Mr. Bear

The one good thing about being sick is that I've been getting a lot of knitting done. Here's my latest:

I made him for some friends who had a baby quite a few months a ago, and Chris and I were out of town when they had their baby shower. It was fun making him.

I still have a nasty cold that I can't seem to get rid of, so that sucks. But in the meantime, I'm going to do some more knitting and reading.

Bleh-iness

I have been feeling crappy since last Wednesday - I think I've caught the plague (just kidding Mom!). It's basically a cold/flu with no stomach problems. It keeps dragging on though, which is completely annoying. Chris and I had a really nice weekend though. Since we both felt bleh, we mostly hung out at the apartment, watched the first season of My Name is Earl (which is great), and got our books and movies situated (see Chris's post and pics about the recent addition to our apartment here.) I also got my taxes done, and started knitting a teddy bear.

At work, I made some great progress with the project I've been mentioning/bitching about for how many months. It's a lot closer to being done, which is great. In all honesty, I should be working on it now (but who wants to do work at quarter to 9 at night???). Yep, that's right, the reason I'm posting at all is because I'm avoiding work. I thought I was done with school and the school schedule! Ha - boy was I wrong.

Ok, off to work I guess (dammit!)...

Long Weekend Ahead!

Even though it's Friday evening, I still have work (as in work work) to do before we head up to my parents' for the long weekend. This week has been both long and extremely busy - I need the upcoming time to regroup and de-stress a little. I really like my job, but it's also easy to get frustrated by other people's time-management skills and my inability to figure out a way to account for that. And here I thought I was getting better at knowing what approaches work for different people. I'm debating whether I should go to some of the management trainings, even though I'm definitely not manager, but such a large portion of my job is working with others to get information they have that I need.

The most frustrating is when I need help from one of the higher ups and that help cannot be given because of their time constraints and being generally over-worked because of the new financial system. I always have the best of intentions, but it doesn't always work out. Another thing that I have to work on is, in addition to being accepting of missed personal deadlines, I have to not let it stress me on a subliminal level. I tend to think that situations aren't getting to me, or time pressure that I feel was unnecessary isn't stressing me out, but it is.

I have often had the experience that the previously mentioned higher-up will have a project they want me to work on and will tell me a little bit about it at some point, but won't give me any further information until a day or so before it's due. Today is a perfect example. There is a comparison the CFO wants, and today was the day that I was told to do it. The comparison is going to be used in a meeting with other department heads on Tuesday morning at 9am. Monday is a holiday, meaning I have to get this thing done today, or work on it over the weekend.

Luckily, after putting nine hours into it during the work day, I got it to a point that all I need to do know is do some mindless plugging in of information now (which is perfect to do to music). So I made the decision to take a break and bring the work home with me. It's so much better to work in cozy pajamas with good music in the background :)

After a long and somewhat stressful day, Chris surprised me with a subscription to Climbing magazine, which I'm super excited about :) I had been thinking about getting a subscription for a while, but never got around to it. I can't wait to read it this weekend!

Mittens!

I finally finished my mittens (I got the bulk of them done a couple of weeks ago, but since I hate tucking the strings in, I didn't officially finish them until now).

Here's the pic:


The yarn was really fun (lots of colors). Mittens are fun and surprisingly easy to make.

My next project? I got a request from my aunt for a pair of slipper socks, and I'm thinking about knitting a teddy bear for some friends (we never got them a gift when their baby was born). Then I think I'm going to make another afghan, but this time, it's going to be of an NES controller. Check out the picture of this here. Both Chris and I thought it was so cool because we are nerds.

Juno

Last night, we went to see the movie Juno, which for those who don't know is a movie about a sixteen-year-old girl who accidentally gets pregnant and her experience. Juno (the girl's name) handles everything incredibly well, first attempting to get an abortion, but then deciding to give the baby up for adoption. She finds prospective parents and develops a quirky relationship with them.

She is a major tomboy, but appears to be comfortable with her femininity as well. I must admit that if I ever have a daughter, I would be proud to have one like the character Juno. Very intelligent, complete smartass, and very unconventional. The movie has a great cast, and is very funny and very sad at times (much like real life). It really shows how relationships evolve over this short period of time and Juno, while still being very much a kid, displays wisdom beyond her years.

I highly recommend this movie to anyone and everyone.

5.10a on-sighted

Last night was a very good night climbing for me. I finished the new 5.9+ that I tried the time before, I finished the 5.10a that I worked on before (my first one!), and the big accomplishment was that I on-sited another 5.10a (which means that I finished that route without falling off and without ever trying it before).

Admittedly, the 5.10a I on-sited was easier than the other 5.10a, which I fell off several times at the top. I have a lot of finger techniques to learn, and working more on that route will help with that. I'm really excited to work on other 5.10's to build my arsenal of techniques and I desperately need to work on more overhangs.

Very exciting climbing times for me!