In which there is more knitting, and other fun things.

I am trying, trying to keep up with the blogging. Things got really really hectic around here, since it was the end of the semester. But that's done, and both honey and I are happily taking the summer off. No classes, whatsoever.

And look at the wonderful thing his parents gave us to celebrate us both graduating with honors!

Why yes, that is a beer bottle sitting next to the plate. My husband has a taste for Yeungling. And what sort of grilling picture would it be if there wasn't a beer in the picture?

In more knitterly news, I've been greatly enjoying getting together with ohter knitters in Rock Hill, and it looks like our new permanent location is going to be Durango Bagel, thanks to the generosity of the owner. In fact, tomorrow night we're getting together again, and I'm actually looking forward to going out. Amazing, hmm?

Honey and B and I are doing our own little knit-along. We're making adorable little stuffed owls. See!


Isn't he cute!

I've also been working on my sock still. I'm up to the arch ribbing now. Not too far now! And it's a good thing, because I'm running out of the 2nd colorway. I think I should be able to make it work though.


And not a moment too soon, too. Jason just got notification from Ellen @ Earthfaire that she's shipping out the next 7 Deadly S(p)ins package. I should have it by week's end. Yay!

In which she gets incredibly busy ..

.. and copies the trend of people styling their post titles after Friend's episode titles. :) But hey, it works!

Anyway, yeah. It has been busy here at Casa Tygher. And yes, admittedly, a lot of it is because of Wolrd of Warcraft, but I have been knitting. I've finished the second pattern repetition of my candleflame shawl, and it's really beginning to look like more than a bundle of yarn. I'm also getting close to done with my second red scarf .. which is good, because I only have another 5 days or so to mail them off.

My pretty candleflame shawl on my lovely Destiny circulars. Ahhhh.

Oh, the delight of reading a psychology textbook.

Classes started on Wednesday though, and that is what's been taking up the rest of my time. I'm taking 18 credit hours, and I'm determined to keep the 4.0 I earned last semester. But the classes are more difficult and more reading this time around, so it's taking a lot more time from my day. As I type this I'm skimming through my Psychology reading for a first go-round, and trying to figure out what I need to remember for the exam, which is due next Friday. I also need to finish my Spanish work for the first chapter .. that's due Sunday. But that's much easier than all this reading. I also have to read the first chapters for Amercan Government and State & Local Government .. and several stories for my English class. Whee!

Everyone should go check out the photos of Comet McNaught on Spaceweather.com. I didn't get a chance to see the comet because .. well .. we were busy and such, but the photos are simply amazing.

They changed the program .. new journals! Yay! And ooh, they're bigger!

Oh. We're back at Weight Watchers, and I'm back On Program. I gained 8 pounds in the two months we weren't going, but I managed at least to maintain last week. Good, since I didn't count a damn thing.

I leave you with an utterly adorable shot of Isis from yesterday.

Success (And Knitting)

I know, I know. But I have an excuse. First of all, I've been working 30+ hours a week, which is like double what I had been getting when I started the new job. And second, school got massively crazy all at once towards the end of the semester, and I just didn't have time for anything else.

But I have my grades now, and a month off, and now I can focus on relaxing for a month before classes begin again on January 17th.

ART 101 - Art History and Appreciation - A
AST 101 - Solar System Astronomy - A
HIS 101 - Western Civilization to 1689 - A
SPA 101 - Elementary Spanish I - A

That's right, I have a 4.0 currently. Me. Mrs. hasn't been in school in over a decade has a 4.0 GPA. Woohoo! Now I just need to keep it that way.

I'm taking 5 classes next semester, but they shouldn't be too difficult, and I've decided not to try to take Stellar Astronomy considering the issues we had with the text and study guide not matching up. And besides .. it's too cold to be out observing the stars!

ENG 102 - English Composition II - 3.000
PSC 201 - American Government - 3.000
PSC 215 - State and Local Government - 3.000
PSY 201 - General Psychology - 3.000
SPA 102 - Elementary Spanish II - 4.000

One of those Jason is also taking, and one he's already taken, which is nice. The English Comp I have to take for my degree, as despite having a tone of English classes, I don't have another composition class, and the Spanish I also have to take for the credit, but it should be fairly simple to pass, as I had no problem with the first half. Wish me luck!


(There has been knitting of course, but not a lot. I've been working on a felted bag for Brandon's mom for Xmas, and it's fairly mindless knitting. I got a good 5 inches knitted lastnight while we went looking at christmas lights, but since it's black and plain it's not much to see. I'll post maybe when I have something to show off .. like finished product.)

tetchy: peevish; testy; irritable.

That would be me today. Though at least I know why. Hello Aunt Flo! *growls* Y'know .. there aught to be a rule about one malady at a time.

So yes. I'm irritable. And it doesn't bode well for the people I have to deal with. Now, in the physical sense, that's Jason and Brandon, and maybe his parents. And I'm usually pretty good about not sniping and bitching at them. To them, yes. But I'm clear on the distinction with them.

My Spanish 101 teacher, on the other hand, is receiving the full unfiltered brunt of my rage at the moment. More to the point, my advisor, the Distance Learning administrator, and the Enrollment Administrator who I've worked with this semester are getting the brunt of my rage, which is fully directed at my Spanish 101 teacher. Why, you may ask? Well, just read this little gem of an email the class received from him today.

Submit Self Test Now, Hurry up. Brake is over, this is the last time that I do this, from now you must to submit you assignments on time. Do not send e-mail asking me that update the assignmnets. If I don't have on time, your grade will be automaticly 0.

Sanquintin

Now, I ask you. Would -you- want to take a class from someone that had such a poor grasp of the English language? How can we be expected to actually learn from a man who can't be bothered to write emails with proper spelling and grammar? How on Earth can I be expected to enjoy a class when we're treated like first graders? I've sent a scathing email to the individuals I listed above, basically saying how horrible this teacher is, and how I am considering dropping the class and taking something else. Except I've just realized, we won't get much of a refund on tuition, and I already paid $100 for the damn textbook bundle. So I'm going to have to tough it out and endure this awful class ... but I will make my displeasure known at -every- juncture.

Update: I just received an email from an Interim Dean at the college, assuring me that my concern was being addressed. I'm a bit intrigued as to what that could mean, but I am going to touch it out, and do the work for this next chapter, and see what happens. I know at least I'm not alone in my frustration.

Alive .. mostly well.

EDIT: I'm annoyed with blogger. Somehow, it lost my template, and I didn't have it backed up at all. So I'm gonna be fussing with it for a while. Bear with me.

I know, I know .. I've been a bad blogger. But I really do have a good excuse .. I've been sick!! Like, allergies from hell, can hardly breath, coughing up my lungs sick. I didn't sleep well for two days .. got 5 hours sleep in 48 hours, had to stay out of work a day because grocery shopping wore me out sick. So sick that Jason threatened to come home from work one day and put me into bed, so sick that I actually broke down and bought NyQuil, which I hate taking, because I was bound and determined I was going to get some sleep.

I'm better now though, comparatively, and I actually have a few things to report.

First of all, I finished skinny eyelash scarf #2, the teal one. I'll post pictures once my room isn't so much of a disaster area. See, I bought new bookcases for the house, and for the moment, everything that was on our little 2' bookcases we had scattered everywhere is currently on varions flat surfaces, waiting to be replaced onto the -new- bookcases. That includes the hellishness that is my office. So I have no rom to try to take a picture, nor can I, at the moment, find my camera. But I finished it. I have one more ball of eyelash yarn left in my stash, which is likely to end up a skinny scarf as well. They're quick and easy, and my nieces will adore them for playing dressup, and that's all that counts, right?

I made it through the Summer of Stash in one piece!! I didn't buy any yarn that wasn't project bound, and even that was all of 6 balls of cotton (for dishcloths) and a couple skeins of sock yarn for swaps. And I did manage to use up a good bit of the stash, though not near as much as I'd wanted to. But school and work interfered in my knitting time, and I suppose that's a good reason not to get all done that I wanted to.

Speaking of school, I'm taking 14 hours; 4 classes. Art Appreciation and History, Spanish 101, Western Civilization 101 and Solar Astronomy. So far, the Spanish class is the one I'm not liking as much, mainly because it's going -so- slowly. Thus far, everything we do is review for me. I'm guessing once we get doing harder stuff, it'll go a bit better. Solar Astronomy is fun, though the others in the class are idiots. I'm very glad they're all online classes, otherwise, I'd have to beat these people with a book.

I've got to get back to cleaning. We bought 4 new bookcases for the house, and I've got to get to putting the books and such on them and off the floor, where everything's been for several days, since I've been too sick to manage it. And since I just almost shattered the glass on a framed drawing honey brought home from Europe, I need to get shit cleaned up before I go absolutely insane.

She lives!

I'm playing a bit of catchup today. I've been busy busy busy, and not wanting to really look at a computer much beyond what had to be done to get things settled for my classes. Now that things have settled down, and I've got myself in a better rhythm with work and class and house, I can find some time to sit, breathe, knit and blog again.

So. School is a bit stressful .. because I'm missing the labs for my astronomy class and the damned bookstore is 3 hours away, and WON'T PICK UP THE GODDAMN PHONE!!! So I can't call and say 'Hey, please send me those, here's my money' .. because they won't answer the freaking phone!!! Grrrr! Other than that though, school's fine. I'm settling into a routine, though I have this bad habit of getting ahead, so I'm trying to force myself to slow down.

That's something my boss at Mosaic complains about too. She's terrified that I'm going to finish college in 4 months and go and get a real job. Silly woman. I love Donna though. She's the best. And raves about me, apparently. I love her. She's a riot, so I think it's going to work out to be a great job. I honestly think I take it way more seriously than some do, having been to another store recently to cover, and finding it trashed. Lord, did that drive me crazy. But I got my first paycheck, so I feel like I'm actually working now. And next paycheck should be even better, as I have extra hours and such from last week. So I'm looking at first getting a few books I've been coveting for a while. The Mason Dixon one for sure .. and maybe one or two more.

I've a few knitting things going on, but no pictures yet. I joined the Monthly Dishcloth KAL, and had a blast with the mid-month cloth, so much that I want to make a bunch of them. I'm frogging the blanket square I had tried to make and am going to redo it as a log-cabin. Because I dislike plain garter stitch though, I'm thinking of working it in seed stitch. We'll see how that looks. I also need to finish some things for the friend that's having a baby any day now. Like, she's 3 days over-due. And boy, is she getting anxious about it. I want to make her another towel, I think, and maybe some more washcloths. And beyond that, maybe some burp-cloths and bibs, once I have the Mason Dixon book, and a kimono or three, since I've heard they're cute as can be.

Wow. I was -way- behind in reading blogs. I'm caught up mostly now though. Phew. Time to try the damn bookstore -again-, and then read some of the god-awful-boring book for Western Civ. *groans* Book test on it the 15th. And we -both- need to finish reading it before then. Yuck.

Wake Me Up When September Ends

Not a lot of knitting progress to report on, though I've been steadily working a little along on my Promenade bag.

After getting home much late Saturday night and sleeping much late on Sunday (why, because we could of course!), we still managed to go walking not once but twice with Momma and Diddy, for a total of, I'd say, 3 miles. If not exactly, close to it. And we discovered a new park that Brandon and I might do well walking at, cos it's flatter than Cherry Park. It surrounds a bunch of baseball and softball fields, so it kinda has to be flat, y'know?

Monday honey had to work, and I spent the day puttering around the house. I'd let him take the car because I was sore and exhausted from the walks the day before, but about halfway through the day I was stir crazy, wanting to get out of the house. I made soup .. minestrone, yum! .. and got some cleaning done, but I was so happy when he got home. It rained too, which was nice. We've been needing the rain. It rained Sunday too, so that'll certainly help the grass that's about brittle it's so dry.

Tuesday was his day off, and we enjoyed a rather lazy day, but did go walking with momma. Through all of this, I've been waiting to hear from Donna, my boss at Mosaic, so I could get started with my training. They'd been waiting for a couple of courthouses to return my background check. Well, Tuesday she called her manager and they pushed everything through. While we were on our walk she called me, and I made plans to call her to get started with the training. Not that I hadn't already explored the website and knew what I needed to do, but I wanted to let her get me started. And besides, the training was supposed to be 5 hours, so I didn't want to do it that day, when I was doing a ton of running around and stuff.

Yesterday I called her in the morning, and started my training online at around 9:30. By 11:30, I called her to ask if she wanted me to do the Exact training also. She wants to cross train me for that program too, so I can handle both sections of the store I presume. She was surprised and impressed that I was already done .. but didn't want me to do the music program yet. She thought it would be too much to take in all at once. Which I don't necessarily agree with, as I already proved my retention by taking the training in less than -half- the time given. But .. eh.

So Monday and Wednesday I will be training in the store with her trainer, I think 5 hours a day is what it'll be. Might be less though, and I hope it is. That's a long time to be on my feet when I'm not used to it. And then Friday, I'm on my own. It's been a long time coming, this job, but I think it's going to work out to be a wonderful thing. Jason likes to say I'll have Donna's job in a few years .. and who knows?

In addition to the new job though, we're also beginning classes this semester at Piedmont Technical College. We're both, I believe, going for our Associates in Arts, in preparation for our Bachelors degrees. I might decide to go for a business degree, but I haven't decided just yet. Either way, I could easily transfer in, but I'm thinking that starting with the Associates in Arts might give me a broader (more broad?) base of coursework to carry with me. Classes start on August 23rd, so I'm hoping that we get finished soon. Jason's got to take the COMPASS test to place in Math, and I'm waiting on my transcripts to be looked over. Waiting impatiently, I might add.

Jason's aunt Kathy passed away yesterday. She had suffered for a few years with Parkinson's Disease, and a rather aggressive form of it too. She was healthy, vivacious and alive at our wedding 5 years ago (OH GOD! Our 5 year anniversary is in a WEEK!) and when we last went to see her in May or June, she could barely speak, and it felt to me like she was a living person trapped in a cocoon, desperate to break free. Well, Wednesday around noon, she finally slipped out of the cocoon that had trapped her, and may now live free of the disease that had attacked her so violently. I'm happy for her. I cannot imagine she had any quality of life as she had been living. But her family .. she has three grown children all around Jason's age or younger .. is fractured as it is, with one having joined a cult .. no, really. A cult. And another a pothead, and the other just cracked. They're all lashing out at their aunts and uncles now, and it's very sad to see. I hope for some peace to come to them. I know it cannot be easy to lose their mother so young, but they had to realize Kathy was suffering.

*sigh*

Anyway, I'm waiting to hear from Carmencita, who's coming in to Rock Hill today to talk to a mortgage company, and is planning to come over afterward. I've not seen her in forever, so it'll be nice to have her around. I've also got to go to Wal*Mart tonight before I pick Jason up, but that's not until 9pm, so I'll have plenty of time. It's so hot right now anyway, I'm kinda glad I have something to keep me busy until it gets later and the sun won't be nearly as strong. It's awful here still, and I cannot wait for Autumn.

Today: Scattered thunderstorms. High near 90F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.
Tonight: Scattered thunderstorms early, then partly cloudy after midnight. Low 72F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 40%.
Tomorrow: Partly cloudy early. Scattered thunderstorms developing later in the day. High 91F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 40%.
Tomorrow night: Scattered thunderstorms. Low near 70F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 50%.

Saturday: Showers, maybe a rumble of thunder. Highs in the mid 70s and lows in the mid 60s.
Sunday: A few clouds. Highs in the mid 80s and lows in the mid 60s.

Monday: Mostly sunny. Highs in the upper 80s and lows in the upper 60s.
Tuesday: Plenty of sun. Highs in the low 90s and lows in the low 70s.
Wednesday: Partly cloudy. Highs in the low 90s and lows in the low 70s.