When to knit or not to knit?

My friend JayJay, fellow-knitter, -blogger, -mommy, and -professor, asked in her comments if we have house elves or how else I get so much knitting done. Sadly, rent for the house doesn't include the services of house elves, and the majority of cleaning gets done by yours truly. Since I have a full-time job (at least during the semester) and a toddler, JayJay wants to know when it is that I get a chance to knit.

Ever since Conrad was born, DH and try very hard to do work at work, that is, not bring work home with us. This is difficult, particularly for DH, whose teaching interferes with his research, which means he needs to do research "on his own time," i.e., on weekends, at nights, and during summer breaks. It's much easier for me to leave work behind; I have a teaching position and am not expected to do research. While "getting ahead" nevertheless depends on my research record (one of the ironies in my job), I put research on the back burner for now. When I come home, I'm home. I work my butt off at the office and do all class prep/email/"service" (faculty meetings, advising etc.)/research there, usually four days a week. The last two semesters I had Fridays off, and I use that day to clean the house and do the laundry (incl. ironing. OMG, I hate ironing). I could (and should) do research on Fridays and wait with the cleaning until the weekend when DH is around, but I really want to spend weekends doing fun stuff with Conrad and DH, without worrying about dirty bathrooms. So, for now at least, Fridays are cleaning days. I don't mind Fridays; they give me a chance to listen to NPR all day long (local news from 9-10, two hours of my favorite news/talk show On Point, The Story at noon, then I switch off the radio because I can't stand Fresh Air's Terry Gross, and the radio's on again for the BBC News Hour. By 3 pm I'm usually done).

DH and I pride ourselves in not watching TV, which is, in truth, a big fat lie. We don't have cable, but we do have Netflix. Over the years we've watched a number of series (mainly British mysteries, such as A Touch of Frost, Wire in the Blood, Inspector Lewis, our much beloved Inspector Morse; also American shows such as The Wire, Mad Men, and Big Love), and these days we watch about 45-90 minutes of Netflix on most days after Conrad's gone to bed and we've cleaned up whatever Conrad- and/or dinner-inflected messes there are. The TV is downstairs, in the finished-but-unheated basement that is, for the most part, a Conrad-free zone, and we're never tempted to turn it on unless in the evenings. And even then the TV is just background noise; DH usually checks relevant soccer information online and I knit. That's when I do "complicated" knitting--anything more involved than stockinette or garter stitch. I guess I get about six hours of knitting done this way per week. Earlier this year I also started going to knit night, which adds two to three hours of knitting to the weekly tally, albeit "light" knitting, that is, nothing complicated. So now we're talking eight to nine hours of knitting.

In addition to "complicated" knitting downstairs, I keep a project of "light" knitting upstairs: a garter or stockinette stitch something, on which I work whenever I'm watching Conrad and am able to squeeze in a row or two (or sometimes just half a row) while he reads. But mostly we play together, so I don't knit much. (I started this very easy, stockinette stitch cowl in February and am hardly near the end. That's "upstairs knitting.") I also knit when I talk to my mom on the phone, usually during Fresh Air on Fridays. One of our little family traditions is for DH to read out loud one or two pieces from The New York Review of Books on Saturday mornings, while we're still in PJs, and I knit during that time. Let's say I get one to two hours of "upstairs knitting" done per week.

That's nine to eleven hours of knitting per week. You tell me: is that a lot? I have given up almost every other leisure activity for knitting: I hardly read for pleasure anymore except those 20 to 30 minutes in bed at night before I fall asleep (usually dropping the book in the process and then waking about again from the noise); I hardly ever go to the gym or the swimming pool (but we do go for long, long walks and hikes on weekends with Conrad); we no longer visit friends or entertain them (we still haven't made friends here); I'm very bad about staying in touch with friends via email or over the phone; I don't facebook; I seldomly blog; difficult to admit, but I also don't read as many blogs anymore; I stopped going to art shows; I no longer cook anything that takes longer than 30 minutes to make (we're fans of Cook's Illustrated 30 minute recipes).

(Gosh, I'm getting depressed just writing this. Knitting stole my social life! I'll end up as the bag lady who keeps thirteen cats at home and dies without anyone noticing it. No, seriously, it's not that I knit every free second I got. I spend most of my free seconds with Conrad and DH, so hopefully I won't die alone and forgotten. It's those free seconds after Conrad has gone to bed that I spend knitting rather than reading, socializing, etc.)

Here's when I don't knit: I never take knitting on the bus or to the doctor's; that time is reserved for reading one of the half a dozen of magazines we subscribe to (my fave: Harper's). I don't knit on the airplane (try that with a toddler!). I don't take knitting to work; if I do take a longish lunch break, I meet with DH and we read different sections of The New York Times, which we get for free on campus (awesome perk of the job). If I were to go to bars, the movies, dinner parties, restaurants, soccer and other games, or concerts, I wouldn't knit there (we don't go because--you guessed it--we have a toddler, not because we're that anti-social). We don't drive enough for me to take knitting along in the car. In short, I'm not the knitter who always carries a project around with her.

So, JayJay, that's how I get my knitting done. For spring break we went to see my in-laws, and I knit more than half of the Amelia cardigan during those 8 days or so, because my in-laws are just gaga over Conrad and won't share him even with his parents. :) I knitted a lot during that time.

Now you tell me, when do you knit??

Swappin'

During the very early weeks of my pregnancy, before we told anyone for fear of jinxing it, I joined the Ravelry group "January 2011 Mommies," and in the past 18 months (which we spent not only drooling over each other's babies but also yakking about the not-so-savory aspects of pregnancy, the gritty details of birth, and the challenges of juggling motherhood, a career, and our changing relationships to our partner, our parents, and our friends) I have grown very, very fond of the thirty or so women who post there regularly. My "mommies," who are from around the US, Canada, and the UK, from Iceland and Uganda, are unbelievably knowledgable, resourceful, attentive, and kind. And--they are knitters. Knitters who love to swap stuff.

Yesterday's mail brought a package from JayJay. In it: Jennifer Lori's Moss Block Cardigan, which had been sitting in my queue forever, made of gorgeous Rowan Felted Tweed DK.

Conrad's favorite, though, isn't the cardigan but a cardboard book that he couldn't put down today:

Looks like he is planning a trip to California, doesn't it? Well, JayJay did mention that we should stop by her house if we plan on visiting Disneyland a few miles down the road. Since Conrad is making friends with Mickey already (also a present from JayJay), we might do so next summer.

JayJay: Thank you!! (Many thanks also for See's Candies, which were meant as a Californian treat for me, but which DH got his teeth into first, and now they are... gone. I know. He owes me, like, big time.)

Blogging has resumed!

So, I totally missed NaBloPoMo. I really, really wanted to start blogging again in November, but then my in-laws were here for a weekend, followed by a weeklong visit my my parents, after which we went to DC for a few days, and just as we got all settled at home again we left for Thanksgiving break. I suck at blogging when nothing is going on, and I suck doubly bad when we have visitors and/or are visiting places ourselves. Ergo, no blog posts in November. (That's a total of five months of complete silence. "Yikes!," DH's uncle Larry would say.)

Today is December 1, and the beginning of a new month is a new chance to give daily blogging another try. I won't promise I'll make it thirty-one days as the (grand-)parental troops are landing December 22 and thereafter chaos will reign. But I shall give it a try! I used to love blogging so much, and I'd hate to give up on Wollgut. I really need a NaBloPoMo challenge, even if one month late, to get into gear and resume blogging.

And if you're curious about the main thing that's happening chez Wollgut? Growing. Mini-Wollgüter Conrad is growing like a weed.

(More pictures to follow, of Conrad and of knitting (!). Stay tuned. Pretty please.)

Dear __________,

Dear Blog,

Before June slips away entirely I wanted to let you know that I do love and care for you, that I even have three finished projects to show you, and that you need not be jealous of the baby, thinking perhaps that he is consuming all of my attention. No, let's not blame Conrad (although my five month old sunshine is about to start crawling and needs constant supervision). Why else I've been neglecting you? Well, first there was my BFF visiting from London; she brought her husband and her baby bump along, and together we did a lot of walking in cold, rainy Boston. The day they left the sun came out, the weather turned hot and humid, and I realized that I didn't have three but two weeks to pack the whole apartment into 170+ moving boxes. The first 100 were easy to pack: books are a packer's friend (and the mover's foe). The others? Oh my. Packing up a kitchen must be one of the evilest jobs evah, topped only by packing those last twenty percent of one's possessions that takes eighty percent of packing time. You know what I mean: you think everything's packed, and then you look at the windows and think, whoa, what to do with curtain rods and curtains? Throw them in a box with the bathroom trashcan, the desk lamp, the hallway rug, the coffeemaker, the book you were reading a minute ago, and that roll of toilet paper that's still left out.

I'm getting agitated just remembering those last two weeks in the apartment. Let's fast forward to the week of moving. (Yes, it took one week.) The minute the last item made it onto the truck (a broom, it was a broom), the moving help had left (two lovely Brazilians who must have possessed super powers, otherwise there is no explanation for how fast they worked), and my recently retired FIL who had volunteered (!) to drive a 26' truck across the country by himself (!!) was in the driver's seat, the sky darkened and released one of the nastiest thunderstorms in Mass history (you probably saw in on TV). Which didn't impress my FIL much, who was ready to go--and then discovered that the truck had some sort of electrical malfunction. Which is why he couldn't go anywhere but instead waited for the U-Haul repair people to fix it. Which took a while. The next day--DH, Conrad, and I had boarded the train to NYC in the meantime, to spend a few days with family--the electronics continued to fail, and FIL had to stop again and wait for another U-Haul repair team. By the end of day two the truck was finally in good shape--and my FIL still in Massachusetts. But now things went smoothly, you ask? Not so. While FIL was racing across the country to make up for lost time, my boys and I were enjoying ourselves in the City, looking forward to our cross-country train ride to Salt Lake City via Chicago. We had booked a luxurious (we hoped) sleeper compartment, but already on the way to Penn Station, pushing the stroller with the Bean, pulling a large suitcase, carrying a giant box with dry ice (nursing moms will know the contents) I got an automated phone message from Amtrak informing me that our train had been cancelled due to flooding in the Midwest and that "no alternative connection" was available. WTF! sums up our immediate response as well as the general mood that followed. It was lovely to spend two more days with our family, but man, it was not lovely to dish out moula for a crappy last-minute flight (I hate flying, full stop).

At last we all made it: DH, Conrad, FIL, moi--we all were tired and cranky, and crankier even we grew when the previous tenant (the owner's son) had not moved out by the time we parked our truck in front of the house and the moving help arrived. For me not to lose my mind I took the baby and strolled away... I don't know anymore how far or where I walked, but by the time I returned, FIL, DH, and three college kids had performed a miracle, and we had officially moved into our house (which, BTW, is gorgeous).

Now, dearest blog, that was nearly two weeks ago. Have we completely moved in? Of course not. First we binge-shopped at IKEA to fill all that empty space (a dining room! Holy cow, we have a dining room! And a family room! Conrad has his own room! Get this--there's even a laundry room!), then spent one week building furniture, and only now are we slowly unpacking boxes. DH has missed plenty of work and currently works 26 hours a day to catch up, while I unpack for about ten minutes and then play with the Bean for an hour in our own backyard (my botanical knowledge is almost nil, but I successfully identified roses, sunflowers, lilies, poppies, lavender, and irises. Oh--and a peach tree).

So, now you know why I have neglected (but not forgotten) you. Whenever something exciting happens (plumbing problems! Salty drinking water! How do I take care of this gorgeous garden and backyard? There are snow-topped mountains in every direction I look! I've witnessed some serious yarn-bombing! There are three parks within walking distance! The LYS is OMG-awesome! The Bean started eating solid foods! And he received a letter from the White House [no kidding]!) I would like to write you about it. Alas, we didn't even have internet until yesterday. And my camera cable is only-God-knows-where. I can't show you pictures even of my FOs. (I also don't know where two of those three FOs are.) Really, all I gotta say is, we'll be here for a while, and I'll collect plenty of SLC impressions I can blog about. Gosh, we are so excited to live here!

Three paragraphs about Salt Lake City

One
We Got House! Currently we're renting a large apartment that is, however, in a dump of a building with neighbors from hell in a not-so-great neighborhood. Last week we zoomed to Salt Lake to see if we could do better there. Many rental houses and a quick consideration of becoming house owners (*gasp*) later, we're happy renters of this little house:

For just two-thirds of what we're currently paying for rent we got a ton of extras, including a backyard and two fireplaces. I've never lived in a house or had either garden or fireplace. I'm excited, like, big time. Especially since everyone we've talked to says that our neighborhood is awesome. I can't wait to discover its awesomeness (although I do dread the cross-country move).

Two
Utah is the most conservative state in the country, and the most conservative county in the most conservative state is located less than fifty miles outside Salt Lake. Or so Jon Krakauer writes in his description of Mormonism, Under the Banner of Heaven, a book I'm reading so that I have a reply ready when the next person tells me a polygamy joke the minute I say we're moving to Utah. What I'm learning is that the Mormon church condemns polygamy as an outdated custom practiced today only by a misguided few who have been excommunicated by the church. I suppose that's good news. What's bad news is that Mormonism appears to be a religion based, in part, on the complete submission of women and children to their husbands and fathers. The biggest threats to the Mormon church, according to the LDS apostle second in line to become LDS president, are "the gay-lesbian movement, the feminist movement, and the ever-present challenge from the so-called scholars or intellectuals."* This really bothers me. I'm a scholar, feminist, and gay rights advocate. Throw "pro-choice" and "environmentalist" into the mix, and you know where I stand politically. If the views of ordinary parishioners really match the official positions of the LDS church, I worry that living in Salt Lake, where half the population is Mormon, will require a lot of adjustment on my part, and not because of the mountain climate.
*Boyd K. Packer, cit. in Krakauer.

Three
While cruising the streets of Salt Lake in search of "For Rent" signs, I ran into and talked to four people. All of them were very nice. The first was an older gentlemen who gave me a tour of his garden and invited Conrad to visit often and play in his treehouse. (Conrad can't quite roll over yet, and climbing trees will have to wait for a few years.) The other people were women and--yay!--knitters. All three mentioned the knitting group at Blazing Needles, a LYS that's just a twenty-minute walk from our house. I was given phone numbers and invitations to meet for tea. Despite my second paragraph misgivings, it does seem like SLC is going to be a fun place to knit.

Brain Child

I can't help but brag. Today a copy of my dissertation arrived in the mail, printed on archival paper and properly bound, just as it is shelved in the library.

The stats...

Pages: 403
Paragraphs: 2.186
Lines: 12.333
Words: 136.415
Characters (no spaces): 776.027
Characters (with spaces): 911.634
First day of writing: Oct 6, 2008
Last day of writing: Aug 2, 2010
Days between those two dates: 666
Number of actual writing days: 94
Activities on non-writing days, in order of frequency, from high to low: "nothing" (vacationing, knitting, socializing, working out, cooking...), teaching, feeling guilty about not writing, research related activities (reading, taking notes, thinking)
Average number of words written per writing day: 1.451
Self-imposed goal of words written per writing day: 1.500
Date of submitting the first draft: Aug 10, 2010
Date of submitting the final (pre-defense) version: Nov 1, 2010
Time spent between these two dates revising the dissertation: every waking moment not spent teaching or keeping bodily functions going
Date of defense: Nov 19, 2010
Revisions required by committee after defense: 19 typos, one factual mistake
Time it took to complete final revisions: less than an hour
Occurrence of situation in which this few revisions are required: rare (per anecdotal knowledge)
Post-defense feeling: disbelief
Feeling today: "glad it's over," pride
Estimated number of months by which finishing the dissertation was delayed because author was knitting (a hobby the author picked up in March 2009): three

"I don't know much about babies, but I know they cry and they eat and they poop"

So reads dw's comment to Monday's post. Since this is pretty much the extent of baby knowledge that my man and I have acquired over the past months, I am beginning to wonder why we spent a small fortune on childbirth and parenting classes. Let me recount last Saturday's mini-scare: Here I was, lifting stuff, not heavy stuff, just some stuff, up onto a shelf. And suddenly I felt this really intense pain all over my midsection, and it lasted something like thirty seconds. So I went to my betrothed and said, "Love, I don't want to freak you out, but I think I just had a contraction." He's cool as a cucumber in any and all life situations, but what did he do on Saturday? Freak out. He went pale and started talking fast, and then he pushed me into a chair, gave me a glass of water, and told me to stop having contractions because he wasn't ready yet for this. So nevermind the party we had been invited to go to; we hung out at home all evening waiting for whatever else there was to come. Which was nothing. False alarm. Probably just a friendly reminder that my torso muscles were working hard as it were. (Giant belly=really heavy.)

Point of the story: we're ten days away from doom day my due date, but we don't feel ready and keep telling the Bean to stay put. Since there's no way the baby will stay where he is till April, which is, by Hubs' estimate, the time we're ready to have a child, I guess it's good that at least materially we're ready. I'm not interior-designy inclined, so don't judge what you're about to see too harshly, namely the results of December's apartment-mega-rearrangement efforts (it wasn't enough to move every piece of furniture in our apartment, I also moved every single of our 3,000 books, somehow thinking that I'd bring zen into my life by putting them in alphabetical order.) Thanks to our über-generous families, we have really cool baby gear that is now spread out evenly over the apartment.

Let's start in the office, the focal point of which this has become:

There's more baby "entertainment furniture" on the other side... a baby bouncer and an activity gym, and we're thinking of giving the baby a whip so he can properly motivate us to work while himself bouncing his days away.

We moved everything around in the living room to make room for Bean Cage #1:

Bean Cage #2 shares the bedroom with us:

And then there's what was formerly known as the "storage room." In lieu of proper closets we used the spare room, tucked underneath the roof and up some scary stairs, to store junk college papers, a collection of non-functioning vacuum parts, boxes containing God-knows-what, and whatever else we wanted to get out of our sight. With Herculean effort we cleared out half the room and turned the front part into a cribless nursery with a changing table, a storage shelf, and a nursing chair:

As you can see, we couldn't part with junk completely, but we hid it behind a curtain.

I'm totally in love with this little room, mainly because in it is the only chair in which I am still able to sit comfortably:

(That blue thing is a nursing pillow.) Sleeping horizontally has become a bit of a challenge, and usually I end up in here at night for a series of short naps. (Who knew the not-sleeping already starts in pregnancy?)

So, there you got it. Babies cry and eat and poop, and we're here and ready to rock them, feed them, and clean them. Well, one baby, that is.

Next time there will be knitting content again. (Baby knitting. I know I know, it's getting lame. There's light at the end of the tunnel: not only am I planning to dive into fair isle knitting, despite dw's warning, but I also want to knit a lace shawl for my Ph.D. advisor. She had to read my 403-page magnus opum four times and deserves something amazing.)

Ten Ways to Celebrate Summer

1. Eat yourself silly on fresh fruit, preferably after you picked it yourself.

2. Sit on the porch at night and watch lightning bugs. Can you count the stars?

3. Enjoy the Farmers' Market--the produce, the food, the crafts, the people.

4. Stay near water. Any water.

5. Go for a hike.

6. Attend a wedding.

7. Try a new ice-cream flavor.

8. Always pick up after yourself when picnicking outdoors. (Yes, that is a way to celebrate summer.)

9. Learn the names of plants and flowers around you.

10. Watch the World Cup. :)

Thanks, Carole, for Ten on Tuesday!

408

That's the number of knitting blog entries I missed while I traveled around (half the) world, and back again, during the past 32 days. I may not be able to catch up entirely, but it's nice to be back online. Soon I'll share some photos of my travels (I make it sound much more exotic than it was in reality; I went to Germany and Great Britain, 's all. But there was a wedding, a graduation, a ghost-tour through one of England's finest cities, a discovery tour in the footsteps of Inspector Morse, a one-week vacation with the folks at a lakeside B&B, and, finally, the move into our temporary home in a house the locals call the Adams Family House... altogether splendid). So... see y'all soon! (I just got off the phone with my Southern MIL; forgive the "y'all", y'all!)

Rabbit Hole

Into which I fell sometime earlier this week. It's the end of the semester, which usually means chaos. This time it's chaos and then some. A lot of it is work related, but in addition to the normal stuff--writing and grading exams and planning last-minute review sessions to calm down the panicked kids--I've also been busy moderating at a couple of academic events (the task of which is both nerve-racking and delightful) and interviewing for a part-time teaching position for next year (I got it!). The week went by so fast I hardly had time to plan our trip to Europe, which starts on Tuesday. In fact, I know I'll be going to Oxford, I just don't know yet how and when I get there, or where I'll stay.

Yes, Oxford. I'm very excited! Many hours of watching the brilliant British detective series Inspector Morse made us want to visit the town. Between conferencing in Berlin in early May and attending my BFF's wedding in York at the end of May, the Hubs and I will have five days of real vacation. The Berlin and York bits are planned perfectly, only the "five days of real vacation" are as of yet unorganized. I don't mind so much; the conference organizers put me up in a fancy hotel, and for the wedding we will lodge at a posh B&B. Who cares if we spend our Oxford nights on the street? Turns out, the Hubs does. Wherever we end up, I'm sure it will be lovely. And the wedding will be absolutely wonderful. It's my BFF, she's getting married--need I say more? (My tiny complaint is that I'm losing her to Great Britain. What's up with that? Wonderful as he is, why does the groom need to be a Brit?)

Once we come back from Europe we're home for exactly three days before we move to upstate New York for the summer. The Hubs teaches Nerd Camp at Cornell (aka summer math school), and I will finish my dissertation. We sublet an apartment from a friend of a friend of a friend; it's a lovely place in one of the most gorgeous Victorian villas in town, with a porch, a beautiful garden, and easy access to a great walking trail. Although we're there to work, it will feel a little bit like vacation, or so we hope.

You guessed it already: lately it's been too busy here to knit anything at all. I'm hoping to get some peace and quiet on the plane (this is mental peace and quiet) to start something small. Perhaps Multnomah. Perhaps Damson. We'll see. I'm going to wind yarn tonight and wait till inspiration hits.

In case I don't get a chance to write before I leave: I wish y'all a happy May!

* * *

The following photo sums up today's attempts at trying to deal with Boston's drinking water supply crisis (read here for info):

Water? There's none left. Every store offered the same picture: empty shelves as far as the eye can see. We started drinking diet coke. I don't know how we will wash dishes with diet coke. Brush teeth with diet coke?

Wet

At last the rain stopped. Massachusetts set a new record, or so I heard. And what else I know is that a) our taxes aren't due till May 11 because our county is swamped by record rain, b) my students' dorms suffer from severe water damage, and the kids don't even know it yet because they are on Passover break, and c) that Amtrak hasn't run between Boston and New York since yesterday because of water on the tracks. I'm so glad I came home Monday night! And even though (a) means I could postpone doing taxes, I'll do them tomorrow. After all, I, too, am on break. Hopefully taxes won't take all day; I'd love to get some knittin' done...! How about the spring cardigan I started a while back?

2009

I shan't compile best-of-2009 lists (although I could go on an on about books I read this year, places I visited, interesting folks I met, incredible food I tasted...) but stick to knitting. After all, it's a knitting blog. Here it is, then, my knitting year in review, starting with March, since that's when I picked up the needles:

Not bad for a knitting newbie. With all this knitting happening around the house I have somewhat neglected other interests and responsibilities of mine, and my knitting resolution for 2010 is to balance things more evenly: knit after having been to the gym, for instance, rather than knitting instead of working out. (Are you familiar with this dilemma?)

I wish you and yours a healthy, safe and prosperous, a magical, inspiring, and triumphant New Year. Thank you so much for your readership. Prost Neujahr!

New York, New York

Today I was asked several times what I have planned for New Year's Eve. Nothing, I replied truthfully each time. Our Christmas vacation in New York City was so fantastic we forgot all about New Year's Eve.

Indeed, we had the most splendid time in the city. The Hubs has family just outside and we visit regularly, but to actually spend entire nights in NYC: a rare and awesome opportunity! (Back in the pre-Hubs days I used to go to the city and crash on various Columbia U grad student floors that I'd share with furry creatures and the occasional cockroach, but as marriage has made me a respectable woman my travel arrangements have become somewhat less adventurous but much more luxurious.) We were ecstatic to receive our friend's invitation to take over her apartment while she was traveling abroad, and to make the most of our time we spent several nights walking until the wee hours through the magical wonderland that is New York at Christmas time.

We ditched our high-brow museum plans on the 23rd and 24th and hiked around Central Park instead. The 23rd was bitterly cold, but stomping around the snow-covered park in brilliant sunlight was well worse a half-frozen nose (and half-frozen ears: can you believe I went to NYC without a hat?! Knitter's pride forbade to purchase one, but luckily my down coat has a hood). Christmas Eve we stood in line for an hour to make it to the St. Thomas Episcopal midnight mass; we were just two of the 1800+ people attending. I don't think we made it back to our digs before 3 am (I vaguely remember getting a ten-dollar hotdog at Rockefeller Plaza and a plastic cup of Sake, sold under the table by a crêpe baker: that was our Christmas Eve meal).

Christmas Day we spent with the Hubs' relatives: apart from terrific company we enjoyed a culinary feast that included pâté de campagne and foie gras, homemade in Southern France and shipped to the US by a cousin so many times removed from the Hubs that we don't even know her (?) name; a bûche de Noël made by the hostess, the French-born Mme B.; and more than one bottle of champagne. (And a tray of selected cheeses, Cornish game hens in orange reduction, Vermont ham, roasted vegetables, a very fancy mac & cheese for the youngsters... you get the idea.) Two days of gluttony with the family and then we returned to the city.

Rather than going to any Broadway or Off Broadway or even Off Off Broadway productions we watched three movies, two of which receive my thumbs up: Up in the Air is a deliciously entertaining movie; A Single Man is impossibly gorgeous and heart-breaking. The third film we watched is, in the words of one woman who left the theater 20 minutes into the film, more of a father's day than a holiday movie: The Road is not only depressing (which by itself would be quite alright) but the bloody scariest movie I've ever had to suffer through. There was a point where I, too, thought about leaving. Great movie, don't get me wrong, but absolutely terrifying.

Oh, and I knit a little here and there. Mainly on the bus to and from New York and in between episodes of overeating. I'm working on a plain, seamless round-and-round-and-round-we-go sweater for myself, following EZ's percentage system so that I finally learn something about sweater architecture.

The watch cap I made for the Hubs? My FIL saw it here and sent me the following email on Christmas: "Wow! Beautiful watch cap. Make mine a deep navy blue!" Since then I received orders for two more watch caps and a pair of the Fiddlehead mittens. That's on top of the scarf for the Hubs and a secret Christmas project that didn't get done in time (ouch). I should probably put my EZ sweater aside; then again, it's twelve months till next year Christmas... :)

Now I need to figure out what we're doing tomorrow night.. I don't want a repeat of two years ago, when we went to sleep at 10 pm. (Granted, we had just driven a ten ton moving truck from upstate New York to Boston, through a blizzard, mind you, and were somewhat exhausted.) What are you doing on New Year's Eve??

Merry Bookmas!

Howdy folks! How was your Christmas? We spontaneously went to NYC for the holidays, camping out at our friend-the-artist's house in Hell's Kitchen, just off of Times Square. I had the most fabulous time and will tell you about it tomorrow (?). For now just a brag picture of what Santa brought to our house:

(Yes, we believe in giving books. Half of those books belong to the Hubs. The other half is Mine. Mine. Mine. My share is mainly art and art criticism books, with a few clever detective novels here and there and the occasional bestseller. The Hubs' half concerns math, economy, and an effective way of saving the planet and making the world a better place.) (We started with the latter by buying local. We loves independent book stores.)

The Classic Husband Watch Cap

Since there wasn't all that much to do on Sunday other than watch the snow accumulate (40 cm), iron (three hours), and write New Year's greetings to possibly everyone we know (100+ cards!), I finished the Hubs' Classic World War II watch cap while watching Harry Potter in the evening (Ravelry link here):

Monsieur's verdict: Like! He's worn the hat all day and reported back that it didn't itch one bit (this apparently had been a fear of his that was entirely unbeknownst to me), that it fit comfortably underneath his bike helmet, and he very much liked the color, since it went so well with his coat. (Humph.)

(Specs: pattern link see above; 0.8 hanks of Berroco Ultra Alpaca in manly gray-black; US #7 needles; nil mods.)

Knitting the hat was about as exciting as watching the snow outside our bedroom window...

...and seeing the sun set behind Boston College:



(Pretty exciting.)

And today, you ask? Today the sunshine tricked me into mounting my bike to go to the gym and to do some last-minute Christmas shopping. While the gym and the shopping both went just dandy, the whole biking enterprise is getting not just uncomfortable but also dangerous. Snow plus strong winds plus just a tad of ice plus reckless college kid drivers plus complete darkness by 5 pm: CRAZY bike riding conditions. I hereby announce the end of this year's bike season. Tomorrow I'll stay home and... knit work some! :)

My Week in Bullet Points

--I knit an iPhone cozy. That was all I could handle last week, with giving (and then grading) final exams and what not:



(While proctoring a three-hour exam it occurred to me that this could have been prime knitting time. Alas, I fear my students sometimes think I am cuckoo as is; no need to scare them further with knitting needles. BTW: my students this semester were, for the most part, terrific kids. I'll miss them.)

--Hubs ordered a hat. I immediately searched for all manly hat patterns available to me (including the beautiful Koolhaas), and once he had considered them, he picked... sound the drums please... the Navy Watch Cap. I died of boredom at the mere thought. The Hubs then said, well, maybe the Danish Earflap Cap...? Love it!, I replied. Stranded color work, fabulous! No, he said, of course without the snowflakes. Just the earflaps. Couldn't I add earflaps to the Navy Watch Cap...? I saw my last chance in color choice and asked him for his preference. Black, he said. I gasped. Fine, he compromised, how about a really dark grey? Ugh.

--And while on the hat, why not throw in a scarf for the Hubs? He's officially abandoned the Sculptured Lace Scarf I made for him last spring (my first knitting project: a labor of love. That's how I learned of yarn-overs. I-cords. Charts. Knitting code. Knitting into the back of a stitch. Really, I learned so much by knitting that scarf. And I had picked the pattern because it was designed by a man for men. Nevermind the word "lace" in the name.) So, the Hubs doesn't like the scarf. Instead, he started wearing my Clapotis. My Clapotis! For comparison:

I thought of a wicked plan to save Clapotis. I will finally block it and then convince the Hubs that it's a lace scarf...

Alternatively, I'll make him a black 2x2 ribbing Death-By-Boredom scarf to go with the hat...

--I saw the current Knitty and fell hard for Spoke.

--I went to as many holiday parties this past week as I've been to in all previous years combined. There's something about life past grad school and getting holiday party invitations: the two are connected. At one holiday party (celebrating both Christmas and Hannukah), the hostess had stayed up the entire night--not gone to bed at all!--to make eight different kinds of traditional German holiday baked goodies (Stollen, Mutzenmandeln [aka Oliebolelen], Quarkkäulchen, Zimtsterne, and Vanillekipferl among them), and I ate myself silly on Krapfen (it went well with Glühwein). She had also urged everyone who played an instrument to bring it along for a potential jam session. I counted four saxophones and several violins, and indeed, live music was on the entire night. One guest brought the rest of his jazz band; another his a cappella group. The house almost burst with the 100 guests or so present. It was way awesome.

--We ordered and received our custom holiday cards but have written none so far. Experience has taught us that we're likely to be behind with Christmas cards, so this time we opted for a Happy 2010 theme. Clever, the two of us. One can still wish a Happy New Year in February, right? (Goodness, we have 100 cards to write sign.)

--Here's Räuchermännchen next to our modest Christmas pyramid, our concession to Christmas décor:

Have I mentioned we're not having Christmas this year? In recent years we spent Christmas either with my or the Hubs' parents, but this year it'll be just the two of us. We couldn't commit to any plans because we were hoping (and are still clinging to that hope) to get invited to job interviews in December. Since we're not even sure where we'll be over Christmas we don't plan on having a tree. The few ornaments we have (a considerable number, actually, given we haven't had any need for them thus far) are keeping each other company on a baguette serving dish. It works for us!

'Cause I Was Asking for it

Snow! Finally it's snowing! And the snow appears to be sticking, too. You know, after I complained about yesterday's unseasonally warm weather I really freaked this morning when the Hubs' parents called to report that it was snowing in Mississippi. But now that we have gotten a few flakes up here as well the world seems to be back in order.

I hadn't even noticed that Boston put out snowflake lights over Thanksgiving. It took looking through a viewfinder to see them.

What we did today? Lounge around for the most part. I made it to the post office just five minutes before closing to mail my Dad's socks. (Yes, can't help but post another picture. I'll keep it small, though:)

Now I just finished polishing those shoes Nikolaus hopefully fills tonight:

When preparing to explain the meaning of Nikolaus to my students the other day I came across the information that typically one puts only one boot outside the door to avoid appearing greedy. Well, where I grew up we put out the set of boots, sometimes even adding a third shoe, just to make sure Nikolaus knew at which door to stop. At any rate, I modestly put the boots away but left the pair of clogs right by our entrance. :)

End of the Line*

As all good things must come to an end, so must our Thanksgiving vacation with the Hubs's folkanoids in the NYC vicinity. Last night's greeting from the train was a quick one, and I owe you a few photos from yesterday's trip to MoMA, another one of my all-time favorite art museums of which I am now a happy member (I'm taking full advantage of annual student memberships these days, since my days of student discounts are numbered).

MoMA was absolutely, totally, and completely packed, and one of the special exhibitions was closed due to large crowds of Thanksgiving vacationeers. The Bauhaus exhibition, however, was open:

It was here that I overheard the following, uttered by a twenty-something year-old gal in that sense-of-entitlement tone of voice that drives me up the wall: "So! Explain to me just what this has to do with the band Bauhaus??" The boyfriend/date person to whom her demand was directed looked a bit uneasy and begged her to keep it down...

In any event, the exhibit was fantastic. As a college student I spent a lot of time in Dessau and attended several events at the Bauhaus. The Hubs wasn't quite as impressed with Bauhaus design as I would have liked him to be, but he was a good sport and listened to my mindless "And when I was in Dessau..." babble.

Of course, we also saw a lot by Matisse:

And by Clyfford Still and Barnett Newman, both of whose work I like very much, very much to the Hubs's dismay (I love walking through large empty gallery spaces with giant abstract paintings or minimalist art: I'm not one for crowded, crammed, cozy, cuddly, etc., spaces. Sometimes I wonder how the Hubs and I will work out our different design ideas: whereas he'd like to live in a Wunderkammer filled top to bottom with interesting things, I'd like to live in a large, empty cube made of glass and white walls. With just a little bit of yarn.)

After MoMA we walked to The Art Students League of New York (sacred halls for my MIL, the artist), visited with our artist friend Hyeseung, had the most amazing Chinese food at a restaurant in Chelsea, and simply walked around the streets of the city:

After a bit of a sleep-in this morning (was it really noon?), we slowly got ready for our return trip to Boston. Since I had gone on and on about the nearby LYS Sticks and Strings, my MIL, who had picked up knitting in June (horray!!!) and I convinced the guys to first drive us there. Hubs and FIL weren't too psyched about yarn and went to a prized wine store instead, and once we got back together again, the Hubs and I had a few new goodies:

That's enough Lorna's Laces Worsted for Norah Gaughan's Bubble Pullover and a bit of yarn for a pair of socks. And while the Hubs won't get to play with the yarn, I sure will help him finish those twelves bottles!

Those manly socks for my dad, you ask? Well, I didn't finish them. We hit the road too late in the afternoon to have any usable daylight, and I didn't knit in the car. I made it around the heels and hope to finish the socks by the end of this week... I got a bit side-tracked the past couple of days trying out entrelac knitting: so addictive, those little squares!

Almost twelve... I'd better publish this post before turning into a pumpkin!

*I stole the title from the Hubs, who has been blogging every day this month as well, and who usually comes up with much better blog titles... Check his blog out here.