etc.

Surfing, reading, note-taking, measuring, planning, hemming, ha’ing.

Note to self: don’t put up a picture of your dirty laundry on your blog and then take off for a week and a half. Not pretty.

I wish I could say that I actually “took off”. No, I’ve been around. Doing work things and getting ready for a conference. Here, but not really here.

So, I’m almost ready to knit a sweater. You know, I’ve always thought knitting was a bit like riding a bike — I think I’ll always know how to knit & purl — but what I sort of forgot was how much planning it takes before starting something major, where “major” = not a toy, scarf, hat, or other wearable accessory. The last time I finished a sweater? Three years ago (aside: that, right there, is why I blog: once something is committed to the archives, I don’t have to remember it, I can just look it up!). I knew it was a while ago, but three years? Shocked even me. I wrapped up some birthday knitting last week (details on ravelry) and since then, I’ve had a hankering to knit myself a sweater, so I dove into the stash, came up with enough Peruvian Pure Alpaca for a garment, and got to thinking about patterns. Because it’s been so long since I’ve done any major knitting, I really don’t want to mess around with set-in sleeves, seaming, or anything remotely fussy. Which, in my limited knitting vocabulary, means top-down raglan. But, which one? This one? Maybe this one? Or, perhaps one of hers? Or, maybe… you see where I’m going with this. I never used to be this indecisive when it came to knitting, so I’m sort of annoying myself with all this hemming, ha’ing, back & forthing.

Do you have a favourite seamless sweater pattern? Please tell me what it is and put me out of my misery. And, if you don’t have a favourite seamless sweater pattern, or if you’re not a knitter after all and are getting frankly tired of all this knit talk, then happy Wednesday! Thanks for stopping by! Sorry about the dirty laundry!

With apologies to those with delicate sensibilities.

That pile of laundry up there? Taller than I am. It’s a good thing we had the foresight to place our laundry hamper up against the wall, because, frankly, we couldn’t pile laundry that high without some sort of propping mechanism. The mister has suggested a game of laundry Jenga.

Lest you think it’s all white light, orange clocks, and domestic felicity around here, I thought I’d throw in a little offering from the keeping-it-real department to balance things out. That’s all.

Tin watering can. Orange. And kind of random.

Oh, I’ve always got random. Shelbi tagged me for the 5 random things meme, and lucky for her, I am abundantly random! You probably already know the rules (link to the tagger; post these rules; share 5 random facts about yourself; tag 5 people), so I’ll jump in.

5 random things about me:

• I’ve worked more jobs than many but less than most. I’ve been a lottery ticket retailer, library assistant, retail lease administrator, campus ticket seller, file room assistant, html coder, web designer, records manager, gardener, librarian. That last one is my current and most favourite gig.
• I used to chew my fingernails right down to the quick. I still do gnaw on them every once in a while, but mostly I just let them be. Many years of chewing have left my fingernails thin, brittle, and annoying.
• I am mysophobic and claustrophobic. That first one causes me to wash my hands a LOT and open doors with a deft combination of elbows and feet. That last one causes my limbs to stiffen and the air to leave my lungs when I even think about confined spaces (you know those scenes in movies where the good guy is crawling through ducts to get away from the bad guy? Can’t watch those. Must leave the room, breathe deeply, and think happy thoughts. Don’t even get me started on the accidentally-buried-alive scenes. Ouf. Maybe I’m watching the wrong movies).
• I count my steps when I walk. I’m particularly diligent about counting stairs because I live in fear of missing one. I know exactly how many stairs there are in our house (40), how many stairs I must ascend & descend to get me from my car to my office (95 up, 17 down), and how many paces and stairs it takes to get from my desk at work to the closet washroom (34 paces, 9 stairs). Hello, OCD!
• This does not work on me (i.e. my foot does not change direction). The mister thinks I’m wired wrong and has been known bring this up at parties (party trick!). If my librarian day job doesn’t work out, I’m joining the circus.

Thanks for the tag, Shelbi! Because I’m such a rule-breaker, I’m not going to tag anyone, but if you haven’t already done this one (or if you have but still have more random goodness to share), consider yourself tagged!

Happy Tuesday, friends.

PS: you have seen this, right? Lusty!

Not just orange but actual oranges. Well, clementines, to be exact.

I wish I could remember what novel it was that I read this in, lo those many years ago. All I can remember about it was that it was a delicious novel and that it gave me this, a new way to eat clementines, that quickly became the only way I eat clementines.

You’re going to want to try this:

• peel a bunch of good, sweet clementines.
• remove as much of the white, pithy stuff as your patience and fingers will allow.
• break your pealed clementines into segments and place the segments on a plate or other flat utensil.
• place your clementine-filled plate in a warm dry place; a radiator works well, if you have one (although a kitchen counter does the trick, too).
• leave it there for a day.
• eat.
• thank me later.

I’m well aware that this sounds a little silly (stale oranges!) and I can almost see the dubious looks on your faces (stale oranges?). But, trust me when I tell you that good, sweet clementine segments become juicy morsels of awesome when you let them sit for a day. Their skins thin and dry out a little, giving you a hint of a crunch when you bite into them, followed by a rush of sweet delight. It’s a party in your mouth, people. And a healthy one, at that.

It’s Monday and I’m dreaming about weekend mornings. Sigh.

Looks like the links list is indeed alive & well. Thank you to everyone who left feedback! I had a feeling that it couldn’t be just me who enjoys the sidebar surfing, so it was neat to hear that so many of you find inspiration in those lists. Since I pretty much have no sidebar in this current design, I thought I’d do a somewhat regular post listing new-to-me art/craft/design/photo blogs that are currently bringing a little inspiration, beauty and light into my world (plus, you don’t need to hop out of your aggregator to see this, like you would if it was in my sidebar!). Here’s the first installment:

• a candy-colored life
• a foothill home companion
• brooklyntweed
• Buttons Magee
• Cozy Nest
• Crafty Brainwave
• Eddy & Edwina
• Evidently
• Keeper of the Chocolates
• Knitting Lemonade
• Little Messes
• Mayfly
• novamade
• Prickly Pear Bloom
• shim + sons
• simply photo
• The Rinrins
• Things are better with a Parrott

The first and second are days 3 & 2 of Project 365, respectively. The mohair scarf is a couple years old (both the picture and the scarf) that I recently added to my Flickr archives for Ravelry. Oh, Ravelry!

I don’t know what it is about orange lately. I want to wear it, eat it, taste it, smell it, surround myself with it. Does orange even have a smell? I know green does.

Day 3 and the project is going well. Thank you all so much for the encouragement! As I mentioned to a few of you over email, when I told the mister about my plans to participate, I was met with a chuckle and a few guffaws. Followed by a, “sorry sweetie, sounds like a neat idea!”, with a barely-disguised smile in his voice. I wonder how those words will taste a few hundred days from now? Heh.

Once upon a time, on this here blog, I used to maintain a page of links to my favourite crafty blog reads. I took down that list recently because my new aggregator (Google Reader) can’t generate a handy list of blogs I subscribe to like Bloglines used to (which I haven’t used in ages). I didn’t feel a whole lot of remorse for getting rid of the links page at the time because I sort of assumed that no one looked at it. But, here’s the thing: every once in a while, I go on a discovery tour of craftblogland by clicking on link lists on blogs I visit. I find it’s a great way to discover new blog treasures, and without those lists of favourite reads, I most certainly wouldn’t find those treasures! And then it’s just me and the usual suspects dancing around in an echo chamber!

I’ve added a whole slew of fantastic blogs to my aggregator recently, as a result of just such a discovery tour (next post: what’s new in my aggregator!). But, I’m curious about what others do. Do you plumb your favourite bloggers’ lists of favourite blogs? Do you ignore the links and walk on by? Do you see those links at all? I’d love to know!

A blanket of snow to-day. This is day one of Project 365, where I take a picture a day for a year. Of course, this year has 366 days, so I get a day off.

Day one. So full of possibilities, isn’t it? Have you made plans for the new year? Resolutions? Mine include eating better, cooking more, living healthier, swimming more, getting outside more, taking pictures more, smiling more, making others smile more. Nothing concrete, just some vague notions of doing better.

Happy 2008 to you, dear readers! I wish you a year of limitless possibilities.