Yay, New Year!

Yes, I am alive. In the moving, starting school, going on Christmas break with almost no internet availability and the fact that all pre-Christmas (and some post) free time was used to finish gifts, I have not blogged in awhile. But I am back! I had some enjoyable holidays, and I hope you did too!

So, what have I been up to? Well, there's the Christmas knitting. Socks, socks, more socks, and an Intricate Stag Bag turned pillow have been finished. Pictures you say? No, along with the blogging hiatus, I seem to have forgotten I owned a camera. Took it along with me for Christmas break, and took no pictures. Saw friends and family, finished a few awesome knits, my family got a new dog, I went to Niagara Falls with my bestest friend in the whole wide world, and took no pictures. I'm especially sad about the no pictures of my Stag Pillow. I wasn't impressed with the stranded knitting while knitting. Yes, you could see the picture, but it was lumpy and weird. However, once I blocked it, it was FREAKING AMAZING. Like seriously, I was amazed that I knit it. It looked hot, hot, hot, and blocking is now the love of my life. I never knew that blocking stranded projects could give you such amazing results. I thought only lace did such wonderful things when blocked. I now want to knit more and more stranded projects, just so I can block them. It's not my first stranded project, but the first one that was entirely stranded and made an image, instead of some geometric shapes running through a few rows.

Ah well.

In my first post of the new year, I will share with you my resolutions. My first one, non-knitting related, is to lessen the vending machine habit. I am currently living in campus housing which requires me to have an exorbitant amount of debit on my ID card. This money can only be used on campus in restaurants and vending machines. If you don't use it by the end of the quarter, you lose it. Even by the standards of overpriced campus food and the fact that I took the reduced plan, this is just under $100 per week to spend on food. I am at Lee's a lot, so I get good dinners often. To compensate, I buy Lee campus foods whenever possible and do the same for a few of my other friends. I also frequent the vending machines. Craving a sweet something? Twix bar and Cherry Pepsi. No time for breakfast? Chocolate chocolate chip muffin and chocolate milk, again from the vending machines. Pretty much at least once a day, I get stuff from the vending machines. Uses up money, which is great, but too much sugar and stuff. Wouldn't be bad if they had SoBe machines or semi-healthy stuff, but the choices are really not that good. This is especially bad because in a few short months, there will be little to no extras until my loans are paid off. Junk food is very expensive!

I'm also trying for fewer sweets and more healthy food in general. I'm a "yes, cake batter, Kit-Kats dipped in frosting and Mountain Dew is dinner" kind of person, whereas Lee is a "root beer is desert if and only if you've earned it" kind of person. He wants something sweet, he reaches for fruit or orange juice. I most certainly do not. He has a much healthier lifestyle, and it would be better for me to gravitate more towards his than him towards mine. So I'm not going with a set "I will not have junk food" or "I will limit calorie intake to..." because I know I'll break it. I'm the kind of person who will keep a bag of Lindt truffles tucked away for a long time because they're nice expensive chocolates, and then one day go on a binge and eat them all, simply because I've been saving them and ohmigodiwantoneNOW. The goal is not none, it is less. Much more reachable for me.

Knitting wise, I've only brought a small amount of stuff with me to school. Less than 1/3 of my stash, all of which is earmarked for certain things. The goal for the school year is to finish if not everything I brought (as I brought all the laceweight), then to finish everything that is currently started and not buy more yarn. I think that last bit will be broken, but it's for my mom's fiftieth birthday in a couple months. It's a present, and as long as the yarn doesn't stay in the bin until I leave, I can make that an exception. Right? I'm also trying a two steps forward, one step back until I've finished all the currently started projects. Right now, I am ever so close to finally finishing my MS3. I'm on the last clue. Then I will finish the SotS, which is also ever so close to completion, so I can start a stole for my grandmother's birthday. Two steps forward, my two stoles in progress finished, one step back, starting a new one for my grandmother. I want to make my mom a sweater, and to start that I want to finish the two in progress ones I have with me. One will be pretty simple, the 70% finished one I'm crocheting, Peasantry. I found the pattern in with the knitting stuff my sisters borrowed from me, so I can finish it now, yay! The other one is Blaze. The sleeves are done, but the gosh durn thing just has so many cable crossings that it takes awhile. I may substitute an amigurumi or socks as the second step forward so I can actually finish the sweater for my mom by her birthday! I have a bunch of socks I really want to start, but two steps forward...I'm trying to be strong about this one. I technically finished a pair of socks this month already, but since they were late Christmas presents, I'm trying really hard to not count it as a step forward. I just need to finish the sock on the needles and get another old one on before starting a new one!

Anyway, that's enough for now.

Next time (hopefully) finished, but unblocked MS3. Unblocked because I'm probably going to block it the minute I finish it tomorrow, so if I post before blocking, I'll post tomorrow. More posting is also a goal for the new year. I'm sure I can make that one, because nothing plus anything is more!