Clue Fairy

Today on the elevator at work in my Major Medical Center, I overheard the chief of All talking with the Director of Everything. We had a power outage in our parts last night, and many of us were battery powered for a few hours. I live in the part of the world known for earthquakes, and I have a semi organized plan of how to deal with earthquake aftermath, presuming I am alive and in need of warm clothes, small bills, bottled water, or non perishable food. Most people have something together here- if not the official Earth Quake Kit, some awareness of where the bottled water is or whatever.

The royals are discussing the outage and how they fared and bemoaning that they had no batteries, water, or radio to tell them what happened. Yes, they felt fear. Yes, they were woefully unprepared. So, the two of them, in this discussion ( we have very slow elevators), were both planning on being more prepared for these thing. Were they :

A) planning on stopping by the grocery on the way home to pick up some water, some batteries, and some granola bars, thus having at least one days needs provided for?
B) planning on buying an official, over priced emergency kit, such as is sold almost everywhere around here?
C) planning on sending a designee to a class to learn more about disaster preparedness?

Yeah. C. They both were sending someone else to a CLASS on how to buy granola bars and water.

No wonder you have to form a study committee to get the trash emptied.

Fleece Washing Season

For lo, the rains have left , and fleece washing season has come to the land. I am in a spinning rut. However, this is the only unwashed fleece left hanging around, from Lambtown last year. I thing it's, uhm, I forget. Corridale? Any ways, I snipped off all the tips, because they were hard to wash in the first batch, and I didn't like the color after all that effort. Thus, tip clipping.

Spinning. Well. I suck at it. This may be related to the fact that I have spent not more than a few hours at the wheel the entire winter. Some spinster I am. I am planning on luring- er- inviting the lovely E over to tutor me, perhaps with some perfectly washed locks of whatever it is. Really, I am lucky to live near her, because if there were a fleece shortage I could mooch off her monumental stash for the rest of my natural life.

Actually, calling a room full of carefully stored fleece a stash is putting it mildly. More like a horde. But, I am diverting attention from the lack of my spinning progress by hinting at that of others. So, to spinning.

I think that a big part of the problem is that after I have washed and drum carded, I am too attached to the fiber to subject it to my sucky spinning. Likewise, the lovely roving I have purchased is all being saved for some special project for when my spinning does not suck. Double that if I have hand painted it and it came out pretty. The chances for a beginning dyer to make a roving that will spin pretty, and then knit pretty, well, it's pretty slim. I hate to have my pretty roving made ugly. I have heard that good fiber is really better to learn to spin on, but hey, it's my horde, yes?

Work: well, the two nurses in my old unit who I liked who are still hanging into the PICU have started smoking. One of them is a lapsed smoker, but the other is smoking FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HER LIFE. The rest of them are as (expletive deleted) as ever. My new job has me ranging free and wild through out the hospital, and in three short weeks I will no longer have a keeper, I mean preceptor, and then the fun will begin.

UFO Rolecall

As in UnFinished Objects. Lambchop has a reason to look alarmed. There are six half finished socks. Four started sweaters. Four scarves, two fluffy, two warm. Something that I think was meant to be felted. Six or seven flowers that needed the ends sewn in. A poorly conceived icord and bead thing. The dresser, in the background, has some suspicious yarn things on it, but this all came from the table I use as my nightstand. Yes, just one spot. See? You feel better about your housekeeping already, don't you?

Now, I know why I stopped on the sweaters- they got boring, or something went wrong, or some other sweater waggled it's fibers at me. I even remember throwing over each and every one. But the socks: there are questions. Socks are meant to be boring. That's why I knit them- round after round after round. A little mild excitement at toe and heel time, but soothing and repetitive. There is always a sock in progress in my purse. So, why? Why did I stop? When did one ziploc bag of sock yarn and size zeroes become more enticing than another? When did I buy so many sets of zeros? (losse knitter- have to size down.) I have no idea, but I plan to make amends and rekindle our fires. Women and Koigu first.

I wish it were better

But it's not. Second day, same as the first. I find it tedious beyond measure. The hardest part is that these nurses really find themselves busy. The pace is a whole different thing that the unit, which I knew, but didn't really know. I feel like I can hear the second hand ticking, very slowly, the whole damn day. I have never had two eight hour days last so long in my life before. The worst part is that they really don't want me to do the teaching for pediatrics. I guess I should have realized.

As usually, I am also full of good ideas (snort) of how I will do better at this, and it makes me have to stand on my own tongue for a good part of the day. As with all nursing jobs, it will be better when I am cut loose from my preceptors and don't have to worry about what they think. But it's a long slow day, and it will be a long slow six months before I can get a different job.

Quilts: I am reading this .book.
I love it, and think that you should love it, too.

Alrighty, Then

Hey blog land! My new job sucks, but in new, different, less exciting ways! Yeah! Relentlessly cheerful to the end! Six months, and then I can bid on a new, exciting, sucky job! Yeah! But seriously, folks, I knit ten rounds on my sock today, and that's nine more than my last job usually afforded! Exclamation! Go Team! Go, Me! Yeah, Sole Breadwinner!

And now for something that is not bullshit:

In Harlot Fashion , stuck it on a bush and took a photo. Don't know who it's for. Practice on working outside my comfort zone, color wise, and also a wee bit of machine quilting.

About Time

I Think I started these at Christmas? The Turkish inspired socks ( check out Anna Zilborg's
book
serious fun, but lots of ends. I just tied them off, as is more traditional. Yeah, I'm real worried about the tradition, here. They are fraternal socks, and that's how we like it around here.

Had my last day at the old job. I'm no longer a pediatric critical care nurse. (But the PTSD should last forever.) Guess I'll have to edit the blog. Strange, because I have always been a pediatric nurse. They hired me because of my experience as a pedi nurse, so I will still have that connection. If it works out, it will be a nice job. If it doesn't work out, then I will be changing jobs Q year, until satisfied.

Here's an odd note: the dictionary provided by blogger does not recognize the word "blog".