nekosensei

* Yay! Finals are over! I have a little bit of grading to do, but it shouldn't be too bad.

* This afternoon, I took advantage of the break in the rain to walk to the library-- about a three-and-a-half mile trip in all-- to drop off some books and check out Mists of Avalon and The Gravedigger's Daughter. I also got Precursor (a book in C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner series) for doomsey and a book of folk shawls. The latter book has many good patterns, but I'm particularly enamored of the Irish shawl. Must buy yarn and make!

* After catching two neighborhood children attempting to climb the big maple tree in my front yard, I poked my head up and told them told them to get down from there before they fell down and got hurt. I'm not turning into one of those old fogies telling kids to keep off their lawn, am I?

* Google is awesome! Did you guys know that you could play Pac-Man on their webpage today? Yeah...I might have spent a little too much time playing around with that today. (makes an innocent-looking face)

Yay! Links!

* These are pictures of an abandoned medieval stone city in rural Spain. *drool* Now I want to go visit it. I've been meaning to drag doomsey to central and southern Spain for years now.... (Link courtesy of ginmar)

* This next one is for the Doctor Who fans and knitting geeks on my friends list. Knit Picks has a sock yarn that goes by the name "Time Traveler." Go read the description! Now I'm half tempted to get both the "Time Traveler" and the "Abracadabra" yarns. (Swiped from a Doctor Who knitting community)

* Okay...I admit it. I was singing in the shower this morning. And the cats...well...they were fighting outside the shower door. Damn cats.

* Hmmm...They don't have a karaoke version of The Secret Garden's "Fine White Horse" do they?

* Hey...if I try out for Lombard Idol this year, they won't let me get away with singing Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" will they? Maybe I can do "All That Jazz?" "White Rabbit" is another possibility. And that's all assuming that they're still going to have a Taste of Lombard this year. The Village of Lombard is short on cash and talking about pulling funding for it.

* It's still really a shame that I can't find "Fine White Horse." I can sing it with the Welsh accent. That would have been kind of impressive.

* And my computer crashed. Thankfully it didn't take my LJ post with it because it autosaved it.

* It's definitely spring. The daffodils are coming up at my in-laws's house. I'm going to have to get pictures when they start blooming.

* Where are my crocuses? They haven't sprouted yet. :(

* (giggles)

So...here are the New Year's Resolutions I made last year. Let's see how well I did with them...


1) Exercise more (and maybe lose a few pounds) -- Bwahahahahaha! Yeah right.

2) Stay healthy in general -- I did okay with this one, thankfully. I got a lot of colds, but I had no major health dramas in 2009.

3) Learn to crochet (already started!) and continue knitting -- I did indeed learn to crochet. Last week, I finished crocheting a baby blanket for my best friend, who will be having a baby boy this March. While working on this project, I discovered that crochet projects go much faster than knit ones. I'm also crocheting an afghan for myself. This one is going to take me a long time because the yarn is so fine.

And of course, I've been doing a lot of knitting. For instance, I finished my Doctor Who scarf in March.

4) Write more -- Done. I did NaNoWriMo this year. I also wrote a couple of short stories.

5) Try to figure out some of my great-grandmother's recipes -- I made one of the dishes from my great-grandmother's recipe book, but I haven't tried any of the other ones. I meant to make one of her bread pudding recipes, but I decided to use a recipe that I found online because it had choooooocolate.


Judging from my progress last year, I'd say that I get much more accomplished when I post my goals for the year on LJ. So...that means that I'm going to post my New Years Resolutions for 2010 as well. Here they are in no particular order...

1) Finish writing the novel I started for NaNoWriMo. This includes editing and revising.

2) Try to get something published. Extra emphasis on the word try. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to accomplish this, but we'll see.

3) Update all of my knitting and crochet projects on Ravelry, including the projects that are still in progress. That means taking a picture of whatever I'm working on, writing down what kind of yarn I'm using, and including a link to the pattern. I've been very lax about posting to Ravelry in 2009. Since joining Ravelry, I only posted one project that turned out to be very well liked, apparently, because fourteen people favorited it. Last week, I took pictures of my Doctor Who scarf and I the baby blanket I just finished.

4) More exercise! Muy importante! I probably won't be able to do much walking in January and February because the weather sucks, but I definitely should get out there come March and April. I think I'm going to try to get back into my routine of walking three to three-and-a-half miles a day. This will be really helpful when it comes to writing because I come up with most of my ideas during walks. Listening to my iPod while I walk also helps. By the way, I dreamed up the story that eventually became my NaNoWriMo project during a walk in September. Earlier that week, I had read a writing prompt that said something to the effect of, "you can come with this time, but only if you behave." I was thinking about it while I was walking and all of a sudden BAM! I had a story.

5) Participate in NaNoWriMo in November of 2010. Years ago, I tried writing a book called Dreams of Fenecia, but ended up abandoning it. Since that time, I've lost whatever work I did on it. Most of it was crap anyway because I had no idea what I was doing back then. Character outlines? Plot outlines? What are those? I also do think my prose in what I had written left much to be desired. It was too...perky. Anyhow, I think that I will try revisiting that book in November of 2010.

6) Maybe try to post more to Live Journal this year. I've been very quiet these past few months.

Wow...I'm right on time with this one...

( Click here )

Yep...I'm late on this one. I had a lot of pictures to go through from doomsey and my trip to the zoo on Friday.

( Click here )

I had a nice couple of nights. On New Year's Eve, doomsey and I went to a friend's house where we spent much of the evening playing rock band. I did a lot of singing and I'm surprised that my voice held up the entire evening with all of the screaming I was doing. Yesterday, we went to the in-laws' house to eat the traditional dinner of pork with sauerkraut. Yummy! Also, almeda gave me crochet lessons. Many thanks! We also played Apples to Apples. I managed to win the green card, secretive, by making a Fargo reference. I played the noun, wood chippers. Heh! That still does not compare to the time I played the noun, Helen Keller, for the card, touchy feely. Yes, I am evil!

Anyhoo, this is my list of New Year's resolutions:
1) Exercise more (and maybe lose a few pounds)
2) Stay healthy in general
3) Learn to crochet (already started!) and continue knitting
4) Write more
5) Try to figure out some of my great-grandmother's recipes

Today, doomsey and I went to the Art Institute. They had a really cool exhibit on tapestries that is ending on January 4th. We also visited the Impressionist Art wing, which was closed when we visited back in July. Right now, doomsey is doctoring a pasta sauce. The smells coming out of the kitchen are delightful!

Here are the baby blanket pictures as promised! Now I have to motivate myself to write a post on Ravelry.



( Three more pictures behind the cut )

Edit: Here's a link to the Ravelry post for those that are interested. emygination also pointed out that the link only works for those who have accounts on Ravelry.