FYI

The wedding is in the 10 day weather forecast. Wedding forecast? Whoooooooooooa.

Salt?

Yes, salt. Go with it.

Image from here.

Sending virtual love to my now-married, now-in-Peru pal from my old neighborhood.

Oh you know, just a typical Saturday planting 17 mini-deserts.

Wedding planning closer

In case you were wondering, in the past 18 hours I have:

1. assembled, addressed, stuffed, stamped (2x!) 75 invites
2. concocted, purchased, assembled thank you notes
3. acquired my, how do they call it, foundation pieces
4. gotten fitted for my gown by Lina who says, "you will come back. You will be happy."
5. chose shoes for my gown

Sometimes, you just gotta be a closer.

A Good Sunday

From here.

Sometimes, when I'm totally losing my mind over work and weddings and whatever else it is that I lose my mind over, the Fella is justrightthere to make me stop and realize how good things are. After I left work tonight, we hopped on our bikes, grabbed some sushi and wine, and went to watch Shakespeare in Schiller Park with our impromptu picnic. It was a good Sunday.

And Bottom the Weaver totally killed.

I'm still alive!

...but just barely.

This whole "being a scientist" thing kills me sometimes.
Current things I'm freaking out about/ to-do list:

1. Resubmit 2 papers
2. Plan a wedding

Wait, that's not enough? Wrong. It is. But for kicks I'm also finishing the super secret wedding present (bonus if I send it to them before they get back from the honeymoon.) At least J and J's wedding was a sweet respite from the lunacy- see above.

Where I've been...

This was the view outside my hotel window. Eat your heart out.

...Amsterdam! This past week I was lucky enough to attend EuroPneumo (yup, really what it's called). It was 4 packed days of pneumococcal disease - and I was stoked.

Of course it wasn't all rainbows and canals. In true cursed-me form, the traveling was a nightmare. Notable hiccups in chronological order:

- leaving my poster at security

- having my plane from Columbus delayed 1.5 hours

- consequently having my layover in Detroit reduced from 1.5 hours to 0

- alternately sprinting and heaving in the Detroit airport

- leaving my passport on the airplane in Schipol (seriously, who does this?)

- not being able to find the baggage carousel

- finding the baggage carousel and realizing my bag was not on it

- realizing I'd lost the claim ticket for the bag when I left the passport on the plane

- realizing the bag had the Fella's identification information on it instead of mine

- being hoodwinked by a Dutch cab driver/arguing with a Dutch cab driver

- realizing that not having luggage also meant not having pajamas (bonus points since sharing a room with my boss)

- finding out there were mosquitoes in our room and waking up to a quarter-sized itchy red bullseye on my forehead

- remembering no luggage also means no makeup

and that was just the first 24 hours. Huzzah! But seriously, never travel with me.

Moved!

Pardon the phone pictures. But obviously the camera and the cord are still hiding. In the meantime I'll be knitting and listening to records. Because obviously unpacking the record player was a priority... I'm kidding. It's just the closest thing to technology we have. No tv or internet yet, just boxes and bikes. And records.

Knitting snub

So I made this. I packed it up all nice and pretty.

It was for the Fella's friends' little creature. I even wrote a card. And yet, I received nary a thank you or even a "this will make a great rag for toilet cleaning." I'll just pretend having a newborn is difficult.

Super secret knitting project: commence.

Photo by my sister.*

After a horrible yarn disaster that left me with about 3 pounds of mottled blue yarn (more to come on that debacle), I've decided that I just have to try and get something knitted up in time for J and J's impending wedding.

Book available here.

I've decided on a pattern from my go-to book, "Leisure Arts Big Book of Quick Knit Afghans." Despite every effort to make the projects look terrible by photographing them on a rainy day in a cottage in 1975 (bonus points: several feature a cat and/or reading glasses and/or cups of tea), this book has so far served me well. It provided patterns for my sister's Christmas gift a few years ago (seen at the top) and C and S's wedding blanket two summers ago. And most importantly, as promised, they really are quick knits. All are knit on size 15 or 17 needles, so each stitch literally goes a long way.

I think I've chosen the pattern called, "Exquisite." I won't show it to you in the off-chance that J or J even knows I once updated a blog periodically... Anyway, it looks like I can easily dismantle the pattern into four packable strips. I know, I know, you're thinking, "why would you introduce seams and therefore SEAMING when you don't absolutely have to? You are crazy." But I can justify 3 seams if it makes me more able to knit on the plane to Europe. (did I mention I'm going to Europe?) The only other modification I'm anticipating is lenghthening it since J and J are stupid tall.

*underneath that delicately draped blanket is my sister's friend hiding in a bush to make the blanket drape delicately. Isn't my sister the best?

Back. Again. Maybe. Whatever.

Every time I stop writing/documenting/musing, I think, "shame on you, self, you've not followed through on another project." This is a recurrent theme not only in my half-assed blogging, but also knitting, cleaning, and most other hobbies. I'm committed and excited, but only in spurts.

So here I am once again (I think this is about my 4th time recommitting) promising to, well, try again. I have lots of big changes on the horizon, and maybe it wouldn't hurt to move the tumult from the recesses of my brain and leave the weird random brain-thoughts here in the safe comfort of google.

Big changes/projects(!):
1. Moving to our new apartment
2. Furnishing said apartment to not look like a frat house
3. Finish planning post-wedding vacation
4. Finish planning wedding...
5. Write dissertation (ha!)
6. Get off my behind and knit a wedding present for J and J

With some amount of motivation or, more likely some amount of procrastination from doing the things on the above list, it's my hope to share a little bit more about all of the above. (Did that even make sense? It did to me.) So for the next few months (hopefully!) things here will be more like "science, science, moving, decorating, wedding, vacation, knit." Unless this is just a mirage and I don't post again for another 6 months. And I'm perfectly okay with that, too.