Day Six: Clapotis Scarf
Originally uploaded by meliass.

It’s forty some inches in length. At the rate I’m going, I’ll finish it in a few days. Just in time for the yarn for the boyfriend’s afghan to arrive in the mail. I think the afghan will be a much longer in-progress period as I anticipate getting bored while knitting it.

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Day Four: Clapotis Scarf (wrong side)
Originally uploaded by meliass.

Here’s the wrong side of the scarf. I love the bubbly dropped stitches. People on the internet have complained that knitting this is boring. I rather enjoy it. Especially with a yarn like Silk Garden that changes colors all the time.

I think I shall take a day off from knitting tomorrow. I wonder if that will actually happen.

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End of Day Two: Clapotis Scarf
Originally uploaded by meliass.

I’ve completed the first of 13 straight row repeats. That’s a lot of knitting. But I did successfully drop my first row. Yay!

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All of my bacon stitch markers together
Originally uploaded by meliass.

Is it weird that I keep buying stitch markers related to this theme?

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Day Two: Clapotis Scarf
Originally uploaded by meliass.

I’ve knit nearly to the end of the increase rows section. I didn’t knit a swatch but I’m fairly close to gauge (not that I care about stuff like that!). I’ve also left out one repeat of the increases. My Clapotis will be slightly smaller than the norm…but that’s okay.

Thus far I’ve not used a whole skein of the Silk Garden. If it continues at this rate, I’ll have a skein or so left over. Or I could make mine longer than the pattern?

I’m proud of my progress at the barely 24 hour point. Especially when you realize that I worked 10 hours at the restaurant today.

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Clapotis scarf cast-on
Originally uploaded by meliass.

It took me hours to get this far with it. Lots of casting on and ripping out. I finally figured out all of the stitches and think this is right. More progress will follow soon. I’m sure this will be my knitting obsession for a while.

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That’s a m-f’ing boat, of course. The boyfriend just came up with that. This scenario sounds as odd as snakes on a plane.

What I really forgot to post is that I get to see David Sedaris live in Richmond in early October. I’m very excited. Even if I will be the 5th wheel with 2 couples in attendance. The only thing funnier than reading a David Sedaris book is hearing him read his own stories. Anyone that hasn’t read any of his books or heard him on NPR should be ashamed of themselves. He’s so damned funny.

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I’m hot. And tired. It’s been a long week. It started with 2 days of bartending while managing. The first day was fine…moderately busy but nothing too bad. The second day, Thursday, was a madhouse. I only had 4 servers working outside with me (when there should be five) and I was attempting to be the manager and the bartender. I did a good job with the latter (a great job, even) and not so great with the former. Fortunately the general manager helped out a lot. He even helped with the stuff I don’t (can’t) do…namely, oyster shucking. The kitchen won’t teach me how to shuck them as they’re afraid that I’ll hurt myself. They’re probably right…so I don’t argue about it.

Anyway, it was a zoo. We were a server short, sort of a manager short and had live music. I didn’t get home until nearly 1 a.m. when we closed at 11 p.m. But I shouldn’t complain…I made lots of extra money that night above my salary. Plus I write the schedule…we just didn’t expect it to be so busy that night. I miss bartending and serving sometimes…I feel so much more confident doing that than I do managing a lot of the time.

So those were just the first 2 days of my week. I should also mention that I have only about 5 or 6 specifically outdoor restaurant servers right now. So I’ve been seeing a lot of them. By Saturday night, we were all loopy. Everytime some of us walked into the kitchen, there was some yelling about “snakes on the m-f’ing plane”. We couldn’t help ourselves. It eased the stress. This may be part of the reason I love working in a restaurant so much.

Tonight was better…the first slow night in 5 days. I had the same staff on as last night and every single one of us wanted it to be slow. And it was. It was glorious. Especially after not leaving the restaurant until 1:30 a.m. last night.

I’ve not done much knitting since my vacation ended…I’ve been too pooped from work. But I am awaiting the return of appropriate size needles to begin the Clapotis scarf from knitty.com. I’m anxious to start it. While killing time late last night waiting for the kitchen to finish their cleaning, I printed the pattern for the Clapotis and laminated it. I love laminating. It might be one of my favorite at-work activities. I look forward to changing my table tents each month and getting to creat newly laminated ones. I may have to buy my own laminator someday.

And a label maker. That’s my other favorite at-work toy. I had to label everything on the server side of the kitchen at work. I had fun. I also got a little carried away…there’s a label for the spot where the fan lives. And a label for where the Gatorade cooler goes. I wanted to label everything…like the door, the ice machine, the refridgerator and such. But I stopped with the fan and the Gatorade…before they thought I was being a smartass.

Hmmm…I tend to babble while blogging. Or maybe I just babble anyway.

Tomorrow is our summer employee appreciation party. I’ve dreaded it…I did my part buying decorations and prizes. I’m actually off of work tomorrow and the general manager said I didn’t have to really work during it…I could just enjoy myself. This made me very happy.

Then on Tuesday, the boyfriend and I are going – at his request – to see X & The Rollins Band at The Norva. It will more than likely be a little loud for me but he wants to go for X. And that’s fine…we’ll go eat German food at The Bier Garden in Portsmouth first. Yummy.

So I’ve got two activity packed days off ahead of me. Then it’s back to work on Wednesday. Bartending and managing at once. While attempting to write the first week of W&M classes schedule.

I guess that’s it for the second.

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Yet I sit here enjoying a green apple Jolly Rancher from said bag. After looking at this ridiculous bag of candy at Target for a month, I allowed the boyfriend to purchase it. Let the crazy eyes from the sugar highs begin. I’ve begun hiding the bag so that we won’t eat too many of them at once.

Nothing too exciting to report. I returned to work yesterday from another 9 days of vacation. Yet again, I didn’t actually go on a vacation. I just did very little for 9 days. It went by too fast. Being lazy is easy. I did have the good fortune of taking a week off when it was hellaciously hot. Good fortune? What? By being off, I didn’t have to spend the days at The Taphouse sweating my ass off. Instead I got to sit on my ass in the frigid air conditioning.

At any rate, I feel a little refreshed at work again…despite it being the bad time of year where half of the staff leaves all at once and I get to write the schedule. Thus far it isn’t quite as bad as last August was…but it’ll get worse when school starts and everyone has a meltdown. Fortunately we haven’t hired too many grad students yet…they seem to be the first to crack when school starts. Wish me luck with the schedule writing.

A lot of the staff appears to have missed me while I was off. I think 5 or 6 people hugged me for no reason today. Others kept doing silly things to make me laugh whenever I saw them. It’s nice to be loved. Which reminds me that 2 of the servers told me they loved me today. Awww.

Have I mentioned that Williamsburg now has a Thai restaurant? We’ve been twice thus far. It was dreadfully slow at dinner but the lunch crowd was good…with luck it will be around for a while. At least I hope so…because it’s good. Damn, we haven’t been yet this week. Perhaps I’ll drag the boyfriend out for lunch tomorrow or Friday before I go to work. Much to my chagrin (ha!), the Thai restaurant is across the street from my local yarn store. It’s going to be hard to resist going in there whenever we go for Thai food. What could be better than a yummy lunch and some yummy yarn? Learning to knit may have been a bad idea…a bad costly idea.

On the yarn front, I need to go to Walmart or Michaels or Ben Franklin or something to find some Sugar ‘n Cream cotton yarn. I’m itching (or not…because it’s cotton!) to make some of the dishcloths in Mason-Dixon Knitting. I found a set on a blog the other day in chocolate brown and turquoise…they were gorgeous. I’d love to make some in brown and royal blue to match my blue Kitchenaid mixer.

It’s 1:30 am and am I tired? Heck no. I can’t sleep this early. My schedule is so skewed…I’ve only been awake for 12 hours…how could I possibly sleep anytime in the near future. This is why it’s not quite dark when I go to sleep each night. I should have been a vampire.

I’ve found new fall shoes that I love…now I need to order them. Or perhaps see them and try them on in person to make sure that they fit me. But they’re Borns. Those seem to fit me well. They’re Born Marionette shoes…a wing-tip, t-strap heel. I love love love them. Plus I have to have the heel in the fall/winter because none of my pants will look right otherwise…damned short legs.

I guess that’s it for now.

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Yarns for my next felted purse
Originally uploaded by meliass.

I need to break down and purchase a yarn winder and a swift. In the interim, I’ve found that a Michelob Ultra beer bottle works really well for winding a center pull ball. Doesn’t the green yarn look nicely wound?

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