October 30, 2007 - Tuesday
A Day* in the Life. Now with extra PMS.
04:50 - woken by Stewart chewing incessantly on fingers
04:55 - get up to feed Stewart and let him out
07:00 - alarm goes off, feel like have only just fallen asleep again
07:40 - finally get up
08:08 - leave for work
08:20 - see that gas is 9.99 kr/l, decide it would be wrong not to fill up car when it's this cheap
08:30 - arrive work
09:25 - get second cup of coffee, wonder why we didn't have the regular Monday 8:30 am meeting but don't dare ask in case actually happened, but got here too late
10:44 - start to panic about having set up 5 classes in next week, one in something I really don't understand thoroughly
10:49 - call IT because am getting security warnings every time try to open My Documents
11:04 - comfort self with Snickers
11:18 - overcome with guilt for eating Snickers, drink 0.5 liter water to compensate
11:30 - oo, lunch!
12:00 - knit 4 rounds of baby jacket for baby probably being born any moment
12:30 - realize must write minutes from meeting in afternoon, panic again
14:55 - call stepkid to find out what her plans are for evening - must drive her and friend to unknown place for riding lessons at 7:15 pm. Plan to take knitting and finish baby jacket arm.
15:15 - get fed up with printer and copy machine being broken for last 5 weeks, blame Norway for fact that if one person at Canon is out with new baby is impossible to get new printer delivered
15:23 - realize everyone else at work has already left, turn up radio
15:38 - sun setting, gah
16:02 - decide that Excel is against me
16:31 - been here 8 hours, time to go home!
16:38 - return videos
16:49 - drive all the way down to recycling containers, get out of car, get glass out of trunk to find that they've removed the containers. Jerks.
16:55 - arrive home
17:00 - watch Scrubs
17:22 - start making self some fish sticks for dinner
18:01 - do a bit of blogging and chatting
18:16 - oo, new KateModern video!
18:30 - off to buy pumpkin!
18:38 - no pumpkins of appreciable size at Plantasjon. Harumph.
18:56 - pick up stepkid
19:08 - check another store for pumpkins, begin to worry when there are no pumpkins there either
19:10 - recycle glass bottles
19:19 - pick up other kid, depart for stables with only teenagers to navigate
19:50 - arrive stables (!)
20:15 - watch (as far as possible) teenaged girls riding around on Icelandic ponies in the dark and the cold
21:00 - depart stables for home
21:30 - deliver other kid back to her house
21:50 - home at last. Whew.
* Disclaimer: This actually happened yesterday. Also, is Blogstalking week 6 assignment.
Posted at 5:47 pm |
October 28, 2007 - Sunday
Do want.
Clara's Window was one of the big three I remember visiting first. One of the reasons I wanted to start blogging myself.
The other two were my blue house and dangerous chunky in it's previous incarnation.
Clara's scrumptious photography, Casey the cat, her comprehensive yarn reviews, green thumb and a gentle, kind writing voice captured me completely and I am certain her book has the same spirit.
And if I needed another reason to want this book, it includes Adrian's Norwegian Snail Mittens. Normally snails - what with the slime and all - don't do so much for me, but these? Too cute for words.
Posted at 5:26 pm |
October 27, 2007 - Saturday
Playing ketchup.
Okay. Week 4 of the Blogstalking assignment was 3 things I love, 3 things I hate.I love trees in the fall.
I love my radio at work!
Sigurd bought it for me as a "congratulations on having your very! own! office!" gift. Wasn't that sweet of him?
I love my coffee cup.
There's a long rambly story about my coffee cup. Wanna hear it? No? Tough. The lady in the office next to me - who was my boss when were were in our respective previous jobs - was so appalled that I "stole" a cup from Olavsgaard (which, really, those cups are meant to be stolen - it says "Stolen from Olavsgaard" on the bottom!) that she bought me a cup for my birthday after I agreed to return the stolen one... which I haven't done yet. I'll have to remember to document the adventure when I do.
I hate frozen windshields in the mornings.
I hate salt licorice.
And I really hate whale steaks - looks like beef, smells like cod liver oil.
Week 5 assignment was An Interesting Statue. This one fascinates me...
As does this one...
Why is the baby picking up the snake? Why are they letting him?
But I have to say this one...
is my favorite.
(Pictures taken at Vigelandparken in Oslo. More here.)
Posted at 6:43 pm |
October 24, 2007 - Wednesday
First off, I've been negligent.
I'm not done with my last two weeks of Blogstalking assignments. But I have the pictures nearly ready! And I have a good excuse - I've had Amy here for the whole last week!See?
It's been so incredibly cool to meet her after knowing her for years and years... She - and her darling man - are just as much fun as I thought they would be. :-)
On Thursday night, she spoke at the Strikkefestival, held by Maud at Tveita.
Then most everybody went to Ikea to keep knitting!
The next day, Amy gave a class on the Tuscany shawl...
Then we had lunch with Annemor Sundbø!
Also Eva Anette and her very-easy-to-talk-to husband...
Later that afternoon, we went to Annemor's talk about Invisible Threads in Knitting
Then she let us rifle through her pile of mittens!
Incredibly cool lady.
Read more about this last week at Guro's, Strikkelise's and Eva Anette's!
AND! AND! Amy and I have been interviewed for Kulturnytt on NRK! Amy has a link to the interview here, and the whole thing is also available here for you Norwegians. And for you who don't speak Norwegian, here is the transcript:
Knitting is no longer a domestic pursuit. Thanks to the internet, knitting has become a global culture, where patterns and technical discussions wander all over the world. And in Toronto, Canada an editor sits and chooses what will be the season's knitting hit.
Amy Singer and Theresa Vinson Stenersen met each other last week for the first time. But they've known each other for years. They are namely two of the dinosaurs in the global knitting culture that has blossomed on the internet. Knitters from the whole world got an international community when the net became common property, explains Amy Singer.
Amy: Knitting was very private and not very social until recently. And when the internet became popular and available for most people, people started to figure out it was a way to share information.
Theresa Vinson Stenersen, an American living in Norway, was perhaps the first here in Norway that began writing a knitting blog. Now she's one of many who shows pictures of her knitting and yarn and discusses technical questions.
Theresa: I've come into contact with so many people - met so many people because of it, because of Knitty and the blogs and the whole culture. And knitting blogs have started blossoming in Norway as well.
Knitters have plenty of meeting places online. The net community Ravelry was started half a year ago has around 30,000 members and 15,000 on the waiting list. How many blog about knitting, nobody knows.
Amy: I have actually no idea. I believe it's beyong counting. Thousands I would expect.
In 2002, Amy Singer started the net based knitting magazine Knitty. There you will find technical articles about knitting, but more importantly free patterns of new designs. Knitty has gone from 500 readers to two million in the last 5 years.
Amy: This fall, which just came out in September, we had 2 million individual site visitors. That's not pages, that's just how many came to the site. So that's a lot. So we think that's kinda cool.
Amy Singer has lots of influence on what's happening in the international knitting environment. When each Knitty launches, knitters all over the world excitedly wait to see what will be the season's shawl, cap or socks. And when the patterns appear, one can immediately see what will be a hit.
Theresa:They start popping up and people start talking about what they like and don't like and what's interesting to see or read.
Amy: You can start to see people picking up this pattern and taking over with it. We just put up a pattern for a silly scary hat that turns into a Jack Skeleton type mask. We put that up and by the next morning people were already lining up to knit it. And that's really fun. It's very rewarding to see. And also I really like to see what people do with it with their own yarn and their own colors and their own design interpretation.
Theresa Vinson Stenersen has delivered several of her own patterns to Knitty. When she designed a pair of felted slippers several years ago, she was overwhelmed to see her own pattern made up into hundreds of finished objects.
Theresa: It's completely incredible! I search Google and see that page after page with pictures come up. It's hard to even understand that so many people have knitted them.
And - knitters who read Knitty often are able to recognize each other from the garments they've knitted from the magazine.
Theresa: I remember the first time I met - someone I started the Stitch n' Bitch in Lillestrøm with - the first time I met her we recognized each other because we both had on the same scarf.
After five years with knitting magazines online, Amy Singer has published several books and travelled around the world with lectures and classes in knitting.
Amy: It makes my brain go boom. Because who would think that I would get sent for? People wanted me to come and I got to come here because people wanted me to come and talk about this stuff. And that's incredible.
Do you think that would be possible without the internet?
Amy: Absolutely not. Not even for a second.
Posted at 8:15 pm |
October 7, 2007 - Sunday
More boring than the last one, probably. Also, late.
Blogstalking assignmentWell, here he is...
A 1997 Honda Accord, nicknamed "Silver". From about 6 years ago up until about 2 weeks ago the little thingy that made it go "beep beep beep" when I took the keys out without turning the lights on was broken. Ask me how many times I let the battery run completely down. Go ahead. Ask me. Better yet, ask my husband.
I loves my jumper cables! Loves my jumper cables! And all the nice people who have helped me over the years! (I try to help other people when I see they're in need. Pay it forward!)
But really? This is what makes Silver go...
Posted at 9:55 am |
October 1, 2007 - Sunday
Advertisement paid for by happiness.
Feel free to use this banner! We gotta represent (bemerke oss?) at these classes!
Posted at 6:58 am |
September 30, 2007 - Sunday
Let the blogstalking begin!
I'm a bit late on the bandwagon here, but ... purse guts! Who can resist purse guts?
Stewart certainly can't...
No, seriously.
What we have here is Kenneth Cole purse, hand disinfectant, Cinnamon Altoids, Wintergreen Ice Breakers, Burt's Bees lip balm, a small white rock I found in the driveway, a smaller Altoids box with Paracet in it, the thingy I use to work at home, a Jordan travel toothbrush/toothpaste combo thing which I love, a watch needing a new battery, my second-hand mobile phone, a plastic shield thing if I ever have to give mouth-to-mouth on a total stranger, 22 kroner, a small receipt thing from the last time I delivered bottles and cans back to the grocery store but forgot to get the money back, and a small tube of L'Occitane hand cream which is nearly empty. *hint, hint*
Okay, that was probably boring. I'll get better!
Want to know what's not boring? What is - in fact - the coolest thing EVER?? That Amy (yes, THAT Amy! And this one! The Amy I have known for a billion years and have NEVER MET IN THE FLESH!) is coming to Norway! Soon! And this is what she's doin':
- Free talky thing at 6 pm, Thursday, October 18th.
- Class on the Tuscany shawl at 11 am, Friday, October 18th
- Class on the Tuscany shawl at 11 am, Saturday, October 19th
- Classes include pattern, yarn, needles, the works!
(I've spoken to Maud and since the talk thing is at 6 pm on the night of the Lillestrøm SnB, we're just going to have it there at Tveita afterwards! Sound cool? Hope so. I want you all to meet Amy. And for Amy to meet you all.)
More information and how to sign up for the classes (you're going to sign up for the class, aren't you??) at Maud's website. By the way, I'll be at both classes, helping to translate! He hehe. Oh! I almost forgot! Annemor Sundø is also going to be there. And maybe this time there will be less tear gas.
Posted at 6:38 pm |
<--Previous
© 2003-7 Theresa V. Stenersen All rights reserved.
