scifiknitter

I've held myself a bit apart from the hoopla surrounding the inauguration today, but last night I started to get into the spirit. It's hard not to respond to joy, especially when I have a share of that joy myself. I am not an optimistic person - never confuse the cheerfulness of the moment with hope for the long term. The problems we face as a nation, as a planet, are so large. I am certain that one man cannot solve them. Not alone. My joy comes from the mature response that seems to be part of the hope that surrounds me. People seem to understand that there is a lot of work to do ahead. I'm off to do my part. There is a board meeting in two days for which I am expected to have financial reports and resolutions that will close the financial records for 2008. I am not there yet. I can hope that at the end of the day today, I will be ready to analyze the balances. And move forward with all of us.

I am having some difficulties with organizing my time now that I no longer have grad school assignments and deadlines. I'm blogging less as well, even though in theory I have more time to write. My theory: blogging was a way of stealing time for myself in a schedule that was overfilled with obligation. I am in the process of reinventing how I use my time. I have a one word New Year's resolution this year: "timely". To me, that means more than meeting deadlines. It means getting where I need to be slightly early whenever possible. It means being as attentive to ending the workday as I am to beginning it, leaving myself adequate time for my life away from the office desk. It means learning how to use my time for myself in addition to the benchmarks I must meet for others. I am finding this to be more difficult than I had imagined. It may take me much of a year to realize one word in my life.

Cat Bordhi's book New Pathways for Sock Knitters is a feast of possibility if socks are your thing. She features eight sock architectures, each interpreted in several different ways, and each that solve the essential engineering challenge of the sock in a nontraditional way. The challenge of the sock? The leg and the ball of the foot are about the same diameter, but the sock needs more fabric at the joint, where foot and leg meet. Traditional sock designs add and then subtract the extra fabric at the ankles, in a triangular wedge called the heel gusset. One day, Bordhi rotated a partially completed sock around her foot, and noticed that the gusset form could be put anywhere on the foot, and the engineering still worked. The socks I blogged about recently, her "Spring Thaw" socks, adjust the sock width on the sole. The pair I just finished, "Tibetan Socks", make their adjustment on the top of the foot. These socks are knit with a double strand of sock yarn. I cho...

I found this questionnaire on another blog, and think it is a good one for looking back, and looking ahead. 1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before? I played video games for the first time - Guitar Hero with my daughter. A very silly new thing to do, but my daughter loves it when I play with her. I also started a public blog. With very little effort on my part to "market" the blog, it is starting to get quite a few hits. 2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I didn't really make any, other than the usual vows to eat right, get more exercise, lose a little weight, etc. None of which were accomplished for 2008... I am pushing the "Reset" button for 2009. 3. Did anyone close to you give birth? The coworker who comes closest to being a close friend had a baby girl in August, and another coworker had a baby boy in September. 4. Did anyone close to you die? No deaths this year. Thank goodness. 5. Di...