(no subject)

I have to confess myself displeased with Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab thus far. I placed an order with some Christmas money back in January, and am distinctly cranky about the speed and accuracy of information about my order that they've given to date.

I understood from their website that during busy periods it could take from 14-21 business days to prepare an order to shipping. That's annoying, but whatever. I knew, right? Well, I placed my order January 27, and when the order status on their website didn't update until February 16, I was all right with that. 14 business days! Well within scope. The order status updated to read "16 Feb 2009 - Order Shipped," which made me think (silly me), that they has SHIPPED MY ORDER ON FEBRUARY 16. So I started waiting for the package.

February 16 was a Monday. On Friday, February 20, I got an email from USPS informing me that they'd just received shipping notification that my order had a packing slip printed and was ready to ship. I don't know what the hell my order was doing from Monday until Friday, but I am a little crabby that their website was so inaccurate.

The package was only just delivered to the post office to start its journey on Monday, February 23.

I am just deeply annoyed by the inaccurate information on their website. One of my biggest pet peeves is being kept uninformed. If you have a URL to which people can go to track their order status, KEEP IT ACCURATE. Maybe you need a new status which is "ready to ship." I don't know, but telling people their orders are shipped a week before they are in the hands of the USPS is really not okay. I know I wasn't exactly a big spender, but their stuff is expensive and a real risk, and I'm kind of anxious to know whether I just totally wasted my 20-odd dollars.

Bah. Unless their stuff is set-my-world-on-fire awesome, I think I'm not going to do this again ever.

Musings on My Last Post

I have got to stop writing LJ posts while listening to Jane Austen on audiobook, because it is infecting my writing style.

(no subject)

This is the season of overwhelming fatigue for me.

Winter is almost over, and I'm so tired of it, but I know real spring is still weeks away, and it is too cold to play much outside. There aren't really any holidays to look forward to, and the whole year just kind of... dilates. I feel like it's been February forever, and the hope of April is still over a month away.

The result is that every day dilates to an unreasonable extent. By 2PM, I am at my desk fighting to keep my eyes open. I feel fat, sedentary, disgusting, and the idea of continuing the daily grind is so challenging. I slog through each day, fall into bed, sleep badly, and wake exhausted.

I may play a bit hooky on Friday (work-from-home day) and go out with the kids for an hour or two, since it is supposed to get warm, and the weekend will be cold and miserable again.

Blah.

(no subject)

So, I am possibly a bit crazy and also kind of stupid.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend made me an awesome scarf. Wesley decided he wanted the awesome scarf, and I put my foot down and said no. Then I offered to make him one.

Now, technically, I have knitted before. I mean, I've made... rows. I've cast on and cast off. It just wasn't very good. And I never completed any projects. But I decided I was Going To Do This.

So I did! It is pretty basic. It is cool multi-colored crayola colors yarn, and I did 60 rows of basic garter stitch, then switched to ribbing because I got bored. So there's 2 feet of 2knit, 2purl ribbing in the middle. Then another 60 rows of garter stitch, for symmetry.

I was pretty proud of myself for this. So then I started a scarf for Lorrie, with thinner ribbing: 1 knit, 1 purl. Then this started to drive me crazy, so I cast off after around 8 inches. Then I decided I wanted to try cabling for no reason other than it was awesome and I wanted to. I don't have a cabling needle or anything, but hey, why not try, right?

So I did 4 inches of sample cabling, with 3 crossovers. I really, really, really need a cabling needle before I try that again. Because OMG.

I want to try more new things. I think that is my problem. I love doing new things. I think my greatest natural attribute is my ability to learn quickly in the beginning. I can pick up new skills quickly, well enough to do simple projects neatly and cleanly. Then I lose patience. The problem is that after the initial stages, improvement comes much more slowly. It's harder to take satisfaction from "look how much neater my stitches are" than it is from "wow I just did CABLING."

Persistence and patience are definitely my failings as a scholar.

This turned more introspective than I meant for it to. Oh, well.

Knitting, yay! I will start again on a scarf for Lorrie with wider ribbing this time. Heh.