It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, so here goes with where I am with the knitting and spinning. I dragged everything out this morning to take photos of it.
But first, a few housekeeping chores. I’ve been getting hit with a lot of spam on some older posts and photos since I moved the blog. I’ve installed an anti-spam plugin, and we’ll see how that goes. I may close comments on posts past a certain vintage if it keeps up. I really don’t want to go to moderated comments, as it won’t fix the problem. WordPress marks the vast majority of them as spam so they don’t hit my email inbox, but I still have to go through them to make sure they are real spam, and not a real knitter who happened to fall into the net. As a hint, if you use the name of a prescription drug in your comment, or if you talk about certain male physiological processes, it will be likely marked as spam. I do scan through them to catch the real comments, but I might miss some. If you’ve commented and it doesn’t show up, don’t take it personally. Come back and try again, or email me directly (link over in the sidebar).
I haven’t given a recent progress report on the state of moving the blog. I’m still happy with that choice, despite the spam. For those of you thinking of making a switch, I’d highly recommend WordPress. I have about half of the older posts updated with the new photo locations, as well as tidying up the few individual posts that didn’t transfer over correctly. I’m fixing most of the internal links back to my own blog posts, but leaving everything else as it was. On a few posts, not all of the comments made it over, but I can live with that.
Here’s a photo that I found in my email yesterday.
Apparently John took this with his cell phone one night last week after dinner. Monday was my last day in my old job, and it was another of those fabulous eighty hour weeks that I’m so fond of. This is mostly what I look like at the end of the day, whether I’ve had wine or not. Sleep, eat, work, that’s pretty much it for the week. I have no idea how long I was like that, he finally woke me up and told me to go to bed.
I start my new practice in November, so I do have a couple of weeks to regroup in between now and then. I’ll be at the same hospital, which is a good thing, but also will be able to do a little outpatient work as well. I was in private practice as an internist for about a dozen years before I left that to be a hospitalist, and I’ve done hospitalist work for over a dozen years, so this should be interesting going back to the office. The internists in the new practice do primarily consultative internal medicine for the other doctors in the group, rather than carrying a panel of their own primary care patients, so that I know how to do. About a third of my time will be in the office. Yes, I’m a bit nervous about that, since I haven’t done it in awhile. The real upside will be that I’ll be working generally a forty hour week. I won’t get the big blocks of time off that I’ve had in the last several years, but I also won’t have those work marathons that turn me into such a sparkling dinnertime conversationalist.
On to the projects. You thought I’d gotten sidetracked and forgotten, hadn’t you?
First up, True Blue. This is the sweater that I’m making for John. It’s a plain crew neck pullover, and this is the second sleeve. I have all the other parts done, and am just a few rows from the armhole decreases. I have to finish this soon, as I need to have needles at the ready to start the Faery Ring KAL that Jennifer and I are doing starting November 1st.
I’m knitting this in Beaverslide Dry Goods yarn; the color is Lake Josephine.
Next up is lace. I haven’t shown this in awhile, because I hadn’t worked on it in awhile. I set this aside to finish knitting the big baby blanket, but recently pulled it out and figured out where I am. This is the Froot Loops wrap, actually Morning Glory, by Anne Hansen.
As usual, photos of unblocked lace look like crap. Have faith. This will turn into a beautiful swan someday.
Last but not least are socks. I have two pairs on the needles, both plain-vanilla socks, in anything but plain-vanilla colors.
That’s Shalimar Zoe Sock yarn, in Peony. I’ve finished one sock and am partway to the heel on the second.
And that’s Wollmeise sock yarn, in Lowenzahn. I started those on my beloved Ivore needles so I would have an airplane-appropriate project for the recent trip. While the Signature double points are lovely, I am pretty sure they wouldn’t make it past airport security. These will be in a holding pattern until I finish the Peony socks.
And that’s it. I’m saving the spinning updates for another day.
Do you know how badly I want to make a post talking about pharmaceuticals or certain physical enhancements (or the lack thereof)? Spam always cracks me up.
A bazillion years ago when I managed a psychiatric practice I used to periodically grab one of the doc’s credit card and book him a vacation. I’d clear a long weekend for him, give him three choices and send him off. He took all the on-call work he could get and worked his ass off but periodically he’d turn into super dick and sending him out for a tennis camp or sculling would make him back into my favorite doctor again.
Why is it all the good docs work too damn hard?!? like you!
I’m glad you are making a good change and hope it’s all that and a bag of Dark Chocolate Covered Ginger bits.
I love that picture of you! Hee hee.
Ok. Are you using Akismet? I use it with the Worst Offenders plugin, which whittles the spam down to manageable levels for your perusal. Try the version (0.3) you can download from the link and if it doesn’t seem to work, let me know – I’m using version 0.2a and never did get 0.3 to work. I can help you get your hands on the version I’m using, if needed.
Okay that pictures says it all! You were very wise to change. Although I’m sure you’ll miss the big blocks of time for traveling to far off destinations. Insanity was probably a not-so-far off destination that you may have gotten to go to had you continued for a dozen more years of 80 hour work weeks.
80 hour work weeks!! Mercy! I’m too old to think about 40 hour weeks, much less 80!! Am so glad you are off that not-so-merry-go-round.
And do I gather that you like pink? I’m new to your blog so I’m not sure, but it sure looks like you have quite a bit of pink yarn. Me? I ADORE pink and have more of it than my DH can tolerate! LOL
Happy knitting!
OMG, how I don’t miss those 80 hr workweeks. The great thing about being able to take early retirement from corp America. Been wondering what is going on with your site, because if I try to read your blog from Ravelry all I get is everyone’s comment, very weird.
Hey, I used to look like you a couple of years ago, but more recently after going to my HS reunion of 40 years, haha
Love the pink and I am going to start working on some socks after I get this darn hat finished for my son. I had to rip it out after realizing it was too damm big!!!
Love the peony yarn!!! I have one set of Ivore sock sized needles left & I really treasure them. I had a pair of socks on them last time I flew to SFO & switched to Pony Pearls because I was taking no chances on their being seized by TSA.
Know that of which you speak, the wrung out dishrag asleep before bedtime problem. Glad you have found a solution. (Brave on the switch, hard to do, eh?)
Peony ~ my favorite flower. Even enjoy is as a scent for soap.
As for the spam, I had 23 hits of it on one old blog entry, all in a foreign (unidentified by me) Asian language font, with the occasional word in English which made it fairly obvious to what they were referring… I, too, changed the levels on my spam alert, big time on the older posts. So far it’s working. I don’t get why the older posts are being targeted, though; not having the mind of a spammer, perhaps I will never understand. I can live with that.
Beautiful!
I love the projects, never have a problem getting needles into the airport. Maybe international is harder to get them past, did have a tiny little problem at a Wisconsin game.?
All lovely projects. And particularly impressive given the schedule that was behind that photo!!
Lorette, I cannot imagine the workload you’ve been carrying! I hope your new position is exactly as you hope it will be, and I have a quick question:
What sorts of reactions do you get from patients about your socks? (I’m making the assumption that you wear them in the hospital?)
Here’s hoping that the photo of you conked out on the table is the last of those!!! If you conk out you really should be vertical – *wink!*
(((hugs)))
Your new job sounds much more sane and healthy. Doctors are amazing pwoplkw (as I can attest) and it’s better to see them well rested.
Love the blue Beaverslide. 😉
I hope your new job lightens your weekly workload and hours at the hospital. I really don’t know how you do it!
Love your peony socks! I can see why you liked my vanilla Hawaii socks. That crewneck is such a lovely shade of blue, at least according to my monitor. Looks like robin’s eggs.
How on earth did you manage to score Wollmeise? Do I remember that being a gift?
I wonder if your RSS feed stats are low because of slackers like me who just use their own blog to read their blogrolls? I used to use a feed to track updates to blogs I read, but I haven’t bothered with them in years. Instead I just go to my blog and click on the links in my sidebar. Is your overall traffic lower than before?
For a long time I’ve thought about moving to WordPress, too, but I hate the thought of the work it would involve, even if I just abandoned my blogger blog. Most of the time I feel like you do after work, and I’ll bet I put in a good 20 hours less per week than you do. I used to do 70 hr weeks when I was in my 30s and 40s. Now I’m just too damn old to do that, so 80 seems obscene at any age.
(BTW, glad to see Margene is doing well after her surgery, and I agree with her that doctors are amazing and deserve to be well-rested!!)
Love the knitting. Was there a plate under you or was John a sweetie and took it away before you crashed? Hoping that the new job stops that type of behavior.
Your projects look fabulous. (And in about the same stage of process as my own, surprisingly enough.)
I imagine you are beginning to get a bit more comfortable now in your new job. Can’t wait to hear all about it. It certainly was a good choice (and yes, courageous too!) Yay Lorette!!
Those are nice projects. I think most of us can see the swan lurking in your lace.
I will sometimes put my head down on my desk to rest my eyes, and then I wake up about 20 minutes later.
That bit about switching to Ivore needles because you were worried about the Signature needles making it through security sounds like me. I got some Kollage needles & do like them a lot but, not only are they metal, they are 8″ long with very sharp points. I actually was careful around my granddaughter with them (she’ll be 3 next Thursday but still – she might think they looked like something to play with to her – probably not but I’d never forgive myself if she stabbed herself.) Going to SF, I packed my knitting in my checked bag because I planned on spending most of the flight sleeping anyway (having been up not feeling well the whole night before.) Coming back, I switched to some Swallow’s that I had not yet used. Not one but TWO of them snapped within the first hour of the flight! So I spent the time taking pics out the plane window with my iPhone & reading.
Hi Lorette, I was shocked to hear about the 4 officers shooting, how unnerving it must have been to be so close to your home. I so enjoy seeing all of your knitting projects and pics of your trips. I hope this starts off numbers on your new webpage!! Don’t want your number to still be at Zero! a knitting friend in Minnesota (where it is cold and has snowed, brrr)
Cynthia