Halfway

It's always weird to come back from a big trip. My family did month-long vacations every single summer from when I could remember all the way through high school, with the shortest being three weeks in Europe every other summer when I was in high school. I'm used to being on long vacations- having no cell phones, limited or no access to a computer, and the only contact I have with the outside world being the postcards I send (though I tend to send a lot of those!). Coming back to the "real world" always feels mildly discombobulating- going from non-stop adventure to being cramped in a car for four days straight to a 60-hour work week made me mildly spaced out for a week. Over the weekend I had a little bit of time to finally completely unpack, get my stinky clothes in the laundry, go through my gear, and even clean out my closet (it really needed it). With that done, I can concentrate on studying for my final Master's exams- 6 hours of writing and an hour and a half of verbal defense of my answers- and looking for teaching jobs.

Oh, and planning my next climbing trip. ;)

When I left for Yosemite I had high aspirations for my knitting. I brought four- count them, four- large projects with, hoping I would finish at least three of them. Instead, I reached the halfway mark for all of them.

The Abrazo shawl is probably one of the most tedious and time-consuming knits I've ever done. I worked on this only on the drive, because I needed to have beads at the ready to put on every other row.

Despite every single row taking a full half hour to knit (with about 50 beads a row having to go on, plus keeping track of the lace in over 300 stitches), I loved working on it. I've been lovingly calling it the "Amoeba", as it has really no rhyme or reason yet- just a pile of pretty yarn and beads. It doesn't have the instant satisfaction of fair isle, but I'm so excited to see how it turns out that I couldn't put it down. With trading off, I would get 4-5 hours in on it in the car, and with over 300 stitches per row and 26 rows of beading a lace, I was happy to finish the entire lace portion before we pulled in to Duluth. All that's left is a bunch of stockinette short rows, so it should be a pretty easy finish (compared to the first half- uffda!).

I brought the Alice mittens in hopes of finishing them, but only was able to have the attention span to finish the first mitten.

Because there are a gift, I wanted to keep the white yarn nice and white, so I would only work on these in the car after washing my hands thoroughly (you have no idea how dirty climbers get...). I need to finish these by early September for my adviser, so I'm casting on for the second one soon.

My other two projects were the Autumn Leaves wrap and my Yosemite Fruit Loop socks. I'm literally 14 rows away from being at the halfway knitting mark for the Autumn Leaves wrap, and I'm already past the cuff on the Fruit Loop socks. I'm not worried about timing on these, as the shawl has to be finished by Christmas and the socks hopefully in the next month here (travel knitting!).

I figured getting half way on all my knitting projects is something to say. Right when I got back I checked the calender and realized that the wedding of a friend was coming up right away in September as well, and her shower was even closer, so I got working on the Stockholm Scarf for her.

It's also just about halfway done, and a few hardcore knitting shifts at work will (hopefully) get this puppy done.

I think I would have gotten more projects finished if I had brought less, but halfway is pretty good in my book when I have so many going. :) Plus making friends on the trip has added to my knitting list, mostly as "thank yous" for crashing in their house. :)

Today I'm FINALLY going to go see Harry Potter 7 Part II, before relaxing, climbing, and more studying. Tomorrow a trip climbing up the shore, then back to work.

And more planning for my next trip... ;)