Domestically Challenged

New WIP

When confronted that she had shunned her kitty bed (pink thing in the top right corner) for the new WIP, Minchie could only hide her face.

                  

Michie is sleeping on the sable sweater in progress.  Details and pictures to come once my corrections are done (yes, I am still doing my corrections, mostly because I am totally lazy and did absolutely nothing last week but sleep, work-out and read Wayson Choy's All That Matters.  The book was amazing but paled in comparison to hearing him speak.  He really is an incredible story teller.  He even signed my book!!!!  Of all of my celebrity sightings last week, which included Margaret Atwood, Ashley Olson, Courtney Cox-Arquette & David Arquette, meeting Wayson Choy was by far the best.)

Sandal Toe

When we were in undergrad, my younger sister, Mary, and I lived together.  During this time, we decided to run our first half-marathon and would train for it religiously.  One night, before one of our long runs, Mary took her boyfriend (now husband) to Medieval Times.  They had such a good time that they decided to prolong the night by walking home along the water.  This was probably a 12-16K walk and Mary was wearing very girly shoes.  So girly in fact, that the next day, when we were suiting up for our run, we discovered she had extremely painful blood blisters.  These blisters were so excruciating that she could not put on one of her running shoes.  Undeterred, my resourceful and creative sister slipped on her Merrel sandal and we were out the door for our 16K run.  The shoe/sandal combo worked out surprisingly well.  Mary was only phased once, when she tripped and went sprawling in Toronto's trendiest fashion district at the very beginning of the run.  But Mary pressed on.  After all, she was hardcore. 

Since the run, I've used the story to speak to Mary's dedication.  I even told it at her wedding and we coined the term "sandal toe" to refer to the event.  Mary has also been known to ask Running Room staff which sandal they recommend for long distance running.  We thought that the event was unique and that no one else had ever been forced to wear a sandal to run long distance.  That was, until the Alisha's "5" Kaye Trail Run in Sudbury.  Mary ran this race in August and when she was going through the pictures online, she came across this:

I will draw your attention to the runner's leading foot.  I wonder if he was also wearing girly shoes the night before.

DE-FENSE!

I survived the dreaded oral defense.  This is me, celebrating with a pint of Strongbow at O'Grady's last night:

             

The picture is a little blurry, but then again, so was I.

I knew the defense would go well when I tried my suit on in the morning and it was a bit roomy.  Nothing like direct evidence of weight-loss to boost one's self-esteem.  All of that morning running with JS must be paying off.

The defense wasn't until 3, but I got there early to avoid having any technical difficulties.  Luckily, Costin also showed up early and coaxed the projector to communicate with my computer.  He also brought the coffee I ordered to help sway the committee in my favour.  Costin is amazing. 

My talk went almost flawlessly.  There was a point during it though when I noticed a little voice inside my head saying, "You are rambling!  What are you talking about?  Shut up! Shut up! Shut UP!", but I got through that part ok.  Then there was an hour of questions - two rounds in fact.  The first examiner was great because he asked me some historical who's who from my field and then said "Ding! That's right." when I answered correctly.  The other examiners were more serious, but I survived relatively unscathed.  Now, the only thing left to do is implement the corrections they gave me for the written thesis and get it bound.  Then it's really over!

I don't think I'll get to start making those corrections this weekend though.  I'm currently being distracted by this:

               

It's a bag of BRAND NEW YARN!  Sue, who obviously rocks, gave me this Thursday night.  Inside was the yarn I have been secretly lusting after since April, Cascade Pastaza.

and some Koigu Kersti

Sue told me her and Lisa had a great time in LK picking out yarns. Thanks guys!  These yarns look great together but I'm not sure what I want to do with them.  I'm feeling some scarf action, but will I do stripes?  knit the two yarns together? or do something completely different?  I plan on spending the better part of the weekend figuring that out.

Freedom Friday

On Friday (aka tomorrow, but let's just say Friday because it doesn't sound as imminent as "tomorrow" or "32 hours from now"), I give an oral defense of my thesis.  I can't believe it's almost over!  Am I nervous?  Very.  In fact, I am so nervous I can hardly knit as I should be spending every waking second that I am not eating or arranging referees for my medical school applications studying for this defense.  Hardly...But it's guilt laden I tell you!  GUILT LADEN!  I also can't show you what I am knitting because I am currently working on Sue's Secret (Belated Birthday) Socks and she has no idea what they look like.  She's even been over for a blind fitting, which was hilarious (Costin thought we were crazy).  The only things she knows about the socks are:

1. I am using Lorna's Laces.  This is new for me because I am a KPPPM whore.  Though I am finding Lorna's Laces quite enjoyable.
2. The socks will be long.  They will have calf increases and elastic to hold them up at the top.
3. The colours are WILD.

Speaking of Sue, last weekend I attempted to fix her favourite sweater which she has worn through at the elbow.

                        

I have no idea how to darn anything, but I thought I could figure it out.  The only problem is that I have a vision.  I want there to be a cute red heart over the area that needs repairs.  Here's my first attempt.

                              

The heart didn't turn out quite how I imagined (maybe it needs to be bigger?  maybe it needs to look more like a heart?), so I will have to come up with a different way of doing it.  Any suggestions??

Also, I want to knit/crochet myself a beanie toque for my trip to Greece.  I figure that my hair will become a tangled, sweaty mess under my bike helmet and a cute little lacy toque seems like the quick fix I need.  Does anyone know of any good patterns?

My Dad's Birthday Present

I finished this lovely present for my dad last weekend, but only managed to get my act together enough to send it to him today - sorry dad!  Here is Sue modelling the hat on my back deck.  I think these pictures are funny because Sue looks like an alien...and there is a lot of evidence to support she may be (evidence - definately a thesis word).  For instance, she's one of few people I know to have survived the engineering science program at UofT...in physics!  She must have extraterrestrial intelligence.  Oh, and did I mention that she's currently working on a project involving space craft materials?  Who would know better about space crafts than an alien?  But I digress; back to the hat.

This is the brioche hat from Melanie Falick's Weekend Knitting.  The toque fold up but sue is being silly in this picture.  This hat was a great knit.  Brioche is definately more exciting and more beautiful than simple ribbing.  I couldn't find the Tahiti Teal yarn the pattern calls for so I contented myself with Aztec Turquoise, which turned out pretty cool despite my doubts that the colours were too fashion (pronounced with a french accent) for me.  Ironically, after I had made piece with the colour combo, I found the Tahiti Teal last weekend while on a yarn crawl with the Sudbury girls.  It really was the PERFECT colour.  I had to stop myself from buying it and starting over.  In fact, the girls will testify that I showed much restraint when yarn shopping and only bought some needles and elastic for sue's belated birthday socks (sorry sue!).  I almost dropped a pile on Blue Sky Alpacas Blue Sky Cotton to make the car coat Wendy designed for girlfriend, but remembered that I really should wait until pay day.