22 March, 2007

Spring Break, baby! Woo!

My midterms are over! I breathed a sigh of relief and headed off, prepared to begin a rockin' spring break of work and video games. I know, exciting right? But brace yourselves, I may get wild this week and actually go outside. Hmm, maybe not. The only disadvantage I can see to having friends who are actually brown - instead of just from a brown-people sort of country but actually pasty and freckle-free - is that no one will lay by the illusion pool and worship Ra with me. Otherwise, you guys are great. I love the food, the warmth, the flash-in-the-pan emotions, all of it. But seriously... if one could only go to the beach! A little sun-bathing would set me up forever. And Mrs. Bennet I think would agree.

So remember My Very First Sock? I frogged it. And re-started it. But the pattern is a divisible-by-four pattern and I wanted a K2P1 rib, which (as my l33t math skillz soon informed me) is NOT divisible by 4. So I re-worked everything and created my own pattern, which is its own special brand of challenging. Then I realized that the self-patterning yarn I have isn't quite the right stuff to show off my genius First Sock pattern, what with the baby cables and the ribbed heel and all. I've made it all the way to the point where I have to pick up the stitches for the gusset, and I'm quite proud of myself. I think I may even use the pattern again!

Spring break in my world has never been a very exciting time. I'm usually too broke to go anywhere that involves flashing cameras or really anywhere that involves spending money. This year is no exception, but this time I'm doing it on purpose. That's right, #41 on my 101 in 1001 list starts in 2 hours and 27 minutes. I am going to go this entire week of spring break without spending any money, and it is going to suck. But I've set myself up for success; I have a full tank of gas, milk in the fridge and coffee both at home and at work, knitting projects to last me and a Netflix account to keep me occupied in case I should get bored catching up on Battlestar Galactica (uh huh, like that'll happen). I also have twice as many hours at work as usual this week, which is awesome. The only thing I am going to be lenient about is buying my plane ticket to Michigan for Erick's graduation; I've been waiting for my tax return to be deposited into my bank account, and if I don't get the ticket this week I'll be under the 30-day mark and I won't be able to afford it at all.

Assuming I can get at least one thing done per day - and some days two things (don't look so shocked) - I'm listing 10 things I'd like to finish before next Monday. So without further ado, here is the Spring Break List of Demands:
1. Starting Monday, do not spend any money for 1 week (not including plane ticket or bills automatically deducted from bank account).
2. Get laundry situation under control. White socks do not look good with black shoes!
3. Begin ARTH 175 paper, due April 10.
4. Begin ARTH 183C project
4a. Scan and print stitch descriptions
4b. Chart motif
4c. Pull colors/linen from stash
4d. Begin stitching (outlines first?)
5. Finish My Very First Socks. Or at least *almost* finish them, because the 52-Pair Plunge begins April 1. I'm not above stacking the deck in my favor, especially with Spring Break Demands 4 and 7 on the books!
6. Kool-Aid dye first set of KnitPicks yarn
7. Choose a topic for ARTH 185B paper, or design a project. One fewer paper to write will be a blessing come May, I'm sure.
8. Finish tearing apart, washing and skeining RUS's.
9. Get to 70 in World of Warcraft (yes, I said video games! What?!?)
10. Catch up on Battlestar Galactica.

Seems reasonable when I put it on virtual paper like that. Sweet.
And now I'm going to go work on my socks. Expect a pattern after I've made a few!