This really is my year!

Because I'm an Ox! I have to admit that after the year of the Cock, which as a poultry deity I have a stake in, I had grown rather neglectful of the Chinese calendar. Frankly as a child encountering my first Chinese zodiac themed place mat, I felt rather betrayed by the fact that I wasn't something cute like a mouse or a rabbit, or cool, like a dragon. What girl wants to be a cow? It grew on me, however, and I have come to embrace my ox and now I am happy to be one.

And because I am 12, I will share with you one of my favorite anime characters who is the ox.

Hatsuharu Sohma from Fruits Basket.

So, in the midst of all this progress on the fair isle vest, you see I have absolutely no knitting content for you today. Who cares! Gong xi fa cai!

Exactly what the hell was I thinking?

The white thread at the top sides are where the armhole steeks are going in. ARMHOLE STEEKS, PEOPLE! And now, all I have to do is knit an interrupted 38 stitch pattern repeat whilst decreasing and standing on my head and playing the frigging trumpet with my left hand while I juggle flaming axes with my right foot. Thats all.

I have no idea why I thought it was going to get easier after the armhole steeks went in. No idea whatsoever. I have to go drink heavily now.

First repeat done!

And I'm still liking this. Gotta go knit more now.

Bell Geekery

I started a bell blog. If you are interested, go see it!

Bob!

Now I have to get back to knitting.

Sorry I can't come to the blog right now, I'm busy knitting,

...but if you'll leave you name and email below, I'll get back with you as soon as I'm done.

Right now, that's looking like February or March.

Thanks.

The best thing my physics professor ever told me.

I remember the first day of physics class in college. I was terrified. I had absolutely no physics in my life before that day, I had a course load of pure math and science that semester, and no wiggle room in my schedule for failure, because we were in the last class that would graduate with our particular degree and the new degree had totally different prerequisites.

So I'm sitting in this auditorium and Dr. Vincent strolls up to the podium and announces to the entire class that we all just got an A. Now all we had to do is keep it.

Sure it's a mind game, but it was a damned good one, one that got me a 4.0 to show for that toughest semester, one that kept me top of the heap for the rest of school. Now, to keep the A you have to drive yourself hard, and that is impossible to keep up for too long without becoming a crispy critter, but it is still much easier than trying to get an A from nothing.

Before I go any farther, let me thank all of you who have supported me and send hugs and good vibes our way. We are going to miss China for a long time; she was with us a long time, and I'm just not counting the first couple of days of January as 2009. Nope, those still belong to 2008, because in 2009 I'm starting with an A.

I actually made goals - yeah, I know, but it's true. Every month I will have a goal in 4 areas of my life, personal/health, knitting, SCA and bellringing. I may or may not bore you with the non knitting goals on this blog, but the concept is to review my progress at months end and adjust if needed when setting next months goals. Many of you may be yawning right now, but for me this is major.

Then I went to Ravelry and hibernated everything not currently on my goal list. That way all those UFOs aren't mocking me and glaring at me resentfully every time I log on. Another mind game, but one that instantly took tons of pressure off me I didn't even realize I was putting on myself.

Here's my January progress so far on Rosarie. I had to frog it yet again before starting. Apparently, as HappyGoth said, the seventh time's the charm.
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Furry blur courtesy of Jasmine. These days I'm knitting around the cats instead of kicking them off. Like they weren't spoiled enough...

And now we are eight.

Our China has gone to be with Ceiling Cat.

I already miss her big blue eyes.

She was with us 15 cranky years. She had excellent taste in boxes and loved to terrorize all the other cats in the house. She was a great cat.