Zen Askew

This morning when I got into my office I noticed that my Mini Zen Garden had been trashed. No doubt it was shoved aside as I scrambled to finish grading exams or papers, or complete a journal article review (I reviewed no less than 3 articles this past semester and am currently working on a 4th!). I think that probably sums up this past semester quite nicely: Zen askew. I have now fixed the Zen Garden and hope that that bodes well for the upcoming semester.

On the knitting front, I still need to take photos of some of my actual FOs from the past few months. I completed 2 dishcloths and a cute summer top for RJ (a Katja in a lovely silk/cotton blend). I feel like I also started a million different projects and really haven't made much progress on them: a crocheted shawl for my niece, another Anouk for RJ, glittens for my brother, socks for RJ, another dishcloth, a baby sweater for a friend, and probably one or two other projects I am forgetting. I guess startitus really kicked in and kept hoping I would get time to work on them. Well, until I remember to take some photos, here is a picture of RJ in a handknit sweater from a couple weeks ago at Downtown Disney. No, I didn't knit it myself, but it sure is cute, isn't it?

The Forgotten Blog

I'm not sure if anyone is following along anymore, but I always hate it when I've been following someone's blog and then all the sudden they disappear with no explanation. Are they OK? Did something bad happen? Or did something good happen that is taking up all their time? Or did the person just lose interest in blogging? For me, this past semester turned out to be overwhelmingly busy and complicated, so I had no time for anything other than the absolute necessities.

Why was I so busy? It was several things, really. The hubby started a new job, while continuing to take evening classes toward earning an MBA. So, while trying to prove himself at his new job, he was also trying to ace two classes. No easy feat, and one that meant he was working late into the night or in class nearly every evening during the week and studying/working on weekends. That meant that I was taking care of RJ on my own a lot more. I think it is a worthwhile sacrifice, but it does cut down on my free time a lot. I am also teaching more courses than I am accustomed to, and the addition of the furlough (unpaid days off to save the university money in faculty salaries) actually created more work, not less. Nobody seemed to know how we should choose these days off, and rules were given last minute or after we had chosen, so I had to change my days at least twice. Then we were told to give our students out of class assignments for those days, which then meant that we had to create the assignments, give them out, and then grade them. Ugh, what a disaster! This semester I have resolved to say screw it and make sure that I don't end up with more work rather than less. I also wrote a grant that got me a course release (yippee!), so things should be a lot better this semester. I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep up with blogging, but I'll try.

What about my knitting? I actually did finish a few small projects knitting whenever I could, and RJ is developing a love of yarn. I definitely see a future knitter here, as she creates a lovely mess of yarn barf for me: