Catching up on a boring week...

So I do actually have everything unpacked, and after about ten days, Teddie decided he had moved in, too:

He spent the first week or so under the bed, although he did come out to eat and use the litterbox. He was REALLY not happy with me, though - first, we're at a new place with that smells like another kitty, with weird sounds and smells and things aren't in the right place and where ARE we?! and THEN it becomes 100+ degrees all week with no air conditioning in the apartment. Yeah, I was definitely NOT voted #1 Kitty Mama last week (although I did brush him every day and make sure he had cold water and shade in several places throughout the apt). Apparently, he's gotten over it, for the most part. I did get totally dumped for Cute Guy the other night, though. He came over Monday night after class to watch a movie, and as we were sitting on the couch, Teddie comes out, looks at me, looks at Cute Guy, looks at me again, and promptly jumps up onto Cute Guy's chest, curls up, and falls asleep. I guess I know where I stand now, geez! (Btw, if you ever get a chance to watch a BBC documentary called Shakespeare Behind Bars, I highly recommend it. It's really fascinating to see how classical theater affects even convicts.)

Anyway, other than the unfaithfulness of my cat, not much has been going on. After three or four days of The Most Boring Bind-Off Ever (aka an applied I-cord bind-off), I have the baby blanket done:

I had big hopes of getting a picture with it all layed out nicely, the colors and shape displayed to the fullest advantage...and then realized that I have absolutely no idea where my blocking pins are! I think they're the same place ether region as my oven mitt and my "I solemnly swear" t-shirt. Sigh. Plus, it's too big to fit on my blocking board. So this is just a picture of a clean, finished blanket. Baby blanket #6, I might add. No more babies for a while, okay people?

On that note, I counted up all the projects I've completed since I started knitting about four years ago now. 6 baby blankets, 3 full-sized afghans, 11 pairs of socks, 2 hedge hogs, 3 pairs of felted clogs, 1 pair of fingerless gloves, 2 pairs of mittens, 4 sweaters/shirts, 6 scarves, 2 Christmas stockings, 2 bags, and a hat, for a total of 43 FOs. Wow! On top of this are 3 more scarves, 1 more pair of socks, another sweater, and another hat (I finally started my beret for Solvang yesterday) all otn right now. I knit to keep myself sane, apparently.

I still have not gotten an official testing date for my black belt test yet, although that should come out next week. Most likely, I will be testing on Saturday, July 26th, and getting the results on Monday, July 28th, but that isn't confirmed. Yikes, only four weeks away! I'm pretty confident, though. I can do all of the PT consistently except for the pushups, which tend to hurt my elbow after the first two sets. I'll suck it up for the test, though, because I know I can. I know my form inside and out. I blew through both of my board breaks the other night after class (I'm doing a reverse side kick - my absolute favorite kick - for my kick and a palm heel strike for my hand break). I know all of the self-defenses that are taught to tkd students, thanks to Haganah and instructor class. I don't think my sparring is quite up to par, but Sir said we'd start working on it in regular adult class, so that will be good. It will be the first time in a long time that I've tested in front of a crowd, though, so I'm a little nervous about that. I am volunteering to help out with a kids' day camp at the local Y next month, though, which I think will be fun and will be a good opportunity to get used to working in front of the kids again. I don't think I'll be doing my instructor test with the black belt test, as I'm still kind of shaky on three forms, but the camp should be a good time to work with the other instructing staff and get to watch them, too!

Work is going okay - Godspell is going strong in Solvang (we need bigger houses, though, bring your friends!), The Heart's Desire will join us there soon (a beautiful show, I highly recommend it!), Ragtime opens two weeks from Saturday and is just jaw-droppingly amazing, even in the rehearsal room, and The Imaginary Invalid and Hot Mikado both start rehearsals in the next three weeks. I'm going home to Illinios next week while Desire techs in Solvang, so look forward to pics from my crazy family's Fourth of July chicken fry and the Cubs/Cards game at Busch Stadium on July 5th!

Gotta get going...got a little skit to do in Solvang tonight, and then I think Cute Guy is coming over afterwards!

Moved!

I'm all moved into the new apartment. I'm not unpacked but I am moved. Small steps. Really, I just have to unpack my books and non-daily-use toiletries (why I even still have a hair dryer and curling iron is beyond me!), and figure out how I want to lay out my living room area. While I do have a new (and much much much more comfortable and bigger) futon now, that's really the only living room furniture I have. My desk looks absolutely tiny there. I am making a list of stuff I really want to save up to get, but the start of it is:

small dining table with at least two chairs
tv cart
living room bookcase(s)
artwork for the walls

I don't have internet yet at home (hopefully tonight I can sit down and get it all straightened out), which is driving me absolutely batty of course, so I've been watching some saved TV episodes (I really really recommend getting a computer with Windows Media Center on it and hooking it up to your tv. Seriously...being able to record shows to your computer is the most convenient thing ever. I can watch them on the computer when I don't have cable access, and I can convert them to .mp4 format so I can watch them on my Walkman on the bus. It's pretty darn cool. And you can also use it as your regular media player for watching live tv/dvds/listening to music/etc.) but I haven't really been knitting much. I've been trying to get things unpacked and the minute I sit down, I tend to not get back up again. And I'm still working on binding off that baby blanket. The I-cord looks really good, but honestly, it is The Most Tedious bind off EVER! It takes for-ev-er!

Didn't make it to class on Monday (moving pretty much wiped me out), but did get to go to FIGHT for the first time in about a month last night. Small class, two new people (one lady who said she really loved it! yay!), and it wasn't a very hard class, although my elbow still really does NOT like the plank! I ended up having to take another anti-inflammatory both after class last night and this morning. Bah!

Me: Sorry I didn't make it last night...
Sir: It must have been something major for you to not come in whenever you could right now.
Me: Moving?
Sir: Ah. Yes, that would be something major.

I love my instructors!

Whoops...

To correct an error in the previous post...

Um, I apparently can't count. I said I had nine rounds left on the blanket, thinking I had one round of yellow, four rounds of pink, and four rounds of blue left. Turns out, I had five - I was almost done with the pink, not the yellow. I'm now doing an applied I-cord bind off instead of a border, and while that is going slower than molasses and I am already bored with it, it DOES look pretty good. I'm hoping to finish binding off tomorrow.

We're opening a world premiere (The Heart's Desire) tomorrow night. Our straight plays never sell very well, but they are so beautiful. I won't actually get to see this one until Sunday afternoon, although I am planning to hit up the Opening party tomorrow night after the Godspell performance!

My 13th wasn't too bad, if you discount the fact that I put in a 15+ hour day (understudy rehearsal, a KCOY publicity broadcast, and a performance) and broke a fairly major set piece tonight. Now I'm finishing off a bottle of wine that Cute Guy and I opened a couple nights ago and curling up to go to sleep. How was yours?

Moving on...

Just a quick note to let everyone know I'm alive. I've actually tried to be good and pack up my apartment more than, say, my usual two hours before I MUST move everything. Both luckily and sadly, it feels like part of this place never really got unpacked to begin with - either that or I just tend to store things in various baskets and boxes and tubs normally. Lucky in that I don't have to box up EVERYTHING in new boxes, but a little sad, because I've lived here for over two years now and the place doesn't really feel all that different now that it's packed up. Like, it's been home, but not Home. I guess I'm still in the nomadic mindset. Cute Guy asked me the other night how much longer I thought I would stay here at PCPA, and it kind of surprised me to realize that I don't really want to be here all that much longer, and Les Mis is the only show that really interests me for next year. I love working with the students and having a steady paycheck, but I'm also getting kind of bored. It's the same process with the same (admittedly great) people every show. But, on the other hand, I don't really know where else I would want to go, assuming that John's show is still not off the ground. Vegas, LA, SF, Chicago, and NY are the hotspots, of course, and all have their advantages (Chicago is much closer to family, for example) and disadvantages (mainly, it snows in Chicago and NYC, and I really have no contacts or networks in any of those cities, although I could drum up work in LA again if I wanted). I guess I'll just start keeping an eye on jobsites again and see what pops up that looks interesting. The other thing that keeps popping into my mind now is that I have friends outside of work now that I would miss very badly, and I would need to find a place where I could continue my martial arts training. But that's for the future...this move on Monday is literally to the next building over, so I don't have to think too hard about it now.

So that's that, my ramblings for the time being. Obviously, I have gotten to hang out with Cute Guy lately, which has been fun. We always seem to have something to talk about, which kind of surprises me. Quite frankly, I was expecting him to turn into the stereotypical shallow pretty boy and the attraction wouldn't last long, but it turns out that he's a pretty decent guy. Who knew? (He, of course, is leaving at the end of the summer, so I can't really let myself get too involved, but I might as well enjoy the summer fling, particularly as they happen, like, never to me!)

I have nine and a half more rounds plus whatever border I decide on to finish the blanket. My bus knitting time has kind of taken a hit since I figured out how to get my downloaded tv episodes onto my mp3 player, because it's hard to watch the little screen without holding it. I'm sure that novelty will wear off soon, though. I did all three classes on Monday and felt fine on Tuesday. Tuesday I went running for the first time in ages (we have to do a 15 minute run for testing) and my legs weren't incredibly sore Wednesday, but they were definitely talking more than usual. Apparently 2h 15m of kickboxing and tkd is much easier than 15m of running! (And I know which I'd prefer...) Next week I get to start FIGHT back up again on Tuesdays, which will be sooo nice. I might start going and watching on Saturdays, too.

And it's now much closer to my usual bedtime, so I think I could sleep now. Gotta get up for a 9:30a understudy rehearsal tomorrow, just to properly start off what is going to turn into another 15-hour workday. Joy. At least Cute Guy will be there...have a very lucky Friday the 13th!

Quick Knitting Update

Here's the current baby blanket/Solvang bus project. This was taken a few days ago, actually, and I've done a bit more work on it since. As you can see, it's currently approximately 30" in diameter, and each stripe repeat is about five inches thick, so I think I'm going to do one more full repeat (ending with a blue stripe), and then put a border of some kind on it and call it done. I haven't quite decided what kind of border yet. Probably just a plain garter stitch one, so it doesn't roll as much. Each stripe repeat is 28 rounds (12 rounds of white, then 4 rounds each of the other 4 colors), and increases 28 stitches every 6 rounds, so there's a LOT of stitches in a round at this point! It should be done soon, though!

I've also actually been working on the second sleeve of the Boatneck Bluebell sweater, too, and might actually get that done sometime in the relatively near future.

And I learned last night, you can never have too many wool sweaters for Solvang! (My SRSP served me quite well last night, it was fantastic!)

(I was able to wear my old uniform for the test, but the new blue one for the belt ceremony. It still felt pretty much like sandpaper on my neck.)

Happiness is...

...spending an absolutely gorgeous Sunday afternoon at the park playing frisbee with children, and volleyball and touch football with friends (including the guy you went out and had dinner with the night before!). Most people think the company barbecue at the beginning of summer is kind of a drag, and don't stay very long. These are the people who think that a barbecue somehow involves sitting around, chatting about work and looking pretty. I don't do that so well - why talk about work when you're not there? - and the resulting sunburn and splitting headache that accompanies it are completely worth it. They were still playing football when I forced myself (and, by guilt trip, my actors) to leave at 4:00p, so that I could get a shower in before our 5:00p rehearsal. That whole work thing is so inconvenient sometimes! We did get out of rehearal early, though, and Cute Guy, me, and a few of the cast went over to Applebees afterward to hang out for a while, so that was fun, too.

The show is going well, though, and we move to Solvang and start tech again on Tuesday. I'm testing today for my recommended black belt (a half red/half black belt) and wearing my new dobok formally for the first time. I've worked in it at home, and washed it 500 times it feels like, but it is still so bloody stiff that I'm really really nervous about testing in it. Plus, it's going to feel like hell on the sunburn. I might bring my old uniform with me, just in case he'll let me use that one instead.

Boy venting behind the cut. No idea what's really going on with me and Cute Guy right now. We've both been busy this week in rehearsal - me trying to help teach the new cast members the show, and him being a new cast member and trying to learn the show - but we did get some time off for good behaviour Saturday night, so he and I went up to the new Chili's in AG. It's small, but it's fun, and the food was really good! The place was busy (it was a Saturday night, I guess), but we were able to snag a table in the bar area, and our waitress was great. I can recommend the margaritas, too. It was cool - the two of us actually got to sit and talk about things like religion and philosophy and politics (a little, I'm not very well versed in politics, sadly) and sports (he's not a die-hard Cub fan, sadly, but he can support them). It was a really nice evening. But then when other people are around, it's like he wants people to know we're friends but anything more than that is taboo, which is a little irritating and hurtful. I totally understand and support it not showing in the rehearsal room - that space is sacred and professional. It's just irritating because there's a difference between not broadcasting a relationship and keeping it a secret. And it's a little hurtful because it makes me wonder why he doesn't want people to know we've gone out. Sigh. Boys! We'll have to talk about this soon, though. I don't do well in states of flux and uncertainty. Mrph.

Other than that, not much going on. There should be a special circle of hell reserved for those who use jackhammers outside of bedroom windows at 8:00a on a Monday morning, and I need to get laundry done before my doctor's appointment (I'll finally get my elbow looked at!) and pray my dobok softens up more before the test!