2015 MERaT Reading List

Every year, my mother and my aunt and her best friend do this thing called the Moste Excellente Read-a-Thon.  The rules are simple, and I'm going to copy them over from our private Facebook group because I think my aunt says them better than I could.

1. Each reader shall compose a Moste Excellente Reading List, or MERL, of 24 books to read in the current MERaT year. Both new books and previously read books are acceptable for inclusion. Readers may modify their MERLs freely until January 10 of the current year, at which point they will be considered "locked in." Locked in MERLs may not be modified in any way.

2. Points for books read shall be awarded as follows. For each book read from a reader's MERL, that reader shall receive 3 points. For each book read that does not appear on the reader's MERL, that reader shall receive either 2 points (for books ≥ 150 pages) or 1 point (for books < 150 pages). All points shall be recorded on the reader's MERL in the forum. In addition, for each book ≥ 500 pages, the reader will receive one bonus point.

3. Exception to #3: For exceptionally long books that are divided (by the author/publisher) into volumes ≥ 150 pages each, the reader may choose -- pending majority agreement from the group -- to count each volume as a separate book and receive points accordingly. However, note that if the book is a MERL book, the reader may only receive 3 points for the first volume and must count following volumes as non-MERL books.

4. Each reader shall post his or her MERL to this group and shall keep count of points earned throughout the year.

5. On or about New Year's Eve, each reader's points for the current MERaT year shall be tallied, and the reader with the most points shall receive a Moste Excellente Reader prize (TBD)!

I didn't participate last year because I didn't feel like I'd be reading too many books anyway, making the list was daunting, and I had done a terrible job of keeping track the previous year.  This year though, I decided to give it a shot.  This round, I used the master list for one of the book clubs my mom organizes to make my list.  Each month has a category associated with it, so I basically just picked two I hadn't read out of each category.  If there was only one I hadn't read, I came up with another book from the category.  For the months that book club doesn't happen (June, July, and December) I invented my own categories.

Want to see my list?  Read on.

The Year Of Adulting Blanket

I did a dumb thing.

I offered help to someone trying to figure out how to do a temperature blanket in squares because 365 will not make a rectangular shape.  (In case you're wondering, a temperature blanket -- or scarf -- consists of assigning a color to a temperature range and working a number of rows or a square in the color corresponding to the day's high/low/average temperature.)  I admitted that perhaps I knew all the math because I was eventually planning to make one.

"But not this year," I said, "Too much is happening this year for that."

Too much is happening this year for me to make the blanket that is supposed to help me document an entire year of my life.

...Crap.

It makes way more sense to pick an important, dynamic year than a year in which only minor changes occur.  For instance, doing it last year would not have been very interesting since the most important things that happened all year were my grandfather's death in April and getting a job in the last week of December.

Which brings me to this year.  I have dubbed 2015 "The Year Of Adulting".  I'm moving out this year, leaving my first college, getting my own car, and various other adult-ish events will also occur (incidentally, at the end of the year I'll be legally allowed to celebrate these events with alcohol).  This is an important year for me, and it makes a lot of sense to record that.

So I guess this is the year for the one-year blanket.  Here's how that'll work.

The Leaf Said BLOG!

"Time to turn over a new leaf," I thought, so I did.  The leaf said "BLOG!" and I said, "Oh, yeah, I have one of those.  I should, uh, do that."  So here I am, hopefully to keep up with regular (daily?) posting for at least a while.  What's with the leaves?  Well look at the date: it's January 1st.

Happy New Year!  It is currently about 2pm on New Year's Day here just north of Dallas, Texas, where the weather is frightful.  It's been gloomy outside, to be sure, wet and rainy since last night (it seems to have cleared up now).  The chill and the damp don't seem to have chilled or dampened anyone's spirits -- although their bodies are a whole 'nother story, as we say around here -- and there has been much celebrating and running around.

I, for one, am quite exhausted.  Not because of the partying, but because of the work!  Yes!  About 48 hours ago I walked out of a coffee shop with a job I had applied to the night before.  It's been so surreal.  I applied on Monday, got the job Tuesday, and had my first day of training Wednesday -- which became about 50% working when a rush hit and a coworker said "Hey, Lissa, stir and lid these and put 'em up on the bar" and suddenly I was running drinks to the drive-thru and grabbing milk from the fridge in back.  Even though I knew only the barest minimum of what to do and how to help, I felt the flow.  It was magical.

It was also terribly painful and tiring.  As soon as I got back I had to soak my feet in a sinkful of water with a handful of Epsom Salts, which must have been pretty funny-looking considering I was eating lunch at the time.  I was also so tired I went to bed just past midnight, so I could get up this morning to do another shift (I worked the drive-thru register toward the end and my goodness were we a smooth team).

Before I got to sleep though, I cast on for my first project of 2015, the Kick Off The New Year socks!  These are for three different knitting... things.  Two are knit-a-longs and one is a personal challenge, so I'm not sure how to categorize them all together, but there you go.  Here is a picture, and then we'll talk about the "knitting... things".

Helping Out

A fellow Raveler is struggling with a pattern so I've annotated her picture with what I think it's asking for.  I need somewhere to post it, so we're going with... right here.

On that note, hey public service announcement!  When you write a pattern, make sure it makes sense.  If you're skipping stitches, maybe go ahead and write that in so I don't have to decipher what you really meant.  Okay?  Okay.