I'm making progress now on my Sahara cardigan. My knitting is much slower than typical and I need to periodically rest more so that my arm doesn't tire out, but at least my gauge is maintaining. I'm not sure if this will by a button up cardigan or zipped or tied. I have confidence in doing buttons, but I don't know where I can find really good buttons at. I think a zipper would be fun, but I have no confidence in zipper installation. And of course, a tie would be cool, but could be fiddly. But since I've still got a long way to go on the body, I'll have much time to ponder my options.


And it is a good thing that I can knit on this again with it being super bowl time again. With all those hours in front of the TV, I'll need something to keep my hands busy. Especially, with all of the snacks and food!


Although, I seem to have found the holy grail of weight loss. Severely injury your elbow, stop exercising and start eating more take-out and junk food, and you too could lose 4.5 lbs in 12 days. Weird, huh? I decided that I would start back up with Wii Fit today and start fresh for February allowing January to be lost to injury recovery. I figure so long as I don't move my arm/elbow I'll be ok, and very few of the Wii Fit activities actually involve much arm movement to begin with (no pushups for me... not that I did them anyway!). So I got on the Wii Fit this morning and it scolded me for missing 12 days. Then it gave me my lowest weight ever! I'm thinking it is some kind of motivational trick. I think this is its plan... if it tells me I gained weight, I'll be depressed and not come back, but if it tells me that I lost weight by being lazy, I'll be inspired to see how much I can lose by being active! Tricky logic that Wii Fit!!

• That tricky Wii Fit! Sunday's weight was definitely a lie. Today and Monday have been returns to what I was pre-injury. Unless of course I ate 3 lbs of food at the Super Bowl party... which is entirely possible. Damn Cheetos!!
• Can't we as a society agree that if you are going to own a dog, you have to pick up its poop every single time (not most of the time, but every single time!!!). Just because your dog left behind a disgusting, disintegrating shit on the snow does not excuse you from picking it up. Especially if your dog likes to kick around in the area in which he just pooped, thus spreading the poop into a barrier that blocks anyone from walking on that part of the sidewalk. As a side note, a woman walking her dog complained to me last week that she and her fellow dog walkers would like my landlord to do a better job of clearing the ice and snow because they often walk by our building and it is too slippery. I really wanted to yell at her: "if you and your fellow dog walkers would pick up your dog's shit maybe we wouldn't make it so treacherous for you to walk your stupid dog!" I didn't because she is actually one of the few that is more consistent in cleaning up after her dog.
• Finally, to the lady on the bus... Ma'am, I know you said you were from out of town and seemed confused about which bus to take, but that does not excuse you from knowing the largeness of your own ass. Let me give you a hint, when you try to sit in a seat between a pole and another passenger (me!) and the other passenger curls herself up as tiny as possible seeing what is headed her way in attempt to avoid the inevitable, but more importantly to protect her injured elbow so as to not have it squished by you, you end up sitting fully (FULLY!) on that poor passenger's right thigh and crushing her under your weight, you have a big butt and need to be more thoughtful in your seating choices as there were ample other seating options available. Oh and saying "excuse me!" in a tone of voice that indicates the event was the fault of the person squashed, not the squisher, that doesn't help matters.
• Adding a new rant between classes... To the lady who wore too much perfume in the elevator. I know it wasn't the lady who got out of the elevator who stunk it up because she was gagging when she got off. I didn't realize how bad it was until the doors shut. I literally had to cover my mouth and nose because the stench was so strong. Perfume lovers need to remember that the nose quickly stops smelling your own scent (this is a useful trick of the brain, it is still smelling it, but is ignoring it. Just the same as your brain is aware that you are wearing socks, but ignores the "wearing socks wearing socks wearing socks" message that is blaring every second) and so you DON'T put on more perfume to be sure that you smell it. This just makes life hell for anyone within a mile of you.

I finally got to see the orthopedist yesterday to figure out what is wrong with my elbow. He said my story sounds so though I dislocated it and then relocated it. The lack in range of motion and remaining pain is likely due to the developing scar tissue as it heals. He took some x-rays and showed me that all the bones are where they should be. He even took some stress x-rays where he pushed and pulled on my arm while taking the x-ray (which hurt like hell!), but said the films showed that everything was fine. Nothing broken, nothing in the wrong place.


He said to use it as much as possible without lifting anything heavy or doing anything that hurts. He gave me some stretches to do and told me to soak it in warm water 3-4 times a day. I have an appointment in 3 weeks; if my arm is back to normal, I can cancel it; if I'm still having problems, he'll probably send me for physical therapy at that point.

This collar/band thing is soooooooooo slow.





But so pretty!





I figure two more repeats (two more hours) and it should be wide enough.

So I had two clues that today was not going to go well...

1. I have a head cold, which caused me to wake up about an hour before the alarm went off feeling as though someone had stuffed cotton balls tipped in hot sauce into my sinuses.
2. I knew that I would have to be at school today for 11 hours.


But when the alarm finally went off, I considered my options...
1. Stay in bed and cancel classes. Which would mean canceling on my research assistants who I haven't yet met with this semester, and canceling on a student who I've already canceled on twice.
2. Stay in bed for another hour and then get showered and dressed, skipping exercising.
3. Forge ahead. Get out of bed, workout, get showered and dressed, and get to school.


I opted for plan 3. Getting out of bed and getting moving did actually help clear my sinuses and head fog, and it seemed that things were going well. That is until at about 30 minutes into my 45 minute workout the power in our apartment went out. Poor Kevin was in the shower at the time, but fortunately there was enough sunlight by then that you could still see in the bathroom. I got out our new, super powered flashlight that my parents gave us for x-mas figuring that it could help light up the bedroom for getting dressed. But alas, it needed to be charged and immediately died. I managed to get showered and dressed. I even listened to our wind-up radio to get the news and weather. There came a problem when I needed to figure out what to do with my hair, since I couldn't use my hair dryer, it is too short to pull back well, and I've still got a bum elbow. I did manage two braids, but considering that one student walked into class and then almost back out and then said "oh, I didn't recognize you!" it must not look too good.


I get to school earlier enough to get a space in the good parking lot. I even managed to get some work completed before class. I made the decision that I didn't think my voice and throat would last for three hour long lectures in a hour and decided that the two intro classes could watch the video that was otherwise planned for Monday. First class goes well (except for the student's comment about not recognizing me). Second class starts with me needing to leave the room because I was hacking up a lung. After that second class runs mostly smoothly. Third class starts and I put on the video. A few minutes in, I'm hacking up my other lung and need to leave the room. At this point I've drank about 30 oz of water trying to keep my throat lubricated and I have to pee very badly. I finish hacking up my lung, pee, and return to the classroom to find that the projector overheated and turned itself off, yet the video kept playing on my laptop. So the students sat there for about five minutes listening with no picture, unsure of what to do. I turn the projector back on and let the video continue. About 10 minutes before the end of the video, the projector shuts off again. You have to wait about 5 minutes before it will turn back on, so we wait and listen to the video. Turn it back on and finish the video. I apologize to the students and explain that today has just been a bad day. While I'm finishing up explaining the instructions for their homework, which I being projected through power point, the damn projector turns off a third time. At which point I give up and let them leave.


Now it is 2pm and I can't go home until after 7:30pm. I have one more class this afternoon and two meetings with various students.


The bright spot in all of this is that I don't teach tomorrow, and I don't have any meetings. So I plan to drink about half a bottle of generic Nyquil and sleep until Saturday.


While today has sucked so far, I have seen the humor in and and spent some time laughing about it with my ex-office mate. Also, this video made me laugh too...

I've been pondering something recently...


Why do I have more Ravelry friends than Facebook friends?


With just a few exceptions, all of my Facebook friends are people that I know in real life (or knew at some point), and with just a few exceptions, all of my Ravelry friends are people that I have never met in real life.


What is even more weird is that with a few exceptions, I'm usually friended first by someone on Ravelry and then I respond by friending back. I'm kind of afraid to reach out for friending...


And the same is true on Facebook, if not more so. Sometimes when I'm bored, I'll look through the friends of people I graduated high school with and notice how many of them are now Facebook friends with each other. I can't count how many times I think to myself "they were never friends in high school!" There seems to be (at least from what I can tell) a sense of "hey, I knew you in high school, let's friend!" (And yes, I mean to use friend as a verb). And if that's the extent of it (and definitely that's the feeling I've gotten from friend invites from people I knew in high school, but never hung out with), then I shouldn't be so worried about friending others I knew from high school, right? But no. I see certain people on others' friends lists and think, "wow, he/she was so popular in high school, there's no way they'll respond favorably to a friend invitation from me." And this is even though the person's list they are on is someone who I'd consider on my high school popularity level (or lack there of). Here it is more than 10 years post high school graduation and I'm still afraid of the popular kids, and still desiring that they make the first friend overture.


Damn you Facebook for making life feel like I'm 17 all over again!!

I swear I've been knitting (slowly) on my sweater. It has a partial sleeve. Maybe I'll find time for a picture tonight...


So my advanced research methods class designed their first study on Thursday and should have been dutifully collecting data all weekend. Their very lazy teacher decided to wait until the three hour break between classes to put together the data entry sheet for them in SPSS. Let's just say... 1)Thank god I wasn't that lazy and actually started it last night, 2)Thank god again that I continued working on it this morning before my first block of class, and 3)Thank god it is finally finished only 30 minutes before class.


Curse you SPSS!! Curse you!!

• I love my new glasses. A couple of weeks ago, I had to admit that my glasses were held together with superglue and I was on my last pair of contacts. So I went to the eye doc at big name chain store because I have no vision insurance (can you believe that academics are not given vision insurance... well, maybe they realize how expensive if would be with us killing our eyes with too much reading... but I digress). They were having a buy one pair, get one pair free sale. Turns out that only applied to frames, and non-designer frames, and they basically only sell designer frames. But I left with new contacts and two new pairs of glasses. I opted for plastic frames because the previous superglued frames were metal and flimsy. I really like both pairs, but I love the more rectangular ones. They look like these, but not bedazzled. I've worn them to school two days in a row! I can only wear my glasses to work on days that I don't drive, because I can't see to drive without sunglasses, so that means wearing my contacts.
• My hair is the perfect length. Not to sound conceited, but when I was admiring myself in my new glasses, I realized that my hair also looked very good. I need to remember that the ideal length for it is just a millimeter above my shoulders in the front and angled a bit shorter in the back. But I do like being a bit of a hair chameleon, so who knows if I'll maintain this length and cut.
• I've decided that I never never never want to teach three classes in a row again. It is absolutely exhausting. This is especially true when you have a large break (3 hours) before the 4 class and all you really want to do is take a nap. I guess if I got a small cot, I could nap in my office.
• And a corollary to the above item, teaching the same class back to back is depressing, especially when the first class seemed overwhelmingly bored with the topic. Right before that second class starts there is this awful feeling of "do I really just have to repeat everything I just taught?" The poor second class gets less energy because I've been through the material once already, and less energy because they are the third class in a row. Their only benefit is that they don't have to suffer through as many bad jokes. If they fail in the first class, I drop them for the second class.
• I gave an informal lunchtime talk yesterday to a group of mostly other faculty and a couple of students. I had a few things prepared, but since it was on my research, I mostly winged it. Apparently people were impressed! I heard from a faculty member who wasn't there that he heard it was a great presentation and discussion. Yay me!
• I've gotten back into my workout routine, now that my arm isn't terrible (still not good, but I can at least do cardio workouts). I'm starting to realize that a lot of my clothes are not fitting the best (jeans, work clothes, skirts/dresses). I think I can get some of the altered, but I may need to go on a shopping spree. Or continue to secretly pray that one of my students reports me to "What Not to Wear" so I can get a makeover and $5000 for new clothes. Unfortunately, I don't think I dress that badly to warrant being on the show. At this point, I'm hoping to stick it out with my current clothes until May, and maybe as a celebration for 1 year of good exercise habits, I'll reward myself with a shopping trip.
• Well, this has certainly been a self-indulgent post. I think I'll sneak out of my office to be a little more self-indulgent and investigate what kind of unhealthy candy I can purchase from the vending machine. (And also being more self-indulgent... well maybe just lazy... and not proofreading this post!)

It's no secret. I'm a big fan of cupcakes. I don't like fancy, schmancy cupcakes. Just a plain vanilla cake with a little icing and I'm in heaven.


Wegman's has the most delicious bakery cupcakes (ignore those chocolate ones, blech!) in the history of the world. (Don't argue with me. I'm a die hard Wegman's fan). Since we don't get to Wegman's as often as when we lived in Jersey and they don't always have the four-pack of vanilla cupcakes (again, I don't like chocolate cupcakes... yes call me crazy, I don't like 'em), Kevin and I don't get to eat them very often (which is probably good for our waistlines).


A few weeks ago after we had some, Kevin challenged me to try my hand at making my own. Now, I'm not one of those foodie types that can eat something and magically recreate it. But my mom got me this book for X-mas and I figured that would be a good starting place. I opted for the classic vanilla cupcake recipe on page 2. I didn't like their icing options, so I searched around on the internet and found one that promised to be not too sweet (sickly sweet icing kills a cupcake in my opinion) and to taste like icing from a bakery.


After a quick trip to the store for supplies, I pulled out the stand mixer and got started. I didn't take pictures of the process because I needed to recharge my camera battery, but I got pictures of the results.



As you can see, I am not very proficient with a piping bag (or to be more accurate a ziplock bag with the corner cut off).



Here is a closeup without the wrapper. Looks pretty yummy!



Yum!! Delicious!!


I wanted to wait until Kevin got home to sample them together, but then I thought... if they are terrible, he'll have to pretend to like them. If I try it first, and it is terrible, I can throw them all in the trash and pretend I never baked. Thankfully, they are unbelievably delicious.


They are not a replica of the Wegman's cupcake. The icing is pretty damn close, but I could actually have used a touch less confectioner's sugar (by a touch, I mean half a cup to a cup less). The cake part is good, but not quite right. The texture is more crumbly like a corn muffin. It doesn't have the velvety-ness of a nice light cake. Again, it still tastes awesome, just a little off in the mouth feel.


I plan to keep experimenting (and exercising a whole lot more!!) If I eventually come up with something really awesome (that isn't stealing too much from someone else's recipe), I might consider sharing with my bloggy friends.


I swear... I going to go spend some time knitting right now. Pictures soon!

I bet it wasn't staking out your second bedroom in search of a runaway hamster!


Starting from the beginning... I indulged myself with some super garlicy pasta last night and a few beers. This, while yummy, resulted in some wicked heartburn and an upset tummy. I got up around 1:30am to visit the bathroom. After laying back down for a few minutes, I realized that I wasn't feeling any better and decided to get up again. This time when I opened the bedroom door, my eyes were drawn to something small and dark scurrying by the doorway of our second bedroom (really a crap room). I hesitated because in the dark and without my glasses, I wasn't sure if I really saw something. I grabbed my glasses and a flashlight and started searching. But as I mentioned it is a bit of a crap room and I was kicking myself for the lack of cleanliness creating many hiding places for a small creature.


Still unsure of what had scurried, I created a barrier at the doorway so whatever it was couldn't escape the room. I grabbed my sweatshirt and pants and went to check the hamster's cage. Nothing appeared open or out of sorts, until I noticed the back opening of the cage, which is really used, was open. The only thing that I can figure it that it wasn't sufficiently closed when we cleaned his cage a couple of weekends ago and it just took some time for it to open enough to allow his escape.


I'm not sure that I was entirely relieved to know that it was my own rodent loose in the apartment and not an unwanted rodent because now I had to figure out how to get the hamster back. I got some sunflower seeds and put them on the ground and turned out the lights and sat and waited. I didn't want to wake Kevin up because he'd had a long day at work, but after 15 or so minutes, he came to see where I went.


We both searched around, moved a few things, shined the flashlight into every hiding place we could, but saw nothing. We created an even stronger barrier to leaving the room in hopes that I was right in that the hamster was in there (which I was beginning to doubt). We were both worried that he might have gone into the closet in which case he might never come back because of the amount of stuff crammed in there. After nearly an hour since I first started searching, we decided that the best plan might be to bring in his cage and put it on the floor; give him a small entrance with some food incentive and hope that he goes back in, is happy to be in his home, and that we find him in there in the morning.


Before heading back to bed, I decided to take one last look with the flashlight. Crawling on the floor, peering under furniture, I saw nothing. I looked one last time behind the computer and peered into the rat's nest of cords, as I shined the flashlight behind the desk, I noticed something. I couldn't see it clearly, but it looks dark and fuzzy. I was worried that I was seeing things, so I called Kevin over to look. I don't know if the hamster recognized my voice or just coincidentally turned around, but when I looked back I could see his little pink nose and white paws.


He was under the end of the baseboard heater behind the filing cabinet. There was no way to reach him. Our plan was that I would crawl under the desk to grab him if he ran towards me, and that Kevin would carefully move the filing cabinet, which would scare him to run in one direction or the other, and that Kevin would cover the more open side of things. Kevin moved the filing cabinet half an inch, the hamster darted away from me, but didn't completely come out of hiding on Kevin's side. Fortunately, with a little coaxing and encouragement, the hamster came out far enough that Kevin could grab him.


We petted him briefly and told him that he was a good hamster for letting us catch him. And then we put him safely back in his cage and triple checked every part that could open. This morning he seems to be doing well. I gave him a little bit of my scrambled eggs as a special treat and he happily devoured it and went back to sleep.


Two hamster escapes, with two different hamsters, in one year. I've never had such problems with the many other hamsters and gerbils I've owned over the years. I definitely need a nap this afternoon!