Friday, January 21, 2011

Bleccch

I've been fighting off a really nasty cold for the past week or so. It will not DIE. I'm really grateful that my schedule is the way that it is right now. Monday I was feeling bad, but went to teach anyway and ended up having a great class, but then came home and died. I spent all of Tuesday and Wednesday in bed, venturing only outside once for more cold medicine. (Seriously, I think cold meds are much, MUCH stronger here than they are in the US.) My throat's been so sore that all I can eat is jello and soup, and I've drank so much hot gingery honey water that I slosh a bit when I move. I finally feel half-way human today but still get tired very easily. This morning as I was lecturing I kept thinking how comfortable that padded model stand looked...if only I could lay down on it...

The weather isn't helping much either, all grey and drizzly. Just want to sleep for a whole week. I haven't done anything productive outside of teaching all week and I feel like a lump. I wanted to do this past week's IF but it's already Friday. I'm definitely going to get a jump start on the next one. This week's theme is "dusty" and I think I have a great idea for it. We'll see if I can finish!

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Save your wrists

I found this great video via the comic tools blog. I have been working more than usual and the mouse is taking a toll on my hand. I find knitting breaks help, because it's a different sort of repetitive motion, but this video takes you through some great stretches to prevent tendinitis and other repetitive stress injuries to your hands. Good for anyone who sits at a computer, draws all day or knits.


I'm setting a timer for myself to get up and stretch every hour. I had been feeling a lot of pain in my wrist and forearm and these made it feel much better. It stretches muscles I didn't even know I had! :)

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Illustration Friday: Resolution

 





Last week's theme was "resolutions," so I wanted to originally illustrate all of my New Year's resolutions that I made last week. And then a perfect storm of work fell into my lap, and there was no time for that. (In fact, I didn't even get this one done in time to put the link up. Yikes!) So, I went with the first one, "Learn to make a killer Beef Bourguignon."

Which I hope to do soon. Because it would be delicious!

I'm playing with very limited color palettes right now. I like this very warm yellow and brown, it seems yummy and cheery, which I like on these dreary days. And it doesn't take very long, which is great for these little exercises, because I want to keep this up!

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

New Obsession

New Year's was great. We went out to eat with a friend of ours and then went to an unexpected party at another professor's house, which was a nice surprise. This break has been pretty quiet, it's almost over and we haven't really done a whole lot. We had all these grandiose plans to travel to Portland or at least Seattle, but it didn't really happen, which I am okay with. We may go to the mountains one day this week, but if we don't make it, I won't be heartbroken. We are getting a lot of work done, which is definitely a good way to start off the new year.

I've got a new obsession. It started last night, when I got thoroughly sick of the miles of stockinette stitch on my Cloudy Sunday, which I am thinking about ripping out and starting over anyway, so I found some terribly knitted Noro scarves in the closet and rescued the yarn for a better purpose. I think I made them right after I started learning to knit, and so they really weren't done well and weren't worn very much at all. Noro is too damn expensive and gorgeous to have such a fate.

I was looking for ideas and found some examples of beautiful log cabin blankets, so I immediately cast on for a square. And I could not stop knitting it at ALL, not til many episodes of 30 Rock later. (This may not be great for my new-found productivity. Eh, who needs sleep?) It's so addictive. I have 5 skeins of Noro right now and I think I need about 12 more to complete it, but I'm going to buy them just a couple at a time until this is finished. It's going to be gorgeous and so very warm.

Hello, new obsession.