Tecrin tries.. Knitting!

You didn't believe me, did you? Well, pah, I bring you proof! Four fuzzy rows of knit stitch after knit stitch!

I was bored yesterday, so I took out my trusty 'Knitting for Dummies', opened its barely-touched-pages, cast on, and started to knit. Row 1 took me AAAAAAGES. All afternoon, almost. (although I must add, this was with long intervals in which I pretended to study.) Then row 2 went slightly quicker. I at one point even made some clicking noises with my needles while trying to keep up the pace and nearly squee-ed with happiness. I clicked! My needles! OOOO!
Row 3 was dropped halfway through the row because I was needed for some heroics in WoW (Been levelling a paladin, more on that after this), and then picked up again this morning, and row 4.. I just finished. Look ma, I'm knitting! I'm thinking of simply ploughing on with this until I know how to do this properly, and make a little pouch from the fabric I made so it'll not go to waste.
I still have no idea what kind of yarn this stuff is, though, but it's terribly fuzzy and making my cheeks itch when I work with it. But that may also just be my hair hanging in the way. I need a haircut. Bad.

Right, so, some WoW-related news too: I levelled a paladin, she's called Nyxi and has been my go-to toon for the last few weeks now. She's a tankahealadin, meaning (for you non-WoWers out there) that she's both a tank (taking the hits from a mob) and a healer (making sure whoever is taking hits from a mob isn't getting killed) and so far, I like both, I'm even not sure which one I like better. I mean, tanking is fun! You get to control the pace, you have to make sure that everyone, including the mobs you want to kill, know that you are in control of the whole thing, and make sure that whenever someone taunts a mob off you, you pull it straight back. But healing is also awesome! You literally have another player's life in your hands, it's all up to you. It took me a while to get the whole healing thing right, because the addon I installed refused to work. (healbot, for those interested. I heard it's great, and it worked for one evening, but it's just not doing anything anymore...) So, with the help of some of my wonderful guildies, I made some mouse-over macro's, and with the help of my trusty Naga, I improved my healing quite a bit. Awesome.
Also, guild-related: Vintage downed Sindragosa last week and moved on to the Lich King. Hopefully we'll get him down tonight, so we can start on hardmodes. Also, we've decided to start on getting Ulduar done (we never got all the way up to Yogg. I know.) and I'm hoping to coax my guildies into finishing Trial of the Champions heroic too.

In other news, remember how I was all excited to start growing my own veggies and herbs on one of my balconies? And how stuff (literally, balconies full of stuff) got in the way and how I didn't go trough with it? No? Well, now you do.

I was a bit miffed, to say the least, that I had to postpone my plans to next year or something, but was so excited when I found this at my supermarket:



It's a baggie of grow-your-own basil! Comes with a little packet of seeds, and the paper bag you see here filled with dirt, and you just throw in the seeds, and give it a little water every day, and bam! fresh, homegrown basil, right there in my kitchen window! It makes me happy just looking at it!

In other, other news, after complaining about the stupid scaffolding ruining my view, they started taking it down yesterday. Yay! My view is back to pretty! Here's the view from my study window.



Waving, green, sea of trees.. Hmm... Niiiice...

Anyway, that is all.

Feel good hit of the afternoon

Yep. That helps.

Caged in

GAH, I've been so uninspired these past few weeks, it's driving me insane! The nice weather we had last week was nice, but we're once again back to dreary, wet, annoyingly gloomy, which also isn't helping.. And then there's this:



As if I needed more restricting bars in my life. Now they've even taken away my view. Stupid construction workers.

My thesis? Going nowhere. Very disappointed in my supervisor. He's not emailing me back. I've been thoroughly slacking in the secondary lit department too, since I neglected to go and pick up the books I ordered from the library. I'm lost at the moment, trying to figure out what the hell my thesis should be about anyway... One of those days, indeed.

My health? Down the drain... I'm trying to eat healthier, excercise, get fresh air, you know, the works.. And I seem to feel worse every day. Might have something to do with the previous point. And a lack of sleep.

My house? A mess. No, seriously. You should see my desk. In fact, I'll show you a sneak peek.



See? Like something ate a whole lot of paperwork and went SPLLOOOOIEEEE all over my desk. (Yep, that's my breakfast. I had nothing else to drink...)

My crochet-work? Has been a bit meh. I've made a number of those hexagons, and this.



Not my best work. But this is more of a prototype anyway, I think I might try this again with some pretty beads. The concept is so simple, there must be something nice I can do with it to make it actually wearable. And yes, indeedy, that's indeed the same cotton yarn I used for the hexagons. That's how I roll.. I think of stuff to do, keep some yarn near by, and go for it. And then return to the previous project to find out that my outbursts of sudden crocheting has cost me so much yarn that I can't finish that project.

My cooking? I've been on a bread-making groove these past few weeks. Results have varied, but last week I made my best work so far: yummie homemade focaccia bread! Here's how my dinner that night looked:


(my sincerest apologies for the fuzzy picture. I was hungry.)

I made cajun chicken (simply take some chicken breasts, pound 'em up a bit so they're nice and flat-ish and easy to cook up, and put a hell of a lot of cajun spices all over 'em. Really lay it on. It's heavenly. Really.), cut it up in little strips, then put pesto, chicken, tomato, basil leaves and mozarella on the baked focaccia and put them back in the oven for 3 minutes, while eating the last bits of chicken that didn't fit on the two loaves anymore. Awesome. Divine. Making me hungry just thinking of it. Might try it next time with some baby spinach or lettuce after it comes out of the oven the second time, for a green touch. And I need to find a way to make my herbs and salt stick on top of the loaves better, it kept falling right off when we cut open the loaves (or, when the boyfriend cut open the loaves while I stood by watching. Those things were hot.)


So yeah. Now you know what I've been up to since the last post. Now if you'll excuse me, I think that's a mountain of laundry I hear calling my name. *sigh*

Busy, busy bee..

It's been a busy, busy week over here! I finally got an email back from my potential thesis-supervisor, but no definite yes on the supervising thing so I still cannot start with my MA thesis. Grmblgrr. In other words: When I wasn't working, I spent the last week or so looking up secondary lit, browsing books to talk about in my thesis, putting together a Plan de Campagne, searching for quotes I could use...

And crocheting hexagons.



I used this pattern from the Fairysteps knits blog, which is very easy once you get the hang of it. I sat around behind my laptop, watching episodes of Supernatural/Vampire Diaries/Bones/House/Gossip Girl, hook in hand, crocheting away... Blissfully forgetting the fact that I was supposed to do more research/laundry/clean up the house/ work out...

Also, but that was last week (geesh, I'm behind on my blogging!), I made these cuties for Mother's Day to give to my mother and my sort-of-mother-in-law. (what? we're not married!)



They were a hit! They were jummy! I had three and could almost skip dinner, they were that good!

And that was all. Now, if you'll excuse me, I believe I have some more research to do.. Who needs a supervisor, anyway?!

Mother's Day is on its way

Me: "What do you want for Mother's day, mum?"
Mum: *flicks through pictures on my camera* "Oooh, those chocolate cupcakes look amazing!"
...
Mum: "What did you say?"
Me: "never mind... I think I've got an idea.."

Cupcakes and fondant hearts it is!