Many project with small triumphs

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I find that these days I seem to be suffering from a sort of knitting ADHD.  Not to make light of the real illness, but I think my laziness and inability to commit to a project long enough to complete it has made finishing any project requiring thought or time impossible.  I jump projects, I lose interest, I give up. 

However, over the past few weeks I have finished a surprisingly high number of quick satisfaction projects:

1. The Violet Green Sock: I say Sock – singular.  Knitting one sock is exciting and fun.  After you complete the first and have to cast on for the second, the excitement is gone.  On top of that, the I used (drops delight) was a bit of a let down as far as sock yarn is concerend, So we still only have one sock.  The sock is based on Violet Green’s Sock Generator, which punches out a really good pattern.

2. Thumbsuckers: My son has a habit of thumbsucking and won’t sleep unless he has his thumb at the ready.  Unfortunately, we have had temperatures of –10 to –15 during the day and Danish daycares lay their babies out to sleep from time to time, so this makes for super cold fingers.  I made little gloves from my own pattern to help expose this little thumb while keeping his fingers warm.

3. A coffee cozy: Another made from my own pattern, but this time I crocheted it.  It’s been years since I have tried to crochet anything and I think this turned out pretty well.

4. An apple cozy: This one is based on an apple cozy found on Ravelry.  Even though I crocheted this and I am not that fast at crocheting, it took me only 45 minutes to make which was great.  No more bruised apples in my daughter’s back pack!

Maybe some day I will figure out how to keep something larger or that takes more than a day to make on my pins.  Shoot for the stars.

del.icio.us Tags: knitting,projects,finished objects,crochet

Book Reviews

Yay, I love sharing my 2 cents with random helpless victims who ultimately don’t care!

I currently have two reads to report on:

Knitting Related:

Drunk, Divorced and Covered in Cat Hair: This is Laurie Perry’s (AKA: Crazy Aunt Purl) first endeavor into the literary world and makes for a quick read. I have always felt oddly drawn to her blog, and now I know why. Laurie accounts her life during her divorce and when it seems her whole life was turned upside down. She talks a bit about her new obsession with knitting and there was a particular incident she recalls that happened right after she came home after her first knitting class was all too familiar to me. I remember having a similar experience learning to knit when I had a depression and was a bit batty myself, so this was a page turner for me. Highly recommend reading it if you are looking for a very insightful and reflective read (and it comes with some simple beginners knitting patters in the back, which is an extra lovely bonus when you are not expecting it :-) )

I have already bought Laurie’s second book Home is Where the Wine Is and am really looking forward to starting that.

Not Knitting Related:

Since knitting has become fashionable again, especially among women in IT, I thought this book was would be interesting to report in on.

Lykkelig I Nørdland (in Danish): Dorte Toft has been a prolific blogger for years covering various topics in the IT industry for years.  She is accredited for uncovering the Stein Bagger’s scandal and IT Factory and recently written  this book to highlight the need to encourage girls to take the “hard classes” such as math and science in school.  Denmark has often prided itself on “ligestilling” – the equality between men and women in society and the workplace, but Dorthe uses this book to discuss how girls and themselves pulling out of male oriented roles and only seeking education and employment in traditionally female jobs, making gender equality a myth.  She presents a very strong argument that girls not encouraged to study these disciplines by the 9^th grade will not do so later on in life, therefore forfeiting millions in lost pay and placing themselves lower in the hierarchy for promotion to managerial roles.  I am still in the process of reading this book, but as the mother of a girl in this i impressionable age, I can recommend it based on what I have read so far.

(Note: for anyone who is not Danish or involved in IT, IT Factory was a company that seemed to be one of the healthiest and most profitable in the country for many years until it was uncovered by Dorte that the company was riddled with fraud that stretched to various accounting and investment companies. A lot of people lost money due to this company and their CEO Stein Bagger has quickly become known as a kind of “Bernard Madoff of Denmark”. You can read more here.)

I recently heard Dorthe Toft speak at IT Mega Corp at one of our woman’s network session, which led me to read the book.  Occasionally, the company plans an event to talk about woman’s issues, points of interest or networking during company hours.  When this initiative first started, I remember thinking that this was an overreaction to critique the company must have gotten at some point.  When I was hired here, half of the managers were woman as was half of my department. 

One day recently, I was called into a meeting to review technology concepts and the results of several discussions that had been had with HQ in the US.  The meeting room was fitted with one long table, which was surrounded by black padded chairs which were all occupied by managers, team leads and directors.  The meeting started and I began to look around the room a bit.  I quickly realized that we were only two women in the room….2 out of 34!  After counting the number of bodies in the room, I realized that not only were we only 2 women, we were the only people there that were not managers.  So in a room of 34 participants, there were 32 Caucasian male managers and 2 female employees.  Since that day, I have suddenly been able to see the importance of having these discussions and women’s events.

The discussion in itself was interesting for the simple fact that yet again the point was brought up that it was women and girls limiting their own factors.  Of course there were a lot of factors that went into this – educational system, parents (in particularly fathers), etc. – but ultimately, in rich industrialized countries, we are getting worse at picking science and math in school.  Boys are moving away from these areas too, but the trend is much more dramatic with girls.  It’s getting so bad now that schools that teach teachers in Denmark called seminariums have actually had to drop natural sciences and math as a major because no one would take it.  I guess it’s up to us to make sure our own daughter gets the education she deserves.

del.icio.us Tags: Books,IT,knitting,women

It’s taken me a while to write this post because I wasn’t quite sure how to go about attacking the dreaded new year’s post. I say dreaded because I am a cynic. I always have been and always will be, but that doesn’t stop me from trying my hardest to look at the brighter side and make plans for the eventuality that I will by some miracle follow through with something that will surprise myself and all of those around me by the shear positivity of the endeavor. Has this happen yet? No. Do I usually tell others about these plans? No – I know that they won’t happen, so what’s the point? This is why I didn’t make a new year’s blog post like so many other bloggers do. I read quite a few that were hopefully optimistic and full of new year’s resolutions, forward looking or just happy that the past year was over and I marvel at their honesty. I have new year’s resolutions too, but I know they won’t be met so I don’t want to publically broadcast my good intentions but lesser motivation to the world.

The last year has been a journey. I had my son right around the new year, so the majority of my year was spent on maternity leave. Outside of the practicalities of how your live can change when you suddenly introduce a 3.5 kg lump of screaming fuzzy flesh into a family of two frantically busy IT project managers and a 6 year old is always an interesting experiment and the maternity leave was definitely needed. Some other good things have happened in that time:

1. I started knitting for real: this was always something I wanted to be good at but couldn’t quite figure it out.

2. I started blogging: I have ran out of steam lately, but am getting back into the swing of things.

3. I came to peace with the fact that I need to leave my job because there is no future for me here and that will never change: Wise words of advice from me to you – never love your company, job, or role more than you love yourself because it will never love you back.

So if I stop looking backwards for a minute and refuse to share my meaningless resolutions, then what is there to talk about 3 weeks after the fireworks have gone off and the champagne has been drank? There is a limit as to what we can control and what expectations we can reasonably put on ourselves. It’s only for your own good to admit that you have reached the end of a path and that you have no idea as to what you should do next. It’s OK to say “no” if you reason for doing so it to say “yes” to something else you want or need. It’s absolutely necessary to know what your priorities are. And finally, you must remember these points and act on them if you want to preserve any shred of sanity you may have left when times get tough (and times have been tough). Maybe this is the one resolution I can broadcast to the world. Forget losing 5 kg or any of the other cliché resolutions we all hear too often, I am going to spend the next year doing what I want to and following my own rules. I know that is something any of us can do with success if we really want to be happy.

Knitting ahead, afoot and a happy birthday too

To start with the important stuff, today is my baby boy’s 1st birthday. This is him, firmly clinging to my pants as he tends to do these days with his ever-present trusty Bobbi-Bear near by.

We did all the fun things you usually do on birthdays.  He got a present and a big breakfast of freshly baked birthday rolls with butter and jam and warm cocoa with whipped cream.  

Given that we celebrated our daughter’s birthday in the hospital due to a serious lung infection, it was a new experience to be able to have this day without thinking about anything except for what a year it has been and how different everything is now that he is here.  It’s been a very, very good day.

And finally a knitting update: I have to say that after such a long period of not being particularly productive on the knitting front, I have sprung back into action with a vengeance.  I have recently finished two projects for winter and not a moment too soon.  Take a look out at my window:

It’s –10C right now and we have 25 cm of snow.  This is my garden next to Nature Reservation at sunrise.  Hard to believe that in that weather, you can still hear the birds in the morning:

So the two projects I finished was a hat and socks (get it – knitting ahead and afoot… I am really too clever… :-S  ).  My husband says this himself so I don’t think he minds me putting it on my blog for the world to see – he has a large time finding hats because he suffers from the Family Big Head Gene.  In high school, he almost had to buy a round of drinks for the whole class because according to Danish tradition, the student with the largest graduation cap must buy the rest of the class a round.  Anyway, having a slightly larger head makes it hard to find hats that fit. 

And now from the front:

This seemed to me the project that simply wouldn’t die.  I am very pleased with the end results and he seems happy not to have a cold head anymore but the pattern required that you knit a round of 172 stitches on 2.0 mm needles into a 22 cm long tube of 3 K x 2 P ribbing.  I was seriously tempted to eat my own head halfway through this project, but it was worth the work.

The “afoot” part of my bad attempt of humor is a pair of socks for my 6 year old daughter.  I’ve never actually finished a whole pair of socks.  I always start and then stop because I have never been good with douple point needles.  They get in the way, they don’t feel right in my hands… it’s just not good.  For some reason though I decided to try again and it worked brilliantly this time. 

So my daughter and I went to pick out yarn and much to my surprise, she picked out a red, green, black and white speckled sock yarn that I would have never have picked for her.  The end results were pretty good, but not really something you would assume a Disney princess watching, pink plastic buying, Build-a-bear bear wanting hip hop girl would want:

 

And a close up:

So what’s next?  Today was my last day of work before the Christmas holiday.  Having the foresight to plan ahead, I have ordered a HUGE box of yarn that I need to pick up from the post office tomorrow.  Garnstudio has just released a new yarn called Drops Delight which is so soft, superwash treated, beautiful and on sale at the moment, so it makes up the majority of my purchase. I think it with by a sock-y Christmas this year.

Not safe to be my friend

I often joke with coworkers that I am a hazard to be around.  Most of them laugh off this idea, but I swear it’s true.  I travel to Denver on business – within 2 days of my departure, a guy decides to shoot up the capital building right down the street from my hotel and a woman gets arrested in the airport after repeatedly hitting her child in a plane.  Then I go to Boston.  Again, within a few days after I leave, a woman offering “massage services” gets shot and killed in the same hotel I lived in. 

This has happened too many times to count, but a last case I will bother to mention is when a couple of coworkers and I went to Tivoli in Copenhagen this summer. We were sitting at a cafe having a beer and I told them about some of the more recent incidences.  They again laughed it off as a joke, but then the next morning, the following happened:

Yeah, see those chairs and tables the car crashed into?  That is exactly where we were sitting when I told them about this.  By this point, I am feeling like the character Indrid Cole from The Mothman Prophecies. 

Nothing of this exact nature has happened lately, but I have had some bad luck with led me to reflect a bit on how I (somehow) seem to be a black cat spreading bad luck with everyone and everything that crosses my path.  First point of bad luck: some woman drove into my car on the freeway.  This in itself is enough to upset anyone, but when we drove over to the shoulder, the first thing that came out of this woman’s mouth was that my car was already in this condition when she it it.  She didn’t deny hitting my car, she just denied being at fault for any damage.  So what do you say to this?  If you are me, your sarcasm gene kicks in and you reply to this dumb comment by someone who you can only figure is in shock: “Yeah… I drove from work today with my back bumper in the trunk… Of course! How could I forget that?”  Hmm, maybe not the nicest move on my part, but since there was no “are you ok?” from this woman, I figure we could skip the niceties. 

The next morning I was still knocked a bit loopy.  I was in shock that this woman had behaved in this manner.  I was absolutely livid and since the accident, she had refused to answer her phone so I could get her insurance information.  I grew up in the US and saw a deal of foolish lawsuits – for example, we all now that you can get millions from McDonalds if you spill hot coffee in your lap while driving.  I get why you would want to limit frivolous lawsuits, but man… that morning after, I wanted a lawyer.

Second point of bad luck: we are all getting sick.   This weekend child 1 and 2 both got sick.  How did we discover that this happened?  Child 1 woke up screaming because she had gotten sick on her own head and Child 2 woke me up by getting sick on my head.  Well, not head, but in my hoodie.  Mmmmm…  I am home today while my car is in the shop and my kids are under the weather.  What a week already…Maybe it’s bad mojo coming home to roost because that other driver a freak napalming accident (no, I’m not bitter at all).

The Simple Things in Life: Poo Free Water and Quick Fix Knitting Projects

So the water here now has been poo free for a while now.  Like I said in my previous post, the water wasn’t technically contaminated with poo, it was just loaded with bacteria to the point that the government asked us not to drink it or use it for washing.  Big difference apparently.  After being without water for what came to be 2 whole weeks, being able to turn on the faucet and wash your hands or brush your teeth was almost liberating.  It was truly fantastic and now my only concern is that I would like to know why the water was contaminated.  They never found a source for the bacteria and not knowing if or how it could come back again, is a bit concerning.  Thirsty anyone?

Being back at work at Mega IT Corp Inc. has only gone to underline how therapeutic knitting has become for me.  I find myself browsing for a new pattern on Ravelry every once in a while and then stopping and reminding myself that sitting on my bum while working a way on a large project after having sat all day in front of a computer working on a multiple year long project and then spending two hours on my bum again driving home is probably not a great way to de-stress.  Small quick victories is what I need and small quick victories bees what me gets (odd use of pirate speak…).  So what did I make:

Thumb-less baby gloves and a mistake rib scarf.

Hardly ground breaking work, but fun, rewarding and I now have two warm kids. 

There’s Poo in the Water

I’ve been back at work for over a month now and it’s been hard to get back into the swing of things.  Between having two kids that have started school or daycare and starting back at work in a department hard hit by layoffs, it’s been difficult to keep up with other things like blogging.  So dear blog, please forgive me.

Knitting and spinning has unfortunately taken a back seat to more practical things at the moment like poo in the water.  That’s right: poo in the drinking water.We got notice on Monday that the drinking water in the whole town is contaminated with cloriform bacteria.  To be more precise, it’s not really poo I suppose – poo would be e.coli and this is just coli which commonly comes from soil, rot and decay.  Not as dangerous but knowing where it comes from makes it just as unappetizing as poo. 

The city, after finding the poo last Thursday and then not warning us until Monday (?!?), has given some rather confusing directions about how we can handle the water.  They said it could be used for making food or drinking, but it must be brought to a rapid boil for 2-5 minutes first.  Clothes can be washed at 60 C and dishes at 85 C.  So far so good… and then you reach the “hygiene” section of the directions.  Bathing – OK.  Handwashing – not OK.  (pause for a “huh?” accompanied by a puzzled look with cocked head)  So do I keep my hands out of the shower? It gets even better when they tell school children they may not wash their hands at school but may do so at home – and it’s the same water.  I am getting the feeling that someone hasn’t really thought this through and it’s making me wonder what would happen in a real emergency.