• Mitt Romney is glitterbombed! I love the sense of humor inherent in glitterbombing. Mitt Romney and commenters on Youtube, apparently, do not. What is wrong with the world that we’re taking THIS so seriously?
• Send your US kid abroad to college. There were quite a few international students at my college, and I couldn’t imagine how difficult it must be to write 30 page papers in English. What if I had had to do that in another language? That would have been kind of awesome.
• A blog post against the e-book vs. print books argument. Yeah, this is how I feel about it now. Granted I have no opportunity at the moment to read e-books and therefore dislike books that are only available electronically, I do see advantages and disadvantages to both. I don’t think I’ll buy an e-reader anytime soon, but I also won’t vilify them.
• Reasoning behind Susan G. Komen taking away funding for Planned Parenthood. Except it doesn’t really sound like reasoning, more like empty promises. The article is interesting and points out that a Christian organization was fundraising for them then stopped when they found out they were funding Planned Parenthood screenings. On the bright side, outcry has changed the foundation’s mind.
• I’m not sure this has a whole lot of insight, but 8 things I learned from 50 naked people makes a couple of good points. There’s this passage:
  

  Despite our obsession with sex, American culture doesn’t really encourage nakedness (physically or emotionally). And if all the pleasantries and social constructs we use weren’t bad enough, we add social media into the mix and distance each other even further. When we’re naked and silent, all of that falls away.

  And I need to meditate on that a bit.

Today I surprised myself by sleeping until noon then declaring today a “Lazy Day”. Without further ado I settled myself into a comfy chair and picked up my knitting. My roommate glanced over and commented that she finds it funny that I call getting dressed and then sitting and knitting “lazy”. The Yarn Harlot discussed this earlier in the month. Knitting is my relaxation, and to be honest, I have not been giving myself that time and space to sit quietly and let whatever thoughts roam through my mind go through. I am very glad I made time today to do so, on an otherwise grey and dreary day.

So, I ripped this sleeve, re-measured my gauge, and searched through Ravelry for a pattern that would fit the gauge, rather than the other way around. Leaving fit the bill the best: a cardigan, same stitch gauge as I was getting, on the same size needles as well! I started a sleeve about a week and a half ago and I am pleased with how it’s going.

It looks like the right dimensions for a sleeve! Hurray! The fact that I’m starting to have an idea of the right dimensions for a sleeve is pretty wonderful too. My hope is that today I finish this sleeve and cast on for the back today, so I’ll have plenty of knitting to keep me occupied. I have a very busy week ahead, including my own birthday festivities, and it’ll be wonderful to have all the knitting going smoothly to help me de-stress.

Hope you’re having a wonderful weekend!

Sadly, Miss Mags has stopped blogging, and as hers was one of the blogs I really enjoyed, I’m a bit down about it. Probably that has something to do with why I’m thinking about shutting down my own blog. Still, we’ll see. I’m focusing on writing this year, and I think that might mean I’ll write more to the blog! Perhaps.

Shall we wrap up my 2011 finished projects?

Nine projects in 2011. And, as it turns out, that seems to be my limit for knitting in a year. Granted, I knit two sweaters in that year, two sweaters that I am insanely proud of. I’m getting there, it looks like.

Do I have any knitting goals for this year? Yes. Try not to go weeks without knitting. It really helps me relax, and I’d love to have more lovely handknit things in my life. My brother would like real fingerless gloves, and my aunt has commissioned a sweater from me (which is coming along! I’d like to finish the first sleeve soon, then I’ll be able to say I finished a sleeve in less than two weeks and that’s an accomplishment, right?). I would like to knit up more of my yarn for sweaters.

Hopefully knitting will keep keeping me sane.

I was working on a sweater for my aunt.

Gauge, you suck. And why do we pick a pattern before producing gauge? It would be much, much easier for me to figure out the gauge I want before finding a pattern for it. Maybe I’ll do that from now on.

I’ve been tearing my hair out since frogging that to figure out what I’m going to work on now. Almost makes me want to cast on for socks, except that I’m on a sock hiatus…

If you had these yarns, what would you do with them?

P.S. Happy New Year! Hopefully I’ll get a post about 2011 up tomorrow.