'Shake it off' isn't working.

What do you do...

when you can't shake the don't-give-a-damn mood?
when you want to sit on your couch and do NOTHING?
when every. little. thing. that goes wrong send you into fits of anger?
when the urge to tell the world to fuck off and leave me alone is really strong?

WHAT THE HELL DO YOU DO?

Discuss.

On sneezing, furnaces, and books

• I've done nothing but sneeze all day.
• This is what I get for not turning my heat on yet.
  
• Speaking of heat.
• I broke down and tried to turn it on last night.
• Friggin' thing wouldn't start.
• So I've got a service call in.
• $130 for them to come look at the beast of a furnace.
• I'm hoping it's an easy fix,
  
• that the owner of the company takes pity on my pocketbook,
• and that tonight I have heat.
  
• Because our predicted low for tonight is 38.
  
• Cripes.
• So.
• To combat the sneezes, I'm drinking Pomegranate Green Tea.
• I despise green tea.
• So I added a bit of blue agave sweetener to it.
• Not sure I like the tea.
• Or the sweetener.
• Tastes like artificial sweetener to me.
• But then, I may have added to much this time.
• I'll give it another shot before I decide for sure.
• Damn heater.
• My copy of Frankenstein has arrived.
  
• I tried to start it last night.
• Got about a sentence in and nodded right off.
• At least I don't have much to re-read.
• Also?
• The Jane Austen novels started arriving this weekend.
• I've received Mansfield Park, Persuasion, and Emma.
• The other three are en route.
• I love paperbackswap.com
• But I'm down to only two credits!
  
• (I need to list more books.)
• (Stat!)
• Happy Monday.

Tied to my land line - should I break free?

It seems more and more I'm hearing people say they don't have a home phone any more - they've switched to cell phone usage exclusively.

I can see the benefit of this, truly I can. No long distance charges, only one number to keep track of, and for me, it works out to be a bit cheaper each month to upgrade my cell plan and ditch the home phone service.

My concern is this: if I drop my home phone, will the phone company mess with my DSL service? I have this *probably* irrational fear that my DSL quality will drop if I drop my phone service. Have any of you been through the process of dropping home phones but keeping DSL? If so, what was your experience? (By the way, I don't have cable or satellite so getting internet through a TV provider is not an option I choose to explore.)

My phone company charges me more for DSL without a home phone. But even with the upgraded cell plan and more costly DSL service, I still come out ahead in the end money wise. But what about service wise?

What's a girl to do?

Reading

I'm making a lot of progress towards my 30 Books in 2009 goal. Only two more books to go and not a single Jane Austen has been read yet! I am bitterly disappointed in myself. How in the world do I keep not reading her books? You know what? As soon as I hit "publish" I'm going to go order all six of her books. That way I'll have no excuse - the books will be right there, within reach.

I joined a book club. Frankenstein is our first book. Thrilling!

A knitting post without pictures

I've not made a lot of progress on my mom's shawl. Holy schnikes, people. You really have to like the knit stitch in order to tackle this shawl. As a new-just-this-summer knitter, I'm still painfully slow - even with a shawl that is all knit stitch. Also? It doesn't help that I'm working with the tiniest needles ever. I want to make myself one of these shawls but, damn it, I'm going to at least triple the needle size when I do.

In order to break up the monotony of the shawl, I knit myself a scarf. Again, all in knit stitch. But! This one was knit in a 5-row sequence: knit rows 1-3; row 4, k2, wrap yard 3 times around right needle*, repeat to end of row; row 5, knit all, dropping the wrapped yarn. This is the pattern I used as a guideline. I CO 26 stitches, though, and used size 7 needles. Took one skein of this yarn an acrylic/wool blend which is perfect for autumn - even though the acrylic content is high.

Can I just go off on a tangent here about yarn? And how I think I'm turning into a yarn snob? I refuse to buy 100% acrylic yarns. I think *most* of them feel horrible. I'm always surprised when I pick up a skein of soft, fluffy yarn, only to read that it is 100% acrylic. I'm amazed at how nice it feels. But I always put it back. WHY? What is my aversion to acrylic yarn? It's usually cheaper than natural fibers, for sure. It may have something to do with all those acrylic sweaters I had when I was a school girl that would pill up like crazy. Also, they didn't breathe at all. Nor did they wick moisture. Get over-heated once and you'd be walking around damp all day. It was just gross.

Last evening, I cast on 100% wool to make a felted bowl. I'm learning how to knit in the round on four double-point needles.

So. That's it. My knitting post without pictures.