Hurra!

Tuesday was a day of major accomplishments, after a harrowing week.

Last week KE made an appointment for me to take the drivers test on Tuesday. Here in Norway you have to rent a car from a driving instructor for the test (they require a car with the extra set of pedals). I had to take a couple of drivers' training test drives with a driving instructor who made me incredibly nervous in order to be allowed to rent the car. The man seriously made me so nervous that I could hardly function. I had to spend 3 hours in that car with him in the evenings driving in the dark and rain, and I was nearly in tears both evenings. What a huge relief it was when it actually came to taking the test. The man who evaluated me was totally mellow, I was barely nervous at all, and it was mid day on another rare mild and sunny November day. We drove through the lovely rural landscape around Drøbak, Ås, and Ski, and it went nearly perfectly. Words cannot express my relief over getting over this hurdle.

KE got a lot further on the wall project, and our kitchen was restored to nearly normal working order. Here he is contemplating what to do next.

We don't know what surface we want on the wall. We don't know what kind of countertop we want. We don't even really know whether we want cabinets on the wall, or whether we want to keep it open. Kind of a crazy way to remodel, but also fun, since we get to evaluate each element as we go along. E got to practice his carpentry skills with the scraps:


Meanwhile, I finally finished the Silke Tweed sweater. As I expected, it is a couple of inches too short to be flattering--KE saw that right away when I put it on to model (good eye on that guy). But it is a completed, wearable sweater, and the twelfth that I have knit this year. Yay!

I'll probably just live with it for a couple of weeks and add the extra inches over Christmas break. Otherwise I love the color, fit, and fabric of the finished product. Here's the full NaKniSweMoDo List:

1. Drops 58-18 turtleneck sweater (like)
2. Georgie cardigan (frogged)
3. Hourglass sweater (love)
4. Drops 110-1 jacket with pleats (frogged)
5. Islender sweater (loved by KE)
6. Green cardigan (like: used yarn recycled from the Georgie cardigan)
7. self-designed picot pullover (frogged)
8. Whisper cardigan (meh: need to re-do the bind off much more loosely and maybe it will look okay)
9. Gathered pullover (meh: need to re-do the neckline, which is way too low, but otherwise it looks promising)
10. Drops 112-24 linen tunic (love, love, love, despite almost destroying it)
11. Francis Revisited (love, love, love: used yarn recylced from the picot pullover)
12. Drops 54-10 Silke Tweed pullover (meh: need to add 2 inches to the length)

So I "only" have ten sweaters to show for all that knitting, but who cares. It was a fun challenge and I ended up with a couple of garments that I really enjoy wearing. I tried to start "nether garments" for E last night from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac but I couldn't get gauge with the yarn I had been planning to use. I'll try something else tonight.

Workwise, Monday I got to the point where I could send off a draft on an essay was due this Thursday, and Tuesday I got word that my revisions to the article I wrote on Erlend Loe's use of film in Volvo lastvagnar have been accepted, and that the article will appear in the next issue of Edda. That's a big deal, since an article there is worth 3 times what an article in Scandinavian Studies is worth. Along with the Ibsen Studies article that will appear at around the same time I will already have "earned" the same amount of "points" as I would with a book published by a minor publisher. Crazy. Then Tuesday I had a breakthrough thought in the shower about how to conceptualize the cabin book. It has to do with Foucault's concepts of archaeologies and genealogies, and I am pleased to say that I came up with it while thinking about the dissertation chapter that my last remaining student from my previous job sent me a couple of weeks ago.

Byggeplass

Today, a gloriously sunny and mild day in late November, KE drove out to the lumber yard and bought all the materials he needs to build the wall between the kitchen and living room. It's very exciting! Things will be chaotic, especially since we're having Thanksgiving dinner at our house next Saturday, but oh well, we'll manage. The mess will if nothing else make it a memorable meal.

Here's a few before shots. First looking from the living room toward the kitchen:

KE is going to build a wall from the left wall out to the post that will cover the cabinets, but will leave a triangular opening at the top. As you can just glimpse in this picture, the fridge will go on this wall, which means that we can move the kitchen table in to the kitchen (it's been in the living room all this time since we moved in). We tried it out this morning and it was delightful:

Here's a shot looking from the kitchen into the living room through what will be the new wall:

And here's the partially deconstructed kitchen. KE had to unscrew all the lower cabinets and move them around to make room for the fridge. The opening where he's storing the doors will be the home of a new dishwasher, whenever we get around to buying one.

And finally, here is the total chaos that is our living room right now. All the new lumber, plus cabinets that we're not going to be using in the kitchen, plus general mess. Eeep.

Me, I'm planning on escaping to this blog on tiny houses, and of course knitting. Closing in on the end of the Silke Tweed sweater:

I really like it, but wish I had made it even longer. I am contemplating knitting "flaps" down from the edge at the back and front in order to make it more tunic like. I think it would work to unravel the cast on edge and knit down from there. We'll see. KE is nagging me to make long johns for E, though, so I need to finish this up quickly.

Gårsdagen...

Yesterday at work we had the big meeting to determine the fate of the course that I proposed, and I was thrilled with the result. The course will end up looking very different than my original proposal, but it will be a requirement for the undergraduate program in Nordic literature. I'm so glad I stuck my neck out on this one!

Yesterday I finished the first sleeve and got a few inches done on the second sleeve of the Silky Tweed pullover. And I walked to the ferry instead of taking the bus. And I remembered to buy a transit pass. And I ordered new glasses. And KE worked more on the kitchen. And we had a great conversation after E went to bed. And today I have a reasonable amount of time to get stuff done at work. So all in all, despite the pouring rain, this is a good Tuesday morning.

Tilfeldigheter

The other day I was met by this sign when I got off the subway on my way to work:
Needless to say, I found it disturbingly hilarious on all sorts of levels. I had planed to write a long rant about evangelizing, but I think I'll just drop it, and let the poster speak for itself.

KE's good friend R had a phase of knitting that he's now come out of. When KE went to visit him yesterday he sent him home with bags of yarn! I was so thrilled--this almost never happens to me. I like getting random things that I would never have chosen myself--figuring out how to use them appropriately and aesthetically is always a really fun challenge. The poopy yarn that my Mom gave me last year ended up working up into one of my all time favorite sweaters, for example, so this is super fun and exciting! Here they are:

Even though this looks green it is really a nice dense brown with grayish undertones (color 7895, which, as I just discovered, is actually called "Dark Green." Go figure!). R started knitting something for his wife using three strands of it together, so the clump at the left will be hard to unravel! It's a total of 400 grams. This is actually totally something I would buy for myself, so I'm stoked. I'm thinking of maybe a pullover with a fair isle yoke in other colors like this Drops 108-10 pattern?

Then there's the stuff the I wouldn't pick out, but actually really like: it's a discontinued Garnstudio Drops yarn called Highlander. Unfortunately it has 10% nylon, which makes it a bit scratchy, but the colors are very fun, and since it's super bulky weight, the knitting up process will be quick, whatever I decide to do with it. R had two colors:

A salmon-y mix (number 14, 350 grams), which isn't really enough to make more than a vest. I am not a wearer of vests, since I have trouble with temperature regulation--I can feel cold and have sweaty armpits at the same time! The only Garnstudio vest pattern I could find that I came close to liking was this one, Drops 71-22. However, a perverse part of my personality finds this one (Drops 97-7) edged with fuzzy Puddel yarn strangely appealing.

The other color is a reddish-plum mix (number 15, 550 grams):

Love that color combination too. I had thought it was all one color at first, and had been hoping to make a sweater coat for my Mom (she loves those, and loves these colors), but alas there isn't enough. I think what I can make is this Drops 0-228 pullover.

I'm almost done with the body of the silky tweed sweater. I'm really liking the way it knits up (though the knitting in the back of stitches for the twisted rib is a hassle), and am much more enthusiastic about it than I was with the beige linen tunic. I think I may rip that out and use the yarn to make another tunic like the black one I knit this summer. I love the drape of that one and the floppy neck.

Musikk

Today I was really lacking in motivation at work. It was a hard weekend family-wise, and I have a bunch of really tight deadlines. All that is getting me down, so I decided to escape a bit, and found my way to some old favorites on YouTube. I've been collecting some of Eivind's favorite songs on his website, so I thought I should do the same thing here. So here's a random selection:

"The Christian Life" by The Byrds. The fact that I'm a hard line atheist may make this choice appear paradoxical, but the fact is this song has fascinated me since I was a kid. It came out in 1968 on the album Sweetheart of the Rodeo, which my Dad played all the time.



Then there's Odd Nordstoga's "Lause ting," about the difficulty of getting motivated to take responsibility and become an adult.



"The Littlest Birds" by the Be Good Tanyas. Such a beautiful song!



And another perfect song from the late sixties:




I guess the common denominator is that they're all kind of mellow and wistful. Perfect for when I'm in a bit of a brown study.

Høstbilder

I gave up on waiting for it to be light enough to take pictures. So pardon the blurriness on this cavalcade of recent snapshots. First up is a quick shot of the evening sky from our deck around dinner time:

Then there's the finished stripy sweater, which is already getting dirty:

And here's the latest addition to our living room, the Vatne 108 chair that I bought used. You can just barely see the footstool in the background behind my knitting basket:

And now here's a snapshot of what's in that knitting basket. It's another reknit. As I mentioned in my last post I'm knitting this ribbed pullover from the lace pattern short sleeved sweater I started early this summer.


So far I really like it, though the knitting through the back loop and the silk content in the yarn is a little hard on my hands. Or maybe it's just that I'm knitting it like a maniac. It's the kind of project I love: mindless and drab!

But more exciting things are in the works. I've ordered Jared Flood's first book, Made in Brooklyn, and my Mom is going to bring it when she visits in December. I'm also gearing up for my next year's knitting agenda. I've decided I want to tackle fewer projects and focus on some really challenging things that I haven't had time for during this year of mass production. I'm aiming for four really lovely sweaters, though I haven't quite worked out exactly which ones (other than Alice Starmore's Fulmar and Jared Flood's Seneca).

Strategi

On Sunday I finished E's stripy sock sweater, and he has been wearing it ever since. I decided to go with ribbing at the bottom of the body and sleeves to match the neckline and to counteract the flipping action I was getting with the hem. It was pretty easy to remove the hem (just started unraveling down from the stripe above it) and knit down from the edge.

Rather than doing the logical thing and picking up the linen tunic to finish off (a sleeve and a half to go) or the short sleeved cardigan in Silke Tweed that I started earlier in the summer, I irrationally cast on for something new. I'm using the same Silke Tweed yarn, but in a different, more wearable pattern. It's a simple pullover knitted in purl two, knit one TBL ribbing. I like the look of the way it's knitting up, though I worry the silk content in the yarn may make it end up being overly baggy. I may add a little waist shaping, and will definitely make it longer than the pattern. It's another Drops pattern, by the way: Drops 54-10.

I can't take any knitting pictures yet because it's getting so dark here in Norway. There's not enough light before or after I go to work, so they'll have to wait until the weekend.

We had a great day on Sunday. I drove in to Oslo to buy a used chair that I found on the internet (picture to come). It's funny how much adding the chair to our sitting area tied the room together. It is upholstered in a kind of dove gray wool that is a little discolored (unfortunately), but blends perfectly with the rest of our stuff. It's a Vatne nr. 108 chair designed by a guy named Fredrik Kayser. Then on Monday KE massively cleaned the whole house! It was amazing what a difference it made. E was ecstatic when he came home--he loved how clean it was. Who knew that a four-year-old noticed such things. I was pretty darned ecstatic too!

My sister-in-law had us over for dinner on Sunday, which was really relaxing and fun. She's great. She got me inspired to start planning Thanksgiving dinner. Now I've committed (with some trepidation) to making it for her and some friends of ours on the last Saturday in November. Should be fun, actually--I'll use exactly the same menu I always use: roasted turkey, stuffing (bread based with chanterelle mushrooms, almonds, and pork sausage), gravy, mashed potatoes, roasted sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce from scratch (with orange peel), whole wheat rolls (from scratch), and a pumpkin pie (from scratch). I'll bake the pie and rolls the day before, and prepare the stuffing. KE will do the cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and probably the gravy too. That leaves just the beans, sweet potatoes and turkey to mess with on the day itself. The problem is oven space--we have two stoves but only one oven that really works, and it only has one rack.

Yesterday I felt like a participant on Survivor at work, minus the voting people out. In my work group of 12 colleagues I am becoming more and more aware of the alliances that lie under the surface. I had one strong alliance coming in, and am now trying to build additional alliances with other people in the group. Yesterday I made two moves that I think will help strengthen my position with two other people. I've never been so aware of the strategy involved in the process of establishing oneself in a new work environment. Looking back at my previous job, I can see that I did absolutely nothing to build alliances there, which is probably why I felt so isolated. Here I've been much more proactive already. I don't mean to imply that all I care about is getting people to support me personally. Each of the "moves" I made yesterday involved taking action on things that I really believe in--one helping a colleague out with a small but important task, the other initiating a curriculum planning session. But I would be dishonest if I didn't say that I am constantly thinking of what I can do to improve my chances of getting a permanent position here.

Follow up on that disruptive student: I received an email last night in which the student thanked me for assigning the novel that they're reading for today's class. The student was really enjoying it. Not sure that quite makes up for all the poopy comments the student makes, but it does help a little.