HAT! ...and other ramblings...

I made a hat! And it fits my head!! I apparently have a very large head...too much stuff in my brain I guess. I'm relatively happy with it as an FO. It is reasonably good looking and it will serve its purpose well. I have to admit I'm not much of a hat person so that is kinda affecting my level of excitement about it...but here it is my Meg Griffin Hat:Looking at this picture I'm just now seeing how lopsided my glasses are...I should probably try to fix that a bit before Friday. Although in all honesty I'm not sure how long these glasses will stay on...see...I'm one of the fortunate few who does not have any significant visual acuity problems, my glasses are for reading purposes only. This means that when I'm wearing them I generally can't see things more than 3 feet from my face with any real clarity...which is bothersome because I actually have pretty good vision.

In other news, I'm enjoying my week in the nursery a lot. The babies are adorable...and they do hilarious things like sneeze so hard they send a jet of poop all over myself and my resident...and then the little guy peed on me too. Some of the moms are a little bit militant/crazy but that's to be expected...I mean they just carried these little guys around for 9 months and who the hell am I to want to look at their precious little bundle of joy? I say that with some degree of irony...I mean I get that mom wants to protect her baby from the medical student, but how does she think the doctor learned how to do this...magic? The doctor wouldn't send me in if she didn't think I was fully competent to do the exam and no harm the kiddo. I'm by no means saying that I'm entitled to learn from/on these babies...I'm just saying there's no need to be nasty about it when I introduce myself. Last night I was on call in the NICU...which was interesting. Premature babies with giant nasal cannula attached to their face are quite possibly the cutest/funniest looking things ever.

What will I be knitting next? I think I'll just bide my time until November 1st to start my February Lady. I have a fair amount of studying I can and should be doing so it's not like I'll be lacking for things to do. Happy knitting all!!

Craziness

Clearly I am crazy...there's really no other way I can explain this. I mean what medical student in their right minds would make such a commitment?! But I did it...I signed up. What on earth am I talking about? I have selected the famous February Lady Sweater (as discussed in my last post), I have measured myself...rather than just guessing what size I should make, and I have swatched. I got gauge on my Harmony US8s, and I've selected the Large size to accommodate the mammaries and I will now wait rather impatiently for November 1st so that I can cast on.In the meantime I will be busting my ass to finish my Halloween hat...how on earth did it managed to be a measly 5 days from Halloween? Uncalled for I say! Better get to it! Happy knitting everyone!

Thoughts on Practicality

As we all know, the February Lady Sweater has taken the knitter-verse by storm. Everyone and their grandma is making one (over 2000 projects and in over 6000 queues on Ravlery). I have to admit that I am very eager to make one myself. It's simple and lovely and professional and knitterly all at the same time. I can actually see myself wearing it on a semi-regular basis...although probably not while I'm wearing my white coat but only because that horrible piece of polyester is a marvel of heat conservation. I dream of making this lovely garment! (Actually I have no idea if I dream about it...the last dream I remember having involved a somewhat exciting trauma coming into the ER and my getting to do something other than stand in the corner and get in the way...yet another sign that med school is slowly destroying my brain) The point of all this being that I'm just not all that excited about knitting my Pimlico Shrug. Even the thought of knitting on the giant rectangle that turns into a garment after some clever seaming and endless amounts of ribbing makes me want to find something else to knit. Although when I put it that way is it any wonder I don't want to knit on it? So after a little bit of double checking and some serious consideration I think I'm going to rip my 1.25 repeats of the lace pattern for the Pimlico Shrug and re-assign this yarn to the February Lady Sweater. Because after all...what's the point of knitting something for myself if I a) won't enjoy the process and b) won't get much use out of the end product.

In other news, I am chugging along on my Halloween hat...no pictures because I'm lazy. I'm almost done with the endless stockinette...another inch and a half or so...then the decreases. The second Dorky Sock has been cast on...I think I knit all of 2 rows of the ribbing before I decided to do something more entertaining. My Lacy Scarf is in limbo...I'm also questioning the practicality of this knit...and seriously considering ripping it back as well. Not sure what I would do with the yarn instead...but I think actually knitting a pair of socks from it might not be a bad idea...some relatively simple ones so that I don't need to cart a chart around with me. As you can see...lots of thinking and not a whole lot of knitting. But I have another shelf in 2 weeks...so that's not likely to change all that much in the near future. What are your thoughts? Am I the only one falling out of love with her projects? Happy knitting all!!

Pilgrimage

I made my pilgrimage to Yarn Mecca...and I returned with 5 delicious balls of this:I am now faced with a bit if a conundrum as to what exactly what I want to do with it. Anyone have any suggestions for approximately 500 yards of DK weight superwash merino? I was hoping for a short-sleeved cardigan or something but I think my bust is not going to let that happen (one of the few times I will lament the reasonably ample assets God gave me). I'm sure I'll figure something out...in the mean time I plenty else to knit...and I can continue to pet it...mmmmm...merino...*drools...not on the yarn of course*

What about my knitting? I've made a fair bit of progress on the hat...a good 5 inches of stockinette so far...another inch and half or so before I start the decreases...this hat may very well be finished by the end of the weekend. No other progress since I NEED to get this hat done where as everything else is a labor of love or one sort or another. Back to the studying...shelf exam in three weeks!! Happy knitting all!!

All Hallow's Eve

There comes a time in a girl's life when she is invited to a Halloween party. If she is a crafty girl of meager means she will often look to her closet for inspiration...and her local Walmart for yarn to complete the costume.

And so it came about, after being invited to "the biggest med school shit-show ever" by one of my good friends that I was in need to a pink hat. You see...being rather poor I decided to see what I could make into a costume from what was already in my closet. I had jeans, a pink t-shirt, and brown shoes...I decided to go as Meg Griffin from Family Guy. (Shameless hyperlinking included for those who don't know who that is) All I needed was black rimmed glasses and a pink hat. I rummaged around my room a bit and found my own black rimmed glasses, and looked at my stash (via Ravelry...God Bless Jess and Casey) and realized I didn't have anything of a suitable color pink. So off I went to my local Walmart to get the cheapest most obnoxiously pink yarn I could find. After a little bit of trial and error I settled on a pattern and got to work. Right now it looks more like a ruffled triangle...but it's gonna be a hat I promise. Since it's just stockinette for the first 7 inches or so I can knit while I'm reading...which is always a bonus. I *should* be able to complete this by Halloween...barring disaster of course...and after that I will have to find something else to do with all this hot pink sport weight yarn...perhaps some baby hats. Off to continue studying about how to treat the illnesses of the little ones. And remember folks; babies are not just little adults!

Being Productive

As of right now there are many reasons why I love my Peds rotation...not the least of which being the amount of knitting that I've gotten done in the past week. I finished a sock, made a couple tribbles, and started on my Pimlico shrug. Seriously.

That is the first of my Dorky socks...I love them. As for the shrug...well I opted to go for a different pattern for the body of the shrug...mostly because I found the written pattern to be way too much effort for how simple it looked. So I give you my first repeat on the shrug:
Just a simple Diamond Eyelet pattern from Super Stitches Knitting...but I'm loving it to death so far. I was basically looking for something that was interesting to look at, wouldn't look silly upside-down or on it's side, and wasn't too complicated to knit...So far this meets all those criteria.

Other things that I love about my Peds rotation:

• The kids...seriously...I love little kids, and somehow I'm finding the sick kids unbearably cute...although this probably has something to do with the fact that when I'm done I get to give them back to Mom and leave the room
• My intern wears a bow-tie...need I say more?
• I'm generally kept pretty busy during the day without being overwhelmed (little secret...compared to surgery I feel like I'm not doing anything all day)
• Any time I'm asked to look something up I can generally find an answer in under 10 minutes...no more searching for hours for statistics that don't exist on incredibly rare diagnoses!!
• I got home at 2PM today...nice change from the 5AM to 7:30PM life I was living before. And it's not like I didn't do anything today. I pre-rounded, went to a conference, did walking rounds with the attending where I presented my two patients, wrote a progress note on one of my patients (we weren't sure he was definitely going home today) and wrote the discharge note on the patient I knew was definitely going home, went to another conference, and then wrote a discharge summary on the other patient in case he did actually go home later today...I like that I can be efficient and get my work done and not have to find something to make me look busy.

Things I don't love so much about Peds:

• There is no OR...I miss the OR horribly. At this point I'm thinking Pediatric surgery as a career...hopefully I'm smart enough to get into one of the 30 spots in...6+ years.
• I have a lot of weekend call (I was on call all day yesterday and I'll be on call again on Friday).
• I got home at 2PM today...there was nothing else for me to do...the gunner in me is distressed by this.

I hope that all of you are enjoying your knitting as much as I am. And for those of you who enjoy the cooler weather I'm happy for you. I'm not so happy that the house I'm living in is currently approx 60F. I just checked the thermostat...I am not lying...that is the current temp INSIDE my house. One of the other girls supposedly asked for the heat to get turned on...but I'm not too optimistic (UPDATE: I have heat!! The only problem is that one of my floormates either doesn't understand ow thermostats work or wants us all to die in a fire...I felt like my room was getting way too hot, when I looked at the thermostat in the signficantly cooler hallway it was set to the max of 90-something and the current temp was 72...I turned it down. I mean...I don't want to die in a fire...I think that's reasonable). Ah well...that's what sweaters and afghans are for...right? Happy knitting everyone!!

PS - I don't want to sound whiny about the temp...I know that there are many people who can't afford to heat their homes and they survive in much lower temperatures throughout the winter. And that doesn't even cover the homeless people throughout the country who sleep outside in the dead of winter. I know that I am relatively privileged...but that doesn't make me any less cold...and I have a mild form of Raynaud's so I don't have a very good tolerance for cold.

PPS - One of my readers mentioned in the comments on my last post that she lived in these houses once and she had a hard time getting the heat turned on when it was below freezing. This is why I am not optimistic about the heat coming on when it's *only* dropping down into the low 40s overnight. However, it is my understanding that living conditions in these houses have improved significantly over the past year...we have internet and stoves now!! We also supposedly have cable for the TV in the living room downstairs...but I haven't watched any TV yet to confirm that for myself.