you know it's going to be a hot day

when your air conditioner is running at 5:45 AM.

    Last night I finished the Swallowtail shawl. I'm quite proud to have a finished item! I am terrible about leaving things unfinished and running off to other projects. Of course, it still has to be blocked, but the smaller size of the Swallowtail is less intimidating than a full size shawl.

    Of course, what did I do as soon as I bound off the last stitches?? Casted-on for another one with the dark red MistiAlpaca I bought at the same time as the grey! I want to do this one on a little larger needles. Size 6 I think. I started it on size 7 by mistake though, and forgot to grab the 6s this morning to make the change.

    Classes begin today -- well, one of my classes -- and I am looking forward to getting back into an actual classroom! All my LIS classes so far have been online, but I'm taking a Tibetan Religions course this term that is face-to-face. Appropriately, I wore today my om-mani-padme-hum (in Tibetan script) T-shirt that I bought in Lhasa.

birthday meme

    Well, hmmm. Seems like we did this for an assignment in one of my LIS classes . . . except we had to use "real" reference sources: "The rules are to go to Wikipedia and type in your birthday month and day only. Then post 3 events, 2 births and one holiday that occurred on your birthday, then tag 5 friends." (I found the events rather uninteresting, so I only did two of them and did three birthdays.)

July 7th
Events:
    1456 - Joan of Arc acquitted of heresy (25 years after her death)
    2005 - London's transport system bombings
Births:-- all before me! LOL
    1907 - Robert Heinlein,Science fiction author
    1940 - Ringo Starr, musician
    1949 - Shelley Duvall, actress
Holiday:
    Very cool! The Japanese star festival, Tanabata! Go! Read. It is interesting, even though it is supposed to be seventh day of seventh lunamonth. "In the Edo period, girls wished for better sewing and craftsmanship." And they have seven kinds of decorations.

Tag, you're it (if you wanna play).

no more nubbs! more pix!

Well, one anyway.
 I took a break before starting the edging of the Swallowtail and made a photo to share.

 It isn't stretched too far; sorry (and click on the image to see the detail). Too lazy to dig out the pins, Lisa. Now I've fiddled around with something totally unrelated to knitting and am too sleepy to start the edging tonight. I'm glad it's the weekend... who knows how far I'll get on it by Sunday night. I'd really like to have it to wear at National Seminar.

goodies

oops! forgot to share my goodies.
 Yesterday my sweet hubby picked up these (there are two in a package)

for me at . . . well, some where! This is the first item going in my bag for seminar.

Work tasks got better after lunch. The new books came in from the bindery and now I've got several hundred items to process. I love seeing the new books, and it's nice to have a break from the MARC code.

 We had a nice fish supper tonight, and visited with an adorable Cockapoo puppy (belonging to a lady for whom hubby does yardwork). There was a lovely sunset, and my headache is finally gone. Time to knit a bit.

tired eyes and fingers

 Whew. I just spent all morning scrolling through (to make it sound simpler than it was) over a thousand bib. records looking for a particular kind of editing error. It should have been only half that many, but about 400 into it, I discovered another type of mistake I needed to be sure was corrected. (To get way too specific, I had to check the 440 and 490 MARC tags.) I found three errors of the first type I was looking for, and about a dozen of the second. How distressing. Just when I think I am improving with all this pre-ACCR2 updating. Not so good for the fingers either.

 Remember this? Well, I found one 'catch' on my bank statement a couple days ago. The $27 magazine subscriptions carry a $10 "shipping charge" each. Cancelled all that this morning.

 Classes begin next Wednesday. I'm trying to add a second graduate class, but it is full at the moment. I don't know whether or not they will let me add it if someone drops out early. Waiting for a reply from my advisor.

 While I'm talking library stuff, I want to brag a little bit about our library staff. One of the librarians here has been chosen for the Newberry Award committee for 2009. That may seem odd: it's a children's book award, and we are a university library. However, we have one of the largest collections of children's books in the country (and hold a national children's book festival each year on campus). She's getting a little exasperated at all the local attention, so I won't link to photos or include her names. She is a dear lady, though, and mother to one of the students on our trip to Tibet this last May. I'm happy to know her, and pleased at the honor for her.

 On the knitting front, I've only got about 6 more rows on the second lily-of-the-valley pattern section on the Swallowtail shawl, then I can begin the last pattern section. I hope it is easy to remember... I'll be glad to be done with the nupps. (Except that when I'm done with this one, I think I will pick up the sample one I began in white wool before my MistiAlpaca arrived. I don't remember them being so fiddly with the larger yarn though.)

 Since I still haven't taken a photo of my shawl, I'll post another Tibet photo.


This is about the highest point I climbed at Drak Yerpa. Of course, there's no feeling of height from the photo. You'll have to click on it and get the big size if you want to find my face among the prayer flags.

pizza: now & then

    Rissa did a blog thing. I followed suit. We both think the results are wacky.

    Since I can no longer eat pepperoni, I eat thin crust, ham & pineapple pizza:

What Your Pizza Reveals

Your appetite is pretty average. You don't go overboard - but you don't deprive yourself either. You are a very picky pizza eater. Not any pizza will do. You fit in best in the Northeast part of the US. You like food that's traditional and well crafted. You aren't impressed with "gourmet" foods. You are dependable, loyal, and conservative with your choices. You are carefree and friendly. You should consider traveling to Hawaii. The stereotype that best fits you is stoner. You're a little wacky in the head, even if you don't touch drugs.

    Before the stomach troubles and diabetes I preferred hand-tossed crust, pepperoni and lots of cheese:

What Your Pizza Reveals

Your appetite is pretty average. You don't go overboard - but you don't deprive yourself either. You aren't particularly picky about pizza. It's so good... how could you be? You fit in best in the Western part of the US. You like food that's traditional and well crafted. You aren't impressed with "gourmet" foods. You are generous, outgoing, and considerate with your choices. You are definitely unique and artistically inclined. You should consider traveling to Prague. The stereotype that best fits you is geek. You're the type most likely to order pizza to avoid leaving your computer.

What Does Your Pizza Say About You?

    Funny part is that last sentence fits Son#2 very well!

    I think rather than the combination of answers resulting in a profile, each particular answer has a result, so the profile is wonky. But amusing in a time-wasting sort of way . . . where is my knitting??

i·ro·ny

    when you realize the admonishments made to your children are advice you need to follow as well (i.e., they come 'round to bite you in the @ss): "double-check your work"

just a little morning inspiration. now, anyone have something to help with concentration on minutiae?

happy dance

 No, I haven't finished the shawl... summer term grades were released today. I made an A in my cataloguing class, and so kept my 4.0 GPA. Also made an A in the Tibet class, but that is "out of career" course work.

 A cheery spot in this very hot Tuesday. Time for lunch, or a nap, whichever happens first when I get to the car!