"Pu-ha"

...as my Danish friend frequently says. I take it to mean "phew." Looks like I made it through the first week of the term. I was unusually stressed out, but the decision to withdraw from a seminar I had been slated to speak at in March really helped. I also took care of a bunch of little tasks, which also always helps. I attended two NOR1300 lectures on Henrik Wergeland. It was certainly fun to be in the position of being a student again, and I do think it has helped me prepare for my first group class meeting on Monday. But I have a ton of work ahead of me to make that group class work.

I have spent a lot of time on the ferry studying my calendar, actually, trying to see how I'm going to get everything done, and with the removal of that March seminar everything suddenly seems sane and do-able again. I'm sure my fellow commuters think I'm incredibly anal as I write and erase and highlight manically in my calendar.

Last night I tried on the Miss Honeychurch raglan pullover, since I made it down to past the underarms. It looks like it's going to be a good fit. I started knitting one of the arms too, just to see how it looks. I love that the pattern has you pick up stitches from the underarm rather than leaving a seam to sew. In fact, I am starting to really, really love this pattern. It is so logical, and all the elements fit together so nicely. It's incredibly addictive to knit, especially now that I have the cables to work on the side seams. It's so tempting to knit "just one more" cable repeat. Miss Honeychurch is, in other words, the knitter's version of crack. I'm trying to force myself not to knit this evening, just to give my wrists a rest (they're aching a bit).

I forgot to mention that E has been accepted into the first grade at the Waldorf school starting in August! That was a really fast turn around. The great thing is that he'll technically be in first grade, but their first grade is held in the preschool rather than the grade school, so it's a smoother transition. I think that's ideal for a December kid like E. The Waldorf school has 3 "feeder" preschools to choose from, and E has a friend in two of them, so we're obviously hoping he'll get into one of those two classes (we were asked to list our preferences on the acceptance form). It will be really exciting to see which one he gets. I hope this decision to go the Waldorf route turns out to be a good one for E. I feel such a crushing responsibility not to screw him up for life in choosing what grade school to send him to. I can't imagine what it's going to be like when he hits college age!

One more thing that's a relief: I have finally made a dentist appointment for myself. I was utterly shocked when I realized that I haven't been to the dentist since before I met KE!! That's coming up on seven years. How can it have been seven whole years since I had a check up?!

Avledet

You would think I would practically have finished the gathered pullover, since it is such a quick knit (and I have indeed come pretty far) but you would be wrong.

No, I suddenly got it into my head that I simply had to make a patchwork pillow case for our outdoor furniture. We have a pretty solid table, chairs and sofa that we use all the time. The set is about 15 years old, as are the cushions. Unfortunately the cushions are really starting to wear, and I planned to cover them with the same unbleached linen that I bought at IKEA for our living room curtains. Even more unfortunately, it turns out our sewing machine (which has been in storage since 2004) isn't feeling very good, so my attempt to sew up the very simple slipcovers for the cushions was foiled. Yet another of my attempts to sew with a machine fails!

I've been looking at all the patchwork pillows that Alicia Paulson makes on Posie Gets Cozy and thinking "I can do that." After all my Grannie showed me years ago how to do simple patchwork square. And so I did:

I sewed them together by hand. I'm going to make a simple back out of the same unbleached linen that the cushions will (eventually, when I fix the machine) be covered with. It was fun and easy, so I'll probably make another.

Yesterday evening we had the end-of-the-schoolyear party for E's preschool. We had a picnic at Hellviktangen (the best local beach). Everyone brought their own dinner, but shared cakes, and the kids ran around, waded in the fjord, and fished for crabs. The preschool teachers had put togther big folders of all the kids' artwork and distributed them ceremoniously, like a diploma. Those kids were so proud! All of them, E included, sat right down to look at their own art and show it to their parents. Very fun, especially when the folder is almost as big as E himself!


ETA: The geraniums bloomed. And the color is.... RED for both of them. Despite being a red-hater, I'm surprisingly cheered by them:

Slapp

Not much happening in Kverulantinne-land. I've been trying to fend off a cold and have felt really sapped by trying to do errands in town (Oslo, that is) in the freezing temperatures, and really haven't made any headway setting up shop at my new job at ILN. I did get to see my dear friend Anne (waves to Anne!) and meet her husband and baby, which was a real treat. One of the best things about moving here was the fact that I already have a small, but really wonderful network of friends in place.

E seems to be taking to his preschool really well, mostly because of the copious opportunities for sledding. I'm surprised that he isn't more tired at the end of the day. He's going to bed really late, and sleeping in way too long. But he seems happy and healthy, so I can't complain. Apparently he learned the word "slem" ("naughty") in preschool yesterday, as last night he was trying it out on us, telling us he was a "slem" boy to see how we would react. He is getting a little resistant to speaking English already, and I'm pretty lazy about using it. In all my previous time in Norway I have been absolutely rigid about speaking only Norwegian so that I could improve my language skills, so it takes a really concerted effort for me to remember to speak English with E.

I've started two new knitting projects in the new year. The first was a reversible ribbed cable stole using lace weight alpaca yarn. I had wanted to try something with lace weight yarn for some time, and I am totally entranced by reversible cable patterns of all varieties, so this was a must. I had ordered two skeins of the yarn from Knitpicks before we left, and mysteriously they sent me three, which is just the right amount for the pattern, which further confirmed that I was destined to knit this. Here's a snap:

But after almost finishing one of the three skeins, I have to admit that I was pretty tired of using such thin yarn and such thick and awkward needles. I also noticed during my first week at work that I seriously need to acquire a few more sweaters. I'm still working out issues with my bank card, so I haven't been able to order the remaining Jamieson DK that I need to finish the Drops jacket I was working on (I only need enough of the dark color for a sleeve...d'oh!), so that meant that I really just had to go out and buy the yarn for a new project if I wanted something wearable any time soon. Garnstudio has a simple ribbed turtleneck in DK weight that fits the bill, and they have a very inexpensive superwash wool in nice colors, so I bought some at Tjorven yesterday, and am already well into the third ball of yarn. I love mindless, easy knitting. Here's the color, although it's really more of a bluish-green-gray in real life:

Well, I think that's it for an update. We're supposed to be able to pick up the car tomorrow...

P.S. On the front page of Ravelry today there was a picture from the yarn store, Unwind (in Burbank, of all places!). Seldom have I seen a retail space that so appealed to me. I think I want to live there...