Well, I like such lists - stolen from someone's blog (cannot remember whose)

48 thing you never wanted to know but will read anyway
1. FIRST NAME? Barbara
2. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? Not really, but my great grandmother had the same name
3. WHEN DID YOU LAST CRY? When last watching Titanic. I always do. I'm such a sissy ...
4. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? Kind of.
5. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCHMEAT? I try not to eat meat for lunch - but ham.
6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? I guess.
7. DO YOU HAVE A JOURNAL? Two blogs and some old fashioned papery one,s not in use for 3 years nearly.
8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? No - got them removed TWICE.
9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? I don't think so. Only for really a lot of money.
10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? Kellogg's Smacks - but I don't eat them anymore.
11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? If they need untying ...
12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? Emotionally not. Physically, yes.
13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR? Strawberries, and Hazelnut.
14. SHOE SIZE? Don't know for other measuring systems, but from heel to toe I've got roughly 25 cm.
15. RED OR PINK? depends on the exact colours.
16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? My endless rambling.
17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? Sad but true, no one.
18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? No!
19. WHAT COLOR PANTS, SHIRT AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? Light brown pants, dark blue t-shirt, black lab slippers.
20. LAST THING YOU ATE? Breakfast - a roll-kinda thingy with ham.
21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? The stupid computer next to me
22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Green, that green of early growth.
23. FAVORITE SMELL? That's tough - right now my bodyshop eau de toilette. jasmin.
24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE? My bf who had not time for me
25. THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE YOU ARE ATTRACTED TO? Wierd and strange details I then have to stare at for like the next 5 years.
26. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON YOU GOT THIS FROM? I don't remember, but I read the blog, so I guess yes.
27. FAVORITE DRINK? Our wondeful tab water - better than evian.
28. FAVORITE SPORT? Inline scating
29. EYE COLOR? grey/blue/something
30. HAT SIZE? seriously, I have no clue.
32. FAVORITE FOOD? Italian and Asia-related
33. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? Please no happy endings.
35. SUMMER OR WINTER? Spring?
36. HUGS OR KISSES? Hugs
37. FAVORITE DESSERT? Tiramisu or Ice cream
38. WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? I guess that's from the mail thingy - now it's blog, so no responders likely.
39. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? see above.
40. WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING? Right now like always 10 at a time. But mostly re-re-re-reading The Wheel of Time seried form Robert Jordan (Book 3 right now). But make it epic and fantasy or urban horror - that's my genre(s)
41. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? Don't have one here
42. WHAT DID YOU WATCH LAST NIGHT ON TV? Strange things while zapping through.
43. FAVORITE SOUNDS? rain on the window, waves.
44. ROLLING STONE OR BEATLES? the stones!!
45. THE FURTHEST YOU'VE BEEN FROM HOME? Iceland
46. WHAT'S YOUR SPECIAL TALENT? I could be a published author if I ever sent my 1000+ pages who actually has the power to publish them :)
47. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Vienna, Austria, where I still recide.

WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? Stolen from a blog

Uhm, well ...

It's really strange, but I feel somewhat under pressure because of the few KALs I'm participating in. This is still stranger as there are no deadlines approaching, and all. I'm just a bit on the freaky side of things, lately, I guess.

Yesterday I needed about two hours to get the flat straight, spent 1 hour in front of the computer, and knit like 6 rows. I guess the "I will knit soo much" week planning was abit on the optimistical side of things ;)

I'm a little peeved that my mum comes either today or tomorrow - I mean it's now my flat, and she should be a bit more concrete. I hope for tomorrow, because with a little luck we won't see each other. I'm just sooo not in the mood to quarrel with her because of my general messyness. As if that was the most important thing in the world. Meh. If the flat weren't so nice and cheap I would move out just tomorrow, to be true, to somewhere were she couldn't just drop in any day she liked.

See, I'm stressed, depressed, and generally a bit on the down side today. I guess I'm really heading towards a big depression, kind of the clinical / medical type, not the "oh, today I'm lazy, call it depressed" kind of thing. So many things don't make sense lately ... and don't get done. So, well.

Oh, nice

I just got my weekly stats of the site count meter, and apparently some poeple are reading this blog! Most hits are via google or the kals I'm participating in - linking does work, somehow.

But now to more important things. First off, my mobile rocks. I just wanted a phone I can take some snapshots with, and therefore it is perfect. Plus it has a radio receiver, so I can listen to my most favourite radio show each morning, now. And the battery still holds. I just wanna use it so much now, and I honestly don't have anyone to call. All my usual suspects are already getting bored with me calling them. I'm such a poor baby ;)

I also photocopied the pattern of the provincial waistcoat today so that I can take notes - and started to write down the instructions for my size seperately. It's just such a mess with all the different sizes having different numbers in nearly every single line of the pattern - twice. But I will go on, and eventually it will work, and I might even cast on this very week.

Yesterday was a slow knitting day, I just did two repeats of the melon pattern (60 now), and after stretching the thing I decided to just do the 62 repeats as in the pattern, that's by far large enough! I guess I'm running towards 2 meters already ...

I'm somewhat looking forward to spending the next evenings just with my cats, sipping coffee by the podwise, and staying up till 2 a.m. or the likes ;) will get a lot of knitting done, for sure!

Planning

Squee, I'm getting my new mobile today! In just about three hours it will be mine!

Yesterday I did cast on with STR nodding violet lightweight for the Rapid River Socks - but the pattern does not look good with that colourway. I saw someone doing kew from knitting with the yarn, and it was sooo beautiful - I'm a copycat! But the yarn is without doubt the best yarn I ever knit. It just does not slide, even with the long tail cast on it did not significantly unwind, it just flows over my needles, and the 2 inch I knit felt really good on my foot, stretchy yet fitting - perrrfect. I guess once I've decimated my sock yarn stash enough, I'll revisit the blue moon fiber arts website and buy some more.

I also decided to cast on for the provincial waistcoat from the current IWK issue - I know I talked about slimming and waiting and so on, but I guess it will likely fit me for loosing the next like 20 pounds, and I can always start tricksing should I really loose more. I mean 20 would be great anyways ;) I just cannot put on one of those lovely meters for slimming because I will not go near my scales until I know that I have slimmed what I have "gathered" since my parent's seperation. I'll do the waistcoat in rowan RYC cashsoft aran in bud, a light greeny yellow. I so love colour and yarn ...

Oh, and the colourmart yarn I talked about lately arrived last thursday, with having been shipped on monday. Really neat! And it's such a ... lovely yarn. I will knit three or four strands together, but even the lace weight silk is soo beautiful - gotta get more should I ever run out of my current stock ;)

So that's it for today I guess, no more yarns to drool about, no more projects I will cast on for and then let them rest for better times. But for me just planning and starting is worth so much - and it's my money and my flat space that is used up by those projects, so who are others to complain?

just rambling

I just counted my melon repeats on the shawl, and I'm at 58 out of 62 - only 4 more to go! And not tugging on the monster, just holding both sides between my arms, I've already reached my maximum wingspan. Blocking, and of course with the added border, it should approach2 meters soon. I guess I'll NOT do some extra repeats, even with my stocky torso that thing should wrap around me enough.

I guess today I nearly knitted 10 repeats, catching up on podcasts of the not snot-laughing type (yeah, I did that when the pony boy hat came up. And I sooo know what that is ;)) - but now my arms are protesting - I think I'm about to get cramps in the sinews just below my elbow. I've had those critters in my legs when I was doing 15 hours of aerobics when I was 16, and never wanna meet them again. Taken, in your right arm it's better than in both legs, but I have to work really a ot with the full use of fingers and arms from tomorrow on, so ... I guess that's it for today with knitting, at least the lace stuff. It's only 4 p.m. on a sunday, and I'm done for the day? Not likely ... I guess the sock will come up waaay sooner than I expected. Sorry for typos, by the way, but my fingers are really not oin the good side today. It I were a little less obsessive I'd give up knitting for the time being until my carpal's are done, but hey ... it's all about obsessions, now isn't it? Life, I mean. What's left when you take out all the obsessions and passions?

I'm a bit sad that I got non of the lime & violet etsy yarn from the latest update, but hey, I have like 7 miles, that should be enough for now!

Now something totally knitting unrelated. Once again I'm listeing to Garbage, singing a bit on the loud and false side - I so love Shirley's voice. I'm just mentioning it because the track list finally reached the first album, and I was playing that on endless repeat whgile reading Jordan's Wheel of Time for the first time in english, obsessively. So much for obsessions, again. I think I cannot do anything without obsession and still find it worth the while. I guess that's why my diploma thesis has until recently evolved into something hideously that graps me on monday and spits me out thorouly chewn up on friday night. But htings are working now, just 7 weeks before the end of it, so who am I to complain?

Until now, 2007 has been a really good year. Not really relation-wise as our relation is something like stagnating for months - but not in a bad sense. Just in a I'm depressed and don't need headaches to say no, but it will get better anyways soon! But my creativity really is taken up by other things lately, and I've got no energy to speak off, so where should the rest come from? But I'm really not complaining, apart from job troubles my life has never been so good. When all problems will be sorted in 3 months or so, and I've just got the final exam to learn, I'll be the most happy person on earth. Well, probably after passing said exam, but still - life is good, so why should I complain? I just have to refind that spark of life again, but I guess it's already sitting in front of me and I just have to take it up.

Hm, getting a bit philosophical here, scaring away people reading this ;) But hey, it's my blog, it's not like anyone HAS to read it. I also don't read it, what's visible from the many mistypings. I do know pretty good how to spell and write, but my fingers get a little too fast sometimes. That's what you get from typing english on german keyboards ...

Finally, Pictures!

First off, I finally came round to making pics of my Jaywalkers:



I used about 62 gr. (half the hank) of Lisa Souza's Lime & Violet Colourway in Merino Sock Yarn. The patterns are nearly symmetrical in both socks, aligning in leg and foot parts pretty good. I'd already wearing them the second time around, and really like them. I cast them off just two hours short of the start of the new year.

Yesterday evening, I also finished my first pair of socks for the Lime & Violet Sock Marathon 2007:
I used the Anastasia pattern and yarn bougth on etsy from yarnahoy in Old Earth:

Éowyn just loves them ;)
I did not measure the exact amount of yarn I used, but I'm too lazy to calculate all that- I'll just knit 10 pairs of socks. That should fit, as I guess I used more than the required 250 yards per pair anyway. The pattern is really beautiful in the colourway I mean, shifting the blue and red parts around appealingly on both socks. I did change the original pattern in so far that I knot both socks with k2tog instead of one with ssks, and read the chart from left to right, as it was an even row.

Right now I'm only working on the melon scarf - I still got 11 days left, rather 9 with the blocking, that should be enough. Right after that I'll cast on socks with my STR yarn - don't know which ones (pattern and colourway), but that's up next. For the larger projects, I plan on really taking up jogging and swimming again next week as it's still fairly warm around here, and once I do that I will inevitably slim again (I always do once I'm really into it), so I will use less yarn, and it would be such a waste to start now. grin.

next week I'll be spending most of the days alone as my BF is away from tuesday till sunday - just me, my cats, and yarn. And the flat to be cleaned thoroughly again, but as I will count that as sports too - I only clean like once every two weeks, thoroughly like only 6 times a year, so that's really hard work - I will still have plenty of time for my knittery love. And I plan to get my new mobile phone, the old one really needs to be exchanged after 3.5 years. Can't be a techno freak with such an old phone. I'm going to get the Nokia 6103 - a little old already, but hey, I just wanna TALK with it, maybe take a few snapshots, but that's it! Even on the newer model I couldn't fit one episode of lime & violet for listening to, and I just need my iPod when I decide to listen to somehting. I don't just require 100mb, I need the 30 gigs, with like 400 cds. I'm just such a geek.

okay!

Now I have my blood count - guess what?

Everything's okay!!

My cholesterol and other fat values are at below 2/3 of what they could be, my sugar's just at range (family problem, a bit), but that's not critical, immune system is okay, too. The only value that is high are my prolactin levels, but as I hormonally check not to become a parent that's to be expected. To sum it up, for a 23 year old girl who takes contraceptives and who is a little lazy lately I have perrrfect values. I'm healthy as ... I don't know, you name it. A little more jogging, sweetener instead of sugar in my coffee, and I'll be an example for healthy blood counts.

I'm just so relieved - and sassy. Yeah. Just feeling good.

The good, the bad, and my cats

So today I've calmed down a bit again. I still don't have the report of my blood count (will get that in my midday break), but yesterday in the evening I sat down in front of the TV, my knitting basket on my left, a purring black cat on my lap, aantilopes galloping over flooded prairies on the screen, and took my blood pressure with one of those wrist measurement instuments that are not that accurate, but can't be too much off. And what did I get, twice? About 100/90. Looooow low sytsolic pressure, taking that I was nearly dozing off and the cat purring like mad to facilitate this even more, and no caffeine in my system, I guess that's normal for me at that state. My mum also has low blood pressure to the point pf dozing off every late afternoon while reading or watching TV, that's in the family. So I'm OKAY now again.

Phew. Jumped off that panic wagon soon enough. Truly, I'm still mad at the doctor, but rationality already peaks through the gaps in my rightious fortress of self-defense - I could just have said, uhm, you know, I'm not feeling all that well, I'm a little peeved about the whole checking my votals, please measure my pressure (nice forumulation, isn't it?) in like 15 minutes again? And oh, I was rather sporty until two years ago, so even with digress I still have to climb up to my flat like 100 stairs a day, same at work, I can't be THAT out of the normal frame.

What really makes me so furious is the fact that I don't even need the means of modern internet search to read the strange things he put in the fiche for the blood count. I know what hyperlipidemia is. I know that I don't have it as a) the values in my whole family have always been good to low (yeah, there are people who have to dress flabby and have low, low bad cholesterol), and the last blood count I got was also okay - and I neaver changed my eating habits since then. I also don't eat enough fat to have my blood swim with lipids. And anyway, that usually comes as a genetic disorder anyways with people who eat too much but rather healthy. Umpf. I had like 3 lectures in biochemistry that concerned metabolism, I can f***ing draw the chemical structure formulas of the metabolic products of all these metabolic pathways where our vital signs come from and what shows in blood count. I'm three months from my final exam of my study, biochemistry being one of my major subjects, I just HAVE TO KNOW THAT!
End of rant.

To more lovely things, I've yesterday started with the third ball of kidsilk haze on my victorian melon shawl - I'm somewhere around 45 repeats out of 62 for the whole inner stole part of the thing. Maybe I'll even make it larger, starting on the edging somewhere save, knitting til the yarn starts to dwindle, and end with the last few cm of yarn ;) I still have till the 23rd of January, the ball being on th 25th when I want to have it done - anyway I will make it! But no more sock knitting. And I also stopped in progress of the arwen cardi as I plan to take up jogging any way now, and when I slim I can make the cardigan longer and smaller in size, and oversized garments are the bane of anyone who just slimmed like 5 kg (my rational goal for now). Meh.

And my cats are so cute. Really. I just looove them!

so ... that's it?

I've got a bit of a mood lately, and today it's too much to hide it - mostly because I'm anxious.

Now why? Because I've been to the doctor 2 days ago - hate to see doctors, but I wanted to have my hemogram (blood count) taken so that I know when I'm 35 and they find anything, that it has been okay when I was 23. Duh.

Okay, wehat do I expect? Normal yet in the high ranges for cholersterol and triglycerides - fat values to you. Why? Because I don't just eat carrots (although I love carrots), and I've been on the chubby side of life for like ever. I did slim down when I was 18, like 20 kg in 2 months, in like what in retrospect was a huge "I'm out of puperty but HELP ME!" cry - and no one said anything. Like it is normal that an 18 year old suddenly looses nearly a quarter of her weight. Yes, I did eat nearly nohting for two months. I had a lot of blanks, too, that's why I started eating afterwards again, and within 4 years I had made up for that again ;)
Then my parents started their divorce, and I gained ... a lot. Steadiliy I might sa,y with stress at work and not time for sports / practice - go figure. But I've always been healthy, I gain weight becvause I eat too much, but not fast food or just fat things. I'm just too good a food utilizer. Come the next ice age I will be a survivor for sure ;)
Just three years ago I stopped going to the gym regularly, but until then I've had good pulse, low blood preasure, and all. Just a little too chunky, but healthy enough, thank you.

So two days ago I venture into the doctor's (internist) lair, already a bit peeved - I hate it when skiiny docs look at me like I'm an alien. I'm not that fat! Until recently I've been doing more sports than most skinny girls my ago, so please, give me some credit. So I'm not very happy to start with, then he does some tests, ultra sound and so on, and I'm a bit short of breath because he keeps pushing the ultra sound thingy very hard into my lower abdomen. He has me sit up, takes my blood preasure - and it's like 190/100. 190!! I don't even know anyone who ever had that high a blood pressure. And what does that man do? Hands me, 23 yera old gal, blood pressure reducing pills, and sends me to take my blood count this week. I was just so dumbfounded that I didn't even say another word about it, and at home like mechanicall too a pill.

And then started the five worth hours of my life. Me having high blood pressure? For sure not then.- I was not able to read, to knit, not even plain stockinette, and not able to follow CSI on TV. I just sta in front of the TV and felt like dying, with my heart pounding and the world taking spins around me. When I wnet to bed it only got worse, and I was up and reading til 3 a.m.. Then things got better, but even now, 1.5 days later, I still feel a little weird. And why? because I did not need that crap, and it sunk my normal blood pressure into the ground!!

I'm surely not going back to that doctor, even if my bf thinks he is a good doctor. That guy should have let me calm down in the waiting room for 10 minutes, and my levels would have been normal. Heck, 1 year ago there were normal!
But I went to get my blood count today, and if everything's fine I'll go visit my General practitioner next week and tel him about that. I'm just freaked out still. I mean, who can anyone justify that behaviour? Just because I'm fat I have to have high blood pressure, so I need meds? I mean my pressure cannot be that high when the woman taking my samples today needed like 1.5 minutes to fill 4 vials. With high pressure that should be spritzing out like ... whatever (I love "spritz" - I also saw it last week on a cosmetic spray, it#s so funny to see german words in english language).

Whee!

a.k.a. the follow-up post to yesterday's Squee!

So I did try out my new knitting needles, and already cast on for the Arwen Cardi (followingly called just AC), and am already knitting on the larger sized needles in the back. I did mess up a bit with the yarn as I have 14 skeins of one batch and 7 of the other, so now I'm knitting 4 rows with batch A, 2 rows batch B, 4 rows A, you get it. The one colour is a bit more grey, the other more blue, but it does not really shjow up. And most importantly: my gauge in knit and purl stitch remains the same. On some needles I clearly change, but with those everything stays and the overall structure is even. Yay! And the needles are just sooo cool. Smooth yet with enough grip to not let the yarn slip. I should have bought them months ago ...

Oh, and I went yarn shopping yesterday, on ebay, and bought 10 skeins of RYC Cashsoft Aran in "bud", a nicely limey green. I do like the colour, you know ... it's for the Provincial Waistcoat, featured in the latest IWK (winter 06). From the band I should get gauge, knowing me I will be at a little less stitches per inch, so knitting the thing just off the pattern will provide me with just my size, coincidally 2 inches larger than the last one posted (I guess). Whee again!
I was so hunting for that yarn since I bought one skein last year at Liberty's, after monning over the yarn for like 20 minutes, hogging the yarn section and driving other costumers off with my erratic looks.

Speaking of erratic, and because I saw it mentioned in another blog, readwise I've again fallen for my "epic fantasy of doom" series once more - Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" Series. Reading the books for like the 4th time ever. Since I don't even know which one of the latest books was the last I read, and even the summaries could not help me, I started to re-read all books last year - and two weeks ago I took up the third book again, by now I'm hooked again as ever. Knowing that I still have 3 good books to go makes reading fun again. I just keep hoping that towards the end the story will pick up again. So much hope ;)