New bits on the Blog

I am sooo loving those Shakespearian Insults as a Blog option. You see it plays to the Monty Python in me ("Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries!) kind of thing.

The Knit Meter (no I don't like the spelling!!!!) is part of letting me know how much yarn is being eaten off my stash. I like it better pink but had a few issues trying to get it on there. Work computer was not behaving (...seriously I was just trying to change the colour code in my lunch break!)

And now for something completely different!

Now for the real start to the year

WORK!!
Back at work this week and what a shock to the system that was! Body used to 9am wakeup now rudely awakened by loud alarm bells at 6.30am. Still going to bed at reasonable time for it (midnight) but the earlier start is wrecking the whole deal. Still we must work to replenish the Christmas depleted funds - moths are accumulating!

DESTASHING
Following the destash of wardrobe, I intend to mostly knit out of yarn stash this year (no sniggering please). I have checked the queue on Ravelry against the stash - mostly on Ravelry but evenly scattered throughout Chez Harrow. I have yarn for pretty much all the projects I wish to do now and into the year 3000 should the regeneration of human bodies become a reality (come in Star Trek!)

ALPINE CLASSIC
The Great Lycra Clad Cycling One (aka Perry) is off to join his equally lycra clad friends in Victoria this week for the Alpine Classic - two more sleeps until fly time. So we have the Great Black Bike Carrier and its sidekicks, the large and capacious MacPack and smaller day pack lurking in the back room. The bike will be dismantled for its trip tomorrow evening I suspect whilst I join the Exomod knitters for an evening's coffee and chat. Don't really think I need to be there for that. Then it's a crack of dawn airport run with, hopefully no hitches involved (overweight luggage or "But we weren't expecting you with a bike Sir!" or any of those other airline-type excuses.)

STRANGE INTERNET STUFF
I also need to share a strange tendency I developed over the holiday season. I attended the full Hopman Cup tennis series at the Burswood Dome and many of the very good matches went on until after midnight at which point I would pootle home on the bike - very nice early in the morning with the frogs croaking and no hoons to spoil the silence - or cadge a lift with friends who were passing my door on the way hopefully. I then would hop onto the computer, ostensibly to check mail but I managed to put my name down (apparently) for a bunch of Ravelry swap groups that I then had no recollection of in the light of day. Fascinating! Not that I will welch on any of these but I had messages coming from strangers wanting to tell me about themselves and asking questions about likes and dislikes and saying what fun we were going to have and all that sort of stuff. What the...!
So I have little boxes on the back room table - one for a monthly sock swap, another for a birthday swap and who knows what else will come up. I've got to get onto at least one pair of socks for the former and am planning to knit something for the latter. All good as I will get stuff in return I guess. For the birthday one which is Australian only, four parcels out and then four pressies in - all good!!

THE 'NOT' RESOLUTIONS
Meantime, I shall work on not casting on tooooo many things before I actually complete some of them. Bec and I decided we would have to publish a knitting book sometime soon but we were at The Balmoral when we decided this (there was also talk of a knitting shop somewhere in here...) so I'm not sure on the time frames. All sounded good when singing along to background music and laughing hysterically - just ask Bec! Anything sounds better than work though when work is looming dangerously close as it was last week. Now that it's a reality, everything else is a bit - background for now. But you never can tell............

Welcome to 2009!

Well who'd a thunk it?! Just when I was about to throw GT into the bin in disgust, I double-checked all the relevant bits, unchecked a box that I didn't tick in the first place and Georgie-too is purring like a kitten again. For those not in the know, Georgie-too (GT for short), is my PDA that last month made life less than wonderful. The good new coming out of all that is I have a new operating system and have reloaded all the programmes fresh so it's all squeaky clean. Haven't synchronised at work yet though so keep watching.

On the knitting front, I have finally finished my Landon by Jordana Paige. It was to have won me a nice new Rio bag (the link shows what Landon is supposed to look like with my bag) but somebody without a life finished it in 4 days - bugger!! I have since (obviously) slowed somewhat, revised the pattern and shortened it to suit me instead of a six foot person. It isn't blocked yet but you get the picture I think... There will be more and better pics on Ravelry and Flikr for those who care!

Moving on to this year's aims and targets - I refuse to do resolutions! - I hope to deal, at least in part, with my bower bird tendencies. I have this very day, recycled to the Salvos 6 bags (eeekkkk!!) of various fashion errors and past trends that no longer require space Chez Harrow. I am in the process of packing down the woollies from winter to put out what I have that is summer........and see what a disaster that was - but it doesn't look like I have touched what is there (woe is me!) It's been a while shall we say. It's also a wonder the wardrobe hasn't collapsed under the pressure.

I have discarded six pairs of shoes that really were past it (ie beyond repair) - but that makes room for the ones I bought at the sales - cute pink sandals that whispered, "Buy me!" when I walked into the shop.

Also looking forward to a bit more cycling fun. I managed to reached the heady levels of 3051 out of 8090 cyclists worldwide on bikejournal(dot)com so I was fairly pleased with my erstwhile tendencies as cycle commuter extraordinaire. I had aimed for 2750km for the year and scraped in with 2644km - a good effort in anyone's book. My husband not to be outdone, clocked 17,873.5km (yes, that's 17 thousand!) and was ranked 66th on the list. I think he has a bicycle saddle implanted because I don't think I saw him out of lycra in 2008. He assures me the challenge on km's was just last year and he won't be going all out in 2009. Stay tuned for that one!