MKAL Clue #1 And The Return Of 3 Good Things

My MKAL has officially started!  Ahh!

As you may be able to tell, I'm a little too excited about this.  The thrill of mystery and all that.

So my first swatch on my 2.75mm (US2) needles turned out with 8.5 stitches per inch, which is pretty common for me.  I did the math for the size of the socks and figured out that the small would be 6.5 inches and the medium would be 7.5 inches.  I need about 7.2, so neither of those would work.  Thankfully, I have 3.25mm (US3) circular needles that I can use to make them two-at-a-time.  That swatch turned out with 8 stitches per inch, which would give me a 7-inch small or an 8-inch medium.  Small it is, I guess.  They'll be a little tight but there's not too much I can do about it.  I needed smaller needles so I could get 9 stitches per inch, which would have been about 7.1 inches, but I don't have any.  So I'm settled.

This week's clue is just the toe portion.  It uses Judy's Magic Cast-On with 8 stitches and increases up to the 56 stitches for the foot, which is a type of toe I've never done before.  It's going to be a challenge with the magic loop two-at-a-time thing going as well.  I'm super excited.  I've already ripped it out once, so hopefully the second round goes better.  I'll be working on it while watching anime with a friend for the next couple hours.

One of my New Year Resolutions was to keep up with 3 Good Things all year, so periodically -- when I don't have enough material for a regular blog post -- I'll be posting [some of] my 3 Good Things.  You obviously don't have to care, but I'd like to share the little bits of positivity I can drag out of my life.  Read on if you're interested.

Flash Your Stash 2015

I'm on time this year!  Look at me!  Hooray!

So a brief explanation of what this is for those of you joining me for the first time this year.  Every year there is a thread on Ravelry called Flash Your Stash where everyone pulls out their stash and takes pictures.  It can be great fun to watch stashes develop and change over time.  It can also be funny to see just how much yarn other people have.  It covers king-size beds, entire rooms of floor space, shelves everywhere... it's great.

I've participated the last two years, as I mentioned before.  If you'd like to see my meager beginnings, check out 2013.  For a more in-depth tour of a much bigger stash, pop over to 2014.  And to see where I am now, just keep scrolling.

Whiplash Day and January Resolutions

So I've dubbed today Whiplash Day.  I got a call from my manager this morning informing me that he was not going to keep me because he'd had more resignations and needed full-time workers.  So three days of training pretty much wasted.

I spent most of the afternoon watching Once Upon A Time with my mom.  Then I got an email from the library where I volunteered all through high school requesting that I call to set up an interview for the page position I'd applied for early in December.  So I have an interview for that on Thursday.

At about five -- when I should have been going to the shop for training -- I messaged Ian to ask "If I wanted to go out and do something tonight, would you have any ideas?  I don't want food, I don't want to see any more movies, and it's too cold to be outside.  This basically exhausts my ideas of what to do with myself."  He offered to find some live music, picked me up (for which I felt guilty later when I realized I could have driven to his house), and took me downtown to a coffee shop that I swear is in a basement.  Where we discovered that a friend of his was playing that night at that particular shop.  Ian had gone to see a show of his last night.  It was great.  I enjoyed myself in the quiet sort of way that comes from just listening to good music for a while.

So!  That's been my day.  Ready to see my month?  I have six resolutions this month, and five of them are yarn-related.

2015 Resolutions (And 2014 Wrap-Up)

Okay, so I didn't do so well with my resolutions last year.  Partially because I fell off the blogosphere, and partially because I stopped resolving to Do Things and that meant I stopped Doing Things.  Let's give them a look anyway.

1) Get a job
Ironically, I actually got this one done.  On December 30, I was hired as a barista at Saxbys Coffee immediately after the interview.  I'm still feeling surreal about this.

2) Get into a schedule
I failed miserably at this.  It's preposterous how unscheduled I am.  I sometimes go to bed at 3 in the morning.

3) Find and apply to university for the 2015-16 school year
This only... half happened?  I have applications in progress but they are not finished by any means.

4) Complete C25K and begin running regularly
This was such a laughable failure.  I think I started it three times last year, for an overall total of like... five.

5) Read at least 24 books

I have no idea, honestly.  I suspect I managed to do this one because of my December "Whee, finals are over and I can read again!" library hauls, but I can't honestly say.

So that's one, maybe two I did.  One I made some progress, and two I didn't do even a little bit.  Oh well!

Onward and upward!  Here are my resolutions for 2015 (at least some of them -- there may be more.)