2 Years Later

I came here to create blog for one of my subjects and I noticed I last posted here two years ago! I wonder if anyone is still reading my blog. I didn’t deliberately stop blogging, I’ll do it tomorrow turned to weeks, that into words and now years!

The house finished and we moved in May 2011, yes it took that long!

I am still working in the same school, and I have been managing the school library since November 2010. I have started my Masters in Information Studies in summer of 2010, and I will hopefully be graduating this year. I am specializing in Children’s Librarianship, but I think I prefer a Young Adult Librarian role.

I have lost interesting in knitting and crocheting. GASP! I am not sure how that happened either. A bit like blogging just got away from me slowly. Working fulltime and doing the masters part time is basically sucking the life out of me so something had to go I guess. This shawl was the last thing I completed. It is knit in Wollmeise Laceweight yarn, and I really love it!

The last bit of change is that I lost weight, 20 kg (45 lb) to be exact. It took me a year to lose the weight and I have been maintaining it for another year now. I follow a low carb diet, in case anyone wants to know. Here is a an “after” photo. You can check out the rest of the blog for the “before” shots.

 

That’s all for now. Not sure when I will be blogging here again, probably when I start knitting and crocheting!

In the meantime if anyone is interested in my ramblings about the library classes I will be blogging  at this address http://themuslimlibrarian.wordpress.com

tow february

I can describe the month in one word, “tired.” Most people who know me knows that I don’t go to bed before midnight unless I am sick. Lately I’ve been so tired I started going to bed around 9:30. We are short staffed at work, we are down one full time worker and another full time worker dropped to half time. That left me to do my own job plus the job of one and half workers in the library.
I barely turn on my computer these days or pick up a crochet hook or knitting needles. All I want to do is rest. I am feeling pretty good today so I decided to put together an entry recapping February.

The house hasn’t progressed much yet.

We now know we have off street parking which is great! We have a few glitches with plans and we are waiting on the never ending titling process.

We picked out our roof tiles and our house bricks.

We are also going to get some dark blue rendering on part of the house and have cedar look garage door and house door.

And the view from top of the area we are building in.

These are earlier stages so they have been completed a while ago.

I haven’t been spinning as much as I like. I have dyed and spun this yarn a while ago but I didn’t get a chance to knit it up to anything.

I spun it so it changes colour from blues to greens.

I made it into a hat.

And the top view

I knitted a baby set for one of ACA’s uni friend’s who recently became a dad. I mailed it to Turkey but I haven’t heard if they received it yet or not.

I forgot to take a photo of it in the day light, so I quickly snapped one with the flash before I wrapped them up.

I knitted the booties two at a time. Love magic loop!

This is technically from January but I forgot to blog about it! I finally finished the “shimmer shawl” that I started eons ago.

I knitted it with beautiful handspun yarn my friend spun just for me! Look how pretty the yarn is.

It really shimmers in the light from the silk in it.

Currently I am working on a pair of mitten’s for V. It is my ravelympics project. I have so little time to knit these mittens are growing in slow motion.

It is from yarn I have dyed some months back called Henna Night. V’s mum, Jess picked it out.
Speaking of Jess and V, they sent me a lovely box of goodies for Valentines day. Here’s me wearing the butterfly pin they sent me,

Loooove it!

Hermoine the builder!

tow house progress

Last weekend we went to check how our new house was coming along. In this post you can see what the land looked like back in October. And here it is now

(Sorry for the horrible photo. I forgot my mobile (that’s “cell phone” to my brother) at home so I used ACA’s phone to take the photo)

It is so much flatter! They blasted a lot of the rocks and filled up the road. ACA is standing on what will eventually connect to our driveway. It is so exciting to see the house getting built from scratch. We have so many decisions to make. We have to pick things like brick colour, mortar colour, roof tiles, the colour of the roof tiles, the garage door, the outside door kitchen tiles, counter type, cabinets, carpets, wall paint and on and on and on. It is nice to have choices but I am no interior designer and I am tempted to just tell to make everything blue. The next step in the house building process is for the land to get titled to us. Right now the whole area has one title and it needs to be divided up into individual lots and titles. Once we have the title of the land, then the construction can start. Exciting stuff!
ACA and I are not big on gardening. We are planning on a rock garden for our new house and maybe a small veggie patch for me to play with. The house we are now renting has a huge backyard. It is so big in fact that the owner has a permit to build another house there! We’ve been getting a lot of rain lately so the grass in the backyard has grown to alarming lengths. On our holiday break ACA and I decided to tame the yard. After moving the back yard (a three day process!) I was able to walk to the other end of the garden where there is a large tree. I noticed that the tree had fruit on it! Turns out this tree was a plum tree. Who knew?! Here is a photo of my “harvest.”

They tasted so sweet I couldn’t believe it! I promptly told ACA that I want fruit trees in our backyard as well. He said I don’t take care of plants. I said “I will take care of the ones that grow food for me!”
There is also a lonely lemon tree next to the plum tree and I noticed that was flowering.

I am hoping this means we might get some lemons from the tree. My father-in-law gave me some citrus fertilizer so I will put that around the tree. Heh, who knew I had a green thumb?!
I finished knitting and crocheting a couple of little things for my friend Jess’ daughter V. She’s the one I’ve been knitting socks for. This time around I also knit her a cardigan and crocheted an ear flap hat.
I call this pair “Cici Socks.” “Cici” is pronounced “gee-gee” and it is a childish word for nice.

I knitted these socks from the left over yarn I had from these socks I knitted for myself. I don’t think I’ve blogged about them before. The colour of the yarn is more true in this photo.

This pair is called “Nemo Socks.” The yarn used here is the very first yarn I hand dyed!

This is the “stay on hat” because the previous two hats I knitted for V refuse to stay on her head.

I later added a pompom to it. In my professional opinion an ear flap hat must have a pompom! This hat is to go with the “Helene for Cupcake” cardigan I posted about last time.
Cupcake is V’s nickname so I thought it would be appropriate to make her a cupcake.

I named the cupcake “V.” Creative huh?

Lastly here’s Hermoine, who deems any reading material I am interested in as the perfect resting place.

tow everything is ok

If I had a device that would update my blog as I wrote the posts in my head this blog would be updated rather more frequently.
Alas no such device exists, that I know of, so I have to do things manually.
As the title suggests life is going along just fine Elhamdulillah. ACA got acceptance to his Masters program while I got a rejection. It is ok though, I found a program I am more interested in that I will be applying next year. One of the schools I work at hired me to work next year full time. This is good news because soon we will be paying a mortgage. That was my mystery news a few posts back. We hadn’t told our landlord when I wrote the post so we were keeping it quiet. Now that the proverbial cat is out of bag, I can share it here. Since a lot of people are wondering, no I am not pregnant. But one of my dear co-workers is and we are so excited! We found out today that it is going to be a boy. And he will be born in fall, which means plenty of things for me to knit and crochet for the little dude!
I bought new shoes, which makes me very happy

And I crocheted a Mr. Tickles for a friend, which makes me really happy!

The arms have elastic in them for maximum tickling power.

Finished knitting Helena for my favourite cupcake, V.

Knitted a “Dolly” for another friend’s daughter.

The doll’s name is “Yildiz” meaning “Star.”
I dyed a three yarns inspired by my favourite summer fruits.
This one is mixed berry

This one is “Karpuz” (watermelon)

And this one was for my friend Amanda’s birthday called “Kremali Cilek” (strawberries and cream).

And just for fun a picture of me knitting when I was around eight.

That piece was supposed to be a headband but it never got finished. I stopped knitting after that effort and didn’t pick up yarn or sticks till I was twenty-two or so.

tow interweave crochet

Fall 2009 issue of Interweave Crochet magazine landed in my mailbox today. I looked at the front cover and squealed in delight!
This jacket is on the cover. (I took the photo from the IC website, here)

Love the frog closure, love the “chicken foot” stitch pattern, love the colour, and love the yarn. And what might the yarn be? Blue Sky Alpacas: Alpaca Silk. 50% silk 50% alpaca. In one word “YUM.” How much does it cost? $21 AUD a 50 gr skein. How many skeins do I need for my size? 14. 21*14 = $294 AUD. Add 8 dollars for shipping, I got myself a short sleeved cardigan that costs $300 AUD. And I don’t wear short sleeved cardigan, so figure a couple more balls for sleeves and I am broke. I would have a lovely cardigan though!

The other garment that I love from the magazine is this wrap sweater. (Again photo taken from the IC website)

I love wrap sweaters. They fit my figure beautifully and cover all the bits that needs covering. I like the scalopped edges of the sweater, and how the tie of the wrap is formed by the same scalopps. Made with the recomended yarn it would cost me about $175 AUD. It is still very expensive but compared to $300 it’s starting to look like a bargain. I wonder what I can substitute for Zitron Noblesse. I do want to make this sweater. Any ideas?

tow two years

Two years ago today I arrived in Australia. It took a while for me to adjust to this new country but now I am perfectly home in Australia. I have a happy comfortable home with ACA and my cat Hermoine. I have two jobs in a field I love. I have a wonderful group of friends, in real life, and online. Allah has been very kind to me and for that I am grateful.

tow coolness

On the weekend we bought a stand alone freezer and an evaporative cooler. Since it is October in the land of down under it is time to prepare for the summer. The freezer wasn’t a planned purchase. I’ve been wanting a freezer for a while because the freezer of the fridge is not enough for us. ACA plugged it in tonight after waiting for 24 hours. The waiting for 24 hours if the item is transported sideways thing is important. When we were in the US we bought a second-hand fridge. We didn’t know we weren’t supposed to plug it in right away and the fridge died on us. Not fun. I am now waiting for it to reach freezing cold temperature so I can transfer the meat in the fridge freezer over. What an exciting life I lead!
There is something super duper exciting happening in our lives. But I can’ t talk about that yet. I will give you a hint though,

Am I giving too much away?
I ordered Spin Control by Amy King last week. Today it was waiting at my door step when I came home.

Now that I got the basics of spinning I want to do more. I want to be able to spin a specific type of yarn for a project. I only flipped through it so I don’t know how good it is. But I am looking forward to reading it.

tow owies

I am clumsy. Actually that doesn’t even begin to explain it. I am the type that manages to twist her ankle while standing still. When we first got married ACA was amazed at the number of times I would bump my leg to the table, walk into a wall or smack my toe on the edge of the couch. Now he just comes over to check I am okay and goes away without much astonishment. When I was in uni I did manage a spectacular fall off a sofa I was sitting on by tipping it backwards. My roomate could not stop laughing so I had to wait for her to calm down while laying (or is it lying, I never know) with my legs sticking straight out and the sofa on my back.
I am not only clumsy I tend to make very, very stupid decisions. Yesterday I was going to puree some cauliflower in my food processor. After putting the cauliflowers in I realised I forgot to place the blade in place. Instead of taking out the cauliflowers and placing the blade in, I decided to nudge the cauliflowers while trying to pop the blade into place. I got a rather nasty cut on my middle finger because of that.
And today while covering books at the library I realised my scissors were sticky because of the contact paper residue. I decided to clean the scissors blade with my finger. For that I was awarded with a cut inside my finger.
And that’s how I ended up with two owies. At least I didn’t glue my head to my shoulder!

It could have been worse.

And congratulations to the newest Nobel Laureate, Mr. Obama! Here’s to a world without nuclear weapons.