Back to usual

In a few minutes, I have to go pick up my accumulated mail, and then head in to campus. ("They" have decreed we should post our syllabi on our BlackBoard pages by today. I have a few colleagues who still don't use BlackBoard, so I guess they are exempt [I do not think I can go back now, I don't think "They" would let me, but I admit the whole forced-do-this-by-now thing that's ramped up, along with a lot of the somewhat-patronizing e-mails about things, would make me disinclined to start using it if I weren't, and to quit it if I could])

I do need to get stuff together for next week, when classes start. My plans for this week include doing Meals on Wheels on Tuesday (they didn't have enough volunteers; normally I don't get asked but several people who normally do it are "snowbirding") and I think Thursday I'm going to do a Sherman run, on the grounds that it's a lot more fun to shop on not-Saturdays. (I need a few things from Ulta, I want to run to the bookstore, I may need some cleaning supplies from Target)

And I want to get more plain unscented tealights (hopefully Target will have those) because this was my consolation for taking down all the decorations yesterday:



I dunno. I just like that sort of thing. And yes, the battery-operated tealights might be less of a hazard and generate less smoke and soot, but they also use batteries (which are hazardous waste themselves, and are a pain to replace, and don't last nearly as long as I feel they should). I might also see if I can find one of those long lighter things like they use to light the candles at church; striking match after match is kind of a pain and I worry that "if you use up your matches, what if there's an extended power outage where you need candles?"

Also, here's the first finished thing - a fairly-simple pair of socks, where I just took the standard "somewhere between 60 and 72 stitches" sockyarn sock pattern and plugged in a stitch pattern I liked:



I used a "garter rib" pattern: three rows of k2, p1 and the fourth row of the pattern is all purl. (I used 66 stitches). The yarn is one of the "specimen" yarns from KnitPicks that they claim to "experimentally" dye. (It's a limited run of the color; I am pretty sure this one sold out back in October or so). I just let the "pooling" fall where it would but I think the effect was not too displeasing.

Here they are on. The nice thing about ribbing is that it stretches readily so socks that look small off the feet tend to fit well once on the feet:



It's hard to see but there's also a tiny sparkly strand (whatever that tinsel stuff - I think they call it "stellina," which tells me nothing about its composition) in there, but it's hard to see. I like the over all effect; it reminds me a bit of twinkle lights.