Eyes Open, Brain On
It's been a long week... and a short week... or so I think. Jet lag does this. You are so tired, but you just can't stay asleep. And you're hungry at all the wrong times. And you can't remember if you said something aloud, or if you just dreamed it. Jet lag: it sucks.
We arrived back at our home on Sunday, about mid-afternoon. I've done the trans-Atlantic voyage lots of times, but it's always harder coming back this way. And it's not the longest haul I've ever done, but maybe it's just harder when you get older. Bleh.
The longest of the flights wasn't too bad. The seat next to me was empty, which meant I could dump some of my stuff onto it rather than jamming it into the seat pocket in front of me to get smooshed by my knees every few minutes. I passed the time by doing quite of lot of work on my shawl... and by "work," I mean ripping out a ton of stitches and re-doing them after I realized how far off my stitch count was. It was pretty ok: I watched a couple of movies and snoozed a bit, but I never get any true rest on a plane. Nine and half hours is a long time to try to find the bright side of sitting uncomfortably. Near the end of the flight, I discovered the kids' music channel. A couple of minutes listening to the Disney album brightened things up considerably. It turns out that I will sing along aloud to "Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast pretty much anywhere, even if I'm surrounded by rows and rows of very tired people.
I went back to work on Tuesday. By Friday, I had finally caught up again with the sun. I sleep when it's dark, and I'm awake when it's light, which is a real accomplishment. I mostly eat when I'm supposed to, but a bake sale at work sort of threw a wrench into those plans. Peanut butter marshmallow squares are a terrible kryptonite, as were the four chocolate cupcakes in the background. Yeah, I bought them. I didn't have any change. I wanted to support the bake sale. And it was a tiring week, ok?
I'm glad to be back in my own surroundings, even though my weariness has meant that my projects being worked on much. I was glad to make it to the weekend, when I could down for a couple of hours and work on my shawl. It's Katherine Mills' Draco Shawl, which is a clever pattern that makes use of decreases and increases to give a swirly, spiky look. My version should be interesting, since I'm using a very skinny yarn, a much smaller hook, and a heck of a lot more yarn. The instructions for the decreasing section are strange, so I ditched them and basically did the reverse of the increase section. So far, I'm liking the simplicity and the texture of the stitch pattern (which I altered to sc, ch2, sc to make the spaces between each stitch larger). I'm curious to see how it blocks - I'd like it to be as swoopy as the original one:
Today, I finally got around to taking photos of my shrug, which has been sitting complete for nearly a month now... I honestly can't remember when I finished it. One of the pictures is a bit blurry, but it took me a long time to lever myself off the couch to fix my hair and take photos of it (I ran 19km/12 miles this morning, and I got stuck on the couch). It's about the best I can come up with today. I'm quite happy with it, given that there was a lot of improvising to make the sleeves a little wider and a little longer. I think I'll get some use of it this summer:
We arrived back at our home on Sunday, about mid-afternoon. I've done the trans-Atlantic voyage lots of times, but it's always harder coming back this way. And it's not the longest haul I've ever done, but maybe it's just harder when you get older. Bleh.
The longest of the flights wasn't too bad. The seat next to me was empty, which meant I could dump some of my stuff onto it rather than jamming it into the seat pocket in front of me to get smooshed by my knees every few minutes. I passed the time by doing quite of lot of work on my shawl... and by "work," I mean ripping out a ton of stitches and re-doing them after I realized how far off my stitch count was. It was pretty ok: I watched a couple of movies and snoozed a bit, but I never get any true rest on a plane. Nine and half hours is a long time to try to find the bright side of sitting uncomfortably. Near the end of the flight, I discovered the kids' music channel. A couple of minutes listening to the Disney album brightened things up considerably. It turns out that I will sing along aloud to "Be Our Guest" from Beauty and the Beast pretty much anywhere, even if I'm surrounded by rows and rows of very tired people.
I went back to work on Tuesday. By Friday, I had finally caught up again with the sun. I sleep when it's dark, and I'm awake when it's light, which is a real accomplishment. I mostly eat when I'm supposed to, but a bake sale at work sort of threw a wrench into those plans. Peanut butter marshmallow squares are a terrible kryptonite, as were the four chocolate cupcakes in the background. Yeah, I bought them. I didn't have any change. I wanted to support the bake sale. And it was a tiring week, ok?
I'm glad to be back in my own surroundings, even though my weariness has meant that my projects being worked on much. I was glad to make it to the weekend, when I could down for a couple of hours and work on my shawl. It's Katherine Mills' Draco Shawl, which is a clever pattern that makes use of decreases and increases to give a swirly, spiky look. My version should be interesting, since I'm using a very skinny yarn, a much smaller hook, and a heck of a lot more yarn. The instructions for the decreasing section are strange, so I ditched them and basically did the reverse of the increase section. So far, I'm liking the simplicity and the texture of the stitch pattern (which I altered to sc, ch2, sc to make the spaces between each stitch larger). I'm curious to see how it blocks - I'd like it to be as swoopy as the original one:
Today, I finally got around to taking photos of my shrug, which has been sitting complete for nearly a month now... I honestly can't remember when I finished it. One of the pictures is a bit blurry, but it took me a long time to lever myself off the couch to fix my hair and take photos of it (I ran 19km/12 miles this morning, and I got stuck on the couch). It's about the best I can come up with today. I'm quite happy with it, given that there was a lot of improvising to make the sleeves a little wider and a little longer. I think I'll get some use of it this summer:
And while sitting here writing this post, I did pick up the camera and take a shot of the arm, which shows the colours of the yarn more accurately. It's like honeydew and cantaloupe together, no?
In all, I'm glad to be back in the swing of things. My half marathon is in two weeks, and honestly, I can't wait for it to be all over. Maybe it's all the upheaval of the past few months that has made it even more difficult than I imagined, but the training wasn't at all as steady as I'd hoped for. After the event is over, I plan to celebrate with a summer full of good ol' sittin' on the couch.
I think I'll get started on that right now! Have a good week!
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