Sade's Blog

So, I’m supposed to go to Madrid to visit family & friends, and pick up some papers that I need for university here. The travel is in the air with Mr. Eyjafjallajökull smoking so many cigars lately. Since there is nothing else to do about it, please take the following survey to pass the time:

Thank you for your cooperation, and have a nice day!

Just too busy.

I’ve been sick since after Christmas (see that previous post, I didn’t have the strenght to post any more after that…). Got a sinusitis that took me several times to the doctor, got me on two rounds of antibiotics, corticosteroids nosespray, and other assorted medicines. I have to go for the second skull x-ray next week to make sure it’s gone. Cross yer fingers, press yer thumbs, do as ye want, wish me luck!

It’s also exam period. I’ve already had two exams, and I have two more, coming monday morning and tuesday evening. I’m not prepared, because the last month I haven’t been able to study. Guess why? That goddamn sinusitis didn’t let me. I had such a brain fog, nasty headaches and lack of focus, opening a book was a chore that took all my strength, and understanding anything at all was nearly impossible. So, that’s all. Previous two exams I felt like I could have stayed home, but wanted to go in case they ended being easy. The next two I’ll go in case they end being easy as well, which I seriously doubt, but if I don’t go, they will be. Murphy’s laws hate me.

Jan’s coming to Madrid on wednesday. He hasn’t traveled here in over a year, and he’s really looking forward to it. We’ll be going to eat out a lot, and will hopefully walk around the city cow hunting. Other than that, we plan on relaxing and spending five days not doing much. We both need a vacation.

We’re house hunting in Belgium, around Ghent. It takes a lot of time and phonecalls and looking around and online. I wish people would make accurate descriptions of the houses, detailed and up-to-date. And same goes for the pictures, blurry, bad frames that show only details and not the shape or state of the room. Not to say those pictures that were taken 3 years ago, and all this time the house has been left to its own devices. What on the pictures looks like a well laid floor turns out to be vinyl coming apart and rippling from humidity… We have a budget, which is a bugger cause it’s limited. The houses we like are at least 100k over it usually.

That’s a life update for you. Stay tuned, maybe next time it won’t take a month and a half to post again!

Marr from Smelly Chick’s Online, a soapmakers’ resources website, tagged me for this six things about you me-me.

Da rulez:

1. Link to the person who tagged you (see above).
2. Post the rules on your blog (this is what you are now reading).
3. Write 6 random things about yourself (see below).
4. Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them (This is only a game)
5. Let each person know they have been tagged and leave a comment on their blog
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up

Six Things About Me (that you couldn’t care less about)

1. I’m a Scorpio, and it does show, sometimes, when I’m pissed.
2. I love Linux. I loathe Windows.
3. I’m dabbing in too many hobbies at the moment, but loving it.
4. Paracetamol gives me trippy dreams.
5. I lurve chocolate.
6. I only started liking plush toys (teddies, stuffed animals and so) in my laaaate teens.

There, that’s it, Six random things about me, that you most likely don’t care about. Know me better? I doubt it :p

Da taggin’

Uhm, yes, I’m supposed to tag six people who haven’t done this lately. Lets see…Smartash, CJ, Zanne, Asa, KnittingKitty and Purlpower.

And for those who are wondering, I’m not dead or falleth off the internet, I’m just very busy. Last weekend (8th-10th August) we were on a city break to London. This week (11th-14th August), we’ll be renovating the bathroom. First stage done (everything removed and ready to tile and paint), more to come. And next weekend (15th-17th August) we’re on another city trip, this time to Düsseldorf. We have booked a weekend special at Relexa Rattingen City (10 minutes away from Düsseldorf), with a candle-light dinner, use of spa, breakfast buffet, and more things for a nice price. So yeah, I’m not much online at the moment. More about the London and Düsseldorf trips when I have time to write all the stuff down!

On knitting news, I “joined” the Ravelympics (Ravelry inside link, if you want to read you have to be a member. I joined cause they made me join). I’m knitting the Anastasia Socks, in Opal Neon 1934.

I only had this little yarn left from what I bought last summer to make a cardigan for Lumi (a friend’s baby).

Read more »

We went to Germany a couple weeks back. Read all the story on our shared blog. See all the pics on our gallery.

Bounty!

PS: Oh, yeah, I changed the theme of the blog, same style, same colours, but now in wide screen.

And now I am back, but I won’t be very prolific with posts either this next month and a half, since it’s the last leg of the semester: lots of studying and exams galore.

So what have I been up to? Uni vacations were spent mostly with Jan, in Belgium. You can read a recolection of the events in our shared blog and you can see pictures in our gallery.

I finally took a pic of my first skein of yarn spun on the wheel. Or the first skein of yarn spun by me evah, as you prefer:

That you see under the yarn is a stuffed hippo from Ikea:

I did some sewing as well, “pimped” my wheel, so to say, but of course I forgot to take pics of it. The pimping consists of a cotton cover (for all those days when it’s unused) and adding a cute carpet under it, so my feet won’t freeze while I’m spinning.

Stay tunned, I might pop in between studying sessions and exams!

As I said a few posts back, life is so busy, I barely have time for anything else than University, Labs and studying. I’m also working at uni, free hours, so it’s not that stressing, but still takes time. Whoever said university time was fun, should come spend a couple semesters at mine ;)

Now, November is over, and I have to say I blatantly failed on NaNoWriMo. I wrote around 17,000 words, and then I came across two problems: the big lack of time, thanks to see above, and then my muse disappeared to take the vacation I can’t take, and left me with a huge block. I might try again next year, it all depends on how busy I am.

On the knitting front, I can report that the ripped kilt hose is back in track. Already did the heel and I’m on the gusset decreases. I don’t have pics yet, bad light, no time, you know the works. I’ll try to take one some time.

I’m also traveling this week, going to Belgium to spend a few days with Jan. We’ll be resting mostly, since we do need it. I probably won’t be online much, so if you want to catch me, you’re better off e-mailing than trying to catching me on IMs or IRC.

I’m just dead busy!

Here is the deal: this semester I have six courses and three labs, and that means at least all morning at university (plus mondays evenings) and the rest of the time trying to study all the notes and making exercises and doing lab reports and sleeping. Ok, and eating, I would skip that part, but seems my body isn’t happy with it ;)

Also, starting the 1st of November, I’ll be trying to write around 1,700 words per day, because I’m doing NaNoWriMo. It’s set! I have a plot, I have to develop the characters now, and write a decent outline so I can reach the 50k goal. And I’m also working on that at the moment.

On other news, Jan was over here this past week. He put up with my stress and my classes and my studying, and took me out for dinner at Vegaviana, a very nice vegetarian restaurant. When I wasn’t in class, I just tried to do nothing and enjoy him. So it was a bit quieter.

And on the knitting front, after finishing the Turkish Stitch String Bag, I put knitting off for a couple of weeks. And then I ripped off the too narrow kilt hose, and started it again. This time I learned proper crochet cast on.

More updates as time allows. And probably a few teasers from my NaNovel too.

After those lovely forty five days with Jan, I’m back home to take exams, do paperwork, and go back to uni for yet another year ™. What have we done this summer, you ask? Well, 45 days seems long, but it definitively wasn’t long enough for us.

We had joined a group trip to Scotland, but for several reasons, it didn’t work out. That was my first week there, and instead we just had a quiet time at home, since Jan had the days off anyway.

We fancied a boat trip, and so we went to Overmere Donk, rented a slow boat, and had fun around. We also walked in the park by the lake, so pretty. Pitty the triathlon was so noisy and taking most of the routes!

We went to a friend’s wedding, that consisted of a civil ceremony and a medieval party, which we had to skip (will link to pics whenever, if ever, they are up).

We went to Germany: Dusserldorf (and pics en route), where we met up with Susann and her husband, then from there to Greifswald (with more pics of the drive), where we met up with Laura, and then we drove to Münster. And finally drove back home.

And we also went to Brugge, to buy chocolate at my favourite shop, The Chocolate Line, which you will know already if you read this blog often. I can’t praise this shop enough. All the chocolate is hand made in situ, and you can see the Meester Chocolatier at work through the window at the back of the shop. And visited the Sand Sculptures Exhibition. Lots of work involved in them, and all will be destroyed in a couple of weeks.

Other things accomplished during the summer: knitting (not much), spinning (two whole bobbins, still to be plied, next time I go to Belgium) – no pics of either, stash enhancement (four skeins, enough for a pair of socks and a skinny scarf, pics coming, sometime), cooking a few recipes from our database, visiting family, going out, going five(!) times to the movies (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Over the Hedge, Miami Vice, She’s the Man & Monster House), general happy living together, adopting our two little critters, going out with a bunch of friends for bowling and dinner, and much more! Oh yes, studying too.

Leaving was hard, again, very hard. And I so want to go back very soon. Plans right now are me spending my “winter break” in early December and New Years in Belgium. Meanwhile, Jan will be coming over some time in October and November!

For those of you who care about my flight back, it was okay, if it weren’t for the more than three hours of a detour. The story is, we left Brussels airport on time without problems, the flight was good and we got to Madrid at the scheduled time, but there was a huge storm with lighting that kept more than fifteen planes waiting to land. That meant we had to wait over fourty minutes to land, but we didn’t have enough fuel and detoured to Valencia to fuel there. Once the storm was over, all the detoured planes wanted to leave for Madrid at once, and we got a slot for 10pm (that’s 2.5 hours after we were supposed to land in Madrid). We finally made it to our destination at nearly 11pm, then wait for my suitcase, which luckily was one of the firsts to get out, and get a cab to go home. I got home at midnight, a whooping three hours and a half after I thought I’d be! Luckily for me, I bought the last sandwich on board, and that was all my dinner.

So that’s all, we’ll be back to the regular irregular updates of the blog after my exams and the end of summer cleaning week chez moi!

I’m not dead :p (sorry for those of you who were looking forward to it!). I’ve been rather busy, but I’ve been knitting and sewing a bit. A quick look at how the kilt hose is looking right now, after 10cm of cabling:

See y’all soon. Jan’s coming here next thursday! :) *happy* *jumpy*