Well, I lied about not starting anything new.

I forgot about the "cat presents."

My parents have two (chronologically geriatric but still pretty active and playful) Siamese cats - sisters from the same litter. And my brother and sister-in-law have my "furry nephew," a Maine Coon Cat.

So last night, I pulled out the new Stitch N Bitch Nation book, and some Wool-Ease (looked at the Red Heart Sport last time I was at the Hobby Lobby but they only had rather unattractive colors of it) and started making up a string-toy and one of the mice for each of them.

I finished the first string-toy - it's two knitted balls attached to a long i-cord. I modified the pattern slightly - didn't stripe the i-cord as recommended; I couldn't figure a good way to carry the unused colors without having them show or it being a major PITA, and I didn't want a lot of fiddly ends to weave.

The girl-cats are getting them done in turquoise, fuschia, and sparkly white. (Yes, very 80s, but they were born at the tail-end of the 80s). My "nephew" is getting ones in Packers green and gold.

I realized, working on the toy last night, that given my brother's sense of humor, I should be expecting at least one joke about how his neutered male cat is getting a pair of balls for Christmas.

I'm seriously considering gang-knitting the mice - since they're all to be different colors, I could cast on all three at once on either dpns or a circular and knit them all at the same time. It might go a bit faster that way.

Oh, and some personal but tmi stuff I need to get out somewhere (skip if you prefer):

This is what I refer to as "don't mess with me" week (substitute another word of four letters, if you prefer, for "mess"). I'm possibly entering perimenopause (at 35?!?!) which means the monthly swings are often more so. I've already weathered a day of "fluttery" heartbeat (I've been reassured there's nothing wrong, it's just a hormonal thing, I don't have a valve problem or an arrhythmia or anything. The fact that ibuprofin often makes it settle down also reassures me that it's just the stupid prostaglandins acting up). I've weathered two nights of poor sleep punctuated by freaky dreams (like, forgetting to give my general bio exam. Whaaat? I mean, the dream seemed totally reasonable and "real" while I was dreaming it, and it totally freaked me out, but when I woke up it seemed totally idiotic. I will say that I guess I've passed some kind of academia milestone if I've stopped dreaming about showing up to TAKE exams unprepared and started dreaming about being unprepared in GIVING exams. I've cut out caffeine this week (not a big deal for me, the most I get is in tea or chocolate). I've made an extra-special effort to eat healthy and keep up with exercise, and I'm still edgy and cranky. So, of course, this is pre-finals week, which means that anyone and everyone with grade problems is trying to figure out ways to get them fixed. I've already have someone come and ask for an Incomplete who doesn't deserve it; I'm also bracing for people coming in unhappy with paper grades in a class. It's some kind of cosmic joke, I guess, that I'm premenstrual (and with worse symptoms than usual) the week when all the crud hits the fan at work, and I have to deal with weepy or angry people, or people trying very hard to be persuasive, or people who've blown off class regularly and are now unhappy they're getting a D. I will say I'm doing a damn good job of keeping myself together - I've not even so much as snapped at anyone yet.

thank God it's Friday. This weekend will be spent on the sofa, knitting. I'm not even going to do my traditional "hey it's a totally free weekend!" antiquing trip. I'm not even going to Sherman. I'm going to buy my Angel Tree gift (a little girl of 7 who wants art supplies for Christmas) at the Wal-Mart and dollar stores here, instead of braving the Hobby Lobby for something marginally more special.

(I'm trusting my instincts and the advice of a mom I know with a similar aged daughter - the big big box of Crayolas will be good, and nice heavy drawing paper, and gel pens and glitter pens or crayons if I can find them. And maybe stickers. Maybe even glitter stickers. And maybe one of those rulers with cut-out shapes that you can use as templates for things if I can find those. And if I still have money left (we're not supposed to go over $20), one of those velvety poster things and a box of markers to color it in. I've been told those are big with the tween set.)