Confession time

While reading Cesca's blog today I followed the link she very helpfully posted to her friend's blog, to a post about the realities of parenting.

What Ella describes is what I am absolutely terrified of.

OK, I'm more freaked out about the pregnancy and giving birth thing - I am *very* private and *very* squeamish - but there is a time limit on that stuff.

I confess, I think parenting is bloody hard work, and I don't know if I want to give up our easier lifestyle to raise children. The Trouser has expressed an interest in being the stay-at-home parent in our relationship - but I dunno if I'd be ok with missing out on all that stuff either.

We're not planning on kids - we're both still undecided, and at 27 we have a fair whack of time to decide. But a good friend of mine is pregnant, and it certainly makes me think.

About how adoption would be less scary, mostly.

(Oh, and about what I can knit for the baby - but also for my friend, because she's doing all the hard work, y'see. So far I've got a baby blanket and a wrap on the go for her, and plans for some cute booties and a hat.)

So anyway, enough about me.

Today, extra-big, fat, warm and squishy fuzzies to people who go the whole nine yards and have kids, and then sacrifice their careers and independence to raise them. You're the rockstars in my book.

Summer has come prematurely at my office

The air conditioning hasn't been working for at least a week now.

The day starts out in muggy, stale air of around 22C, and climbs to 27C of even muggier, stale-r nastiness.

The people in charge of these sorts of issues in our office are downstairs, where the air is cooler, and since they're closer to fresh air from the doors, they aren't struggling to keep awake.

Oh, and they have some windows that can be opened.

So instead of freezing in cold air as we're used to (around 14C year-round), we're sweltering. It's hotter inside that it is out.

Aaaarrgghhhhhh! Too hot, sticky and tired to care anymore. Is it the weekend yet?

Bah

Why do I work with fools?

(This is a rhetorical question, but feel free to answer it nonetheless.)

Where did the weekend go?

I spent it hanging with friends and knitting in a leisurely way, but it still went too fast!

Highlights:

- Finished the cutest booties for a colleague who just had a little girl. They're like the ones i knit Violet, but pink, because the colleague actualy gave birth before I began knitting.

- Showed the baby blanket to the mama-to-be, who was thrilled.

- Had the world's best spaghetti bolognese thanks to a friend of ours. Matt, you rock.

- Wished my pa a happy birthday and called him 'old man" only oh, maybe a dozen times on Friday night. And he loved every minute of it.

So far this week, I've seen In Her Shoes - a media freebie thanks to a friend at a local weekly women's magazine (crappy movie but not a bad goodie bag) and learned that my baby brother is moving to Malaysia in January. I'm proud of him, but I'm going to miss (and worry about) him a lot.

Oh, and The Trouser's parents are moving. They have a crazy scheme that they're uprooting themselves for completely, and all for the wrong reasons. Even if the scheme was well thought out and made sense, their motivations are all wrong. It drives me mad, so I'm avoiding them for the next few weeks so I don't slip up in a moment of pressure and tell them what I really think!

More knitting

Now, there is plenty in my life besides knitting, but right now it's the only thing interesting enough to blog about.

A girl at work has had her baby, so I'm making some cute bootees in pink and white variegated cotton. I'll take a photo once they're done.

I've also found my new project: a "Chanel jacket" from Knitscene. All I have to do is try to get the yarn...

In other news, we are finally going to be able to have an engagement party, as my brother's fiancee has finally decided that the cultural issues that stopped them having a party thus far are still issues that need to be acknowledged.

I'm sad for them, but there's no reason we can't hold a party later if they'd like one. And frankly, it's nice that they've stopped messing everyone - including both sets of parents - around.

The Trouser has a cold but has had to go to work the past couple of days. I'm hoping we'll have a quiet weekend, once my family leaves after dinner tonight, and we run a few errands tomorrow.

River slowing down to a stream

I stupidly got down to working on River again last night (the pale green wrap with a simple yet impossible pattern).

I hit the 100-row-mark - my goal for the evening - and then noticed what I had failed to notice in all my regular progress checks: I'd miscounted and screwed up, and the pattern was bung around row 94 or so.

I tried to undo only the affected stitches and pickthem back up, but I was tired and not entirely concentrating, so I unravelled and am back at row 92 again.

Mmmmph.

Memo to self: never knit River when you feel serene - you only mess it up. Wait until you're hopping mad and you get a lot done.

Family weekend-o-rama

Coming to work today was a bit of a relief after the busy weekend we had!

On Friday My baby bro turned up at work around lunchtime (okay, my lunchtime - 2pm or later) to pick up the keys to our place. After work we hung out/ tidied and tried to stay awake long enough to pick my other little brother up from the airport.

His flight was late, so it was nearly 2AM when we got home. After trying to impress on the bros how important it was to get a good night's sleep for a jam-packed day, I tumbled into bed. The Trouser made it in just before I fell asleep at 3.45AM - the bros talked further into the night.

Which explains why one of them was impossible to drag out of bed at 11AM the next day. By the time we'd all eaten and had showers (peppered with me interrupting their long talks to get them moving), it was late. We squeezed in a highly successful trip into town (2 pairs of shoes for the baby, who sorely needed them!), but were late to the venue for decoration.

So late, in fact, that my older bro, who is always late, was there before us. Quelle horreur!

We came, we saw, we decorated. We also ate Wendy's, and the bros pissed about quite a lot. Back home to get ready; running late *again* thanks to my lazy little bro, who was getting on my wick by that stage.

The party itself was really good - Dad had **no** idea whatsoever, and his face was priceless. Job well done!

The next day we had a family brunch, present-opening session and general faff about. It was fun and all, but I was also happy to get back home with The Trouser for some quiet time.

Of course, that wasn't the end of it - once I'd tidied up after my siblings I'd found all sorts of things that needed to be returned immediately. Bah.

There can be too much of a good thing - in this case, my family. The memebrs who are vaguely organised and responsible are a delight. Those who aren't are still lovely people, but they drive me mad...

I know I sound like a grumpy old bag. In my defense, sleep deprivation and the (illegal) crappy music blasting from the receptionist's PC are making me a bit pissier than usual.

On a more positive note, the birthday presents we bought (it was a triple b'day celebration - parentals and big bro) went down very well. And I received some lovely wool and a fabulous cloth-covered hardback book as belated gifts too :-)

What not to eat

The new Chai Spice muffin from Starbucks.

I *****love***** chai.

This muffin was not chai- or spice-flavoured at all. It verged on blandness.

Furthermore, it left a savoury, garlicky flavour in my mouth.

Can I be too involved in my knitting?

Confession time: amongst my many dreams last night (they've been extraordinarily vivid recently, but I don't know why), I dreamt about going to Spotlight.

Actually, I dreamed about going to 3 Spotlight stores and not finding any good yarn (kind of par for the course, given the dearth of good stuff here), except for one ball of Noro, which was only NZ$6.30 (crazy cheap!). But I didn't buy it.

And as I've been working today I've felt regret. It took me a moment to realise it was a *dream* mistake, not a real-life one.

Which brings me to my question: Can I be too involved in my knitting?

I'm not neglecting any of my domestic, work, family or fiancee related duties. I even manage to find time to read. But is there such a thing as too much?

The perfect burger?

I may have had the perfect burger last night.

Beef pattie, tomato, lettuce (pieces, but not too big), cheese, refried beans, corn chips, sour cream. There was meant to be relish but I didn't taste it - nor did I think it was necessary.

Yum!

Perhaps best of all, it was big enough that I had half for dinner, and half just now for breakfast. It was just as good cold.

Thanks, Burger Fuel.

Photos!

Finally I took some photos of all my knitting projects.

Firstly, here's the Zhivago shrug, which I decided to knit in wool instead. The pattern called for crazy-long arms, so I ignored it and knit 43cm in rib, which still covers a good part of my hand.








And here's a close-up of the detail.











Next up is the baby blanket I'm knitting in cotton. Here you can see the 4 coloured squares. I think I'll just repeat the 4 and use one of the colours for edging.













And here's The Trouser, holding up River so far. By "so far", I mean at 70-odd rows, with 3 major unravelling sessions behind me. Now I'm a fanatic and count every stitch of every row, and check every 3 rows or so that I haven't screwed it up again.














The colour is off in both the photos - it's a lovely, soft sage green. But the detail is pretty impressive, as you can see!










And finally, a scarf I knitted for The Trouser ages ago. he was looking all work-y, so I interrupted him to be my model-slave :-)









Still no pics of The Ring - I need to scan it from the magazine. But I'll get there...

Sorry

I don't mean to be such a self-involved misery-guts.

I know - there are people out there with real problems, who would be lucky to be in my shoes, etc. etc. I just feel so damn overlooked and frustrated by other people's self-involvement!

However, Jussi has managed to temporarily yank me out of my fug, with the news that you can now knit on flights in NZ!

Ahhh, a trip away and knitting - sounds like heaven...

But not quite

The road to hell is certainly paved with good intentions - I know, 'cos I see them as I keep walking...

It's been a very up-and-down time in the Trouser-Skirt household recently, and I've been seeking refuge in places that haven't been here.

Highlights have included:

- The Trouser's sister and husband ranting to his parents about how they strongly disapprove of our relationship. This explains their nasty behaviour when we visited them on holiday.

- The Trouser's parents almost entirely forgetting to congratulate us on our engagement, instead calling up to tell us how us getting engaged has affected their lives.

- My older brother, who has been engaged for over 10 months already, and who has had everyone under the sun - especially me - offer to throw him and his fiancee an engagement party, rejecting my idea of a joint party. No reason supplied - just that it would not be good.

- The same brother announcing they'd be holding a separate one, and selecting a date so we had to wait till mid-November.

- The very same brother announcing last night that they'd picked a (different) date - which was 2 weeks before our mid-November date. And refusing to acknowledge that we had any reason to be upset.


I always thought being engaged was meant to be this great time when people were happy for you. So I've been really upset, disappointed and royally pissed with all the above people, but especially my brother.

And today the parentals get home, so it's a race to get them to see our point of view before my brother gets them to agree to something concrete behind my back.

I'm panicked about him going behind my back to get in first. It's a long-time habit of his.

I thought a joint party would be great - less boring for everyone to attend one party than two separate parties, 2 weeks apart; cheaper; and generally a much nicer thing to do.

And frankly, after 10 months of doing nothing, and a wedding planned for April, it's a bit late to have an engagement party, right?

Seriously, am I being completely selfish here? Is it so wrong that we want to celebrate being engaged as soon as we can, without someone else's laziness getting in the way?