And now it is February.

Remember last time I said I was working on the Little Arrowhead Socks? Well, I finished one sock and started the second one, but in the middle of it I made a mistake in the lace pattern, and I couldn't fix it so I was going to have to pick it back about 3 rows and knit that section again, and suddenly I was just so tired of knitting lace while trying to read a book that I ripped out the whole sock and started over. They are going to be plain socks in my usual 3X1 rib, and they will be easy to work on while I read or watch movies, and that is really what I want from my sock knitting.

Paula had come down to my office on her lunch break and was happily knitting a mitten, and she almost had a heart attack when I ripped that sock out. The first sock was still in my purse, so I picked out the toe stitching and ripped that whole sock back, too, and she was gasping in horror. She hasn't been knitting long enough to know that if your knitting is not making you happy, you just need to cut your losses and tear it out.*

Scott called me tonight and said that Soren wanted to talk to Nan on the computer, so we got on Google+ to have a webcam chat, but there were a few snags in the process. First, they didn't have the chat program installed on the computer they were using, so they had to install it. No problem, I just talked to Scott while I waited.

While Scott was installing the program, Carl was watching him, and I heard Carl ask Scott to tell him a story about when Carl touched the computer. Carl is not allowed to touch the computer, so the story went like this, "One day Carl touched the computer and he got a spanking and had to go to his room without supper." Then Scott started laughing, and I asked what happened, and he said Carl was smiling when the story started, but when it got to the part about the spanking, his smile faded, and he was looking horrified at the end, the part where he had to go to his room. Poor Carl. Now he is traumatized.

So then the program was installed and we were trying to connect to each other, but in Google+ you connect by going to a Hangout, and you invite the person or people you want to talk with to come to the Hangout. Okay, so I tried to invite Carolyn's computer to my hangout, but I couldn't figure out how to invite a single person, and I clicked on the circle of my Google+ friends, which apparently sent an invitation to everyone in my circle of friends, including my friend Wendy, who was home relaxing after a long, rough week at work.

Wendy saw the invite to my hangout, but she was tired and watching a DVD of Mad Men so she sensibly ignored me until the *second* invite came through, because I was still unable to figure out how to invite just one person. She must have thought I was pathetically lonely all by myself in my Google hangout, so she connected to me with her iPhone, but by then I had made a precarious connection with Scott and the kids, so when Wendy came on, too, I said hello, but since I was messing around trying to get a better connection to Scott, I heartlessly blew her off!

I finally was able to chat a little with Scott and the kids, and Carolyn, who brought their cat, Nom Chomsky, to be included in the chatting, too, but then my stupid laptop decided we had had enough fun for one night and it shut me down. Geez.

So I went upstairs to get a nap before work, and I called Wendy to apologize, and now I'm writing this post just for her! So there, Wendy, get a good night's sleep and when you wake up there will be something for you to read.

*Except for that Nagano sweater I started 10 years ago. It is the beast that haunts my dreams. Every time I start to rip it out, I stop because of all the work and emotional anguish that have gone into it. It's half ripped out, resting in a box in the closet.

I'm at work now.

What I am reading tonight:

A Discovery of Witches: A Novel

This is a recommendation from Diana, and it's pretty good. It's the same old thing, i.e. witches, vampires, demons, but it's well written and I'm enjoying it. I'm also reading yet another diet book, and re-reading the second Stephanie Plum book.

What I'm knitting today:

I was going to bring the sweater I'm knitting for Maddy, but oops, I forgot, so all I have is my purse knitting, which is a sock in the Little Arrowhead pattern by Nancy Bush. I don't think I have enough yarn left on this skein to get me through the whole night at work, so I might have to use something from the Emergency Knitting Stash I keep in a drawer at work.

Tonight we all went to yoga class, and by 'all' I mean Rachel, Kim, and I, aas well as Laura and Shelley. The Monday night class is always big, and the whole Y must have been busy because the parking lot was full! Ash reported that he had a hard time getting a machine to work on because so many people were working out downstairs. It will be nice when all those people who made New Years resolutions give up on exersizing!

Who wants to be haunted?

So Rachel called me just now as she was walking over to the grocery store across the field from her backyard in the middle of the night. (Probably about 100 yards away.)

I told her it was dangerous, but if anything happened to her I would be comforted knowing that I was the last person who talked to her. Then I suggested that she should come back from beyond to contact me.

Rachel said if she was going to contact anyone from beyond it would be Kim, because it would be fun to freak her out. I had to agree that it would be funny if she contacted Kim, because Kim is the one who watches those stupid ghost hunting shows on TV, and she is so interested in the paranormal.

Fortunately Rachel got home safely, so it doesn't matter now.

In which I don't even try to catch up.

How much I walked today:

The hospital has a walking program for all of the employees this year, and our goal is to walk 10 miles a week, or two miles a day, five times a week. Yesterday Kim and I walked our two miles, but today we went to visit with Maddy for an hour instead. Tomorrow we'll get that walk again!

What I cooked today:

Kim wanted some rice with meat and vegetables like she ate in Taiwan almost every day, so I made chicken with sauteed vegetables for her, and cooked some white rice in the rice cooker. (I like brown rice better, but I was out of it, and anyway, white rice is more Asian!) It turned out very well, and Kim said it was like what the cooks at the school made for lunch.

And I made bread!

I downloaded a free book for my Kindle with recipes for breads that you mix up and refridgerate until you are ready to bake them - at least 8 hours and up to five days! I liked the idea of making bread that I could set aside until I was ready to make it, so I mixed up a batch two days ago and baked it yesterday. These breads don't have to be kneaded, and they only need to rise once, so they are less labor-intensive. The bread from that first batch was okay, but it was white bread, and I like whole wheat better, so today I looked online to find an article I read a couple of years ago on making artisan bread in 5 minutes a day.

The article mentioned the bread cookbook written by the author of the article, and I remembered that I bought that cookbook after I read the article, but I never made any of the bread in the book. My cookbook cupboard is full, so it will requre a search to find it!

So tonight I made the basic dough recipe from the article in Mother Earth News and tomorrow I'll try baking a loaf. I'm excited about this, and if it's good, we'll have bread for a week, because the recipe makes enough dough to bake eight loaves!

What Maddy was doing tonight:

When Kim and I went to see Maddy, she was watching her favorite TV show, Phineas and Ferb, and drinking some juice. While we were there, she brought Big Bear out of her room, and Kim recognized him as Mr. Bearington, who had been her bear until she went to Taiwan. Maddy also showed us her new dog that she can pull around on a string, and she offered the dog a sip of her juice. Later she offered the dog her binky, too. I don't know why she thinks a dog would want her binky.

Day two of writing more often!

I am reading a book that is so good I can hardly put it down! Diana really likes an author named Jennifer Crusie, and I have read a couple of her books and liked them, but this one is so great I wish everyone would read it so we can talk about how good it is!

The name of the book is Maybe This Time, and it's based on The Turn of the Screw, a gothic Victorian novel by Henry James. (Note to self: Get that book to re-read it!) It's got ghosts and romance and it's written in a sassy style! Read it and then tell me how much you love it!

Why I hate Daylight Savings Time.

Daylight Savings Time is just a huge inconvenience for me! It puts Diana in Arizona just one hour behind us, instead of two, so instead of being able to call her when I get to work at 11, when it is only 9:00 p.m. in Phoenix, now when I get to work at 11, it is 10:00 p.m. in Phoenix, and she is already asleep or very close to it! Which means I hardly get to talk to her at all (well, not daily, anyway, which is the prescribed dosage!) for six months of the year!

Also, Kim is still in Taiwan and she was 13 hours ahead of us, which I had gotten used to, but now she is 14 hours ahead, and when I get to work, instead of just getting back to her room to chat with me on Instant Messenger, she is halfway through her break, and sometime she only has a couple of minutes to talk, because she has to go back to the classroom to get ready for the afternoon classes! Do you see how I am terribly inconvenienced?

So that is my complaint today. I am going to have to try to update more so Diana will know what is going on here, and she will just need to do the same to keep me filled in!

So, here's what I have been doing in the last couple of weeks since the damn time change...

What I am knitting:

When I got home from Scott's I quickly knitted two very cute winter hats for the boys, because while we were there it snowed and Carolyn got out their winter clothes, and the hideous hat Carl was wearing was a crime against nature. I had to make something better!

After the cute hats, I started the new Knitalong with the people at the yarn shop. We got the last clue on Wednesday and I'm almost done with my first pair of socks knitted from the toe up! I'm pretty impressed with the pattern we used, and the yarn, too! I don't know if I will ever bother to make another pair of socks from the toe up, but these look good.

Now I have yarn to make a sweater for myself, and I still have a half-finished dress that I am knitting for Maddy, plus socks! I always have socks to knit!

What I'm reading now:

While we were in Utah, I got a lot of good suggestions for books to read, and I've had a chance to read some of them. I read about a book a day because I have a lot of downtime at work, so I can't remember everything I read, but I can say that I finished Hogfather last night, a book I picked to read because I like some other books by Terry Pratchett, but this one wasn't one that I loved. I picked it because it was Christmas-y, but it was so existential that it took all the fun out of it. Yawn.

When I finished that one, I started a mystery called January Kills Me. It's not Art, but it's entertaining, and I've already downloaded the second book by that author (something about February). What I love most about my Kindle is that there are so many books by independent authors - people who would maybe not get published by the big publishers, but they can get published on Kindle and sell their books affordably, and I get to read them! Some of them are good, some are okay, some aren't very good (some are just werewolf porn), but I love that I can have access to so many books!

Okay, that's all I've got for now. I will fill you in on the Great Lipstick Adventure later. Also, Kim will be home in 3 weeks! Woot!

In which a rabbit has a jacket!

I finished the two Rabbit Surprise Jackets and took them to SLC to give them to the rabbits, and wasn't I surprised when they didn't fit!

It turns out that a jacket meant for a human baby is way too big for a stuffed rabbit! Who knew?

Since it was very important that Soren's rabbit have a jacket, I did not give up! Carolyn ripped the jacket back and rolled the yarn into balls for me, and I started over from scratch, just making it up as I went along.

I have knit many, many sweaters, so I know how to construct one, and in the end, the jacket was perfect.

We didn't take apart the second rabbit jacket. Carolyn thought it was pretty, and she is saving it for a real baby, either one of her own, or to be a gift for someone else. Carl didn't care if his rabbit had a jacket or not.

Whew! I'm tired of making rabbit jackets!