ago.

The error message I got mentioned that disallowing cookies might cause the site to not load, but I didn't pay much attention to that at first. I don't actively block cookies from any of the sites I visit, and I don't regularly clean out the cookies folder. Normally this is not an issue; cookies stay in the folder until they expire, then they disappear.

However, due to a major site rebuild by SFBC, the cookies in my folder were stale and inaccurate. I wasn't disallowing cookies, but the ones I had were giving Firefox indigestion. After I threw them out everything loaded just fine, and I was able to poke around the shiny new SFBC site.

Whereupon I discovered that part of their major overhaul was culling all the old, discontinued titles from their database. This isn't something I really consider a problem, since it helps to make things run more smoothly, and it allows for a more accurate accounting of club offerings. However, I had no real record of all the titles I'd saved on my wishlist, and there was one book in particular that I really wanted to look up. SFBC was no longer carrying it, and I couldn't remember the title, or the author's name. I knew it was a coming-of-age story, and it was science fiction, not fantasy. I also knew I would recognize the title/author combination when I saw it.

That really isn't a whole lot to work with. Luckily, I did have old fliers from the club, including a copy of last year's Universe, so I was able to find the book (Rite of Passage by Alexei Panshin; my library doesn't have it, nor is it regularly stocked by any of the local bookstores) once I figured out where I'd stashed the fliers.

On the subject of books, I've started/read 46 things so far this year.

Reading list so far for 2009:
- City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare
- Serenity: Better Days by Joss Whedon (graphic novel)
- Stephanie Pearl-Mcphee Casts Off by Stephanie Pearl-Mcphee
- No One Cares What You Had for Lunch by Margaret Mason
- Strength and Honor by R.M. Meluch
- The Nixie’s Song by Tony DiTerlizzi & Holly Black
- 100 Cupboards by N.D. Wilson
- The Ruins of Gorlan by John Flanagan (reread)
- The Knitter’s Book of Yarn by Clara Parkes
- Kenny & the Dragon by Tony DiTerlizzi
- Sugar Princess, volume 2 by Hisaya Nakajo (manga)
- The Palace of Laughter by Jon Berkeley
- The Paladin by C.J. Cherryh
- Horizon by Lois McMaster Bujold
- Coraline by Neil Gaiman
- Red River, volume 23 by Chie Shinohara (manga)
- Wild Orchid by Cameron Dokey
- I Hate You More Than Anyone, volume 6 by Banri Hidaka (manga)
- Red River, volume 24 by Chie Shinohara (manga)
- Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien (reread)
- Moon Called by Patricia Briggs
- Blood Bound by Patricia Briggs
- Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs
- Bone Crossed by Patricia Briggs
- Love*Com, volume 10 by Aya Nakahara (manga)
- V.B. Rose, volume 4 by Banri Hidaka (manga)
- V.B. Rose, volume 1 by Banri Hidaka (manga, reread)
- V.B. Rose, volume 2 by Banri Hidaka (manga, reread)
- V.B. Rose, volume 3 by Banri Hidaka (manga, reread)
- V.B. Rose, volume 5 by Banri Hidaka (manga)
- Rasco and the Rats of NIMH by Jane Leslie Conly
- Pieces of a Spiral, volume 1 by Kaimu Tachibana (manga)
- Pieces of a Spiral, volume 2 by Kaimu Tachibana (manga)
- Cry Wolf by Patricia Briggs
- RT, Margaret, and the Rats of NIMH by Jane Leslie Conly
- Pieces of a Spiral, volume 3 by Kaimu Tachibana (manga)
- Pieces of a Spiral, volume 4 by Kaimu Tachibana (manga)
- Pieces of a Spiral, volume 5 by Kaimu Tachibana (manga)
- Crown of Horns by Jeff Smith (graphic novel)
- The Tiger’s Egg by Jon Berkeley
- Knitting in Plain English by Maggie Righetti (current reading)
- A Talent for War by Jack McDevitt (current reading)
- Daddy-Long-Legs and Dear Enemy by Jean Webster (current reading)
- Graceling by Kristin Cashore (current reading)
- The Vast Spread of the Seas by Fuyumi Ono (current reading)

Abandoned:
- The Risen Empire by Scott Westerfeld

This evening was my sister's monthly book group at the Toadstool Bookshop, and I was her driver (thought I wouldn't be able to earlier this week, but my training was pushed back a week). Got to listen in, and I found more books. I wrote down more titles than I purchased though, which is good. And she got an ARC for The Magic Thief: Lost, which I will definitely need to borrow from her once she's finished with it

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Things I've done in which I am well pleased: Posted two days in a row. Got to work nice and on time. Didn't buy as many books as I could have.

Things that make me happy: knitting, new books, old books, reading in general, spending time with my sister

An update!

2009-03-12T03:58:02Z

I decided more or less on the spur of the moment this evening that it was time and past for me to overhaul the look of this journal. I'd been using more or less the same layout since I started posting back in 2003, and it was looking rather tired to me. So I spent the last two or three hours doing said overhaul. Similar color scheme, but different layout format. This change also included formatting a pair of LibraryThing widgets to stick in my sidebar (honestly, that's probably what took the bulk of the time).

It's been a little over a week since I started my new job, and I've been learning a lot. Today I had training on the company's electronic documents management system, specifically for the administration end of things. I'm not the only person in the admin group, but it isn't a particularly large group.

I've also been working with MSProject 2007, and Office 2007. Project is a completely new experience for me, but I'm finding it to be a very interesting tool to work with. I'm looking forward to the actual training I'll be getting in a few weeks. Right now I'm working with a Step by Step book released by Microsoft and the occasional, cautious forays into existing project plans we have at work. While I am learning this way, focused training with a more experienced instructor will really help.

I was not expecting any sort of learning curve on the rest of the Office suite. I've been using programs like Word and Excel for years, and I'm not exactly unfamiliar with Outlook either (however much I may dislike the program). However, Office 2007 is...different. There are definitely things I like about it, but it is going to take some getting used to. They've moved things all around with the new ribbon system, and I frequently find myself hunting for options and menu items I used to know right where to find.

On the weather front we had gorgeous, spring-like weather on Saturday and Sunday, which was followed by six to eight inches of snow on Monday. Welcome to March in New England. *sigh* As beautiful as snow can be, I am really getting tired of it and I wish that we could have actual spring, even if it does mean loads of mud and the return of biting bugs. Thankfully, we've had warmer weather (read: above freezing) for the past two days--and rain--so the snow from Monday has been melting off fairly quickly. At least it has in the non-shaded areas. Around this time of year you can really tell which areas stay in shade most of the day, since they remain covered in snow far longer than anywhere else.

Saturday was also my first double knitting class. Double knitting is like a magic trick, even more than regular knitting. Using just an ordinary pair of knitting needles you knit a double-sided (knit on both sides) fabric in one piece. Seaming and grafting not necessary. I shall have to take pictures of my swatch, which is currently all I have completed.

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Things I have done in which I am well pleased: Gone to Institute two weeks in a row. Returned my library books on time. Kept my room looking nice and neat for over a week.

Things that make me happy: learning new things, listening to Lord of the Rings, knitting, reading, Girl Scout cookies

Tuesday's child is full of grace

2009-03-04T04:51:45Z

Tuesdays are going to be long, and I am just going to have to get used to this fact and adjust my schedule accordingly. I'm not sure how long this adjustment is going to take, but I've adjusted to plenty of other things in my life with regards to scheduling, so it shouldn't be that hard. This might take a bit more adjusting than usual, however, since I start training next week (on Tuesdays and Thursdays) which will change things up for me schedule-wise.

Institute this evening was awesome. We talked (among other things) about praising God more often in both prayer and discussion. Brother Chapman pointed out that far too often we tend to avoid forthright praise of God and His goodness in our meetings, and that really isn't how it should be. The scriptures are full of examples of men and women who actively praise God when they speak and preach and prophesy.

I know it's something I need to pay more attention to in my own speech. For I do love my Heavenly Father, and while I know I acknowledge His hand in my life in my prayers, I rarely do so in my public speech and discourse. His great power and goodness allow me to accomplish so much in life.

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Things I've done in which I am well pleased: Didn't get lost on my way from work to Institute. Went to Institute.

Things that make me happy: studying the scriptures, being with my family, learning new things

Changes

2009-03-03T04:34:32Z

Today went well. The snow did make us later to work than I'd like, but it's understandable when you can't drive any faster than about 40 mph on the highway and stay safe (and that speed is pushing it on the safety/control aspects). We got to work safely, I got settled in, and I started learning.

I am, however, still in that surreal state that comes with major changes. I'll probably be there for at least a week if not longer. What I'm doing now is so different from my last job that it's really hard to compare them or even correlate them. So essentially I spent the work day feeling like I should be at work. *wry grin* I know this will pass, since I felt that way after graduating from high school, graduating from college, and every time I've started a new job.

Tomorrow I'll be driving myself in, since I have Institute in the evening and will most likely be going straight there after work (it doesn't make a great deal of sense for me to drive all the way home, then turn right around and drive half my commute again).

I've determined that I need to get myself audio books for the commute. I'm just not entirely sure where to start on this. I don't have a large mp3 player, so digital audio books are not currently feasible. The tape deck in my car isn't exactly reliable, but the CD player works fine (unless it's started scratching up discs, which is something I really need to look in to). So my best bet currently is books on CD. Thankfully the public library has a decently sized collection of things I'm actually interested in, so I'm not looking at a huge outlay for my personal library (though as with print media, I am certain there will be things I just have to have available to me whenever I want).

One thing I do know I'll be getting is the audio editions of the scriptures. While listening to them will not replace reading and studying them it will help supplement my current study patterns. Beyond that, however, I'm not sure where to start. Recommendations for good audio books would be much appreciated.

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Things I've done in which I am well pleased: Focused on doing the best I could at work. Kept my room looking really nice for three days so far. Got a good night's sleep.

Things that make me happy: Learning, knitting, reading, watching Bewitched, good food, sleep

Big day tomorrow

2009-03-02T04:31:42Z

I start my new job tomorrow, and the weather forecast is predicting somewhere in the realm of 10-15 inches before 13:00 tomorrow. I'm glad my dad will be driving, since that removes "driving myself to work in scary scary snow conditions" from my list of things I need to do and/or remember. Just driving to church today my tires slipped and I ended up all scroogy after stopping on a hill, and we were just getting the precursor flurries at that point in time.

Tomorrow I need to be certain I have my basic cubicle supplies, various and sundry important pieces of paperwork (birth certificate, etc), my lunch, and a nice outfit for ID pictures. I am decidedly nervous, since I don't know how much I'll be expected to know and do right at the start. While I am certain I will do fine, it really has been a while since my last big "completely new" situation.

Church today was excellent. There were a lot of wonderful things said in testimony meeting, and our Sunday School lesson was on listening to the spirit, and our Relief Society lesson was all about having hope in these days, and what the nature of hope is from a gospel and spiritual standpoint. The teacher let me have her copies of the talks she referenced, and I'm looking forward to studying them more in depth. The lesson was very timely for my life in general, and I'm glad I was able to hear it.

I brought a three bean salad for break the fast, and it was very well received. I did have some left over to take home, which made me happy. It really is better the second day, after the marinade really has a chance to soak in. I'll plan better the next time I make it so it will be gloriously full-flavored.

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Things I've done in which I am well pleased: Got a new job. Made major progress in cleaning my room. Made a tasty dish for break the fast.

Things that make me happy: having my brother home for the weekend, excellent and timely lessons in church, tasty food, knitting, good books

Listy-type update

2009-02-20T04:50:28Z

In the last week and a half I have:

- gone to the Eats, Knits, and Leaves group at the Toadstool Bookshop, where I sat and knit and chatted with people. I also bought books, since it seems to be nigh unto impossible for me to enter a bookstore and not leave with something new.

- gone to Institute, where I learned a whole lot about Church History. I really like my class, and I learn a whole lot of stuff every time I go there.

- gone to the Toadstool Bookshop again with my sister for her ARC review group. I knit while they were talking, but I also bought more books. Neither event was particularly surprising.

- gone to Friday Night Knitting, where I sat and knit some more. Also, I bought another book (for the double knitting class I'm taking next month) and I think I bought more yarn as well. I honestly can't remember right now.

- gone to visit my friend Meg out in the Hampton/Portsmouth area (about 50 miles away from my house). On the way there I had a blowout at highway speeds, which is not something I want to do again any time soon. Thank heavens for cell phones and AAA membership. The rest of my driving time that day was spent in the right-most lane going a max of 50 mph and no doubt irritating the other drivers on the road. Highlights of the trip not involving my tire include: going to Jumpgate and getting issue 4 of The Dreamer (excellent comic), duplicate copies of two of Shanna Swendson's books (for loaning purposes), and copies of the second and third books in the Ranger's Apprentice series in hardcover; eating dinner at an excellent Japanese restaurant in Portsmouth; having dessert at Coldstone Creamery; going to Target to buy myself two Rubbermaid bins; and going to Barnes & Noble where I...bought more books and a copy of The Secret of NIMH. Yes, I am weak.

- gone to church where I listened to wonderful talks and excellent lessons and got to socialize as well.

- cleaned my room, putting the yarn I'm not likely to use immediately (read: in the near future) in the bins purchased on Saturday. I had hoped to take care of some books as well, but I wasn't feeling as industrious as I'd expected on my day off.

- gave my two weeks' notice at my current job. My last day there will be the 27th, and I'll be starting my new job on March 2nd.

- skipped Institute because I was feeling very bleh and not cheerful.

- dropped my car off for inspection, front end alignment, and two new tires.

- picked up my inspected, aligned, newly-tired car with a repaired/replace exhaust system. *sigh* Inspection always reveals more than you'd expected, and my car is old. Old cars need more work to stay running properly.

- read four books and three volumes of manga. Started two other books, but have not finished them yet.

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Things I've done in which I am well pleased: See list above.

Things that make me happy: good books, warmer weather, having AAA and a cell phone

Here's to 27 years

2009-02-09T04:53:05Z

Not that I really remember all of them, mind you. I was quite small for the first two, and my first real memory is sitting under the For Sale sign in the front yard of our house in Utah because it was the only space of shade in the immediate vicinity of my house. I was just over three at that point. Then there are several more years of fuzzy memories.

Come to think of it, most of my memories are fuzzy, which is rather sad. Thankfully I've been keeping track of things better as I've gotten older, so I can read back in my journals and refresh myself. It's sometimes surprising how much I've actually done.

I slept in this morning, which felt nice. Once I got up I read the paper, practiced the hymns for sacrament meeting, then spent far longer than I probably should have lazing about reading my copy of Coraline (excellent book; I'm looking forward to watching the movie and seeing its interpretation).

Church was wonderful, though I do wish I had practiced more for the hymns this week. It's frustrating to know that I'm not playing the best I could be, not because I want praise, but because I can't help feeling that I'm letting the ward members down when I flub up. Well, I have the hymns for next week, so I can be sure to get in plenty of practicing time this week. Our lessons in Sunday School and Relief Society coincide with our course of study in Institute, which makes for some interesting discussions since we get a lot of the material multiple times.

After church I came home and did a few things online until dinner was ready, then I watched Master & Commander, which I've been wanting to see again since I got it for Christmas. Before that, actually, but I didn't have the means to do so at that time. Just as good as I remembered it being, and without the frustrating pan and scan element held by the original copy I saw (not widescreen). Probably shouldn't have started the movie quite as late as I did, since it made other elements of the evening run late as well, but it was a bit of a special occasion.

I got to have wonderfully tasty carrot cake, and my dad won the candle race. I now have two bins for my car, a subscription to Interweave Knits, two new volumes of manga, a new CD of shamisen music, a beautiful knitting book called French Girl Knits (beautiful sweaters and lots of spiffy techniques), and an unknown book from my sister. All I know on the last one is that it's a book in the most recent TAB flier she got from her English teacher, and I am not allowed to look at that flier at all since I'll apparently be able to quickly guess what book it is.

Tomorrow is the Eats, Knits, and Leaves group at the Toadstool Bookstore. That should be quite fun and relaxing. Friday I have Friday Night Knitting and roleplaying, which should also be fun. It should be a good week.

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Things I've done in which I am well pleased: got to church on time, spent time with friends, updated my LJ

Things that make me happy: carrot cake, knitting, fires in the fireplace, warm (for New England February) weather, herbal tea, good books

I promise I'm not dead in a ditch somewhere.

2009-01-29T01:22:11Z

I have come to the conclusion that I really do need to break down and buy myself some good winter boots. And a shovel to keep in my car. I actually have not owned a pair of true winter boots since I was in high school (possibly even longer than that). There really wasn't much call for them out in Utah valley, and the first couple winters I was back here in NH were deceptively mild on the snow front.

But when snow storms cancel church two weeks running (thankfully we didn't have snow this past Sunday!) and I find myself standing ankle-deep or deeper snow with depressing regularity while cleaning off my car at work I really start to miss having a sturdy pair of boots to pull on.

A shovel certainly would have made it easier for me to get out of the parking lot after work today. Well, potentially easier. Regardless, it's something I need to invest in for my car, along with some quality map books, a flashlight, and a couple plastic bins for my trunk (which leaks and shouldn't be used to hold things water can damage). I keep thinking there's another thing I need for the car, but I'm blanking on that right now. It'll come to me eventually, I'm sure.

In other pursuits, I've been reading, and I've been knitting. A lot. I'm fairly certain I've done more of both so far this year than I had at this same time last year. My big reading-related goal for the year is to not have any unfinished books due to laziness. More often than I'd like to admit I've had to return books to the library only partially read, or completely unread. And I had to return them because I'd exceeded my maximum renewal period, which means I'd had the books for a total of nine weeks. Nine weeks is plenty of time to read something, even if I have a bunch of other things on my reading stack.

I have more knitting-related goals/plans. By the end of the year I want to have knitted at least one sweater and one pair of socks for myself. I want to learn double knitting (taking a class in March). And I really want to get caught up on my knitted gift queue. It isn't even that long at present, though I have a feeling it's going to get longer before the end of the year.

So far this year I've learned magic loop knitting, which has solved problems I was having with one of my current projects, and I've been teaching myself entrelac. I've downloaded and printed out a veritable whack of knitting patterns, and I really should organize my pattern binder. I've also been reading through some of my knitting books. After I finished all the Stephanie Pearl-McPhee books I own I started on The Knitter's Book of Yarn. Excellent reference material there, plus a bunch of fun patterns (and potentially crazy trivia). I'm currently working my way through Maggie Righetti's Knitting in Plain English which I got for Christmas. Don't know that I agree with everything in there, but it's an excellent reference work, and one of the classic knitting books on the market. I also read/looked through my mom's copies of Mason-Dixon Knitting and Mason-Dixon Knitting: Knitting Outside the Lines. Fun writing there, and lots of spiffy patterns. There are some that I definitely need to try my hand at.

This past Saturday I went to a book signing at my LYS, and it really struck me how much knitting has changed my life. I've made so many friends since I started knitting, and I've learned a lot in the process. But it's happened so gradually that I never even really noticed things changing. Very much line upon line, precept upon precept. Even if it is knitting and not the gospel, the same principle applies.

Reading list so far for 2009:
- City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare
- Serenity: Better Days by Joss Whedon (graphic novel)
- Stephanie Pearl-Mcphee Casts Off by Stephanie Pearl-Mcphee
- No One Cares What You Had for Lunch by Margaret Mason
- Strength and Honor by R.M. Meluch
- The Nixie’s Song by Tony DiTerlizzi & Holly Black
- 100 Cupboards by N.D. Wilson
- The Ruins of Gorlan by John Flanagan (reread)
- The Knitter’s Book of Yarn by Clara Parkes
- Kenny & the Dragon by Tony DiTerlizzi
- Sugar Princess, volume 2 by Hisaya Nakajo (manga)
- The Palace of Laughter by Jon Berkeley
- The Paladin by C.J. Cherryh
- The Risen Empire by Scott Westerfeld (current reading)
- The Tiger’s Egg by Jon Berkeley (current reading)
- Knitting in Plain English by Maggie Righetti (current reading)

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Things I've done in which I am well pleased: Went to Institute yesterday (yay for the new semester!), made plans for Saturday to go into Boston, put away my laundry and cleaned up in my room, washed the dishes

Things that make me happy: dry socks, knitting, making jewelry, watching shows with my family, good food

First Wednesday of 2009

2009-01-08T04:15:54Z

Unless I've forgotten something (which is entirely probable, given how my brain works half the time), my computer is once again fully operational. I've installed/activated a nifty ad blocking add-on for Firefox, and it seems to be working quite well. It's trainable, so I can tweak it to only show the things I want/trust. I've been tentatively going back to deviantART now that I don't have to worry about ads potentially hijacking things and messing up my computer, but I don't stay on the site for extended lengths of time.

Today was a rather hideous weather day which left my car absolutely covered in a mix of snow and ice that rattled off like little pellet beads while I cleaned off the car. The whole process after work took about twenty minutes, and I was incredibly glad that I both filled up my gas tank and replaced my windshield wipers yesterday. Before the storm hit. Had I not things would have been...messy (and I probably wouldn't have been able to start my car due to there being no gas in it, as warming up a car requires it be running).

Reading list so far for 2009:
- City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare
- Serenity: Better Days by Joss Whedon (graphic novel)
- Stephanie Pearl-Mcphee Casts Off by Stephanie Pearl-Mcphee
- No One Cares What You Had for Lunch by Margaret Mason
- Strength and Honor by R.M. Meluch (current reading)

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Things I did in which I am well pleased: Got completely caught up at work. Cleaned up the kitchen after dinner. Got to work on time (despite having to clean off my car).

Things that make me happy: reading the scriptures, reading in general, knitting, watching shows with my mom and sister, grilled cheese sandwiches with chicken noodle soup, herbal tea

Sometimes I hate computers

2009-01-05T04:55:26Z

Right up near the top of my list of things I do not want to spend my weekend doing is "be forced to completely rebuild my computer." It's an irritating process that takes several hours to complete. Guess what I had to do this weekend? Go ahead, take your time, and the first two guesses don't count.

Saturday afternoon my computer picked up some malware and spyware that, among other things, disabled Windows Update. My dad and I spent a few hours trying to clean things up, but it wasn't really working. So very late Saturday night we backed up a few things, then completely wiped my C: drive (bye bye partitioned space). I went to bed around 0300, after we'd repartitioned the drive and reinstalled the OS and a few programs (MS Office products, Firefox, Pidgin, etc).

This morning my dad worked a bit more on my computer before he left for church, and I did a bit on it before I left for church a few hours later. He did some more work after getting home from church. I still have a few things that I'll need to install, but the critical stuff has been taken care of.

Looking on the bright side of things, I've got a good system of backups in place, so I didn't lose anything (other than about six hours of time). And I managed to get my DVD drive to actually play DVDs this time around. I never managed to figure that part out during the last rebuild I did (a few months ago when my dad helped install a newer, faster C: drive for me), which was mildly irritating.

And in happier news, today at church we had a wonderful testimony meeting and excellent lessons. We also had Break the Fast, and my green bean casserole was quite well-received. It felt like it had been ages since I'd been to church, which is really weird when I think about it, since it had only been a week. I think it's probably because we're between Institute classes at the moment, so I haven't been going to church on Tuesday evenings in addition to Sundays. Also, the holidays always mess with my internal scheduling mechanisms, so time starts behaving strangely.

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Things I've done in which I am well pleased: Did not freak out or break down (too much) when I learned I needed to rebuild my computer. Made tasty food for Break the Fast.

Things that make me happy: good music, seeing my friends, having a working computer, knitting, good food, sleep