A not quite so epic fail

(Note: This was a blog post that I found in my drafts.  For some reason it never posted even though I wrote it over a year ago.  Somehow I missed it, but I find that I really enjoyed it, so I decided to upload it just for fun.  I think the message is something I need to remind myself of periodically.)

As you may have noticed I didn't blog at all this weekend.  No recipes.  No message on spirituality.  I completely dropped the ball on my Grand Plan to blog every day for the summer.  I will not beat myself up over it.  I'll just keep moving on.  This weekend was busy.  I worked both Saturday and Sunday and then had to do all the things I formerly had always accomplished on the weekends like the weekly grocery shopping, trip to Target, spending time with my kids and spouse.  A busy, but pleasant weekend. 

Today starts the made countdown to the end of an era.  The final Harry Potter movie is released at midnight on Friday (or Thursday - however you want to view it).  We won't be seeing it until the 12:15 showing so it really will be Friday when we see it.  I'm dressing as Professor Sprout, although I still have to dye my witchy robes and finish making my hat.  My son is going as Random Hufflepuff Quidditch Fan Number 27.  My younger daughter is dressing as Gilderoy Lockhart, complete with a copy of Magical Me.  My older daughter and spouse are not dressing up.  The spouse doesn't get into the entire "dressing up for movies" thing and my oldest child says that she is "too sad to dress up."  I think she's being too melodramatic.  I do understand that she is sad.  She's grown up with Harry.  She was 8 when she read the first book and fell in love with the Wizarding World.  She has had a Harry Potter birthday almost every year since she turned 9 thanks to the release of a book or movie around her birthday.  She watched Mugglenet grow from a strange little blog to this large monstrosity.  She's read every book at least four times and watched ever movie at least ten times.  She has dressed as Tonks, Bellatrix, Hermione, Rita Skeeter (my favorite of all her costumes) and Random Ravenclaw Student Number 2 (her best friend went as Random Ravenclaw Student Number 1 and her sister as Random Ravenclaw Student Number 3).  Part of me truly understands how she is depressed and can't put energy into a costume, but the other part of me can't figure out for the life of me why she would pass up on this one last opportunity to be part of the excitement. 

So I didn't blog.  Sue me.  I can live with missing two days.  And I'll probably miss other days as well.  I'm ok with that.  At first I was a bit upset that I had let myself (mostly) and my readers (hey you three) down.  I was going to offer up some sort of penance.  I was going to lash myself with a cat-o-nine tails made of Red Heart Super Saver.  I was going to jab size 000 DPN's under my skin until I howled with pain.  But then I realized, that it was just a blog.  It wasn't the Harry Potter world ending.  It wasn't the last of a series of really fun movies.  It wasn't Voldemort swooping down to enslave Muggles.  It was just a blog.  Not an epic fail.  Just a couple thousand (if that) words on a computer screen.  It wasn't going to end wars or establish peace.  It was just a blog.

Busy few weeks

My Olympic challenge was to make a lace shawl in the 16 days that the Olympics were taking place.  And I did it with time to spare.  I also managed since my last post to finish my Clapotis which is very lovely and drapes nicely.  And I'm currently test knitting a pattern for a pair of socks for someone.  It's going well and shouldn't take me long. 

I'm settling well into my new creation station (which still doesn't have a name other than the old sun room or the new room place) except I'm having issues with Daughter Number One invading it and leaving her crap stuff all over my place.  She cleaned her room earlier this year so she could create it in and slowly all of her crap stuff is invading my space.  I don't mind so much that she creates in here, I just wish she would pick up her stuff and put it away when she is done so that when I get up and want to create I have somewhere to do that.  Meanwhile she is adding lots of new things to her Etsy shop that are fun and creative. I love that she is so creative.  I just don't love the mess she leaves behind.  It's my space yet I can't use it with her things all over the place. 

My biggest "time suck" has been work.  I am not complaining.  I'm enjoying it and have been training for a potential new position.  (Everyone keep your fingers crossed.)  It's been fun learning new things and interacting with different people.  I'm hoping something becomes more permanent with this position in the next week or so.  I hate sitting on the fence waiting for something to happen.  I'm also not working in that department all the time, just sporadically so there are times when I feel like I am not getting anything accomplished as I will work there for two days and then get uprooted and thrown into a totally different department and lose the momentum I had a particular project.  By the time I get back there I have to back track to get things situated so I can go back to working on what I had been.  And there are projects that I know need to get done but because I am not there all the time to do them and the people who step into that department after me don't see me as an authority figure the notes that I leave are not being paid attention to so stuff just doesn't get done.

It's sort of like walking into your craft space and finding that other people have created in it and left it a mess.

Moving in day!

After much toil, trial, tribulation, tears and tearing out of hair, I was able to finally deem the room done and move my "stuff" back in!  What a very exciting thing it was.  But before I actually moved anything into the room, I cleaned it out of all the plastic covering on the floor, the blue tape around the windows, the various ladders, tools and paint supplies.  I swept the floor very well and then I danced silly twirling dances with Boo (as the boy wouldn't join in such a wild rumpus).  I figured if I was going to have a clean open space that I would take advantage of it at least once for something fun and silly.

So I moved in the sewing machine, spinning wheel, ironing board, and my old desk.  I bought and assembled 2 sets of metal shelves and put all my stash (both fabric and fiber) as well as all my paper, rubberstamps, ink, and a few paper supplies.  I've decided to do the 6 month approach to anything else moving into the room.  Whatever I don't use in the next six months does not come back into the room.

The room.  That's what we keep calling it.  I don't really know what to call it.  I don't really care for "hobby room" because I envision it to be so much more.  It's not really the sun room  any longer as I did take out half the windows.  It still has quite a bit of light, but it isn't truly a sun room.  So if you have any good suggestions on what to call this room, leave your suggestions in the comments section.

My next task is to cut out curtains for this room.  It's all echoey and hollow-sounding and needs things to buffer the noise.  Curtains are in order and after that I'm not sure what.  I'm betting getting some soft furniture in here will help as well. 

In knitting news, I have new shoes.  Yes, this is a knitting related statement.  See?  They are Danskos if anyone is interested.  Yes, Dansko shoes with knitting on them.  As many people who have seen them in person have commented, "They are quite ... well ... ugly, but so very you."  They are pretty and shiny and have knitting on them.  I love them.  And you should too.  Even if on my feet alone.  I justified their expense because I needed new work shoes and the shoe repair place that I took my last pair of Danskos to lost my shoes.  Yes.  Lost my shoes.  How does one lose a pair of shoes that are connected together and in a plastic bag?  I'm quite upset and he has been ignoring my calls to find out where my shoes are.

But in the real knitting news, I've been working hard at the Ravellenic games.  These would be the aforementioned Ravelympics, but the United States Olympic Committee decided that we should cease and desist using anything that had "lympic" in it as they had a copyright on those syllables and that it degraded the work that "real" Olympians put forth.  Of course that irked the entire knitting community who took it upon themselves to enlighten the USOC about a few things.  The USOC gave a non-apology and then asked if we would like to donate knitted items for the US athletes to take to the Olympics.  Unfortunately the USOC failed to recognize that Ravelry is an international community and probably would not be interested, after being insulted, in donating knitted items to the Olympians.  Please note that we love the athletes.  We just aren't very fond of the USOC.  However, I am knitting while watching and am making a beautiful shawl by Heatherly Walker, known affectionately as Yarn Yenta, called Threnody.  It's a Knitty pattern and named after a character in D M Cornish's Monster Blood Tattoo series (which is delightful and a fabulous read for older tweens and teens).  I'm making it from some very lovely Sweet Georgia Yarns Merino and silk blend in a sport weight (the package says DK, but it is much thinner than that but much thicker than fingering). The color is called Oxblood and I'm simply in love with it.  I have two more rows and the bind off and I'll be through knitting it.  I'm hoping to finish that and get it blocked today.  

So, leave me a name suggestion for a room that is used to create things.  There will be lots of sewing, knitting, spinning, and other crafts going on in here.  And if my previous plans for today pan out there will be curtain creating happening this afternoon.