Today, in the mail, the most beautiful stitch markers!

I know it’s not a great picture. It is not worthy of them. I don’t know if my knitting is, either.

Thank you, SP!

Go with it.

I think there’s been a bunch of knitting slumps around blogland. I know I’ve been in one this year. January hasn’t been the best month, personally, and it’s been reflected in my knitting.

But now that things seem to be clearing up (*peeks out cautiously from under umbrella*), the knitting is starting to work again, and not fight with me. As proof, here’s the Jaywalker:

It was, very much, one of those nights tonight where I was making deals with myself to get so far. “Just finish the heel and pick up the gusset stitches,” I bargained. I’ve been wary of those, since the first attempt at this sock, before I’d even seen the Jaywalker pattern, got completely fubared at that point. And it irritated me enough that I frogged the entire thing.

Yeah. Not pretty.

But at this point, I’m glad. I love the way this pattern is knitting up. Grumperina is a genius, really. And after the stitches were picked up, I couldn’t put the sock down. It’s now 6am, and I’ve finished the decreases. It’s a great deal of fun. I can’t wait to finish it, because it really makes me happy to look at it. And then I can start another pair. *grin*

I love how they’re turning out now. Makes up for a lot of life crap happening.

This was the highlight of my weekend:

My nephew Liam turned three. I was in the hospital when he was born, and I was knitting then. Both have come a long way.

So, I love this pattern, with this yarn. See?

The problem is, I don’t love this:

But now that I’m better with the k-f/b, I’m going to rip and do it again, properly. And then nothing can stop me.

You realize that I’m at 0% knitting progress for the year? Honestly, anything that I’ve done has, or will be, frogged. Yet I’m hopeful!

And I have the best SP in the world!

As always, click for larger versions

Opened the door to a box covered with hand-drawn flowers on it. What’s this?

Oooh…shiny! I love shiny!

Lots of shiny things!

Inside the shiny, lots of yummy stuff! Sirdar Bigga, in black, with a scarf and bag leaflet to go with it. Absolutely delicious KnitPicks Decadence in Grape. I just want to snuggle this all night. Some Aqualina Pink Sugar, which I have to admit, is new to me, but smells nice! Chocolate covered pretzels…ooh, I’ve been craving. And then, the *best* card:

How adorable! This was very much a SQUEE from the heart. My cats are stil a bit scared…

Now to find the *perfect* thing to knit with this. Such lovely indecision…

Not much knitting here lately, unfortunately. Time and energy have been sucked up by personal issues. Hopefully those are resolved, and knitting will begin again shortly.

And for those of you who don’t know me well, yes, I tend to curse. This time, it’s necessary, though.

One of my guild officers is a great guy. He does a great job at keeping the ground troops in line, picked up half the slack when Mike and I disappeared over Christmas and sickness, and is a great role-player. He also braved a knitting blog to ask me to come back to the game. That takes bravery, and being a good friend.Hopefully a lot of people know these things.

But what not everyone knows is that Major TD-0013 is a sexy bitch.

Can you think of anything you’d rather find in a suit of trooper armor? I know I can’t.

Edited to add: I’m glad to know my guildmates think enough of me to do things like this to cheer me up. This started as a joke on our guild channel. Yeah…we’re that kind of guild. *smirk*

For those of you who don’t know, I do things other than knit. Namely, I’m the leader of an Imperial guild in Star Wars Galaxies. It’s a lot of work, but the people in my guild make it worth it. If this sort of things makes your eyes glaze over, feel free to skip to the next entry. There are pictures there, I promise.

Lately, I haven’t been playing much. There have been some game updates that made things a lot less fun for me. But I finally came back from a break, all for the people.

And, tonight, one of those people hurt me pretty badly. It started with a discussion of an upcoming recruitment initiative. We’re Imperial. We role play. One of the best ways we can get new recruits is to go to a newbie area in uniform and just…be. There’s something about seeing a line of stormtrooopers march by that’s just incredible, at least to Star Wars fans.

Now, I’m relatively new to the Star Wars universe. However, one of my guild officers (hi, Thirteen!) knows a lot more about it than I do. I generally defer to him on dress matters. Yet one person has to claim that she *must* be able to wear her own interpretation of Imperial uniform.

I step in, as I (at least should be) able to make an official call. I do so. I think. She proceeds to argue with me based on evidence she claims she has. Oh, and forcing her to wear pants would make me sexist. Excuse me? Kinda hard - I have breasts too, dear. And what she wanted to wear…Mike walked in, took one look at it, and said “no.” I agreed. It was in no way a uniform. She argued more.

Um. I said no. She called into question whether or not her opinion mattered. I told her yes, it is taken into consideration. It does not mean I’m going to give her what she wants all the time. And this time, I’m not budging.

More whining, bitching, screaming ensues. I stand firm. She then questions whether or not I care about the “little people” of the guild. All leprechaun jokes aside, there are no “little people” in my guild. I value everyone. You can ask Mike - I do a lot to make people happy. So, my feelings ended up pretty badly hurt.

In the end, she left the guild. I ended up doing damage control from the incident, and then logging out, too tired to deal with it. I guess I just don’t get people.