Surprise!

today was another long day of trying to write up my research while only half my brain was functioning... very non-productive, so much so that I had to opt out of the department social tonight, in favour of the paltry amount of work I hoped to get done instead. you know its a bad sign when im choosing fighting with my stagnant brain over going for a pint with some friends! (and yes, Im aware that im also missing knitting at the Forth tonight, but I've placed myself on a knitting ban until I can finish writing up some research! if I knit even two rows, I won't be able to force myself back to work!)

But look what was waiting for me when I got home!
Fun yarn, belgian chocolates, chocolate lip balm, a little frog of bath gel (he's so cute, I hate to use him up!), and a harmony stone key ring - associated with positive attitudes, balance, and easing anxiety, among other things. am I really so obviously unbalanced? ;) Thanks Secret Pal - this was a wonderful treat, and so very well timed!

I love getting packages in the mail - especially when they have yarn and chocolate in them! my 2 favourite things! :) The colours in the point 5 yarn are just gorgeous! Im thinking it will make a very fun winter wear item, but im not sure if I'll make a hat or a scarf out of it. Based on the yarns I got, im guessing that my secret pal was thinking that I could make the Loopy and Luscious from knitty - there's one skein of kidsilk haze included, which complements the Point 5 yarn really well. But i think im going to use the kidsilk haze to make this scarf instead... Its about time i started knitting some lace. But neither of these projects is going to be started anytime soon... my jemima sweater hasn't moved beyond the last photo I posted of it, and the panpan sweater exists as only a seed-stitch bottom edge. But even that is going to have to be frogged, cause I recently found out that I need to make it one size larger than I was planning... maybe next week I will take advantage of break and try and knit for a few hours each day, so that it may actually reach its recipient by Easter...

ps: in case you missed the really bad joke (more of a pun, really) in the title of this sweater, Panpan is the French name for Thumper, the little rabbit from Bambi. The intarsia grid that I based my chart on is from the french website tricoland, so the chart is listed under 'Panpan' instead of thumper - hence the sweater's name. If you like colour knitting, by the way, do a google search for "grilles tricot" and you'll get a ton of these sites... some of them are a bit heavy on the animations and cheezy background songs, but the intarsia charts are amazing! (and you don't even have to know french to use them!)

In other news, have i shown you my fun new toy?
Oh sure, it may look like an awkwardly shaped highligher/shaver, but its actually a god send... its a pen scanner, which scans one line of text at a time, and types it into your computer like normal text. Not so useful for most people I guess, especially if you type really fast, but you try copying out multiple pages of greek and/or latin, and then tell me how useful this device can be! It recognizes like 50-some languages and character sets, and enters text into Word, Excel, Altavista's babel fish, and any other program you could normally type into. when i think of all the greek text that I had to copy out for my master's thesis, I can't believe that I didn't buy one of these things before!

(ps: if you want one, look on eBay... new ones ordered from the company sell for about 160 pounds - I got mine for 50!).