Notes from Underground

I am so cranky, I don't know if it's the weather (7 degrees), or the fact that I had to listen to my dental hygenist for 45 minutes as she described the "stunning" sweatshirts she creates by quilting multi-colored cat fabric onto plain old sweatshirts, or the fact that my CTA card was out of dough & I had to pay $5 for a $1.75 bus ride (didn't have change) or what. Usually when I'm in a bad mood, I try to think of what I'm thankful for, this morning all I could come up with was the Wall St. Journal (it was awesome today, even if I was missing the 4th section). I feel like everyone in the world is stupid except for me; I feel like the guy in Notes from Underground. Don't worry Group, I'll get over it by tomorrow.

Note to Self

Note to self: Next time you buy 400+ yards of laceweight cashmere at your LYS and they offer to wind it into a ball for you, do not say, in a show-offy manner, "no thanks, I'll do it at home" implying that you own both a swift and ball-winder and know how to use them (whoop-de-doo) but rather take them up on their offer. Because the yarn will be hopelessly tangled, and nearly impossible to wind, and every time you pull tight on it, it will BREAK! thus causing you to tie about 8 or 9 or 40 knots in it. Jeez! Note to Girl Scouts: Do not make Chicago area Brownies sell cookies in flipping January when it's 4 degrees out, while the California girl scouts sell in September; I mean does that make any sense whatsoever? And especially do not entice the said 6 year old Chicago Brownies to sell MORE cookies by giving out prizes like very simple backpacks if they sell 75 boxes, thus ensuring that they harass their parents NON-STOP until they sell the required 75 boxes; I would be willing to pay quadruple the cost of the backpack, if only I didn't have to push cookies on my friends and neighbors like a crack dealer.

Thrumming along

I've had little knitting content on here lately, and I'm afraid my 4 readers will desert me! So here is a picture of the thrummed mittens I am knitting. They are going to be so warm inside, I can't wait, and it finally got kind of cold here in Chicago, so I can use them. Two weeks ago it was 50 degrees, but now it's 6 or something, and I'm talking farenheit! I was talking to one of our Candian clients a couple of weeks ago during the warm spell & he said "it's beautiful outside, I could go play golf if I wanted, it's 16 degrees." At first I didn't know if he was merely being ironic because Candadians are used to cold weather & maybe 16 in January seemed warm to him; but then I realized he was talking Celsius! I have no idea how Celsius works! In 2nd grade they made us learn the metric system & claimed that the U.S. would switch over soon in order to join the rest of the world, but damn if we didn't stay put with our inches, yards, pounds, miles per hour and Farenheit! And the funny thing is, they're still making kids learn the metric system, I just had to help my 9 year old convert meters to centimeters & vice versa for her homework, but I told her not to sweat it too much, it's not as important as say algebra or addition. This reminds me of a funny story. One time my husband and I were in England, staying at a swanky hotel, and I decided to use the health club. I went down there & there was a VERY cute Brit manning the equipment who insisted on helping me set the Stairmaster. So he asked me how many kilograms I weighed. Attempting to appear cosmopolitan and like a world traveller, I blithely said 40, which apparently is 80 pounds or something. So he made me step on the scale (!) so he could determine exactly how many mega-meters or whatever I did actually weigh, and it was a number much greater than 40; I did not use the health club again!

Words that define me

I went to this website, which analyzes your blog & then makes a word cloud out of the words that appear most frequently on your blog. It's so funny how well it works; I mean the words that appear in the cloud really define me. I'm just shocked that "Alyssa" didn't appear because I reference her so much.

Testing

So I have to take the CAIA Level II test in March & I have to fit 120 hours of studying in before then, here are some of the books I have to read/memorize for the test. Jake, who I work with & who is also taking the test currently has the quantitative trading strategies book & I ordered the packet of readings, but haven't received it yet.

9 to 5

So this is the view from my desk at work where I spend 8 hours per day; the only other place where I spend 8 hours per day is in bed, maybe I'll blog that tomorrow. There is one couple who lives on the top floor, they had a baby last summer, and they have a dog & I've made up a whole story about them in my mind. They have interesting art on their walls and seem to be very much in love. The guy who used to get dressed in front of the window moved out about a month ago.

Namaste

As part of my project to take a picture every day this year, I took a picture at my yoga studio tonight. I hadn't been to yoga in 3 or 4 weeks, and I missed it desperately. I just started doing yoga in July 2006, and I swear the first time I did it, I went home and had so much energy I just laid in bed all night buzzing, I could literally feel energy shooting out of me. It was a magical experience and those of you who know me, know that I never talk like this. So anyway, I convinced my sister to come with me tonight, and she loved it too! I will make getting to yoga twice per week my top priority for 2007. Om Shanti, Om Peace, Namaste.

Happy New Year!

When I got up this morning, this is how I found Lucie, laying on her brand new dogbed with the Happy New Year tiara which my 6 year old had just slipped on her head, I vowed not to blog pet pictures, but Lucie's expression cracked me up! So I haven't done much knitting in the past 2 weeks, I did knit a hat for my sister, it was a kittyville hat, knit out of a pink & black Malabrigo type yarn, it came out awesome, except for the pom poms (I totally suck at making pom poms) but I forgot to take a picture of it before I gave it to Mary. I'm also knitting a pair of thrummed mittens, which are coming out great, but due to global warming, it's never cold around here so I don't know if I'll get a chance to wear them. Here are my resolutions for 2007: 1)Study for my CAIA Level II Exam which I have to take in March, I have to study 10 hours per week starting right now! 2) Don't eat ANY carbs until I lose 10 lbs. 3) Yoga twice per week, no excuses and now for the two really hard ones 4) Yarn diet, I'm not buying any new yarn in 2007 until I run out of what I have or until Stitches Midwest, whichever comes first, and 5) I want to try this thing I read about, taking a picture every day in 2007, I don't know if I'll post all the pictures, but I'm gonna try. What are your resolutions?