3rd Annual Knitting and Crochet Blog Week!

Another sleepless night had me up and blog hopping and I came upon Eskimimi Makes who runs the Annual Knitting and Crochet Blog Week. She has a lovely blog with all kinds of crafty goodness in it and I signed up as fast as I could type in my e-mail address!

Basically what you do to participate is:

A) Sign up.

B) During the blog week you will post on your blog from a set topic. If you go to Eskimimi's blog you will see a link to examples of last years posts - the one I stumbled upon was "A Tale of Two Yarns". As you can see - the topics allow for some wiggle room in how you would post about this. Two yarns that compliment each other? A Yarn you loved and a yarn you hated? Two yarns you combined for awesome results?

C) There is a really neat tag system that Eskimimi has created that you will insert each day into your blog. The tags for each day have already been posted up on her site and you enter a specific code for each day. This will allow all the participants to google search that code and find all the different posts for that day! How clever is this? (I can't wait to start trolling through all the blogs!)

D) Go read the actual details on Eskimimi Makes Blog since I am paraphrasing all of this and I am in a Zombie sleepless state so I might have mucked things up a bit.

If you have any interest I would recommend popping over and having a look. There are prizes offered up too - which of course is just lovely!

YAY!

A return to normal

This is our last morning with our mother-in-law's Dog Minnie. She will be gone when I get home from work today. It's amazing how fast you get used to having another critter in the house. We developed a routine and I have to say I think I will miss the little beast. :)

Conversely I cannot wait to come home today and hit my Zumba! I have only been able to do it once in the last week with Minnie staying with us. Tom took Minnie out of the house for an hour so I could get a workout in. Minnie is a great dog but she is so excitable - we just new me flaying around like a crazy Zumba Warrior would cause her to go into fits - so I did more on the treadmill this week. I miss my Zumba!

I have had a lot of insomnia this past week. I woke up at 11:30 pm one night and could not go back to sleep. Last night I woke at 2:30 and could not go back to sleep. Hopefully that stop pretty soon. It's hard to not be crabby when you are sleep deprived. I suspect it's also hard on the diet and health in general. I am more prone toward a binge when I am in a Zombie state. Zombie eating is nobodies friend!

Monday in your face

Good Morning World. It's time for Insomniac Theater! Woke up at 1:00 this morning and could NOT get back to sleep. This always makes me so very happy. Nothing like starting out the week exhausted and crabby. **sigh**

I am pretty sure my neighbors don't appreciate my sleepless nights either. I put Emma out when I got out of bed at 2:12 this morning and she immediately ran to the very back of our yard and started barking like a mad dog. Nothing carries on a cold winter night like the sound of a dog barking. Then the sound of a tired woman in owl pajamas shivering in the doorway making kissing noises and whisper yelling "Emma!" and shaking the treat container. Yup. People know when I am up.

Then Emma curls up on her bed in the den while I amuse myself with the Internet, sighing a lot and getting excited for food every time I get up and go to the kitchen for more coffee. On a normal day when I wake up, it means the food will happen for the cat and the dog very soon. So when I wake up hours early - it's chaos. The cat has a timed feeder because she used to wake me up when she thought it was time to eat by standing on my sleeping form. Then the claws would come out when just walking on me didn't work. (ouch.) Then she figured out that I put my glasses on when I would get up, so she took to walking to my night stand and batting my glasses on the floor. That's when we decided to get a battery operated feeder.

 Here she is at 2:40 in the morning licking the empty bowl. She pretty much walks around glaring at me all morning because the food is not happening. Add to that I took her out of the bedroom where my husband is sleeping - so she can't go into that room. She will make the occasional walk to the bedroom door and claw frantically at it hoping she can get in. That makes for a fun game too. I will go and shush her away and when she hears me retreat and start typing again she will start back up.

Good times.

So that is what my Insomnia mornings look like. Add to that me wondering how early I can go into work for the day so I can leave early as I know I will be a wreck by around noon when I am up at this hour. I generally don't go in early on insomnia mornings - but I think I will today.

Insomnia days are just so hard. My brain is moosh. I can't generally knit much because I do bad things to patterns when I try. Any form of exercise is out. My diet takes a hit because I don't know when to eat and get confused about hunger and tired. (If I get up at 1:00 and eat breakfast at 4:00 do I eat lunch at 10:00 and and dinner at 3:00 and then second dinner at 7:00????) And if I go into work early THAT will throw everything off too. And if I go in early and come home early can I or should I take a nap or am I better off just going to bed early and trying to get a long sleep so I don't end up not being able to sleep a second night in a row? Meh. I know when I can't sleep it's going to be a long long day.

Wish me luck!

Tuesday - Insomnia Fest Continues!

I am kind of getting sick of this. Yesterday I had a TERRIBLE headache and went to bed at 7:00 pm. Woke up at 12:30 in the morning and could NOT go back to sleep. UGH! Come on! So I finished knitting my KAL cowl and got caught up on this season's "The Biggest Loser". Then I went to work knowing I needed to cut the day short so I could come home and get a nap and try and be less of a Zombie and more of a Jenny. Of course this happens when my full timer took a day off and my other worker decided to call in. (Am pretty sure they planned this in advance since they decided to "Work ahead" the day before.....) Grrrrrrrrr.

So I went in and performed all the "Have to get done's" and then went home. Got back to sleep at 11:00 this morning and didn't wake up until about 4:00 this afternoon. Am trying not to think about what is going to happen tonight. (will I be able to go to sleep at a normal time? will I get any amount of sleep tonight?) And I still have my headache. Which is often a precursor to a cold. Think I will need to get some of those Cold Eeze products and take care of myself the next few days. I do not need to spend my vacation sick! :) Oh yeah - I am off next week on vacation! Wahoo!

The Girls were being very cute this morning when I was up early. Emma loves being snuggled in our old blankets and Izzi will seek out any heat source to snuggle on, so I get a picture like this every once in awhile. Too cute!

This is my KAL Cowl with all the ends woven in and it pinned out on my blocking boards. I really like this Yarn! It's

Vickie Howell's yarn for Caron Yarns called Sheep(ish) and it's cheap, soft and you get good yardage. I had not splits in my two skeins I used for this pattern as well - which is always a nice bonus! I will be making more projects with this yarn!

So this is the blocking method Vickie Howell recommended for this project. Apparently this yarn does not react well to steam blocking, so this is just a wet cotton hand towel that I pinned over the top of the whole thing. I placed this in the basement to dry over night and (hopefully) when I get home from work tomorrow and get through my work outs I will be able to get the buttons on and have it be DONE! It's in the 40's and raining here today - so we are hitting that time of year when knit accessories are a must. Looking forward to wearing this!

Yippie Skippy it's FRIDAY!

Most of my flowers have died out for the season, but I still have a few that are fighting against Old Man Winter. (OK - I know it's fall, but Fall in MN is kind of like Winter anyway....) This sad little white Echinacea has popped up in my front garden and has greeted me everyday when I come home from work. It's dark out in the morning when I leave so I don't get to see it then.

In my back garden this purple Echinacea is still hanging in there. You can see the dried up Aster next to it and a bunch of leaves have curled up from frost - but this one is still hanging in there.

Yeah, I'm hungry too Em.

I am SOOOOOOOO Happy it's Friday! What a long week! Work was stressful and occupied my thoughts a lot. I missed two work-outs this week due to Zombie status (Insomnia) and I just feel like my shoulders are up at my ears. You know that feeling? When you are just so stressed out that you just can't seem to unwind? Argh. My mission this weekend is to get my shoulders down to a normal level. ;)

Tonight I am looking forward to dinner, some Ghost Adventures on the TV, and working on my KAL. I am up to the cable section and Vickie put up this video on Utube which is super helpful. I love doing cables, but about half the time I get confused and cable the wrong way. Very frustrating when you realize your cables or going all wonky. So I will watch the video again and get cranking on my KAL Cowl.

Happy Friday!

Seriously?!?!

Another night with me waking up at 1:30 in the morning and not being able to fall back asleep. This stinks! I only tossed and turned an hour in bed before I gave up and got up.

I know there are several factors causing my sleeplessness.
1) The last week of my cycle is almost always when I have insomnia.
2) I didn't eat enough calories yesterday and my stomach was growling when I went to sleep. (too much food and not enough food are factors for me.)
3) I woke up overheated. I assume this is from my work-outs since I can't blame the food.
4) Stress. I am having a pile of stress lately and it's causing me to wake up in mid dialog. (Often yelling at a co-worker or a family member in my dream....) And there is nothing like middle of the night sleeplessness for ramping up negative thoughts - let me tell you. Depressing.

And normally I would subscribe to the "Knowledge is Power!" motto, but sadly in this case it's not actualization. So instead I just have to roll with the punches here and make the best of a pile of lemons.

Starbucks opens in two hours.

In other news....

I started my Kal last night! I finished the initial ribbing section and will start the cables next. This is the first time I have worked with this yarn. It's the Vicky Howell yarn from Caron called Sheep(ish) in the color Gun Metal(ish). I am loving on this yarn! It's cheap. It's pretty. And it feels like soy yarn or maybe even approaching Malabrigo for softness. You get 167yd/152.7m per skein of yarn, and each skein was under $4.00 US at JoAnn's Craft and Fabrics. My only question now is how well this yarn will wear. I love malabrigo and other soft yarns - but they pill and wear rather poorly - so we will have to see how this looks after a Minnesota winter!

I am really enjoying the KAL. I was a bit nervous about it to be honest - which sounds silly - but I didn't know how the vibe would be or how much pressure there would be to get knitting done, etc... Man - if we could let go the fear of being stupid (or the perception of looking stupid?) we could accomplish so much more. So I found the schedule for the KAL yesterday morning and printed it out and placed it in my magazine I am working out of. And then I didn't read it right and thought I needed to work through the entire rib section on night one. (Up at 4:45, To work by 6:30, Home from work at 3:30, finish work-outs at 5:30, Shower and dinner, then knit on cowl. It was a busy day!) Apparently though it was divided into two nights - so I really could have knocked out the days schedule in a lazy hour of knitting rather than two hours. So the pace is really easy and there is no pressure. There is of course people way ahead of the herd and there are people who are struggling to find the pattern and the supplies. Vicky is being very receptive and warm and a great hostess of the Kal. I think it was perhaps a mistake to host a KAL where you can't offer the pattern up for free or even to purchase other than through the magazine - but I don't think that was thought of until after people started saying that they could not find the magazine and there was no other way to join the knit-a-long other than to purchase the magazine. Vicky pretty much told people to "Help each other out" with the pattern - ie: pattern share. You got to love someone who says that!  So yeah - this is going really well and I think I will get a bit addicted to KAL's. It's fun to be a part of a community knitting the same project and I am picking up wonderful tips and ideas on the Forums. (All of this stuff is on Ravelry btw. I just assume everyone knows that - and you know what happens when you ASSume! ;)

Notice my pretty Knit Picks needles? I really love their Harmony Wood needles. They hold up well to my really tight grip. I bend my wood Takumi needles all the time. One day I will loosen up my grip - but it's been years and years and I still knit tight as the dickens.

OK - think I will pay a few bills, feed my critters and get ready for work. Happy Thursday everyone! :)

Climbing a Sleep Hill

Oh Insomnia. You Suck. I woke this morning around 1:30 and climbed out of bed at 3:00 to start my day. Here is the process of what happens when I have an insomnia night.

I wake up after 2-4 hours of sleep - usually with my head fully engaged in a thought. Often it's me being upset about work or some sort of hostile family scenario going through my head. I am not sure if I am dreaming about these things and wake up thinking about the dream or how that works. I just know that suddenly I am full awake and already yelling at a co-worker in my head.

I begin the dance of futility at this point. I start trying to empty my mind and play the "find a comfortable position" dance. While I start flopping and sighing the dog - who sleeps on the floor right next to my side of the bed - thinks me moving around is her que to move around too. Click click click go Emma's nails on the wood floor. Flop flop flop go her ears as she shakes her head. Achoo! The dog sneazes several times which is her" I am sort of barking but not - because I am a timid dog and I want you to know what I want but I don't want to trouble you too much...." My tossing about will get the cat up sometimes as well. She sleeps on a blanket at the end of the bed and generally my flopping about will only cause her to stand - stretch - and lay back down.

This morning after flopping around for well over an hour the dog got more assertive and actually put her front paws on the bed and nudged me with her cold nose. I knew I was doomed at that point. I waited several minutes for her to settle a little (I don't want her thinking she can do that and it means I will wake up and take her out whenever she wants. Our dog cannot tell time even a little and she would be nudging me all night!) and then caved in and got out of bed.

Outside the dog goes - with me praying that there is no wildlife in our yard or nearby. I have had to run out and grab the hose and spray three baby racoons and a mama racoon off the bird feeder with a snarling Emma standing by at 4:00 in the morning in the not so distant past. (we don't fill our feeder in the back yard anymore....) I also pray she will not be out there barking her furry butt off. Nine times out of Ten I let her out and it's Bark Bark Bark Bark. Thank goodness our neighbors haven't flipped over this.

When I let her back in she is all juiced up and ready to play. So she digs her toys out of her bin and starts dragging them around the house.

I Snapped this shot of her after she had pulled two stuffies, a chew rope and a cat ball out of the toy bin and brought them in the den to work on. I also found three destroyed Kleenex laying all over the floor in the living room. Such Fun!

 Meanwhile - the cat starts going bonkers. Just like Emma, Izzi cannot tell time. I typically feed the girls shortly after I get up - so when I get up hours before feeing time, it confuses the cat something terrible. She starts chasing her balls around the house and pawing at doors and chirping her kitty chirp. Above is a shot of her staring down one of her cat balls.

 More staring down the balls. I think she batted this one down the hallway and was watching it move.

If you look you can see Izzi has turned on her lazer beams and is now levitating a ball to her. She is pretty lazy and often wills things to just come to her.

In this one Izzi is angry that I am photographing her telekinetic abilities and is going to launch a ball at me and my camera. I stopped taking pictures at this point and had the urge to clean myself and chase a toy mouse.....

So the pets go bonkers. And I find myself looking at strange websites like Justin Timberlake Does Things and looking at knitting apparel on Zazzle.

I have Insomnia nights a few times a month. I will occationally have up to three days in a row of barely any sleep. Those are rough weeks. I can generally handle one day with a fair amount of grace - but it is a rough day. Today is a day at work where I have stuff scheduled for the last two hours of my day that I need to be on my toes for. I struggle with food on days like today. I was hungry when I crawled out of bed this morning because I had already been awake for an hour and a half. But I don't want to start eating at 3:00 in the morning.... Instead I had coffee and then around 4:00 had a banana. But it's hard to not shove food in your face when you are tired and you are awake for almost 20 hours.

Tuesday is also the start of my three days of exercise, so I am trying to figure out if I can or should exercise tonight. I try not to allow excuses and to push through stuff. (It is so easy to excuse oneself from exercise....) so I am already thinking ahead to that and how will I handle that? Meh.

No matter how you cut it - today is going to be a very long day.