Crafty Time

O my goodness, it has been so long since I updated the blog! Things have been super busy here with school and work. My time includes time spent in class, in my office, doing homework in my office, office hours, and TAing for my calc sessions. But thankfully, I have been doing some stuff to break up all the work.

A few weekends ago, we went to the Natural History Museums and saw dinosaurs!

 

And from there we headed to the National Galleria which had a display on video game art which was super exciting =)

 

The best part of this day was when we left the National History Museum and five seconds later, it started to pour like you wouldn’t believe! We ran through DC in the pouring rain, soaking wet, and we all had such a fun time doing it =)

The day capped off with this lovely sight

 

And tonight, I decided I wanted to be crafty at 9:30 which is highly unfortunate because I really couldn’t but there is what is waiting for me.

A Muppet tie blanket waiting to be put together:

 

And I remembered I had yarn bonbons!

 

I have a few ideas for projects and definitely will be deciding what to do sometime this week.

Cheers =)

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Icing on the iHome

Well, that is the short story anyway. But before we get to why I had icing on my iHome, here is what else I have been up to.

For my TA stuff, I have to design quizzes and I have been outlining papers this weekend.

 

 

Thank God for whiteboards. Otherwise, I would be doing a pretty good job all on my own of killing the trees. Then I completely geeked out when I got this app working

 

With this neat little app, I can leave my computer open in my office at the log in screen, and access my computer on my phone! I was wayyy to excited about it.

So on top of homework and nerd-ing out, I also spent a bit of time in the kitchen.

This is a Greek yogurt, banana, and honey smoothie. It made studying this afternoon considerably better.

 

Then Saturday, I made white chocolate chip and cranberry cookies. It is so nice to have cookies in the apartment =)

 

So today, I was trying to improve on the baking experience on Saturday. On Saturday, I made a spectacular mess. I blame this partially on my lack of counter space. Well, no matter what it is, I tried to be really neat today while making cupcakes. And during the actual cupcake part of it, I was rocking out that kitchen like a beast. They came out beautifully and it was time to make the icing and that is when it went downhill. I don’t have a mixer but I have a powered whisk which I thought would work. As it turns out, it refused to work and cream the butter like it was supposed to. But I thought I would just carry on and added powdered sugar. That made lovely little white clouds and then cup I was mixing in ran away from me because I didn’t have a good enough handle on it and the whisk whisked it away and it was spinning across the counter and there was powered sugar everywhere! And icing was thrown hither and yon! And yes, right onto the iHome. So, I let the icing win. . .

 

A little powered sugar on top of those munchkins suffices just as well =)

Cheers =)

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Unless Someone Like You …

… cares a whole awful lot, nothing’s going to be better. It’s not.” ~ Dr. Seuss

Yes, this does mean that I finished the Thneed!!!!!!!!!!!

And then I had to have a photo shoot for it! (Unbelievable the number of pictures I had to take to get a few I liked.)

Modeled as a scarf:

Modeled as a hat:

And I had requests for a pattern so click here for the ‘Everybody Needs a Thneed’ pattern. Feel free to leave me comments on it if you don’t understand. First time I have tried writing up my explanations for my knitting so let me know if you need further explanation =)

Cheers =)

8/29 – I updated the pattern if you want to check it out again. I forgot to put down how many arms I made.

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I’m the Reason

Have you ever seen those shirts for babies that say, ‘I’m the reason we can’t have nice things’? I found out today that I am the reason small groups don’t work.

It was decided that 2.5 hours of class on small groups for our ‘How To TA Sessions’ would work out nicely. I’m not a big fan of small groups but we had to get in small groups to discuss them. Then we were giving our answers out loud to the class and I hadn’t said an answer in my group because I thought it fell under another category. When I mentioned this to someone, they looked at me and said, ‘And you’re the reason why small groups don’t work out’ and they are exactly right! I don’t like sharing information and small groups really aren’t my thing so the comment made me laugh =) But thanks to this class I now have firm hand how to run effective small groups.

Orientation has been pretty awesome. The people here are wonderful, so open, and so welcoming. I was a little people deprived because I moved down here last Wednesday and didn’t have a real in person conversation until Monday so I was thrilled to be around people again. But in addition to classes and sessions, we have been doing other things just to get to know each other which is super fun and I feel just truly happy to be here =)

But you know, there is down time in during orientation and you better believe I pulled that thneed out.

It’s pretty awesome explaining it whenever I pull it out =) And people have quite a favorable reaction to the Fun Fur (who wouldn’t?). I have now officially finished all four arms and am about to cast on for the major connecting piece. I plan on typing up this pattern this upcoming weekend and posting it for your viewing pleasure =)

Andddd the incredible Darci found this link and shared it with me. It’s about crocheting an ideal sphere. It totally reinforces and validates my senior project which looked at the mathematics that can be found in knitting. Too cool =)

Cheers =)

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Terp Terp Terp

I am officially in Maryland! The drive down on Wednesday was a straight four hours in the car by myself and my CDs. Thankfully, we brought two cars (I would never have made it in just one) and my dad and brother came down and helped me to settle in.

It took two days for it to look that nice, and I’m sure it will never quite look like that again. Even now, it doesn’t look like that. But I am quite happy with it, and it feels like me =) Last night while I was sleeping, my calendar fell off the wall and this really should have scared me more than it did but I was expecting something in the kitchen to fall so that is what I thought it was and why I didn’t freak out. Overall though, it is going quite well =)

Then I decided to take myself around campus a few times because I get hopelessly lost at the drop of a hat and it was a good thing I did. I managed to walk right past the Math building while looking for it and then got turned around inside. And this is why I decided to do this now rather than when I need to get somewhere fast. Although, I admit, I do like that I get an entire building here unlike at Saint Francis where math was given half a hall.

Maryland is the home of the Terrapins or ‘Terps.’

 

Which, let’s face it, is only one letter away from twerp =)

Then this morning, I was washing dishes and grazed my finger with a knife.

And this is no big deal at all. Except I did look at it and go, ‘Aw man – that’s a knitting finger!’ and that was my main concern about it =) And I have been working more on my thneed!

I almost have another arm done. When I went to go and take a picture of this, I reached into my bag and pulled out two knitting needles and freaked out because nothing was one them! And then realized the thneed was sitting on my bed – pure brilliance =)

Cheers =)

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Special Me

I’m taking a break for a few minutes. I just rocked out the fifth chapter of my linear algebra book in an hour and a half – reading notes and doing problems

so I definitely think it’s time for a bit of a break.

Here is what happened last night. I was knitting on my wingspan and decided that I had enough yarn to try and get that eighth triangle even though I was originally going to do just seven. So I was knitting back down all my stitches and tried to moved them up the needles and wham! 60 stitches popped right off the end of the needle. If you only could have heard my thoughts at that moment. I didn’t want to move how I was sitting at all because I was afraid stitches would start disappearing so I, thankfully!, had some extra needles in my bag thus resulting in this:

Yes, you do see four knitting needles in my knitting. However, quick remarkably, I able to pick up all 60 stitches without any problem. And I admit – this is all my fault. I have jammed 186 stitches on these short needles.

So really, that was inevitable but still – makes me all kinds of special.

Cheers =)

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Throttle My Computer

In the ongoing saga of ‘Colleen vs. Computer,’ the Computer pulls ahead by one point. I spent this morning programming and trying to get my website I’m working on to look/work a certain way. Here’s the thing: what I am working on, I already have a working version of it. But I think it would be pretty cool if I could get it to do something different and not be quite so plain. So I have looking for code to help me with what I am doing because programming websites isn’t something I have had a ton of experience with. I finally found this awesome site that even demonstrated exactly what I was looking for. I integrated this code into my program and awesome, it was working. The next step was to figure out how to incorporate the graphics and the display. I was working on it and the Computer is a liar. It told me I couldn’t make a reference because something wasn’t static. It was static so I re-saved what I was working on – re-saving was all I did – and all the sudden, it worked. Then, I was previewing all the changes I made and suddenly the page wasn’t acting correct at all anymore. It didn’t look anything like what it was supposed to. So I copied and pasted the link into a different browser and it looked right there! So, I started to play with the graphics on the webpage that I had just been working on and wham! Those stopped working. So I reverted alllllll my changes to where I thought I was awesome before the Computer became cantankerous and I will continue duking it out tomorrow.

On to happy thoughts: I received a new knitting kit.

It’s a pretty cool little kit. Check it out in detail here.

On yet another very random note, I had to move my computer upstairs while in the middle of this post and I didn’t lose internet. When I was living in the monastery, you could lose internet when turning from one hallway to another. So not losing internet as I was walking upstairs was enough to make me stop and appreciate it. It’s the little things in life =)

Cheers =)

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What Comes Out of My Mouth

Have you ever heard what has come out of your mouth and immediately thought, “Wow.”? I can think of three times, right now.

1. I had just landed in Dublin after two days in Avignon and six in Paris. I was dead beat tired. I thought it was going to be 10:10 when, in fact, it felt like 11:10 because there was an hour time difference between Paris and Dublin. We had been going and going and I guess I was just a bit overtired. But as I went through customs, the man there asked me what my degree was in (I’m a bit of a talker which is how he knew I was in school) and I looked at him and really brightly said, “I’m a mathe-magician!” Ummmm … no, not quite.

2. I was recently describing to someone my senior project for math. I didn’t know this person really well so I had to tell them I was into knitting before telling them I looked at the mathematics in making the surface of a doughnut. How did I describe what I do? “I’m a rampant knitter!” Well, that just makes me sound like a semi-nut running around slightly crazed with yarn and needles in my hands (which on some days isn’t too far off).

3. Last night someone asked me what I did. Recently, this question has been answered about going to grad school and such. I looked at this person and went, “I’m a programmer.” Where in the world did that come from? Granted, I am designing a website but programmer sounds like I have a serious job in it.

Really, all I can do is shake my head at myself.

On a different note,

I have started a new project. It’s called the Wingspan. I’m knitting away. Hopefully, if I concentrate on my knitting, crazy things will stop leaving my mouth.

Cheers =)

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Good Friends, Bad Cell Phone Pictures

It has been a hot few days here in Pittsburgh – up into the 90s which is definitely warmer than I would ever like. But I do manage to stay relatively cool. The other night, my friend Clare and I hit up this awesome coffee shop called Coffee Buddha. I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect but I am so happy we went!

(Truth: this picture was taken from my cell phone and you can completely tell . . . ) I didn’t realize how much I had been missing cafes that aren’t Starbucks since coming back from Europe until we went here. It just had the awesome cafe feel, with funky furniture, a really lovely staff member, and a light and airy feel to it. I will definitely be going back there.

Then, last night despite the heat, my friend Laura and I went for a walk. She is a rockstar and look what she made for me!

An Irish flag bracelet! She knows how much I love celebrating being Irish =)

But thankfully, the weather is about to break and cool back off which I could not be happier about. Tonight will be a fun time with my family as we go to see the new movie “Brave” which I am psyched about. But I guess for now, I should get to my math . . .

Cheers! =)

 

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Fighting the Time Stream

Well, it’s official – tomorrow I will be fighting the time stream home. This was clearly the only explanation as to why it takes longer to fly home than it did to get here. Maybe we can try warp speed to get us there faster =)

One more side nerdy note: I can’t wait until I am Dr. Stock because it sounds so close to Dr. Spock that I will be completely okay with people calling me that =)

Moving on. Guess what I finished?

Rose’s socks are all done just in time for me to take them home. I even tucked the ends in!

And …

Mom’s Traveling Socks are also officially completely and made a little trip around Ambialet yesterday. Everything is so green here now given the high amount of rain we have been having. On top of that, the river is muddy because the rain was so crazy and at one point, I looked outside and it was legitimately hailing. But the weather is being quite beautiful for our last couple of days here.

Have a rich and wonderful day! =)

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