Round up

1. Spring will begin at eight o'clock tonight (Eastern time), they say. Even though it's completely white outside, and cold, it does feel like winter is winding down. Hallelujah!

2. I'm sad that CBC Radio 3's Saturday night show is over. When Grant Lawrence signed off, I may have said "Nooooooo!" to my radio. (You may recall last spring's incident of winning the hoodie.)

3. I've started to read The Friday Night Knitting Club, but I'm also getting to that point in the semester when novel-reading time vanishes, replaced by paper-writing time. I know this not only because of my elevated stress level, but because at the end of yesterday's class no one even suggested going to the pub. We all just filed out of the room, glassy-eyed, mumbling about going home to work on our papers.

4. Bill and I went to see Zodiac on the weekend. I liked it, but I thought it was needlessly long. Amazing (and huge) cast. I also watched The Education of Shelby Knox (on DVD), which was excellent.

5. Oh, my heavens, have you seen Cookie A's new site and its stunning sock designs? The German Stocking? Now that's some sock knitting. I'd better not start any complex socks until the end of the school term, though.

6. I can't remember who blogged about Google Notebook, but thanks! Much better than just bookmarking web pages.

7. My crocheted blanket is big now, so I only work on it when I'm on the couch. What to do when I'm sitting at my desk, working, and need a little reward? Well, start a tiny crocheted blanket for Mooky, of course! It's actually geared more towards keeping my reading chair cat-hair-free than giving Mooky a blanket of his own, although I do think he'll like sleeping on it. But he loves to sleep on my red corduroy chair (at least, he looks pretty happy about it). Instead of continuing to cover the chair cushion in various photocopied journal articles and other pieces of paper that are within reach, I'm crocheting a ripple "blanket" the size of the seat. And I've been doing lots of, um, rewarding work, so it's almost done. (Next post: crocheted seat-cover cat blanket! Sexy, sexy, sexy.)