Finished!

I finally finished the Francie socks. I don’t remember the last time I had so much trouble with a project. Pretty much all of it was my fault.

I had to frog an almost completed sock because the gauge was off. (Because I was too lazy to swatch.)

The leg of the first sock is looser and longer than the leg of the second sock. (Because I’m an idiot who likes to change from continental to English and back 12 times.)

I made a little mistake on the leg of the second sock, noticed it a dozen rows later, ripped back only those six or so stitches and knit them back up, and it created a big pucker, which is probably more noticeable than the little mistake it corrected. (And I was too sick of knitting them at this point to rip the whole thing back and do it over.)

At the very end of the second sock, the toe decreases didn’t line up with the ribbing, because I forgot the last decreasing row. (I’ll blame the pattern for that one: the instruction was buried within two paragraphs of verbiage.)

If I had to do these again, I’d probably do a plain 2 x 2 rib on the leg. The leg pattern isn’t as “clean” as the one on the foot, and it’s the foot that attracted me to this pattern in the first place.

And I won’t go on about it because the designer is obviously very talented, but the tone in which this pattern was written bugged the hell out of me. It just goes on and on and on with the lecturing… this sock does not require an 11-page pattern, I’m sorry.

Knitting these up really confirmed something about myself: I’m 80% process knitter, and I hate knitting up ribbing.

Anyway, they’re done! Finally!

Socks of doom

Dirty old broad

When I was 18, there was nothing sexier to me than a 35-year-old man. This week, I convinced myself that I was doing a nice thing for The Husband by paying the neighbours’ 18-year-old son to mow our lawn. I still think 35-year-old men are fascinating, but I can now also appreciate 18-year-olds with nice tans doing some physical labour while wearing tank tops. I guess that means I’ve graduated to dirty old broad.

I can’t believe I did this

True story.

Tuesday morning, 4:30 a.m. The Boy is making I’m-about-to-wake-up noises, so I sleepwalk into the bathroom, pee, brush my teeth. As I’m brushing my teeth, my eyes rest on the bottle of hydrogen peroxide cleaner I use to scrub the poo off the diaper covers.

(Brush, brush.) Hmm, something’s missing from this picture. (Brush, brush.) Oh, I know, it’s the old toothbrush I use to scrub the poo stains out of the diaper covers. (Brush, brush.) Gee, I wonder where it went. (Brush, brush.) Well, I’m sure it’ll turn up somewhere. (Brush, brush.)

A nice surprise

When I came upon Dear American Airlines (2008, by Jonathan Miles) in one of Audible’s virtual bargain bins, I vaguely remembered reading a positive review about that novel, so I bought it.

I was probably half asleep when I read the (deservedly) positive review, because I was convinced this book was about airline travel, a sarcastic or otherwise humorous tale of getting stuck in airports and missing connections. Because when I veer from mystery novels, it’s got to be for something funny, and I needed to listen to something funny because I’m also reading an Anne Perry at the moment. (Love her books, but they’re a little depressing.)

Dear American Airlines is mostly the life story of Bennie Ford in the form of a letter to the airline who left him stranded at O’Hare while he was en route to his daughter’s wedding. It certainly has its funny moments and it’s an engaging listen, but it’s also poignant and tragic. I really felt for the main character. I thought the book was very well written (it had lots of “artistic merit”).

The only part of it that I didn’t really get into was the mise en abyme: Bennie sometimes takes a pause from his own story to focus on the Polish novel he is translating. That guy’s story is a little too tragic. If I were writing a paper on Dear American Airlines, I’d probably take a moment to examine the parallels between the Polish character’s story and Bennnie’s, but I read for fun these days. (And I didn’t drop out of university one semester away from getting my Ph.D. because I enjoy going on and on about books.)

Anyhoo, a thumbs up for Dear American Airlines.

Does this baby make me look bald?

So one of the major perks of pregnancy is that you stop losing your hair. I’ve been blessed with a great head of hair, and it was looking particularly nice while I was expecting. Then, I kind of stopped thinking about it. About three weeks ago, I started losing my hair again. I was a little shocked at the amount of hair I was losing, but I figured I hadn’t lost any hair at all for a year at that point (I got pregnant last July), so I probably had a lot more hair than usual and could afford to lose a good chunk. A week or so later, when I realized I could see my scalp, I freaked out a little.

I wear my hair long to begin with and I haven’t been to the salon since last September, so it’s on the long side of long right now. And even though I have lots of hair, the hairs themselves are kind of fine. I walk around with a ponytail at all times, because I don’t want my hair all over The Boy. I’m also wearing comfy clothes that I don’t mind getting baby puke on. So I’m starting to look like Comic Book Guy.

Last week, I made an appointment for a shampoo-cut-style at the local spa where I get my monthly pedicures. The earliest they can fit me in is September 4. That better be one hell of a haircut.