Incoherent Scribblings

10 Favorites:
Favorite Season: Spring
Favorite Sport: Tennis
Favorite Time: Evening
Favorite Color: Blue
Favorite Actor: Don’t really have one.
Favorite Actress: Don’t really have one.
Favorite Ice Cream: Mint Chocolate Chip or Cherry Nut
Favorite Food: Anything Indian
Favorite Drink: Coke
Favorite Place: Under the covers

9 Currents:
Current Feeling: Chilly/Hungry
Current Underwear Color: Black with blue and green flowers
Current Windows Open: Firefox, Word
Current Drink: Off to get a Coke now…
Current Time: 15:12
Current Mobile(s) Used: Nokia 6610i
Current Show on TV: TV is off
Current Thought: “My stomach just growled. I must be hungry.”
Current Clothes: Crazy lounge pants, T-shirt

8 Firsts:
First Nickname: Nae Girl
First Kiss: Terry W. (1st grade)
First Crush: Burton H. (from 8th to 9th grade)
First Best Friend: Carla L. (kindergarten – 5th grade)
First Vehicle I Drove: 1979 Chevy Luv
First Job: Iowa DOT Paint Crew
First Movie: The first movie I remember going to was Star Trek, the first movie I went to alone was Cinderella
First Pet: Tigger (cat)
First Shave: I think I was 11 or 12

7 Lasts:
Last Drink: Milk
Last Kiss: A couple of hours ago
Last Time: A couple of days ago
Last Time Shaved: Friday
Last Web Site Visited: Trish’s Blog (where I snagged this)
Last Movie Watched: Timeline
Last Pill I Had: THE Pill

6 Have You Evers:
Have You Ever Broken the Law: A time or two.
Have You Ever Been Drunk: A time or two.
Have You Ever Kissed Someone: A time or two.
Have You Ever Been in the Middle/Close to Gunfire or Bomb Blast: Well, I have hunted before… I suppose that counts.
Have You Ever Skinny Dipped: A time or two.
Have You Ever Broken Anyone’s Heart: A time or two.

5 Things:
Things You Can Hear Right Now: The fan in the bathroom, my computer’s fan, my typing fingers… that’s it. It is Sunday and in Germany that means quiet time.
Things on Your Bed: 3 Pillows, 2 Cats, 1 Comforter
Things You Ate Today: I have only had a bowl of cereal.
Things You Can’t Live Without: My computer, my stitching, my bed, Coke, chocolate
Things You Do When You Are Bored: Stitch, write/blog, sleep, read, play with the cats

4 Places You Have Been Today:
I haven’t even opened the door today.

3 Things on Your Desk Right Now:
Mp3 player charger, laptop, mouse

2 Choices:
Black or White: Black
Hot or Cold: Hot

1 Thing You Want To Do Before You Die:
Get my vision laser corrected.

I haven’t cross stitched since Thursday because on Friday I went downtown and saw that my local department store was having a sale on knitting items. A sale on knitting stuff? What better excuse that to learn to knit?! So I bought some needles and some yarn and since Friday afternoon I have been teaching myself to knit!

The result of all of this is… a square! Actually, it is technically called a “beginner knit block.”

I must say I had great fun doing this and I am pretty proud of the way it turned out. It took me a while (read: quite a few hours) to get the whole casting on (*) thing down, but once I did the knit stitch seemed to fall into place. After my block was approximately as wide as it was long I was able to bind it off and I didn’t find that too hard either. I have not yet done a purl stitch, but I will tackle it soon.

After learning to cast on, my biggest challenges were finding a comfortable position to hold the needles and the yarn and consistent tension. At first my stitches were too loose, but after I got the hang of the knit stitch I think they were a little too tight. Of course, the yarn I bought probably wasn’t the best yarn for a beginner to work with (the diameter of the yarn varied throughout the skein – it was supposed to) so that may have made consistent tension more difficult that it would have been otherwise.

I have tried more times than I can count to crochet, but I never seem to be able to get past a chain, so I was quite surprised at how quickly I seemed to get the hang of this whole knitting thing. I can’t wait to practice some more! I would love to make myself a scarf before the end of the winter.

However, today it is back to cross stitching for me.
* - Please forgive me if I don’t yet have a proper handle on knitting terminology. I am sure as I practice I will learn it better!

When I first started learning German, and long before I ever thought much about “Denglish,” I made a prediction: I said that in all likelihood, although English would always be our primary language, eventually A. and I would end up speaking a unique mixture of English and German with one another.

When I told A. this he wasn’t convinced that we would ever do such a thing. Therefore, even though I believed that it would likely come to pass, after my initial prediction I didn’t say too much more about it. However, the longer that we are here and the more comfortable I become with German, the more I see it happening.

As I foretold, English remains the primary form of communication between A. and me. Nevertheless, every now and again I can simply no longer think of the English word to describe something or the German word that I have learned just works better. In these instances I am amazed at how easily the German word flows out of my mouth and into the conversation.

The first couple of times I slipped these odd German words or phrases into one of our English discussions, I thought for sure A. would say something. After all, during our rare attempts to speak German together A.’s biggest complaint is that he doesn’t think we sound “natural” when we speak German with one another. Yet the first time that I exclaimed toll he barely batted an eyelash and now when I interject such things as begeistert, or Gar nicht so übel Baby! into my every day dialogue he doesn’t even seem to notice.

But it isn’t just me. After a long day at work where he communicates mostly in German, A. has been known to come home and forget to shift back into “English mode.” It can happen at any time, but usually occurs within the first couple of hours after he gets home. We may be having a chat in perfect English and then, without warning, the next phrase that he speaks is in German!

Because I often hear A. speaking German with other German speakers, I am never completely surprised to hear him speaking German. However, I must admit that since his German is seldom directed at me, every time he slips German into one of our conversations, I definitely notice.

I have considered reminding him of my prophecy by pointing these language inconsistencies out to him, but until now I have not done so. However, next time one of us says something in German when we are speaking in English I definitely think I will remind him of my prediction. We may not be speaking Denglish just yet, but he can no longer deny that German has crept into our every day speech and we are well on our way to speaking a language of our own.

This week’s SBQ was suggested by Kimberly and Lili and is:

How do you feel about staying totally true to a pattern? Do you feel that you have to rip out stitches to fix a mistake or do you feel it’s acceptable to incorporate a mistake into the design?

For me, while these two questions are related, they are also two very different questions and so I will answer them separately.

1.) First off, how do I feel about staying totally true to a pattern? Well, if you have read this blog for any length of time, you know that for me patterns are really just guidelines! While I stay fairly true to most patterns, I also don’t hesitate to change something if I don’t like it.

2.) What about the mistakes that I make? Mistakes?! What mistakes?! Of course, I never make mistakes while stitching… (ROTFL) Seriously though, whether or not I feel like I have to fix a mistake just depends on the mistake. If it is serious and my rows don’t match up, then I fix it. However, if it is something small (like I put the wrong color stitch somewhere) I seldom fix it. I feel it gives the piece character.