Friday, July 29, 2005

The story

While in KS, I intended to post last night, the one night I had internet access, but couldn't remember my password. I emailed it to myself last night, but was too fatigued from going for a 30 min run in the morning and another shorter run in the evening with my running bro on the popular and trendy Mass St. in Lawrence, KS. Imagine flying by meandering people slowly making their way to their dinner places of choice on a perfect temperatured evening. It was nice. We were on the move to get to Pochi, the bubble tea place. I love bubble tea. Mostly without the bubbles- tapioca pearls. I like the coconut jelly instead. I had a passionfruit guava bubble tea smoothie with jelly. My bro is so great- we sampled each others' drinks, and I ate a lot of his tapioca pearls since they were so good. That's what a good brother does. He shares his limited supply of tapioca pearls with his one older sister.


Well, the story. I should not make everyone wonder was that Margarita drank for consolation or celebration!?!


I was in a hole in the wall furniture store, one of those ultra discount kinds that is off the beaten path. The phone rang. It was 5:20pm. I had decided that I would hear about my job on Friday. Once 5pm came I breathed a sigh of relief. Tomorrow I will know. But the phone rang. I must say that my phone rang with the same ringtone on Wed. evening when we were in transit to KC. I panicked, and took a deep breath. The voice on the other line was that of my brother. Ahh.


But it rang on Thursday night. I was looking at mattresses with my Mom and bro in this stuffy humid store. I looked around. Both my Mom and brother were within my sight, oh dear. oh no. Freak out moment. The phone was ringing. I put on my confident and hopeful voice. It was The Place, I heard The Voice of the First Interviewer. "How are you doing?" I was asked. (Freak out some more, how do I know how I'm doing when I don't know the News yet!) "Ok" I said. Hoping to sound honest, and not too eager, but still hopeful. "How are you doing?" I asked in my most courteous obligatory and hopeful fashion...


Fast forward...I'm calling to present you with an offer...(by now I am yelling happy things and ecstatic things in my head) and frantically searching my purse for some piece of paper to write stuff down on about the offer. I found one option, my coffeecard from Nina's in St. Paul from a SnB that I used to attend. So, I filled the back of that, making all sorts of notes. The offer was much better than I'd hoped for, and I was asked if I needed to think about it before accepting it. No way! I really want/wanted this job! I'd even dreamt that got the job on Tuesday evening which heightened my anxiety about it!


So Yayayayayayayayayayay! Anyone want to help me celebrate???!!!! I'm available until I start working fulltime...


OH- did I mention that I did some outrageous bargain shopping on the trip too! Well I did. So if you see me anytime soon I'll probably be wearing something new. That was on sale in a big way. I even got an Izod button-down Fair Isle sweater for 3 dollars! Unbelievable!

Near virgin margarita to unwind...



Originally uploaded by CorgiMom.

Rock Creek's (restaurant in Lawrence, KS) lily pond with fishies



Originally uploaded by CorgiMom.

Yes- I once disdained meat eating- and now I am part carnivore, but only for great BBQ



Originally uploaded by CorgiMom.
Those ribs...mmmm...

Before- eating Arthur Bryant's the best BBQ in the world


The most beautiful double pointed and straight needles, on a knitting needle display rack



Originally uploaded by CorgiMom.
Ooh- the drawers even have yarn in them! So cute!

Indoor view of "Purls"


Indoor view of "Purls"
Originally uploaded by CorgiMom.
Make yourself at home, and knit up a storm

West Des Moines- We came for Quizno's, but hit the jackpot with the yarn store next door!



Originally uploaded by CorgiMom.
Note the conveniently located coffee shop, too. Can we say Stitch n' Bitch?

It's hard to sew at my house when the corgis guard the thread

Buster- thread thief, with Genevieve as his accomplice

Bedtime for Genevieve


Bedtime for Genevieve
Originally uploaded by CorgiMom.
She's way too cute on my blue pillow- I couldn't take it away from her.

Bedtime for Buster


Bedtime for Buster
Originally uploaded by CorgiMom.

Clean as a weasel


Clean as a weasel
Originally uploaded by CorgiMom.

Buster's bath time- that's my furbaby!

Fluffy and clean

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Pudgy Pie at home


Pudgy Pie at home
Originally uploaded by CorgiMom.
(DH) Don't ask me why we call them Pudgy Pies, we just do. Well, my wife is sleeping soundly on the couch (our 45 minute run seems to have plum tuckered her out), so I thought I'd sneak up here and post on her blog! This picture is of me making our supper tonight with pie irons in our fireplace. See, this last weekend we were supposed to have gone down the river and camped out, using the pie irons in a fire to cook our food. The weather conspired against us, however, and while we were still able to canoe down the river, we didn't get to make "Pudgy Pies."

So since the temperature took a dive today and it was below 70 degrees, we thought, "Hey, why don't we do it now?" So we did. This is the last one, where DW[*] experimented a bit with a pepperoni and goat cheese combination.

[*] I assume that would be "Dear Wife" - even though I'm the one that got her started on this whole blogging thing, I'm not quite as down with the lingo as my better half.

Yesterday I had another...

I felt deceptive- canceling my work to have a second interview at a different workplace. I felt even worse about not getting my real job's work done on time for the Monday noon payroll. But now, both are done. And I can rest- till I work from 10-2 today.

The second interview was GRUELLING! I was in a room with four new supervisors that I hadn't met before, and the one that I had met. All the strangers carried on the interview, with the familiar one interjecting every now and then. My brain felt like mush- not just because it was stressful to be at such a place and know that this interview would seal or dismiss me from working for this place. YIKES! And to have it on Monday morning after canoeing down the river when my brain and body were spent- double trouble. At this point- I can hope, and pray that I get the job.

After the interview I went to Rosedale and scored some great deals on a pink knit sweater for under 4 dollars, black shiny 3/4 length pants, 2 pairs of dangly "Beauty and the Geek" earrings, and a shiny silver pearl-like necklace. I also went to Borealis Yarns and bought a longer circular needle for my shawl. And ripped back more rows to get things back to the right track.

Tomorrow I am going to KS for a few days with my mom to visit my bro. I am looking forward to it, but am also nervous that I will get a call about the job while I'm out there. I should be expecting to hear from them at the end of this week. That is the same thing they said when I had my last interview- then had the second interview the following monday. AH- I'm freaking out!!! I'd better go knit my way to wellness.

Friday, July 22, 2005

I just had an interview...

it went well. I would love this position- it would be an excellent and ideal fit for me. I will hear more next week after the first round of interviews is completed. I was called this morning for an interview at 8:15 am, and I sent a cover letter yesterday at 4:30pm via e-mail. The interview was from 1-2pm. I am on pins and needles...and soon to be on a canoe in our hottest summer ever, then sleep in a "remote campsite". Happy hot weekends to all!

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Basic Arithmetic

So I was knitting away on row 29 of the leaf lace shawl. At the end of each repeat (after frogging)of trying row 29 one more time, I kept coming up with 2 fewer stitches than the pattern says. What is going on? I painstakingly counted the stitches in my row again, counted all the increases and decreases in that row again, and each time came up with 65 not 67 stitches. I thought something was wrong with me. I mean, I'm in grad school you'd think I could count to 67 and even past it, right? Well, maybe not.

So I brought my problem to the knitting wizardess at my not so local TC SnB group. Together we pondered, wondered, and brainstormed possible solutions. Certainly the pattern couldn't be wrong- could it? There were 2 sets of instructions- a chart (oh so scary what am I supposed to do with that?!) and written stuff, like :k1, p1, etc. I used the written stuff. So, low and behold when the Wizardess Kelle worked her magic using the CHART the solution was discovered. I am assuming that this isn't much of a problem to the more experienced chart-friendly knitters, but for me it was a major snafu. I even got to the point where it thought about *gasp* giving up until I was "more ready for the task." So now, back at home I once again googled the leaf lace shawl,this time inserting the word "correction" into the googling field. Voila- someone somewhere posted about the one mistake in the first edition of the pattern- only one mistake- and yes, it was my issue with Row 29.

I have learned to use the 'net as a knitting resource, and for nearly every project sometime along in its journey to and along the needles each gets googled. It helps me find out what's wrong in patterns, what people didn't like about a garments fit, and countless other things. So why didn't I do that on this shawl? Next time I'll know. But for today Kelle and I can rest knowing that we definitely are not crazy, and that knitting patterns, like all of humanity have their own personality, quirks and all.

BTW- this morning at 8am I went to the dentist for the twice annual culturally sanctioned torture that dental hygienists call "a cleaning". All went well, I survived, no cavities, plus I was praised for having "healthy gums" and for "taking good care of my teeth." Yay- and I past the polygraph- when they ask "How often do you brush your teeth?" They always seem to ask that while having some big thing in your mouth that makes an answer impossible. And, "how often do you floss?" I think this question is the biggest joke, since once they're in your mouth they know exactly how many times you've flossed since your last visit, as well as the calendar date and time of the day you flossed. I asked about this on my visit, they admitted that they already knew the answer, yet they continue to ask since "you can always improve on your brushing and flossing." So go home and floss your teeth today! And be glad you don't go to "Meanstreet Dental" in Eagan, MN. Well, unless you do go there and have had good experiences. The name sounds frightening. My dentist caters to cowards- it's on their sign, so they are used to dental-phobic individuals, which is me for sure.

Monday, July 18, 2005

Tilapia en papillote


Tilapia en papillote
Originally uploaded by CorgiMom.

The corgis are knitting a leaf lace shawl

They started knitting it together, taking turns the day their Corgimom purchased Katia Granada yarn on sale. They were thrilled with her new purchase and jumped and danced with glee.

That night they set out on the new challenge- lace knitting in the form of a shawl. After some discussion, the corgis decided to knit it as a surprise for their dear Corgimom. They intended to keep it a secret from her, but had to spill the beans when they botched the pattern. It was a little botching, well sort of. It was noticeable, and regretfully so. They talked together and decided the best thing would be to let Corgimom know. Like the three little kittens who lost their mittens, they were very sad, but wanted to knit their best on the shawl.

Corgimom looked at the shawl for a long time, pondering the dilemma. Finally, she decided it was time for the little dogs to go on a field trip. So they piled into Electra, Corgimom's electric blue Neon safely restrained in their crates and settled down for the short trip to a nearby park.

At the park Corgimom let her little corgi babies out of their crates once they were on their leashes, (and Corgimom put some plastic bags in her pocket, just in case) and the little dogs tentatively ran around at the end of their leashes. Corgimom and the dogs set out on a brief walk through the park, in the trees, until they came to a clearing in the woods. The little corgis were squeaking with glee when they heard the echoing ribbits around them.

Corgimom had led them to a frog pond! This would have been fun had they been waterdogs, but the little corgis remained on dry ground while Corgimom had them go into a down-stay for the explanation.

You see little dogs, when the knitting gets messy, and it will for as long as you knit, (that's ok, and its inevitable) we can all come down to the frog pond together. I will keep you company and pet your fur as you do the deed of ripping or ribbiting out the mistaken stitches. Once they're removed you can start back up again. Don't worry if you find yourself here often, just know that you are making progress and learning some excellent lessons about life.

I tidied up my desk


I tidied up my desk
Originally uploaded by CorgiMom.
I bought this desk in college from a psychology professor. I hope its

good luck to me in all my psych (and knitting) endeavors.

I made this shelf in Industrial Arts in High School

And painted it "Cascade" by Ralph Lauren- to match the kitchen

Leaf lace Shawl- row 25ish


Leaf lace Shawl- row 25ish
Originally uploaded by CorgiMom.
My first shawl, and first lace knitting project- aside from the capelet.

I see a sale at Coldwater Collaborative-

That means it's knitting time!

Curtains for the clip rings- my next project

Here's the fabric- from IKEA of course!

DH got our modern light installed!

Doesn't it look great in our IKEA kitchen!

Guess what these are...


Guess what these are...
Originally uploaded by CorgiMom.
We used four of them in the kitchen.

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Hot hot days

The knitters picnic was great. Thanks to tipper for her highly skilled planning for all the picnic elements. It was great to meet other knitters, and you should have been there if you missed it- it was a rare chance to see all kinds of knitting happening in a park. What a wonderful sight! I didn't knit there, though. I was there frogging. Yep- ripping out knitting from the bottom (a tedious process) of my halter and I didn't knit a stitch while I was there. I did win handmade beaded stitch markers, though. They are very pretty, maybe I will have to use them by making some type of lacy shawl sometime.

It's been in the nineties since Sunday, and it's supposed to continue through the week. I'm glad we got central ac this summer!

Since the halter completion I have been knitting on mancala mia. It's a felted version of a mancala "game board".

I had a great time chatting at Cafe Amore with La Nena while meeting to give her the prize she won on the Knitting Corgis contest. We even knit together!

I also had a fun time at the dog park with Beth and DD, and the sum of our three dogs. Her dog's name is Tumbleweed, which always makes me laugh. DD, Beth's daughter shared freeze-dried strawberries and bananas with my Weasel pop. It was really cute.

Well, it's off to school-related activities today for once. I plan to work on my thesis with some knitting breaks of course. I'd planned to do the same thing yesterday and ended up helping a friend paint her vintage kitchen with zillions of nooks and crannies that were unwilling to accommodate the broad paint spread that a paint roller would provide. Thus we did most of our painting with brushes. She painted it California Poppy- a bright red intended to match her red Kitchen Aid stand mixer, and numerous authentic vintage red pieces.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

hibiscus picture by request- on my back deck garden


My planter- which the sweet potato vine is overtaking


Buster and weasel pop fight over Corgimom's gardening gloves


I finished my first pair of socks with little needles

they don't quite match color-striping wise- but I love 'em anyway

gift for first Knitting Corgis contest

For La Nena, responsible for blog estacionliceu- see list on right side

of blog to visit

grape halter's front


grape halter's front
Originally uploaded by CorgiMom.

Buster in my driver's seat- post dog park

He looks deliriously happy

halter lining


halter lining
Originally uploaded by CorgiMom.

Grape halter's back


Grape halter's back
Originally uploaded by CorgiMom.
DSCF0053.JPG

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Digital pack rat clean-up day and corgi meeting

Well, post supervision- which wasn't so bad today- only about 10 min. of criticism I cleaned up all my e-mail accounts and organized my bloglines subscriptions into folders. All this in procrastination of working on The Thesis. Well, I really want to fix my halter top gone wrong, and I have all day as DH won't be home till 9 or so. It's dinner with the office and the boss night. So I have plenty of time to get the other stuff done.

Last night we met another corgi. It lives in our neighborhood. It's name is "June". It is a nice and well-behaved corgi. I met its people too, a mom and a 10 year-old son. No, I didn't invite myself over this time, the people saw DH and I running with our corgis and both came out of the house to meet us. We proceeded to have the corgi discussion, sharing corgi stories and gossiping about the "fat corgi" who I nicknamed "the bear". The corgi people said that they were trying to be tactful and not call "the bear" fat- but we all knew which corgi we were talking about. Think of that, blocks over from "the bear" we were gossiping about his weight problem. June was a sleek corgi, perhaps even sleeker than Buster McDuster. She focused on sniffing the tails extensively on both our dogs. She only had a stump, and her owners were apologetic about that fact. Together we all felt empathy for sleek June, another bunny butt in the world of corgis.

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Halter top snafu on a good day

Well, compared to yesterday there were far less klutzy times. I can't even count one today. I knit with the SnB girls at a historic house- that was great- but I got sunburnt. Oops. I worked on my halter- and tonight I seamed it up. Then I tried it on- and half-laughed. How is it that my perception of myself is so off?! I remember reading a book in high school about girls in rehab for eating disorders. Part of their treatment was that photo slides of their body silhouettes were taken and then these were shown to the girls with the eating disorders. Each girl was given the task of correctly identifying their body shape. I don't think any of them were correct. I do remember looking at the halter back and thinking, hmmm... this does look too big, but it's smaller than the front piece, so things must be fine. Well, this acrylic yarn has a lot of stretch when knit up. DH had to help me make some alterations. He was given the task of measuring my back, and then seeing just how much extra their was going on at both sides. 4 1/2 inches per side, to be exact. Back to the frog pond. The good news is that I am going to leave the front piece as is- it looks pretty good, and just work around its size to make a back piece that fits. I will wear this to the picnic on Sunday! Said with determination.

My other big goal of the day was an ambitious, yet mostly realistic goal. I was going to write 2 full pages on my thesis. It has been ignored a bit lately, with the holiday weekend and all, and it was time to return to it. I set out to complete this task- and found myself having typed about 5 lines shy of three pages. I made it- and was able to submit my then completed introduction to my advisor.

warning- vent up ahead...

Tomorrow, I have "supervision". This has tended to be me sitting with a licensed therapist listening to an hour of criticism. I am required to have supervision as part of my educational program, and this entails a real-live therapist sitting down with me and (so-far) telling me what I don't know yet. Though, I was complimented on one thing last time. So I suppose that is good. The hard part was being told that I was a perfectionist (am I?), and that my language wasn't "clinical" and that I was taking things personally. Oh- it was also mentioned that I don't swear. How would this therapist who hardly sees me and definitely hasn't achieved a place on my buddy list know whether I do swear or do not? And why does it matter? I thought I was supposed to be practicing what I've learned, and then getting further help when I have questions. That is not what I've experienced thus far, and so tomorrow I plan to stand up for myself more, and disagree openly and not just listen the whole time and then try to make sense of the confusion later. Wish me luck. Or something like that.

The highlight of the day will be presenting our contest winner, La Nena with her prize. Visit her blog of tasty food, and knitting to come soon, on my blog list page, it's estacionliceu.blogspot.com. We are having a meet-up at a coffeeshop on Grand Ave tomorrow, post supervision.

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Double Monday= klutzy day

Whew. What a day. We got home from Cumberland, WI fireworks at 1 am last night. Somewhere around 9 pm Monday I realized the next day was Tuesday- thus my "busy" day.

On Sunday evening DH and I went to Hudson to see their fireworks and explore the town. We got there after all the unique shops had closed, but had a good time wandering around. After dinner at San Pedro Cafe of smoked chicken nachos with lemon habanero sauce and huge chunks of avocado guac we went for a long walk through the cute old houses. We were walking along and I suddenly spied a magical looking dog through the tightly spaced fence slats. "It's a corgi, I think" I said to DH. "Is it?" he asked. "I think so" I said. We stirred them up- both the dogs- until their owners came out to shush them. Then they disappeared. I could not walk past another dual-corgi family without meeting them so I invited us into the couple's backyard. DH had pointed out that "it says 'welcome'" outside their front door. So we took that literally, and then met the 1 1/2 year-old dog, and 15 week-old puppy. And of course there was plenty of corgi talk between the four owners of the mystical dogs.

Later that night I told DH that I had never been so close to where the fireworks were lit-and shot off. Last night I retracted that statement as I felt my eyes water from the intensity of the magnesium in the explosion (hey- I thought people weren't supposed to stare at magnesium burning) and I wished for my sunglasses. My arms tired quickly from trying to cover my ears to protect my hearing, and I felt the cooled off ashes hit near my eyes periodically. I thought my head was going to explode- the fireworks were ginormous !!!

It was incredible, I was surprised that Wisconsiners can sit that close to their fireworks. I think MN has rules against that.

So today- I did at least 2 ultra klutzy things. The first came when I was filling up my water bottle with ice cubes. My dogs love ice, and I was offering a half ice cube to Buster. I didn't want him to put his mouth all over my fingers so I dropped the cube, thinking that he'd catch it. He didn't, and it hit my big toe. It hurt, which I thought was crazy. A little piece of ice falling on my foot- no big deal right? It cut my toe somehow and suddenly all around my toenail base it was bleeding. Totally crazy. So I have a "Peace" Tatoo band-aid on my big toe being showcased by my brown sandals. Nice.

When I was done working my first of two sessions I went to reset my mileage counter thing while turning a corner. My car rounded the curve, and I felt resistance while trying to straighten the wheel. My hand was in the way. Oops. Then I had two huge red marks on my right hand which I was concerned would threaten my knitting. But my hand recovered. I'm still plenty tired though, even after taking a nearly 2-hour nap with DH upon his arrival from work.

Saturday, July 02, 2005

WE have a WINNER!!!!!

La Nena was "spot on" as DH and I were using that phrase a lot last night. Check her comment that goes along with the most beautiful sink. Congratulations! And for an extra bonus given for an uber-specific answer a lucky ball of Linie 31 Scala from the ONline Trend collection will be sent her way. The winner is free to use them as she wishes, but as I am looking at the two side-by-side a pretty funky scarf could be made. Hmmm...like I need to get inspired to knit MORE things!

My matching ocean-colored cotton sock is almost done. The toe decreasing rows are in progress. I hope to finish it today.

The play was really interesting- definitely gets the psychology parts of my brain going. It was a little like "What the Bleep Do We Know" in that it questioned what is reality and what is delusional, and who can we really trust. I would recommend it if you feel like thinking hard this holiday weekend.

DH, Buster, and Geneweasel Pop and I just went on our every-other morning run. That marks a few weeks of consistent exercise. I even felt like I was able to run harder today than usual once we got the dogs moving. They were relentless this morning about waking us up, rough-housing in the bedroom when they could have played anywhere in the house, and sounding like they were ripping apart Buster's Snoopy bed when they were using it as a wrestling ring.

OH- I actually did complete my outline yesterday. There was a power outage a few days ago that changed the remote connection number, blah, blah, blah, such that I had to switch the last single digit until it went through. So I sat in front of the computer half-hoping it wouldn't work, and half-hoping it would so I could get it done finally, then after a few tries and a few minutes it went through, and I was deep into MS Word.

Friday, July 01, 2005

I'm supposed to be working on my thesis outline, but...

The button that switches our operating system from MAC to Windows isn't doing its job. That means I do not have access to MS Word. Too bad...I think I will blog instead. That's writing, so it counts right?

Well, I know it won't get me any further along on my corporal punishment and children paper, but this is better anyway. Tonight DH and I are going to see our last play of the Guthrie Lab's season ticketholders series. It is "A Body of Water". It sounds very abstract, which we like. This time I plan to take advantage of the informality of the Lab by bringing a Caribou drink and candy. As far as I know this is the only theater that lets you bring drinks and treats into the auditorium, and enjoy them during the show. I have always intended to bring along some goodies, but it never quite happened. So instead I would covet other peoples' coffee drinks and start craving their candy. Not tonight. It will be different tonight. I also will be wearing my black and silver metal capelet while indulging in a Lite White Berry and the candy of my choice. Sounds good to me!

I started my Mom's sweater, and wasn't getting gauge with the Canadian needles. The pattern said it would be 11 sts/4 inches with the 7.5 mm needles. My gauge was 14 sts/4 inches. Then I looked at the online write-up for purchasing the kit- and on it was listed the gauge that I kept getting. So I ran with it, and have knitted with all 3 types of the 3 yarns thus far, and done about 10 rows I think. I also think it will go pretty fast for a sweater since the main needles are nearly size 11 US. That is sweet and fine with me- and fine with my Mom! She confessed if it's done before her December birthday that she *might* request to wear it for a family picture. Might as in- she will ask for it when it's done.

Well, Lisa, I put up a hint to go along with the "Most Beautiful Sink" picture. I know it isn't extremely easy to guess it's location so I offered some more information. Feel free to put in your guesses. The winner gets a skein of Patons Divine mohair in orangina.

Everyone have a happy 4th of July- and a great weekend. This MN weather is perfect today. Sunny and warm. My corgis were sunning themselves on our garden deck. They even turned over to their other side when they felt they were "done to perfection". Cute stuff.