figured it out, for once!

The hard part of packing for a trip, for me, has always been figurin out what books and what knitting to take. The Kindle (and pinch-hitter iPad) solved the former – just take them all! – but the latter was threatening to be a space issue. I’m 12 rows from the armpits of Ted’s sweater. They’re long rows, 278 stitches and colorwork, so it would likely have been enough work for at least the plane ride in. But that’s a fairly big thing to knit in an airplane seat, and I’d also have to take at least two more balls of yarn with me, more if I continued on the yoke after binding off fo the armholes.

The aha! moment, is that I just won’t do that. The directions say to set the body aside after binding off the underarms and make sleeves, so I’ll just do that early. Then I only have to cast on for the sleeves before I leave (the first few rows use smaller needles; I want to have that done so I don’t need the extra needles in my carry-on) and take that much smaller piece of knitting along. Yay!

(I know others have been using sleeves for travel knitting for years. All I can say is, there are many like it but this one is mine.)

Now if I could only find my little case of knitting tools amid the post-move chaos…

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

aw, *crap*

Good thing I checked the train schedule tonight. Apparently they’re doing a big test tomorrow of a special winter storm schedule – instead of the trains going on their normal runs they would be doing a bunch of shorter ones instead. The thought is apparently that this way outages are less likely to, er, snowball into a giant system-wide delay.

This means that instead of taking one train to Schiphol that gets me there in under an hour and a half, I take a train to s’Hertogenbosch, change trains and go to Utrecht, change again to Duivendrecht, and from there take a local train to Schiphol. The whole journey will take just under two hours. The increased time doesn’t bother me, but those three changes are not going to be easy with a big suitcase. I don’t think any of the platforms are back to back, either, so I’ll have go downstairs, over, and back up. I think all stations have escalators going up, but some only have stairs going down. Phooey.

Last I heard, they’re not actually expecting much or any snow this winter.

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.

7 months of separation ends TOMORROW

Well, really Monday evening by the time I get off the plane. It’s just a very looooong tomorrow.

I feel like I should be doing something to mark having the bed to myself for the last time tonight (last time until one of us has a business trip, anyway). However, I suppose bringing home strange men wouldn’t be such a good idea, even if the Saturday night crowd at the student bars only a block away provides convenient hunting grounds for a cougar prowl.

(Ew. Now I’ve grossed myself out. Not the age thing, though there is an out-of-practice factor, just that even when I was a college student I never went home with someone I wasn’t at least friends with. I do not believe I would be changing that rule now if I were to turn non-monogamous tomorrow.)

Jumping on the bed won’t work either, since it’s a foam mattress with no springs.

Also, the local mosquito population is hereby put on notice: sharing the bed with you guys is NOT what I had in mind here. And no, last night wasn’t good for me. Please go find a stagnant pond somewhere to hang out in, instead.

I am a little sad that the email from KLM reminded me to check in for my flight to “Chinese Taipei”. If I were Taiwanese I think I’d be livid.

Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.