It’s been that sort of day. You know - the type where all the good things that happen seem to be overshadowed by all the little bad things, and you feel like you’re fighting against the current all day. I woke up later than I would have liked this morning, and things just seemed to go downhill from there. I did some work on mom’s website, and nothing seemed to be going right. I upgraded her version of Wordpress the other day, and there was a small glitch that she alerted me to this morning. However, while the glitch seemed to be well-documented, no one seemed to have a definitive answer as to why it was occuring or how to fix it. Then, while I was trying to fix it, something else went wrong, and the entire site went down for a bit. I ended up doing a complete re-install, and that seemed to make all the problems go away. But it left me in a frustrated and grouchy mood that’s lasted the rest of the day.

Like I said, though - there has been some good stuff that’s happened. I’ve heard back about a few of the jobs I sent in applications for, and that’s good. But it’s slow-going, and every day that passes with me continuing to be unemployed leaves me just a little bit more antsy and anxious. Back in February, when I was finishing up my old job, I never dreamed that it’d take this long to find something new. The lack of response from most of my applications, combined with the “sorry, but this position has already been filled” or “we’re sorry, but we don’t think you qualify” responses from the rest of them has left me feeling frustrated and increasingly pessimistic. So, here’s hoping that at least one of these things pans out.

This grouchy, pessimistic mood I’ve been in all day kept me from doing much today. I’ve got a couple of things I want to do lined up, like doing some spring cleaning, dyeing some more yarn, and working on building a new online photo gallery for my site. But, since none of these things are exactly urgent, and I was feeling distracted and grouchy this afternoon, I let myself have a day off and just did mindless tasks.

The first was to finish Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I’ve been re-reading the HP series in preparation for Book 7 and Movie 5 coming out this summer. Of course, I thought it’d take me a bit longer to get through them… As it’s turning out, I’ll be done with the series before May, I’m sure. Oops.

The second was to continue working on my V-Neck sweater. I really ought to name this thing. “V-Neck Sweater” is so generic. But I’m hardly feeling creative enough to give it a proper name right now. If I were to try, I’d probably end up calling it “Boris” or something. And honestly, a women’s pink sweater named “Boris” is just … weird.

Boris the sweater?

I’m now about 40% done with the front (the back having been finished since… February or something). I’m sort of working out the pattern as I go along. I know, I know… probably not the best way to go about knitting a sweater, but I’m feeling too apathetic and math-stupid to work out all the details before I sit down and knit it. Today I got the rest of the neck- and shoulder-shaping details worked out for the front, so I don’t have to worry about any more math for a little while longer, at least. The sleeves are mostly worked out - I just have to work a little math-magic on the inset shoulders, and then I’ve got to figure out what kind of magic I want to work for the neck edging… But really, I’m not worried about it. So far, despite my odd method of designing this sucker, things seem to be working out well. We’ll see how long I can continue it before all hell breaks loose, and I end up having to rip out several hours’ worth of knitting.

I’ve also got my next Secret Pal package nearly ready to ship out. It’s actually been packaged up for a few days, but I needed to write a card and find time to get to the post office. So, it’s still sitting on my kitchen table.

Secret Pal Package #2, ready to ship out

I’m pretty happy with this package. It’s full of great goodies - some Panda Wool sock yarn (it was really hard to avoid the temptation to buy some for myself, it looked so nice!), and a bunch of other little goodies - the packages in back are some cool frog post-it notes and a bunch of green tea bags, and the orange box in front (which is actually a drawer that slides into a brown box, but that wouldn’t do for a photo!) is filled with the yarn, a yummy-smelling bar of soap, some stitch markers, a bar of chocolate, and two mini Sharpie keychains (those things are so damn useful!). Here’s hoping my secret pal likes it.