Farewell to Gluten

For the past month I have been attempting to adopt a gluten-free lifestyle. No I have not gone crazy. Since living in Duluth I have wanted to try an elimination diet. Cutting out nearly every allergy causing food and then slowly adding items back in to determine which foods my body just does not get along with. I have come up with an excuse for why I cannot cut out a particular food for years now. My most recent excuse was that my birthday was coming up and I just could not handle the idea of a birthday sans cake. Birthday came, cake was had, no more excuses.

Since I was much younger I have been at odds with my stomach. No matter what I seem to try eating or not eating, most meals result in protest from my gut. This is common place for me so I have not really taken it terribly seriously. Add on top of that my sleeping habits. I have always been one who required 8+ hours of sleep to function, but since early in college 8 hours generally just does not seem sufficient. I wake up tired 75% of the time. I have never been the most observant as to how eating or drinking something leads to very specific symptoms hours or days later. So the elimination diet idea was brought back to life. I was tired of being tired all the time.

Rather than doing a full on elimination of all foods and adding them back in I decided to cut things out that were likely culprits and then see if there was any change. Gluten has been in the news lately as a growing problem so I decided that was where I was going to start. Then I realized my treasured micro-brewed beer contained gluten. My favorite last minute dinner of whole-grain noodles with olive oil and crumbled feta cheese… that has gluten too.

The first couple weeks were eye opening to say the least. A number of times I would take a big bite of something only to realize that too had gluten. I have a hard time letting food go to waste so I would finish each thing off. Five weeks into this adventure I can honestly say that I am noticeably less tired when I don’t cheat. Unfortunately it seems to take a few days to get it worked out of my system when I misstep. Now I don’t know if the lack of gluten can take all of the credit. A very big fringe benefit of cutting out gluten is that you simultaneously cut out the majority of processed foods that I would mindlessly eat. So heres to hoping that someone comes out with a delicious gluten-free beer. Until then, hard cider like Trader Joe’s Newton’s Folly will be my new drink of choice.

Farewell gluten. Maybe some day in the future we can be friends again but for now I think it’s best that we go our separate ways.

Along the South Coast

On Tuesday morning we woke up early again, as usual. Instead of hustling our way out the door we slowly snacked on our food items from Safeway the day before and began to plan out our touristy plans for the rest of our trip. There were even mutterings of making a quick trip to Maui for the weekend.

Once our plans were laid out, we made our way downtown to the Duty Free Galleria to catch the Blue Line on the Waikiki Trolley in order to get a more scenic view of the coast. The ride was great and it was nice to stay in the shade for so long. After the trolley returned us to downtown Waikiki we found some grub and then made our way to the beach to make an attempt at boogie boarding. It was a rather pathetic sight seeing as how neither of us brought fins with us to the beach. Regardless, we got to float around in the ocean and make an attempt at making our white Minnesotan bodies a little less flourescent while wearing SPF 45 at all times.

After the beach we slowly drip-dried while doing a bit of people watching and then slowly meandered back to Anne’s apartment. Once we got back Anne swung by and brought us to Costco where we stocked up on snacks and lunch food for the rest of our time here.

Vacation: Day 1

Apparently Emily and I are still not accustomed to this whole vacation thing. We woke up by 6 am on our first morning here with no sign of being able to fall back asleep. Once we gathered our things we ate a fresh papaya from the farm where Anne works and then made our way out the door. We wandered down to Waikiki Beach (about a mile walk from the apartment) and proceded to walk the entire beach. It is amazing to see such a variety of sand on one connected beach!

After that we made our way back to a natural foods store called Ruffage that Anne had suggested. Tuna and avacado sandwiches with a fresh smoothie really hit the spot…at 10:30 am. By that time we were already hot, sweaty, tired, and starving. So we made our way back to the apartment and took a little cat nap. That afternoon we tried (and failed) to make a trip to Costco, not remembering that it was a national holiday. We spent our afternoon on another beach. On our way back we stopped at a traditional Korean Grill restaurant for a little dinner.

Welcome to Waikiki

Aloha from Hawaii! We have finally arrived after months of anticipation. Our flight was relatively uneventful. Lots of sleeping and movie watching was had. Once we landed Anne (Emily’s sister) picked us up at the airport in her truck.

Molly at the airport

Emily at the Airport

Once we were settled back at Anne’s apartment we went to a BBQ on the other side of the mountain. On the way back we made a pit stop at Sandy Beach to watch the sunset and subsequently get soaked by a rogue wave.

I’m Back

Thanks to the threats I recieved from a certain someone about my lack of blog updates I am finally getting around to it. In all fairness I do have an excuse, I have been struggling over the last month or so to finish both of my undergraduate degrees. As of this past Friday at 10 am I officially pulled that one off. Now it is time to move on to bigger and better things…I hope.

In light of the current economic situation I am struggling to find a job and currently have no motivation to continue sending my resume off into the electronic black hole. I have found over the last few weeks that my teachers who strongly suggested using networking to find jobs were not crazy or way off the mark. The only places I seem to have heard back from are those in which I knew someone that worked there. Hopefully something will work out in the next few weeks soon.

Over the last few weeks I have put a significant amount of thought into the whole concept of blogging. As they become increasingly popular I feel more and more pressured to jump on the bandwagon yet I don’t really have a focus. As much as I love to knit and talk about knitting with my fellow knitters I find myself embarassed to tell my “normal” friends that I have knitting blog. Since then I have come to two conclusions: 1) I don’t need to blog only about knitting, as I can hardly say that is all I ever do with my time and 2) If my friends aren’t cool with the fact that I knit and write about it they a) don’t deserve any handknit gifts and b) are much too cool for me if they can’t accept my dorky side.

With all that said I can finally get back to talking about current events! I am currently a resident at Red’s house which has motivated me to get going on some of my idle or slowly progressing knitting projects. Over the last week or so I have finished the Noni Green Earth Grocery Bag, another Meathead hat, a sleeve for my Dale of Norway sweater, and finally finished off my Bunad Muckluks! My goal is to finish off my Dale of Norway Osterdalen sweater by the end of the week so I can take advantage of Red’s fine machinery (sewing machine) and know-how to help me through cutting a sweater (eek!).

My grocery bag (unfelted in the picture above) was made completely out of scraps from my very large stash. Everything up until the pink at the top is leftovers of Cascade 220 from random projects, then I ran out and had to use a little left over Nature’s Spun to finish it off. My mom still hasn’t quite grasped the concept of felting and was amazed how large it was. I felted it at the cabin after she left for home so she will be impressed to find the much smaller finished project this coming weekend.

The Mukluks that my dear co-worker felted for me have been sitting in a bin for weeks now just dying to get finished. Finally this past weekend while working my last shift at the LYS I got around to sewing on the soles. The ribbon Red and I found looks great and they look very nice now that they are finished… but I seem to have placed the soles a bit crooked. Now I just have to motivate myself to rip them off and re-attach them correctly. I may feel the need to felt them a bit more so for the time being I think I’ll just leave them to be admired.

With all of my stash busting lately I decided to make a dent in my Lion Brand Thick & Quick I have found laying around. Red and I were found modeling the hats twice now in the last couple times we have worked together. Some of our guests commented that we looked like gnomes or the onion-shaped tops of buildings found in Russia. Either way, these fun and quick hats will soon be making their way off to a local charity once I finish off a few more projects to donate.

At last I have made some significant progress on my Osterdalen sweater. You can see how far I got at work on Saturday. Since then I have finished that sleeve and plan to cast on my other sleeve this evening. My two-color knitting seems to have improved significantly since my first attempt at making a couple Swell Hats which turned out much smaller than I had intended. I just can’t wait to finish my sweater and put it on! I made the sleeves a bit longer than they had suggested in the pattern. I have yet to decide whether that was a good idea or not. From the dimensions supplied in the pattern the sleeves seemed abnormally short so all else fails they’re a little long? I’m pretty sure that won’t deter me from wearing it.

Finally I feel the need to announce that Red and I have deemed this week ‘Beach Week’. We intend to go to the beach here along the shore of Lake Superior to get a little vitamin D, do a little exercise and just relax. I just hope that our weather cooperates, but judging by the outlook on NOAA’s site we might be S.O.L. All else fails I can stay inside and update my blog…

I’m graduating?

I’m not sure when this phrase went from exciting to terrifying but its really starting to sink in. What’s even better is that my body has decided that it now needs 8+ hours of sleep no questions asked. I try my best to stay up and finish things but somehow I end up crawling into bed one way or another and stay there until one of my three alarms I set daily calls me back to reality.

I’m pretty sure everyone says this but, I have so much to do! I also seem to be a professional at not doing what I should be doing. I’m not talking minor league procrastination, I’m a pro and need to retire. In the past, I was a fairly organized person (at least I think I was). These days that has all changed. We had a snow day here in Duluth a week ago today in which I was without power for 10 hours and used that time to clean my room. Not to fear, it is back to looking like a bomb went off already.

Out of all of my classes this semester, only one of them is a Spanish class yet somehow I manage to never finish anything on time for that class. Even better, I didn’t even remember that I had to pass an oral examination for my Spanish major until yesterday when I promptly emailed the head of the department in order to get that baby scheduled. In short, I’m screwed. I have not really spoken Spanish other than a random sentence or two since July and somehow I’m supposed to pass a test proving that I’m fluent? Let me make this easy for my professors, I’m not fluent. Now I just need to figure out how to trick them into thinking I’ve learned enough so I don’t have to spend another semester here… I already canceled my lease so that’s not really an option anymore.

My second major happens to be the polar opposite of my Spanish major. My business school is OBSESSED with group work which definitely adds an extra layer of stress to life. I have completed all of my group work for three of my classes, now I just need to get a big economic development paper done in the final class and I will be back to procrastinating on my own. I won’t even bother going into how much I have left to do. I make lists regularly. Panic. Then throw the list away. Believe me, I know its not very productive when I just toss the list, but keeping it around makes me nervous. It just might turn into a howler at any moment…

Okay enough complaining about school. My knitting has sadly been receiving very little attention since my breakdown mode kicked into full gear. I hope to remedy that very soon, but I’m guessing it won’t happen until a significant amount of these stupid papers are submitted and out of my hands. Self control becomes even harder when I have looming deadlines. I’d much rather see my sweater grow a little bit than I would like to see some stupid paper about a shoe company flying out of my printer. Unfortunately I can’t feed the knitting beast for a while.

Finally, I need to come up with some kind of plan for what I am going to do with myself after June 6th rolls around. For those of you that don’t know, June 6th is a magical date in my life. It happens to be the day when I am officially done with my Baccalaureate career. I mean, technically I get to walk down the aisle and have my name read a couple weeks before that (May 17th to be exact)… but freedom starts June 6, 2008. The only question is, what happens then? I have Cheryl’s wedding a couple weeks after that, then Theresa comes home the following week, my parent’s new cabin will finally be finished and I will be job-less. At least that’s how it looks so far. All I can say is the city of the week is Boston. If only one company I send off my stupid application to would contact me I would be thrilled. I might be waiting a while.

Life on the Tundra

I frequently wonder why people subject themselves to living in a place that regularly sees windchills of -30°F. It just seems….stupid. I have come to the conclusion that we only force ourselves to live through this year after year because the repeated freezing and thawing cycle has killed too many brain cells.

What’s worse is that I myself chose to move 150 miles further north to attend college. Now at first thought, 2 hours driving time doesn’t seem that significant, but when you park yourself adjacent to the largest of the great lakes, weather goes from bad to worse. The last time I checked, the windchill outside was hanging around -43°F…at that temperature they say that you can get frostbite in 5 minutes or less.

On the bright side, all of this cold has inspired me to get some serious knitting time in. Progress so far includes:

• I have completed one sleeve and the body of my dad’s sweater. I’m still a bit terrified of putting all the pieces together but at least I’m making progress. It’s for his birthday in late February so I need to get it done soon.
• My Mrs. Darcy sweater is going to be a knit along with a couple girls from Knit Wits…I got a little ahead of myself today and have finished about 1/3 of the back.
• I am braving the Buttony Sweater. With some assistance on Sunday I picked my colors and I am sure it will be on my needles by the end of the week.
• The Lulu doll is complete (and naked). Now she just needs some cute clothes.

So…what’s next? I have a Dale sweater calling my name, some mittens, a few hats, some baby booties…and I think I’m going to take up socks (blame Red). I can’t help but think that some nice wooly socks would come in handy in a place like this.

If only I could knit 16 hours a day…

Since I have started to pick up some extra shifts where I work…okay a lot of extra shifts life has gone downhill fast. It all started last week when someone at work location #2 (where I am filling in temporarily) decided that they were jealous of my productive days filled of both working and knitting. Within a few hours I was emailed by my boss that knitting in public was not acceptable and did not promote a good image. So now I am pulling 11 hour days and am not able to knit. What is a girl to do?

 Actually I have found quite a few things to do, none of them get my endless list of UFOs done, but things have gotten done nonetheless. They include:

• Finding and ordering 80% of my textbooks for the upcoming semester from a variety of online sources. And yes, I did get the best deal out there. I have only accomplished 80% because it seems as though my spanish professor did not seem to care that she was requiring books that are out of print.
• Finding and ordering 70% of the bf’s textbooks for the semester. His classes started this week so a few of them would have taken too long to get here.
• Contacting Knit Picks and getting my failed Harmony needle set cable replaced. They are so good at taking care of that stuff! I also threw in a couple extra cables so I can use the set for upcoming mobius projects.
• Selecting a number of cardigans to make in the upcoming months. I have decided that I want to start wearing skirts more, and for some reason I don’t think it will be possible unless I have a good selection of coordinated cardigans. Mostly because I am constantly cold and am bored with long sleeve shirts.
• Wrote all of my Christmas thank you cards, but for some reason have not been able to address them or mail them. Why?? Oh becuase I thought it would be a great idea to print the envelopes since I like finding excuses to use my new printer. Needless to say, they have been written for almost 2 weeks and sitting in a pile somewhere in my room.
• Searched and read up on a number of potential jobs for when I am finally ready to face the fact that I am graduating in less than 6 months with 2 degrees and I have no idea what I will do with them. Anyone have suggestions for what to do with marketing and/or spanish degrees? I’m open to pretty much anything at this point.
• Read 1.5 books. Okay that doesn’t seem impressive to a normal post-college human being, but for a college student who avidly avoids reading textbooks (which takes up so much time no fun reading EVER happens), its pretty darn good.
  • The book I have completed was The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson. I was plesantly suprised by this book, which is in the form of letters written by the narrator. Although I had trouble following it at first, it made me wish people still wrote real letters, or at least real emails.
  • The book that I finally started the other day is Neither Here Nor There by Bill Bryson. I say finally because I borrowed this book from my roommate before I went to Spain (which was May of last year) and had yet to pick it up. Bryson is an Iowa native who puts a midwest spin on his extensive travels in Europe that any American who has travelled in Europe can identify with. It only counts for 0.5 books because it is in progress.

Overall I would say that this final winter break of my college career (how depressing) has been productive, but not quite in the ways I had intended. Before it started, I envisioned lots of sleeping in, knitting, and failed attempts at cooking. Now that it is almost over it has been filled with extra hours at work, regulating my sleep schedule (somewhat), pizza and other quick not healthy foods, and lacking quality knitting time.

 As for plans for the new semester? I intend to stay on top of my reading. I say intend because I know that I say that every semester and each time it fails. Although with the knitting ban development and the fact that I sit at an information desk for hours during the afternoon/evening…I might accomplish something. What if I actually did homework while I was getting paid?! If you think about it, that’s like getting paid to sit, answer questions and do homework. Quite an amazing idea. It will fail, but I can pretend that it will work.

Tonight I am heading to the local library hoping to find a good book on CD. I am capable of reading and knitting at the same time, but I find the idea of being completely lazy exciting. I have quite a few projects in progress and I really  just want them to be done. Not because I don’t enjoy knitting them but because I’m really impatient. There’s a long list, this one is definitely not complete:

• For example my cabled scarf…its really cold here up on the tundra and I would really like to USE the scarf instead of having it sit around on my desk just crying out to me because I don’t give it enough attention.
• My dad’s sweater that I was going to give him for Christmas…yea still not done, actually…still not even up to the armpits.
• My own pair of Anemoi mittens are currently my now happily separated balls of Malabrigo laceweight in a baggie with the needles.
• The bf needs a hat or so I have been told. He now is taking the bus to school which means lost of complaints about being cold since we’re getting some Arctic winds or something. 
• I need to make my roommate a christmas/birthday (her birthday is the 23rd of December) present that I haven’t made because she spent the entire winter break in Hawaii for a J-Term class. She comes back this week.
• I’m trying not to think about the fact that I picked out and purchased yarn for my Dale of Norway sweater…I intentionally have not got the correct needles so I can’t cast on.

I think this is probably the longest post I will ever write. Or who knows maybe my days at work will inspire more long rants and ramblings. For now I am going to head back to my book and counting the minutes until I will be home, warm, and knitting.

Hello world!

Hello there.  I have recently decided that I too needed to join the world of blogging. My primary purpose of this blog is to share my knitting trials and tribulations, along with all of the things I should be doing (homework, cleaning, etc.) but don’t.

I am currently a senior in college and graduation is rapidly approaching. Being completely overwhelmed by what I am supposed to do when it is all over, I have decided to keep putting it off. Hopefully that mentality doesn’t last too long.

In the meantime, I fill my minutes with knitting a seemingly endless list of projects as well as poking around online, listening to music and watching movies. I love to travel and hope that my future offers many adventures to come.