Must be a blue moon, because I'm blogging...

and there are pictures.

I got through the first week back from my vacation. Things are slowly picking up again - there's a bit of a lag from things shutting down, and I'll be back up to full speed in another 2 weeks. During the slow time, I'm working on a grant submission and we're cleaning and rearranging in the lab. I'm trying to readjust to being back here.

One of the strange things is that winter at my house looks a lot like this:



When I left my apartment, there was snow. (No complaint here - just strange to go from the ground covered with white stuff to the ground covered with leaves.)

Over break I worked on a few things, including some Gentleman's Fancy Socks from Knitting Vintage Socks.



It's a straightforward pattern, but with the usual nice little touches that Nancy Bush puts into her designs. Very clean, very clever refinements that no one would ever notice. Of course, I ran out of room in my suitcase and had to leave this behind. Hopefully it will be shipped back to me soon.

And for New Year's, I cast on for a new pair of socks. Neither the yarn nor the pattern is new to me, but the combination was novel. (Sanguine Gryphon Eidos, and of course Monkey.) I love this green.



Knitting? There's tons of that going on. At least the starting part. I'm doing a KAL with my local group, and yes, I'm knitting a Clapotis again, this time out of orange sea silk. When I cleaned up my apartment, I found a scandalous number of things that are in progress, and if I get more organized, I might blog about them or even actually finish them... But I'm still working under the constraint of having little time for knitting. This isn't getting better any time soon, either. I'm still working long hours, plus I'm really trying to cook more meals for myself, and find time to read. Plus, my sister and I are having a bit of a competition - we have a pretty healthy sense of sibling rivalry, and we're trying to use that for good. Both of us have some weight to lose, and so we're competing - not for number of pounds lost, but for consistent weekly losses. There's money at stake too, but I think bragging rights are the key. In my case, that means I'm now trying to find time to exercise daily (in addition to walking to work.) Stuff will get finished, but it would be great if I could find a way to comfortably combine reading and knitting in the evening.