However, I want to recap the things that made me happy, that brought little bits of joy and colour into my life last year¹.

1. Dave’s MM6. Every year, this guy puts on an epic movie marathon and invites friends to submit a slate of movies for the rest of us to vote on. And then we vote, and then Dave does tabulations and makes spreadsheets and scores things – and then posts the results. Finally, we all trek to Ottawa to crash at his and Sarah’s place for 24 hours while we watch movies, tweet, blog, take pictures and make fan movies. This year, my third, I managed to stay awake for all but an hour and forty-five minutes of it, INCLUDING the WTFery that was “Human Centipede.” Good job, guys!

2. Decatur, Georgia. How much does my job suck that I got sent to a conference in Decatur, Georgia in April? When it was still in the minus digits in North Bay, low plus digits in southern Ontario, it was in the twenties the five days I was there! And the food²! And the bars! And the lovely people! I can’t speak of it but to gush, and would love to go back there some day.

3. My nephew and niece. Delightful children, they are. Cute as buttons, smart and creative. I didn’t get to visit with them as much as I would have liked to, but through the power of the interwebs, I was kept up to date with lots of pictures and phone calls. They even came to visit for a long weekend in August!

4. My sweater. After much dithering and distraction, I finally managed to knit myself a sweater. (Technically, it’s the third sweater I knit. The first didn’t fit me so I gave to my mom, and the second was for my niece.)

5. Fancy Ladies Night. I can’t believe I haven’t blogged about this before³. Just over a year ago, two friends and I vowed to create an event once a month that would allow us to get dressed up in our fanciest outfits and do something swanky. For a smallish northern town⁴ we have an abundance of nice restaurants that serve outstanding food, including one place that does exclusive invite-only tasting menus every few months (and guess who got on the list?)⁵ We’ve also done two Fancy Ladies Stay In, where they come here and we end up eating and drinking all night long, which is also fun.

Do I have any resolutions for this year? Not really. I want to take at least one day a week where I don’t turn on the TV and another day where I don’t turn on my computer (although my iPod is an exception so I can listen to podcasts or music.) And to try and update this thing more often.

1. The funny thing is, the more I started to think of the highlights, the more highs I remembered and the more the bad, stressy stuff got pushed to the back of my mind. This is a good thing.
2. OH MY GOD THE FOOD! I can’t adequately describe it all, but the highlight was The Iberian Pig, a tapas place that serves jamon iberico, a special kind of ham imported from Spain that’s only available in a very few locations in the US.
3. Or maybe I can, given how rare it’s been that I’ve blogged at all over the last little while.
4. Official motto: Just north enough to be perfect! Unofficial motto: Smallest of the big northern 5!
5. To be honest, it’s not that hard to get on the list. You just have to put your name on a mailing list, but I like to make it sound REALLY SWANK.

Right now is not that moment.

(Here’s a hint: it involves work, some travel and a lot of wanting to throw things.)

1. My parent’s cat, actually – not mine.

However, the greatest sin as far as I’m concerned is this: female characters who fight, either with weapons or in hand-to-hand combat in full makeup with their hair down, in short skirts or otherwise impractical outfits and high, pointy heels. Men, I don’t know if you realize this, but that’s bullshit. It’s nearly impossible to run for any distance or length of time in any sort of heel, let alone ones with spike heels³ The outfits are implausible for several reasons, including limited flexibility, equipment failure⁴ and the fact that no one ever seems to sweat or get grubby. Hell, whenever I fetch something out of the stacks at work I come back with dust or something on some part of my being.

And the hair thing? Mine isn’t all that long, and I’m a librarian, meaning the scariest thing I fight on any given day is the urge to roll my eyes at some of the excuses people give for not wanting to pay their fines. But there are times when I’m trying to hook up a VCR/DVD player/projector/computer or searching for cases or paper or barcodes and it’s all in my face and I just want to cut it off. Why do the powers that be insist on making them fight with it all in their faces?

I stopped watching Alias because of this, and pretty much any movie with Angelina Jolie. It’s also what I love about Olivia on Fringe – that she wears practical clothing and footwear and her hair pulled back when she’s working and still manages to be extremely capable at her job⁵

So, we came up with a list of female characters on film who seemed to buck this trend:

• Ripley, from the Alien movies
• EVE, from WALL-E (yeah, she counts!)
• Tank Girl
• Sorsha from Willow
• Princess Leia
• The Bride from the Kill Bill movies (with the same reservations as Olivia and Zoe)

Who else?

1. Hawaii 5-0 reboot, I’m looking at you.
2. John Hannah, whom I adore, does this in the Mummy movies – his accent keeps slipping from Scottish to English and it’s distracting.
3. Guys – try this: stand on your tiptoes and put a roll of dimes under your heel. Now, try balancing on that roll of dimes. Hard, isn’t it? Try running in those, and then imagine trying to kick someone’s ass.
4. Such as runs in nylons, torn hems, popped buttons, etc.
5. I have a theory about why, even when you have a female character who kicks ass, she has to have long hair, as if it’s some kind of acknowledgement that although she’s busy busting shit up in a sensible outfit, she’s still a sex object. This also applies to Zoe on Firefly.

When I brought my basket downstairs and started sorting it, I discovered a sad, lonely little pile that I’d forgotten last time (my splash pants, workout shorts, socks, a hoodie) and designated it the first pile to go in. I’d almost finished throwing it in the washer when I noticed there was something on the floor beside the splash pants, so I turned to take a better look and then shrieked like the girl I am.

It was a mouse. Dead, fortunately, because I don’t know what I would have done if it was alive¹. I finally managed to pull myself together and dispose of it, after having poked it several times with a broom to make good and sure it was dead because yo, those little buggers can JUMP².

I’m not sure what worries me more: that there was a dead mouse in my laundry or that my laundry was toxic enough to kill a living creature³

1. I suspect screaming and jumping about until I either succeeded in scaring the mouse off or hitting my head on any number of low hanging things on the basement ceiling.
2. There is a story about Bing bringing me a very not-dead mouse in the middle of the night once, and it ran up the curtain on my closet. I tried to knock it down with a broom so Bing could “take care of it” but it jumped at me. From several feet away. And almost landed on me.
3. Oh, I’m not really surprised there are mice – you can’t live in a house this old at this time of year without having a few, although I’ve seen very little evidence of them.

So, in brief, you are spared hearing about how sick I was. In retrospect, not that much but I’m a lousy sick person.

However, you will not be spared hearing about how I had written a post about being sick and then didn’t post it, but then wrote about not writing about it. Oooo – I’m all meta right now!

I will say this about being sick: it did afford me lots of time to do nothing but sit around, knit and watch movies. Normally when I try to take a day off to do something like this, a nagging little voice in my head compels me to do productive things, like doing the dishes, doing laundry, sweeping the floors, dusting, reorganizing something, etc. and before I know it I’ve spent the day being productive instead of relaxing. ² Whenever I tried to do any of the above while sick, I’d quickly realize I just didn’t have the energy, and didn’t my couch look like a great place for a nap, and oh – is there *another* episode of Criminal Minds on? Bring on the nap!

(It also afforded me the opportunity to clean a big chunk of unwatched shows off my PVR. I was waaaaay behind on Stargate: Universe, Bones and Fringe.)

Resolution update:

I’m not much further along on anything. I’m working on a striped scarf and have added over a foot to it, and even though I should be working on something else, I’m still adding inches to my cardigan (ideally, I want it done by Easter). No more wine has been consumed, but I did consume a lovely mocha porter from Lake of Bays Brewing Company.

1. I was ranting about children, water bottles and germs. None of it made sense.
2. Don’t get me wrong – sometimes all of these things help me focus my energy and it’s a good thing.

Frankly, most of January whizzed right by in a blur, and February hasn’t slowed down that much, either. I’m trying to keep track of interesting events, but when I look back on them I realize how long ago they actually were. Like, the dinner party I threw for myself and two friends, where one friend brought the apps and margaritas, I made fondue, and the other friend brought cupcakes. That was four weekends ago now. And then there was the last-minute trip to Toronto¹ for the big librarian’s conference I hadn’t planned on attending for various reason. However, for various reasons it turned out to be a really good trip and I’m glad I was forced to go.²

Resolution progress:

• Knitting! One pair of socks are finished, and half a sock from the other pair are done. I’m up to the heel on the pair of socks for Rhiannon, and I can’t find the fourth pair. No movement on the shawls and scarves. I ripped out the handwarmers for Karen and reused the yarn to make her mittens, which are almost finished (and better be done by tomorrow since I’m going to see her.)
• Wine! Two bottles down!
• Spinning! I’ve spun roughly 115g of merino wool, alpaca and tussah silk, and am working my way through 115g of superwash merino and cashmere.³

And now I’m going to see if I can beat that stupid time-eating monster into a pulp.

1. Although I don’t know if you can call four days notice “last minute.” I suppose you could, if you take into account we hadn’t registered, arranged transportation or booked accommodations.
2. Some people will wonder exactly how awful it must be to work where I do when I’m “forced” to go to Toronto to a really interesting conference for three days, and stay in nice hotels, and whatnot. You people would be very right.
3. SO! SOFT!!

On Ravelry¹ , there is a plethora of eleven-themed challenges. Presumably, there were a plethora of ten-themed challenges at the beginning of last year, but I wasn’t paying attention. One of the groups I frequent, a group for people who like to knit mittens (which I most enthusiastically do!) the challenge is, as you may have guessed, to knit eleven pairs of mittens. ² This is an acceptable challenge, and one I have signed on for. So I started looking around to see what other challenges I could take up.

The first one that came to mind was spinning 1100 grams³ of yarn. “Spin?” you say. “Do you actually have a spinning wheel?” Of course I do! And I know how to use it! I mean, I get enough surprised reaction from people who find out I knit – imagine telling them that I also know how to spin fleece into yarn. I find it quite soothing, actually – meditative, if I could be so bold as to say. And in the pursuit of meditation, I have managed to amass quite a stash of fleece, including various wools, some alpaca, a cashmere blend and a thick stack of silk hankies. Before I set about acquiring any more, I feel that I should make a significant dent in what I already have.

The second challenge that came to mind was finishing up eleven languishing projects. At first, I didn’t think I would be able to find eleven unfinished projects, but then I started counting. There are currently four pair of socks on the go right now, including a pair of knee socks that will never fit⁴ so they are destined to be socks and something else, as well as a pair of socks for Rhiannon. (It’s part of a trade – I’m making her socks, she’s making me a lace shawl.) There are a pair of gloves I started for my friend Karen, which are lacking only thumbs. I have at least three scarves waiting in project bags, a sweater I started last fall, a pair of socks for my niece, and a stuffed toy for… someone. I don’t know who. Clearly, without trying too hard, I came up with eleven projects I could finish this year.

Finally, and this one’s going to be the hardest, I have quite a few bottles of wine that I’ve picked up on my visits to my parents. My sister and I sometimes end up going on winery tours, and it’s not uncommon for us to return home from these visits with six or seven bottles each. Since I am running out of (cool, dark) storage space, I must make some kind of effort to free up some shelves for new stuff. This may be the most challenging one of all, really, especially if I have to do it all by lonesome (sigh).

1. It’s a social networking site for knitters. We are legion!
2. And, in the time honoured fashion of all things on the internet that are left up to groupthink, rules and regulations popped up almost immediately, with some people asking if handwarmers could be included, or if fingerless gloves were acceptable, and other saying no; did colourwork count for more, or cables, or “convertables”?
3. About 38 ounces.
4. The pattern is written for someone with average calves. I, alas, have somewhat muscular calves – shut up! They are too! – and I can’t for the life of me make them work for me.

August was hot and busy. September was less hot and busier and Julie came to visit. October was mostly spent traveling (more on this in a sec) and being busy. November saw me once again attempt NaNoWriMo but fail spectacularly in the third week because I was too busy. December was bitterly cold and busy; the only break in the monotony was the surprise stomach flu I got Christmas morning. Which brings us to January, and it looks like it’s going to be – wait for it! – busy.

More about October! In October, my friend Rhiannon got married in Penetanguishine¹ My other friend Jamie and I drove down and, when we weren’t at the wedding, we were hitting all the wool shops in an hour’s driving radius. At Thanksgiving, I went home for a few days, then flew to Winnipeg for a conference, and then back to my parents for a few more days.

And because it’s now 2011, I feel like I should make some kind of grand gesture, like proclaim that I will blog at least 3 times a week for the rest of the year!² Or, announce that I will attempt some feat of noble self-improvement in the next six months! However, I’m kind of lazy that way, and if I don’t keep up with whatever deadlines I set, or live up to the goals I’ve made myself, I will feel like a failure and beat myself up about it.

How about this: I am going to try not to go that long without posting again this year. This seems achievable and maintainable.

1. For whatever reason, I always want to say Petawawa. It’s kind of like how I always get Temagami, Temiskaming and Tobermory confused. For those playing along at home and not familiar with any of those places, let’s just say they aren’t even close to each other. Except for maybe Temagami and Temiskaming.
2. On a happy note, I’ve been able to maintain a steady routine of going to the gym three times a week since August. Some weeks I’ve missed one, or I’ve been sick and missed all three, but it’s an achievement I’m pleased with.

It’s a cool evening – some might even call it cold. Close the windows almost all the way but leave them open a little so you can still get some fresh air. But don’t have enough blankets on the bed so you’re still chilly. Huddle up with the cat under the covers and eventually drop off to sleep.

Wake up in the middle of the night and hear a rustling noise. Figure that it must be windy outside and it’s just the sound of the leaves in the trees.

A few minutes later, hear a thud-THUD sound. Figure that it must be the cat jumping off the table or the counter (and make a note to scold him about it later), but realize the cat is still next to you so that can’t be it. Ponder this development for a few moments.

Before you’ve come to any firm conclusion (or at least one firm enough to help you get back to sleep), hear the sound of footsteps and realize that someone is in the house. Freak out a little, but quietly. Try to figure out where the phone is and if you can reach it from your current position. Remember that if you pick up the extension upstairs, the light on the phone upstairs goes on so whoever is down there will know that someone is awake upstairs and it could end very badly. Hope that they leave soon (and spare a rather random regret that you haven’t backed up your laptop lately because surely they’re going to take that, but silently smirk because the laptop is almost 5 years old and making bad noises, so they’re getting a lemon.)

Suddenly, the hall light comes on, and you hear footsteps on the stairs. Start panicking in earnest, and start tossing and turning. Maybe whoever it is doesn’t realize there’s anyone home, so make enough noise to make it sound like there really is someone home but they’re not awake yet.

Realize it’s not working because the intruder is at the top of the stairs and is now coming down the hall. And now they are outside your room.

Consider your options. First on the list: is this a dream? If so, can you wake yourself up? Try that.

Wake up, laying in the same position you were when you fell asleep, which is the same position you were laying in the dream. Have an attack of the willies and realize you’re not getting back to sleep tonight.