Mothlady

You know you've been working too much...

...when you keep checking the calendar every 15 minutes just to see what day it is.

It's Sunday, I woke up at 8 AM (gah!) and I've got a deadline tomorrow. (In fact I've got three deadlines, but let's not get into that.) I just wanted to show you these:

They are the keys to our new home (Our. New. Home. I feel slightly dizzy just thinking about it.) that we bought on Friday. I just realized that they're on top of Shedir (a PDF!) which I used to knit to get rid of the whole stress of house-hunting. How's that for irony? I've been keeping you in the dark because I was afraid I would jinx the whole thing by blabbing too soon about it. This was the third time we made an offer on a house and we lost the two previous ones to a higher bidder, so I guess I was waiting for it to happen this time, too. Also, it happened really fast: we bought it just 11 days after we saw it for the first time, and in that time we even had a guy to test the place for moisture (just to be on the safe side). We were hoping to get a house with a big yard but the prices were so ridiculously high that we decided to settle for a single-storey terraced house (a row house).

The local parish has rented it out for the last 30 years and it's been empty since February, so it needs quite a bit of renovation, but the rooms are spacious, the backyard is lovely and the price was right for us. When the area was built in the 70s, it was quite a novelty: cars use the streets on the outskirts and in the centre there is a labyrinth of paths for the pedestrians to use. (If you haven't figured this out by now, we try to be as ecological as possible and we walk, cycle or take the bus everywhere. We don't have a car, but my SO would like to get a scooter.) Our house is on the perimeter of the area, so there's a park, some woods and a duck pond nearby. We love it.

I won't bore you with pictures of more or less drab rooms, but here's one photo of the backyard (Instead of the London flower show report I promised last time, sorry about that. Things have been kind of hectic here.). There are some roses, rhododendrons and a myriad of flowers I have no idea what they are, but for the most part it looks like this:

As soon as we get settled, I need to attack it with a machete and a shovel.

Must dash now, but I'll try to get some pictures when we start painting the walls. Woohoo!

TMI

This is a post I had hoped I would never have to write.

I have a neurological disease. Fortunately the subtype I have is a relapsive-remitting one, so most of the time you wouldn’t know there’s anything wrong with me. (So don’t think about Hilary and Jackie, that’s far too dramatic. Oh, and speaking of that film: Elgar’s cello concerto is the most beautiful classical music ever. Listen to it. Then weep.) But right now I’m in the middle of a relapse, and it’s quite a bad one. I’ve had this disease for nearly ten years so it’s nothing new for me, but the quiet period had lasted so many years that I had begun to hope that I'd never have to think about it again. So I stopped taking the medication. Or rather, I took it intermittently. Yeah, so sue me. But I didn’t always feel like sticking a needle into me three times a week.

So now I’m just hoping I don’t have to spend any time in the hospital. The treatment I get there is so severe that I always end up being in a worse condition. And then I have to take about three weeks of sick leave because I’m too tired to work. Which brings us to the good news. Oh yes, there is good news as well :)

Quite out of the blue, I was approached by a big client. Everybody wants to work for them because they pay a lot of $$$$$. So I was pleased when they told me that I was their first choice among the freelancers :) Remember how I blogged about my free weekends? I might have spoken too soon, because then ANOTHER client contacted me. If all goes as planned, I will work for three clients during this fall. So as far as work goes, everything looks good (except maybe for the free weekends).

Musings on work

We've moved the furniture around in the bedroom/study (we bought a new bed, too, but I will tell you more about it later) and this is what I see when I look out the window while working.

I'm very happy with my current work situation. I've got enough work to make a living, but not so much that I'm buried under it. Though I guess my idea of a workday might be quite different compared with other people. Ideally I work 4-6 hours a day, five days a week. Translation work can be at times mechanical and boring but it still requires quite a bit of creative thinking, so the longer hours I try to do, the less I get done. Less is definitely more in this business, I've done enough 16 hour days to know that.

I should probably contact other employers and clients for more work, but I'm afraid I'll end up with too much, so I'm not in a hurry to do that. Besides I like this new system of free weekends. I just did the figures for the past 12 months: I had been doing a six day week for the whole time. For someone who's in a 9-to-5 job a free weekend doesn't sound like anything special, but when you don't have regular working hours you often end up working nearly all the time. You know, an hour here and an hour there, seven days a week. I'm still not up with the larks (never have, never will) and it's more probable that I'll get my work done at 4 AM rather than 4 PM, but at least now I'm enjoying my free weekends.

Well, I wasn't actually enjoying myself last night. SO is spending the weekend with his parents (they have a tiny island) and he left yesterday afternoon. It was getting late and I hadn't heard from him, so I decided to send him a text message. When I got no answer, I tried to call him but he didn't answer. Half a dozen phone calls and messages later I still hadn't been able to reach him, so I began to worry that something had happened. Although knowing his absentmindedness I suspected it would be just a case of male idiocy. Finally, this morning the phone rang and he explained that he had put the cell phone in his knapsack and then forgotten to check new calls and messages. In his knapsack? Hello! This is the same person who has the cell phone glued to his ear at home, and if you wish to speak to him in person the phone probably has to be surgically removed from him. Men! Grrr...

Oh, I almost forgot. We had a thunderstorm yesterday.

But it's still too hot to knit (34 C/93F), so that will have to wait until later tonight.

Oh my goodness

For those of you waiting for the finished Lillehammer, I'm still sewing the armhole seams.

A full report on the steeking fiasco hair-raising experience will follow later.

The good news is that I got a new client. I sent them my CV and rates on Friday, did a test job during the weekend and got the first job on Tuesday. How's that for fast action? The downside is that for a couple of weeks I have to juggle between the last jobs for the idiot firm and new ones for this client. And I haven't even yet ordered the yarn for my summer knitting projects. Ack. And I've got over 200 unread posts in Bloglines. Ack ack ack. Next two or three weeks will be busy.

Wrapping up

Okay, where to start? Do you want the good news or the bad news? Let's start with the bad.

The employer that has been giving me problems lately is really going over the top with their antics and some people have even contacted their union to seek help. I feel like I'm watching a sinking ship. Also, I've had trouble with my health. Within a week I had discogenic back pain, migraine and cracked a tooth on a shrimp sandwich.

The good news is that for a person who's idea of a wild night is frozen pizza and some online texas hold'em, I've been going out quite a lot lately. I went to a concert with my SO, got an invitation to a film premiere and had a girls' night out. Oh, and we renovated the hallway. Well, actually we didn't do it. My sister's husband knows how to do these things and we hired him to do it. Now that we know how to do it, we might actually try it at some point because the rest of the apartment seems kind of shabby now... It's amazing what a coat of paint and new skirting boards (is it 'baseboards' for Americans?) will do.

And I've been knitting, too. But not much.

It's all about the process, peeps.

It was 25 C (77 F) today, so spring is here at last!

I need to vent

I wouldn't want to go through the last two weeks again. Here's a brief recap.

1. My biggest employer decided to go ahead with their asshole plan. They're downright threatening us that if we don't work (practically) exclusively for them, we might be soon out of work. Okay, so what are they offering? A 15 percent pay cut. No, there's nothing wrong with your eyesight. A 15 percent pay cut. What the heck happened to the old carrot-and-stick routine? Uhhh... NO WAY.

2. So I've been seeking other work (which I'd rather not do because basically I'm a lazy person).

3. As my father's trustee I've had to fill out a lot of forms lately (I'm trying to bring his finances into order, he's still paying for an old bankruptcy). And he's moving, again. This is the seventh move after the stroke he suffered two and half years ago. At least now he's moving to a home of his choice and hopefully can stay there as long as possible.

4. I've got so much work that I haven't been knitting at all. I haven't even read any knitting blogs. Bloglines has the blogs in alphabetical order and I'm stuck somewhere between G and J.

5. I miss knitting.

P.S. Krafty1 finished her St. Moritz. Yay! Go and take a look.

Super-busy

Thanks for all your emails and comments, but I won't be able to get back to you until later this week. I've got too much work this week. Ack. Someone pass me the diet coke, please.

Work and other distractions

If you're only interested in knitting, please skip this and read today's other post.

It's been very hard to concentrate on one project only, i.e. Lillehammer. I'm a multitasker at heart, but I blame two things: work and gambling.

I have been a qualified translator for over ten years now and I'm good at what I do. Last year was busy as I had more work than I really cared for, but it's hard to say no because you never know if and when the job situation will change dramatically. I've spent a lot of time fretting about one of my employers. They're insinuating that there will be work only for those who will work exclusively for them. What kind of a freelancer is that, I ask you? I know they have a bad reputation but I've been able to negotiate my own terms so far. Needless to say, I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket, so I will have to start pulling some strings and seek work elsewhere.

It's funny, one would assume translation business was as dull as you could get, but you would not believe the amount of backstabbing going on. And the clients are always clamouring for lower prices. Yes indeed, why pay for a good translation when you can get a cheap bad one? *sigh*

I'm not particularly worried though, things tend to work out for the better and as I said I know some people in the business. Plus I've got my other... um, income. Mind you, I'm not counting on casino money (Note: I have to update the earnings. Maybe next weekend.) to come rolling in nonstop, although it would make an interesting conversation starter: "What do you do for a living?" "I'm a professional gambler. You?"

Which brings us to the next reason I've had so little time to knit lately. First of all I went to two new poker rooms (Bowmans and Planet Poker), and I've had some great wins in my regular casinos. My biggest win ever is now history. Unfortunately I can't tell you the casino's name because they have my name plastered on their big winners' wall, but it was a jackpot and I turned a thousand dollars into 37 000. Wow! Can I just say that again? WOW! And to show you I'm not just talking rubbish here, here's another rare one: a double royal flush in Acropolis Casinos' Aces & Faces power poker.

Okay, back to knitting now :)

Busy

If you liked the button in my last post, Beadslut has made some others as well. I'm pretty sure I won't be slapping this on my blog during the closing ceremony.

 

It's been hectic as I try to get all work done before the Knitting Olympics start next Friday. Due to unforeseen reasons (gosh, I didn't remember it takes so long to play NetHack) it seems I have to work for a day or two during the KO. Hmpf.

I haven't had time to knit much, but I decided to work on some of my WIPs on Sunday. The second half of Backyard Leaves is ready (yay!) and blocking as I'm writing this. And I finally finished the first bird mitten. Here's the thumb.

This is the second version I've done and I'm still not entirely satisfied with how it turned out. The original pattern had two birds in the thumb which made it freakishly long. Then again the mitten itself was done according to the pattern and it fits perfectly. Very odd. But this is good practice for the Lillehammer sweater, and I hope to finish the second mitten before that (yeah, right).

We've had some good winter weather lately, -20 C or more (-4 F), so on Saturday I took a brisk walk down by the seashore.

I love it how the rough sea weather has shaped the trees. They are so near the water that they're in danger of collapsing into the sea.

Next time: new (knitting) blogs and the funniest posts of 2005.

Happy new year!

A prosperous new year to all, knitters and gamblers alike!

Yes, I'm still here, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, I've just been really busy with work. And I've slept a lot (I guess all that knitting before Christmas tired me out).

I got into a slow start so I had to do extra work this week to keep up with the deadlines, which meant no knitting. As a freelancer I should be grateful for the fact that I've got more work than I actually need, but I swear that without deadlines I would never get any work done. But I must be doing something right, because I was pleasantly surprised when a publisher contacted me out of the blue. They asked me to translate a book even though I haven't done any work for them before (nor translated any books or novels either). Usually translators contact publishers for work, and not the other way around. But I'm fully booked (ha! pun intended) until June, so I had to say no thanks.

I have been trying to blog about my stash for about a week now, but I'm having a hard time posting the pictures. Does anyone else have similar problems with Typepad or is it just me?