Frisian Frillies

I haven't disappeared off the face of the earth, but blogwise I haven't really had a lot of time to put anything online. March has been busy. Busy with what? I have no idea. Really. It just went whoosh. One morning I just woke up and it was the end of the month again. How? Pffff, you tell me. It's not as if I have been knitting up a fury and produced loads of things. It's not as if I have already finished another book and been busy with that (eh... bit of a sore point that, but I'll get to that in a minute). March was just taken up by loads of little things. The odd run, the odd trip to mum and the hospital, the odd trip to the allotment and loads of work. Yes, there has been loads of work, but of the type that gets in the way of proper work. A few days spent at the police station interpreting (which is great, but still, time guzzlers), lots of little jobs for companies far away and closer-by, doing VAT returns, getting started on my annual accounts, that type of st...

Via the Ravelry forum I found the link to this article in the Star Tribune , about knitting soldiers in Iraq. Really, when are we going to have a referendum to make knitting an obligatory part of military training? I can so understand how relaxing it is, after a day of tenseness, keeping guard, seeing the most horrible things, all that tragedy - to sit down and knit and chat with a few good mates. Beats the crap out of stitch 'n bitch nights, though. And I guess they don't have the odd wine with their knitting... Hats off to them! (I do admit, I'm a pacifist and totally against armies and war and things, and don't even get me started on Iraq or Afghanistan, but this I found very cool...) Breien op commando Via het Ravelry-forum vond ik de link naar dit artikel in de Star Tribune , over breiende soldaten in Irak. Echt, wanneer houden we hier een referendum om breien verplicht te stellen tijdens de militaire opleiding? Ik snap zo goed hoe ontspannend het is om na ...

I started running this week. Last week, I signed up for the 5K/10K of Leeuwarden on June 6 and I will be starting the proper running clinics next week. To make sure I don't look like a complete dufus when I turn up there next Saturday at 9.30AM, I decided to start practicing a bit. After getting my running shoes (the store were great, they have a mini track, so you can try out different shoes, and a camera to see how straight you're running) I went out for the first time they day before yesterday, with 'Couch to 5K' on my Blackberry and Map my tracks turned on... You can sort of see where I am running, but as I'm already quite a brisk walker, there is not that much of a difference. It was hard, especially the 7th of the 8 one-minute runs, but I did it. And I did it again this morning. Proud is not the word. Smug, that's how I feel. Ik ben een hardloper! Ik ben deze week begonnen met hardlopen. Vorige week heb ik me (in een vlaag van verstandsver-bijstering,...

Spring is in the air! On the first day of March, we started the day off with sunshine. I immediately pumped up my tires and we went off to the pool on the bike, for the first time in months. And it was great! On the way back, we got some nice rolls for lunch and bought some springy plants for on the windowsill and on the garden table. And then I put out the laundry. How nice it is, to be able to hang the laundry out to dry! The garden is still a soggy mess, but that will soon be sorted out by putting in better drainage, and hopefully a lot more sunshine!!! And another lovely sight was this, my stash from the Handwerkbeurs! I thoroughly enjoyed the fair this year. We worked very hard at the Wolhemel stand for a few hours, and then I went off with my 'shopping list'. I got most of the things I wanted, because somewhere in the melee I lost my list, so the bigger projects have been put on hold as I have to recalculate how much yarn I need for them. I bought: 2 balls of Drops D...

I got this ravatar for completing my Skews! Thank you!!! Sooo proud! I have been wearing them since I finished them and I love the design. I think it will be knit a few more times. And then without mistakes... I hope ;) Deze ravatar kreeg ik voor mijn affe Skews! Dankjewel, ik ben er zo trots op! Ik draag ze al sinds ze klaar zijn en ik vind het ontwerp echt geweldig. Die ga ik zeker nog een paar keer breien, en dan zonder foutjes... hoop ik ;) It was Hannah's 7th birthday on Sunday, and she (finally, finally, finally) got her ears pierced... Hannah werd zondag 7 en ze kreeg (eindelijk, eindelijk, eindelijk) oorbellen... And then this morning the baker delivered this cake: 'Thank you for the hard work'. From my publisher. Thank you! YUM! En vanochtend stond de bakker op de stoep met een appeltaart: 'Bedankt voor het harde werk'. Van mijn uitgever. Dankjewel! JAMMIE!

My first Ravelympics project is finished!!! Like thousands of people I'm knitting like a madwoman during the Olympics, and it's great fun to knit 'in competition'. Meet Skew : I knit these socks in about a week, and with all that is going on here, that's quite an achievement! I loved the knit, even though I made plenty of mistakes here and there - but these were easily fixed. And yes, the socks are the same length, I just pulled up one more than the other, and was too lazy to make another picture... :) The sock is really the creation of a mathematician, the heel is a great fit and very clever! Over de finish Mijn eerste Ravelympics-project is klaar! Net als duizenden andere breisters ben ik druk aan het breien tijdens de Olympische Spelen en het is erg leuk om zo 'in competitieverband' bezig te zijn. Zie hier  Skew : deze sokken heb ik in ongeveer een week gebreid, en met alles wat er hier allemaal gaande is, vond ik dat best snel! Het was erg l...

After about a week of worrying about my mom, who is now on the regular surgical ward and recuperating slowly but surely, reality is hitting home. I have to finish another 20K on a book by the end of next week (well, actually Monday, but I wheedled a few more days out of them), 1.5K of translations for tomorrow, 10 PDF pages for another project translated by Monday and then a pregnancy book (I'm not even counting the pages of that one, 'cause it hurts too much) for the end of the month. Oh yeah, and I'm looking forward already to finishing off my VAT returns :S In other words, reality is biting me in the butt a bit. It's great when you're self-employed and can go to hospital to see your mum every day (several times if needs be), but eh... who takes over at work? Nobody :( At home, things are running quite smoothly. The big Man is helping out where he can, cooks most evenings, helps me with the laundry (even though he still has to take a crash-course in hanging an...