Form og farge

My Dad is kind of a kook. He's been married to an equally kooky woman for the past twenty years or so, and they are definitely a good match. They just sent E a Halloween package, that among other things included this fabulous photograph of themselves:

Creepy, no? E really got into it, and slapped it up on the wall in our living room almost immediately. Only about two feet of scotch tape were involved in the process. I'm going to have to ask for a digital version of the photograph, since there's no way all that tape is going to come off without tearing the print.

Thanks to their package, though, I'm now thinking that maybe I should figure out some kind of low keyed Halloween activity for E and some friends. And of course if I do that, I'm going to need to work out a costume for him. I am thinking about some kind of Jedi costume, since he is totally obsessed with Anakin Skywalker right now (he refuses to believe that Anakin turns evil, even though he's well aware that Darth Vader was once Anakin. Too subtle for a six year old mind, apparently). I first thought of sewing one, but then I read somewhere that someone had just used a Karate outfit and dressed that up (belt, boots, light saber, easy cape). I think I can pull that off. I'll have to dye it dark for Anakin, of course, but I'm sure I can manage that.

This morning I finally picked up the rib-o-rama pullover so that I could knit the last two inches of the second arm. I had a sneaking suspicion there was something wrong, which is probably why I haven't looked at it all week. And wouldn't you know it, I had four stitches fewer on the second arm. Gah! I'm going to have to rip it all out and see where I went wrong in picking up stitches. What a drag.

Clearly this calls for some consolation (i.e. idiot-proof) knitting. I'm going to use the rest of the dark blue recycled yarn to make felted slippers for E. Here's this morning's start:

I'm knitting it with the yarn doubled to make extra thick slippers. The pattern is more or less this one, though I cast on 15 stitches, and am only using one color. I'm going to have to buy some "Formgummi" to smear on the soles to make them non-skid.

In a much larger constructive project, our garage is now starting to take form! This week the foundation was poured. It's still curing, but I think it's possible that we'll actually have a garage within the next two weeks (it's a modular construction, so once the foundation is done, it gets set up in a couple of days). Amazing. Here's a shot of the placement:

Of course it figures that we wouldn't get going on the project until the first snowfall! Thankfully, it doesn't look like it's going to start accumulating, and the weather is supposed to be a few degrees above 0 (celsius) during the day for the next week or so. Here's a shot from a different angle:

Our yard feels so much more open. We had to take down two large birch trees, and then this weekend the neighbor who lives in the white house you can just see behind ours has been cutting down a bunch of trees on his property. This is all very exciting, and exceptionally boring for anyone except the three of us who live here!

Tenke tenke skrive skrive

Today I hit 114 pages of manuscript on the Peer Gynt-book. Here's the page breakdown:

• intro: 1/10 pages (this is the hardest part to write. I'm saving it for the end. I need to come up with a theoretical approach lickity split. I mean, I have a theoretical approach, otherwise I couldn't write the material. I just don't have it laid out neatly yet.)
• chapter 1: 27/30 pages (from a 2008 article)
• chapter 2: 30/30 pages (all new material since August)
• chapter 3: 16/30 pages (half of a 2007 article)
• chapter 4: 11/30 pages (the other half of the 2007 article)
• chapter 5: 29/30 pages (all new material since September)
• conclusion: 0/10 pages (I have no idea what this is going to be. It seriously scares me. I hate conclusions. I think my friend L has a good one in her new book, so I need to read that for inspiration...)

Blimey. That's starting to look like a book manuscript! My English class was cancelled today, which gave me two extra hours of writing. I also had to submit my paper for that class on line. I'll be really curious to read the instructor's response. At least I had fun writing it.

I gave a lecture on Norway's national anthem in my literature class today. It was actually pretty fun. The students seemed to find it interesting to talk about national anthems as a genre. Here's a nice recording of the Norwegian one from 2005.

I ran across a thingy that I think I'm going to want to do an article on at one point: "Ekko av Ibsen," which was a big film project for the Ibsen centennial in 2006 consisting of 8 short films created in dialogue with Ibsen's work. Can't wait to check it out. I need to find out if any relate to Peer Gynt. If they don't, it will still probably be worth putting together an analysis. ETA: here's the list:

• Dobbel salto (Lars Göran Petterson, 2005), inspired by Bygmester Solness
• Klippan i livet - kan du leve uten? (Pia Lykke, 2005), inspired by Peer Gynt, Lille Eyolf, Fruen fra havet and Gengangere
• Nora (Geir Henning Hopland, 2005), inspired by Et dukkehjem
• Kjøter (Marius Holst, 2005)
• Edderkoppfest (Aril Østin Ommundsen, 2005)
• Trøbbel (Dag Johan Haugerud, 2005)
• Terje Vigen (Mari Monrad Vistven, 2005) inspired by the poem "Terje Vigen"
• Hvis jeg faller (Johanne Helgeland, 2005)

Basically, this is just a quick note to say I really dig my job.

"Beskikk dit Hus"

I think nearly everything that could go wrong since last Thursday did. Our washing machine broke. With impeccable timing, E wet his bed three mornings in a row as a celebration of the fact that we had no washing machine. I did a terrible job teaching. I had a monumental case of PMS. I was stood up about three different times in different contexts, including the girl we hired to cover our week to clean E's preschool (yes, the parents have to do it all, from scrubbing toilets to emptying trash to vacuuming and washing about 120 square meters; yes the girl who agreed to do it blew us off on two of our three evenings). E was kind of on the warpath. KE had what seemed like dozens of extra activities scheduled, meaning I barely saw him. Our house just reached a new nadir of filth. And to top it all off, I had to dip into savings to make it through to my next paycheck, which thankfully arrived yesterday. I can't remember the last time I had to do that.

As of today, I'm slowly starting to impose some order on the chaos. I actually spent most of the day cleaning, which is a rarity. KE was a hero and, with the help of a neighbor, carted home our brand-spanking-new laundry facilities. With a huge sigh of relief, I present you with...my bathroom:

What is that strange creature on the left, you ask? Lo, it is a dryer. We haven't had one since leaving the US. I have been quite smug about not needing one, but I had to bite the bullet and admit that there's no way I can keep up with all the bedding and workout gear by air drying on two indoor drying racks. I feel like a sellout, but I also want to have a tidy house. And of course I don't have to use it for every load of wash.

Even better than these behemoths (well, almost) is what E did with some of the packaging:

Too cute.

Rarely can I say that I'm too stressed out to knit, but that was certainly the case this week. Normally I would have been done with the Riborama pullover by now, but I have barely made any progress at all. I've managed to finish one arm and get a few inches on the other. In the meantime, I've done a little experimenting with the Shetland yarn I bought in Denmark this summer. Five of the eight colors I bought looked really lovely together, but I couldn't get any of the other three to work into the combination, so I broke down and ordered another color online (BC Garn). Here's the result, which is the corrugated ribbing for an Ivy League Vest (Ravelry link here, non-Ravelry link here), which I'll probably add arms to:

I'm thinking that looks pretty good. I'm not going to agonize any more over it, and just go with what I have. It's the lightest, wheat-ish color in the middle that I just ordered.

Another good thing about this terrible week bears remembering: I exchanged WIPs with my friend L at work, and we had a really productive and exciting critique session yesterday morning. She had such amazingly insightful comments about my chapter on the Peer Gynt films. Since yesterday was the fifteenth of the month, I also did a page tally for the book, and I now have 110 (out of a projected 170) pages written! Granted much of that is rough, but still, I'm making decent progress. I was really anxious for L's feedback on this chapter so that I could get a sense of whether I'm on the right track with the book, or whether it's a big waste of time. She was enthusiastic about it, which gives me a lot of hope.

ETA: a link to one of the coolest studio apartments I've seen in a long time on Apartment Therapy. Here's the same place during an earlier decorating iteration. I think what I like is less the individual elements than just the idea of starting out life as a college kid in a place like that. I'd love to be able to set up E in a funky place of his own if/when he goes away to study (in about 12+ years...). Look at me, already living vicariously through my child and he's not yet six!

En lang dag...

This week is going slowly, slowly. I'm afraid it was a bit of a boring day for E, but I just couldn't muster the enthusiasm or energy for more than a walk to the library, unfortunately. We did have glorious weather today, which helped a lot, though. I think part of the problem for me is that there is just no relief from the constant attention-seeking. I had a maximum of seven minutes alone to myself at one stretch (I timed it), and for a lone wolf academic like me, not having any head space really knocks me off kilter. Okay, I admit it: I really miss work, especially since I'm in the midst of so much exciting new research. This makes me feel like a bad parent, but it's the truth...

The new sweater project is at a point where it is now worth taking a picture of:

I'm making this up as I go along. The plan is to do ribbing all the way through the pullover, maybe with a little cabling at the sides when I hit the waist, maybe a few increases over the hips. Not quite sure yet, and I'll just have to see when I get there. So far I'm super happy with the way it's turning out. I think this will be infinitely wearable. The two previous incarnations of this yarn were both cardigans, and I have developed such an aversion to cardigans that I couldn't wear them. To put it bluntly, my breasts and chest get really cold when I wear cardigans. Weird, I know, especially since every other knitting woman I know of--regardless of cup size--loves them.

I'm sure some people would look at this and cringe because of all the ribbing. For some reason, I happen to love knitting 2x2 ribbing. I think it has to do with my super-effective continental style of knitting. I barely have to change the position of anything to switch between knitting and purling, so ribbing is totally no big deal. I've been wanting a sweater like this for a really long time, but never found the pattern I wanted. I've now learned enough about the magic of top down knitting (especially from the Miss Honeychurch sweaters I knitted earlier this year) that I am able to design my own--yay! The ribs are a little wonky since I'm re-knitting the yarn, but I'm banking on it all smoothing out with a good soak and block at the end.

Today I made what I think must be my fourth or fifth dish out of Camilla Jensen's Bønner og linser. This one is called "Oreganofreste kikkerter," but since I didn't have any fresh oregano (and don't liked dried oregano very much) it ended up being Spisskummenfreste kikkerter" (cumin-sauteed chick peas):

The verdict was split. I loved it, KE thought it was just okay. I also made a thai green curry for dinner that got mixed reviews. That I just winged, but I realized half way through that I was missing a couple of essential ingredients. I forgot about fish sauce, which I always used to use when I made green curry back in the US, and I also didn't have frozen green beans, so I had to substitute with frozen peas, which don't work nearly as well for my idea of a green curry.

Flink pike

Traumatized as I was by last night's attempt to follow a meme designed for earnest homeschooling stay-at-home mothers, I really had to make up for things today, and golly it turned out to be a fun day. It started out with the brilliant idea to use up the left over mashed sweet potatoes in the fridge for bread. I scanned my cookbooks but didn't find anything, so I went to the internet and found this recipe for "healthy" pumpkin bread. I had to modify it some, but not much. Here's the result:

I'm glad I took a picture, because it's already gone! It was really yummy, gaining the stamp of approval from E and his friend who was over playing, KE, and me. I had to make some modifications on the fly, so here's the recipe for my version:

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 1/2 or 2 cups (didn't measure) mashed sweet potatoes (could also use pumpkin)
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons of melted butter

Mix the dry ingredients first, then add the wet. Pour into a bread pan lined with baking parchment, and bake for 1 hour in a 175 degree (celsius) oven. E did most of the mixing, which I think he actually really likes doing.

After baking, E and I ran some errands. We stopped by the green grocers, dropped off outgrown clothing at the UFF bins, picked up some staples at the grocery store, and did some fun shopping at the Kiwanis barn again. They're open from 10-12 on Tuesdays, so it's not often I can make it. I scored a great set of glass mixing bowls (kind of like this). It was missing one bowl, and when I got home I discovered that one of the two glass bowls we already have is the missing link, and it's even originally from the same set. Woo-hoo!

As if that wasn't enough domesticity, I also did a bunch of laundry and made a huge batch of hummus (recipe from Camilla Jensen's Bønner og linser, my current favorite cookbook) :

That's a full sized dinner plate. You're probably thinking it looks like cottage cheese. It's very lumpy because I mashed the chickpeas by hand with a potato masher. I still have a ton of chickpeas left over. I may try to put together a salad with the rest. The hummus isn't the best I've ever tasted, but I consider it a pretty decent first effort.

The universe rewarded me for my efforts. My good friend L from back in Eugene sent me a box of yarn from her stash! It was such a treat to open up the package and find:

Score!

En enkel kvinne

Every once in a while I come across some internet meme that both irritates me and piques my interest. The internet is so full of blogs written by frustrated housewives who use them to create an ideal public persona. I find them both fascinating and ... oh, I don't know, sad? Delusional? Sweet? Apparently there's something called the simple woman's daybook, which gives a kind of template to nudge them in the right direction. I thought I'd give it a try (things in bold are the template):
FOR TODAY

• Outside my window... Rain, granite, moss, a volunteer cherry tree, a broken ten speed, a rotting medicine cabinet, and raspberry brambles.

• I am thinking... About what a difference there is between the days when I'm "on" intellectually and when I'm "off."  Today I'm dead off.

• I am thankful for... I'm not really the thankful type. I know that sounds mean, but really I (and virtually everyone I know or know of) am so incredibly and overwhelmingly privileged that it seems fantastically arrogant to go around listing everything. I wouldn't even know where to begin to quantify my privilege. Plus, being the unrelenting atheist that I am, I don't have a transcendent being to address my feelings of gratitude to, and I don't think the people suffering in sweat shops around the world want my thanks so much as they want a living wage, safe conditions, healthy families, and peace.

• I am wearing... A wool sweater under my down comforter and over my pajamas. My nose is still cold.

• In the learning room... Oh, I get it. This is a thingy for homeschooling moms. Whoops. No wonder it's not quite my vibe.

• I am remembering... Being 19.

• I am creating... More gibberish to add to the enormous stream of data on the internet. Also, I am onto the third attempt to knit a wearable sweater out of a bunch of green Rauma finull. It is a testament to the durability of that yarn that I have knitted and unravelled two sweaters using the exact same yarn, am now knitting it up yet again, and it shows absolutely no signs of wear. Wow.

• I am going... to have to not knit tomorrow. I think I overdid it today, and my hands will need a rest.

• I am currently reading... The articles in Otto Hageberg's old anthology, Omkring Peer Gynt. 

• I am hoping... That I'll be able to get some writing done this week.

• On my mind... Gah, this is getting just way too redundant.

• Noticing that... Doing a meme takes much longer than just writing a blog entry. And that I've had to pee for the last half hour or so.

• Pondering these words... "Hans Hjærne var stor og ubrukt." (His brain was large and unused). Knut Hamsun describing Isak in Markens Grøde. 

• I am hearing... Tinnitus.

• From the kitchen... Over the course of today: oatmeal, leftover stir-fry, pancakes, toast, plain rice and boiled vegetables. No sauce. No condiments. Nothing fancy. Not my finest hour.

• Around the house... We don't really have all that much stuff, but what we do own appears to be strewn in every imaginable spot and in a totally random pattern.

• One of my favorite things... Definitely my ball winder. And most definitely worth the 350 Swedish kronor I paid for it, even though I thought the price was outrageous at the time!

• A few plans for the rest of the week: make it through the long days with E without being too cranky. Do laundry. Revise the chapter draft.

• Here's a picture thought I am sharing...

Not sure quite what is meant by a "picture thought," but this image has been haunting me since I ran across it in the National Library photo archives last week.

Source:  Galleri NOR

Photographer: Anders Beer Wilse
Place: Dovre, Dovrefjell; Dovre, Svånådalen
Date: 1915

So, did you learn anything about me you didn't already know? I am nothing if not consistent.

Høst

It's been a while since I could open a blog post with a finished object reveal. I'm very excited with the end result of the aran pullover from that ancient copy of Vogue Knitting that I've had forever:

The cowl neck is a little over powering, but otherwise this is a pretty ideal use of this free yarn. It's a much more interesting and fun project than the hourglass sweater, and the perfect thing to bundle up in as the temperatures and leaves start to drop.

I have to confess that I rather impulsively started on a new project last night. After a long haul of finishing work on the aran I couldn't bear to pick up the Fanakofte just yet. I'll blog the new project once I have something interesting to show. In the meantime, today I did dutifully start working on the Fanakofte. It's been so long since I even looked at it that I have to repost my list of the remaining finishing work. Here it is, updated with today's efforts:

1. sew down the hems (one sleeve and the body)
2. sew in the yarn ends (both sleeves and body)
3. sew machine seams for the armhole and front steeks
4. cut the steeks
5. knit the shoulders together 
6. pick up and knit the neckline 
7. sew down the hem around the neckline
8. pick up and knit buttonhole and button bands
9. sew down the hems of the button and button hole bands
10. sew around each buttonhole
11. buy buttons
12. sew on buttons

Gulp.

The only other productive things I've done this weekend are some writing on the book chapter (it now has a much better structure, and has filled 27 pages!), and some matauk. There's a scraggly old apple tree way off in one of the hidden corners of our yard that I always forget about. Yesterday KE gathered the remaining apples, and this morning I diced most of them up and froze them in six-cup (pie) portions. It ended up being 24 cups of apples, plus a few of the biggest and nicest ones that I set aside for eating now:

I always feel so darned virtuous when I am able to do something with food sources like this. Next year I want to be even better about gathering stuff from our own yard.

This coming week may be a little trying. E is home all week from school for høstferie, but KE will be in class as usual, so it will just be E and me, with no real plans. The weather has turned rainy too, so I'm not quite sure how possible it will be to get him out doing things. It will definitely be a challenge!