Homesick and Tired

How ‘bout them Cardinals?

Being away from St. Louis at such a critical time has got me homesick. If I hadn’t happened upon one of their games last week I wouldn’t even know the World Series was going on, much less that the home team was playing.

And it couldn’t have come at a worse time. This weekend is my first concert with the May Festival Chorus and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, so we’ve had rehearsals until 10:00 every night since Tuesday. I should be going home and going to bed, but instead I go home and watch the game. And rehearsing with the orchestra, looking out into the hall, I am missing my friends in St. Louis even more knowing that none of them will be there to hear me or sing with me.

Thank goodness we get an extra hour this weekend. The sun doesn’t come up until 8:00am here, and it’s hard to get out of bed in the dark.

90 Days Out

This past Tuesday was my three month "anniversary" at work. Can you believe it's been three months already? I can't. What I really can't believe is that I still want to do the Happy Dance when I think about how much I love my job. I mean, they still have to pay me to show up, but I don't dread it, and I feel like I'm learning a lot and getting a lot done. On Tuesday I also had my 90-day review, which was about as glowing as a 90-day review can be. As I reflect on the past ninety days, and the first ninety days at my last job, I can only remark that I have not once been made to cry this time. I'm very appreciative of that fact.

**Spoiler for Jennifer ahead**

Jennifer, if you're out there reading this and don't want to ruin the surprise, then don't scroll down, just close the window. On the other hand, if you want to see what I'm working on, you go right ahead. It's your call.

I wasn't going to document any baby stuff for my sister until she had received it, but I stumbled upon the cutest pattern, and I'm really enjoying working on it, so I can't help but share. This will probably jinx it; by documenting it I'm practically guaranteeing that I'll never work on this again. ;)

Here is the link to the pattern. It's from Lion Brand, and it costs a whopping $.99, and you can download it. I was looking for baby sweater patterns, and thought this blanket looked cute, but couldn't tell much about it. I thought $.99 was a small price to pay to satisfy my curiosity, and I'm so glad I did.


As you can see, I've completed three squares (out of twelve). The pattern says to bind off and then sew them all together, but I'm doing a three-needle bind off as I go. This involves quite a bit of stitch-holding, but I'll figure that out as I go.

I'm using Lion Brand BabySoft, but not in the colors called for in the pattern. (I think I'm allergic to pastels.) I could find the blue, purple, pink and white in local stores, but had to order the green and yellow. In fact, the green I could find at several websites, but the yellow I could only get from Lion itself. So yes, I paid way more than I could have, but I am very happy with my color choices, and it makes it a lot more fun to work on. The needles are also Lion brand double-pointed, so the acrylic-on-plastic squeak isn't that pleasant; anything that can make it better is a Good Thing.

Cincinnati: Game On!

Long-time readers may recall that I periodically travel for job interviews, which obviously don't work out, because I'm still here. The last trip was to Cincinnati for a position with a flavor company. It didn't work out; they weren't as interested as they thought they were. Poo on them. Their loss.

Well, I just got back from another trip to Cincinnati for an interview with another flavor company. I think it went well, but that's what I thought last time too. I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, here are some pictures from the trip:

1. Upper left hand: My Interview-Portfolio-To-Look-Organized-and-Prepared and two My Leetle Bags with two sock projects. Which was a good thing because on the flight out I realized that I had been inconsistent with the stitch pattern on one of them and I'm considering ripping. Because of the colors, it's not obvious, but well, you know...
2. Upper right hand: Wouldn't this make a lovely place to sit and knit a bit? Do you think I took advantage of this?


And I was pleasantly surprised to notice that two of the hotel-room art pieces were by one of my favorite artists! How welcoming. If any of you recognize his work, please tell me his name, as I've forgotten it and lost the piece of paper I wrote it down on. Neither piece was signed, and hard as I pulled, neither would come off the wall so I could take the poster out of the frame and read the caption.