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.

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.

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.

As well, yesterday I had quite a time editing and uploading some pictures to Ravelry – I’d taken them, I’d edited them, and they only needed uploading. But for some reason the file format wasn’t being recognized, which meant re-editing all 40 or so photos. What was supposed to be a relaxing evening updating my stash turned into a hair-pulling exercise and several rants about Gimp.

To make having to work on a Saturday more palatable, and to do some activity that might bring me some contentment, I declared that I would bring in cupcakes the next day. Because who doesn’t love them some cupcakes? Stephen Harper supporters, that’s who! [2. Also, probably Stephen Harper. ]

So, with purpose and determination, I came home, had supper and got to work. The first thing I saw when I got in was some week old bananas that needed to be turned into something delicious. Chocolate chip banana muffins – perfect! [3. It's a recipe from a hippie-earth-crunchy muffin cookbook my mom has. Originally, it calls for some kind of nuts in the muffin and somewhere along the way the nuts turned into chocolate chips. I don't recall who's to blame for this delicious substitution. ] Now what? Carrots! I got some carrots at the farmer’s market last weekend, let’s make carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese icing! And what else? What about chocolate cupcakes with caramel icing? Only CHILDREN who support Stephen Harper don’t like chocolate cupcakes!

Then I looked around, specifically at my sugar. And flour. And eggs. How is it possible that I’m low or almost out of ALL of them AT THE SAME TIME, when I most definitely need them? And what’s worse is that I only had enough paper liners for the muffins. GAH!

I hope the staff like their stupid chocolate chip banana muffins and their stupid carrot cake IN A PAN with stupid cream cheese icing. I’m going to be over here sulking while I lick the bowls.

1. Pump it Up – Elvis Costello. I’m pretty sure this was a suggestion. Besides, how have I made it this far without having this song in my collection? (There was also a version by Danko Jones in iTunes. Good, but not better than the original.)

2. Little Secrets – Passion Pit. This was going to be the axis around which all the other songs spun. I can listen to this song on constant repeat and not get bored of it.

3. El Scorcho – Weezer. I feel like I know exactly what they’re singing about. I’ve been the person doing the pleading, while being simultaneously exasperated with the person in question, and hating myself for being in that situation ONCE AGAIN.

Ahem. Moving on…

4. Make Me – Janet Jackson. You know those times when you don’t want to clean the kitchen, or the laundry is piling up but you don’t want to do it. Or sweeping – ugh, sweeping. Put this song on, and just dance through the housework.

5. Dancing in the Moonlight – Toploader. This song is unrelentingly, almost agressively, cheerful. Another good song for doing housework. Or, you know, cruising around while blaring the stereo.

6. Tightrope (feat. Big Boi) – Janelle Monae. Thank you CBC2 for bringing this to my attention one morning a few weeks ago.

7. Steal My Sunshine – Len. No, I did not get sick of this song during the early 00′s. Okay, maybe I did, but when I heard it the other week I didn’t realize that I’d sort of missed it.

8. Someday Baby – R.L. Burnside. This was in one of my wish lists, and I have no idea how long it had been there, or even who had recommended it. Bluesy, funky, kind of awesome, really.

This is it, so far. At least until I find that damn list.

On the other hand, sometimes the end of the day comes really fast, and you’re not ready for it. Or you sat down to write and got distracted by Facebook or Twitter or YouTube or something, and then you realize that you are actually really tired and don’t have anything prepared to say, but you’ve got to say SOMEthing because it’s almost midnight, and didn’t you say something about trying to post every day? Oh wait, yes you did.

I realize I skipped last night. It was almost midnight, I was brushing my teeth and admiring the new and interesting shade of purple that the bags under my eyes have taken on, when it struck me I hadn’t posted. I did a really quick, almost throw-away post the previous night when the SAME THING happened, but I couldn’t bring myself to do the same thing last night. Ahhh… blogging about the frequency of your posting and blogging about how you have nothing to blog about. I’m pretty sure I broke two fundamental blogging laws, there. [1. Make that three - blogging about how you broke the blogging rules. Go big or go home! ]

Anyways… tomorrow will be the first day that I can watch the World Cup live and not live through everyone else’s Twitter updates. Slovenia/Algeria would be interesting to watch, but I’m aiming for Bosnia/Ghana, and Germany/Australia later in the day. (Originally, I’d planned to post about my soccer experience in my youth, but then, Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and something else got in the way.)

A few weeks ago, a friend and former library school classmate posted about acquiring a Kobo e-reader. I have seen these things in person, and they are as easy to use as she describes. They are light, portable and the screen is easy to look at. The other nice thing about them is that you can read any document (or ebook) which is in the PDF format – meaning, you can purchase ebooks in other places as long as they are in the PDF format and use them on your Kobo.

(This was always my beef with the Kindle, Amazon’s e-reader: the books were in a proprietary format which couldn’t be used on any other e-reader, and you couldn’t read ebooks that weren’t that format on the Kindle. Oh, and it wasn’t available in Canada. Now it is, and now you can read PDFs on it, but you still can’t read Amazon ebooks on other devices, as far as I can tell. Also it does have a wireless connection, so there’s that too.)

When it comes to ebook readers and platforms, I’m something of an overachiever. I have a Sony eBook Reader (more about that in a sec), three separate ebook readers on my iPod (Ereader, Stanza [2. Which I hardly use because earlier versions had lousy formatting. ] and Kobo) and two e-reader platforms on my laptop (Adobe Digital Editions and Mobipocket). It would take charts, spreadsheets and interpretive dance to explain what works with what, but here goes nothing:

• Ereader and Mobipocket don’t work with anything else. Ebooks I buy in those formats can only be read in those programs, but since I use each program for different reasons on different devices, it doesn’t really matter.
• Mobipocket is intended for handheld devices, such as Blackberries and Palm Pilots, but I only use it on my laptop. The advantages are that I can make it full screen, and change the size of the font to make it smaller or larger, and make the layout whole page, two or three columns. Primarily, I read books on here when I’m knitting because it’s easy to make the text a readable size and go to the next page without having to put everything down.
• Adobe Digital Editions works with almost everything. As long as I purchase a book in a PDF format (secure or otherwise) I can read it in this program, or load it onto the Sony.
• In ADE, I can make the book almost full screen, but not quite. I can’t change the number of columns displayed, only the number of pages, and I can’t increase or decrease the size of the font, only the amount of magnification. This is slightly annoying because if I want to display two pages on the screen, the type is crazy small, but if I want to be able to read the text, I only get a few paragraphs on the page.
• I really, really want to like the Kobo platform. Really. I tried reading an ebook on it and got more than slightly frustrated with how long it took to “turn” a page – 3 seconds doesn’t sound like a lot, but when it takes less than a fraction of a second in/on other devices, it’s a big wait. Plus, you think maybe you haven’t tapped the corner/side hard enough so you tap it again, and suddenly you’re three pages too far.
• My favourite platform for a non-laptop is Ereader. I can change the size of the font, the colour of the text and background (you can also do this in Kobo), and the orientation on the page. Yes, it’s a tiny screen and it takes getting used to. However, since I always have my iPod with me anyways I don’t have to lug around a separate device.

As for the Sony eReader: while I like that I can have many books on it at one time and can purchase books from a variety of sources (not just the Sony eReader Store), it does have some drawbacks:

• It is a battery hog, and takes forever to charge.
• Maybe it’s just my laptop, but when I plug it in to synch it with the Sony program, my laptop goes a little crazy. “Hey – there are ebooks on here!” it tells me. “Wait… there are also sound files [3. I can also put audiobooks on the device, but since I'm not a fan of audiobooks, I don't. ] – want me to open iTunes?” it says in a puzzled tone. “Hold on a sec… there are pictures on here! Can I open a photo editing program for you?” By now, it’s got that puffy-eyed look that small children get right before they burst into tears, and I want to hug it and tell it that it’s okay, don’t open anything – just synch with the Sony program – but by now it’s melting down and the whole thing freezes and I have to throw my hands in the air. [4. Yes, I assign human characteristics to my technical devices - doesn't everyone? ]
• It also takes forever to turn a page.
• Apparently, you are supposed to be able to take notes with it, but it’s never worked for me.

However! Other positives of the Sony: it has back lights, so if you’re reading in the dark you don’t kill your eyes; there are two card slots so you can add a lot more memory to it; and it has a stylus you can use to tap the screen to turn the page, instead of using the page turn buttons on the bottom of the screen.

AND! In case you thought I had run out of things to talk about (yeah… not happening), my library will soon be offering downloadable ebooks. I don’t have the details because the librarian who’s in charge of it won’t get off her ass and get me the details so I can start downloading them [5. For the record, that librarian would be me. Um. ]

Now, to answer the question everyone [6. Again, both of you. ] is asking: are paper books dead? Absolutely not! While I’m surrounded by devices great and small, my default book format is paper. I don’t have to worry about it running out of batteries, when I’m done with it I can give it to the library or give it to a friend to read without violating copyright and as much as most of us would like to think that technology is universal, it isn’t. There will always be people who don’t have/can’t afford/don’t have access to computers or devices, and paper books will always be there for them.

If you’ll excuse me, I have two rows of knitting needing to be done and I’m in the middle of a good chapter in my ebook.

1) I’m freezing, and
2) It’s later than I thought it was.

The first is easily solved – throw some socks on and close the damn windows already. Last night I took the step of replacing the summer quilt (which I’d pulled out a few weeks ago when it was hot) with the fall/winter/spring comforter. I slept much better last night, probably because I was actually warm. Granted, the temperature has dropped over the last few days, but it’s more seasonal now. Not that I didn’t enjoy the heat – winters are long and cold here – but I could do without the humidity.

The second is due to several factors. It’s been a slow but relaxing day, so it feels stretched out but in the good way. There is still daylight visible on the horizon, but that’s unsurprising considering the Longest Day will be upon us soon.

I have a sinking feeling that this weekend is going to be the latter. Oh, there’s a plant sale I want to go to tomorrow, but since my garden is just about full, there’s not much I want. And it’s supposed to rain, so I can’t really do any outdoor activities (unless Environment Canada is spectacularly wrong). My house isn’t to the stage of disorder where I feel it necessary to devoting an entire day to cleaning, although it could stand a good tidying. There are the movies I brought home from work, which can be Sunday’s task. Maybe I’ll make bread tomorrow.

Weekends like this are rarely relaxing because I can’t settle on any one task for very long and shut my brain down as I sweep or sort laundry or papers. And then Sunday night rolls around and it seems like the weekend was wasted and I have to wait a whole five days [1. Or, in this case, three, as I have Thursday off. Which is to make up for having to work Saturday. ] for another one to roll around. Perhaps I should set up a series of arbitrary deadlines for trivial things to motivate me, such as “dusting must be finished before 2:03pm”, “water the plants before they frakking die already!” or “you’re not allowed to listen to that Passion Pit song you really like until the tablecloth on the dining room table is changed” (which is actually a pretty good motivator – I’ve been listening to that song on almost constant repeat for the last few days).

Perhaps, having identified that this is a possibility, I will make an effort to avoid it and surprise myself by having a lovely weekend after all. Fingers crossed!