the project of 2009

Hey, look, I went to a conference and made a hat. I also made some fingerless mitts, but I have no pictures. You can imagine them - same cabling around the wrist, straight knit to the base of the fingers. The cabling was probably the most complicated I have ever done and was very satisfying.

I was even so nice as to knit a lining for the hat as it was way too thin to do any good without one. And I overestimated how much yarn it would take, per usual, only using 60% of what I bought. The yarn is pretty great - it comes from a sheep-llama-rabbit chimera - and I should really figure out what to do with the rest of it.

Equivalent to dead?

If a girl can't find time to write on a 59 day break from clinical responsibilities, the internal pressure to write must not be very high. So it goes.

I had a very productive two months - I did all my interviews, complete with traveling with small children. Complete with one trip with Trouble and without small children - our first overnight without children since they appeared! It was excellent. Yea, grandparents!

I got about half of the class I'm teaching this spring put together. Excellent.

I got two manuscripts into review. Another manuscript is half written and awaiting some help from the statistician (not my fault that it didn't get farther!).

I've read up for the Very Expensive test I "get" to take in two weeks. I'm not so worried about failing and I wouldn't have done any studying except having to pay $1500 to take it again would about kill me.

And, most importantly, I spent a lot of time with the boys. I reached that point in parenting where I was able to just sit still and do repetitive tasks to amuse them and actually enjoy it. On the plane flight back from the grandparents', Huxley wanted to shut the shade of the window, have me act appalled, open it, and tickle his tummy. About 50 times in a row. I could do it easily . . . while I'm kind of excited to get back to a routine, I bet my ability to just be present with my kids will evaporate in about one day. Not so good.