a belated epiphany

Ugh, now I remember why it is I don't do those spontaneous, spur-of-the-moment crazy road trip things anymore. I actually forgot I had to be at work at 7 this morning until it was almost midnight, and we were still in Watertown. Oops. How late did I get home? Let's just say that, well, on my way home from Casa du Bean (after we'd made our way home from Erin's, a journey on which we saw 7 snowplows headed in other directions but none going our way when we really could have used one), I passed a pretty bad accident on I-81 right by the mall. I passed it fairly soon after it happened, because it looked like the police had just gotten there, and there was still glass and debris all across the road, and about a minute later, I saw the ambulance headed toward the scene. That was at around 2:45 a.m. I passed by the wreck again on my way to work, and they hadn't even finished clearing the site yet. Yeah, I got about 3 hours' sleep. It was a pretty rough day at work. I'm so exhausted right now.

I have to say, tho', it's been a long time since I laughed as much as I did with Bean and Erin last night. I spend so much time by myself these days, I literally forget how much fun it can be hanging out with other people sometimes. Yay, girlfriends! (And yay for the Gristmill Restaurant in Parish, for being open 24 hours a day, so I didn't end up accidentally wetting Bean's car seat. I tell ya, we mocked the place when we gassed up there on the way up to W-town, but it was our savior on the way back down.)

I was so bad, tho' - I bought that yarn just so I'd have something to knit, but I ended up spending most of the night usurping Erin's computer (Georging, blogging, and just random surfing), so I didn't even get past casting on and knitting one row last night! That was probably for the best, however, as I used my down-time at work today to study the whole illusion-knitting concept and to deconstruct the chart by writing out the first part of the pattern line-by-line. And I get it now! It's neat! I want to try making my own illusion charts to knit! The skull pattern I worked up like, a year and a half ago (no, wait, more like two years ago now) would translate to illusion knitting very well, I think. It's not as wide as the Linux scarf, which, at 60 stitches wide, is sort of... well, a pain in the butt. It's going to take forever to finish, even if I skip the other half (the non-penguin part) of the illusion design. It's addictive, watching the picture emerge row by row; but it goes soooooo..... sloooowly...... Even more so because the Caron Simply Soft is so slippery on the (borrowed) aluminum needles I'm using - I am so afraid I'm going to drop a stitch or split the yarn (which I've done a lot so far), I have to slow my knitting down a bit. And since I knit at a snail's pace to begin with... It's like the Dr. Who scarf, another WIP it will take me ages to finish. That one's also 60 freaking stitches wide (tho' in lighter weight yarn on smaller needles). But I can knit on the Dr. Who scarf in the dark, if need be. The Linux scarf really requires a lot of my attention while I'm knitting (since, y'know, there's a chart to follow and all). I'm chipping away at it, tho'. I even... - whoa, I had a train of thought, there, but it just left the station without my mind on board. I nearly just fell asleep sitting upright. I think that's my cue to go to bed.

I had more bloggy stuff I wanted to cover today, but I guess it'll have to wait. Alas!