Stress Reaction

My peeps!

I know you all are still out there, because I’ve been following your various antics on this here internets! Great thing, internets, isn’t it? You can do the whole lurking thing and keep up with you friends while maintaining a low profile yourself! Gotta love it.

But really, the low profile on my end was not by choice. I’ve had my nose to the proverbial grindstone in the form of studying for my recertification exam. Funny thing about medicine; once every six years they want me to take this six-hour test and prove that I know enough to “do no harm”. Whaa?

Anyway, I had to bring my head above the sand (or the pages) long enough to publicly thank Kat for a superb Special Swap package.

The theme was Movie Night, and Kat can put together one of the best Friday Night Knit packages ever! A fabulous chick flick (ashamed to admit it, but one of my absolute favorite genres)! A treasure of a book: A Treasury of Knitting Patterns (Squeeeeeee)! Aromatherapy candles to set the mood, and finally some super soft Touch 4 ply Pure New Zealand Fine Wool for (I’m thinking) a fabulously lacy scarf!

Kat, you rock my friend! Thank you so much for the much needed study break!

PS. There was popcorn, too, but you all can guess how quickly that went!

Hey Y'all!

Welcome to New Bra Monday! And don’t go trying to tell me that wearing a new bra on a Monday is never a good idea, because I had that whole conversation with myself this morning and apparently I JUST DON’T LISTEN!!! All I’m thinking is its Monday, and who doesn’t need a little bit of extra support on a Monday? It’s got to make your Monday go better, right?

Now I’m not one of those get ‘em measured, find the perfect fit, specialty bra kind of women. I’m pretty standard size and just about any Target or Wally World will carry a Playtex that will fit me. Thing is, I haven’t bought a new bra in awhile, and I forgot what un-relaxed elastic and new under wire can do to a person. We may only be talking a few inches here, but that lift is enough to make me feel like I my 5 foot 5 1/2 inch person is looking down at my desk over a 4-½ foot cement retaining wall! These puppies are indeed lifted and separated!

I’ve had shoe sales persons tell me to walk around on carpeted floors and take an older, comfortable pair of shoes with you the first few times you wear your new shoes to work to change into in case they get uncomfortable. Never knew that applied to new bras. It would never have occurred to me to test-drive my new bra and take a back up bra to work with me. See what you get when you bargain shop for support garments? We live and learn!

And for all of you offering support and prayers for my recertification exam, a big hug and a huge cheer! I received notification this morning that I passed! Yay!!!

So Amanda (still missing you by the way) over on Flickr is all about the futab, and once I ascertained the more benign definition of the acronym, I thought it would be a great way to introduce you to my final pair of Soctoberfest 2007 socks. (They were indeed finished in October. Getting them up on the blog just took a little longer).

I love, love, love this pair of socks, which leaves me at a loss to explain why it took me almost two years to get them off the needles. They just kept getting side lined by other projects, swap socks and life in general. Now we are complete! Sigh….

Lured by wine and cheese, I went to my very first ever knitting meet up Tuesday. Literally the first time I have sat and knit in a room full of other knitters.

This is huge for me.

I’m not a meet up kind of person. In fact, I have often been struck by the irony of having chosen a career in which I must verbally and/or physically interact with 20+ people a day. Left to my own devices, I would probably be in real danger of becoming a shut in. Ordering both my food and various necessities online. But that’s for another day.

So I went (dragging my loquacious non-knitting daughter with me), and it was fun.

I worked on Lenore by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. (STR Club pattern. The only link I could find was in Ravelry).

What a great pattern! * And the colors are to dye for (gawd, I crack myself up)!

Turns out, I’m fairly challenged by knitting and talking at the same time. I would find myself knitting faster and faster as the conversation swirled around me, and before I knew it I was searching for missing yarn overs and puzzling over stitches that did not belong. If my fellow knitters noticed that I spent more time tinking than knitting, they were too kind to comment.

Then again, it could have been the wine.

*But I do have a confession. After two years of membership in the STR club, this is only the second time I found both the yarn and the pattern appealing enough to cast on immediately. The remainder of the club yarn remains in skeins and only one of the patterns knit (in an alternate color). So if you are in lust of an elusive club membership, scoot on over and you might just get lucky!